Mark, you're welcome.

Protosaurus, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961 (http://www.unodc.org/pdf/convention_1961_en.pdf), amended in 1972, established four Schedules of substances subject to the agreements contained in that treaty. The United States is a signatory (Party). Cannabis and Cannabis resin are listed in Schedule I.

Article 28 of the Convention (cannabis), read in conjunction with Article 23 (opium poppies), specifically allows Parties to create government agencies which may license cannabis producers. In the U.S., that agency is the DEA, and the DEA has licensed the University of Mississippi to produce cannabis. Ol' Miss currently has the government monopoly on cannabis production in the U.S. For more information: http://www.aclu.org/drug-law-reform/matter-lyle-craker.

Article 28 also specifically excludes industrial hemp (generally recognized as cannabis containing a THC concentration of less than 0.3%).

I'm with you, THC. We definitely need to keep working toward full relegalization.

Many thanks to you for the work you're doing toward that goal, and on behalf of Washington's patients.

Thank you so much. I was flattered to be asked to serve as a panelist, and it's good to hear that my efforts to be informative were appreciated. Thanks for the excellent questions!

Naturopathic doctors, as well as physician assistants, osteopathic physician assistants, and advanced registered nurse practitioners, were added to the list of health care professionals who can authorize the medical use of cannabis under Washington state law by the passage of SB 5798 this legislative session. The law goes into effect June 10. (Previously, only MDs and ODs could authorize.) However, bipolar disorder is not one of the qualifying conditions under the law. A prior attempt to add it through petition to the Medical Quality Assurance Commission failed.

THC, you are preaching to the choir.

I was a defense attorney for more than a decade before coming to work for the ACLU. I represented patients both before and after Washington voters passed I-692 - patients who were jolted awake in the predawn hours by the sound of their front doors exploding open as a dozen officers in SWAT gear rushed in and ordered them face down on the floor with semiauto rifles pointed at their heads. I represented a designated provider who watched her patient literally starve to death after her plants and harvested cannabis were seized.

When I tell people what the law actually is, rather than what any of us would like it to be, it's because I don't want more people suffering what my clients suffered.

Everyone's risk tolerance is different. But people should know the risks.

I believe that the culturally-focused propaganda that the government has used to create and perpetuate marijuana prohibition has done a number on all of us and that this may be the basis for your discomfort with being open with your child about your marijuana use even if its legal status were restored.

The first messages, in the early 1900s, were that marijuana was used and peddled by crazed, murderous Mexicans. Then it was the African American jazz musicians who wanted to take advantage of the young white women who frequented jazz clubs in the South. Then, in the 1960s and early 1970s, it was the unpatriotic Vietnam War protesters who used marijuana. During the "Just Say No" Reagan years, you simply lacked the moral fiber to resist marijuana's temptations if you indulged. Then, during the Bush II administration, you and your child were subjected to a multibillion-dollar advertising campaign that returned to the patriot theme of the '60s and '70s and argued that people who enjoyed marijuana were contributing to terrorism.

The government has spent a great deal of time and money convincing us that our choice of intoxicant is primarily a moral question rather than an issue of public health. Even when marijuana becomes legal again, we still will have work to do in replacing those internalized guilt trips with messages based on science and reason.