Today’s POV blog

On 19 October 2009, the Obama administration announced new policy guidelines for federal prosecutors instructing them to cease arresting medical marijuana users and suppliers who are conforming to state laws.

Describing the new policy, two Justice Department officials said prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws. This policy is vastly different from that of the Bush administration that staunchly enforced federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.

Despite the announcement by the Obama administration, at an online town hall meeting in March of this year, Obama rejected the argument that legalizing, regulating, and taxing marijuana would be a good way to raise money in this recession. Obama did not elaborate with any particular details on his position.

Contrary to the opinion of Obama, in Colorado, Denver City Council members Chris Nevitt and Charlie Brown believe that the establishment of a city sales tax on medical marijuana sales could generate millions of dollars. “We’ve got to tax this damn thing at the city rate, which is 3.62 percent,” Brown told 420Butts.com.

There are currently fourteen states that allow some use of marijuana for medical purposes (Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington), and about a dozen more have considered or are considering it. Polls across America show broadening support for marijuana legalization.

On Tuesday, the American Medical Association announced that it has reversed its policy establishied in 1997 that marijuana should be classified as a Schedule I controlled substance, the most restrictive category, which also includes heroin and LSD. The AMA now states that it will promote clinical research and development of cannabis-based medicines and alternative delivery methods. Despite the reversal, the AMA cautions, “This should not be viewed as an endorsement of state-based medical cannabis programs, the legalization of marijuana, or that scientific evidence on the therapeutic use of cannabis meets the current standards for a prescription-drug product.”

The American Medical Association has about 250,000 doctor members and as a body has urged the federal government to also reconsider its current classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use.

“This shift, coming from what has historically been America’s most cautious and conservative major medical organization, is historic,” said Aaron Houston, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project.

Dawn Dearden with the Drug Enforcement Administration said: “At this point, it’s still a Schedule I drug, and we’re going to treat it as such.” The Food and Drug Administration has yet to comment on the announcement by the AMA.

According to FOXNews, New Energy Technologies has developed a prototype alternative-energy generator that is being tested at a Burger King® in Hillside, New Jersey. Called the Motion Power Energy Harvester, the plan is that this device will capture kinetic energy from vehicles when drivers brake to pick up their order. The ingenuity comes in collecting that energy and distributing it in a cost-effective way.

FOXNews further reports, “No one is suggesting the device in the drive-thru lane would provide enough power to run the restaurant, including franchise owner Drew Paterno, but he jumped at the offer to install the prototype at his location on Route 22, and says he’d consider placing an order for a dozen of them.”

At Reach and Teach’s Just Lists blog, other alternative-energy sources are making the news:

• Tornadoes — Create a controlled tornado 650 ft in diameter and between 1 to 12 miles high to power up to 200,000 homes. (Read more about tornadoes in the story reported by Business Week.)
• Beer — Sierra Nevada is powering its brewery on a mixture of natural gas and methane (a by-product from the water-treatment process used by the brewery).
• Miniature nuclear power generators — A nuclear reactor about the size of a hot tub that Hyperion claims can fuel 20,000 homes for up to a decade.
• Lasers — By 2030, install solar collectors 22,000 miles above Earth that will use lasers to beam the energy back to surface stations.
• Trees — Voltree is planning to use the small amount of electricity generated by a slight pH imbalance between a tree and its surrounding soil as an energy source.
• Japanese commuters — A power-generating floor of discs made of piezoelectric material that convert vibrations into electricity. It’s believed that enough energy is generated to power the computer displays and ticket machines at train stations.

LiveFuels is working toward growing, harvesting, and processing algal biomass into fuels and other valuable co-products.

Finavera is developing offshore power plants that consist of patented wave-energy converters based on proven, survivable buoy technology. Clusters of these small, modular devices called AquaBuOYs are moored offshore where the wave resource is the greatest. These power plants are designed to provide clean, renewable energy for large population centers.

Finavera is not just about waves, they are also interested in wind and have built wind-power projects in both Ireland and Canada.

Considering the advancements in the last few decades, it does seem as though a real alternative to our current dependency on fossil fuels is attainable in our lifetime.

Do you think we’re on the right track?