Hardy Macia Fights for Medical Marijuana as He Fights for His Life

Update, 6:08 p.m.: Hardy Macia passed away late this afternoon, according to a source close to his family. Friends and fellow activists alike have already begun posting remembrances on his Facebook wall. "Rest in peace, Hardy," wrote one friend. "We will never forget how you went out fighting. You have been such a positive influence on so many people — will miss you, man."

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Hardy Macia is a hardcore activist. The 43-year-old software developer and native Vermonter is a longtime Libertarian; he served on the Grand Isle Selectboard and ran as the Libertarian candidate for governor in 2004 hoping to cut taxes, lower the drinking age and legalize pot. In 2007, he moved to New Hampshire, where he was active in Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson's 2012 presidential campaign.

Now Macia is back in Vermont, fighting for his life. He was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in August 2012. It's typically a treatable form of cancer, but Macia's has not responded the way he and his doctors had hoped. He was recently hospitalized in New Hampshire, then transferred to Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington to be closer to family. He's since been moved to a family member's home in Westford.

In a private Facebook message to me this morning, he summed up his prognosis: "My time is short," he wrote, "the doctors are saying I have days left."

His condition might be a private family matter but for the fact that he's seized this opportunity to continue his campaign to change New Hampshire's marijuana laws. A week ago, he made a 4-minute video in his New Hampshire hospital room and posted it to YouTube. Speaking in a whisper because of a collapsed lung, he implores Gov. Maggie Hassan to help patients like him access medical marijuana. The New Hampshire legislature is currently considering a medical marijuana bill, and it needs the governor's support to pass. "This is about the patients, and doctors," he rasps, "and having the medicine that the patients need." 

Macia explains that he occasionally uses marijuana to ease his pain. "To get to sleep at night, sometimes it's the only thing that helps put me out, versus some of the harder drugs they give me, such as the oxycodone or vicodin or whatever."

Macia's video has been widely shared in Libertarian circles and online — an article appeared on the Huffington Post on Wednesday. The Concord Monitor dispatched a reporter to interview Macia from his hospital room in Burlington last week, as well. 

I asked Macia if Hassan had responded to his plea. Their response, he wrote, was that she will "listen to all sides." 

Take a few minutes, if you can, and listen to Macia's argument. Politics aside, it's hard not to be moved by his drive and dedication to the issue, not to mention his will to live. You can't help but hope he keeps fighting.

Image from Macia's National Youth Rights Association bio.

The Week Ahead: April 15-21, 2013

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Here's what's happening in Vermont news and politics this week. Got a newsworthy event for next week's calendar? Email by Friday to submit.

Monday, April 15

• At 10 a.m., Burlington bigwigs (mayor, police chief) and law enforcement will hold a press conference at the U.S. Attorney's office in Burlington on the "heroin epidemic," which has rather suddenly replaced prescription opiates as the scourge of Vermont. 
• That whole assault-weapons ban in Burlington thing? The city council's charter change committee takes it up today. At the very convenient time of 11:30 a.m. in city hall.
• Vermont's health care reform is important — but damn confusing. Hear Mark Larson, director of the Office of Health Care Access, explain it live at 5:25 on Channel 17.

Rest of the week after the break...

Heroin Habits Spread Burglary Epidemic in Burlington, Police Chief Says

Federal, state and local law-enforcement officials have scheduled a Monday morning press conference in Burlington to outline new initiatives against the growing use of hard drugs in Vermont and the crimes associated with them.

The current scope of these problems "is like nothing any of us have ever experienced," a police chief with 30 years' experience in the state told a neighborhood meeting in Burlington last week.

Lianne Tuomey, head of the 24-member University of Vermont police force, added that methamphetamines have become part of the mix of illegal drugs used on the UVM campus and in the rest of the city. "We mirror the culture from which we come," Tuomey said in regard to drug use among UVM students.

Many local opioid addicts have switched to heroin from Oxycontin, a prescribed pain-killer, Burlington Police Chief Mike Schirling (pictured) said at the Ward 6 Neighborhood Planning Assembly meeting on April 11. The reason, he explained, is a change made in the Oxycontin formula by its manufacturer, Purdue Pharma, that has diminished the drug's attractiveness to abusers. Oxycontin has been re-engineered to decrease its potency when snorted or injected — which had been favored modes of ingestion among those seeking quick highs.

Heroin use has consequently burgeoned in Burlington, Schirling said. And the expense of maintaining this habit has fueled the upsurge in burglaries in the city during the past couple of years, he added. Schirling said a "mid-level addict" requires as many as 15 bags of heroin per day, each of which retails for $20 in Burlington. That equates to a yearly cost of about $100,000.

"That's what's driving these issues," Schirling said in regard to the rise in burglaries and other thefts in Burlington. "The No. 1 driver is opiate addiction." The BPD has had "some significant successes" in burglary-related arrests, the chief continued. But by way of analogy to the crime/drug "epidemic" in the city, Schirling added, "We're plugging fingers into lots of holes in a gigantic dam."

The Week Ahead: April 8-14, 2013

Here's what's happening in Vermont news and politics this week. Got a newsworthy event for next week's calendar? Email by Friday to submit.

Monday, April 8

• Burlington City Council. Shannon v. Paul. Round two. The gloves come off 5:30 p.m. at City Hall Auditorium.
• After that, at 7 p.m., a newly appointed panel tries to succeed where the Burlington City Council failed by avoiding a lawsuit and completing a mandatory redistricting of the city's seven wards. At Burlington High School. Channel 17 will carry both meetings live.
• At 7:30 p.m., VTDigger.org presents a talk by Dan Gillmor, columnist for the Guardian, a former Vermont Press Bureau reporter and an expert on new media. Alumni Auditorium at Champlain College. 

Rest of the week after the break...

Pot Decriminalization Bill Will Miss Crossover Deadline, But Live to Toke Another Day

Leaders are cloistered under the ornate, marble dome. Everyone outside is anxiously awaiting the puff of white smoke that will signal consensus.

No, not the election of a new pope in Vatican City — the pot bill in the Vermont Statehouse!

A bill to decriminalize possession of “small” amounts of marijuana — two ounces or less — is one of the most hotly anticipated of the year. That’s because after a messy showdown in Senate last year, the bill’s main obstacle — House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morrisville) — agreed that he would allow the legislation to proceed in his chamber this year.

But with two weeks to go until the mid-session “crossover” deadline — the lawmaker equivalent of an all-star break — the bill hasn’t made an appearance. There's been no sign of it in committee and no word about a hearing. You’d have better luck finding a bag of Cheetos in a UVM dorm room at 4:20.

Well, stoners, take heart. Sen. Dick Sears (D-Bennington) let slip to Seven Days that House and Senate leaders have made a deal to grant the decrim bill an extension, allowing it to survive the mid-March crossover deadline. “If they were to pass a bill and it came over two weeks after crossover deadline, we’d still consider it,” Sears said this week.

This Week's Issue: A Biomass Battle; The Revolving Door Spins Again

In this week's print edition of Seven Days, which you can read on your iPhone or iPad with our new free app...

• Community-scale biomass projects typically get the thumbs-up in Vermont. Not so in Plainfield, where neighbors are fighting Goddard College's plans to build a woodchip incinerator.
• Burlington's HowardCenter is taking a new approach to treating mental illness, called Open Dialogue.
• Vermont is number one on another list, but this time it's a dubious honor — the state is tops in the nation for underage drinking.
• Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) appears in our pages frequently, but it's not too often he pops up in the arts section. Here's a review of his new photography exhibit in Montpelier.
• In Fair Game, Vermont's public/private revolving door goes for another spin as Gov. Peter Shumlin's telecom czar, Karen Marshall, departs for a job at VTel — which just received a big state grant.

We're Number … 25?

Burlington has cracked another "Best place to (insert whatever here)" list. But the Queen City's latest superlative is not as one of the top burghs to raise a family or for the highest rate of smug Prius drivers per capita. According to the folks over at the Daily Beast, BTV ranks as the 25th booziest city in the country. (Milwaukee, Boston was number one, FYI.) 

I was initially surprised, and a little offended, we only ranked 25 — behind the likes of Cleveland and Fargo, no less. That is until I remembered that Burlington is also routinely named among the healthiest cities in the country. So that either means the boozehound portion of the population seriously gets after it to make up for the teetotalers — a notion supported by the study's finding that 19.4 percent of the local populace are binge drinkers — or that Burlingtonians have an uncanny ability to snowshoe/ski/kayak/save the planet/raise kids with devastating hangovers. Either way, slaínte!

Zuckerman, Other Lawmakers to Introduce Marijuana Legalization Bill

Could Vermont follow the lead of Colorado and Washington and legalize marijuana?

Don't bet the stash on it. But a handful of lawmakers — including senator-elect David Zuckerman (pictured) — is drafting legislation for the upcoming session to legalize, tax and regulate the green stuff.

Pot reformers in Montpelier have been focused on a more incremental step: decriminalizing marijuana possession in Vermont. But advocates like Zuckerman see the recent votes in Washington and Colorado as giving momentum for legalization — or at least a conversation about it.

Zuckerman, a Progressive/Democrat representing Chittenden County, said he's asked legislative council to draft a legalization bill and was told by the legislature's lawyers that "a handful" of other lawmakers had made the same request. Rep. Susan Hatch Davis (P/D-Washington) is one of them, according to Rep. Chris Pearson (P-Burlington), leader of the House Progressive caucus. The others are unknown because the bill-drafting process is confidential.

Zuckerman doesn't expect legalization — which he prefers to call "regulation and taxation" — to pass this year. But he says it deserves to be part of the broader discussion over drug policy. Employing an agricultural metaphor, the Hinesburg farmer compares his effort to planting seeds that will bear fruit down the line.

Leahy Calls for Senate Hearing on Pot Policy

Now that Colorado and Washington have legalized possession of up to an ounce of marijuana, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) wants to know how the Obama administration will enforce federal laws prohibiting pot.

On Thursday, Leahy called for a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he chairs, to discuss the discrepancy.

"Federal policy and now state policies are in conflict and so that raises the question of how that conflict will be resolved," says spokesman David Carle.

Leahy's office also released a letter the senator sent last week to Office of National Drug Control Policy director Gill Kerlikowske seeking clarity on the White House's position.

"What assurances can and will the administration give to state officials involved in the licensing of marijuana retailers that they will not face federal criminal penalties for carrying out duties assigned to them under state law?" Leahy asks Kerlikowske in the letter.

Leahy's letter hints that the senator could be open to changing federal law to legalize small amounts of marijuana — at least in Colorado and Washington.

"Legislative options exist to resolve the differences between federal and state law in this area and end the uncertainty that residents of Colorado and Washington now face," he writes. "One option would be to amend the Federal Controlled Substances Act to allow possession of up to one ounce of marijuana, at least in jurisdictions where it is legal under state law."

But asked Thursday whether Leahy would support such an amendment, Carle demurred.

"He has not taken a view on decriminalization and does not weigh in on state matters," Carle said.

This Week's Paper: A Reporter With a Record; Marijuana Dispensaries Face Financial Pressures

In this week's print edition of Seven Days, you'll find these bits of news:

• In Fair Game: the new cops and courts reporter at the Times Argus is a convicted sex offender — and the TA doesn't want to talk about it.
• Vermont environmentalist Bill McKibben
  and his allies are pushing divestment as the next big weapon in the fight against climate change.
• Vermont's future medical marijuana dispensaries will likely face money woes in the face of high licensing fees, few patients and federal laws that consider them illegal.
• Speaking of pot: A former New York City prosecutor, now a Vermont Law School professor, has launched a new blog to examine drug policies, and their consequences, in the United States.
• One year after the Occupy movement, activists are turning to a new trend: offering free food to the needy.
• And just for fun, find out what Seven Days writers have on their wish lists for Vermont. (Paul Heintz wins the award for least practical suggestion.)