Search Results: marijuana policy project (378)

The UnLockr

It’s time for the cannabis community to be more aware of the stands taken by judges and other public servants when it comes to marijuana, and the NORML Women’s Alliance is taking steps to make that happen in Los Angeles County.
The L.A. branch of the NORML Women’s Alliance (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) on Monday launched a new voter education project focused on candidates for Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge in the June 5 primary election.
 
“We at the NORML Women’s Alliance believe that judges hold one of the most important elected offices in our system of government,” said Cheri Sicard, Los Angeles County community leader for the group. “Judges, more than any other government officials, have a direct impact on the daily lives of the constituents they serve. Yet voters are often least informed about the candidates they elect to these important positions. We want to change that.”
 

The World Through My Specs
Peter Reynolds of CLEAR is engaged in a tug-of-war with ex-members of the organization’s Executive Committee

By Denzil White
Special to Toke of the Town
In suit and tie, Peter Reynolds looks more like an extra from the set of Mad Men than like the hairy-headed hippie stereotype of a cannabis activist. He’s definitely not hairy-headed, but when he promised to clean up the image of cannabis campaigning in the UK, few people expected the makeover to result in a beauty only skin deep.
Claiming a background in advertising and public relations, Peter Reynolds won leadership of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance, a small, single-issue political party, then set about changing the name of the party to CLEAR (Cannabis Law Reform) and brought on help to spruce up the party’s website and logo.
Reynolds wrote at the time, “We will build a new and effective brand and campaign. We are reasonable, responsible, respectable members of society from all walks of life and professions.” 
Things were looking good; MPs hit Reynolds’ “Friend” button on Facebook and the CLEAR “Comment Warriors” plagued the popular press with pro-cannabis comments on any article reporting a factory raid or medicinal marijuana critique.

Library Foundation of Los Angeles

Editor’s note: Los Angeles writer Mark Haskell Smith’s new book Heart of Dankness sprang from his news coverage of the Cannabis Cup for the L.A. Times. Novelist Smith sampled varieties of marijuana that were unlike anything he’d experienced before, unlike any typical stoner weed. In fact, it didn’t get you “stoned,” as such. This cannabis possessed an ephemeral quality known as “dankness.”

Haskell began a journey into the international underground where super-high-grade marijuana is developed. He tracked down the ragtag community of underground botanists, outlaw farmers, and renegade strain hunters who pursue excellence and genetic diversity in cannabis. The dank journey climaxes at Amsterdam’s Cannabis Cup, which Mark portrays as the Super Bowl/Mardi Gras of the world’s largest cash crop.

Cannabis writer and connoisseur Caitlin Podiak got a chance to chat with Haskell Smith about the book, about good cannabis, and about what, exactly, constitutes a state of dankness. Enjoy!

Discussing Dankness
By Caitlin Podiak
Special to Toke of the Town
Caitlin Podiak: Your quest for the “heart of dankness” centers on the annual High Times Cannabis Cup event in Amsterdam. But how relevant do you think those awards are to cannabis users in California? I know many of the strains we have here come from Dutch seeds, but beyond that, I wonder how much the Amsterdam Cannabis Cup results should matter to us in the United States.
Mark Haskell Smith: Oh, I think they’re very relevant to what goes on in California. The strains that win the Cannabis Cup ultimately become the popular strains you find in medical dispensaries or being sold by dealers. AK-47, Super Silver Haze, Willie Nelson, Lavender, LA Confidential… these are all fairly common strains nowadays, but they were first introduced at the Cannabis Cup. I imagine Kosher Kush, which is originally a SoCal strain, will become huge in the next year or two because it just won the Indica Cup in Amsterdam. It’s sort of like Coachella for cannabis. It’s where the unknowns get their shot at the big time. And that resonates in California. We want those seeds.

Drug Policy Alliance – New York Office
Knock knock, Mayor Bloomberg — we want change! Illegal searches and bogus misdemeanor arrests for marijuana must stop.

Community Members March to Mayor Bloomberg’s House to Protest Out of Control Marijuana Arrest Crusade in NYC
Under Bloomberg, More Than 400,000 People Arrested on Low-Level Marijuana Charges in NYC, at a Cost of More Than $600 Million; Most Are Black and Latino, Despite Whites Using Marijuana at Higher Rates 
Illegal Searches and Bogus Misdemeanor Arrests Continue, Despite Order by Commissioner Kelly to Halt Unlawful Police Practices
Marijuana Arrests Are #1 Offense in NYC and Make up 15% of all Arrests
On Thursday, community members and New Yorkers for Health & Safety marched to Mayor Bloomberg’s house to demand an end to illegal, racially biased and costly marijuana arrests.  While Bloomberg proposes cuts to New York City public libraries, firehouses, and after-school programs, he’s spending at least $75 million a year for these arrests.
In 2011, there were 50,684 marijuana possession arrests, the top arrest in New York City and second highest number of marijuana arrests in City history, despite a directive issued to police officers by Police Commissioner Ray Kelly last year, ordering them to end such arrests.

Michael Montgomery/California Watch
A federal drug agent stands in a marijuana field near Redding. The 2010 raid led to federal charges against 27 people.

​The pattern of the American government using domestic spying on its own citizens — begun after the 9/11 attacks and the PATRIOT Act — may soon be going to a new level. Congress may empower federal intelligence agencies to participate in the struggle against marijuana cultivation in national forests and on other federal land.

One provision in the 2012 intelligence authorization bill calls on James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, to report on how federal spy agencies can help park rangers, fish and wildlife wardens, and other federal agents eradicate cannabis gardens, report Andrew Becker and Michael Montgomery at California Watch.
The bill also directs the top spy to work with federal public land managers to identify intelligence and information-sharing gaps related to drug trafficking. The House passed its version of the bill, HR 1892, in September; it is now before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Photo: KOMO News
Congressional candidate Roger Goodman, left, advocates the legalization of marijuana and protecting the planet.

​What if we could elect a real, live drug policy reformer to Congress? A candidate who has that background — and unabashedly advocates the legalization of cannabis nationwide — is running for the U.S. House of Representatives from Washington state, and he has an excellent chance to win.

Washington state Rep. Roger Goodman had in February initially announced he would run in the 8th District against Rep. Dave Reichert, a right-wing Republican, but now that Rep. Jay Inslee is vacating his seat in the House to run for Governor, Goodman will be running for that open seat in the reliably liberal 1st District where he lives, the candidate told Toke of the Town in an exclusive interview Friday afternoon.
“My number one priority is planetary health,” Goodman told me. “We need to pay attention to that, and we need to foster justice in our society.
“Cannabis policy reform is actually a part of both of those major issues, and my training as a lawyer, an environmentalist, a former Congressional chief of staff, a state agency director, and now as a legislator and reformer for years, qualifies me not just on cannabis reform but on qualify of life issues and on true progressive leadership,” he said.

Photo: The Stranger
Washington state Rep. Roger Goodman supports the legalization of marijuana. He is now running for U.S. Congress.

​Washington state Rep. Roger Goodman has announced he is seeking the Democratic Party nomination to challenge U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert (R), a two-term Congressman who represents Washington’s 8th Congressional District. Goodman supports the legalization of marijuana, and has an excellent track record as a drug policy reformer.

Goodman served as the executive director of the Washington State Sentencing Guidelines Commission in the late 1990s and was elected to the National Association of Sentencing Commissions, reports Phillip Smith at Stop The Drug War. While with the state commission, he published reports on prison capacity and sentencing policy, helped increase the availability of drug treatment in prisons, and guided 14 other sentencing-related bills through the Washington Legislature.


Photo: NIDA Marijuana Project at The University of Mississippi
The entire supply of marijuana for research in the United States is grown by the NIDA in Mississippi.

​One federal agency controls all the marijuana research done in the United States. And that agency has just admitted that it won’t fund research into the benefits of marijuana — only the supposed “negative consequences.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) told the New York Times last week that the agency “does not fund research focused on the potential medical benefits of marijuana.”

“As the National Institute on Drug Abuse, our focus is primarily on the negative consequences of marijuana use,” NIDA spokeswoman Shirley Simson told the Times.
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