Search Results: united states (711)

Global Ganja Report

Worth Repeating
By Ron Marczyk, R.N.
Health Education Teacher (Retired)

“We conclude that the legalization of medical marijuana leads to an improvement in the psychological well being of young adult males, an improvement that is reflected in fewer suicides.”
                                        
This story didn’t make it past the network news filters, was ignored by the mainstream media, and numerous mental health/suicide prevention organizations would not even comment about it!
Then, 17 days later:
Why would a “good news” marijuana story, like where suicides markedly declined, be ignored by the media?

Freaking News

Editor’s note: Canadian medical marijuana patient, activist, and blogger Matt Mernagh won perhaps the biggest marijuana court victory in Canada’s history last year, forcing the Canadian government to argue in court for the validity of its marijuana laws.

Here, previous Toke of the Town contributor Mernagh shares his plans and insights regarding his next court appearance. 

By Matt Mernagh
To save Canada’s marijuana laws from becoming null and void, U.S. state medical marijuana programs will be cited as working examples of what other countries have created. Canada’s federal legal medical marijuana program is similar to what U.S. states have, a Canadian prosecutor will argue in May before the country’s second highest court.
It’s one of many arguments designed to overturn a landmark court ruling (R v. Mernagh) that eliminated Canada’s weed laws, decimated their federal government-run medical marijuana program, and allows me to legally grow and possess my own without a government license of any kind.
The feds really need to win their appeal if marijuana is to remain a prohibited substance, so naturally they’ve thrown plenty of arguments on why the ruling must be overturned by two of three justices on the Ontario Court of Appeal.

Photo: Just Out
According to Reps. Jared Polis (left) and Barney Frank, the Obama Administration should lay off medical marijuana patients and providers in states where medicinal cannabis is legal.

​Two Democratic Congressmen want to know exactly where the federal government stands on medical cannabis. Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) are urging the Obama Administration this week to repeat earlier vows to leave the enforcement of medical marijuana laws up to the states.

The Congressmen want Attorney General Eric Holder to renew his commitment to a 2009 Department of Justice (DOJ) memorandum — known as the Ogden Memo — which said the agency wouldn’t target medical marijuana patients and providers who are in compliance with their state laws, reports Mike Lillis at The Hill.
“Recent actions by United States Attorneys across the country have prompted states to deny patients safe and reliable access to their medicine,” Frank and Polis wrote in a June 20 letter to Holder.
The letter was a result of the lawmakers’ concerns that recent communications from the DOJ and from state and local attorneys indicate the agency is backtracking on the Ogden Memo in the face of conservative criticism that the Obama Administration has somehow been “too lenient” in the “War On Drugs” by allowing sick people to use the medicine recommended by their doctors.

Graphic: Cannabis Culture

​With numerous states facing significant budget cuts, legislators and voters across the United States this month have been giving overwhelming support to measures that would reduce the penalty to a civil fine for possession of small amounts of marijuana.

On Wednesday in New Hampshire, the state House voted 214-137 to pass HB 1653, a bill the would reduce the penalty for possession of up to a quarter-ounce of marijuana with a civil fine of up to $200.
In Hawaii, the state Senate voted 22-3 to March 2 to pass SB 2450, a bill that would eliminate criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana and replace them with a civil fine of up to $300 for a first offense and $500 for subsequent offenses.

Wikipedia

The United States Supreme Court is considering whether police must get a warrant before ordering a blood test on an unwilling DUI suspect. The case has potentially major ramifications in Washington state, where voters in November approved a marijuana legalization scheme which institutes a strict five nanograms per milliliter (5 ng/ml) blood level for THC, above which drivers are automatically considered impaired.

The justices on Wednesday heard arguments in a case involving a disputed blood test from Missouri, reports The Associated Press. After stopping a speeding, erratically driving car, the driver — who had two previous drunken-driving convictions — refused to submit to a breath test to measure the alcohol in his body.

Harborside Health Center

Chief Federal Magistrate Maria-Elena James on Monday ruled in favor of Harborside Health Center, which describes itself as the biggest nonprofit medical marijuana dispensary in the United States, and denied motions by Harborside’s landlords asking the court to order an immediate halt to the sales of medicinal cannabis at their properties.

Judge James also declined to grant a motion from the City of Oakland to immediately halt the federal government’s legal efforts to close Harborside, but scheduled a hearing later this month to hear more arguments in the City of Oakland’s lawsuit against the Feds in a 17-page opinion [PDF] described by Harborside as “highly significant.”
“We are grateful that Judge James carefully considered the facts and arguments in the Harborside case, and decided to grant us our day in court,” said Harborside Health Center Executive Director Steve DeAngelo. “We have always believed that a Bay Area jury will recognize the value that Harborside brings to the community, and refuse to allow the federal government to seize the properties where we are located.

Wikipedia

Although the voters in the state of Washington — home to several of the United States’ biggest naval bases — recently legalized marijuana, the Pentagon has reminded sailors that federal drug policies remain unaffected for members of the military.

The zero tolerance drug policy for all members of the U.S. Armed Forces was instituted by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1981 after the fatal crash of a Prowler on board the USS Nimitz killed 14 crew members and injured 45 others. (The crash, of course, had nothing to do with marijuana, but autopsies showed several members of the flight deck crew tested positive for pot, so that gave them a convenient scapegoat upon which to blame the tragedy.)

White Horse Inn/Twitter

But Second Pot Club Is Still Open For Business

The first legal recreational marijuana club in the United States has closed its doors, just one day after opening, due to a misunderstanding with the landlord, but the second club is still open for business.

The White Horse Inn opened Monday in the tiny town of Del Norte, becoming — by just a few hours — the first in Colorado to offer adults a chance to have a legal joint with their coffee, reports John Ingold at The Denver Post. When the landlord saw the publicity about Monday’s opening, he canceled the lease before it took effect, according to White Horse owner Paul Lovato. The lease didn’t start until Tuesday.
“By opening early I kind of screwed myself out of my building,” Lovato admitted on Tuesday. He had planned on having a storefront for customers to buy coffee and T-shirts, as well as other souvenirs, with a private building next door where customers could smoke free samples of cannabis.

T-Shirt Wonderland

Two Thirds of Respondents Expect Marijuana To Be Legal In Next 10 Years
A majority of people in the United States and Canada believe cannabis should be readily available for those who want to use it, a new two-country Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.
In the online survey of representative national samples, a majority of Canadians (57 percent) and Americans (54 percent) support the legalization of marijuana.
Most respondents in each Canadian region back the legalization of cannabis, including 64 percent of Atlantic Canadians and 60 percent of British Columbians.

THC Finder

By Al Byrne
Patients Out of Time
It’s true enough what the federal wordsmiths of spin roll out about there being a conspiracy to make cannabis available to the sick in the United States. There is such a cabal of cannabis crusaders working to undermine the U.S. government’s role in determining what medicine(s) patients can use, and when, and how.
I know most of these people and let me assure you that they are serious about their goal (1). I’m one of the conspirators.
Some, like Libertarians and the Tea Party stalwarts, are half crazy about the wide reach of all governments into their lives — negative, as they see it. Many are politically active, seeing the election of selected politicians the key to a change in the rules of cannabis prohibition regardless of whether they sport a red or blue tie. The politically oriented see a goal of 21 states with legal cannabis as
a jump off for a Constitutional Amendment process — a move that places 
decisions best made by health care professionals in the hands of non-medical citizens.
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