Search Results: terrible message (6)

Reason
Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske: “Calling it medicine sends a terrible message”

Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske — required by law to lie about the medical efficacy of cannabis — has, unsurprisingly, attacked the herb again in a speech in San Francisco.

“Calling it medicine sends a terrible message” to American youth, according to the Czar, reports Chris Roberts at NBC Bay Area. Gil seems unfamiliar with or indifferent to the fact that the U.S. federal government itself has been providing free medical marijuana to a handful of patients for 30 years under the Compassionate Investigational New Drug program.
Gil could also use a refresher course on the thousands of scientific studies which show marijuana’s medical effectiveness. Oh well; I guess Science “sends a terrible message” to youth, as well.

The Fresh Scent

Talk about irony, eh? The very same day American voters in two states legalize, the Stephen Harper government in Canada brought into force tough new mandatory minimum sentences for marijuana.
As Washington and Colorado both on Tuesday approved measures loosening their pot laws, drug measures in the Conservative government’s Safe Streets and Communities Act, passed last spring, came into full force in Canada, reports Bruce Cheadle of The Canadian Press.

THC Finder

By Ezra Eickmeyer
Safe Access Alliance
Washington state’s I-502 was carefully crafted to look like “responsible” cannabis legalization to the general public. Unfortunately, in trying too hard to appease law enforcement and other opponents of legalization, I-502 creates a list of brand new threats to medical cannabis patients and providers without actually legalizing marijuana. 
I-502 only decriminalizes possession of an ounce or less of cannabis and only applies to adults, 21 and older, who purchase cannabis from a state licensed store with heavy taxes. 
We can’t allow this initiative to set national standards for other legalization initiatives in other states, nor can we stand by and allow it to pass, knowing the years of trouble it will take to try and fix this terrible initiative. Meanwhile, many patients will lose their driving rights and be forced back to the black market for medicine. 
We have to come together to oppose this initiative and send our own message; that changes in policy need to be good changes, not just any changes, and that patients can organize and defeat threats against us. 

Catrina Coleman/West Coast Leaf
Joe Grumbine outside the Long Beach Courthouse with his grandchild Jojo

Joe Grumbine and Joe Byron, whose recent trial for operating a medical cannabis dispensary in Southern California attracted worldwide attention — make that horror and disbelief — for judicial and jury misconduct and prejudice, has been granted a new trial.
“This was a terrible, terrible trial,” said Long Beach Superior Court Judge Joan Comparet-Cassani, who granted the motion for a new trial. 
“I read the transcript [of the previous trial]and I am appalled,” Judge Comparet-Cassani said on Friday, reports Cheri Sicard of The Human Solution, who attended the hearing along with Grumbine and other members of the group.

The Inquisitr

By Jack Rikess
Toke of the Town
Northern California Correspondent


I’ll give you my joint when you take it from my brown, resin-soaked fingers.
What comes first… A revolution or a war? Right now more Americans are taking to the streets in numbers not seen since they tried to do away with the original Coca-Cola. And with the same reasons, the Cola-Baggers in the Day wanted to turn back the clocks to a simpler time. The message was simple: Don’t mess with our Coke.
In 1937 marijuana was politically shoved into a niche alongside heroin and other bad stuff, because of money. Behind the scenes, the same names were at work. Great American families like the Hearsts, the Mellons and the DuPonts needed cannabis to go away, so they could make money the old fashion way — by manipulating the markets.

Photo: Jimmy Carter Library & Museum
Former President Jimmy Carter: “Maybe the increased tax burden on wealthy citizens necessary to pay for the war on drugs will help bring about a reform of America’s drug policies”

​In a new op-ed published in The New York Times to coincide with Friday’s 40th anniversary of President Nixon declaring “War On Drugs,” former President Jimmy Carter supports recent recommendations for countries around the world to try “models of legal regulation of drugs … that are designed to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens.”

In the New York Times op-ed, President Carter called the recommendations of the Global Commission on Drug Policy “courageous and profoundly important.”