Search Results: brigham (9)

Montanafesto
It looks like the rough and tumble of politics is too much for Senator Essmann

Thin-Skinned Senator Files Complaint Over Campaign Rhetoric
Just 2 Weeks Ago, Essmann Staged Bogus Lawsuit Threat Against Attorney General
 
Not satisfied to have decimated patients’ rights, Montana state Senator Jeff Essmann is now attacking his critics with a formal complaint to the Commissioner of Political Practices.
 
The charge? Essman didn’t like a radio spot that mentioned his name.
 
“It looks like the rough and tumble of politics is too much for Senator Essmann,” said Bob Brigham, campaign manager for Patients for Reform, Not Repeal. “Maybe he should find a new career. His complaint against a radio spot of ours is untimely, wrong and desperate.”
 
“The fact is, the Montana Republican Party platform rejects his bill, SB 423, and calls for new medical marijuana legislation that is both workable and realistic,” Brigham added. “The writing is on the wall. SB 423 will either be rejected by the voters or rewritten in the next legislature. Senator Essmann is in denial over the fact that his handiwork is deeply flawed and won’t be law for much longer.”

Cannabis Now Magazine

Losing Legal Status and Providers, Suffering Patients Plead for Voters to Oppose IR-124
As Montana fully implements Senate Bill 423 after a June 2011 injunction was lifted by the state Supreme Court on Wednesday, the vast majority of currently legal patients are losing their rights. The state’s data show that 5,598 patients will now lose their status as registered, legal medical users of marijuana. 

Montana Department of Justice
Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock on Tuesday said he’d vote against IR-124

Attorney General Bullock Says He’ll Vote Against IR-124
No poll shows IR-124 with majority support, and the new law — which repeals a voter initiative which legalized medical marijuana in the state back in 2004, with the support of 62 percent of state voters — now faces two new hurdles to approval by the voters this year.
 
Patients for Reform, Not Repeal has begun its second radio advertising campaign with a new spot, entitled “Running Away,” which points to the measure’s weak voter support and even opposition from the Montana Republican Party. The spot notes that Sen. Jeff Essman, sponsor of SB 423 – the subject of the referendum – has conceded that his work will be changed next year.

Patients For Reform – Not Repeal

Ballot Issue Radio Ad Features Sen. Larry Jent Acknowledging that SB 423 Was Intended as “Defacto Repeal” of Voter Intent for Medical Marijuana Patients
A radio ad airing statewide beginning Tuesday uses the voice of state Senator Larry Jent (D-Bozeman) to urge voters to reject Senate Bill 423, the new “repeal and destroy” medical marijuana law passed by the 2011 Montana Legislature, it was announced today. 
In the ad, Jent admits that the Legislature’s final vote in the 2011 session was actually intended to functionally repeal (rather than fix) the state medical marijuana law adopted by voters. “And it worked,” Jent concludes.
“We’re urging voters to vote ‘no’ on IR-124, because it is a slap in the face to voters as well as cruel and harmful to the seriously sick patients Montanans sought to help,” says Bob Brigham, campaign manager for Patients for Reform – Not Repeal. 

Montana Cowgirl Blog
A billboard that reads “Welcome to Yellowstone County, Where the Will of the People Doesn’t Count” on Montana Avenue in Billings. The billboard encourages Montanans to vote “NO” on IR-124.  

A new poll shows that IR-124, the November 6 referendum on the 2011 Legislature’s unworkable medical marijuana law, faces steep odds, with support at only 46 percent.
Bob Brigham, campaign manager for Patients for Reform, Not Repeal, said, “Historically, ballot measures that don’t start near 60 percent support are in danger of failing. IR-124 doesn’t even hit 50 percent. That’s a bad sign for the Legislature’s proposal, especially if we do our job and explain to voters why they should vote against this ‘godawful’ law.”
A new Public Policy Polling survey was released Thursday afternoon in which the full ballot summary for IR-124 was read aloud to 656 registered and likely Montana voters. The summary describes Senate Bill 423, which was forced to the ballot by opponents and appears as IR-124.

THC Finder

The Big Sky State’s Current Medical Marijuana Law Riddled With Barriers For Montana Patients
By Bob Brigham
Special to Toke of the Town
Thousands of medical marijuana patients in Montana are left without medical marijuana providers who can serve them. The state’s new restrictive medical marijuana law, SB 423, has been in effect for less than one year, and during that time, the number of providers has dropped from over 4,438 in June of last year to less than 414 today, a drop of more than 90 percent.
“The vast majority of providers (formerly caregivers) have simply dropped out of the system,” says Chris Lindsey, president of the Montana Cannabis Industry Association. “Most left the program out of fear of federal prosecution, but those who are left are finding it is very risky due to aggressive law enforcement efforts around the state, who often work directly with the DEA.

Kathy Plonka/Spokesman-Review
Anita Kronvall of the Kootenai County Substance Abuse Council doesn’t smoke cannabis, and she doesn’t want anybody else to use it, either — even medical marijuana patients.

​Expecting both a November 2012 ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana in Idaho, and state legislation to do the same, reactionary elements in Coeur d’Alene are mobilizing to “educate” the public about what they claim are the “dangers” of cannabis legalization.

“Our whole goal is we want our people educated so we can put pressure on the legislators not to pass it,” said Anita Kronvall, director of the Kootenai County Substance Abuse Council, reports Alison Boggs of the Spokane Spokesman-Review. The council is supporting the Kootenai Alliance for Children and Families in hosting two mid-October anti-marijuana events.
The keynote speaker will be anti-pot wing nut Monte Stiles, a real asshole’s asshole who retired early from his job as assistant U.S. Attorney for Idaho — so that, you guessed it, he could spend full time battling the “Marijuana Menace.” Stiles, a Brigham Young University graduate who just can’t let go of the Drug War, may be living proof that marijuana really does make you crazy — if you oppose it.

Photo: Little Eddy
A mass exhale of marijuana smoke at the Unibversity of Colorado Boulder campus at 4:20 p.m., April 20, 2010. UC-Boulder came in fourth on the list.

​California and Colorado dominated the The Princeton Review‘s Top 5 colleges for marijuana use this year, with two entries each.

In the rankings — part of the Review’s “The Best 376 Colleges” survey — Colorado College in Colorado Springs ranked as the #1 pot-smoking school in the United States.
The small private school blazed past the competition in the annual rankings, which The Princeton Review released on Monday.
Colorado College has been a “usual suspect” on the marijuana list for the past few years, said Rob Franek, vice president and publisher of the Review.

Photo: You Are Hated!
Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz wants you to stay off the pot.

​Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) announced Wednesday afternnon that they have introduced a resolution to disapprove the District of Columbia’s city law legalizing medical marijuana, reports Mike DeBonis of The Washington Post.

“While derivatives of marijuana are available in pill form for medicinal purposes, smoked marijuana is a health danger, not a cure, and therefore remains a harmful and dangerous drug for people of all ages,” the clueless Chaffetz said.
Chaffetz, a Mormon convert, Brigham Young graduate and right-wing crank already known for opposing progressive legislation of any sort, is the creepiest sort of reactionary, the “I used to be a liberal” young kind of earnest, clean-cut, gay-marriage-opposing, pot-hating, wholesome-looking wingnut.