Search Results: cornell (8)

After working as a U.S. Senate page when he was sixteen, Jake Lilly went on to intern at the White House in 1998. After receiving his law degree at Cornell, he joined the Army and in 2005 served in Iraq, where he led search-and-rescue teams. Before all that, however, he was thirteen when his Boy Scout troop visited Colorado. He fell in love with the state, went home to Maryland, and told his parents that he would live here someday. Now 39, with thirteen years as a prosecutor, litigator and defense attorney under his belt, Lilly is running for district attorney of Jefferson and Gilpin counties, against incumbent Pete Weir.

His platform focuses on criminal-justice reform — reform he determined was needed after seeing the effects of the drug war up close. Lilly  believes in finding alternatives to prison for nonviolent offenders and finding treatment alternatives for drug abusers. We sat down with Lilly to learn more about his positions, especially his support for continued legalization of marijuana.

With The Stoner’s Coloring Book, Jared Hoffman has created the first adult coloring book designed specifically with stoners in mind. Hoffman, a graduate of Cornell University now living in Brooklyn, worked with artists around the world to compiled over forty illustrations designed for “high-minded” individuals. Hoffman’s goal was not just to create a fun, creative outlet, however, but also to provide a tool to inspire an open discussion of marijuana and legalization.

Westword recently talked with Hoffman about his just-released book, the artists behind it, and how a coloring book might help bring us closer to national legalization.

The newly-released federal policy on recreational marijuana has been as a go-ahead by many marijuana-related businesses who feel that
But according to Forbes writer Robert Wood, the new DOJ policies won’t do anything to change how the IRS views marijuana businesses as completely illegal enterprises, nor will it help protect marijuana business owners from violating federal tax laws.



What is behind the war on cannabis — both medicinal and recreational? Will marijuana ever be legalized?

The Young Turks’ show “The Point” takes a look at these questions this week, with political comedian John Fugelsang leading the panel. He discusses cannabis with comedian Cornell Reid, The 420 Times editor Dave Brian, and Perennial Holistic Wellness Center owner Sam Humeid.
It was my honor to kick off the panel discussion with the first “point” of the show, 90 seconds on the rich, 12,000-year history shared by cannabis and the human race.

Commentopia

Big Victory: Obama Administration Dealt Stinging, Unanimous Rebuke By High Court

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Monday that law enforcement authorities need a probable-cause warrant from a judge to affix a GPS device to a vehicle and monitor its movements.

The decision [PDF] in what is likely the biggest Fourth Amendment case in the computer age rejected the Obama Administration’s position that American citizens have no right to privacy in their public movements, reports David Kravets at Wired.

Graphic: Hermes Press

​A 35-year-old man was sentenced to life in prison last week for his fourth marijuana conviction under Louisiana’s repeat-offender law.

Cornell Hood II had gotten probation after his first three marijuana offenses in New Orleans, but when he moved near Slidell, in the St. Tammany Parish, his fourth such conviction sent him away for the rest of his life, reports Ramon Antonio Vargas of the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
State Judge Raymond S. Childress sentenced Hood in his courtroom on Covington, Louisiana, on Thursday. A jury on February 15 had found the defendant guilty of attempting to possess and distribute marijuana at his Slidell home, according to court records.
Hood had moved from eastern New Orleans to the Slidell area after his third marijuana conviction, for distribution and possession with intent to distribute, on December 18, 2009, in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court. He received a suspended five-year prison sentence and five years’ of probation for each count, which was exactly the same penalty he’d gotten in that court after pleading guilty to possessing and intending to distribute marijuana about five years earlier, on February 22, 2005.

Graphic: The Bilerico Project
In a move sure to sweep the land, a jury pool has refused to convict the defendant of a marijuana charge

​​In what could grow into something much bigger in future cases, potential jurors in Missoula County District Court staged a revolt Thursday, taking the law into their own hands and making it clear they would not convict anybody for having less than 2 grams of marijuana.

The tiny amount of marijuana police found in Touray Cornell’s Missoula, Montana home on April 23 became a big point of contention for some members of the jury panel, reports Gwen Florio of The Missoulian. One juror after another said there was no way they would convict somebody for having 1/16 of an ounce of pot.
One juror wondered aloud why the county was wasting time and money prosecuting the case at all, according to a “flummoxed” Deputy Missoula County Attorney Andrew Paul, who called it “a mutiny,” Florio reports.

Photo: Polls Boutique

​A new poll has found that a solid majority of New Yorkers — more than 60 percent — are in favor of legalizing marijuana for medical uses.

According to the Cornell University Survey Research Institute poll, there is a marked difference between Democrats and unaffiliated voters on one side and Republicans on the other. Among Democrats, 66 percent support medical legalization, as do 68 percent of independents, reports Cara Matthews at LoHud.com.
But a plurality of Republicans — 48 percent — are against medical marijuana legalization.