Search Results: holder (250)

Cannabis’s federally illegal status makes it difficult to conduct licensed clinical research on the plant and products made from it, hampering medical and commercial advancements in cultivation, extraction and ingestion. Colorado legislators got tired of waiting for the feds, and in May passed a bill that allows for state-approved research and development licenses for clinical studies on potency, chemical composition, agriculture and other areas.

It took over a week for the city to count the votes, but on November 15,  Denver officials finally announced that voters had approved Initiative 300, which allows the social consumption of marijuana in the city. Three days later, however, Colorado’s Liquor Enforcement Division (LED) adopted a new rule that prohibits any business with a liquor license from also applying for a social-consumption license.

On February 3, five plaintiffs — including Emmett Reistroffer and Kayvan Khalatbari — filed suit against the state over that rule.

Yesterday, the Obama Administration, by way of Attorney General Eric Holder, reaffirmed its support for a current proposal that, if passed, would nudge our nation’s legal system a step in a more civil direction. Mr. Holder spoke Thursday before the U.S. Sentencing Commission, whose duty it is to vote annually on what sort of instructions need to be updated for federal judges to reference when handing down sentences on all of the various cases they see.
This April, the Sentencing Commission is considering a vote to overhaul the current recommended sentences for all federal nonviolent drug-related offenses.

In what would be a major shift towards the acceptance of cannabis by the federal government, Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday announced that banks and credit card companies would soon be allowed to open accounts with state-legal cannabis operations.
For years banks have denied or closed accounts with medical dispensaries because banks are federally insured and are barred from dealing with money they know comes from a federally-illegal operation. It’s caused the businesses to become cash-heavy targets for robberies in California and Colorado.

As we told you last week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to announce some rather substantial changes to federal drug policy this week including dropping mandatory minimum sentencing in some drug cases, early release for non-violent offenders, allowing states to handle more drug cases and, eventually, bi-partisan drug reform at the congressional level.
According to the Drug Policy Alliance, we can expect Holder’s comments sometime today in his remarks to the American Bar Association national convention in San Francisco.

Attorney General Eric Holder.

Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday told NPR that too many people are in jail for nonviolent drug crimes and that there is a great need for federal drug sentencing reform in the United States.
“The war on drugs is now 30, 40 years old,” Holder told NPR. “There have been a lot of unintended consequences. There’s been a decimation of certain communities, in particular communities of color.”

While the cannabis communities of Colorado and Washington await a response to recently-passed marijuana laws from Attorney General Eric Holder, it seems he’s busy writing other speeches: graduation remarks for the University of California at Berkeley law school commencement, which as held over the weekend.
Ganja activists took the opportunity to swarm the campus and even went so far as to fly a custom banner over the outdoor Greek Theater that read: “Holder: End Rx Cannabis War #peace4patients,” according to the Huffington Post.

Smart Colorado
They always seem to trot out the kids. Aren’t there adults in Colorado too — who get to make adult decisions?

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has been urged by an anti-cannabis group to weigh in with his opposition to a November ballot issue which would legalize marijuana in Colorado. 

Amendment 64 would allow adults statewide to possess up to an ounce of marijuana for personal, non-medical use, reports Lynn Bartels of The Denver Post. The measure is opposed by a “citizens group” calling itself Smart Colorado, represented by the Denver law firm of Holland & Hart.
Smart Colorado attorney Jon Anderson (not the Yes vocalist) claimed in a letter to Holder that Colorado’s ballot measure “parallels” California’s Proposition 19, defeated by voters 54 percent to 46 percent in 2010.

YouTube
Attorney General Eric Holder: “If in fact people are not using he policy decision that we have made to use marijuana in a way that’s not consistent with the state statute, we will not use our limited resources in that way.” Or something.

​It’s easy to get whiplash trying to keep up with federal medical marijuana policy, and my neck’s hurting again after hearing the latest from Attorney General Eric Holder. Holder on Thursday repeated the support of the Department of Justice for the Ogden Memo, the 2009 policy statement which deprioritized the prosecution of medical marijuana providers who are following state law.

“What we said in the memo we still intend, which is that given the limited resources that we have, and if there are states that have medical marijuana provisions … if in fact people are not using the policy decision that we have made to use marijuana in a way that’s not consistent with the state statute, we will not use our limited resources in that way,” Holder said in his usual convoluted (dare I say tortured?) fashion, reports Lucia Graves at Huffington Post.

The Portland Mercury

When the state’s looking for “additional revenue,” keep an eye on your money. ​Oregon residents applying for medical marijuana cards will have lighter pocketbooks this month. State fees for the card applications took a dramatic jump on October 1 — and as usual, low-income patients who rely on food stamps and the Oregon Health Plan will be hit the hardest.

Annual application and renewal fees for the cards were $100, with a discounted low-income rate of $20. Now the annual fee is $200 and the discounted rate is $100, reports Peter Korn at Pamplin Media Group.
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