Search Results: kalamazoo (11)

WWMT.com

Statewide victories in Colorado and Washington (legalization) and Massachusetts (medical marijuana) weren’t the only blows our country’s failed marijuana policies were dealt on Election Day. A number of cities and towns voted against cannabis prohibition, as well.
In Michigan, voters overwhelmingly approved all four citywide measures to stop arresting marijuana users, reports the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP). Grand Rapids voters replaced possible jail time for simple possession of marijuana with a fine. In Detroit and Flint, voters removed local criminal penalties for marijuana possession. In Ypsilanti, marijuana possession will now be the lowest law enforcement priority.

LEAP

Nine States and Localities Vote for More Sensible Drug Laws
In a historic night for drug law reformers, on Tuesday, Colorado and Washington voters passed measures legalizing and regulating marijuana, Massachusetts became the 18th state to allow medical marijuana and six localities voted to modernize policies on marijuana.
“I cannot tell you how happy I am that after 40 years of the racist, destructive exercise in futility that is the war on drugs, my home state of Washington has now put us on a different path,” said Norm Stamper, former Seattle police chief who is now a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP).

The Med Joint Community Compassion Center
This is the kind of arrest the medical marijuana community needs more of. Med Joint Director Kevin Spitler, above, raised $2,578 after being “arrested” by a county sheriff, taken into “custody” at a local restaurant so that he could call friends to “make bail,” and then was briefly “jailed for good.”

Michigan Medical Marijuana Compassion Center Featured on Annual Labor Day Telethon/Show of Strength
 
Med Joint Director raised the most money in Kalamazoo to fight Muscular Dystrophy
 
The Med Joint, Kalamazoo’s Community Compassion Center, will be featured Sunday, September 2, as the top contributor of donations to the Labor Day Muscular Dystrophy Telethon in their area. The yearly telethon is now known as the MDA Show of Strength.
This is the first time a medical marijuana dispensing compassion club has been featured on the yearly telethon.
 
Med Joint Director Kevin Spitler raised $2,578 after being “arrested” by a county sheriff, taken into “custody” at a local restaurant so that he could call friends to “make bail,” and then was briefly “jailed for good.”

Marc Ryan/The Midwest Cultivator
Above, happy revelers at Hash Bash 2010. This year, 6,000 people are expected to attend the 41st annual smoke-in.

After 41 years of epochal parties at the world famous Hash Bash, Michigan finally has a legalization effort in full swing. Activists are, for the first time since Hash Bash began, collecting signatures to amend Michigan’s Constitution and repeal marijuana prohibition for adults 21 and older.

The Hash Bash rally on the University of Michigan Diag began in 1972, after cultural activist John Sinclair was sentenced to 10 years in prison for selling two joints to an undercover narcotics agent. The Michigan Supreme Court declared the law used to convict Sinclair unconstitutional, and ever since, the annual Hash Bash gathering focuses on the goal of reforming federal, state, and local marijuana laws.

Kalamazoo Gazette

​Michigan is undergoing a groundswell of activism for a statewide vote on the legalization of marijuana, and voters could get a chance to have their say in November 2012.

There’s a strong popular will toward reforming the cannabis laws statewide, according to Kalamazoo defense attorney Louis Stocking, who ran the petition drive for that city’s successful citywide vote Tuesday to make enforcing the marijuana laws the lowest priority of police, reports Paula M. Davis at the Kalamazoo Gazette.

Following Michigan’s approval of medical marijuana in 2008, Tuesday’s ballot measure in Kalamazoo was “a way of keeping the tidal wave going,” Stocking sasid.

Chris Collins
Official media estimates of the crowd ran as high as 1,500, but according to activist Missy Griggs of Clinton Township, who attended the rally, it may have been closer to 3,000 or even 4,000 people there.

Greg Deruiter/Lansing State Journal
Protesters converged on the Michigan state Capitol on Wednesday because of a recent court decision banning the sale of medical marijuana in dispensaries

​​​About 1,500 supporters filled the Capitol lawn Wednesday afternoon at the state capitol in Lansing, carrying signs reading “Patients Are Not Criminals” and “Weed Deserve Better” in what is being called the largest pro-medical marijuana rally in Michigan.

What Marisa Schultz of The Detroit News called a “spirited gathering” came after an Appeals Court ruling last month that resulted in the closing of many of the state’s estimated 400 to 500 medical marijuana dispensaries.
The ruling banned patient-to-patient marijuana sales for the nearly 100,000 carriers of Michigan medical marijuana cards, effectively limiting the ways in which patients can get medical marijuana and leaving them with few safe options to get their doctor-recommended cannabis, according to supporters.

Photo: Holland Sentinel
Licensed medical marijuana growers in Michigan can call upon Michigan State University Extension personnel for advice

​Inquiries on how to cultivate marijuana have slightly increased in the past few years, according to Michigan State University Extension plant experts. MSU-E, mainly involved in more mainstream agricultural pursuits, is a resource for some medical cannabis suppliers looking for good information.

Having received about seven calls since medical marijuana became legal in Michigan, MSU-E senior educator Thomas Dudek said he tries to relay basic information on plant physiology to novice growers, reports Sara Qamar of Capital News Service.

Photo: 420 University
Ed Rosenthal will present “Let’s Get Growing,” a cultivation workshop, as part of 420 University’s seminar on compassionate care in July.

​Michigan’s growing medical marijuana industry will have available an instructional series of classes on compassionate care and the cultivation of cannabis at a July seminar.

On July 10 and 11, Kalamazoo, Mich., will host 420 University’s first-ever weekend seminar, with instruction from prominent industry educators including cannabinoid scholar Dr. Robert Melamede, who is CEO and president of Cannabis Science, Inc., and the celebrated Guru of Ganja, Ed Rosenthal of Quick Trading.
As students, professionals, and educators gather at 420 University for the inaugural weekend of training in compassionate care, experts like Rosenthal and Melamede will provide instruction on cannabinoid science, certification, cultivation, cooking, legal issues, and public policy. All full listing of course topics can be found at 420University.com.

Graphic: Cures Not Wars

​The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) is hailing the passage of another milestone for the Global Marijuana March, with Georgetown, Guyana and Ryebrook, N.Y., as the 299th and 300th cities holding a march, rally, forum or benefit on the weekends of Saturday, May 1 and May 8.

NORML and numerous other groups called for more cities this year to participate, so that organizers could meet and surpass their stated goal of more than 200 cities.
“Worldwide action is necessary for any outright legalization, since cannabis is largely prohibited globally by a United Nations treaty known as the Single Convention, enacted in 1962 through the efforts of top anti-cannabis zealot Harry Anslinger, the original instigator of U.S. cannabis prohibition in 1937,” said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of NORML.
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