Search Results: schmidt (12)

Arrests for possession are ongoing even in legal states.

Here’s your daily round-up of pot-news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Download WeedWeek’s free 2016 election guide here.

A study from the ACLU and Human Rights Watch found that more people are arrested for pot possession in the U.S. than for all violent crimes combined. See the report here.
Arizona’s REC debate has led to questions about how drug smugglers would adapt. REC supporters say traffickers will lose business. Opponents say they’ll switch to selling heroin and crystal meth.

Update: In January, we reported about surveys being sent to prosecutors and law enforcement officials in Kansas by attorney general Derek Schmidt in an effort to determine how Colorado cannabis was negatively impacting the good people of that state; our previous coverage has been incorporated into this post.

Nine months later, Schmidt has delivered the fruit of this labor — “‘Legalization’ of Marijuana in Colorado: The Impact on Kansas,” a report on view below. And a summary of the results suggests that the quality of cannabis available in the state has improved significantly thanks to Kansas’s proximity to Colorado.


Late last week Oklahoma and Nebraska filed suit in the U.S. Supreme Court to halt Colorado’s implementation of Amendment 64. Basically, both states say they are tired of dealing with marijuana that crosses the border. In the suit, they claim that Colorado cannabis ties up law enforcement agencies and is wreaking havoc on police and state trooper budgets. And now it seems another neighbor to the east is mulling jumping on the bandwagon.
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt has been debating whether to sue Colorado for months, according to his staff. Jennifer Rapp, spokeswoman for Schmidt, told KMBC News that Schmidt is still “weighing his options.”
Our own William Breathes has the full story over at the Latest Word.

Michael Schmidt.

There hasn’t been a satisfying explanation as to why Michael Schmidt, a successful Dallas trial lawyer described by friends as a “good, good person,” barricaded himself in an Uptown apartment complex and opened fire on police while his 11-year-old daughter sat in his apartment. Probably, there never will be. But a list of the items found in Schmidt’s home obtained by WFAA offers … clues? Red herrings? A voyeuristic glimpse of an unsettled life?
Dallas Observer has more on this extremely strange, wild saga.

And they call marijuana the “dark side”.

An Oregon-based federal Drug Enforcement Agency agent skilled in wiretapping drug traffickers – including marijuana dealers – is now working in the medical marijuana industry as a financial consultant, the second of his colleagues to do so in recent years.
Patrick Moen worked for eight years for the DEA, but over the summer decided a switch to the “dark side” (as his former colleagues call it) when he realized the green was likely better. Money, that is.

flickr.com

Think two years in jail and four years on probation is too much for someone to spend in jail for growing medical cannabis? Of course you do, you have a heart and a brain.
But federal prosecutors in Montana feel differently, and are pushing to increase the sentences handed down by a District court judge earlier this spring on four medical cannabis growers, including a former University of Montana quarterback.

National Patients Rights Association

The National Patients Rights Association (NPRA), a Michigan-based alliance of leading medical marijuana advocates working to protect patient rights, on Wednesday announced strong opposition to proposed legislative changes to the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act it they said would would directly violate patients’ and caregivers’ civil and constitutional rights, privileges and protections.
Specifically, it opposes Michigan House Bill’s 4851, 4853, and 4856. The NPRA also strongly opposes HB 4834, which is sponsored by Gail Haines.
Under the proposed legislation, the most troubling, HB 4834, will allow officers or security personnel to easily gain access to the registry without a warrant, as is currently required. Patient and caregiver information would no longer be strictly confidential, and their private medical treatment choice will be available to a “near endless” list of authorized officials, according to the group, including security personnel or recreation officers hired by the state or local townships.

tilrc.org
Doesn’t care about patients: Sen. Vicki Schmidt (R-Topeka) said “I have no interest on hearing the bill”

​Even though a bill which would legalize the medical use of marijuana is now in both houses of the Kansas Legislature, lawmakers haven’t shown any interest in making it a law.

Sen. David Haley (D-Kansas City) introduced Senate Bill 354, the Cannabis Compassion and Care Act, during Monday’s session. It was referred to the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee, where it will likely sit without a hearing, reports Chris Hong at LJWorld.
“I have no interest on hearing the bill,” the arrogant and uncaring Sen. Vicki Schmidt (R-Topeka) said haughtily. Schmidt chairs the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee.

Photo: Mat Lemmon

​Be careful accepting a ride in a cop car, or you may end up in the back seat. A rural Nebraska man didn’t just catch a ride from a deputy — he caught a marijuana charge, too.

Just after midnight Sunday morning, a Buffalo County Sheriff’s deputy saw a 26-year-old Kearney man and a 20-year-old Lexington man walking north on Highway 10, around five miles north of Kearney, Nebraska, reports Kim Schmidt of the Kearney Hub. The 26-year-old man’s car had a flat tire.
The deputy offered the 26-year-old a ride to the man’s home about a mile north. Before allowing the guy into his cruiser, the deputy patted him down for security reasons.

Graphic: 420list.org

​About two dozen people rallied on the Washington state capitol steps on Tuesday, calling on Governor Christine Gregoire to approve a law licensing medical marijuana dispensaries and providing arrest protection for patients.

Controversy has erupted over the bill, already approved by both houses of the Legislature, since Gov. Gregoire threatened last week to veto it, claiming it could expose state workers to federal prosecution. State workers have never been prosecuted for licensing medical marijuana operations in any of the 15 states where medicinal cannabis is legal.
Protesters on Tuesday said if the governor vetoes SB 5073, it would show she is disrespecting the 1998 voter initiative that legalized medical marijuana in Washington, and that she is abandoning patients who rely on it, reports Katie Schmidt at The Tacoma News Tribune.
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