Yearly Archives: 2011

Ohio Could Get Chance To Decide On Medical Marijuana In 2012

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on November 8, 2011 Legislation, Medical, News

Ohioans could grow and use marijuana for medicinal purposes under a state constitutional amendment voters may get the chance to consider in 2012.

The Ohio Alternative Treatment Act recently cleared initial hurdles to allow supporters to start getting more than 385,000 signatures required to place the issue on the November 2012 general election ballot, reports Evan Bevins at The Marietta Times.

The amendment would allow medical practitioners in a “bona fide practitioner-patient relationship” to recommend marijuana for qualifying medical conditions including cancer, AIDS, Parkinsson’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder and other diseases, conditions or treatments that produce severe nausea, pain or muscle spasms.

Show Me Cannabis: MO May Vote On Marijuana Legalization In 2012

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on November 8, 2011 Legislation, News

Riverfront Times

A Missouri group has won approval to start circulating petitions to legalize marijuana in the state of Missouri.

Secretary of State Robin Carnahan on Monday gave the Columbia-based group Show-Me Cannabis the go-ahead to begin circulating two ballot referendum petitions that, if successful, would make marijuana use legal for all state residents 21 and older, and make Missouri’s laws the most relaxed in the country, reports Chad Garrison at Riverfront Times.

One petition would amend the Missouri Constitution to legalize cannabis, allow doctors to recommend the medicinal use of marijuana and release prison inmates convicted of nonviolent pot offenses, reports The Associated Press. It would also allow the Legislature to enact a marijuana tax of up to $100 per pound.

Worth Repeating: Reasons Obama Will Shut Down Medical Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on November 7, 2011 Dispensaries, Legislation, Medical

Medical marijuana advocates protest outside the U.S. Attorney’s office in Sacramento on October 7 as officials inside held a press conference on their plans to crack down on medical marijuana dispensaries in California

Welcome to Room 420, where your instructor is Mr. Ron Marczyk and your subjects are wellness, disease prevention, self actualization, and chillin’.

Worth Repeating

By Ron Marczyk, R.N.

Health Education Teacher (Retired)

Once again, you are witnessing medical cannabis history. Starting with California, and then nationwide, Obama’s goal is to shut down every state’s medical cannabis care facilities across the country.

So far, President Obama’s cannabis policy appears to be the “shut them up, and shut them down” strategy.

Why? Because medical cannabis culture is winning! The 75-year-old war on cannabis is a failure and is over and cannabis has won the day! Straight up. How unhinged are they? Our freedom of the press is also being threatened.

Federal Marijuana Patient To Tour Colorado Nov. 16-20

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on November 7, 2011 Culture, Medical, Products

Robin Twomey

Irv Rosenfeld has received 300 joints a month from the U.S. federal government for 29 years.

The federal government of the United States has been telling its citizens for years that marijuana has no medical value. And the federal government is lying — according to the federal government.

It’s enough to make your head explode, but that’s the way things are in Drug War America. A handful of seriously ill patients have received free medical marijuana from the U.S. federal government for almost 30 years, even as that same government says cannabis is a Schedule I drug with a high potential for abuse and no known medicinal applications.

The existence of Irvin Rosenfeld and the other three surviving federal medical marijuana patients in the U.S. puts the lie to the official government position. These patients are part of the Compassionate Investigative New Drug program, which unfortunately hasn’t accepted any new enrollees since the first Bush Administration, due to political pressure.

Portsmouth, Virginia native Rosenfeld, who now lives in Florida, has been smoking 10 to 12 joints of marijuana every day for more than 28 years — a grand total of more than 123,000 joints. But rather than adopting the attitude of “I got mine” and being afraid to speak out for the rights of other patients, Irv — who uses marijuana to treat severe bone disorder called multiple congenital cartilaginous exostosis — has bravely chosen the path of public advocacy.

U.S. Secretly Sends DEA Commandos Across Latin America

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on November 7, 2011 Global, News

Chronic Candy

The United States has been secretly deploying Drug Enforcement Administration commando squads across Latin America and the Caribbean in recent years, The New York Times revealed on Monday. The five commando units have reportedly been used in Haiti, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Belize.

The DEA commando program began under President George W. Bush, supposedly as part of the “war on terror,” and has been continued under the Obama Administration. But according to the New York Times article by Charlie Savage, the Administration has expanded the operations “far beyond the war zone.”

Medical Marijuana Supporters To Rally Against DOJ Attacks

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on November 7, 2011 Dispensaries, News

I And I Rootz

Americans for Safe Access (ASA) and a coalition of advocacy and labor groups are staging a demonstration at noon in Sacramento on Wednesday, November 9 to protest the federal government’s escalated attack on California’s medical marijuana laws.

A lively rally of medical marijuana patients and supporters is set to occur in front of the Sacramento federal building and will feature state legislators, advocates, labor and dispensary operators impacted by the recent Department of Justice (DOJ) crackdown in California.

Coalition Sues Feds, Seeks Halt To Medical Cannabis Crackdown

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on November 6, 2011 Dispensaries, Legislation, News

Melissa Barnes/ABA Journal

San Francisco attorney Matt Kumin: “This is a multi pronged, organized effort to get into court and to send a message to the federal government that we need to stop the aggression and sit down and talk reasonably about these issues”

Lawyers for a growing coalition of Californians including patients, property owners and medical cannabis cooperatives — who suddenly find themselves under attack by the state’s four U.S. Attorneys — will file suit against the federal government, seeking an immediate halt to a statewide crackdown.

The lawsuit will be brought simultaneously in each of the four federal districts in California – San Francisco (Northern), Sacramento (Eastern), Los Angeles (Central) and San Diego (Southern) – where U.S. Attorneys have threatened criminal prosecution of both tenants and landlords where medical cannabis dispensaries exist.

The four U.S. Attorneys have also threatened the landlords with forfeiture of their properties.

A press conference will be held in San Francisco Monday morning to announce the lawsuit.

The lawsuit will seek an immediate order from a federal judge to stop the crackdown on cooperatives, property owners and businesses that support them. (Americans for Safe Access also filed suit last month against the federal government, but did not seek an immediate restraining order.)

“This is multipronged, organized effort to get into court and to send a message to the federal government that we need to stop the aggression and sit down and talk reasonably about these issues,” said San Francisco attorney Matt Kumin, one of the lawyers bringing the federal suit forward.

Tell Me I’m Wrong And Our Government Doesn’t Hate Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on November 4, 2011 Culture, Dispensaries

Missoula Independent

By Jack Rikess

Toke of the Town

Northern California Correspondent

Many activists are trying to make sense concerning the government’s latest crackdown on medical marijuana. Every other day a 420-friendly bank that does commerce with anyone in the cannabis industry is told to expect heavy audits and loss of deeds unless they join the economic stranglehold on this business the Feds do not approve of. Dispensaries that have operated flawlessly and with the support of the community are being closed by bogus, yet written-in-the-books, zoning laws.

People are losing money trying to stay afloat and to see if it is possible to weather the Fed
s’ stormtrooper tactics. Many are pulling up roots and moving on because the Feds seem to have endless cash when it comes to harassment and bullying tactics.

Stoner Cinema: Welcome To Dopeland Hits The Spot

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on November 4, 2011 Culture, Products

Welcome To Dopeland

Talk about timely. Welcome To Dopeland, a small, weird, dark, quirky independent comedy containing some great big ideas, examines the theme of how corporate greed, control and denial continue even in the face of an apocalypse.

The movie, which came out last year with its original title, Everything Must Go, is like a Cheech and Chong road movie crossed with Dr. Strangelove. Two slackers, Mac (Jake Lyall) and Bobby (Ross Turner) are headed for trouble on a quest for drugs after Mac has a really bad day, getting fired from his job and losing his girlfriend.

When Mac asks Bobby to help him find some OxyContin, a string of comic screw-ups ensues, but the comedy turns scary as the biggest screw-up of all — the end of the world — threatens everyone’s capacity for denial.

It’s a buddy movie of sorts, and the interaction between Mac and Bobby is consistently entertaining; both Lyall and Turner are gifted actors, with Turner’s very funny and touching performance, especially, deserving a lot more recognition than it’s gotten.

Eating Disorders Tied To Absence Of Cannabinoids

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on November 4, 2011 Medical, News

Wiki Noticia

New research suggests that deficits in endocannabinoids — the body’s own substances like those found in marijuana — may contribute to anorexia nervosa and bulimia.

Endocannabinoids are made by the brain, and they affect brain function and chemistry in ways that resemble the effects of cannabis. Marijuana, when used both medicinally and recreationally, is well known to influence appetite, i.e., causing hunger or the “munchies.”

Therefore, deficits in the endocannabinoid system would logically be associated with reduced appetite, reports Rick Nauert, Ph.D., at PsychCentral.

In the new study, reported in Biological Psychiatry, scientists measured the status of the endocannabinoid system indirectly by finding whether there was an increase or decrease in the density of endocannabinoid receptors called the CB1 receptor.

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