Search Results: norml/ (13)

Photo: The Vaults of Erowid
Harry J. Anslinger is responsible for both the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act, effectively outlawing cannabis in the U.S., and the 1961 Single Convention Treaty on Narcotic Drugs, which outlawed weed worldwide and is still in effect.

​​Today, March 30, 2011, marks an unhappy birthday. Fifty years ago, marijuana became illegal worldwide.

The Single Convention Treaty on Narcotic Drugs, which started the international policy of cannabis prohibition, was signed on this day in 1961. In accordance with the treaty, marijuana is still illegal in every country on Earth — including the Netherlands, where laws remain on the books despite official policy “tolerating” its use.

The Single Convention Treaty was the handiwork of the powerful ex-director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Anslinger, architect of the first federal cannabis prohibition law, the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act.
“Anslinger had pushed for a treaty against cannabis in order to shore up the act’s dubious constitutionality under U.S. law,” said Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML. (The act was later declared unconstitutional for other reasons, only to be supplanted by the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, which kicked off Nixon’s War On Drugs.)
“Today, the international treaty stands as the principal cause of prohibition-related crime and violence worldwide with drug wars from Mexico to Afghanistan plus the criminalization of millions of users,” Gieringer said.

Photo: Voice It Out
Seattle Police officers knocked a legal patient’s door down, charged in brandishing machine guns, and forced him face down to the floor. He had two legal plants.

​Seattle Police officers brandishing submachine guns broke down the door of a 50-year-old medical marijuana patient Monday night and pushed him face down to the floor. His offense? He was legally growing two tiny cannabis plants.

Will Laudanski, a military veteran who was an Airborne Ranger in Desert Shield, wasn’t even breaking the law. As an authorized medical marijuana patient in the state of Washington, he’s allowed to grow up to 15 plants and possess 24 ounces of cannabis.
But Seattle Police have shown they are willing to treat the smallest of pot cases — even in cases where the marijuana is legal — as if they were raiding the biggest crack house or meth lab in town.
Just before 9 p.m. Monday officers at SPD’s East Precinct held a briefing about a complaint of marijuana at a four-unit apartment building in the Leschi neighborhood, reports Dominic Holden at The Stranger.

Photo: David Large, Otago University Student Magazine
Otago University students protest New Zealand’s cannabis laws

​Phil Saxby, president of NORML New Zealand, on Monday welcomed the New Zealand Medical Association’s stance on cannabis for medicinal use, and called upon the government to adopt the same sensible position.

“The NZMA has said that it supports a Law Commission proposal which allows patients to use cannabis under medical supervision,” Saxby said, reports Voxy. “NORML has supported medicinal use for a long time.”
The Law Commission has also proposed that medical cannabis growers should be licensed in the same way as other legitimate producers of controlled drugs, Saxby pointed out.