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Last year, then-eleven-year-old Colorado resident and medical marijuana patient Alexis Bortell joined other plaintiffs in a lawsuit against pot-hating Attorney General Jeff Sessions over federal scheduling of cannabis. Yesterday, February 26, a judge with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the suit, but Bortell, now twelve, wasn’t distressed. Shortly after the news went public, a post appeared on her Facebook page reading, “We were ready. Smile. We know #SCOTUS [Supreme Court of the United States] is where we are probably going.”

The note ended with the hashtags #IStandWithAlexis and #AlexisBortell.

Among those at the center of an unprecedented lawsuit filed against Attorney General Jeff Sessions over federal scheduling of marijuana is Alexis Bortell, eleven, who had to move with her family from Texas to the Colorado community of Larkspur in order to legally use medical cannabis, which has eliminated the epileptic seizures she regularly suffered. She represents a group of patients that her lawyer, Michael Hiller, describes as “medical marijuana refugees.”

Twitter/@Gabo_Rojas_N

British F-1 racing team McLaren caused a small political rift over the weekend in Austin after Mexican flags altered to include cannabis leaves were flown over the team’s merch stalls at a race in Austin, Texas.
It probably wouldn’t have been so bad had members of the Mexican consulate’s office not seen it and tweeted it out to the interwebz. The consulate said they were highly offended called the mistake “unacceptable”.

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According to bystanders, the man pictured at right allegedly used the sign he is holding in the photo to strike a pro-marijuana protester in the head. Police refused to do anything about the incident, smilingly saying it “looked like an accident.”

A violent attack by an anti-marijuana individual on a pro-marijuana protester at a medical cannabis rally in Michigan last week was ignored and laughed off by police who saw the incident, according to eyewitnesses.

The attack, which occurred at the medical marijuana rally at the state capitol in Lansing on Wednesday, happened to medical marijuana patient/activist “J.,” according to eyewitnesses.
“He got smacked in the head (purposely) by the guy with the ‘Say No To A Pothead Society’ sign and told he ‘could now go to hell,’ ” activist Zig Zag Man wrote in a Facebook note.
“J. had his sign raised higher than the idiot and when J. put his sign down to rest (sort of heavy), the anti-pothead swung his sign and hit J. in the face and twisted his head out of his normal ‘range of motion’ with the titanium plate holding his neck to his spine (he even had his neck brace on),” Zig Zag Man wrote.
“J. got over to the cop (adrenalin rush) and said ‘I want him arrested for assault,’ and the cop smiled and said, ‘Looked like an accident to me!’ “

Photo: Fred Beckham/AP
Basketball star Jamal Coombs-McDaniels of the national champion UConn Huskies was arrested Thursday night for marijuana possession

​Seems it’s time to go through the old routine again. You know — the one where mainstream sports commentators express “surprise” and “disappointment.” Jamal Coombs-McDaniel, a star on the University of Connecticut’s national championship basketball team, has been arrested for marijuana possession.

When will they get it? Athletes, like people in every other walk of life, choose to use marijuana — and life goes on.

Campus police say the sophomore from Dorchester, Massachusetts was arrested at 10:23 Thursday night along with two other people at Merritt Hall, a UConn campus dormitory, reports Pat Eaton-Robb of The Associated Press.
Officers responded to Hilltop Apartments for a “narcotics complaint,” reports Brian Zahn of The Daily Campus, an independent UConn newspaper.
“During the course of the investigation, officers found Jamal Coombs-McDaniel and two other individuals in possession of 5.6 grams of marijuana, a marijuana grinder and a package of cigars used to smoke marijuana,” the police report drily noted.
Coombs-McDaniel was charged with marijuana possession and drug paraphernalia possession. He was released on a $500 non-surety bond and is scheduled to appear in Rockville Superior Court on May 5. Also arrested were Shakwaan Simpkins and Stanley Winn, both 19 and both of Boston.

Photo: Daylife
Delegate Mike McDermott (R-Worcester) would allow patients to inject — but not smoke — marijuana.

​“No man’s life, liberty or happiness are safe while Congress is in session,” Mark Twain once famously said, and much the same could be said of the Maryland Legislature. A Republican delegate has now filed an amendment to Maryland’s proposed medical marijuana law which would allow patients to inject — but not to smoke — cannabis.

Never mind that marijuana’s not water soluble, and never mind that smoking — while not an ideal form of administration — is a LOT safer than injecting. That’s the kind of silliness you get when you have politicians writing rules for medicine.
Delegate Mike McDermott’s amendment, if added, would require anyone with an medical marijuana authorization from a doctor to consume it through vaporization, ingestion or injection — but smoking it would still be against the law.
“With the amendment, it becomes a medical issue entirely, but I can’t vote for it in the present form,” the clueless McDermott said, reports Jennifer Shutt at Delmarva Now.
The bill, with or without McDermott’s amendment, is deeply flawed. It would make marijuana a Schedule II controlled substance and allow it to be prescribed by doctors in certain cases — but since it only changes that rule at the state level, any doctor prescribing marijuana would be subject to losing his license, since cannabis is still considered Schedule I (no medical value and high potential for abuse) at the federal level.

Photo: MyFoxMaine
Starting January 1, medical marijuana patients in Maine are required by law to register with the state.

​More than 400 residents of Maine have applied to be medical marijuana patients under a new state law. Starting January 1, Mainers must be registered with the state before legally using cannabis medicinally.

For the past decade in Maine, ever since voters approved medical marijuana in 1999, patients had needed only a doctor’s authorization to use cannabis medicinally.
Applications flooded into the Maine Department of Health and Human Services in the final days and weeks of 2010, with hundreds more expected in the next several weeks, reports John Richardson at The Portland Press Herald. State officials said that expect to register 1,200 or more patients by the time the initial rush is over this spring.
“Everybody’s coming in at the last minute,” said Catherine Cobb, director of licensing and regulatory services for the health department. “We’ve been hammered.”

Graphic: Maine Marijuana Policy Initiative
About 100 of the state’s 500 caregivers have already joined the Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine trade group.

​Medical marijuana patients looking for information about the state’s new dispensary law, or checking out options on getting their medicine have a new resource: the Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine, a trade association that plans to adopt cultivation standards, keep prices low and advocate for safe access in the Legislature.

None of Maine’s eight licensed dispensaries has opened yet, reports Susan Sharon at The Maine Public Broadcasting Network. But according to the Department of Health and Human Services, about 100 medical marijuana patients have registered with the state and another 100 are in the process.
Hundreds more patients are expected to sign up by year-end, according to Jonathan Leavitt, board chairman of Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine.
“Realistically the number probably is somewhere between 750 to 1,250 qualified patients in this state,” Leavitt said. “And I think those numbers will bear out by the end of the year when people are actually required to register.”
Many patients will soon access their medicinal cannabis at one of the eight new dispensaries allowed after Maine voters expanded the state’s decade-old medical marijuana law. But for those who prefer anonymity, getting marijuana through a licensed caregiver is another option.

Photo: daylife
Michele Leonhart, deputy administrator of the DEA, is a Bush-era drug warrior who has overseen raids of legal medical marijuana dispensaries — yet Obama wants to keep her on.

​It often seems as if cannabis activists can’t agree on a lot of things. But one thing they all seem to agree upon is that President Obama should rescind the nomination of Bush holdover Michele Leonhart to head the Drug Enforcement Administration.

A number of progressive groups released a letter last month accusing Leonhart, a deputy administrator appointed by President George W. Bush and the acting administrator since Karen P. Tandy’s resignation in 2007, of ignoring a Justice Department directive that raiding dispensaries and growers operating legally in medical marijuana states is a “poor use of resources.”
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