Author Steve Elliott ~alapoet~

Did Pot Conviction Fuel Switch From Bachmann To Paul?

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 29, 2011 News

Iowa state Senator Kent Sorenson speaks at a rally for Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul on Wednesday at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines

People are talking about rats abandoning sinking ships. Michelle Bachmann’s Iowa Presidential campaign chairman has switched to rival Ron Paul’s political camp — and the switch could have been prompted by his conviction on a marijuana charge back when he was 20 years old.

Iowa state Senator Kent Sorenson‘s history was uncovered by the Des Moines Register last year when he was a candidate in Iowa’s 37th District campaign for the Legislature. The paper dug up the old marijuana conviction, reports Anissa Ford at Huliq.

Sorenson was snared in 1992 in a penny-ante undercover drug sting where he purchased one-eighth ounce of marijuana for $30 “with intent to deliver.” He was handed a six-month suspended sentence. He was also ordered to spend three to five days in jail for the misdemeanor offense, and had to pay a $300 fine.

My 86-Year-Old Mom Gave Me This Weed Piggy Bank For Xmas

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 28, 2011 Culture, News, Products

Ah, Christmas. It’s a great time to remind those for whom we care that we think about them all the time.

My 86-year-old mother did exactly that this season when she sent me, from Alabama, a weed piggy bank. Thanks for the assistance in financial planning, Mom!

R.I. House Speaker To Ask Feds For Marijuana Guidance

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 28, 2011 Dispensaries, Legislation, Medical

Steven Senne/AP

Rhode Island Speaker of the House Gordon D. Fox: “I think it’s been too long and there have been too many people waiting”

Rhode Island’s Legislature legalized medical marijuana back in 2006. Three years later, in 2009, the Legislature overrode a gubernatorial veto to allow medicinal cannabis dispensaries in the state with an overwhelming 68-0 vote in the House and 35-3 in the Senate.

That certainly seems clear enough, and it’s been a couple of years now. Haven’t they had time to get that program up and running for seriously ill patients? But, well, you know how silly the federal government can be, when it comes to that oh-so-dangerous boogie bear “marijuana.” It’s still against federal law, doncha know? So please don’t get any wacky ideas about the people trying to run things.

Michigan: ‘Suspicion-Based’ Drug-Testing For Welfare Is ‘Likely’

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 28, 2011 News

Jezebel

Want your welfare check? Whip it out, hippie.

It’s a popular strategy — blame and victimize the poorest and most vulnerable members of society, punishing them for an activity which all social classes engage in, by taking away what little they have.

Michigan’s Department of Human Services says it is still in the “early process” of developing drug-screening policies for welfare benefit recipients, but have said the plan is “feasible.”

Questions of when and how the policy will be implemented can’t be answered yet, according to DHS spokesman David Akerly.

Michigan Radio‘s Rick Pluta reported on Monday that it is “likely” that welfare recipients would receive the testing.

“DHS officials say they want the new policy to be part of an overhaul of the state’s welfare-to-work program in the spring of next year,” Pluta reported. “The department submitted a report with its recommendations to the Legislature earlier this month.”

Laundry Operator Sentenced To Death For Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 27, 2011 Global, News

Cracked

Hemp kills in Malaysia — because hemp rope is what they use to hang you.

A 39-year-old laundry operator in Malaysia was sentenced to death by the High Court there for “trafficking more than 1kg of cannabis last year.”

The prosecution had proven its case against Nazli Sahid Said “beyond reasonable doubt,” ruled Judicial Commissioner Datuk Zakiah Kassim, reports New Straits Times.

Malaysia, along with Vietnam, Indonesia, China and a handful of other Asian countries, has some of the harshest drug laws on Earth.

Mere possession of more than 200 grams of cannabis carries a mandatory death penalty by hanging in Malaysia.

Nazli, from Penang, Malaysia, was convicted of trafficking 1.06 kilograms of marijuana at Mergong, Alor Star at 10 p.m. on December 24, 2010.

Maine Criticizes ‘California Style’ Marijuana Dispensary

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 27, 2011 Dispensaries, News

Bangor Daily News

It’s often hard to know exactly what government bureaucrats want from medical marijuana dispensaries. Despite the fact that voters in 16 states (and the District of Columbia) have decided for themselves to allow the medicinal use of cannabis, it seems that stuffed-shirt anti-pot types always find objections to the existence of places where patients can actually, you know, get marijuana.

When the shops are quick-and-easy, in-and-out types of places where one just goes in, makes the donation or payment, and gets the medicine, they’re criticized as “drug dealers, not health establishments.” And when the dispensaries attempt — as is now the case in Maine — to offer additional services to their seriously ill patients, they’re told that isn’t OK, either.

A dispensary scheduled to open next month in Portland, Maine, is designed as a “California style” wellness center, promoting a free coffee and tea bar, acupuncture clinics, support groups, counseling and a “welcoming vapor lounge,” reports Tom Bell at the Portland Morning Sentinel.

Legalization Measure Splits Cannabis Supporters In Washington

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 27, 2011 Culture, Legislation, News

The Weed Blog

Marijuana advocates in Washington state have had a long, hard battle to get as far as they’ve come in the 13 years since voters legalized cannabis for medicinal uses back in 1998. But I-502, a new tax-and-regulate initiative — which appears to have enough signatures to be on the November 2012 ballot — is apparently not a banner under which all legalization proponents are willing to unite.

The widening schism in the Evergreen State’s pot community was on display recently when activists dressed in prison stripes were tossed out of Cataldo Hall at Gonzaga University in Spokane, reports Kevin Graman at The Spokesman-Review.

Travel writer and TV host Rick Steves was there to deliver a speech, and members of the November Coalition, a foundation opposing the Drug War, showed up to express opposition to Steves’ support for I-502.

Marijuana Crackdown Top Story Of The Year In Montana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 26, 2011 Legislation, Medical, News

KTVQ

The collapse of Montana’s once-booming medical marijuana industry after a conservative Republican-controlled Legislature all but shut the program down with tough restrictions — in addition to raids where federal agents hit dozens of providers — was Montana’s top news story of 2011, according to an annual member poll from The Associated Press.

It’s the second straight year medicinal cannabis has been chosen as the state’s top story, reports Matt Volz at the Great Falls Tribune. But a world of change has occurred in Montana’s medical marijuana scene since a year ago.

Increased Marijuana Enforcement Not Curtailing Usage: Report

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 26, 2011 Global, News

Nirvana Wellness Center

“…[T]he assumption that this approach reduces cannabis potency, increases price or meaningfully reduces cannabis availability and use is inconsistent with virtually all available data”

Throwing more and more money at anti-marijuana law enforcement does not meaningfully reduce the potency, or availability of cannabis and creates lucrative profit opportunities for organized crime, according to a new report by a group of marijuana policy advocates.

The report, “How Not To Protect Community Health and Safety: What the Government’s Own Data say about the Effects of Cannabis Production” [PDF] was released on last week, reports Tara Carman at the Vancouver Sun. It argues that marijuana should be regulated, taxed and sold under government oversight.

The paper, by Stop The Violence BC, a group of law enforcement and public health officials, politicians and academics which includes former Vancouver mayors Larry Campbell, Philip Owen and Sam Sullivan, as well as Dr. Julio Montaner, director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, and other prominent drug policy experts.

The report takes a new look at 20 years of data collected by the Canadian and United States governments and highlights what the authors say is the failure of marijuana prohibition to eliminate or even meaningfully reduce access to cannabis.

Mom Of 4 Reflects On First Year In Prison For Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 26, 2011 Culture, News

Tulsa World

Patricia Spottedcrow has served one year of her 12-year prison sentence for selling $31 worth of marijuana. In October, a local judge shaved four years off the sentence, leaving eight.

Patricia Spottedcrow, the Oklahoma mom who infamously was given 12 years in prison for selling $31 worth of marijuana, has now served one year of her draconian sentence.

One year ago, on the week of Christmas 2010, the first-time offender was thrown into the Eddie Warrior women’s prison in Taft, Okla., the first holiday she’d ever spent separated from her four young children, reports Ginnie Graham at the Tulsa World.

“I cried and cried just thinking of my kids opening presents on Christmas and I wasn’t there,” she said. “This year, it’s going to be any other day. I try not to keep up with the days in here.”

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