Author Steve Elliott ~alapoet~

Houston Cops Accused Of Eating Evidence In Pot Case

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 27, 2011 News

Three members of the Houston Police Department are accused of eating some marijuana brownies they had seized in a drug raid, according to court documents. It seems two of the stoned officers implicated themselves with a series of very high computer messages.

A narcotics complaint was phoned in to the Kingwood Patrol of HPD in Houston, Texas, around 10 or 11 at night back in May, reports John Nova Lomax at the Houston Press. At least three officers who responded to an apartment said they could smell burning marijuana all the way out in the parking lot.

NYC Elected Officials Applaud Change In Marijuana Policy

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 27, 2011 News

The Weed Blog

Assemblyman and Council Members to Join Advocates In Front of Police Headquarters to Applaud Change in Policy for Marijuana Arrests

Elected Officials Continue Push to Standardize Penalties for Marijuana Possession Offenses

Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito and Council Member Jumaane D. Williams, will be joined by advocates from the Institute for Juvenile Justice Reform and Alternatives, VOCAL NY, and the Drug Policy Alliance, in front of One Police Plaza on Tuesday, September 27 at 1:30 p.m. to celebrate an internal order issued by NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly to all precinct commanding officers to stop arresting New Yorkers for small quantities of marijuana, if the cannabis was not in plain view.

Army Accidentally Drops Soldiers Into Afghani Marijuana Field

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 26, 2011 Global, Growing, News

James Foley/Global Post

US soldiers try to avoid improvised explosive devices (IEDs) as they make their way through thick marijuana fields

Some American soldiers got an unexpectedly scenic mission in Afghanistan recently when their Chinook helicopters discharged them into the middle of a marijuana field.

Laura Rauch at Stars and Stripes reports that the mission for soldiers with Company C and the Scout Platoon, 1st Battalion, 32nd Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division was to cut off enemy access and supply routes.

When the Chinooks landed, a “heavy earthy scent wafted through the cabin.” This wasn’t the dry riverbed the soldiers had been expecting, but instead the ground was moist and slippery from irrigation canals. When they adjusted their night-vision goggles, the soldiers realized they had been dropped into a “massive old-growth marijuana plantation,” about a quarter-mile west of their intended landing zone.

Czech Republic Moves To Legalize Medical Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 26, 2011 Global, Medical

The Weed Blog

The Czech Ministry of Health has said it will take marijuana off the list of banned substances and for the first time allow it to be prescribed as medicine by doctors.

“By the end of this year we will submit to Parliament an amended law on addictive substances which will move marihuana from the list of banned substances to the list of those which can be prescribed,” Deputy Health Minister Martin Plíšek said, reports Chris Johnstone at CzechPosition.com.

The promised policy change comes after increasing evidence of marijuana’s beneficial effects for those suffering from cancer, Parkinson’s disease and other illnesses, CzechPosition reports. More and more Czechs are growing cannabis and resorting to home remedies due to the existing ban on its prescription, according to the site.

Marijuana Has Positive Effect On Crohn’s Disease: Study

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 26, 2011 Medical, News

Wish I Didn’t Know

Cannabis may have a positive effect on disease activity in Crohn’s disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease, according to a new observational study at Tel Aviv University, Israel.

In the study, disease activity, use of medication, need for surgery, and hospitalization before and after cannabis use were examined in 30 patients, reports the International Association for Cannabis Medicines (IACM). Disease activity was assessed by the Harvey Bradshaw index for Crohn’s disease.

The indication for cannabis use was lack of response to conventional treatment in 21 patients and chronic intractable pain in six. Another four patients used cannabis for recreational purposes and continued as they observed an improvement in their medical condition.

‘An Exceptional Victory’: NYPD Marijuana Policy Change

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

Notes From The Psychedelic Salon

Ethan Nadelmann, executive director, Drug Policy Alliance: “It’s evidence that collectively, activists and community leaders and academics and elected officals can really transform a policy. “

Ethan Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, spoke with the Village Voice (owned by the same parent company as Toke of the Town) after the stunning news that the NYPD has suddenly reversed course and announced that it will follow the law and stop arresting New Yorkers for low level marijuana possession that is not in public view.

“At first, I was suspicious,” Nadelmann said. “Is this really what it says it is? And when I read it closely, it looks like it really is a change in policy. That [Commissioner] Kelly is telling the police to stop arresting people when marijuana pops up in somebody’s pocket in a search. And that’s a big change.”

Nadelmann called the NYPD policy change — in which the department agrees to finally, actually follow New York state’s marijuana decriminalization law, passed 34 years ago in 1977 — “an exceptional victory.”

“It’s evidence that collectively, activists and community leaders and academics and elected officials can really transform a policy,” Nadelmann said.

How Accurate Is Cannabis Testing? Ring Test Assesses Labs

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 26, 2011 Dispensaries, Products

The Weed Blog

Mixed Findings Show Strengths and Problems Among Analytic Testing Services

How accurate is cannabis potency testing? California NORML and Project CBD have released the results of their first “Ring Test” to assess the accuracy of analytical laboratories.

In the winter of 2010-2011, California NORML and Project CBD initiated a “Ring Test” to assess the accuracy of the numerous analytical cannabis testing laboratories that have recently emerged to serve medical marijuana dispensaries, breeders, growers and patients.

Results of the study, coauthored by California NORML Director Dale Gieringer and Dutch scientist Dr. Arno Hazekamp, are reported in the Autumn 2011 issue of O’Shaughnessy’s, the Journal of Cannabis In Clinical Practice [PDF].

Federal Medical Marijuana Patient To Appear In Norfolk, Va.

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 26, 2011 Culture, Medical, Products

Irv Rosenfeld

Federal medical marijuana patient Irv Rosenfeld with a tin of federal U.S. government joints. He receives 300 joints a month from the federal government.

Whenever you hear anyone in the federal government, from the President to the Drug Czar down to the most insignificant bureaucrat, saying that cannabis has no medicinal value, remember that the federal government has been giving out free medical marijuana for almost 30 years.

Irvin Rosenfeld is the longest surviving of the four remaining federal medical marijuana patients in the United States. The Compassionate Investigative New Drug program hasn’t accepted any new patients since the first Bush administration, due to political pressure.

A native of Portsmouth, Virginia who now lives in Florida, Rosenfeld has been smoking 10 to 12 joints of cannabis a day for more than 28 years — a total of more than 123,000 joints.

Rosenfeld uses medical marijuana to treat a severe bone disorder called multiple congenital cartilaginous exostosis and a variant of the syndrome pseudo pseudo hypothyroidism. Irv has bone tumors on the ends of most long bones of his body.

Commissioner Directs NYPD To Stop Improper Marijuana Arrests

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 23, 2011 News

Thee Rant

Ray Kelly, NYPD Commissioner, has responded to public pressure and ordered his officers not to arrest people for marijuana if it’s not in plain sight. New York City police officers obeying the law? What a concept!

Responding to Public Pressure, Police Ordered To Not Arrest People if Marijuana Not in Plain View

Advocates Applaud New Directive, Which Could End Tens of Thousands of Illegal Arrests

Could the New York City Police Department finally be onboard with marijuana decrim, 34 years later?

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly issued an internal order this week commanding officers to follow existing New York state law by ending arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana – as long as the marijuana was never in public view. The order does not change the law itself, but simply instructs officers to comport with the law. This could result in tens of thousands fewer marijuana arrests annually in New York City.

Medical Marijuana Patient Rights On The Line In California

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 23, 2011 Dispensaries, Medical, News

Joe Grumbine

Joe Grumbine and The Human Solution supporter Daryl Hannah sport their green Solidarity Ribbons to represent medical marijuana patients

The rights of medical marijuana patients and providers to have safe access to cannabis — approved by California voters 15 years ago, but still opposed by reactionary elements in law enforcement — are on the line in California in a closely watched court case in Long Beach Superior Court.

The People of the State of California vs Joe Byron and Joe Grumbine is the name of the case, and it pits the notoriously anti-marijuana Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve “Hot Dog” Cooley against Long Beach collective owner Joe Byron and collective operator and marijuana activist Joe Grumbine, both of whom refused to bow down to the same old, same old practice of repression and fear.

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