Author Steve Elliott ~alapoet~

Graphic: South Dakota Coalition for Compassion

​Encouraged by their near miss four years ago, medical marijuana supporters say they have a better chance this year to persuade South Dakotans to legalize the plant for treating pain, nausea and other health problems.

A similar measured failed in 2006, getting about 48 percent of the vote. It was the only time in American history that medical marijuana lost a statewide popular election.
But a coalition of patients, doctors, nurses and others will campaign this summer, explaining how marijuana can help people with serious illnesses, said organizer Emmett Reistroffer, reports Chet Brokaw of The Associated Press.
“We feel like once people learn about the therapeutic uses, they will compassionately support the measure,” Reistroffer said. “If we help them understand marijuana is a medicine, we think we’ll gain their votes.”

Photo: Big Island Video News
Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle: “Compassion centers” are an “insult,” because they are really “pot stores”

​During a recent speech before the Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce, Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle took a hardline stance against the recent legislative effort to legalize and establish medical marijuana dispensaries for the state’s patients.

Governor Lingle pointed to the situation in California, where she claimed marijuana dispensaries now “outnumber both McDonalds and Starbucks,” reports Baron Sekiya at Big Island Video News.
The hard-hearted governor said the term “compassion centers” given to these dispensaries is an “insult,” because in reality, she says, they are simply “pot stores.”
Lingle also claims that today’s marijuana, which she says is 26 percent THC, is far more potent than the herb which was around “when we were in college,” which she claimed ran 2 to 3 percent THC.

Photo: RBerteig
Los Angeles County D.A. Steve Cooley’s idea of a good time is to make fun of medical marijuana patients while getting drunk.

​Medical marijuana patients were among the punchlines at a rowdy roast last week honoring pot-hating Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley. There were plenty of gags involving Cooley’s crackdown on medical marijuana, with each guest receiving rolling papers in a package reading, “Cooley’s Collective.”

​Cooley, who apparently long ago gave up even the appearance of being fair and impartial when it comes to medical pot, evidently finds humor in the plight of Los Angeles patients who are facing  an uncertain future due to safe access being put in jeopardy because of his policies.
While Cooley and his cronies are quick to poke fun at marijuana users — even sick and dying medical marijuana patients — drinking must be OK.
After Cooley’s roast the top financial official in Los Angeles, Miguel Santana, was arrested in the San Gabriel Valley at 12:15 a.m., on his way home from the Cooley event, for drunk driving.


Graphic: SF Weekly

Medical marijuana is coming to South Park.

Cartman’s favorite restaurant has been shut down and a store selling medicinal marijuana moves in, on an all-new episode of South Park titled “Medicinal Fried Chicken,” premiering Wednesday, March 31 at 10 p.m. on Comedy Central.
State law in Colorado says it’s legal to smoke weed if you have a doctor’s recommendation. Randy is the first in line to buy some, but he’s turned away because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with him.

Photo: Leah Nash
Paul Stanford, director, The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation (THCF), with a few close friends



“Freedom of consciousness and thought should be a fundamental liberty, yet this is what truly frightens those who favor the drug war. Cannabis is a powerful tool in exploring consciousness and reality, one that is healthy and safe for the vast majority. Those who would punish and imprison us for cannabis have been lied to and misled. Our task is to educate them with truth and love.”

Photo: Marcel van den Bergh/de Volkskrant
Customers queue up to place their cannabis orders at Coffeeshop Checkpoint

​A Dutch court fined the owner of the Netherlands’ largest marijuana-dispensing “coffee shop” 10 million euros Thursday, after police seized more than 200 kilograms of cannabis on the premises.

According to the court, the owner of Coffeeshop Checkpoint would have had to pay a larger penalty if it had not been for the role of the local government.
“Checkpoint could not have expanded as much as it did without collaboration from the municipality of Terneuzen,” near the Belgian border, the court said.

Photo: Robert Sciarrino/The Star-Ledger
John Ray Wilson, a multiple sclerosis patient, is led out of Superior Court after being sentenced to five years in prison for marijuana.

​Two New Jersey lawmakers called on Gov. Chris Christie Wednesday to pardon a man sentenced to five years in prison for growing marijuana to treat his multiple sclerosis.

Senators Raymond Lesniak (D-Union) and Nicholas Scutari (D-Union) asked the governor to commute John Ray Wilson’s sentence to probation, reports James Queally at The Star-Ledger.
The senators called the prison term facing Wilson as “cruel, unusual and unnecessary” in a letter written to the governor March 24. Wilson, 37, of Franklin Township, N.J., was sentenced to prison after he was found guilty of second-degree “marijuana manufacturing” and third-degree drug possession by a jury in December.

Photo: Alejandro Bringas/Reuters
Mexican soldiers stand at attention, desperately trying to maintain a “military bearing” as the intoxicating smoke from bales of marijuana being burned billows over them

​Here’s a role reversal for you. Mexico is irritated at the United States for undercutting the Drug War.

As more U.S. states legalize medical marijuana, Mexican Secretary of Interior Fernando Gómez Mont is whining that the American medical marijuana trend is “worrisome” and that it “complicates in a grave way” Mexico’s battle against violent drug cartels.
When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week led a high-level U.S. delegation to Mexico to discuss strategies to counter drug trafficking, the issue came to a head, reports Tim Johnson in The Sacramento Bee.


Photo: Eugene Davidovich
Medical marijuana patient, provider and activist Eugene Davidovich was victorious in court today.

​San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis’s war on medical marijuana patients and providers suffered another crushing defeat Thursday afternoon, as activist Eugene Davidovich was acquitted by a jury of all charges stemming from his arrest last year as part of Operation Endless Summer.

Davidovich was facing four felony charges and the very real possibility of a long prison sentence.

A Navy veteran with an honorable discharge, Davidovich started a legal medical marijuana collective in San Diego, carefully abiding by state law.
Eugene was arrested in February 2009 by San Diego narcotics officers for providing another legal patient with medical marijuana.
He told Toke of the Town that the chief investigative officer in his case testified on the stand that the officer based his expert testimony on “medical marijuana training” on a handout from something called the Narcotic Educational Foundation of America, “Drug Abuse Education Provider of the California Narcotic Officers’ Association.”
In these “training” materials, titled Use of Marijuana As A “Medicine” (PDF) (the quotes are theirs), we learn immediately — in the first sentence! — how these guys roll.
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