Author Steve Elliott ~alapoet~

Connecticut Voters Heavily Back Medical Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 21, 2012 Medical, News

An overwhelming 68 percent of Connecticut voters support a proposal to allow adults to use marijuana for medical purposes with a doctor’s recommendation, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday. Only 27 percent oppose the plan.

There is no gender, partisan group, income, age or education group in Connecticut of which a majority opposed medical marijuana, according to the poll.

“Medical marijuana is supported by Connecticut voters across the board,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D.

The group which most heavily supported medical marijuana was self-identified liberals, with 82 percent favoring. The lowest levels of support were found among self-identified Republicans and conservatives, with 51 percent of each of those groups supporting medicinal cannabis. Seventy-five percent of Democrats supported medical marijuana.

Call Butte County DA To Protest Legal Abuse Of Patient/Parents

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 20, 2012 Medical, News

Moms For Marijuana

Call To Action

Wednesday, March 21

11 a.m. Pacific

Butte County, California Assistant District Attorney Jeff Greeson thinks he can take children away from their parents — just because the parents are legal medical marijuana patients. Assistant D.A. Greeson this week refiled felony child abuse and misdemeanor child endangerment charges against a mother of two nursing children who were three weeks old and 15 months old at the time they were taken.

Daisy’s three-week-old baby was literally ripped from her arms by county officials representing Child Protective Services (CPS) and the District Attorney’s office for no better reason than that Daisy and her husband, Jayme Walsh, are medical cannabis patients (www.freemybabies.org).

Manufacturing A Crisis: Stoned Driving ‘Epidemic’? Please.

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 20, 2012 Legislation, News

West Coast Leaf

Crisis? What crisis?

It was bound to happen once marijuana legalization started looking like a real possibility. The prohibitionists and the drug warriors never go down without a fight; they always find an angle. This time, as at least two states — Colorado and Washington — are looking at legalization measures on November’s ballot, the new bugaboo is driving while high.

Nobody’s sure how to solve the question of when someone is just too stoned to drive, but that doesn’t keep plenty of people from offering “solutions” to the “problem” — which is now graduating from “just” a problem, thanks to sensationalist mainstream press coverage, and becoming an “epidemic” or even a “crisis.”

S.F. Health Dept. Recommends Dispensaries Ditch Concentrates

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 20, 2012 Dispensaries, Medical, News

Elemental Wellness

Concentrates like this Headband Wax aren’t exactly “banned” under a new Department of Public Health memo. But DPH “recommends” that the dispensaries “not produce or dispense” them. WTF?

There’s no enforcement mechanism and it’s not a “ban,” says the San Francisco Department of Health. But nonetheless, a memo released to several dispensaries recommends that medical marijuana dispensaries in the city stop selling cannabis concentrates.

Under the heading “Medical Cannabis Edibles Advisory,” DPH, the department which regulates San Francisco’s 21 dispensaries, recommends the collectives “do not produce or dispense syrups, capsules, or other extracts that either required concentrating cannabis ingredients or that requires a chemical production process,” reports Chris Roberts at SF Weekly.

I Know Why Mitch McConnell Lies! Or, Cannabis Is The New Black

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 19, 2012 Culture

Yikes!

By Jack Rikess

Toke of the Town

Northern California Correspondent

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told a constituent in favor of legalizing marijuana that he doesn’t support the idea because drugs like pot lead to death.

Mitch McConnell lies about marijuana because he forgot how to tell the truth. Working for the Tobacco Industry since you were a pup politician will do that to you.

You can tell how out of touch a person is by the archaic issues they’ve raised. Mitch feels comfortable going with the baseless lie that cannabis kills. Hey Mitch, as long as you’re living in the 1950s, why don’t you go after comic books and rock ‘n’ roll too, while you’re at it?!

A little hint: Today’s fear mongers are finding success with the more robust and contemporary propaganda themes like “Kid Brings Magic Brownies to Preschool” and “Are Stoner Drivers the Death of Us All?” to keep the Reefer Madness alive.

U.S. Says St. Vincent Is Caribbean’s Top Marijuana Source

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 19, 2012 Global, Growing, News

Travelvice

Big marijuana farms, like the one visible at the center of this photo, are common in St. Vincent.

The United States claims that the archipelagic nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines is “the source for the majority of cannabis” in the Caribbean.

“According to officials, marijuana producers have recently started labeling their product for export,” says the U.S. Department of State’s 2012 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, according to the Antigua Observer.

“Police have also observed a trend of younger nationals entering the trade,” the State Department added, apparently unfamiliar with the past 50 years of history.”Regional trade has also increased with Trinidad and Tobago, sending drugs and guns in exchange for cannabis. Officials described a ‘marked increase’ in remittance flows.”

Medical Marijuana Supporters Announce Statewide Radio Ads

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 19, 2012 Legislation, Medical

Marijuana Policy Project

The radio ad features former selectman Ted Wright, whose wife Cindy found relief from the nausea caused by her life-saving breast cancer treatments by using marijuana

Supporters of medical marijuana in New Hampshire on Monday announced the release of radio ads calling on New Hampshire residents to urge their state senators to support SB 409, which would allow doctors to recommend cannabis to patients with cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and other debilitating illnesses.

The ad — which will be broadcast in the Merrimack Valley, Seacoast, and Lakes Region media markets — features Tuftonboro resident and former selectman Ted Wright, whose wife Cindy found relief from the nausea caused by her life-saving breast cancer treatments by using marijuana.

DOJ, DEA & ATF: Confused Bureaucracies Or Street Thieves?

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 19, 2012 Culture, Dispensaries, News

Opposing Views

Did the Feds think of the impact that their letters and raids have had on the patients who depend on places like the Berkeley Patients Group?

By Bob Starrett

He looked a bit suspicious, standing in front of the Blockbuster kiosk at the 7-11 talking on his cell phone. He wasn’t renting a movie so I asked him to move to the side. As I was perusing the latest releases, he walked into the store.

Just seconds later he was out and gone. As he streaked past me, I could hear the jingling of coins in a jar but by the time I realized what was happening he was too far gone for me to do anything about it.

An approaching woman told me that there was a car idling in the alley, apparently the getaway car. It was over so quickly. It was only then that I realized that all I would have had to do was lift up my right leg as he was accelerating by me and he would have done a faceplant onto the concrete.

A common thief. A street thief. Steal anything from anyone, without regret, without thought of consequence. He probably did not pick a particular charity jar to take. He likely took whatever was closest to the door. And then he was gone, just like that. No thought to the charity, no thought at all.

Willie Nelson Supports Oregon Cannabis Tax Act

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 16, 2012 Culture, Legislation, News

Houston Press

Country music legend Willie Nelson has endorsed the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act 2012 (OCTA 2012), which is gathering signatures to qualify for the November general election ballot. If passed by the people of Oregon, OCTA 2012 would regulate the legal sale of marijuana through state-licensed stores, allow adults to grow their own, license Oregon farmers to grow marijuana for state-licensed stores and allow unlicensed Oregon farmers to grow hemp for fuel, fiber and food.

OCTA 2012 will raise an estimated $140 million a year by taxing commercial cannabis sales to adults 21 and older, and save an additional estimated $61.5 million as law enforcement, corrections and judicial attention can focus on violent crimes and theft.

“We estimate this will amount to $200 million a year more funding for state government,” the Campaign for the Restoration and Regulation of Hemp (CRRH) said. Ninety percent of those proceeds will go into the state general fund, seven percent for drug treatment programs, with one percent each going to drug education in public schools and to two new state commissions to promote hemp biofuel, hemp fiber and food.

Berkeley Patients Group Landlord Gets “The Marijuana Letter”

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 16, 2012 Culture, Dispensaries

Berkeley Patients Group

By Jack Rikess

Toke of the Town

Northern California Correspondent

That crazy cannabis carousel continues to spin as the C. Hag (as in Kali U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, who sees a working dispensary and has the irascible need to close it) sends out another letter. Berkeley Patients Group is the victim of being too close to where kids could possibly be.

This time is a double-whammy, the Center for Early Intervention on Deafness, which also houses a preschool, and Ecole Bilingue de Berkeley, a French bilingual grade school, are within the 1,000 feet no-no zone.

Berkeley Patients Group took over an old car dealership and with the wrought-iron fence and has a visible security patrolling, when I went there, it felt like an island. A huge building with very little foot traffic, very secure and seemingly alone in a converted strip-mall that many patients have pass it by thinking it was a church or some other municipal building.

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