Author Steve Elliott ~alapoet~

Australian Police Seize Medical Cannabis; Reach New Low

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 16, 2012 Global, Growing, Medical

Tony Bower, Mullaways: “My culture does not allow me to refuse help to people who ask for it and where I know I can help”

The New South Wales Police have hit a new low by descending in an expensive taxpayer-funded operation with a police helicopter and confiscating a medical cannabis crop intended for patients. The crop was a strain of cannabis bred specifically to be extracted into a medical tincture.

Each of the plants had been labelled for specific patients, according to Mullaways Medical Cannabis Pty Ltd. “Through the confiscation of this medical cannabis crop, the NSW Police have deprived many Australians of their medicine,” Mullaways said. “It is a form of discrimination against sufferers of chronic illness and pain who need this medicine — medical cannabis.”

Worth Repeating: Marijuana, Mysticism and Radical Freedom

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

Crucify The Ego

Worth Repeating

By Ron Marczyk, R.N.

Health Education Teacher (Retired)

Ever notice that when people smoke marijuana they are frequently overcome with feelings of deep introspection and metacognition which often lead to lively discussions with overt existential themes?

Cannabinoids increase introspection, metacognition, emotional sentience, and entheogenic experiences.

Perhaps these effects are responsible for the sharp decrease seen in suicide rates of young men?

Perhaps medical marijuana makes life worth living!

This curious, and well known effect of marijuana’s overall euphoria “to bear well” is apparently caused by activating emotional sentience pathways in the amygdala — and that’s a good thing!

Branson: I Asked For Weed At The White House [With Video]

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

Marijuana.com

Richard Branson: “I asked him if I could have a spliff. But they didn’t have any.”

If you were at a White House state dinner and you got some face time with President Obama, what would you ask him?

“I asked him if I could have a spliff,” Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson told a crowd at The Atlantic‘s offices on Thursday, one day after attending the dinner in honor of British Prime Minister David Cameron, reports Patrick Gavin at Politico.

“But they didn’t have any,” Branson said, recounting his effort to score weed at the White House.

Human Rights Is A Foreign Concept In The UN’s War On Drugs

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

Your Black Bloggers

Latin American Presidents’ Calls For Legalization Debate Go Unheeded At UN Drug Policy Meeting

The annual Drug War meeting of the United Nations is just wrapping up in Vienna, and sadly, none of the sentiments recently expressed by Latin American presidents about the need to consider legalization were raised during the sessions.

“Alarmingly, the U.S. even opposed amending one of its resolutions to include mention of the need to consider human rights when implementing drug policies,” Tom Angell, media relations director at Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), told Toke of the Town on Friday morning.

Even while several Latin American presidents are calling for an outright debate on drug legalization, delegates at the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs meeting this week failed to even discuss a change in the global prohibitionist drug treaties, reports a group of judges, prosecutors and jailers who were at the meeting in Vienna to promote reform.

Grope and Pillage: $60 Billion Wasted So Far On TSA

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

Created by: OnlineCriminalJusticeDegree.com

It’s a safe bet that most travelers personally despise the airport body scanners used by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (and their health risks, possibly including cancer), not to mention the groping that passengers must endure if they turn down the body scan.

Meanwhile, in Europe, with more public awareness, body scanners have been banned due to health and safety concerns. A lawsuit claiming “cancer clusters” in TSA employees has been filed, which could unearth even more damning evidence against the devices.

Canada Passes Harsh Mandatory Sentences For Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 15, 2012 Global, Legislation, News

The Non Conformer

Despite widespread criticism from experts and a massive price tag, Canada’s Harper Conservatives on Tuesday passed by a 154 to 129 vote the controversial Bill C-10, the so called omnibus crime bill or “Safe Streets and Communities Act.” The new law includes harsh mandatory jail sentences for minor marijuana offenses. The Beyond Prohibition Foundation, which has long advocated against these sweeping changes to Canada’s criminal justice system, said it was “deeply troubled by the implications of the bill.”

The bill increases sentences for drug and sex offenses, reduces the use of conditional sentences such as house arrest, provides harsher penalties on young offenders, and makes it more difficult to get a pardon, reports Bruce Cheadle of the Canadian Press.

CA County Taking Away Children Of Medical Cannabis Patients

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 15, 2012 Medical, News

NORML Women’s Alliance of Butte County

NORML Women’s Alliance Calls For Grand Jury Investigation

Several legal, qualified medical marijuana patients recently have had their children taken away by the Butte County, California Children’s Services Division. In response, the NORML Women’s Alliance last Friday put forward a complaint to the Grand Jury of Butte County requesting an investigation into the County Children’s Services Division for the agency’s perceived and widespread misconduct.

“The questionable actions and perceived misconduct by the Butte County CSD has compelled us to file an official request for an investigation by the Grand Jury in Butte County,” Sabrina Fendrick of the NORML Women’s Alliance told Toke of the Town from Washington, D.C., on Thursday afternoon.

Details Revealed: CIA Dosed S.F. Citizens With LSD

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 15, 2012 News

Speak Truth 2 Power

There have been numerous reports since a 1974 New York Times article of the Central Intelligence Agency using American citizens as guinea pigs, dosing them with the potent psychedelic drug LSD as part of the ultra-secret MK-ULTRA program. But most of the details of what actually occurred were about activities in New York City. Now, newly declassified CIA records, recent interviews, and the personal diary of an operative have shed more light on the San Francisco acid operation.

There were at least three CIA safe houses in the Bay Area where LSD experiments were performed on unwitting subjects from 1955 to 1965, reports Troy Hooper in a major article in SF Weekly. The apartment, boasting sweeping waterfront views, was just a short trip up the hill from North Beach’s rowdy saloons.

Deputies’ Medical Marijuana ‘Compliance Checks’ Anger Patients

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 14, 2012 Medical, News

Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Department

Siskiyou County Sheriff Jon Lopey claimed the medical marijuana “compliance checks” were voluntary — but none of the patients were told that. The sheriff claims he plans to meet with the detectives to make sure they’re “relaying correct information.”

Law enforcement officers made unannounced visits to the homes of medical marijuana patients in a California town last month, knocking on their doors and saying they were there at the direction of the sheriff. Dunsmuir residents said sheriff’s deputies, sometimes accompanied by a detective, showed up without warrants, but wearing full camouflage.

The deputies and a detective reportedly asked to see medical marijuana recommendation cards, asked to photograph the cards, requested and photographed identification, asked to view the number of plants in possession, and — according to several patients who experienced the visits — advised people on what medical conditions for which marijuana may or may not be used, reports Paul Boerger of Mount Shasta Area Newspapers.

Senator Mitch McConnell Claims Marijuana Will Kill You

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 14, 2012 Culture, News

NY Daily News

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: “Because of the harm that substances like marijuana and other narcotics pose to our society, I have concerns about this legislation”

From time to time we are reminded just how much work remains when it comes to educating politicians and the public about cannabis. One of those times is now: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) has warned a constituent via a letter that he doesn’t support medical marijuana legalization because, among other reasons, smoking pot can lead to death.

In a February 4 reply to his constituent, McConnell ticked off some “serious concerns” he has about legalizing weed for medicinal purposes, the topic about which the constituent had written him, reports Jennifer Bendery at the Huffington Post.

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