Legislation

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Arizona Governor Sues To Stop Medical Marijuana Program

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 24, 2011 Legislation, Medical, News

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer will not defend her state’s medical marijuana law, approved by the voters last November. Instead this asswig is asking the feds for instructions on how to run her own state. Nice “leadership” there, Jan.

Redundant Lawsuit Supposedly Aims To Establish Federal Legality

In a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Gov. Jan Brewer and Attorney General Tom Horne announced that they are filing a lawsuit in federal court to challenge the medical marijuana program established in Arizona by the passage of Proposition 203 last November.

Even though the law was passed by a majority of Arizona voters, the governor and attorney general will not defend the law and instead asked the courts to decide if it is illegal under federal law.

“We are deeply frustrated by this announcement,” said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. “The law Governor Brewer wants enjoined established an extremely well thought-out and conservative medical marijuana system.”

Marijuana Decrim Bill Returns To Rhode Island Senate

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 24, 2011 Legislation, News

Photo: Senator Joshua Miller

Sen. Joshua Miller: “I think it’s an appropriate time for Rhode Island to act”

One year ago, Senator Joshua Miller’s bill to decriminalize possession of up to an ounce of marijuana got held up in committee, but the Democrat from Cranston doesn’t give up that easy. He’s introducing the legislation again this year and hoping for a different result.

Senate Bill 0270, scheduled for a Tuesday hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, would make possession of an ounce or less of cannabis a civil offense, punishable by only a $150 fine, reports Randal Edgar of the Providence Journal.

The fine would double repeatedly over time, up to a maximum of $1,000 if it remained unpaid, but there would be no other criminal or civil punishment, except for repeat offenders who — on their third offense — could be charged with a misdemeanor.

Croatia’s Prime Minister Says Marijuana Decrim ‘Not Acceptable’

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 24, 2011 Global, Legislation

Photo: Where I Come From…..

Croatia’s first woman Prime Minister, Jadranka Kosor, had a chance to lead her country into the future. But she blew it.

The prime minister of Croatia has said her party, the conservative Christian Democratic Union, would not support the decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana.

Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, the first female prime minister of her country, said she is against a working group’s proposal to change Croatia’s criminal law to make possession of small quantities of cannabis legal, reports the Croatian Times.

“A decriminalization of the possession of quantities of any sort of drugs has never been acceptable to our party,” Kosor said.

The prime minister added that the Christian Democratic Union (HDZ) would “stick to their position” among coalition partners in the Croatian government.

No distinction is made in Croatian law between marijuana and other illegal substances. According to the current law, growing or sale of cannabis (or any other drug) is considered a felony punishable by a mandatory three-year minimum prison sentence.

The possession of any amount in Croatia is a felony with either a fine or a one-year prison sentence, depending on the circumstances of the case, although people arrested with smaller amounts of cannabis are typically just fined after the court’s ruling.

Drive To Legalize Marijuana Dispensaries Fails In Washington

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 24, 2011 Dispensaries, Legislation

Photo: Steve Elliott

The Washington Legislature’s main proponent of legalizing and licensing medical marijuana dispensaries announced on Tuesday that the attempt has failed. Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles said even her most recent, scaled-back bill won’t go forward.

Kohl-Welles called it “the greatest disappointment of my legislative career,” reports Jordan Scrader at the Tacoma News Tribune.

Her first try regulating the pot shops — which have already sprung up statewide, especially in the Seattle and Spokane areas — was gutted by Governor Christine Gregoire, who hen-heartedly claimed she was concerned about state employees being federally prosecuted, even though that has never happened, even once, in any state which licenses dispensaries.

Marijuana Advocates Sue Government Over Rescheduling Delay

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 23, 2011 Legislation, Medical, News

Photo: MyMedicineTheBook.com

The federal government refuses to reclassify marijuana as medicine — despite the fact that it has sent Irv Rosenfeld and a handful of other patients hundreds of joints a month for close to 30 years.

A coalition of medical marijuana advocacy groups and patients filed suit Monday in D.C. Circuit Court to compel the Obama Administration to answer a nine-year-old petition to reclassify medical marijuana.

The Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis (CRC) has never received an answer to its 2002 petition, despite a formal recommendation in 2006 from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which is unfortunately the final arbiter in the rescheduling process.

As recently as July 2010, the DEA issued a 54-page “Position on Marijuana,” but failed to even mention the pending CRC petition.

Plaintiffs in the case include the CRC, Americans for Safe Access (ASA), Patients Out of Time, as well as individually named patients, one of whom is listed on the CRC petition but died in 2005.

Colorado Marijuana Legalization Initiative Filed; Squabble Erupts

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 20, 2011 Growing, Legislation, News

Graphic: Legalize 2012 Campaign

Marijuana advocates on Thursday filed eight initiatives with the state of Colorado aimed at legalizing marijuana. All of the initiatives would ask voters in 2012 to legalize the use and possession of an ounce or less of cannabis for those 21 and older, and all would allow the state to set up a regulatory system for retail pot sales.

That would be a good thing, right? Or at least represent a kind of forward progress? Not so fast, according to members of the Legalize 2012 Campaign, which said “Colorado cannabis patients and advocates are confused and surprised” by the attempt by what it called “a conservative faction of national and local drug policy reform groups.”

So it seems, instead of a united front for legalizing cannabis in Colorado, what we get — once again, Jah help us — is internecine backbiting, second guessing, name calling, and the type of disappointing, unseemly feuding that does the movement no favors, divides the marijuana vote, and all but ensures failure. How about a replay of California’s Prop 19? Yeah, me neither.

Marijuana Advocates Take ‘CannaBus’ To Spokane; Join Protest

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 19, 2011 Dispensaries, Legislation, Medical

Graphic: Sensible Washington

Two volunteers from marijuana legalization group Sensible Washington have been driving an RV dubbed “the CannaBus” across the state this week to gather signatures and rally support for I-1149, a ballot initiative that would remove all criminal penalties for adult cannabis offenses.

From Thursday, May 19 through Sunday morning, May 22, volunteers Mimi Meiwes and Tricia Rogers, along with the CannaBus, will be in Spokane, where new raids this week by Spokane Police and federal agents have left even more medical cannabis patients without safe access to the medicine their doctors have authorized.

CT Senator Claims Cali Kids Openly Smoking Marijuana In Class

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 19, 2011 Legislation, Medical

Photo: Jesse Pearson

Dude! I knew it!

Connecticut state Senator Toni Boucher doesn’t like medical marijuana, and she seems proud of herself for trying to stop it in her state, according to a press release her office sent out on Thursday.

According to the breathless (and almost entirely brainless) release, Sen. Boucher “valiantly tried to stop a medical marijuana bill from getting out of the Finance Revenue and Bonding Committee.” See there? Trying to stop seriously ill patients from getting the only medicine that helps is “valiant” now, get it?

Oregon Court Rules Medical Marijuana Patients Can Have Guns

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 19, 2011 Legislation, Medical

Photo: Jeff Barnard/AP

Cynthia Willis shows off her medical marijuana card, a Walther P22 pistol and her concealed handgun permit at a firing range in White City, Oregon, March 25, 2011.

The Oregon Supreme Court has ruled that just because retired bus driver Cynthia Willis has medical marijuana doesn’t mean she can’t have a concealed handgun, too.

The court ruled on Thursday morning that a federal law prohibiting “criminals and drug addicts” from buying firearms does not mean sheriffs can’t issue concealed weapons permits to people who qualify, including medical marijuana patients, reports Jeff Barnard of The Associated Press.

Willis said she feels “like a big girl now” that the court found medical marijuana patients should be treated like everyone else.

Oregon in 1998 legalized medical marijuana, part of the first wave along with California (1996) and Washington (1998) authorizing patients to use cannabis to treat certain medical conditions after voters approved a ballot initiative.

Sixteen states nationwide have now passed medical marijuana laws.

More than 30,000 Oregonians now hold medical marijuana patient cards.

King County, Seattle Officials Ask State To Fix Medical Pot Law

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 18, 2011 Legislation, Medical, News

Graphic: Cannabis Defense Coalition

The top prosecutors and officials in both King County, Washington and the city of Seattle are asking the Legislature to quickly untangle the mess left by Governor Christine Gregoire’s gutting of a medical marijuana bill. The bill was supposed to have legalized dispensaries and provided arrest protection for patients, but after Gregoire got through with it, patients were worse off than they started.

In a letter to the four top leaders in the Washington Legislature, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, county executive Dow Constantine, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes said the medical marijuana law in its current state leaves them with “few good options” to control and regulate dispensaries, reports Jonathan Martin at the Seattle Times.

“In the absence of new legislation, we at the local level will have to choose between closing down dispensaries and prosecuting the owners and workers, or allowing them to continue to multiply in an unclear regulatory environment,” they wrote in a letter [PDF] dated Wednesday, May 18.

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