Legislation

Browsing: Legislation

Marijuana Crackdown By Obama: Yes, It’s Big Pharma

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 11, 2011 Dispensaries, Legislation, Medical

Federal prosecutors in the Obama Administration are going after medical marijuana dispensaries. How are pharmaceutical companies involved? Some leaders in this movement will actually tell you they aren’t; be very careful in whom you believe.

As pointed out on The Young Turks, this crackdown is nothing more than a process of eliminating the competition for Big Pharma. GW Pharmaceutical and other manufacturers want to take over the marijuana market with products like Sativex, a liquid extract of cannabis that contains both THC and CBD.

Advocates Outraged By Governor’s Veto Of Hemp Farming Act

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 10, 2011 Growing, Legislation, News

Bhudeva

Hemp has been grown everywhere for thousands of years. It is only in the last 75 years that is cultivation has been irrationally outlawed in the United States.

Veto of SB 676 is a Huge Setback for California Farmers, Businesses and the Economy

Vote Hemp, the nation’s leading grassroots hemp advocacy organization, along with industry trade group the Hemp Industries Association (HIA) — both working to revitalize industrial hemp production in the U.S. — expressed “extreme disappointment” on Monday that California Governor Jerry Brown has vetoed SB 676, the California Industrial Hemp Farming Act.

After moving smoothly through the California Legislature with bipartisan support, the legislation was vetoed by Gov. Brown. The first hemp bill to land on Brown’s desk, SB 676 is the fourth bill since 2002 in support of hemp farming to pass the California Legislature, but all four met gubernatorial vetoes.

The bill would have established guidelines for farming the oilseed and fiber varieties of hemp, which are used in a myriad of everyday consumer products including food, body care, clothing, paper, auto parts, composites and building materials.

The Silver Tour: Teaching Seniors About Medical Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 10, 2011 Legislation, Medical, News

Freedom Is Green

The legendary Robert Platshorn served more prison time for a nonviolent marijuana offense than anyone else in U.S. history. Now he’s teaching other seniors about medical marijuana on The Silver Tour.

Almost every time a poll is taken on public levels of support for medical marijuana, one of the groups most resistant to the idea is one that stands to gain the most from it: senior citizens. If we, as a community, can find a way to educate seniors on the health benefits and palliative qualities of medicinal cannabis, it will be a huge step towards achieving the numbers it will take to legalize medical marijuana on the federal level. Seniors are known as the most powerful voting bloc in the nation, and they always show up at the polls.

That’s where the legendary Robert Platshorn, the Black Tuna himself, comes in. Platshorn — who started as a pitchman, became one of the biggest marijuana smugglers of the 1970s, and then spent almost 30 years in federal prison — has taken on the job of informing his fellow senior citizens about the health benefits of cannabis.

The Silver Tour is the only organization reaching out to seniors about medical marijuana, according to Platshorn, and its work consists of informing them on ways to organize, petition and contact their local politicians to demand legal, safe access to medicinal cannabis.

Dutch Decide To Treat ‘Strong Marijuana’ As A Hard Drug

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 7, 2011 Dispensaries, Global, Legislation

Peter Lunk

If that joint Dutch blogger Peter Lunk is smoking contains more than 15 percent THC, he just became a “hard drug user” according to official Dutch policy. Insanity abounds.

About half the cannabis sold in the Netherlands just got banned — because it’s too good. According to the Dutch government, that joint of White Widow you’re smoking is just as bad as heroin or meth. And if they catch you smoking weed they think is “too good,” they can throw you into drug rehab for it.

The Dutch have been a source of both exhilaration and exasperation with their hard-to-pin-down cannabis policies for the past 40 years. Often held up as a model of tolerance by those in less-permissive countries, they actually have some serious perception problems of their own.

A couple of those have come to light recently, first with a move afoot (and gaining ground) to ban foreigners from “coffee shops” in the Netherlands, which sell marijuana and hashish to customers under an odd policy of “official tolerance” wherein cannabis is still officially illegal.

DOJ Subsidizing Cali Gangs With Dispensary Shutdown: MPP

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 7, 2011 Dispensaries, Legislation, News

Prison Inmate Penpal

They’re probably celebrating the new Obama Administration policy toward medical marijuana dispensaries.

U.S. Attorneys Announce That Dispensaries In California Must Close

In a press conference Friday, all four U.S. Attorneys in California announced that the Obama Administration will no longer ignore dispensaries and will actively prosecute many commercial operations.

The attorneys said they will concentrate on criminal prosecution and asset forfeiture against the landlords of medical marijuana dispensaries or cultivation centers, and threaten action against certain commercial organizations.

Multiple businesses throughout the state have been given 45 days to close down.

Obama Medical Marijuana Policies Now Worse Than Bush: DPA

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 7, 2011 Legislation, Medical, News

Care2

Obama Administration Escalates War On Medical Marijuana Patients

Despite the Obama Administration’s promise to respect state law and leave medical marijuana patients alone, its attack on patients and providers operating legally under state law is rapidly escalating.

At least 16 landlords in California this week received letters saying they are in violation of federal drug laws, and that state law will not protect them.

The four U.S. Attorneys in California are holding a press conference in Sacramento today (Friday), in which they are expected to announce a broad crackdown on medical marijuana.

Congress Set To Escalate Drug War After Decades Of Failure

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 6, 2011 Legislation, News

DarkGovernment

A few billion dollars thrown away there, a few million people in prison here, first thing you know you’ve got a Drug War

Bill Would Make It A Crime

To Even PLAN To Smoke Marijuana In Another Country– Even If It Is Legal In That Country

The House Judiciary Committee is considering legislation (HR 313) Thursday that makes it a federal crime to plan to commit a drug offense in another country that would be illegal if it was actually committed in the U.S. — even if the offense is actually legal in the other country.

Federal legislation (HR 1254) that would criminalize possession and sales of chemical compounds found in products such as K2, Spice, and “bath salts” will also be voted on in the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday and is expected to pass. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Charles Dent (R-Pennsylvania), has already passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee, so the next step would be the full House. Similar legislation is sailing unimpeded through the Senate.

Both bills would subject Americans to mandatory minimum sentencing and increase prison expenses that taxpayers have to pay — at a time when members of Congress are cutting drug education, treatment and prevention citing the need to reduce federal expenses.

Worth Repeating: Want To Help With Cannabis Legalization? Sign These 11 Petitions!

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 5, 2011 Legislation

Sign These 11 White House Petitions Today!

Welcome to Room 420, where your instructor is Mr. Ron Marczyk and your subjects are wellness, disease prevention, self actualization, and chillin’.

Worth Repeating

By Ron Marczyk, R.N.

Health Education Teacher (Retired)

(Editor’s note: Major props to Morgan Fox over at Marijuana Policy Project, who, as I was preparing Ron Marczyk’s post, published MPP’s list of petitions to sign, here.)

That’s right, from the comfort of your living room, you can have green petition party, punctuated with bong rips if you so desire.

If this community can get all 11 of these petitions maxed out with signatures, it’ll help put medical cannabis issues on the table for the 2012 Presidential race.

Click on the name of each petition to go to the White House page where you can vote for it.

Too High: Oregon Marijuana Cardholders Hit With New Fees

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 5, 2011 Legislation, Medical

The Portland Mercury

When the state’s looking for “additional revenue,” keep an eye on your money. Oregon residents applying for medical marijuana cards will have lighter pocketbooks this month. State fees for the card applications took a dramatic jump on October 1 — and as usual, low-income patients who rely on food stamps and the Oregon Health Plan will be hit the hardest.

Annual application and renewal fees for the cards were $100, with a discounted low-income rate of $20. Now the annual fee is $200 and the discounted rate is $100, reports Peter Korn at Pamplin Media Group.

U.S. Rastafarian Is Exempt From Probation Pot Testing

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 5, 2011 Culture, Legislation, News

Jamison Arend

Jamison Arend of Minnesota won a groundbreaking religious exemption to being drug-tested for marijuana during his probation

It’s not very widely known. But in a groundbreaking case, at least one American citizen, a licensed Rastafarian minister in Minnesota, has been openly smoking marijuana daily with a judge’s approval for the past year and a half, despite the fact that he is on probation.

Jamison Arend was sentenced to five years’ probation on March 24, 2010 after an altercation at his home, reports WeedPress.

During sentencing, Judge Judith Tilsen handed down a trail-blazing exemption to Minnesota’s drug testing laws.

“[T]he defense has proven a colorable claim of religious right to ceremonial use of cannibus [sic], otherwise known as marijuana,” Judge Tilsen ruled. “Ceremonial use is intermittent use, but because of our chemistry and how we do UAs [urine analyses], it would seem to me that even with limited ceremonial use that a UA would come up dirty on a regular basis.

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