Browsing: News

Gwinnett County Jail
Bryan Brown is facing drug charges after a traffic stop on I-85 just north of Hamilton Mill Road. He says the officer who searched him “grabbed his dick.”

…​Gets Busted Anyway

A Georgia man is facing marijuana charges after a traffic stop on Interstate 85 just north of Lawrenceville.

On the afternoon of February 3, Bryan Brown, 21, was stopped by a Gwinnett County Police officer for tailgating another vehicle, reports Kristi Reed at the Dacula Patch. The officer approached the passenger side window of Brown’s car and claimed he detected the strong odor of marijuana. According to the police report, Brown “showed signs of nervousness,” including shaky hands and an unsteady voice.

John Parr
Clif Deuvall speaks to the crowd at Portland Hempstalk 2011

​A Texas man running as an Independent for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives includes ending cannabis prohibition as a prominent point in his campaign.

Clifford “Clif” Deuvall of Waco, a decorated military veteran and longtime community leader in Central Texas, has his sights set on the District 56 seat in the Texas House, and he brings a plethora of experience to the table.
Unlike many other politicians who have shied away from the issue, Deuvall — founder of Waco NORML — proudly supports marijuana legalization, and he can tell you exactly why.
“Prohibition and the disparity associated with it has cost the Texas taxpayers, youth, and families enough,” he said. “Texas prohibition was written capriciously, arbitrarily, and with discriminatory overtones directed toward the Hispanic community.
“A discriminatory-structured law must not remain on the law books of Texas,” Deuvall said.

Patients Against I-502

​Washington state’s marijuana legalization Initiative 502 has plenty of prominent backers and a healthy war chest of money heading towards the November election. So why do many of the state’s most prominent cannabis advocates oppose it?
One of the most troublesome reasons, according to Patients Against I-502, is its faulty DUI provision which would create a per se DUI charge for anyone testing over the low, arbitrary and scientifically unsupported blood THC level of of five nanograms per milliliter (5 ng/ml).

Weed Quotes
Richard Branson, Virgin Group: “[T]he war on drugs has failed, and … what we need to do is treat drugs as a health problem, not as a criminal problem”

​Richard Branson Joins Powerful Group That Includes Sting, Arianna Huffington, Russell Simmons, Former Heads of State, and Former U.S. Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Surgeon General, Attorney General and Chairman of the Federal Reserve
 
Virgin Group founder and social entrepreneur Richard Branson has joined the Honorary Board of the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), the U.S.-based organization that is fighting for alternatives to current drug policy that are grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights.
 

​State laws allowing for the legal use of medical marijuana by qualified patients do not increase teen marijuana use, and if anything decrease teen use or have no effect at all, according to data published online in the journal Annals of Epidemiology.
Investigators at McGill University in Montreal obtained state-level estimates of marijuana use from the US National Survey on Drug Use and Health for the years 2002 through 2009, reports Paul Armentano at the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). Researchers used difference-in-differences regression models to estimate the causal effect of medical marijuana laws on cannabis use, and simulations to account for measurement error.
“Difference-in-differences estimates suggested that passing MMLs [medical marijuana laws]decreased past-month use among adolescents … and had no discernible effect on the perceived riskiness of monthly use,” McGill University researchers Sam Harper, Erin C. Strumpf and Jay S. Kaufman reported. “[These] estimates suggest that reported adolescent marijuana use may actually decrease following the passing of medical marijuana laws [emphasis added].” 

Star-Telegram
Arlington Councilman Mel LeBlanc: “I wasn’t a daily user”

​Arlington, Texas City Councilman Mel LeBlanc (not to be confused with Bugs Bunny — that’s Mel Blanc) told police last year that he got drugs, including methamphetamine and marijuana, through prostitutes he hired using online escort services.

LeBlanc, who publicly confessed his “addictions to drugs and alcohol,” declined to comment Tuesday about details in a recently released Arlington Police Department report that outlined his domestic troubles, where he got his dope and his reported relationship with the owner of Flashdancer Cabaret, a strip joint that has, over the years, been targeted by the city as a center for drug sales, prostitution, and “other criminal activity,” reports Susan Schrock at the Arlington Star-Telegram.
The 61-year-old councilman was investigated last year after the cops, responding to a domestic disturbance call, found and seized about a gram of meth and a glass pipe from his home in north Arlington. A group of good old boys, I mean a Tarrant County grand jury, decided not to return an indictment.
“I’m not going to comment any more on this whole issue,” commented LeBlanc. “I’ve already done a radio interview, a television interview, and two newspaper interviews and was completely honest with all questions asked,” said LeBlanc, who seems to have confused “honesty” with “a license to bang whores and snort meth.”

Get Surrey
Activist Winston Matthews, 55 and disabled, is being jailed for 16 months for growing cannabis to treat his back pain

​British pro-cannabis campaigner Winston Matthews, 55, who refused to stop growing marijuana despite repeated arrests, has been jailed for 16 months in the U.K.

Matthews, of Upfield Close, Horley, admitted violating a suspended sentence he was given on August 23, 2010, as well as three counts of cultivating cannabis and two counts of possession between August 28 and December 16 that same year, reports Ben Endley at Get Surrey.

He had been scheduled for sentencing last Friday but the hearing was deferred until Monday, when Judge Suzan Matthews (no relation) admitted the case was “unique” but insisted the grandfather of two still had to be jailed.
The day before his sentencing, Matthews, an outspoken member of Surrey’s Legalise Cannabis Alliance (LCA), posted on Facebook about the case.
“All I had to do to get a deferred sentence yesterday [February 3] was lie to a judge and say I’d stop taking cannabis!” he posted. “I wasn’t prepared to do that! One love!”


Created by: Medical Billing and Coding Online

Many of us are already familiar with how Big Pharma’s deep pockets and (thanks to the Supreme Court’s horrendous Citizens United decision) unlimited political contributions have helped keep cannabis illegal.

Some of us are aware that the pharmaceutical industry is, even as we speak, likely making a move to take over the medical marijuana industry, eliminate dispensaries, eliminate home-growing, eliminate cannabis flowers, and reduce “medical marijuana” to less effective, overpriced pills and potions.
But it’s even worse than that.

NPRA

​Advocates have formed a new Michigan-based medical marijuana coalition, the National Patients Rights Association (NPRA). The group said it will encourage legislators, prosecutors, and local governments to fully honor the decision of citizens who voted to legalize medical marijuana in 16 states and the District of Columbia.

Michigan, whose Medical Marihuana Act was approved by nearly two-thirds of voters (63 percent) in 2008, will be among the first states targeted by the NPRA.
The new group said it is “backed by patients, caregivers, businesses, and a range of other supporters.” The coalition said it “will work to broaden awareness, reach legislators in a targeted manner, and help mobilize patients and caregivers who are affected by these laws.”

The Medical Cannabis Resource Center
Suicide rates among males are reduced by as much as 11 percent in medical marijuana states. Overall, suicide rates are 5 percent lower in MMJ states, according to a new study.

​A new study suggests that legalizing medical marijuana lowers suicide rates by almost five percent.

The study, brought to you by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, Germany, the same firm that recently found that legalizing medical marijuana was associated with fewer deaths on the highways — possibly because people use marijuana instead of drinking — is titled “High on Life? Medical Marijuana Laws and Suicide,” reports Christopher Shea at the Wall Street Journal.

“Using state-level data for the period 1990 through 2007, we estimate the effect of legalizing medical marijuana on suicide rates,” says the IZA Discussion Paper from January. “Our results suggest that the passage of a medical marijuana law is associated with an almost 5 percent reduction in the total suicide rate, an 11 percent reduction in the suicide rate of 20- through 29-year-old males, and a 9 percent reduction in the suicide rate of 30- through 39-year-old males.”
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