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Legalization Measure Splits Cannabis Supporters In Washington

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By on Culture, Legislation, News

The Weed Blog

​Marijuana advocates in Washington state have had a long, hard battle to get as far as they’ve come in the 13 years since voters legalized cannabis for medicinal uses back in 1998. But I-502, a new tax-and-regulate initiative — which appears to have enough signatures to be on the November 2012 ballot — is apparently not a banner under which all legalization proponents are willing to unite.

The widening schism in the Evergreen State’s pot community was on display recently when activists dressed in prison stripes were tossed out of Cataldo Hall at Gonzaga University in Spokane, reports Kevin Graman at The Spokesman-Review.
Travel writer and TV host Rick Steves was there to deliver a speech, and members of the November Coalition, a foundation opposing the Drug War, showed up to express opposition to Steves’ support for I-502.
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Marijuana Crackdown Top Story Of The Year In Montana

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By on Legislation, Medical, News

KTVQ

​The collapse of Montana’s once-booming medical marijuana industry after a conservative Republican-controlled Legislature all but shut the program down with tough restrictions — in addition to raids where federal agents hit dozens of providers — was Montana’s top news story of 2011, according to an annual member poll from The Associated Press.

It’s the second straight year medicinal cannabis has been chosen as the state’s top story, reports Matt Volz at the Great Falls Tribune. But a world of change has occurred in Montana’s medical marijuana scene since a year ago.
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Increased Marijuana Enforcement Not Curtailing Usage: Report

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By on Global, News

Nirvana Wellness Center
“…[T]he assumption that this approach reduces cannabis potency, increases price or meaningfully reduces cannabis availability and use is inconsistent with virtually all available data”

​Throwing more and more money at anti-marijuana law enforcement does not meaningfully reduce the potency, or availability of cannabis and creates lucrative profit opportunities for organized crime, according to a new report by a group of marijuana policy advocates.

The report, “How Not To Protect Community Health and Safety: What the Government’s Own Data say about the Effects of Cannabis Production” [PDF] was released on last week, reports Tara Carman at the Vancouver Sun. It argues that marijuana should be regulated, taxed and sold under government oversight.
The paper, by Stop The Violence BC, a group of law enforcement and public health officials, politicians and academics which includes former Vancouver mayors Larry Campbell, Philip Owen and Sam Sullivan, as well as Dr. Julio Montaner, director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, and other prominent drug policy experts.
The report takes a new look at 20 years of data collected by the Canadian and United States governments and highlights what the authors say is the failure of marijuana prohibition to eliminate or even meaningfully reduce access to cannabis.
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Mom Of 4 Reflects On First Year In Prison For Marijuana

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By on Culture, News

Tulsa World
Patricia Spottedcrow has served one year of her 12-year prison sentence for selling $31 worth of marijuana. In October, a local judge shaved four years off the sentence, leaving eight.

​​Patricia Spottedcrow, the Oklahoma mom who infamously was given 12 years in prison for selling $31 worth of marijuana, has now served one year of her draconian sentence.

One year ago, on the week of Christmas 2010, the first-time offender was thrown into the Eddie Warrior women’s prison in Taft, Okla., the first holiday she’d ever spent separated from her four young children, reports Ginnie Graham at the Tulsa World.
“I cried and cried just thinking of my kids opening presents on Christmas and I wasn’t there,” she said. “This year, it’s going to be any other day. I try not to keep up with the days in here.”
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Crackdown: Cali Marijuana Dispensaries Turning To Delivery

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By on Dispensaries, News

WeedMaps
Online dispensary locator WeedMaps shows a plethora of medical marijuana delivery services available in Los Angeles

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A growing trend in California’s billion-dollar medical marijuana industry — which has recently come under attack from the federal government — is the presence of delivery-only dispensaries to deal with an legal environment that is increasingly precarious for storefronts.

Threats of property forfeiture against landlords, lawsuits and raids have made brick-and-mortor locations less attractive to the collectives, reports David Downs at the San Francisco Chronicle.

“When you have a storefront, you’re on the map,” said Oakland defense attorney William G. Panzer, who represents recently raided Northstone Organics, a delivery service based in Ukiah, Mendocino County in the heart of the Emerald Triangle. “You don’t have those issues with a delivery service. No one’s going to know about it.”
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Deputies Give Marijuana Back To Dispensary Under Court Order

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By on Dispensaries, News

Cafe Press
Why, thank you, officer, and Merry Christmas.

​Deputies returned two pounds of seized cannabis to a California dispensary on Friday after a court ruled that the marijuana had been improperly confiscated.

The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department confiscated two pounds of marijuana from Common Roots Collective during a shakedown, I mean “inspection, on December 1. But the dispensary’s lawyer argued that the deputies violated federal law, since authorities, including code enforcement officers, had entered the property on an inspection order and not a search warrant, reports CBS 13.
The court ruled in favor of the dispensary three weeks later.
“The police are being kind enough to return it to us before Christmas,” said attorney John Fuery.
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A Cannabis Christmas Wish… A Marijuana Chanukah Hint

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By on Dispensaries, News
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Sarah Rice/SFGate
Lynnette Shaw ran Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana — the first in the state to be licensed, back in 1997. Now the Feds have shut it down.

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By Jack Rikess
Toke of the Town
Northern California Correspondent
It’s really easy these days to be negative about cannabis. The Feds are waving their guns around like old-time Western town bullies. Playing with the tin-horns and the dandy Easterners alike, making them dance to a tune that we thought was long gone.
They sit outside protecting the saloon, leaning  back in their chairs, keeping the weak and poor in the sight of their weapons, not necessarily to shoot them, just scare ’em a little.
 
In the Golden State, where it must seem that progress burns bright, I mean, how can you complain when you can have your medicine, including edibles and anything else that’s on the menu delivered right to your door? What in the world could those spoiled Californians have to gripe about?
How about the closing of Lynnette Shaw’s Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana dispensary in Fairfax?  As most know by now, Lynnette’s dispensary was the first to be licensed in California back in ’97. The closure of this landmark is incredibly distressing. 
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Grumbine, Byron Found GUILTY Of All Charges In Med Pot Trial

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By on Medical, News

The Weedly News
Joe Grumbine, above, and Joe Byron were found guilty of all counts Wednesday by a jury in Long Beach, California

​Long Beach Kangaroo Court Yields Insane Jury Verdict

After what was reportedly one of the worst, most farcical and biased trials in history, led by an octogenarian judge who openly and repeatedly expressed his bias against medical marijuana — at one point even ordering a screen to be erected between the jurors and courtroom visitors — Joe Grumbine and Joe Byron, who operated Long Beach dispensaries, were found guilty Wednesday of all 13 counts.

The two are scheduled to return to Long Beach Superior Court on January 11 for sentencing. Superior Court Judge Charles Sheldon allowed the men to remain out on bail over the holidays.

Grumbine and Byron were raided and arrested two years ago this month, reports Nick Schou at OC Weekly, resulting in a long legal nightmare which culminated in today’s convictions. The jury found both men guilty of selling marijuana, tax evasion, and electricity theft.
The charges, according to supporters of the two Joes, are nothing more than an attack by overzealous police and prosecutors in violation of California’s medical marijuana law, reports Tracy Manzer at the Long Beach Press Telegram.

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Cannabis Tolerance Endangered In Netherlands; Protest Planned

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By on Global, Legislation, News

NL Coffeeshop & Cannabis Nieuws

​In a maddening show of spineless backsliding after 35 years of tolerance, the conservative government of the Netherlands seems hellbent on turning the clock back to a darker time in Dutch history — a time when the cannabis trade was driven underground and people had to access the black market for marijuana.

And, of course, in our interconnected world, such a failure of leadership would reverberate internationally, according to expert observers.
“If tolerance ends or gets limited in the Netherlands, then politicians all over the world will say things like ‘Tolerance failed in Holland,’ and use that as an excuse to enforce their anti-cannabis propaganda, opinions and laws,” well-known Dutch cannabis blogger Peter Lunk told Toke of the Town.
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WA Marijuana Legalization Measure Likely To Make 2012 Ballot

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By on Legislation, News

From Our Corner
With 241,153 valid signatures required, it appears very likely marijuana legalization measure I-502 will make the ballot with 355,000 signatures reportedly in the can.

​Sponsors of a ballot initiative which would legalize marijuana in Washington state say they have enough signatures — more than 355,000 — to make the ballot in November 2012.

New Approach Washington, sponsors of Initiative 502, said they have made plans to bring in petitions on 10 a.m. on December 29 at the state Elections Division office at 520 Union Sreet near the State Capitol in Olympia, reports David Ammons at From Our Corner, the Washington Secretary of State’s website.
I-502 would authorize the state Liquor Control Board to regulate and tax cannabis for those 21 and older. Licensed production, limited possession, delivery, distribution and sale of marijuana in accordance with the provisions of the law would be allowed.
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