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Colombia’s President: Marijuana Should Be Legalized Globally

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By on Global, Legislation, News

Xinhua
These bricks totaling more than seven tons of marijuana were confiscated by the Colombian army from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

​Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos said this week that legalization of marijuana would allow the war on drugs to move forward by shifting focus to harder drugs and helping to stop the international violence associated with drug trafficking.

Santos said more world leaders should rethink their approach to the War On Drugs in order to deal with drug trafficking and the use of hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine, reports Natalie Dalton of Colombia Reports. The Colombian president made the remarks in an interview with Metro News.
“The world needs to discuss new approaches … we are basically still thinking within the same framework as we have done for the last 40 years,” the president said.
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Federal Judge Blocks Florida’s New Welfare Drug Testing Law

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By on News

WTXL

​A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked Florida’s new law requiring welfare applicants to pass a drug test before receiving benefits. U.S. District Judge Mary S. Scriven said it may violate the Constitution’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

Judge Scriven ruled in response to a lawsuit filed on behalf of a 35-year-old Navy veteran and single father of a four-year-old who sought welfare benefits while finishing his college education, but refused to take the drug test, reports the Associated Press.
According to the judge, there is a “substantial likelihood” that plaintiff Luis W. Lebron will succeed in his challenge to the law based on the Fourth Amendment, which is supposed to protect Americans from being unfairly searched.
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Appeal Court Rejects Marijuana Search Based On Smell

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By on News

THC Finder

​A California court of appeal on Monday rejected a pound of marijuana as evidence in a case where police opened a shipped package they claimed smelled strongly of pot. If upheld on further appeal, the case could have far-reaching effects on future California prosecutions in which a “probable cause” search was based on smell alone.

“Was the warrantless search justified based on smell alone?” wrote Presiding Justice Arthur Gilbert of the Second District Court of Appeal in Ventura, reports Kate Moser at The Recorder. “Not according to the California Supreme Court. To smell it is not the same as to see it.”
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Cannabis Legalization Urged In Tasmania

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By on Global, Legislation, News

The Mercury
Greg Barns, president of Australian Lawyers Alliance said that cannabis use is primarily a health issue, and the state would save money by treating is as such

​One of the reasons cannabis use is so high in Tasmania is because it is illegal and not treated by authorities as a health issue, according to the Australian Lawyers Alliance.

Greg Barns, Alliance president and barrister based in Hobart, said decriminalizing the use, possession and sale of small amounts of marijuana would reduce its appeal to young people, reports Sally Glaetzer at The Mercury.
“Most kids want to try dope,” Barns said. “If it wasn’t illegal, it would be less attractive.”
Cannabis use should be treated as a health issue, Barns said, with “offenders” referred to a health or counseling service rather than the criminal justice system.
While that’s far from ideal — ideal being “it’s none of your damned business if I use cannabis” — it’s certainly an improvement over locking people in cages for weed.
According to Barns, instead of spending enormous amounts of police and court resources on cannabis-related offenses, money should be redirected to a service to provide lifestyle and health advice for cannabis users.
Barns said that cannabis use is primarily a health issue and the state would save money by treating it as such. He added that making the medical use of cannabis legal and allowing doctors to supply high-quality marijuana to patients for pain relief would “dim the supply of bad quality cannabis.”
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RAND Retracts Report Showing Cannabis Dispensaries Lower Crime

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By on Dispensaries, News

Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen “Nuch” Trutanich’s office was “vocal” in its criticism of last month’s RAND report showing that crime went up in neighborhoods when dispensaries were forced to close — so RAND took their own report off their website on October 11, and officially retracted the report today, Monday, October 24.

​After “vocal criticism” from the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, the RAND Corporation on Monday officially retracted its study “Regulating Medical Marijuana Dispensaries: An Overview with Preliminary Evidence of Their Impact on Crime,” which was released in September.

Two weeks ago, RAND had pulled the study off its website and posted a notice that “This document has been withdrawn pending further review.” Toke of the Town broke that story before it hit the national newswires.
“The L.A. City Attorney’s office has been the organization most vocal in its criticism of the study, questioning its methods and conclusions,” RAND media relations guy Warren Robak told Toke of the Town on October 11.
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Federal Threats Get Results: CA Marijuana Dispensaries Close

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By on Dispensaries, News

Salem-News

​Dispensaries in California appear to be closing as a result of the federal crackdown on medical marijuana.

In conservative Orange County, a threatening letter from federal prosecutors achieved what nearly $600,000 in legal fees couldn’t — shutting down the dispensaries, reports the Associated Press. 

All eight collectives that had occupied the second floor of a mini-mall in Lake Forest have closed since California’s four U.S. Attorneys announced a couple of weeks ago that they were cracking down on medicinal cannabis sales in the state, reports Greg Risling at the Associated Press.
The healthy competition between the eight dispensaries at the Lake Forest mall was good for everyone, local patient Melissa Morales told Toke of the Town.

“It was like heaven,” Morales told us on Friday. “I got treated like a queen. One of the collectives had a frequent buyer program punch card. You got a free eighth after 10 donations and a free preroll with any edible.”
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Protest For Medical Marijuana During Obama’s California Tour

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By on Legislation, Medical, News

Village Voice Media

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The Weed Blog

​Los Angeles, High Noon, Oct. 24


San Francisco, 11:30 a.m., Oct. 25
Advocates will be protesting the federal crackdown on medical marijuana when Obama comes to visit California next Monday and Tuesday, October 24 and 25, according to California NORML.

In Los Angeles, there will be a protest at high noon on Monday, October 24 at the Federal Building downtown, 255 East Temple Street. A press conference will be held with Proposition 215 coauthor Anna Boyce, who will be demanding a meeting with President Obama at the U.S. Attorney’s Office. (The President will be visiting elsewhere in west L.A., but security will make him inaccessible.)
In San Francisco, protesters are urged to gather on Tuesday, October 25 at the northwest corner of 3rd and Mission, near the W Hotel where Obama will be attending a fundraiser lunch. “The lunch starts at 11:30, but be there early so that we can stake out a visible presence amidst a likely crowd of other protesters,” advised CA NORML director Dale Gieringer.
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Federal Officer Arrested For Marijuana Smuggling After Chase

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By on News

Pinal County Sheriff’s Office
This photo provided by the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office shows Jason Alistair Lowery. Lowery, a deportation officer with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is accused of leading police on a high-speed chase in the Arizona desert while dumping bales of marijuana out the window of his government vehicle.

​It was one of those Kodak moments when you just wish you could’ve been there.

A deportation officer with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement led Arizona state police and federal agents on a high-speed desert chase in his government vehicle, all the while chunking bundles of marijuana out the window as he fled, reports Amanda Lee Myers of the Associated Press.
They’d been watching the officer, Jason Alistair Lowery, 34, for more than a month after a known smuggler who had been busted gave authorities a tip about Lowery in an effort to get lenient treatment, Department of Public Safety Officer Carrick Cook told the AP.
DPS and federal agents tried to pull Lowery over on Tuesday after he picked up a load of marijuana in the desert in his unmarked ICE pickup truck, according to Cook. The officer made a run for it instead, leading agents on a 45-minute chase at speeds up to 110 miles per hour as he threw 10 of the 14 bundles of cannabis he had in the truck out the window.
“He got pretty desperate,” said Captain Obvious, I mean Officer Cook.
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Witness Arrested After Testifying At Medical Marijuana Hearing

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By on Dispensaries, Medical, News

Cafe Sozo

​A witness was arrested Tuesday in California after he testified in the preliminary hearing of another man facing felony charges of cultivating marijuana and possessing it for sale.

​Deputies grabbed Jeffrey Lee Sanford in Butte County Superior Court after his testimony at Timothy Ole Skytte’s preliminary hearing, reports Ryan Olson of Chico ER. Skytte was arrested on August 18 after deputies found 54 marijuana plants growing on his property in Concow. Officers also found 369 more plants on a property Skytte rented to another man identified as Lawrence Evans.

“It is obvious that Butte County is using this oppressive tactic to suppress people from testifying in defense of medical providers and it is this type of behavior that challenges the fabric of our democracy,” said Mickey Martin of the website Cannabis Warrior.
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