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Felony Marijuana Charges Dropped Against Wiz Khalifa

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By on Culture, News

Stuff Stoners Like
Wiz Khalifa tweeted “Waken… baken… wrist still achin” the morning after his marijuana bust at East Carolina University. All charges against the rapper have now been dismissed.

​Rap star Wiz Khalifa has been cleared of felony marijuana charges stemming from his arrest in North Carolina late last year.

On Wednesday, Pitt County District Attorney Clark Everett dropped a felony “drug trafficking” charge against Khalifa, who was arrested on November 8, 2010 after a show on the campus of East Carolina University when police discovered marijuana on his tour bus, reports James Montgomery at MTV.
Khalifa and nine members of his entourage were charged with trafficking, maintaining a vehicle for “sale or storage” of marijuana, and a misdemeanor charge of “drug paraphernalia” possession.
The trafficking charges were in error, according to D.A. Everett, because the amount of cannabis confiscated on the tour bus was 58 grams, only slightly more than two ounces, reports the Greenville Daily Reflector. For marijuana trafficking charges to stick in North Carolina, the threshold is 10 pounds.
There were 10 people in Wiz’s tour bus, according to Everett, and the star paid a “substantial premium fee” to a bail bondsman for covering the $300,000 bond for himself and all members of his entourage so everyone could leave immediately.
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Drug Cartels Rapidly Gaining Ground In U.S.: Justice Department

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By on Global, News

LEAP
Terry Nelson, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition: “It is really no surprise to me that our prohibition policy isn’t helping to achieve any reduction in drug trafficking”

​A newly released report from the U.S. Department of Justice shows that Mexican drug cartels are rapidly gaining ground inside the United States, despite extensive efforts by the government to crack down on trafficking.

In light of the findings, a group of Border Patrol agents, police officers and judges is saying it is time to legalize and regulate drugs in order to defund the cartels that make so much money from the illicit drug market.
“As someone who has fought on the front lines of the failed ‘war on drugs’ for decades it is really no surprise to me that our prohibition policy isn’t helping to achieve any reduction in drug trafficking,” said Terry Nelson, a board member for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and a retired U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent.
“We should have learned this lesson decades ago with alcohol prohibition, but let’s hope that the data in this new government report helps more members of Congress and Obama administration officials to realize that their ‘drug war’ strategy is an abysmal failure and that it’s time for a new direction,” Nelson said.
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Drug Czar Sends Mixed Messages On Marijuana Policy

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By on News

LIFE
Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske claimed on Thursday that the regulation of alcohol, tobacco and prescription drugs has not worked, so regulation of marijuana could not be expected to work, either

​The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) on Thursday announced the latest results of the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health. As is their annual custom, the federal officials used the event — and the survey itself — as an opportunity to decry the use of marijuana in the United States.

“What we saw today was just more of the same stale old rhetoric and exaggerations about marijuana use,” said Morgan Fox, communications manager for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP). “The analysis SAMHSA included with the National Survey on Drug Use and Health seeks to blame what they claim is a significant increase in teen marijuana use on relaxed perceptions of harm, caused by the ongoing discussion of marijuana reform, particularly medical marijuana.
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Drug Treatment Doc Arrested For Attempted Rape of 10-Year-Old

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By on News

KOMO News
Addiction counselor David Scratchley is accused of attempting to rape a 10-year-old boy

​David Scratchley, a “Christian drug-treatment manager” based in Seattle, has been arrested and charged with attempted rape of a child in the first degree and communication with a minor for immoral purposes. He is being held in the King County Jail on $1 million bail, and is scheduled for arraignment on September 21.

Scratchley, 52, presents himself as an expert on such topics as “power parenting” and “treatment options for addicted teens,” subjects that he has addressed in both books and in online videos, reports Nina Shapiro at Seattle Weekly.
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Missouri Technical College Begins Mandatory Drug Testing

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By on News

The Gilmer Free Press

​I know it’s the “Show Me” state, but this is ridiculous. A state technical college in central Missouri has begun what could be the most extensive drug testing policy at a public college or university in the United States.

The demand that students provide urine specimens for drug testing welcomed new enrollees at Linn State Technical College, a two-year school with about 1,200 students, reports Alan Scher Zagier at the Huffington Post.
More limited drug testing of college and high school students — say, of student athletes, or at private colleges — has been consistently upheld by courts at both the federal and state levels. But Linn State’s testing of the general student body appears unprecedented.
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VH1 Documentary Delves Into History of Crack Cocaine

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By on Culture, News, Products

VH1

​Twenty-five years after crack cocaine ravaged American cities, a new VH1 Rock Doc explores how the drug also transformed popular culture, especially hip-hop. The latest addition to the Emmy-winning franchise, “Planet Rock: The Story of Hip Hop and the Crack Generation” premieres Sunday, September 18 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on VH1.

Narrated and executive produced by Ice-T, “Planet Rock” is the first documentary to focus specifically on the connections between crack and hip-hop. Based primarily on the first-person accounts of four famous dealers turned rappers, the film also widens its lens at times to show how crack changed America culturally, socially and politically.
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1,500 Rally At Michigan Capitol In Favor Of Medical Marijuana

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By on Dispensaries, Medical, News

Chris Collins
Official media estimates of the crowd ran as high as 1,500, but according to activist Missy Griggs of Clinton Township, who attended the rally, it may have been closer to 3,000 or even 4,000 people there.

Greg Deruiter/Lansing State Journal
Protesters converged on the Michigan state Capitol on Wednesday because of a recent court decision banning the sale of medical marijuana in dispensaries

​​​About 1,500 supporters filled the Capitol lawn Wednesday afternoon at the state capitol in Lansing, carrying signs reading “Patients Are Not Criminals” and “Weed Deserve Better” in what is being called the largest pro-medical marijuana rally in Michigan.

What Marisa Schultz of The Detroit News called a “spirited gathering” came after an Appeals Court ruling last month that resulted in the closing of many of the state’s estimated 400 to 500 medical marijuana dispensaries.
The ruling banned patient-to-patient marijuana sales for the nearly 100,000 carriers of Michigan medical marijuana cards, effectively limiting the ways in which patients can get medical marijuana and leaving them with few safe options to get their doctor-recommended cannabis, according to supporters.
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Vietnamese Drug Centers: Forced Labor, Human Rights Violations

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By on Global, News

Julian Abram Wainwright/Vinaland
Recovering drug users share buckets of water for a communal bath at a drug rehabilitation center in Vietnam

​Vietnam subjects patients at so-called “drug rehabilitation centers” to abuse and forced labor, according to an international human rights group which called for the facilities to be shut down.

Human Rights Watch, based in New York, on Wednesday called on international donors to check the programs they fund inside the drug rehab centers for possible human rights violations, reports Mike Ives at Forbes.com.
The United States and Australian governments, the United Nations, the World Bank and other international donors may “indirectly facilitate human rights abuses” by paying for drug dependency and HIV treatments for addicts inside the centers, according to the group.
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ACLU Challenging Florida Drug Test Law For Welfare Recipients

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By on Legislation, News

Sentimental Journeys
Florida Governor Rick Scott: “We don’t want to waste tax dollars.” The new welfare drug testing program costs about $5 for every $1 it saves.

​The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says it is filing a lawsuit challenging a Florida law that requires new welfare recipients to pass a drug test.

The lawsuit is being filed on behalf of a 35-year-old Orlando man, Luis Lebron, an ACLU spokesman told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The group said that Florida’s drug testing law is unconstitutional, violating the Fourth Amendment’s constitutional protections against search and seizure.
No further details of the ACLU lawsuit were immediately available.
Florida Governor Rick Scott signed the welfare drug testing bill into law in July, saying it is “unfair for Florida taxpayers to subsidize drug addiction.”
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Marijuana Users Have Lower Risk Of Obesity: Study

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By on Medical, News

Red Bubble

​Never mind the munchies. Marijuana users may have a lower risk of obesity than those who don’t smoke pot, according to a new study.

The results show that prevalence of obesity is lower among people who frequently smoke cannabis compared to those who never use, reports Rachael Rettner at My Health News Daily.
“We found that cannabis users are less likely to be obese than non-users,” said Dr. Yann Le Strat, a French psychiatrist and co-author of the new study, reports Philip Caulfield of the New York Daily News. “We were so surprised, we thought we had [made]a mistake.”
“Cannabis is supposed to increase appetite,” Le Strat said, reports The Week. “So we hypothesized that cannabis users would be more likely to have higher weight than non-users and be more likely to be obese.”
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