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Washington Drug Reformer Goodman To Run For Congress

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 16, 2011 News

Washington state Rep. Roger Goodman supports the legalization of marijuana. He is now running for U.S. Congress.

Washington state Rep. Roger Goodman has announced he is seeking the Democratic Party nomination to challenge U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert (R), a two-term Congressman who represents Washington’s 8th Congressional District. Goodman supports the legalization of marijuana, and has an excellent track record as a drug policy reformer.

Goodman served as the executive director of the Washington State Sentencing Guidelines Commission in the late 1990s and was elected to the National Association of Sentencing Commissions, reports Phillip Smith at Stop The Drug War. While with the state commission, he published reports on prison capacity and sentencing policy, helped increase the availability of drug treatment in prisons, and guided 14 other sentencing-related bills through the Washington Legislature.

No Surprise: Maui Cops Oppose Marijuana Law Reform

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 15, 2011 Legislation, News

Photo: Maui News

Maui Police Chief Gary Yabuta: “We feel that [marijuana]will be contradictory to character building, job skills, academics, all the skills necessary to become a productive citizen”

Ever heard a cop say “we don’t write the laws, we just enforce them?” Next time you hear it, you have my permission to say “Bullshit!”

Responding to bills in the Hawaii Legislature intended to liberalize marijuana laws, Maui Police Chief Gary Yabuta said the department is taking a more “proactive stance” to show the public its opposition to marijuana by reaching out to Maui residents at public places, reports Melissa Tanji at Maui News.

On Monday, police officers went to Walmart to hand out pamphlets telling cop-sponsored lies about what “experts” supposedly say regarding marijuana as medicine and pot’s health risks. They planned to be there telling more ridiculous cop lies on Tuesday.

The goal of the effort, according to the cops, is to “gather the public’s support” this legislative session and ask people to submit email testimony against the bills which would liberalize Hawaii’s marijuana laws.

Yabuta helpfully said the police “would be glad” to pass out their lying-ass brochures or even present lying-ass talks to the public at community events and at schools.

Officer Yabuta claimed he didn’t know the taxpayer cost of the brochures that are being passed out, but defensively said they were “nothing fancy.” He claimed that funding came partly from a grant that initiated the brochure (your wasted tax money), as well as “county funds” (more of your wasted tax money, spent telling ridiculous, outdated 20th Century cop lies and superstitions about cannabis).

Indiana: Hearing On Marijuana Study Bill Held Tuesday

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 15, 2011 Legislation, News

Photo: World News

State Sen. Karen Tallian: “It has become painfully obvious that our current marijuana laws are not effective”

The first hearing on S.B. 192 took place on Tuesday to discuss the need to study the marijuana laws in Indiana and find alternatives to arrest and incarceration. S.B. 192 would require lawmakers to investigate other options to the marijuana laws that put nonviolent Hoosiers behind bars and tie up scarce resources that the public would rather see spent on infrastructure, according to sponsor Sen. Karen Tallian (D-District 4).

“It has become painfully obvious that our current marijuana laws are not effective,” Sen. Tallian said. “We spend a sizable amount of money every year going after marijuana users and locking them up for a nonviolent crime, while more important programs that desperately need funds go wanting.

Cops Say Obama Is All Talk On Treating Drugs As Health Issue

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 14, 2011 Legislation, News

Photo: Philly NORML

Neill Franklin, LEAP: “The President needs to put his money where his mouth is”

Another budget, another year of a drug control budget disparity that prioritizes punishment over actually treating drugs as a public health issue. Will President Obama’s rhetoric ever be made into brass tacks budget reality?

A group of police officers, judges and prosecutors who have waged the so-called War On Drugs is criticizing Obama because his federal drug control budget, released Monday, doesn’t match his rhetoric on treating drug abuse as a health problem.

Obama’s federal drug control budget maintains a Bush-era disparity, devoting almost twice as much money to punishment as it does for treatment and prevention. This is despite the President saying, less than three weeks ago, “We have to think more about drugs as a public health problem,” which requires “shifting resources.”

In 2010, Marijuana Possession Was Top Arrest In New York City

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 14, 2011 News

Graphic: NORML

More than 350,000 people have been arrested for marijuana possession in New York City under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an admitted pot-smoker.

Marijuana possession offenses were the number one reason for arrests in New York City in 2010, according to recently released figures from the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services. Cannabis offenses comprised 15 percent of all arrests in NYC last year. The majority of those arrested for pot were African-American and Latino youth.

More people were arrested last year in New York City on marijuana charges than during the entire 19-year period from 1978 to 1996, according to the figures.

The New York City Police Department arrested 50,383 people for low-level marijuana offenses last year. On an average day in New York City, nearly 140 people are arrested for pot possession, making the Big Apple the “Marijuana Arrest Capital of the World,” according to the Drug Policy Alliance.

Big Medical Marijuana Win In Washington: 133 Plants, Not Guilty

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 11, 2011 Growing, Medical, News

Graphic: Reality Catcher

In a huge win for medical marijuana advocates, a southwest Washington man who grew cannabis for a dying cancer patient has been acquitted of drug charges.

Mark Hensley of Vancouver, Wash., was arrested last year with 133 marijuana plants, many of them small clones between 1.5 to 2 inches tall, attorney Douglas Hiatt told Toke of the Town Friday afternoon.

Hensley was growing the plants to produce cannabis oil for his former tenant, William Britten, who died of esophogeal cancer last August.

Clark County Superior Court Judge Rich Melnick found Hensley not guilty on Friday, Hiatt told us.

His client, Hensley, was allowed to grow more than the Washington’s medical marijuana law’s presumptive limit of 15 plants because it takes lots of cannabis to produce the oil, Hiatt said. “Mr. Britten used a significant amount of cannabis for appetite and nausea and to control the pain, obviously. He was very, very sick.”

Drug Czar Lies His Ass Off; Claims ‘100 Groups’ Studying Pot

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 11, 2011 News

Photo: LIFE

Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske said this week that there are “over 100” ongoing FDA studies on marijuana. There are two.

U.S. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske sat down for an interview with The Daily Caller’s Mike Riggs earlier this week — and managed to tell one hell of a whopper while he was at it.

When Riggs asked the Drug Czar, “You’ve said before that you don’t see medical benefits to smoked marijuana and also that the jury is still out on medical marijuana. What sort of scientific consensus does the ONDCP [Office of National Drug Control Policy] require? How many studies have to come out arguing for medical benefits? What do you need to see?”

“You know there are over 100 groups doing marijuana research,” the Czar replied, “and they’re getting their marijuana from the University of Mississippi. There are several things in clinical trials right now. So we’ll just have to wait for those.”

Judge Upholds Walmart’s Firing Of Medical Marijuana Patient

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 11, 2011 Medical, News

Photo: Katy Batdorff/The Grand Rapids Press

Cancer patient Joseph Casias was Walmart’s Employee of the Year — but they fired him after learning he uses medical marijuana with a doctor’s authorization.

Walmart’s former Employee of the Year won’t be going back to work there. A federal judge on Friday ruled that Michigan’s medical marijuana law protects legal users from arrest, but doesn’t protect them from employers’ policies which ban pot use.

Joseph Casias, who has an inoperable brain tumor, was fired by the Battle Creek Walmart after he failed a routine drug test following a workplace injury, reports John Agar at The Grand Rapids Press.

“The fundamental problem with (Casias’) case is that the (medical marijuana law) does not regulate private employment,” U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker wrote in his 20-page opinion.

“Rather, the Act provides a potential defense to criminal prosecution or other adverse action by the state… All the (law) does is give some people limited protection from prosecution by the state, or from other adverse state action in carefully limited medical marijuana situations,” the federal judge ruled.

According to Judge Jonker, the law “says nothing about private employment rights. Nowhere does the (law) state that the statue regulates private employment, that private employees are protected from disciplinary action should they use medical marijuana, or that private employers must accommodate the use of medical marijuana outside the workplace.”

Seattle Hempfest Fights For Its Life; Sues Seattle For 2011 Permit

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 10, 2011 Culture, News

Photo: Seattle Hempfest

Hempfest always is a huge, happy hunk of humanity.

With no confirmed venue and no confirmed dates, Seattle Hempfest, the world’s largest annual cannabis protestival, is fighting for its life.

Hempfest has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the City of Seattle in an effort to get a 2011 permit to produce the annual free speech rally, which aims to reform America’s cannabis prohibition.

The lawsuit calls the city’s unwillingness to delay planned construction, or to stage the work to accomodate Hempfest, “unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious.”

The suit, which also includes Seattle’s mayor, director of the Seattle Department of Transportation, director of Seattle Center, and chairperson of the Seattle Special Events Committee, asks the city to issue an appropriate permit for Seattle Hempfest in August 2011.

The lawsuit also seeks, if necessary, to stop Seattle from implementing the West Thomas Overpass project in such a way as to interfere with the use of Hempfest’s home, Myrtle Edwards Park, in August 2011. Planned summer construction of the skybridge in Myrtle Edwards Park, which has been the location of Hempfest since 1995, has displaced the mammoth event which routinely draws more than 100,000 attendees annually.

Montana House Votes To Repeal Medical Marijuana Law

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

Photo: Dylan Brown/Independent Record

Montana Speaker of the House Mike Milburn wants to take medical marijuana back away from sick and dying patients in his state — and now he’s a big step closer to doing exactly that

The Montana House of Representatives has approved a measure to repeal the state’s Medical Marijuana Act with a vote of 63 to 37. The vote serves as an ironic counterpoint to the overwhelming 62 percent to 38 percent majority by which Montanans legalized medical marijuana less than seven years ago, in November 2004.

During last Friday’s legislative session, Speaker of the House Mike Milburn (R-Cascade) claimed Montana was “duped” into passing the Act, and most of the House joined him in his attempt to thwart the will of the voters.

Milburn claimed many of the people who have been approved for medical marijuana “aren’t the terminally ill,” reports Marnee Banks at KRTV.com.

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