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Colorado Medical Marijuana Advocates Call For Full Legalization

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on January 14, 2011 Medical, News

Graphic: Patient & Caregiver Rights Litigation Project

Medical marijuana advocates Wednesday evening called for the full legalization of marijuana in Colorado, saying that until cannabis is fully legal, it will always be stigmatized and patients will be subject to harassment.

“No patient is really safe until it is legalized for everyone,” attorney Robert J. Corry told the patients and advocates at a meeting in Denver, reports Scot Kersgaard at The Colorado Independent.

Corry and other attorneys said law enforcement officials, lawmakers and other officials will never really act as if anyone has a right to use marijuana until it is made legal for all.

“They are treating patients like criminals instead of the sick people we are,” said Laura Kriho of the Cannabis Therapy Institute.

Advocates said patient access is in jeopardy in Colorado because of rules that allow cities and counties to ban dispensaries, and because of patient fears that their medical marijuana records are not really confidential.

Intent To Deliver: Cops Say Pizzeria Sold Pot Along With Pizza

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

Graphic: Ronzio Pizza

It’s the perfect business plan, really. Create surefire repeat customers by delivering pot with the pizza!

One pepperoni pizza for pick-up; extra pot, please.

The owner of Ronzio Pizza, a few doors down from the police station in Newport, Rhode Island, was arrested Thursday and charged with possession of marijuana with — you got it — intent to deliver.

After receiving reports from neighbors who live near the pizza parlor that marijuana was being sold there for the past several months, the Newport Police Department started a brave investigation spearheaded by Detective Seth Godek and Detective Mark Matoes, reports Bryan Rourke at The Providence Journal.

MI: Cops Raid Marijuana Dispensary; Claim It Supplied Dealers

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on January 14, 2011 Dispensaries, News

Photo: City Pulse

Law enforcement claimed the Wednesday raid by Oakland County Sheriff’s deputies of the Oak Park offices and warehouse of a well-known medical marijuana dispensary was spurred by tips to police that the site was “supplying drug dealers.”

The Oakland County Narcotics Enforcement Team, wearing bullet-proof vests and masks, executed a search warrant and seized about $2,874 in cash, nine pounds of harvested marijuana stored in a freezer, five pounds of packaged marijuana, about two dozen cannabis plants, and 10 pounds of baked goods from facilities belonging to Big Daddy’s Management Group, Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe said, reports Bill Laitner of the Detroit Free Press.

Anti-DEA Rallies Held Over Michigan Medical Marijuana Raids

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on January 13, 2011 Dispensaries, Medical, News

Photo: WLNS

A couple of dozen hardy protestors faced the cold to protest the DEA’s invasive demand for confidential patient records protected by state law.

A couple of dozen hardy protestors faced the cold in Lansing, Michigan, this week to protest the DEA’s invasive demand for confidential medical marijuana patient records protected by state law.

Medical marijuana advocates made some noise, raising their voices against what they call increasing federal involvement in states where medical marijuana is legal.

“I’ve been raided twice,” said protestor John Roberts, reports WLNS. “First time they raided me they didn’t even take the plants; they took all the medicine we made for the patients.”

Roberts, a medical marijuana user, caregiver and advocate, said the feds need to stay out of the confidential records of medical marijuana users.

Maine Police Bust Portable Marijuana Nursery

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on January 13, 2011 Growing, News

Photo: David Learning/Morning Sentinel

Waterville Police Chief Joseph Massey inspects the inside of a self-contained nursery unit, with lights, fans and a watering system, that was confiscated Tuesday night from two men who were pushing it down the street. Police claimed they found marijuana residue inside.

Police in Waterville, Maine, said they’ve never seen anything like the “portable marijuana nursery” they confiscated from two men pushing it down the street late at night — but it’s actually a quite ordinary “grow closet” of the type easily found, and purchased, on the Internet.

Officers investigated after getting a report from an “alert citizen” — OK, a bored neighborhood housewife — on Tuesday of two men pushing what appeared to be a huge toolbox down the street, making a lot of noise, reports WMTW.

Sgt. Daniel Ames and another officer followed the tracks in the snow from the wheels of the metal unit and found the men near a shed on Green Street (yes, really) with a box that fit the description.

Supreme Court Looks At Smell-Based Home Searches For Pot

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on January 13, 2011 Legislation, News

Photo: britannica.com/Salem News

Can Police Can Kick Down Your Door If They Smell Pot? Some Justices Think So

Police smelling marijuana coming from behind an apartment door can enter the home without a warrant if they believe the evidence is being destroyed, some U.S. Supreme Court Justices said on Wednesday.

More than 60 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police couldn’t enter a residence without a warrant just because they smelled burning opium, reports Adam Liptak at The New York Times.

On Wednesday, during the argument of a case about what police were entitled to do upon smelling marijuana outside the door of a Kentucky apartment, two justices were concerned that the Court may be ready to eviscerate the 1948 ruling which stemmed from a Seattle case.

Bush Speechwriter Says Pot To Blame For Arizona Shootings

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on January 12, 2011 News

Graphic: Jodie Emery

It’s Reefer Madness all over again as David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush who now has his own conservative political website, claims that last weekend’s tragic events in Tucson, Arizona are a good reason to continue America’s war on marijuana users.

“After horrific shootings, we hear calls for stricter regulation of guns,” he wrote on FrumForum in an idiotic little piece entitled “Did Pot Trigger Giffords Shooting?“

“The Tucson shooting should remind us why we regulate marijuana,” Frum wrote. “Jared Lee Loughner, the man held as the Tucson shooter, has been described by those who know as a ‘pot smoking loner.’ He had two encounters with the law, one for possession of drug paraphernalia.”

But, as pointed out by Stephen C. Webster at The Raw Story, Frum has a tenuous grasp of the facts.

Major Medical Marijuana Reforms Introduced In WA Legislature

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on January 11, 2011 Legislation, Medical, News

Photo: freepress.net

Washington State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles: “Creating a statutory and regulatory structure for licensing growers and dispensaries will allow us to provide for an adequate, safe, consistent, and secure source of the medicine for qualifying patients”

New legislation to provide clarity and a stronger legal framework for Washington’s existing medical marijuana laws was introduced in the Legislature on Tuesday.

Senate Bill 5073 and House Bill 1100, introduced by Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Seattle and Rep. Jim Moeller (D-Vancouver), would establish a regulatory system for the sale and purchase of medical marijuana by qualifying patients. Current law, established under voter-approved I-692 in 1998, permits patients with specified terminal or debilitating medical conditions to grow medical marijuana for personal use or designate a provider to grow on their behalf.

Under the new bill, the Department of Agriculture would develop regulations through a public rule-making process for growing medical marijuana. Patients would be permitted to buy medical marijuana products from dispensers licensed by the Department of Health or by taking part in a regulated patient collective.

Medical Marijuana Challenge Turned Away By CO Supreme Court

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on January 11, 2011 Legislation, Medical, News

Graphic: Patient and Caregiver Rights Litigation Project

Colorado’s Supreme Court has refused to hear a sweeping challenge to the state’s new medical marijuana laws.

The Court turned down — only five days after it was filed — a request by marijuana advocates to hear arguments on whether parts of those laws violate the constitutional amendment that made medical marijuana legal in Colorado in 2000 after being approved by voters.

The pending rules violate patient privacy because of a requirement that dispensaries record medical marijuana sales on video, according to patients and advocates who mounted the challenge. The patients also argue that the laws wrongly give local cities and counties the ability to ban dispensaries.

Dude Really Wanted Apple Pie; Arrested For Pot At McDonald’s

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

Photo: Dancing Blue Steel

Is this worth fighting for?

“I was mad at the bitch for not giving me my apple pie,” a Florida man explained after attacking a McDonald’s employee. The man was arrested when St. Lucie County Sheriff’s deputies found a bag of marijuana in his pocket.

Antonio Dreveal Boatwright, 33, was at a McDonald’s on January 4 in Lakewood Park, Fla., when he became upset about the omission of what he evidently felt was a crucial part of his order, reports Will Greenlee of Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers.

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