News

OUTRAGE: MS Patient Gets 5 Years For Medical Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 19, 2010 Medical, News

John Wilson, an MS patient, at his sentencing Friday for growing medical marijuana

A New Jersey man with multiple sclerosis was sentenced Friday to five years in prison for growing marijuana — which he said was for medicinal purposes — in his back yard.

Wilson, 37, was growing 17 marijuana plants.

Tragically, the sentence handed down to John Wilson is the minimum prison term he could have received under New Jersey law, reports Michael Deak at MyCentralJersey.com.

Wilson’s attorney, James Wronko, said he plans to file a motion to stay the sentence pending an appeal.

Five Teens Busted Smoking Pot In Sheriff’s Parking Lot

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 19, 2010 News

Graphic: mysouthwestga.com

Five teens on a spring break road trip to Corpus Christie were caught smoking pot in a sheriff’s department parking lot Friday night in Roswell, New Mexico.

The stoned teens stopped in what they thought was a museum parking lot at 6:30 p.m. and partied down in what was actually the Chaves County Sheriff’s Department parking lot, reports Kris Lantz at KRQE.

Sheriff Rob Coon said a dispatcher noticed the teens’ “peculiar” behavior.

“They all got our and started passing a couple of marijuana pipes around,” Sheriff Coon said. “Our dispatchers had a clear shot right to where they were at.”

’10 Rules For Dealing With Police’ DVD Coming March 22

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 18, 2010 News, Products

Graphic: StoptheDrugWar.org

From the creators of the classic, Busted: The Citizen’s Guide to Surviving Police Encounters [2003], our friends at Flex Your Rights are releasing their new achievement, 10 Rules for Dealing with Police, on March 22.

The 40-minute educational drama is narrated by the legendary trial lawyer William “Billy” Murphy, Jr. (from HBO’s The Wire), 10 Rules depicts innocent people dealing with heavy-handed policing tactics used every day in the United States.

Through extensive collaboration with victims of police abuse, legal experts and law enforcement professionals, Flex Your Rights has developed a powerful multi-lingual (English, Spanish & Arabic) resource that provides proven survival strategies for dealing with racial profiling and police abuse.

Do you know what your rights are if you’re stopped by police? Most people don’t, and the consequences can be severe.

Prohibition Doesn’t Work: Denmark’s Massive Hash Crackdown Fails

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 18, 2010 Global, News

Photo: Galaxy/.09

Six years into a Danish cannabis crackdown, the only difference is dealers now use tables instead of booths

Six years later, an expensive and brutal crackdown has only produced one real change in the hash district: Now the dealers use tables instead of booths.

It was six years ago this week that Danish police held their first full-scale raid on Pusher Street, the world famous road in Copenhagen’s hippie district, Christiania, where people openly buy hashish.

The hash raids were the result of the government’s decision to crack down hard to the area’s hash trade. But today, both police and politicians admit the trade still thrives on the street, if in a slightly more discreet way.

L.A. Cops Try To Sell Reefer Madness To Skeptical Hawaiians

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 18, 2010 Dispensaries, Legislation, News

Graphic: 300zxFreak

Two zealously anti-pot Los Angeles police officers on Wednesday warned Hawaii it could “see an increase in crime” if it legalizes medical marijuana dispensaries and softens its marijuana laws.

“It’s so bad in L.A.,” claimed Sgt. Eric Bixler of the Narcotics Division of Los Angeles Police Department. Bixler said law enforcement officers there “deal daily with the effects” of California’s Proposition 215, which allows patients and caregivers to possess and cultivate marijuana for personal medical use, reports Melissa Tanji at The Maui News.

People driving while smoking, and teens buying marijuana at dispensaries to resell on the street are just some of the problems caused by California’s medical marijuana law, the officers claimed.

Of course, since they’re good honest cops, we have to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they really believe nobody in California history ever drove a car while high until the medical marijuana law passed in 1996. Maybe they’re just a little slow in getting around to actually reading the language of the law, which prohibits sales to anyone without a doctor’s recommendation to use pot.

California Man Arrested For Pot Twice In One Night

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 18, 2010 Growing, News

Photo: The Uncle Taz Marijuana Gallery

A Santa Rosa, California man was arrested twice Wednesday night — first when he was pulled over for expired registration and police found marijuana and $55,000 in the car, and later when he bailed out of jail and came home to find a squad of detectives raiding his house, where they seized pot plants, a stolen handgun and “other evidence,” according to police.

Early Thursday, Stephen Elliott, 41, was still in the Sonoma County Jail with a bail of $25,000, according to jail personnel, reports Mary Callahan at the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

Tennessee’s Chief Medical Examiner Arrested For Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 18, 2010 News

Photo: The Commercial Appeal

Dr. Bruce Levy

OK, so you’re at the top of your game. You lead the field in your state. And after a long day’s work of conducting autopsies, who’s to blame you if you need to toke up and unwind with a little of the kind? The Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, that’s who.

Bruce Levy, chief medical examiner for Tennessee, was arrested in Mississippi and charged with felony marijuana possession, police said Wednesday.

Dr. Levy, 49, was arrested after police found a package of marijuana with his name on it — not a smart idea, in case you were considering it! — and more pot at his hotel room in central Mississippi, where he has a lucrative side gig as a coroner.

The package with Levy’s name on it at a distribution center contained less than an ounce of marijuana, according to Jon Kalahar of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics. Agents on Tuesday also found several containers at his Ridgeland, Miss., hotel room, each with less than an ounce of pot, reports The Associated Press.

Attorney: Marijuana May Not Impair Driving Ability At All

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 17, 2010 News

Photo: images.com

Does marijuana really affect your ability to drive safely? An Orange County, California attorney says there’s evidence to show it doesn’t — and testing for the presence of marijuana doesn’t measure impairment, anyway.

Drunk driving laws today typically define “driving under the influence” as covering both alcohol and drugs, with marijuana included as “drugs.” In most states, the very presence of marijuana in a driver’s blood is either illegal in itself, or is considered proof of impairment.

Rhode Island Senate Panel Recommends Decriminalizing Pot

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 17, 2010 Legislation, News

Graphic: Reality Catcher

A Rhode Island state Senate commission has recommended that an ounce or less of marijuana be decriminalized in the state.

The panel, chaired by state Sen. Joshua Miller (D-Cranston), voted Tuesday to approve a 24-page final report concluding that marijuana law reform would save Rhode Island money by avoiding “costly arrests [and]incarcerations due to simple possession of marijuana,” reports Katherine Gregg of The Providence Journal.

The report says that Rhode Island could take its lead from Massachusetts, where adults 18 or older caught with an ounce or less of pot are required only to pay a $100 civil fine “that goes directly to the municipality in which the penalty was issued.”

Loud Sex Results In 10-Year Marijuana Sentence

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 16, 2010 Growing, News

Graphic: Blogs 4 Common Sense

For a New Jersey man, an evening of loud sex has resulted in a 10-year prison sentence for growing marijuana.

On February 17, 2007, New Jersey state troopers arrived at the home of Brian McGacken of Farmingdale, N.J., responding to an anonymous 911 call complaining of screams coming from McGacken’s home, reports Daniel Tencer at The Raw Story.

McGacken answered the door and explained that he’d just been having loud sex; his girlfriend appeared at the front door and backed up his claim.

But officers searched the home anyway, and found enough marijuana — including growing plants — to put McGacken away for 10 years on charges of producing a controlled substance.

McGacken appealed the conviction, arguing that once police officers knew the noise was due to consensual sex, they no longer had reason to search his home or to even be there.

But the appellate panel at Superior Court of New Jersey didn’t see it that way.

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