An exclusive report released today by Reuters outlines a long-running campaign of the federal government knowingly withholding evidence in numerous cases involving the DEA, and a highly classified multi-agency wing of the DEA known as the Special Operations Division (SOD). By withholding the true sources of their investigations, critics contend that defendants’ rights to a fair trial are being compromised daily.
A man who attempted to help unload 566 kilograms of smuggled marijuana to Laguna Beach from a Mexican boat in February has been sentenced to prison.
Kevin Anthony Gilbert, who attended East Los Angeles College and played football, sought a punishment of no more than 30 months in prison because he argued he played a minor role in the crime; he didn’t even know how much he would be paid for unloading the pot. OC Weekly has the rest.
We’re of the belief that the marijuana-ignorant just need the facts to help them understand this plant. Like the costs: nearly $7.7 billion in annual enforcement costs and $1 billion simply to prosecute all just for cannabis.
The folks over at Top-criminal-justice-schools.net put together this interesting infographic on cannabis decriminalization across the U.S. to help us keep it all together.
New Jersey State Senate Bill 2842 and Assembly Bill 4241 were passed in the final week of June and were rushed immediately to Governor Chris Christie’s desk to sign into law. Passing by a lopsided 25-13 margin in the Senate, and an uneventful amendment process in the General Assembly, the bill is intended to ease dogmatic restrictions on what many consider to be a farce of a medical marijuana program.
Early last month, on July 9th, the bill was still sitting, unsigned, on Gov. Christie’s desk as he partied with Bon frickin’ Jovi. Unconcerned, Governor Christie has repeatedly stated that there is “no crisis” in the state’s medical marijuana program, even though the state’s only dispensary has been closed since June due to a “lack of inventory”.
Last week, Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey told city council members that there were “twelve homicides related directly to medical marijuana.” He subsequently said the figures were “loose” and didn’t all occur in MMJ facilities. But when contacted by Westword, Morrissey’s office did indeed come up with a roster of twelve deaths in ten separate incidents that prosecutors believe were related to pot.
Denver Westword has the full story.
| Good Meds bud bar. |
According to Denver police, a pair of kids who look no more than 12-years-old broke into the Good Meds medical marijuana dispensary last month and made off with $16,000 in cannabis. The tiny burglars were apparently pretty good at their job, as nobody has any leads whatsoever.
Of course, it doesn’t help that police aren’t giving out pictures of the wee crooks. That’s because police are afraid of “violent drug dealers” getting the photos and tracking down the kids.
Illinois became the twentieth state (21st if you count Maryland’s recently-passed restrictive mmj program) to allow for medical cannabis yesterday, when Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation passed last May into law.
Quinn was flanked by Jim Champioin, a military veteran suffering from multiple sclerosis who uses cannabis to control his symptoms.
When President Obama took office in 2009, his Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy proclaimed that the new administration would no longer use the term “War on Drugs”, as they found it to be “counter-productive”. In June of 2011, the Global Commission on Drug Policy released a scathing report which clearly stated that “the global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.”
The Colorado-made hemp flag that flew over the Capitol in Washington on the Fourth of July has made its way back to the Centennial State. And today — which is known as Colorado Day, in commemoration of the day on which the state officially joined the union in 1876 — the hemp flag flew at the Colorado Capitol.
The goal, says hemp advocate Mike Bowman, is to have the flag travel around the United States and fly at the capitol buildings of every state that wants it. “Maybe it’ll end up at the Smithsonian,” he says. Denver Westword has the rest.
San Diego based Medical Marijuana Inc. (MJNA) is commonly regarded as being the first publicly held company to deal openly in the hemp and marijuana markets. Promoted as a sort of ‘one-stop-shop’ for marijuana, hemp, and hempseed oil based products, services, and development, their product line focuses primarily on the benefits of CBDs, or cannabinoids, and what they hope are new, innovative, and popular ways to ingest them. MJNA prides itself on its “range of over 85 proprietary and patented cannabinoid ‘delivery methods’ that are more ‘socially and medically acceptable’ than typical industry methods.”