| Joe Winn |
| The 2011 Oregon Medical Cannabis Awards (OMCA) First Place trophy |
By Charlie Bott
Toke of the Town
Oregon Correspondent
The marijuana strain Mad Scientist, grown by first-time entrant Ray Bowser, captured top honors at the 10th Annual Oregon Medical Cannabis Awards on Saturday, December 10, at the World Famous Cannabis Cafe in Portland.
The highest THC content flowers overall measured an impressive 23.9 percent. Better keep this stuff out of New Jersey (where the limit is 10 percent) and the Netherlands (limit 15 percent)!
Overall Winner: Mad Scientist — grown by first-time entrant Ray Bowser
2nd place: Medicine Woman — grown by David Verstoppen
3rd place : Blueberry — grown by last year’s winner, Jessi James
The ceremony also included the presentation of the Freedom Fighter of the Year awards to Lori Duckworth of Southern Oregon NORML, and presentation of the Dr. Ric Bayer Award to Paul Loney, legal counsel for Oregon NORML, for his years of service to the medical cannabis community.
| The Daily Record |
Only 18 Of 32 Drug Courts Showed Statistically Significant Reduction In Re-Arrest Rates Of Participants
Drug courts, hailed just a few years ago as the salvation of our criminal justice system — they were supposed to rescue the courts from being swamped with low-level possession cases — have problems of their own.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) last week released a report in which it finds that only 18 of 32 drug courts — or just more than 50 percent — showed statistically significant reductions in recidivism among participants.
| Flashpoints |
| The Basque Country in Spain (yellow area on the map) is legalizing marijuana in 2012. |
As the U.S. federal government torques up its war on marijuana, parts of Europe are going in the other direction. The Socialist government of the Basque Country in Spain will approve a law in early 2012 which legalizes the cultivation, sale and consumption of cannabis, according to health authorities in the province.
The Basque government, led by Patxi Lopez, has decided it is better to regulate clubs where consumers will be able to use marijuana which will be produced and distributed by members of the club themselves, reports Typically Spanish.
Spanish drug laws currently distinguish between possession for personal use, and production or sale. Possession carries administrative fines, but production and sale currently can result in jail time.
Government officials said the new law would better explain the consequences of consumption to the public, and would create “a certain space for personal autonomy,” adding that prohibition only leads to “clandestine action, delinquency and the black market.”
| Cheryl Shuman |
| Medical marijuana advocates hold a rally outside Long Beach City Hall |
A coalition of advocates and public officials filed an amicus “friend of the court” brief on Monday, asking the California Supreme Court to take the appeal of Pack v. City of Long Beach, a controversial medical marijuana decision from early October.
The coalition, which includes Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), as well as the County of Santa Cruz, is also seeking outright depublication of the Second District ruling.
The Long Beach City Council decided in November to appeal the Pack decision to the California Supreme Court.
| Yahoo! Local |
| Nature’s Way, a medical marijuana dispensary in Colorado Springs, had an attempted robbery by two men Saturday night. The would-be robbers left empty handed. |
Two would-be robbers were foiled Saturday night at a Colorado Springs medical marijuana dispensary when the cops arrived faster than expected.
The employees at Nature’s Way said two men broke into their store by going into the coin laundry next door, then using their bathroom to gain access to the dispensary’s ceiling, reports Catherine Bilkey at KKTV. From there the would-be robbers were able to climb over the tiles and break into Nature’s Way.
But that’s about all that went according to plan for the two bumbling crooks.
“It was almost like a movie scene,” said Nature’s Way employee Mark Cebula. “The alarms are going off; because that alarm is pretty loud … they must have started panicking.”
Most of the cannabis at the dispensary is locked up in a safe at night, so Cebula believes the frustrated pot-rustlers tried to leave through the front door, but probably saw the cops pulling up. With locked doors all around, they were stuck in the lobby.
| Brittney Lohmiller/The Saginaw News |
| Dr. Bob Townsend meets with a patient in Saginaw, Michigan. “My patients didn’t tell me it helped them; they showed me by getting rid of narcotics,” Townsend said. |
One Michigan physician says that counter to what he was told in medical school, his patients have shown him that medical marijuana produces results.
“I, like most physicians, was taught that ‘medical marijuana’ was a political movement and marijuana has no medical use,” wrote Dr. Robert Townsend in the Lansing State Journal on Saturday. “But we were also taught to listen to our patients and base our decisions on evidence, not dogma.”
“Take chronic, severe pain — a qualifying condition for medical marijuana,” Dr. Townsend wrote. “IF my professors in medical school were correct, if marijuana is a Schedule I narcotic because it has no medical value, I would not expect marijuana use to result in a decreased need for pain medication.
| High Country Caregiver |
Colorado patients whose medical marijuana authorizations were signed by physician’s assistants have been told by the state’s public health department that they should have been examined by doctors, not assistants. And as punishment, patients will have to wait six months before they can apply again for medicinal cannabis.
Yes, really!
“This delay will undoubtedly anger many patients who’ve already been waiting for months to get their red card renewed,” reports Michael Roberts at Denver Westword, “and all because a number of doctors are accused of failing to conduct examinations themselves, thereby rendering their recommendations ‘fraudulent.’ “
| Joe Grumbine |
| Joe Grumbine addresses supporters outside the courtroom |
The out-of-control antics of an octogenarian, rabidly anti-marijuana judge continued to appall activists in Long Beach, California this week. Superior Court Judge Charles Sheldon, the 79-year-old judge in the trial of Joe Grumbine and Joe Byron, former operators of a pair of Long Beach cannabis collectives, didn’t even bother to conceal his obvious bias against the defendants, according to observers.
“We got pounded this week and especially the last half of today,” Grumbine posted on Facebook Friday night. “In spite of three motions for a mistrial due to bias, we move forward in this landmark case.”
Right at the outset of the trial, Judge Sheldon denied the two Joes their right to mention medical marijuana in their defense — upon which, of course, the whole case hinges. This prevented their attorneys from calling it witnesses who could testify that they were following California state law. But after a ruling last week by the California Court of Appeal, Sheldon was left with no choice but to allow such witnesses to testify.
On Monday, when confronted with this ruling, Sheldon refused a follow-up motion by the defense to delay the trial for a week so defense attorneys Alison Margolin and Christopher Glew could get ahold of the previously off-limits witnesses. But Judge Sheldon insisted the trial start right away.