| Graphic: Wussup Hater |
Colorado will be the next battleground in the national conflict over marijuana legalization, according to Sam Kamin, a professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.
Kamin’s statement followed local votes on medical marijuana bans throughout Colorado and the defeat of Proposition 19, which would have legalized limited amounts of marijuana for adults in California, reports Kyle Glazier at The Denver Post.
“California has had its chance,” said Kamin. “Colorado is the next obvious choice.”
| Photo: Daniel Mears/The Detroit News |
| Patient/activist Robert Redden shows his Michigan medical marijuana card outside Wednesday’s hearing. |
In Michigan, anti-pot local law enforcement is challenging in court the state’s 2008 law, passed by 63 percent of the voters, that allows distribution of medical marijuana.
A probable cause hearing began Wednesday for nine Oakland County, Mich., residents charged in a case that began when they were arrested August 25. All of the defendants are free on bond. The accused were associated with Clinical Relief, a Ferndale marijuana dispensary, reports Doug Guthrie of The Detroit News.
A warehouse in Macomb County and two dispensaries in Waterford Township were also raided, leading to other arrests.
| Graphic: The Tulane Hullabaloo |
Marijuana legalization went down in flames at the polls in California on Tuesday, and local experts in Louisiana say it’s very unlikely to happen there anytime soon, either.
“The chance of [marijuana law]changing here is extraordinarily remote,” said Robert Hogan, a political science professor at Louisiana State University. “The political system here does not lend itself to things like that.”
Hogan said Louisiana’s laws are unlikely to change because voters in Louisiana do not have the right to put an initiative like Proposition 19 on the ballot, reports Frederick Holl at The Daily Reveille.
| Photo: Mark Crosse/The Fresno Bee |
| Fresno Police discovered this field of marijuana — easily visible from the street — growing over the top of a fence in a residential area in September. |
A Fresno County, California ordinance that bans outdoor medical marijuana gardens is valid, a judged ruled Wednesday, but backyard growers have until midnight on November 30 to harvest their crops.
County officials couldn’t immediately enforce the ordinance, Superior Court Judge Jeff Hamilton ruled, because they had failed to prove that outdoor gardens were an imminent threat to public safety, reports Pablo Lopez at The Fresno Bee.
Because of recent violence associated with marijuana gardens, the Board of Supervisors on September 14 approved the ordinance banning outdoor medical marijuana gardens in unincorporated areas.
| Photo: Peter Hecht/The Sacramento Bee |
| Tim Blake, a longtime marijuana grower in Mendocino County, tends to his outdoor greenhouse in April near Laytonville, California. |
It’s no secret that Toke of the Town supported California’s Proposition 19 all the way down the line.
But it’s also important to try to understand the mindset of those who voted against it, especially within the cannabis community.
Toke‘s Northern California correspondent, Jack Rikess, got a chance to talk with a couple of growers explained why many in their community voted against the measure.
Here’s what he learned.
~ Steve Elliott, Editor
| Graphic: Quick Trading |
| Learn the secret of Aunt Sandy’s 10x Cannabutter in her Medical Marijuana Cookbook. |
Do you know how delicious cannabis can be? With the medical acceptance and value of marijuana now a legal fact in 14 states, and the growing use of edibles by medical marijuana patients, it’s time to get cooking.
Aunt Sandy’s Medical Marijuana Cookbook: Comfort Food For Body And Mind, which will help you do just that, is a beautiful thing. Not only does it just feel “right” as you hold it, it is one of the most gorgeously produced books I’ve seen in a long, long time, with stunning full-page photographs of finished dishes and well-presented, knowledgeable information from a veteran in the field.
Marijuana is medicine, and “Aunt” Sandy Moriarty shows you how to use it safely in 40 delicious and easy-to-follow recipes — desserts, appetizers, entrees and everything that’s good to eat.
Aunt Sandy’s full-color cookbook visually demonstrates the process for creating the “magic ingredient” in her recipes, Sandy’s 10x Cannabutter. The book includes 40 delicious dishes, from Aunt Sandy’s famous signature dessert, Blue Sky Lemon Bars to the “Dizzy Bird” Turkey with stuffing for festive Thanksgiving dinner.
| Stoners Against Prop 19 |
| Dragonfly De La Luz: The smugly self-satisfied new face of cannabis prohibition in California. |
It didn’t take long after the defeat of Proposition 19, which would have taxed and regulated marijuana in California, for the cannabis community to realize that legalization’s ignominious defeat was fueled by the duplicity — some would say outright treachery — of certain greedy, reactionary elements within the community itself. Boycotts against anti-Prop 19 businesses are now being organized.
So-called “Stoners Against Prop 19” — traitors to the movement such as Dennis Peron, Dragonfly De La Luz and J. Craig Canada — whether through stunning ignorance or outright malice, spread disinformation about exactly what the measure would have done.
They busily sowed division, distrust, and fear among a community that should have been united in striving to loosen the death grip of 70+ years of cannabis prohibition.
Offered the opportunity to embrace the future, these reactionary elements formed a fifth column within the medical cannabis community.
For who knows what reasons — maybe the miserly interest of preserving big pot profits? — they shamelessly allied themselves with the law enforcement and prison lobbies, with the Religious Right, and with the same intolerant fundamentalists behind the No On 19 campaign — the very same people, in the case of one statewide organization, that headed up the Proposition 8 anti-gay marriage initiative two years ago.
Legal, Safe Access Fails In Four States
It was a harsh day for marijuana supporters across the West as ballot initiatives went down to crushing defeats.
Voters in California on Tuesday said no thanks to Proposition 19, which would have legalized, taxed and regulated marijuana. Meanwhile Arizonans turned down medical marijuana by a thin margin; Oregon voters said no to dispensaries; and South Dakotans, for the second time and by an even larger margin than the first time, declined to legalize cannabis for medicinal purposes.
Arizona’s Prop 203 vote on medical marijuana was very, very close at 7:15 am Pacific on Wednesday. With 2,236 of 2,239 precincts reporting, and more than 99 percent of the vote counted, No held a razor-thin lead, 50.25 percent to 49.75 percent. This represented a spread of just 6,000 votes out of about 1.3 million votes counted.
California’s Prop 19 to legalize marijuana was defeated 54 percent No to 46 percent Yes.. With 97 percent of precincts reporting, Prop 19 was losing by eight points, just over half a million votes (3,891,521 No to 3,349,237 Yes). Servers were overwhelmed Tuesday night at the California Secretary of State’s website.
| Photo: AZ4NORML |
Voters in California, Arizona, South Dakota, and Oregon have a chance today to change their states’ marijuana laws.
Will citizens grasp their opportunity to make history? We’re soon to find out.
Here are handy resources to keep up with the election results in all four states:
The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 would legalize possession of limited amounts of marijuana by adults, allow a 5×5-foot growing space, and permit local governments to regulate and tax commercial sales.
Keep up with Prop 19 returns at the California Secretary of State’s results page here.
The Arizona Medical Marijuana Act would permit state-registered patients to buy cannabis legally from licensed dispensaries. Patients living more than 25 miles from the nearest dispensary would be allowed to cultivate their own marijuana.
Keep up with Prop 203 results at the Arizona Secretary of State’s results page here. You’ll need to scroll to the bottom of the page; Prop 203 results are the third from the bottom.