| Photo: BakedLife.com |
New Requirement Called Openly Hostile, “Blatantly Political”
New Jersey doctors who have begun enrolling some of their sickest patients in the state’s medical marijuana program Tuesday found they must agree to tell the patients there’s a “lack of scientific consensus” that cannabis works, that it could even hurt them, and that it has a risk of addiction.
Physicians must sign off on a statement attesting to their patients’ qualifying conditions and the failure of “conventional medicine” to help alleviate their suffering, reports Susan K. Livio at NJ.com.
But the statement goes much farther than that. It also forces doctors to provide “education for the patient on the lack of scientific consensus for the use of medical marijuana, its sedative properties, and the risk of addiction.”
NBC Dallas-Fort Worth sports reporter Newy Scruggs got distracted during his live shot by nearby San Francisco Giants fans smoking marijuana at McCovey Cove.
| Photo: Russia Beyond The Headlines |
| Russian Drug Czar Viktor Ivanov: “The people who are addicted develop psychiatric deviations” |
Russian drug czar Viktor Ivanov has flown into California and offered his unsolicited opinion on marijuana legalization there, warning of “psychiatric deviations” if Proposition 19 should pass.
Ivanov, a former KGB officer and now a prominent member of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, took the unusual step of going to Los Angeles to “conduct a campaign against legalizing marijuana in California,” as he said in an interview, according to Foreign Policy.
He also came to Washington, D.C., this week to meet with U.S. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske and U.S. Afghan envoy Richard Holbrooke to discuss anti-opium poppy measures in Afghanistan and call for an “intensified program” of aerial poppy eradication there.
Ivanov, who heads up Russia’s Federal Service for Narcotics Control, had a stern warning for those pot-smoking Californians.
“I’m afraid that the consequences of [legalization]will be catastrophic,” Ivanov warned.
“Even the Netherlands, where they sell marijuana legally in coffee shops, they are now reversing on this,” he inaccurately claimed. “Because there, and everywhere, drug addiction is becoming stronger and the people who are addicted develop psychiatric deviations. They say, ‘What does God do when he wants to punish a person? He deprives him of his mind.’ “
| Graphic: The Weed Blog |
A California-wide radio advertising blitz paid for by the California Chamber of Commerce’s Business PAC features a commercial showing a stoned workforce.
The spot, which calls for a “no” vote on the Proposition 19 cannabis legalization initiative, has many inaccuracies, reports Peter Hecht of The Sacramento Bee.
The text of the Chamber of Commerce ad is as follows:
Imagine coming out of surgery and the nurse caring for you was high – or having to work harder on your job to make up for a co-worker who shows up high on pot. It could happen in California if Proposition 19 passes.Prop 19 would do more than simply legalize marijuana. Prop 19 is worded so broadly that it would hurt California’s economy, raise business costs and make it harder to create jobs. Employees would be allowed to come to work high and employers would be unable to punish an employee for being high until after a workplace accident.Not only could workers compensation premiums rise, businesses will lose millions in federal grants for violating federal drug laws. California’s economy is bad enough. Prop 19 will hurt workers and business and cost jobs.Twenty five California newspapers, including the Chronicle and the Bee, and Dianne Feinstein agree: Vote No on Prop 19.
“The chamber’s over-the-top depiction of a stoned post-surgical nurse and its frets about people coming to work high contradict rules on marijuana in the workplace upheld by the California Supreme Court and federal law,” Hecht points out.
| Photo: Shady House Publishing Company |
It doesn’t take a psychic to know that marijuana legalization is on the way. A new book showing that it never should have been outlawed in the first place will be soon be available online, according to its publisher.
Author Hoam Rogh‘s new twist on his cult classic marijuana novel, Satan’s Smoke, retitled The Case of U.S. v. Yerbas, shows the history and constitutional implications of cannabis law, exposing marijuana prohibition as unconstitutional.
“One chapter will be published online each week, along with commentary on the facts, the histories and the artistic liberties we took in making the book,” Rogh said.
The Case of U.S. v. Yerbas features a trial in federal court that invalidates cannabis prohibition. The story has already been read from coast to coast, and the print edition will soon be available in bookstores nationwide.
“To provide some fuel to our fire, we’re going to be giving readers a taste of what they could be reading,” Rogh said. “With over 30 chapters, you could just kill the whole thing in an afternoon by getting your own copy.”
| Photo: San Jose P.D. |
| Suspect 1 |
The San Jose Police Department has released photos and video of the two unknown males who robbed the Monterey Road Dispensary, a medical marijuana club in San Jose, California, at gunpoint on September 29, 2010.
During the robbery, which took place at 11:54 a.m., the first suspect pulled out a handgun and ordered the two dispensary employees to the ground. The suspects tied the employees’ hands and robbed them of personal effects, along with cash and cannabis from the business.
The suspects fled in a green Honda four-door and remain at large. They did not discharge their weapons, and the employees were not injured.
The same two suspects are believed to have been involved in a similar dispensary robbery than happened 11 days earlier, on September 18, also in San Jose.
| Photo: Sensible Washington |
| New cannabis legalization petitions should start circulating in February 2011 in Washington state. |
By William Budz, Guest Author
While a marijuana decriminalization initiative does not appear on the 2010 Washington state ballot, issue supporters say 2011 is a whole new bag. The Sensible Washington campaign plans to file its new initiative, which was recently endorsed by NORML, in January 2011 and circulate it in February.
Many pro-cannabis voters were disheartened earlier this year when they heard that I-1068, an initiative that would have removed state civil and criminal penalties for persons 18 years or older who cultivate, possess, transport, sell, or use marijuana, had failed to generate enough signatures to make it onto the 2010 ballot.
Philip Dawdy, vice-chair of Sensible Washington, the organization which backed I-1068, said while the campaign anticipated that money and volunteers would be challenges, they never expected to have to battle Mother Nature.
“It was the weather that was truly our biggest obstacle,” Dawdy said. “We had a very wet May and June (the months when most signatures get gathered by any campaign) and it became a struggle to turn out signature gatherers in tough weather.”
| Photo: Tomas Bravo/Reuters |
| Bullet-riddled patrol trucks and a pockmarked building are the aftermath of an attack at a police station in Los Ramones, about 43 miles from Monterrey, Mexico. |
Every cop in a small northern Mexican town quit Tuesday after gunmen heavily sprayed their brand new police headquarters Monday night.
All 14 members of the Los Ramones police force reportedly resigned, according to MSNBC. Nobody was answering the phone at the office of Mayor Santos Salinas, The Associated Press reported.
Gunmen fired more than 1,000 rounds at the building’s facade, reports Noroeste. Six grenades, three of which detonated, were also thrown at the building, according to the the newspaper.
| Photo: Voice It Out |
| Seattle Police officers knocked a legal patient’s door down, charged in brandishing machine guns, and forced him face down to the floor. He had two legal plants. |
Seattle Police officers brandishing submachine guns broke down the door of a 50-year-old medical marijuana patient Monday night and pushed him face down to the floor. His offense? He was legally growing two tiny cannabis plants.
Will Laudanski, a military veteran who was an Airborne Ranger in Desert Shield, wasn’t even breaking the law. As an authorized medical marijuana patient in the state of Washington, he’s allowed to grow up to 15 plants and possess 24 ounces of cannabis.
But Seattle Police have shown they are willing to treat the smallest of pot cases — even in cases where the marijuana is legal — as if they were raiding the biggest crack house or meth lab in town.
Just before 9 p.m. Monday officers at SPD’s East Precinct held a briefing about a complaint of marijuana at a four-unit apartment building in the Leschi neighborhood, reports Dominic Holden at The Stranger.
| Photo: follow the money |
| Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos: “Tell me if there is a way to explain to a Colombian peasant that if he produces marijuana we are going to put him in jail… [while]the same product is legal [in California]” |
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has said that if Proposition 19 passes next week in California, legalizing marijuana in the state, it could force his country to rethink its drug policies.
“Tell me if there is a way to explain to a Colombian peasant that if he produces marijuana we are going to put him in jail… [while]the same product is legal [in California],” President Santos said, reports All Headline News. “That’s going to produce a comprehensive discussion on the approach we have taken on the fight against drug trafficking.”
Just a couple of months ago, Santos endorsed the call for a debate on drug legalization made by Mexican President Felipe Calderon, reports Juan Carlos Hidalgo at Cato @ Liberty. However, Santos also said he believes legalization would increase consumption of drugs, despite the fact that it hasn’t happened in countries with liberal drug policies such as Portugal.
Santos brought up the subject again on Tuesday at a Latin American presidential summit in Cartagena, Colombia. “If we don’t act in a consistent way on this issue, if all we are doing is to send our fellow citizens to jail while in other latitudes the market is being legalized, then we have to ask ourselves: Isn’t it time to review the global strategy against drugs?” he asked.