Search Results: bloomberg (60)

Photo: Matt Lennert/flickr
A Jamaican farmer in his field of ganja

​Top government officials in Jamaica have said they will review recommendations to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal and religious use in the Caribbean island nation.

Six Cabinet ministers in Prime Minister Bruce Golding’s administration will evaluate a 2001 report by the National Commission for Ganja, reports David McFadden of Bloomberg Businessweek.
The commission, which included academics and doctors and was appointed by a government led by the current opposition party, argued that cannabis was “culturally entrenched” in Jamaica and that moderate use had no negative health effects on most users.

Graphic: Law Firm Blog

​In 2010, New York City spent $75 million arresting 50,383 people for possession of small amounts of marijuana.

That’s just one of the startling facts in a new report released Tuesday which documents the crushing costs of misguided marijuana enforcement in the city. Every day, about 140 people are arrested for marijuana offenses in New York City, making it the leading cause of arrest.
A full 87 percent of those arrested are black or Latino, a particularly outrageous number since people of color do not use marijuana at higher rates than the rest of the population.
“Incredibly, the NYPD has quietly made marijuana infractions their top law enforcement priority without even a pretense of public input or debate,” said Neill Franklin, a retired narcotics officer who heads Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP).

Graphic: NORML
More than 350,000 people have been arrested for marijuana possession in New York City under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an admitted pot-smoker.

​Marijuana possession offenses were the number one reason for arrests in New York City in 2010, according to recently released figures from the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services. Cannabis offenses comprised 15 percent of all arrests in NYC last year. The majority of those arrested for pot were African-American and Latino youth.

More people were arrested last year in New York City on marijuana charges than during the entire 19-year period from 1978 to 1996, according to the figures.

The New York City Police Department arrested 50,383 people for low-level marijuana offenses last year. On an average day in New York City, nearly 140 people are arrested for pot possession, making the Big Apple the “Marijuana Arrest Capital of the World,” according to the Drug Policy Alliance.

Photo: Fugitive.com
This stash of cash totaling $205 million was stolen, I mean seized, from Mexican drug cartel members by Mexican Federal Police and the American DEA during a joint raid on a suspected cartel boss’s home

​Gotta watch those darn south of the border “drug cartels.” Not only have they fought back against Mexico’s War On Drugs, resulting in thousands of deaths, but now they’ve gotten into Bill Gates’s pockets, too.

Drug cartels are making fake copies of Office 2007 and selling ’em on the streets of Mexico, at least if you believe David Finn, Microsoft’s associate general counsel for anti-piracy, reports Curtis Cartier at Seattle Weekly.
Finn showed off a copy of counterfeit Office software “brazenly” stamped with the rectangular “FMM” logo of La Familia drug cartel, reports Heather Smith at Bloomberg.

Photo: cityrag
New York City is the world “leader” in marijuana arrests. And if you don’t have bail money, you could be spending a couple of weeks in jail for a misdemeanor offense.

​Thousands of people charged with low-level marijuana “crimes” in New York City spend days in jail for these misdemeanors, not because they have been found guilty, but because they are too poor to post bail, according to a report released on Friday.

And faced with the choice of pleading guilty and getting out of jail, or fighting the charges and staying behind bars while awaiting trial, many of the defendants choose to plead guilty, the report said.

The report, which examines the bail conditions for people charged with non-felonies like smoking marijuana in public or jumping a subway turnstile, found the overwhelming majority of defendants in cases in which the bail was set at $1,000 or less were unable to pay and were sent to jail — where they remained, on average, for more than two weeks, reports Mosi Secret at The New York Times.

Photo: City Pages

​The Drug Enforcement Administration on Wednesday said it will ban five chemicals used to produce so-called “synthetic marijuana,” making the product illegal to sell or possess in the United States.

“The owners of the head shops and the convenience stores that sell these products have no less than 30 days to clear their shelves,” said DEA special agent Terri K. Wyatt, reports Chance Welch of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The “fake pot” products will be illegal in another month as the DEA is taking emergency action to ban the chemicals used to make them, report Pierre Thomas and Lisa Jones of ABC News.

Graphic: Medical Marijuana Blog

​Republican state Senator David Brinkley wants to renew efforts to legalize medical marijuana in Maryland. Brinkley said if he is reelected, he will introduce a bill that would not only protect medical marijuana patients from arrest, but would also address the issue of providing authorized patients with safe access to cannabis, rather than forcing them to obtain it on the black market.

A similar bill passed the Maryland Senate last session, but failed in the House of Delegates, reports Arlene Borenstein at NBC Washington.
Defendants charged with use or possession of marijuana can argue medical need as a mitigating factor in their sentencing under Maryland’s current “affirmative defense” law. But judges can still fine patients $100, even if medical necessity is proven.

Photo: Briarpatch
It’s not going to be Easy Going for you if you want to buy hash at this coffee shop — unless you’re Dutch.

​The Netherlands can ban over-the counter sales of marijuana in Dutch “coffee shops” to nonresidents to end drug tourism from other countries, a senior advisor to the European Union high court said Thursday, reports The Associated Press.

The advisor, Yves Bot, senselessly claimed a Dutch city’s ban on foreign customers in the shops is a “lawful and necessary measure” to cut crime and keep the peace, reports Stephanie Bodoni at Bloomberg.
“As drug tourism represents a genuine and sufficiently serious threat to public order in Maastricht, the exclusion of non-residents from coffee shops” is a “necessary” way of protecting residents, Bot said.

Graphic: Drug Policy Alliance

​New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an admitted pot smoker, isn’t acting too cool these days. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, a billboard company refused to run an ad regarding the cost of arresting marijuana smokers after pressure from the mayor’s office.

The DPA received notice from Titan 360, North America’s largest transit advertising company, that a billboard set to run on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE) criticizing Mayor Bloomberg for his out-of-control marijuana arrest policy will not be allowed to run.
The landlord refused the ad because of “political circumstances from the Mayor’s office,” according to an email from a Titan 360 account executive.

Graphic: TalkLeft
The United Nations wants us to stop questioning the almighty Drug War

​A fast growing movement in Latin America to relax the laws against marijuana and other illegal drugs may — horrors! — undermine the global Drug War, according to a United Nations group.

The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) said in its annual report, released Wednesday, that is is “concerned” that Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico have decriminalized possession of drugs, particularly marijuana, for personal use reports Lucia Baldomir at Bloomberg Business Week.
The decrim movement “poses a threat” to the “coherence and effectiveness” (as if it ever had any of either) of the international Drug War if not “resolutely countered,” according to the report, and besides that, it sends “the wrong message to the general public.”
Hey, INCB, I guess you think the “general public” doesn’t have any say in policy matters? Maybe you’re the one with the same old “wrong message,” there in your ivory tower in Vienna. Have you considered that maybe people are beginning to see the folly of locking people up for growing and using an herb?
1 4 5 6