Search Results: kohl (44)

Sascha Kohlmann.


Here’s a head-scratcher: Vahak Mardoun Mardikian got demoted in 2012 by the Glendale Police Department for harassing and belittling other cops, but later the city’s Civil Service Commission sided with Mardikian. He was ultimately give a huge settlement, basically by claiming that the department, half of which is made up of Armenian, black and Latino cops, is anti-Armenian.
But on Aug. 8, Markidian got tossed in Clark County jail for allegedly giving Las Vegas vice detective Justine Gatus $275 for anal sex — and, well, to fill her gas tank. That’s what Nevada court records show, obtained by the scrappy Glendale News Press. But now he’s going to start collecting $10,000 a month off taxpayers– and he gets to retire at age 50 on the taxpayer dime. Is this OK?

Update: As expected, cops in Ross Township outside of Pittsburgh have charged Steelers running backs Le’Veon Bell and LeGarrette Blount with marijuana possession for a three-quarter ounce bag of herb found in their car earlier this week after the pair were caught smoking up in traffic. Bell has also been charged with driving under the influence of marijuana. In Pennsylvania, it’s illegal to have any THC metabolites in your system when driving a car.
A third person in the car, 21-year-old Mercedes Dollson, was also charged with pot possession. Cops noted that all three were cooperative and polite, which you kind of have to be when a motorcycle cop pulls up next to you when you’ve got a lit joint going around the car.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is notorious for his staunch anti-marijuana crackdown in the city. Under Bloomberg’s watch, more New Yorkers have been arrested for cannabis than under the previous three mayors combined. What’s the problem?

Well, according to Bloomberg and NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, the reason for arresting all those people for low-level marijuana offenses is to reduce violent crime in the city.
Wait, what? The idea that marijuana turns people violent is a relic of 1930s Reefer Madness, right? Well, yeah. But a brand new study — released Friday — provides yet more evidence that the marijuana-violence connection is, as James King of the Village Voice puts it, “a load of crap.”

Cannabis Culture

Advocates argue DOJ attacks unnecessarily harm over 1 million patients and may endanger Obama’s re-election effort
Hundreds of patients will hold rallies Thursday at 5 p.m. at local “Obama for America” campaign offices and other key locations in at least 15 cities in eight states across the country in an effort to draw attention to the Obama Administration’s aggressive efforts to shut down legal medical marijuana dispensaries and obstruct the passage of laws that would regulate such activity.
In addition to a lively rally in the nation’s capitol, demonstrations organized by Americans for Safe Access (ASA) are planned in the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Montana, Missouri, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington.
In Seattle, medical marijuana advocates are holding a press conference at City Hall on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. local time, featuring City Council member Nick Licata, State Rep. Roger Goodman, and State Senator Jeanna Kohl-Welles.

The Pacific Northwest Inlander

​Almost 14 years after Washington state voters approved the medicinal use of cannabis, patients in many parts of the state still have no safe access to it. A bill which would have formally legalized medical marijuana dispensaries in Washington has died in the Legislature.

Thus ends yet another effort to clearly define the legal status of the cannabis storefronts, of which there are already more than 100 in Seattle, Tacoma and surrounding areas, reports Jonathan Martin at the Seattle Times.
Although there were enough votes in the Senate to pass the bill, according to sponsor Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Seattle), it didn’t make it past the deadline for bills to advance because of limited time in the short session, as well as due to opposition from some Republican lawmakers and a handful of cities.

Cannabis Defense Coalition

​Seattle-based medical marijuana patient advocacy group the Cannabis Defense Coalition (CDC) has expressed serious concerns about Senate Bill 6265, currently in the Washington state Legislature.
A internal email sent to CDC members on Tuesday, February 7, outlined the group’s five biggest concerns with SB 6265 thusly:
1. Giving too much for too little
“SB 6265 would legalize a limited number of medical cannabis access points in a limited number of jurisdictions, but it will come at great cost to the Washington State medical cannabis community,” CDC said. “Governor Gregoire — whose partial veto last year put an end to the ‘designated provider model’ under which most access points were operating — has set boundaries on any medical cannabis bill she is to sign, and SB 6265 represents what is acceptable to her.
“The bill would provide broad authority to local counties, cities and towns to regulate medical cannabis collective gardens and access points through zoning, taxation, licensing, health and safety requirements, etc.,” the email said. “This will allow pot-friendly jurisdictions like Seattle and Tacoma to license, tax and regulate the medical cannabis businesses which have sprouted up in their midst, and over which they have uncertain authority.”

Mike Purdy’s Public Contracting Blog
The Washington State Capitol building in Olympia

​History was made on Wednesday as 42 members of the Washington Legislature petitioned the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration to reschedule marijuana from its current Schedule I status to a less restrictive classification to allow for its medical use.

“I don’t think a state legislature has done this before,” Seattle-based activist Philip Dawdy told Toke of the Town Thursday evening.

Among the lawmakers signing the letter to DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart was Rep. Timm Ormsby, brother of federal prosecutor Michael Ormsby, U.S. Attorney for Eastern Washington. Ormsby, along with Western Washington U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan, last year oversaw a federal crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries in the state.

Elway Research
Support has fallen since last July. (Hey, looks like Elway’s auto-correct got ’em, changing “initiative” to “imitative.”)

​​Washington state voters appear increasingly split on the prospect of marijuana legalization as a ballot initiative heads to the Legislature next week.

A new Elway Research Poll released on Wednesday showed softening support for Initiative 502, which would legalize possession of up to an ounce of marijuana and tax sales, with 48 percent in favor and 45 percent opposed, reports Jonathan Martin at the Seattle Times. The margin of error is five percentage points.
Conventional wisdom holds that initiatives which have starting points of less than around 55 percent support have a low chance of passage at the ballot box.

Photo: Elaine Thompson
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn: “We hope that if we can demonstrate, here in Seattle, a more sane approach to how we can work with this, that we can continue to move towards a transition on how we regulate and oversee the use of marijuana in an intelligent way rather than the irrational way that the prohibition era has given us.”

​Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn scheduled a Wednesday signing ceremony with City Attorney Pete Holmes, state Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles and other officials to sign a bill regulating medical marijuana like any other business.

Marijuana prohibition “denies an appropriate medication” to patients who need it, Mayor McGinn said at the ceremony. “Prohibition does not work.”
“We are taking the approach that what we need to do is honor the wishes of the City of Seattle and honor the wishes of the voters of Washington when it comes to medical marijuana, and appropriately regulate its use,” Mayor McGinn said.

Photo: KOMO News
Congressional candidate Roger Goodman, left, advocates the legalization of marijuana and protecting the planet.

​What if we could elect a real, live drug policy reformer to Congress? A candidate who has that background — and unabashedly advocates the legalization of cannabis nationwide — is running for the U.S. House of Representatives from Washington state, and he has an excellent chance to win.

Washington state Rep. Roger Goodman had in February initially announced he would run in the 8th District against Rep. Dave Reichert, a right-wing Republican, but now that Rep. Jay Inslee is vacating his seat in the House to run for Governor, Goodman will be running for that open seat in the reliably liberal 1st District where he lives, the candidate told Toke of the Town in an exclusive interview Friday afternoon.
“My number one priority is planetary health,” Goodman told me. “We need to pay attention to that, and we need to foster justice in our society.
“Cannabis policy reform is actually a part of both of those major issues, and my training as a lawyer, an environmentalist, a former Congressional chief of staff, a state agency director, and now as a legislator and reformer for years, qualifies me not just on cannabis reform but on qualify of life issues and on true progressive leadership,” he said.
1 2 3 5