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Pot Is Not A Problem: Colorado Newspaper

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 24, 2009 Dispensaries, Legislation, Medical

A Colorado newspaper has published an extraordinary, ringing endorsement for the state’s booming marijuana industry.

Wednesday’s edition of the Colorado Springs Gazette contained the editorial “Pot, the nonproblem,” which called medical marijuana “the least-important, most-imitation crisis in years.”

“Colorado voters approved medical marijuana 10 years ago,” the editorial points out. “It’s in the state constitution, which trumps local authority. A constitution restricts the powers of government, and the Colorado constitution specifically prohibits government from impeding the sale of medical marijuana.”

“That leaves room only for the reasonable time, place and manner restrictions applied to other businesses,” the Gazette editorialized. “It’s really that simple.”

Shine On, Stoney: Making Pot Activism Even More Beautiful

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 22, 2009 Culture

Photo Courtesy Stoney McStonerson

Stoney: “You can save yourself a ton of pain if you just SHINE.”

Colorado’s Stoney Haze McStonerson is proof that not only can marijuana activists be intelligent and effective — they can also be quite easy on the eyes.

Stoney is many things, but shy isn’t one of them. A determined and influential ambassador for the movement, McStonerson is president and founder of the Colorado Chapter of American Cannabis.

Stoney’s the girl next door, if the girl next door were a beautiful, intelligent stoner.

“I am proud of my life and the wisdom I have gathered along the way,” Stoney told us. “I learned before most of the people I knew that changing who you really are inside to fit into the ‘normal box’ does not work!

“You can save yourself a ton of pain if you just SHINE,” Stoney said. “Whatever, whoever and however is not going to matter in the end if you are happy.”

Washington State Representatives Pre-File Bill To Legalize Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 17, 2009 Legislation, News

Reality Catcher

Marijuana’s going mainstream.

Six House Democrats have filed a bill in the Washington State Legislature to legalize marijuana.

The bill, which would make pot legal for those 21 or older, would use nearly all the money raised through sales at state liquor/marijuana stores for substance abuse treatment and prevention.

Marijuana revenues will probably be comparable to those for alcohol, according to Dickerson. Alcohol revenues run about $330 million yearly in Washington.

The six Democratic legislators sponsoring the bill are Mary Lou Dickerson and Scott White of Seattle, Roger Goodman of Kirkland, David Upthegrove of Des Moines, Sherry Appleton of Poulsbo and Mary Helen Roberts of Lynwood.

Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, a Republican, is already on record as opposing the bill. “Like most of my colleagues in law enforcement, like my father who was in law enforcement, I’m not a big fan of making marijuana available without a prescription,” McKenna said.

Former Seattle Police Chief Advocates Legalizing All Drugs

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 15, 2009 Culture, Legislation

Photo: normstamper.com

Norm Stamper of LEAP: “Legalizing pot but not other drugs will leave huge social harms unresolved”

With marijuana legalization apparently headed for the California ballot in 2010, Seattle’s former police chief is asking, “Why stop there?”, reports Matt Coker in the OC Weekly.

Police veteran Norm Stamper wore the blue for 34 years, and was the top cop in Seattle from 1994 until 2000. He’s also the author of Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing and one of the most prominent members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP).

Norm breaks it down in an AlterNet post, “Let’s Not Stop At Legalizing Marijuana,” citing polls that show a majority of Americans realize legalizing pot will produce a host of benefits, including, of course, the fact that 800,000 people a year will no longer be arrested for the herb. Taxation and regulation further bolster the pro-legalization arguments.

D.C. Council Seeks Swift Action On Medical Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 15, 2009 Legislation, Medical

cencalhhp.com

A District of Columbia councilman Monday said he wants to move quickly to establish regulations for distributing medical marijuana now that Congress voted to lift an 11-year ban on medicinal pot in the nation’s capital.

D.C. voters approved legalizing medical marijuana with 69 percent of the vote in 1998, but drug warrior then-Congressman Bob Barr (R-Ga.), at the time an ardent drug warrior who since says he’s become a pro-legalization Libertarian, blocked implementation of the law with the infamous Barr Amendment.

Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray said the council will use Initiative 59, approved by the voters, to devise a policy that allows doctors to recommend marijuana to patients with serious illnesses, reports Tim Craig at the Washington Post.

“We’ve waited 10 years… There is no reason to sit on it,” Gray said.

Wisconsin To Hold Public Hearing On Medical Marijuana Bill

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 14, 2009 Legislation, Medical

Photo: NORML Foundation

From left, Ken Wolski, Jacki Rickert, and Jim Miller at October’s rally at the Wisconsin State Capitol.

The Wisconsin Legislature will hold a public hearing Tuesday to debate SB 368, the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act, which would allow seriously ill patients to use cannabis without fear of arrest if their doctor recommends it.

The hearing will be at 10 a.m., Tuesday, Dec. 15, at the State Capitol, Room 412 East, Madison, Wis.

Qualifying patients with doctors’ notes could grow their own marijuana or obtain it from “compassion centers” around the state if the bill becomes law.

Wisconsin is working to become the 14th state to allow medical marijuana. Legislation is in the works in at least 14 other states, according to Mike Meno, assistant director of communications at the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP).

The bill is the namesake of Jacki Rickert, a 58-year-old grandmother from Mondovi who has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and advanced reflex sympathetic dystrophy, and who founded medical marijuana advocacy organization Is My Medicine Legal Yet? (IMMLY) in 1992.

Congress Ends Ban On Medical Marijuana In D.C.

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 13, 2009 Legislation, Medical, News

theskunk.org

Congress respecting the will of the people? What’s next, democracy?

Eleven years later, it’s about time: The U.S. Senate today passed historic legislation to end the decade long ban on implementation of the medical marijuana law Washington, D.C., voters passed with 69 percent of the vote in 1998.

“This marks the first time in history that Congress has changed a marijuana law for the better,” said Aaron Houston, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), based in D.C.

The “Barr Amendment,” a rider attached to appropriations for the District of Columbia, has forbidden D.C. from extending the legal protection of Initiative 59, the “Legalization of Marijuana for Medical Treatment Initiative of 1998,” to qualified medical marijuana patients.

The amendment has long been derided as an unconscionable intrusion by the federal government into the District’s affairs, according to MPP.

Let’s Tell The Truth About Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 11, 2009 Culture

Federal Art Project

“A weed is a flower, too, once you get to know it.” ~ Eeyore from “Winnie The Pooh”

After 72 years of the debate being controlled by those who’ve made it taboo to even talk honestly on the subject, it’s time to tell the truth about marijuana.

The deck remains stacked, of course, in favor of cannabis prohibition. The reason? Folks who know that marijuana should be legal are often too intimidated to say so — because, until now, speaking cannabis truth has sometimes carried a heavy price.

For years, a few brave medical doctors such as Lester Grinspoon of Harvard have been voices in the wilderness of marijuana prohibition. Their repeated calls for an open and honest debate on the subject have largely fallen on deaf ears.

Until now, when it comes to marijuana, those who know won’t say, and those who say don’t know.

Bill To Legalize Marijuana Introduced In Washington Legislature

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 10, 2009 Legislation, News

Photo: Public Domain

Federal government pot farm at the University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS. Under Washington state’s proposed legalization bill, pot would be grown by state-licensed farmers and sold only through state liquor stores.

Washington state pot advocates who thought they had to choose between a marijuana decrim bill ($100 fine for under 40 grams) and the status quo (including a mandatory night in jail for possessing any amount) just got another choice. A state lawmaker introduced a bill Monday to legalize marijuana in the state.

Under the bill, introduced by Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson (D-Seattle), marijuana would be legal for persons 21 and older to use and possess, subject to regulations similar to those controlling alcohol.

Denver Public Radio Commentator: The War On Drugs Has Failed

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 7, 2009 Culture, News

KUNC

A commentator on Denver public radio has called the War on Drugs a failure, and has endorsed the legalization of marijuana.

“As a nation we have been waging a war of attrition against ourselves in which the winner is none other than narco-traffickers south of the border,” said KUNC commentator Dr. Pius Kamau. “We have fought a valiant but losing war on drugs.”

“We must be cognizant of the fact that the cost of incarcerating 2 million Americans for drug offenses is bankrupting this nation,” Dr. Kamau said. “And experience has shown that the best way to deal with those addicted to drugs is not prison. It is therapy.”

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