Search Results: torres (12)

She doesn’t seem very enthusiastic about full legalization though.

Here’s your daily round-up of pot-news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Download WeedWeek’s free 2016 election guide here.

A document preparing Hillary Clinton for her primary debates and released by WIkiLeaks suggests that as President she would continue President Obama’s hands-off policy towards state-legal marijuana industries, as long as they follow broad federal guidelines. Her talking points also suggest some openness to industry banking. (See page 97 of the document for more details.)

Claudia didn’t think anything was wrong when United States Customs and Border Protection agents flagged her for an in-depth security screening after the early-morning flight from her native Chile landed at Los Angeles International Airport early on October 8, 2015. “It’s normal,” she says. “Sometimes the officers review people.” Besides, Claudia had never been in trouble in her life.

Agents directed her into a big, open room, where Claudia was told to place her luggage on a table for examination. Officer Torres, a Customs agent with a dark mustache, asked about her planned one-week visit to San Francisco and made friendly small talk as he went through her suitcase and purse. When he noticed her copy of Game of Thrones, he asked about her favorite character. When the 27-year-old said, “Jon Snow,” he smiled and replied, “You know nothing.”


It’s a fact: if you live in New York City and your skin is anything but white, it’s a high likelihood that you’ll eventually get hassled by the NYPD using the “stop and frisk” policy to try and criminalize you. It’s something that statistics have proven time and time again: police are racially biased. And now five NYC council members – all either black or latino – have had enough and have written Mayor Bill de Blasio demanding a fix.

Regulate Marijuana Like Wine
Retired LAPD Deputy Chief Stephen Downing: “Enacting this legislation would not only be disastrous for our state’s legal medical marijuana patients, but would impede public safety for all Californians by distracting police from catching actually dangerous drivers”

Law Enforcers Say Bill Would Criminalize Legal Medical Marijuana Patients & Distract Police

Patients Would Face Mandatory 10-Year Prison Term With Third ‘DUI’ — While Not Impaired
A group of former California police officers, prosecutors and judges on Tuesday issued a letter asking Assemblymember Norma Torres to withdraw a bill she introduced that would criminalize driving with any amount of cannabinoids in the body.
The criminal justice professionals, members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), say that the standards created by the bill have nothing to do with actual impairment behind the wheel and will criminalize the state’s legal medical marijuana patients.
“Zero tolerance has a nice ring to it, but most all applications of this overused (and clichéd) concept result in harmful unintended consequences,” the letter reads in part. “Zero tolerance relieves the decision-maker of the burden of making sound legal judgments and routinely produces more harm than good.

THC Finder

​A bill that would establish a zero-tolerance driving under the influence (DUI) standard for marijuana has been introduced in the California Legislature.

The bill, AB 2552, sponsored by Norma Torres (D-Pomona), would make any driver found with above-zero levels of cannabinoids in blood or urine presumptively guilty of DUI.
“Since cannabinoids remain in the system for days or weeks after last use, the bill would effectively outlaw driving by every marijuana user in the state,” said Dale Gieringer of California NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws).

Cannabis Times

​The head of New Mexico’s medical marijuana program has quietly resigned, and nobody’s giving a reason.

Dominick Zurlo gave the state notice about two weeks ago that he’s leaving the job, a state Health Department spokeswoman confirmed Thursday, reports Steve Terrell at The New Mexican.
Aimee Barabe said she “couldn’t comment on a personnel matter” and referred all questions to Zurlo, who said he’s working for the state until November 28 and can’t make any comments, referring questions back to Barabe in an endless, circular game of pass the buck.
Zurlo resigned of his own accord, according to Scott Darnell, a spokesman for Governor Susana Martinez.

Photo: Terra.com
N.M. Gov. Susana Martinez opposes safe access for patients, and wants to repeal her state’s medical marijuana law.

​New Mexico’s medical marijuana program will continue for now, although the state’s new Republican governor has made it clear she dos not support the law, which allows people with certain medical conditions to use cannabis.

Gov. Susana Martinez said during her campaign that the state’s medical marijuana law puts state employees in the position of violating federal law and she’d like it repealed, reports the Associated Press.
But she also said New Mexico had pressing budget issues, so repeal is “not a priority” in the 2011 legislative session.

Photos: U.S. Marshals Service
Mark Steven Phillips, 62, was arrested in his senior community apartment 31 years after his original arrest in 1979, left.

​After being on the run for more than 30 years, a member of the legendary Miami-based “Black Tuna Gang,” a marijuana smuggling operation, was arrested by U.S. Marshals Thursday morning in a senior community in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Mark Steven Phillips, 62, had been a wanted man for more than 30 years after he skipped out on his trial for being a member of an operation accused of smuggling some 500 tons of Colombian cannabis into the United States over a period of 16 months in the 1970s.
However, according to Black Tuna Gang leader Robert Platshorn — who is the longest serving pot prisoner in American history, having himself served almost 30 years in federal prison for smuggling marijuana — Phillips was definitely not the “Marijuana Kingpin” prosecutors and their obedient headline writers are trying to make him out to be.

Photo: EUCON
Can you say marijuana tourism? As soon as Saipan legalizes marijuana — which it almost did this week — the stoner dollars will start pouring in, mine included.

​Ahhh… Sugar white beaches and sugar-frosted sticky buds.
A tropical Pacific island paradise almost just legalized weed — and no passport is required to visit from the United States, since it is a protectorate. While that stony dream may have just suffered a setback, it lives on and may soon be put up for a popular vote.
The House passed the marijuana legalization bill on Wednesday, but at least five of nine senators are lukewarm to the idea of legalizing marijuana in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), which includes Saipan, Tinian, Ascuncion and Rota islands in the Pacific. This probably means the bill is doomed, reports Haidee V. Eugenio at the Saipan Tribune.
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