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Jolie Rouge
10-23-2004, 08:33 PM
Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great.

The laws concerning marijuana aren't exactly indefensible, because practically nothing is, and the thunderers who tell us to stay the course can always find one man or woman who, having taken marijuana, moved on to severe mental disorder. But that argument, to quote myself, is on the order of saying that every rapist began by masturbating.

General rules based on individual victims are unwise. And although there is a perfectly respectable case against using marijuana, the penalties imposed on those who reject that case, or who give way to weakness of resolution, are
very difficult to defend. If all our laws were paradigmatic, imagine what we would do to anyone caught lighting a cigarette, or drinking a beer. Or -- exulting in life in the paradigm -- committing adultery. Send them all to Guantanamo?

Legal practices should be informed by realities. These are enlightening in the matter of marijuana. There are approximately 700,000 marijuana-related arrests made very year. Most of these -- 87 percent -- involve nothing more than mere possession of small amounts of marijuana. This exercise in scrupulosity costs us $10 billion to $15 billion per year in direct expenditures alone. Most transgressors caught using marijuana aren't packed away to jail, but some are, and in Alabama, if you are convicted three times of marijuana possession, they'll lock you up for 15 years to life. Professor Ethan Nadelmann, of the Drug Policy Alliance, writing in National Review, estimates at 100,000 the number of Americans currently behind bars for one or another marijuana offense.

What we face is the politician's fear of endorsing any change in existing marijuana laws. You can imagine what a call for reform in those laws would do to an upward mobile political figure. Gary Johnson, as governor of New Mexico, came out in favor of legalization -- and went on to private life. George Shultz, former secretary of state, long ago called for legalization, but he was not running for office, and at his age, and with his distinctions, he is immune to slurred charges of indifference to the fate of children and humankind. But Kurt Schmoke, as mayor of Baltimore, did it, and survived a re-election challenge.

But the stodgy inertia most politicians feel is up against a creeping reality. It is that marijuana for medical relief is a movement that is attracting voters who are pretty assertive on the subject. Every state ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana has been approved, often by wide margins.

Of course we have here collisions of federal and state authority. Federal authority technically supervenes state laws, but federal authority in the matter is being challenged on grounds of medical self-government. It simply isn't so that there are substitutes equally efficacious. Richard Brookhiser, the widely respected author and editor, has written on the subject for the New York Observer. He had a bout of cancer and found relief from chemotherapy only in marijuana -- which he consumed, and discarded after the affliction was gone.

The court has told federal enforcers that they are not to impose their way between doctors and their patients, and one bill sitting about in Congress would even deny the use of federal funds for prosecuting medical marijuana use. Critics of reform do make a pretty plausible case when they say that whatever is said about using marijuana only for medical relief masks what the advocates are really after, which is legal marijuana for whoever wants it.

That would be different from the situation today. Today we have illegal marijuana for whoever wants it. An estimated 100 million Americans have smoked marijuana at least once, the great majority abandoning its use after a few highs. But to stop using it does not close off its availability. A Boston commentator observed years ago that it is easier for an 18-year-old to get marijuana in Cambridge than to get beer. Vendors who sell beer to minors can forfeit their valuable licenses. It requires less effort for the college student to find marijuana than for a sailor to find a brothel. Still, there is the danger of arrest (as 700,000 people a year will tell you), of possible imprisonment, of blemish on one's record. The obverse of this is increased cynicism about the law.

We're not going to find someone running for president who advocates reform of those laws. What is required is a genuine republican groundswell. It is happening, but ever so gradually. Two of every five Americans, according to a 2003 Zogby poll cited by Dr. Nadelmann, believe "the government should treat marijuana more or less the same way it treats alcohol: It should regulate it, control it, tax it, and make it illegal only for children."

Such reforms would hugely increase the use of the drug?

Why? It is de facto legal in the Netherlands, and the percentage of users there is the same as here. The Dutch do odd things, but here they teach us a lesson.


-- William F. Buckley Jr.

stresseater
10-23-2004, 09:29 PM
Hahaha, it's late and I thought I was still in the freebie forum. I like to broke my finger getting in here. :eek: ;) :D ITA with the whole article.
Legal practices should be informed by realities. These are enlightening in the matter of marijuana. There are approximately 700,000 marijuana-related arrests made very year. Most of these -- 87 percent -- involve nothing more than mere possession of small amounts of marijuana. This exercise in scrupulosity costs us $10 billion to $15 billion per year in direct expenditures alone. Most transgressors caught using marijuana aren't packed away to jail, but some are, and in Alabama, if you are convicted three times of marijuana possession, they'll lock you up for 15 years to life. Professor Ethan Nadelmann, of the Drug Policy Alliance, writing in National Review, estimates at 100,000 the number of Americans currently behind bars for one or another marijuana offense.
This is not even counting the number of families that are torn apart by the authorities after an arrest. :( :( :mad:

Jolie Rouge
11-25-2004, 10:36 PM
High Court to Weigh Medical Marijuana Laws
By DAVID KRAVETS

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - Traditional drugs have done little to help 39-year-old Angel Raich. Beset by a list of ailments that includes tumors in her brain, seizures, spasms and nausea, she has found comfort only in the marijuana that is prescribed by her doctor.

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that will determine whether Raich and similar patients in California and 10 other states can continue to use marijuana for medical purposes.

At issue is whether states have the right to adopt laws allowing the use of drugs the federal government has banned or whether federal drug agents can arrest individuals for abiding by those medical marijuana laws.

California passed the nation's first so-called medical marijuana law in 1996, allowing patients to smoke and grow marijuana with a doctor's recommendation. The Bush administration maintains those laws violate federal drug rules and asserts that marijuana has no medical value.


But the drug eases Raich's pain, allows her to rise out of a wheelchair and promotes an appetite that prevents her from wasting away.


It ``is the only drug of almost three dozen we have tried that works,'' said her Berkeley physician, Frank Lucido.


``I really hope and pray the justices allow me to live,'' said Raich as she crammed a blend of a marijuana variety known as ``Haze X'' into a contraption that vaporized it inside large balloons.


She said the outcome of the case will determine whether her ``husband will have a wife,'' her ``children a mother.''


The case will address questions left unresolved from the first time the high court considered the legality of medical marijuana.


In 2001, the justices ruled against clubs that distributed medical marijuana, saying they cannot do so based on the ``medical necessity'' of the patient. The ruling forced Raich's Oakland supplier to close and other cannabis clubs to operate in the shadows.


The decision did not address whether the government can block states from adopting their own medical marijuana laws.


Nevertheless, the federal government took the offensive after the ruling, often over the objections of local officials. It began seizing individuals' medical marijuana and raiding their suppliers. Nowhere was that effort more conspicuous than in the San Francisco Bay area, where the nation's medical marijuana movement was founded.


Raich and Diane Monson, the other plaintiff in the case, sued Attorney General John Ashcroft because they feared their supplies of medical marijuana might dry up. After a two-year legal battle, they won injunctions barring the U.S. Justice Department from prosecuting them or their suppliers.


``This has been a nightmare,'' said Monson, a 47-year-old accountant from Oroville whose backyard crop of six marijuana plants was seized in 2002. ``I've never sued anyone in my life, never mind the attorney general of the United States of America. For crying out loud, here in California we've voted to allow medical marijuana.''


She regularly uses marijuana on a doctor's recommendation to alleviate back problems. She says it also helps cope with the recent death of her husband, who suffered from pancreatic cancer.


Last December, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Raich's and Monson's favor. It said federal laws criminalizing marijuana do not apply to patients whose doctors have recommended the drug.


The appeals court said states were free to adopt medical marijuana laws as long as the marijuana was not sold, transported across state lines or used for non-medicinal purposes. The other states with such laws are Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.


The court ruled that marijuana for medicinal purposes is ``different in kind from drug trafficking'' and outside the scope of federal oversight.


The same court last year said doctors were free to recommend marijuana to their patients. The government appealed, but the Supreme Court justices declined to hear the case.


In June, however, the justices agreed to hear the Raich-Monson case. A ruling is expected to decide the states' rights issue the court left unanswered in 2001.


Acting Solicitor General Paul Clement told the justices in briefs that the government, backed by the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, has the power to regulate the ``manufacture, distribution and possession of any controlled substance,'' even if such activity takes place entirely within one state.


Besides California, the states allowing marijuana to be used as medicine with a doctor's recommendation are Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state.


Even some states without medical marijuana laws have criticized the federal government's position. Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi told the court they ``support their neighbors' prerogative in our federalist system to serve as laboratories for experimentation.''


A number of medical groups, doctors and marijuana supporters also wrote the court, saying marijuana benefits sick patients.


Raich, whose legal team includes her husband, Robert, said she hopes the chemotherapy Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist is undergoing for thyroid cancer ``would soften his heart about the issue.''


``I think,'' she said, ``he would find that cannabis would help him a lot.''


The case is Ashcroft v. Raich, 03-1454.


http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?flok=FF-APO-1154&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20041125%2F1318764483.htm&sc=1154


On the Net:


Raich's site: http://www.angeljustice.org


Federal solicitor general's office: http://www.usdoj.gov/osg/



11/25/04 13:18

Jolie Rouge
11-29-2004, 12:09 PM
Wary Court Considers Medical Marijuana
By GINA HOLLAND

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court appeared hesitant Monday to endorse medical marijuana for patients who have a doctor's recommendation.

Justices are considering whether sick people in 11 states with medical marijuana laws can get around a federal ban on pot.

Paul Clement, the Bush administration's top court lawyer, noted that California allows people with chronic physical and mental health problems to smoke pot and said that potentially many people are subjecting themselves to health dangers. ``Smoked marijuana really doesn't have any future in medicine,'' he said.


Justice Stephen Breyer said supporters of marijuana for the ill should take their fight to federal drug regulators - before coming to the Supreme Court, and several justices repeatedly referred to America's drug addiction problems.

Dozens of people, some with blankets, camped outside the high court to hear justices debate the issue. Groups such as the Drug Free America Foundation fear a government loss will undermine campaigns against addictive drugs.

The high court heard arguments in the case of Angel Raich, who tried dozens of prescription medicines to ease the pain of a brain tumor and other illnesses before she turned to pot. Supporters of Raich and another ill woman who filed a lawsuit after her California home was raided by federal agents argue that people with the AIDS virus, cancer and other diseases should be able to grow and use marijuana.

Their attorney, Randy Barnett of Boston, told justices that his clients are law-abiding citizens who need marijuana to survive. Marijuana may have some side effects, he said, but seriously sick people are willing to take the chance.

Besides California, nine other states allow people to use marijuana if their doctors agree: Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. Arizona also has a law permitting marijuana prescriptions, but no active program.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled against the government in a divided opinion that found federal prosecution of medical marijuana users is unconstitutional if the marijuana is not sold, transported across state lines or used for non-medicinal purposes.

Lawyers for Raich and Diane Monson contend the government has no justification for pursuing ill small-scale users. Raich, an Oakland, Calif., mother of two teenagers, has scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea and other illnesses. Monson, a 47-year-old accountant who lives near Oroville, Calif., has degenerative spine disease and grows her own marijuana plants in her backyard.

The Bush administration argues that Congress has found no accepted medical use of marijuana and needs to be able to eradicate drug trafficking and its social harms.

The Supreme Court ruled three years ago that the government could prosecute distributors of medical marijuana despite their claim that the activity was protected by ``medical necessity.''

Dozens of groups have weighed in on the latest case, which deals with users and is much more sweeping.

Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, conservative states that do not have medical marijuana laws, sided with the marijuana users on grounds that the federal government was trying to butt into state business of providing ``for the health, safety, welfare and morals of their citizens.''


Some Republican members of Congress, meanwhile, urged the court to consider that more than 20,000 people die each year because of drug abuse. A ruling against the government, they said, would help drug traffickers avoid arrest, increase the marijuana supply and send a message that illegal drugs are good.


California's 1996 medical marijuana law allows people to grow, smoke or obtain marijuana for medical needs with a doctor's recommendation.


Medical marijuana was an issue in the November elections. Montana voters easily approved a law that shields patients, their doctors and caregivers from arrest and prosecution for medical marijuana. But Oregon rejected a measure that would have dramatically expanded its existing medical marijuana program.


The case is Ashcroft v. Raich, 03-1454.


http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?flok=FF-APO-1154&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20041129%2F1215111896.htm&sc=1154



On the Net:

Supreme Court: www.supremecourtus.gov



11/29/04 12:15

janelle
11-30-2004, 11:30 AM
I think marijuana for medical reasons would be ok but do not smoke it around me or mine.

I've only been around two people I thought were high on the stuff and I wanted to slap their silly faces off. They were laughing over nothing and acting so stupid. I know alcohol is the same and I saw my uncle drunk. Same there. Wanted to slap him straight. Couldn't even stand up right. :mad:

JKATHERINE
11-30-2004, 02:38 PM
I say, if people wanna smoke the wacky tabaccy, let 'em. Why on Earth we waste our time, money and manpower enforcing it's illegality is beyond me. And yes, I've smoked plenty of it (PRIOR to having children) and while, excessive use can zap your brain cells, I feel nothing is wrong with occasional recreational use or medical use. JMO

ckerr4
11-30-2004, 07:41 PM
http://monkeyfist.com/articles/798

Interesting article about the legal use of medical marijuana, sponsored by the federal government. This is an older article (2001); I read an article in a magazine (not accessibe online - the horrors!) about 3 months ago, and the number of patients in the program now is 7 or 8, I believe.

http://www.maps.org/mmj/

Jaidness
12-01-2004, 07:09 PM
sorry thought it said free weed......ahahahahahaha
ITA JKatherine
longstanding member of norml and proud of it

Jolie Rouge
04-06-2005, 11:40 AM
Pot Ingredient Slows Heart Disease in Mice
By MALCOLM RITTER

Low doses of the main active ingredient in marijuana slowed the progression of hardening of the arteries in mice, suggesting a hint for developing a new therapy in people.

Experts stressed that the finding does not mean people should smoke marijuana in hopes of getting the same benefit. ``To extrapolate this to, `A joint a day will keep the doctor away,' I think is premature,'' said Dr. Peter Libby, chief of cardiovascular medicine at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital.

The mouse work is presented in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature by Dr. Francois Mach of Geneva University Hospital in Geneva, Switzerland, and colleagues. He said in an e-mail that he believed future work will focus on finding drugs that mimic the benefit without producing marijuana's effects on the brain.


Hardening of the arteries sets the stage for heart attacks. Inflammation plays a key role in the condition, characterized by a progressive buildup on the inside walls of blood vessels. So Mach and colleagues explored the anti-inflammatory effects of marijuana's main active ingredient, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC.


They fed mice a high-cholesterol diet for 11 weeks. About halfway through that period, they started giving some of the mice very low, daily oral doses of THC - too low to produce any marijuana-like changes in behavior. At the end of the experiment, mice that had gotten the THC showed less blood vessel clogging than did mice that got no THC.


Related work showed no additional benefit from higher THC doses, such as a person would get from smoking marijuana, Mach noted.


Researchers found that the benefit came from THC's effect on immune-system cells. It reduced their secretion of an inflammation-promoting substance and their migration to the vessel wall, researchers found.


It apparently did that by binding to proteins called CB2 receptors, which are found mostly on immune-system cells. THC also targets CB1 receptors, found mostly in the brain. So the work suggests scientists should try to develop a drug that works on CB2 receptors while ignoring the brain receptors, Mach said.


Libby, who did not participate in the study, said the work was valuable for identifying the CB2 receptor as a potential target for treatment in hardening of the arteries, and showing that a natural substance could help.


But he noted that controlling one's weight, exercising and eating right have already been proven to reduce a person's risk of heart attacks and strokes from clogged arteries.


Dr. Edward A. Fisher of the New York University School of Medicine said THC's impact on artery-clogging in the experiment was relatively modest, and that it's not clear that results would apply to people.



04/06/05 13:55

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=ne-main-9-l9&flok=FF-APO-1500&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20050406%2F1355996620.htm&sc=1500

Jolie Rouge
04-26-2006, 01:09 PM
Court Overturns Pot Grower's Conviction
By DAVID KRAVETS

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court Wednesday overturned the pot-growing conviction of the self-proclaimed ``Guru of Ganja,'' a marijuana advocate who has written books on how to grow pot and avoid getting caught.

The court cited jury misconduct in overturning Ed Rosenthal's conviction, but it otherwise upheld federal powers to charge marijuana growers.

Rosenthal was convicted in 2003 for cultivating hundreds of marijuana plants for a city of Oakland medical marijuana program. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer sentenced him to one day in prison, saying Rosenthal reasonably believed he was immune from prosecution because he was acting on behalf of city officials.

The government sought a two-year prison term and appealed. Rosenthal cross-appealed.

The case drew national attention, in part, because of Rosenthal's status as a leading author and proponent of marijuana. It also underscored the federal government's position that medical marijuana is illegal, it has no medical value, and the will of California voters has no affect on federal drug laws.

A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based appeals court, in overturning the verdict, said a juror had had inappropriate communication with an attorney.

``Juror A'' had asked a friend who is an attorney whether she had to follow the law or could vote her conscience because she suspected Rosenthal was growing marijuana for medicinal uses. The attorney told her she must follow the judge's instructions to follow federal law or she would get in ``trouble.''

``We hold that here the communication was an improper influence upon Juror A's decision to acquit or convict,'' the appeals court wrote.

The court rejected Rosenthal's argument that he should have been allowed to tell jurors he was growing marijuana for the city for medicinal uses.

While the case was on appeal, and despite Rosenthal's claims, the Supreme Court ruled again that the federal government can prosecute medical marijuana growers and users despite California's medical marijuana law.

Rosenthal once wrote the ``Ask Ed'' column for High Times magazine and has written books with titles including ``The Big Book of Buds'' and ``Ask Ed: Marijuana Law. Don't Get Busted.''

Reached by phone Wednesday, he declined immediate comment on the ruling, saying he had not yet read the decision.

U.S. attorney's spokesman Luke Macaulay said the office was considering whether to appeal or going ahead with a new trial.

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=ne-world-9-l1&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20060426%2F1445278737.htm&sc=1110

04/26/06

YNKYH8R
04-26-2006, 02:37 PM
You'll never see weed leaglized because there is no way for the government to tax it. :o

TexasGal
04-26-2006, 09:20 PM
You'll never see weed leaglized because there is no way for the government to tax it. :o

I've heard this said many times, but I don't understand how the government wouldn't be able to tax it. They don't seem to have a problem taxing tobacco or alcohol.

As for legalizing the stuff: just like alcohol, I have no problem with it as long as those who are using it stay the h*** off the road.

YNKYH8R
04-28-2006, 10:59 AM
I've heard this said many times, but I don't understand how the government wouldn't be able to tax it. They don't seem to have a problem taxing tobacco or alcohol.

As for legalizing the stuff: just like alcohol, I have no problem with it as long as those who are using it stay the h*** off the road.
Because a majority of the tobacco or alcohol is made by companies, who get taxed. Weed is generally imported from other countries or grown privately. If it was made legally the government couldn't collect tax from those who sold it from their homes. Kind of like if you grow tomatos at your house and sell them to your neightbor for a couple of bucks. If weed was legal I'd grow my own instead of buying it from a store to pay tax on it.
This is a general (over all) accepted idea as to why it's illegal. Otherwise it's not different than smoking tobacco or drinking.

Jolie Rouge
05-02-2006, 09:07 PM
Mexico's Fox to OK drug decriminalization law
By Noel Randewich

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's president will approve a law that decriminalizes possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and other drugs to concentrate on fighting violent drug gangs, the government said on Tuesday.

President Vicente Fox will not oppose the bill, passed by senators last week, presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar told reporters, despite likely tensions with the United States.

"The president is going to sign that law. There would be no objection," he said. "It appears to be a good law and an advance in combating narcotics trafficking."

Public Security Minister Eduardo Medina-Mora said Mexico's legal changes are in line with other countries and warned drug users they should not expect lenient treatment from the police if they are caught.

The approval of the legislation, passed earlier by the lower house of Congress, surprised Washington, which counts on Mexico's support in its war against gangs that move massive quantities of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines through Mexico to U.S. consumers.

Under the federal law, police will not criminally prosecute people or hand out jail terms for possessing up to 5 grams of marijuana, 5 grams of opium, or 25 milligrams of heroin. Nor does the law penalize possession of 500 milligrams of cocaine -- enough for a few lines.

The legal changes will also decriminalize the possession of limited quantities of LSD, hallucinogenic mushrooms, amphetamines, ecstasy and peyote -- a psychotropic cactus found in Mexico's northern deserts.

STILL ILLEGAL

But city and state governments may pass their own misdemeanor laws against drug possession, levying fines, forcing law-breakers to spend up to 48 hours in police station holding cells or even making them accept medical treatment for substance addiction, Medina-Mora told reporters.

"International practice, including in the United States, in many cases dictates that possession of small amounts of drugs does not require a penal sanction," he said.

Hundreds of people, including many police officers, have been killed in Mexico in the past year as drug cartels battle for control of lucrative smuggling routes into the United States.

The violence has raged mostly in northern Mexico but in recent months has spread south to cities such as vacation resort Acapulco.

Medina-Mora warned that vacationing college students and other foreigners caught with even with small amounts of drugs could be breaking municipal or state misdemeanor laws and could easily be shown to the airport or the border.

Vacation cities including Cancun, Acapulco, Tijuana and Mazatlan already have their own laws against drug possession, he said.

The legislation is expected to make the rules clearer for local judges and police, who currently decide on a case-by-case basis whether people should be criminally prosecuted for possessing small quantities of drugs, often leading to corruption.

While likely to complicate relations with the U.S. government, the legislation has drawn relatively little attention from the media in Mexico, where drug use is less common than in the United States.

Medina-Mora said Fox has until September to sign the bill, but neither he nor Aguilar could say more specifically when it might be signed.

(Additional reporting by Monica Medel)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060503/ts_nm/mexico_drugs_dc;_ylt=ApKcme_VzJP16D046zX7TSFg.3QA; _ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-

Jolie Rouge
12-20-2006, 12:37 PM
Mexico troops find hybrid marijuana plant
By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer
Wed Dec 20, 5:35 AM ET

LAZARO CARDENAS, Mexico - Soldiers trying to seize control of one Mexico's top drug-producing regions found the countryside teeming with a new hybrid marijuana plant that can be cultivated year-round and cannot be killed with pesticides.

Soldiers fanned out across some of the new fields Tuesday, pulling up plants by the root and burning them, as helicopter gunships clattered overhead to give them cover from a raging drug war in the western state of Michoacan. The plants' roots survive if they are doused with herbicide, said army Gen. Manuel Garcia.

"These plants have been genetically improved," he told a handful of journalists allowed to accompany soldiers on a daylong raid of some 70 marijuana fields. "Before we could cut the plant and destroy it, but this plant will come back to life unless it's taken out by the roots."

The new plants, known as "Colombians," mature in about two months and can be planted at any time of year, meaning authorities will no longer be able to time raids to coincide with twice-yearly harvests.

The hybrid first appeared in Mexico two years ago but has become the plant of choice for drug traffickers Michoacan, a remote mountainous region that lends to itself to drug production.

Yields are so high that traffickers can now produce as much marijuana on a plot the size of a football field as they used to harvest in 10 to 12 acres. That makes for smaller, harder-to-detect fields, though some discovered Tuesday had sophisticated irrigation systems with sprinklers, pumps and thousands of yards of tubing.

"For each 100 (marijuana plots) that you spot from the air, there are 300 to 500 more that you discover once you get on the ground," Garcia said.

The raids were part of President Felipe Calderon's new offensive to restore order in his home state of Michoacan and fight drug violence that has claimed more than 2,000 lives in Mexico this year.

In Michoacan, officials say the Valencia and Gulf cartels have been battling over lucrative marijuana plantations and smuggling routes for cocaine and methamphetamine to the United States. In one incident, gunmen stormed into a bar and dumped five human heads on the dance floor.

The president, who took office Dec. 1, sent 7,000 soldiers and federal officers to Michoacan last week.

Officials have arrested 45 people, including several suspected leaders of the feuding cartels. They also seized three yachts, 2.2 pounds of gold, bulletproof vests, military equipment and shirts with federal and municipal police logos. More than 18,000 people have been searched, along with 8,000 vehicles and numerous foreign and national boats.

"We are determined to shut down delinquency and stop crime in Mexico because it is endangering the lives of all Mexicans, of our families," Calderon said, calling the operation a "success" so far.

In the past week, soldiers and federal police have found 1,795 marijuana fields covering 585 acres in Michoacan, security officials said.

Officials estimate the raids could cost the cartels up to $626 million, counting the value of plants that have been destroyed and drugs that could have been produced with seized opium poppies and marijuana seeds.

On Sunday, federal authorities announced the capture of suspected drug lord Elias Valencia, the most significant arrest since the operation began.

Calderon's predecessor, Vicente Fox, started out with enthusiastic U.S. applause for his own fight against drug trafficking. U.S. officials called the arrest of drug bosses early in his six-year term unprecedented, while Fox boasted that his administration had destroyed 43,900 acres of marijuana and poppy plantations in its first six months and more than tripled drug seizures.

Yet drug violence has spiked across the country in recent years, with gangs fighting over control of routes following the arrest of drug lords, authorities say.

Mexico has also continued to struggle with corruption among its law enforcement ranks. Garcia said authorities did not tell soldiers where they were being sent on raids and banned the use of cell phones and radios.

Mexico troops find hybrid marijuana plant - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061220/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_drugs)

Jolie Rouge
06-30-2007, 08:45 PM
Law requires N.M. to grow its own pot
By DEBORAH BAKER, Associated Press Writer
Sat Jun 30, 7:52 AM ET

SANTA FE, N.M. - New Mexico has a new medical marijuana law with a twist: It requires the state to grow its own. The law, effective Sunday, not only protects medical marijuana users from prosecution — as 11 other states do — but requires New Mexico to oversee a production and distribution system for the drug. "The long-term goal is that the patients will have a safe, secure supply that doesn't mean drug dealers, that doesn't mean growing their own," said Reena Szczepanski, director of Drug Policy Alliance New Mexico.

The state Department of Health must issue rules by Oct. 1 for the licensing of marijuana producers and in-state, secured facilities, and for developing a distribution system. The law was passed in March and signed by Gov. Bill Richardson, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Other states with medical marijuana laws are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Maryland's law doesn't protect patients from arrest, but it keeps defendants out of jail if they can convince judges they needed marijuana for medical reasons.

Connecticut's governor vetoed a medical marijuana bill recently.

The distribution and use of marijuana are illegal under federal law, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 in a California case that medical marijuana users can be prosecuted.

Faced with that dilemma, the health department has asked state Attorney General Gary King whether its employees could be federally prosecuted for running the medical marijuana registry and identification card program, and whether the agency can license marijuana producers and facilities. "The production part is unprecedented. ... No other state law does that," said Dr. Steve Jenison, who is running the program for the health department. "So we're trying to be very thoughtful in how we proceed."

In the meantime, however, patients must obtain their own supplies.

The state will immediately begin taking applications from patients whose doctors certify they are eligible for the program.

Within weeks, approved patients — or their approved primary caregivers — would receive temporary certificates allowing them to possess up to six ounces of marijuana, four mature plants and three immature seedlings. That's enough for three months, the department says.

The law allows the use of marijuana for specified conditions including cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and HIV-AIDS, as well as by some patients in hospice care.

An eight-member advisory board of doctors could recommend that other conditions be added to the list.

Martin Walker was diagnosed four years ago as HIV positive and uses marijuana to combat nausea and depression. He said he looks forward to being able to obtain the drug legally. "If there's a system in place that's going to allow me to do this treatment without having to break the law ... I'll just be able to sleep better at night," said Walker, who runs HIV prevention and other outdoor-based adult health programs for the Santa Fe Mountain Center.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070630/ap_on_he_me/medical_marijuana;_ylt=An3JhLsmXvutdYowym4No4ys0NU E

Jolie Rouge
11-11-2007, 09:17 PM
Mellowing Out on Marijuana
By RITA HEALY/DENVER
Sun Nov 11, 10:25 AM ET

Those Rocky Mountains are getting higher.

Two municipalities - Denver, Colorado, and the small town of Hailey, Idaho - passed pro-marijuana measures on election day this week, joining a growing number of liberal localities that are reducing or removing penalities on using pot. It's part of a slowly evolving populist rehabilitation of the drug. San Francisco, Oakland and Santa Monica in California, along with Missoula, Montana, and Seattle, Washington, have previously passed laws that give the lowest priority to enforcing existing marijuana laws.

Federal regulations, which supercede local ordinances, continue to prescribe heavy penalties - even in some cases death - for major dealers of illegal drugs, including marijuana. The federal penalty for possession of even a miniscule amount is a misdemeanor punishable by one year in prison and $1,000. Penalties are higher with cultivation, sale and crossing state lines. However, magistrates generally use state and local laws as sentencing guidelines - unless there is federal intervention, which doesn't occur in every drug case because they would increase court time and costs.

Not every attempt at liberalizing the laws has been successful. Last year, the pro-marijuana lobby tried to pass legalization laws in Nevada and Colorado; both failed. But this week's results in Denver heartened pro-pot activists: 57% of voters in the city approved "lowest law enforcement priority." Coming after a 2005 vote removing all penalties for possessing small amounts, Denver joins Alaska to become only the second place in the U.S. offering a free ride to users caught with less than an ounce. Denver's local and political culture has been amenable to such legal re-orientations. Last summer, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and four of the 13-member city council told a local newspaper they had smoked pot in the past, while another six councilmen refused to answer and only three said no.

The Denver measure was pushed by a single activist: Mason Tvert, who organized SAFER, Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation, on the University of Colorado and Colorado State University campuses, and now runs it from his Denver home. He was funded in part by the Marijuana Policy Project, which received $3 million this year from Peter Lewis, the heir of the Progressive Insurance Companies, who helps fellow billionaire George Soros support liberal causes.

More remarkable is Tvert's counterpart in Idaho, Ryan Davidson of Boise. Davidson operated without any MPP money after failing to get measures on the ballot in 2004 in a number of Idaho cities. This past year, he got it on Hailey's ballot after winning a ruling in federal district court that overturned Hailey's law preventing nonresidents from circulating petitions. "This was the least funded campaign in history," he says. "I spent maybe 20 bucks. I got the signatures on the petitions on my own dime. I spread the word through e-mail and phone calls and posting on blogs, I printed some fliers off my computer, photocopied them at Kinko's and put them under car windshield wipers on Monday."

Jim Spinelli, executive director of Hailey's Chamber of Commerce, insists there is no grassroots pro-pot movement and expressed surprise that three of four pro-pot measures passed: legalizing medical marijuana and decriminalizing both marijuana itself and industrial hemp. (The only measure that failed asked for a straight-out legalization of marijuana.) A town of 8,500, Hailey is 12 miles from the Sun Valley ski area. When Spinelli worked Tuesday's election, he says he saw a lot of older affluent voters and young people from the service sector. In Idaho, being under the influence of pot in public draws a six-month sentence and $1,000 fine. At least in Hailey, if the local police - as opposed to the state police - handle an arrest, local ordinance will be applied.

In 38 states, incarceration still awaits even first-time offenders possessing small amounts of marijuana. In Connecticut, possessing a "useable amount" is punishable by a year in jail and $1,000 fine. Nevada sends its pot users - possessing any amount - into rehab or treatment and imposes a $600 fee. Federal law calls for a year in jail and $1,000 for anyone caught with any amount. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) says there are 65,000-85,000 people incarcerated in this country for cannabis-related reasons.

But NORML spokesman Allen St. Pierre points out that the law is growing increasingly lenient in many other places. In Alaska, there's no jail or fine for holders of an ounce or less in their homes. In Nebraska, possession of less than an ounce is simply a civil citation. In Ohio, no criminal record is kept of a minor misdemeanor, that is, possession of less than 100 grams. Since the 1970s, the home-rule cities of Ann Arbor and Madison - who are allowed by their states to let city regulations supersede state laws for the most part - have simply imposed $25 fines for possession. St. Pierre says NORML and related organizations expect 2008 to be "much busier" for pro-pot activism and referendums. And even though federal law is the final word, St. Pierre says that when campuses, municipalities, counties and states vote, politicians listen. "It speaks to the mores and values of those administering justice. As Tip O'Neill said, 'All politics are local.'"


http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20071111/us_time/mellowingoutonmarijuana;_ylt=AoU5Zh2Qlso.vYZ8Hl7Qy His0NUE





15/695

ilovecats
11-11-2007, 09:38 PM
You'll never see weed leaglized because there is no way for the government to tax it. :o

Why not?They tax ciggys.I think the government can pretty much do whatever they want.

gmyers
11-11-2007, 11:33 PM
I've heard that people start with mairjuana and then move on to stronger drugs. If they legalize marijuana I believe we're going to see a big increase in crime and other drug abuse too. I also believe its going to lead to family problems too because people will spend money they should support their families with on marijuana. I know drug users do that now but I believe it will get a lot worse if they legalize it. I don't want to be around people that want to do is drugs all the time. You never know what they will do when they're high.

Mom2Shaun
11-12-2007, 05:21 PM
I know the theory that marijuana leads to harder drugs is out there, and lots of people believe it. But it doesn't really make sense, logically. I'm willing to bet that every single one of serious drug users started out on milk. Can you say that leads to hard drug use?

I know about marijuana use, as it is one of the main reasons I divorced my first husband. He was seriously addicted; had to have it first thing in the AM, sometimes smoked it during lunchtime at work, and spent the evening zoned out on it. (He was just no fun at all!) Thank God we didn't have kids! But it didn't lead to harder drugs, he didn't waste money we needed (although I'm sure some people do), and he certainly wasn't about to become a violent criminal. He was too "mellow and laid back" to do that! And, BTW, he was an account executive at a very big telephone company; he was able to function well during the day.

It did hurt our marriage, but I have to say it wasn't as bad as what I've seen in marriages that have alcoholism as an issue. (I don't know of anyone getting violent on "pot" and I'm sure it happens very rarely, if at all.) I'm the eldest of 8 kids, and 4 of them are/were alcoholics. (One actually died from "over-dosing" on alcohol.) Alcohol is so much worse than marijuana, but we've already tried Prohibition and it didn't work. I think we're doing the same thing with marijuana; creating an underground criminal supply system, and paying far too much in every way to punish people who indulge. I say it should be the same as alcohol; if you get caught smoking and driving, you go to jail. But to waste our resources on enforcing this law and imprisoning people is ridiculous.

Jolie Rouge
11-12-2007, 09:37 PM
I've heard that people start with mairjuana and then move on to stronger drugs.

Most start on tobacco and alcohol then move on to pot. Some then progress to other drugs, some don't. Tobacco and alcohol are highly addictive yet both are legal. Both cost billions of dollars in health care and disability claims.



If they legalize marijuana I believe we're going to see a big increase in crime and other drug abuse too.

No, the reasoning is that we stop trying to imprison people for minor amounts, that leaves the system better able to go for the major players ( who will not like the goverment taxing their crop. That is how they nailed Capone - tax evasion. Stop worring about the minnows and go for the big fish.



I also believe its going to lead to family problems too because people will spend money they should support their families with on marijuana. I know drug users do that now but I believe it will get a lot worse if they legalize it. [quote]

I know plenty of people that can't "afford to take care of their kids but always seem to have $$ for beer and cigerettes.

[quote]I don't want to be around people that want to do is drugs all the time. You never know what they will do when they're high.

I honestly would rather deal with someone on pot ( they tend to be rather mellow ) then someone who is drunk. We won't even deal with the issue of DWI's.

ilovecats
11-13-2007, 07:30 PM
Once again,I agree!!!

hblueeyes
11-14-2007, 11:16 AM
When you read up on the history of pot and discover why it became illegal to begin with (the paper companies) you have to question why is it still illegal. Pot has many more medicinal uses besides chemo relief. Yes, like alcohol, you can legalize it, control,it and tax it to death like booze and cigaretts. The Al Capone types did not murder in the streets once it became legal. yet people are murdered daily over drug turfs. Now I am not sayiing legalize all drugs but lets take the criminal element out of the equation and start treating those with addictions or offing safe havens for those who need it like they do in the netherlands.

I bet if we were to dig deep enough, we would find that those same politicans and other government officals that cry the loudest against legalizing pot are the ones profiting from it.

me

ilovecats
11-14-2007, 07:04 PM
When you read up on the history of pot and discover why it became illegal to begin with (the paper companies) you have to question why is it still illegal. Pot has many more medicinal uses besides chemo relief. Yes, like alcohol, you can legalize it, control,it and tax it to death like booze and cigaretts. The Al Capone types did not murder in the streets once it became legal. yet people are murdered daily over drug turfs. Now I am not sayiing legalize all drugs but lets take the criminal element out of the equation and start treating those with addictions or offing safe havens for those who need it like they do in the netherlands.

I bet if we were to dig deep enough, we would find that those same politicans and other government officals that cry the loudest against legalizing pot are the ones profiting from it.

me

I bet A bunch of them smoke it too.(the politicians and government officials,I mean)

Jolie Rouge
06-12-2008, 01:31 PM
Study: Marijuana potency increases in 2007
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jun 12, 7:21 AM ET

WASHINGTON - Marijuana potency increased last year to the highest level in more than 30 years, posing greater health risks to people who may view the drug as harmless, according to a report released Thursday by the White House.

The latest analysis from the University of Mississippi's Potency Monitoring Project tracked the average amount of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, in samples seized by law enforcement agencies from 1975 through 2007. It found that the average amount of THC reached 9.6 percent in 2007, compared with 8.75 percent the previous year.

The 9.6 percent level represents more than a doubling of marijuana potency since 1983, when it averaged just under 4 percent.

"Today's report makes it more important than ever that we get past outdated, anachronistic views of marijuana," said John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. He cited baby boomer parents who might have misguided notions that the drug contains the weaker potency levels of the 1970s.

"Marijuana potency has grown steeply over the past decade, with serious implications in particular for young people," Walters said. He cited the risk of psychological, cognitive and respiratory problems, and the potential for users to become dependent on drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

While the drug's potency may be rising, marijuana users generally adjust to the level of potency and smoke it accordingly, said Dr. Mitch Earleywine, who teaches psychology at the State University of New York in Albany and serves as an adviser for marijuana advocacy groups. "Stronger cannabis leads to less inhaled smoke," he said.

The White House office attributed the increases in marijuana potency to sophisticated growing techniques that drug traffickers are using at sites in the United States and Canada.

A report from the office last month found that a teenager who has been depressed in the past year was more than twice as likely to have used marijuana than teenagers who have not reported being depressed — 25 percent compared with 12 percent. The study said marijuana use increased the risk of developing mental disorders by 40 percent.

"The increases in marijuana potency are of concern since they increase the likelihood of acute toxicity, including mental impairment," said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded the University of Mississippi study.

"Particularly worrisome is the possibility that the more potent THC might be more effective at triggering the changes in the brain that can lead to addiction," Volkow said.

But there's no data showing that a higher potency in marijuana leads to more addiction, Earleywine said, and marijuana's withdrawal symptoms are mild at best. "Mild irritability, craving for marijuana and decreased appetite — I mean those are laughable when you talk about withdrawal from a drug. Caffeine is worse."

The project analyzed data on 62,797 cannabis samples, 1,302 hashish samples, and 468 hash oil samples obtained primarily from seizures by law enforcement agencies in 48 states since 1975.

___

On the Net:

White House Office of National Drug Control Policy: http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080612/ap_on_he_me/marijuana_potency;_ylt=AlZATpkFdnZHmYjCcLKptRNa24c A

gmyers
06-12-2008, 01:59 PM
I don't think people should go to prison for a small amount like one joint. But I do think the ones with larger amounts that are selling it should go to prison. Or who have it around kids.

Jolie Rouge
02-18-2009, 11:40 AM
Gas saver?
Pot makes gas gauge read half full
2 hrs 40 mins ago

SANDY, Utah – A stash of grass can take the place of a lot of gas, but it won't do anything for mileage.

A Utah man took his newly acquired used SUV to a mechanic to find out why the gas gauge always read half-full.

The mechanic in Sandy looked inside the gas tank and found about 35 pounds of marijuana in plastic-wrap packages that filled about half of the tank's volume.

Police estimate the pot is worth about $35,000.

The Nissan Armada has had several different owners and was once a rental car.

Sandy police are trying to figure out who stashed the pot but say the current owner is not a suspect.

Investigators in the town south of Salt Lake City say the drug packs could have been in the tank for months.

Information from KUTV-TV: http://kutv.com/



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090218/ap_on_fe_st/odd_marijuana_gas_tank;_ylt=Am407PWyTeeq09Om9tyeY2 TtiBIF

:smokin:

krisharry
02-18-2009, 04:27 PM
LOL, going to get my tank checked!

Jolie Rouge
03-13-2009, 10:15 AM
Can Marijuana Help Rescue California's Economy?
By ALISON STATEMAN / LOS ANGELES
34 mins ago

Could marijuana be the answer to the economic misery facing California? Democratic State Assembly member Tom Ammiano thinks so. Ammiano introduced legislation last month that would legalize pot and allow the state to regulate and tax its sale - a move that could mean billions for the cash-strapped state. Pot is, after all, California's biggest cash crop, responsible for $14 billion in annual sales, dwarfing the state's second largest agricultural commodity - milk and cream - which brings in $7.3 billion annually, according to the most recent USDA statistics. The state's tax collectors estimate the bill would bring in about $1.3 billion in much-needed revenue a year, offsetting some of the billions in service cuts and spending reductions outlined in the recently approved state budget.


"The state of California is in a very, very precipitous economic plight. It's in the toilet," says Ammiano. "It looks very, very bleak, with layoffs and foreclosures and schools closing or trying to operate four days a week. We have one of the highest rates of unemployment we've ever had. With any revenue ideas people say you have to think outside of the box, you have to be creative, and I feel that the issue of the decriminalization, regulation and taxation of marijuana fits that bill. It's not new, the idea has been around, and the political will may in fact be there to make something happen." (See pictures of stoner cinema.)


Ammiano may be right. A few days after he introduced the bill, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that states should be able to make their own rules on medical marijuana and that federal raids on pot dispensaries in California would cease. The move signaled a softening of the hard-line approach previous administrations have had to medicinal pot use. The nomination of Gil Kerlikowske as the head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy may also signal a softer federal line on marijuana. If he is confirmed as the so-called Drug Czar, Kerlikowske will bring with him experience as police chief of Seattle, where he made it clear that going after people for posessing marijuana was not a priority of his force. (See a story about the grass-roots marijuana war in California.)


California was one of the first states in the nation to legalize medical marijuana in 1996. Currently, $200 million in medical marijuana sales are subject to sales tax. If passed, the Marijuana Control, Regulation and Education Act (AB 390) would give California control of pot in a manner similar to alcohol, while prohibiting its purchase to citizens under age 21. (The bill has been referred to the California State Assembly's Public Safety and Health Committees; Ammiano says it could take up to a year before it comes to a vote for passage.) State revenues would be derived from a $50 per ounce levy on retail sales of marijuana and sales taxes. By adopting the law, California could become a model for other states. As Ammiano put it: "How California goes, the country goes."


Despite the projected and much-needed revenue, opponents say legalizing pot will only add to social woes. "The last thing we need is yet another mind-altering substance to be legalized," says John Lovell, lobbyist for the California Peace Officers' Association. "We have enough problems with alcohol and abuse of pharmaceutical products: do we really need to add yet another mind-altering substance to the array?" Lovell says the easy availability of the drug will lead to a surge in its use, much like what happened when alcohol was allowed to be sold in venues other than liquor stores in some states.


Joel W. Hay, professor of Pharmaceutical Economics at USC, also foresees harm if the bill passes. "Marijuana is a drug that clouds people's judgment. It affects their ability to concentrate and react and it certainly has impacts on third parties," says Hay, who has written on the societal costs of drug abuse. "It's one more drug that will add to the toll on society. All we have to do is look at the two legalized drugs, tobacco and alcohol, and look at the carnage that they've caused. [Marijuana] is a dangerous drug and it causes bad outcomes for both the people who use it and for the people who are in their way at work or other activities." He adds: "There are probably some responsible people who can handle marijuana but there are lots of people who can't, and it has an enormous negative impact on them, their family and loved ones." (See pictures of Mexico's drug wars.)


In response, retired Orange County Superior Court Judge James Gray, a longtime proponent of legalization, estimates that legalizing pot and thus ceasing to arrest, prosecute and imprison non-violent offenders could save the state an additional $1 billion a year. "We couldn't make this drug any more available if we tried," he says. "Not only do we have those problems, along with glamorizing it by making it illegal, but we also have the crime and corruption that go along with it." He adds, "Unfortunately, every society in the history of mankind has had some form of mind-altering, sometimes addictive substances to use, to misuse, abuse or get addicted to. Get used to it. They're here to stay. So, let's try to reduce those harms and right now we couldn't do it worse if we tried."


Read "An American Pastime: Smoking Pot." http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1821697,00.html


See a story discussing whether pot is good for you. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1003570,00.html



http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090313/us_time/08599188495600

shadowcats
03-13-2009, 07:47 PM
medically it is a nessary treatment for chemo paticentss and some of the other kinds of illness,,,,,,,,,,,

and believe me there are idiots who will use it and go on to other things and other highs and wreck their lives,,,,,,,, my best friends old man and their kids are going this route now,

then there are others who handle it like a beer or other alcohols , just another pacifier, ,,,,,,,,,or social party

as for me lol im alergetic to the ingrediants so PLEASE SOME AWAY FROM ME LOL,

to me its and individuals right to kill them self the way they want. be it drugs , drink or stupidity ,

just keep it away from kids give them a chance to grow and decide for themselfs first,,,,,,
and if you cant control your self GET HELP ,,,,,,,,,,,,,

SHARON
oh well thats just my opionion, for give my spelling im dyslexic and somedays are better than others ,,,,,,,,lol :smokin::doh

jasmine
07-15-2009, 03:34 PM
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/07/15/barney-frank-and-ron-paul-team-up-to-decriminalize-marijuana/?icid=main|htmlws-main|dl2|link6|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.politicsdaily.com% 2F2009%2F07%2F15%2Fbarney-frank-and-ron-paul-team-up-to-decriminalize-marijuana%2F




Barney Frank and Ron Paul Team Up to Decriminalize Marijuana
Posted:
07/15/09
Filed Under:House, Democrats, Republicans
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A new bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives that would "eliminate most Federal penalties for possession of marijuana for personal use, and for other purposes." H.R. 5843 is sponsored by Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank and co-sponsored by Texas Republican Ron Paul, among others. The bill carries a very reassuring title, too: Act to Remove Federal Penalties for Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults.

Over the past few years, numerous states have passed so-called "medical marijuana" laws, allowing doctors to prescribe pot to patients to treat a variety of symptoms. A total of 13 states have also passed measures decriminalizing marijuana. This new bill would expand that tolerance of the drug to include open recreational use.

Interviewed recently by Esquire about the new measure, Frank was asked why Congress is taking so long to take action that so many states have pursued. Here's his response:


"This is a case where there's cultural lag on the part of my colleagues. If you ask them privately, they don't think it's a terrible thing. But they're afraid of being portrayed as soft on drugs."


Another politician who has never been accused of being afraid to express his beliefs on legalizing pot is Paul, who gave a memorable interview on the subject a few months ago. Watch it here.

So, it's clear what Barney Frank and Ron Paul think about decriminalizing marijuana, but what's your take?

hesnothere
07-15-2009, 03:40 PM
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c147/bonofox2/Smilies/2185.gif http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/BonoFox1/Smilies/HippySmiley.gif http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c147/bonofox2/Smilies/2185.gif

ElleGee
07-15-2009, 03:44 PM
It's a tax maker.. Our government should be jumping on this bandwagon :agree

ahippiechic
07-15-2009, 03:58 PM
http://myhippiespace.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/7havacig.gif

pepperpot
07-15-2009, 04:12 PM
Nay....:thumpdown:....medical only

Jolie Rouge
07-15-2009, 05:01 PM
I have been banging this drum since 2004 : http://www.bigbigforums.com/news-information/438391-free-weeds.html

krisharry
07-15-2009, 08:34 PM
Decriminalize and tax, but you knew I would say that. LOL

stresseater
07-15-2009, 08:42 PM
:smokin::clapping:rock::congrats::wings

SHELBYDOG
07-15-2009, 08:43 PM
Nay....:thumpdown:....medical only


This new bill would expand that tolerance of the drug to include open recreational use.


Yay......:top: open recreational use included. :smokin:

taters
07-15-2009, 08:45 PM
hi woo hoo

SHELBYDOG
07-16-2009, 07:40 AM
Decriminalize and tax, but you knew I would say that. LOL

$50 an ounce sounds good to me. It's $50 for a carton of cigs, I could quit the cigs completely & never get anything done. :smokin: :canabis:

Calif. tax officials: Legal pot would bring $1.4B


By MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press Writer Marcus Wohlsen, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jul 15, 9:14 pm ET
SAN FRANCISCO – A bill to tax and regulate marijuana in California like alcohol would generate nearly $1.4 billion in revenue for the cash-strapped state, according to an official analysis released Wednesday by tax officials.

The State Board of Equalization report estimates marijuana retail sales would bring $990 million from a $50-per-ounce fee and $392 million in sales taxes.

The bill introduced by San Francisco Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano in February would allow adults 21 and older to legally possess, grow and sell marijuana.

Ammiano has promoted the bill as a way to help bridge the state's $26.3 billion budget shortfall.

"It defies reason to propose closing parks and eliminating vital services for the poor while this potential revenue is available," Ammiano said in a statement.

The way the bill is written, the state could not begin collecting taxes until the federal government legalizes marijuana. A spokesman says Ammiano plans to amend the bill to remove that provision.

The legislation requires all revenue generated by the $50-per-ounce fee to be used for drug education and rehabilitation programs. The state's 9 percent sales tax would be applied to retail sales, while the fee would likely be charged at the wholesale level and built into the retail price.

The Equalization Board used law enforcement and academic studies to calculate that about 16 million ounces — or 500 tons — of marijuana are consumed in California each year.

Marijuana use would likely increase by about 30 percent once the law took effect because legalization would lead to falling prices, the board said.

Estimates of marijuana use, cultivation and sales are notoriously difficult to come by because of the drug's status as a black-market substance. Calculations by marijuana advocates and law enforcement officials often differ widely.

"That's one reason why we look at multiple reports from multiple sources — so that no one agenda is considered to be the deciding or determining data," said board spokeswoman Anita Gore.

Advocates and opponents do agree that California is by far the country's top pot-producing state. Last year law enforcement agencies in California seized nearly 5.3 million plants.

If passed, Ammiano's bill could increase the tension between the state and the U.S. government over marijuana, which is banned outright under federal law. The two sides have clashed often since state voters passed a ballot measure in 1996 legalizing marijuana for medical use.

At the same time, some medical marijuana dispensary operators in the state have said they are less fearful of federal raids since U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department would defer to state marijuana regulations.

Advocates pounced on the analysis as ammunition for their claim that the ban on marijuana is obsolete.

"We can't borrow or slash our way out of this deficit," said Stephen Gutwillig, California state director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "The legislature must consider innovative sources of new revenue, and marijuana should be at the top of that list."

Ammiano's bill is still in committee. Hearings on the legislation are expected this fall.

Also Wednesday, three Los Angeles City Council members proposed taxing medical marijuana to help close the city's budget gap.

Council members Janice Hahn, Dennis Zine and Bill Rosendahl backed a motion asking city finance officials to explore taxing the drug.

Hahn said that with more than 400 dispensaries operating in the city, the tax could generate significant revenue. The motion pointed out that a proposed tax increase on medical marijuana in Oakland, which has only four dispensaries, was projected to bring in more than $300,000 in 2010.

Meanwhile, marijuana supporters have taken the first official step toward putting the legalization question directly to California voters.

A trio of Northern California criminal defense attorneys on Wednesday submitted a pot legalization measure to the state attorney general's office, which must provide an official summary before supporters can begin gathering signatures.

About 443,000 signatures are necessary to place The Tax, Regulate and Control Cannabis Act on the November 2010 ballot. The measure would repeal all state and local laws that criminalize marijuana.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090716/ap_on_re_us/us_marijuana_taxes

ElleGee
07-16-2009, 07:50 AM
See this is what we need.. A little home grown tax revenue :agree. If Ca. could get 1.4billion off of this imagine how much other states would get as well. It won't exactly balance our budget but it will sure help a lot!

SHELBYDOG
07-16-2009, 07:55 AM
See this is what we need.. A little home grown tax revenue :agree. If Ca. could get 1.4billion off of this imagine how much other states would get as well. It won't exactly balance our budget but it will sure help a lot!

Exactly & there's other US states hurting like Cali, it's just a win, win situation all the way around.
Smoking areas & smokers wouldn't be hated on so much either......... :)

dv8grl
07-16-2009, 03:33 PM
I have never paid $50 for an ounce, are you kidding me, that would be like FREE!!!!!!!
Depending on the quality,...... I'd pay $50 an O for dirtweed, hell I've been known to pay $100 for an O of dirt.

DAVESBABYDOLL
07-16-2009, 04:42 PM
I have never paid $50 for an ounce, are you kidding me, that would be like FREE!!!!!!!
Depending on the quality,...... I'd pay $50 an O for dirtweed, hell I've been known to pay $100 for an O of dirt.



LMFAO You have paid $50 for an O of dirt? That's just hard up. lol

ahippiechic
07-16-2009, 04:54 PM
I've paid 95.00 for a q/o before, but it was really good Kush.

SHELBYDOG
07-16-2009, 05:52 PM
Well the plus of it would be with the government selling it for $50 an oz all our personal dealers would have to lower their prices.
But than their's that quality factor & lines will be drawn I'm sure.

It'll be interesting should it happen & eventually it's gonna.

dv8grl
07-17-2009, 04:10 AM
Yeah.. $50 a gram for some sticky-icky is one thing.

ElleGee
07-20-2009, 05:54 PM
Need Marijuana? Your iPhone Can Help.
Apple has approved an app that will let users find legal dispensaries of medicinal marijuana.

Sarah Jacobsson, PC World
Jul 20, 2009 8:00 pm

---------------------------
We've seen a lot of unexpected, and sometimes cool, iPhone apps approved by Apple, but today's news might top the rest. Apple has approved a marijuana--that's right, marijuana--app called "Cannabis," which lets users find the nearest (don't worry: legal) supplier of medicinal marijuana.

Created by the founder of Ajnag.com, which was founded in 2006 and was the first medicinal marijuana locater on the Web, the new app is quick and easy to use. Simply open it up on your iPhone or iPod Touch and you'll see a map with the nearest distributors. The app gives you information on each of the locations, and even step-by-step directions with Google Maps.

That's not all, though--the creators thought of everything. If you run into any, erm, legal troubles with your newly-secured marijuana, Cannabis also gives you the locations of the nearest lawyers who specialize in marijuana cases. And, if you happen to live in one of the 37 states where marijuana is not legal, the app also provides you with the location of the nearest marijuana activist groups--so you can do your part to promote reform.

Cannabis provides the locations of legal marijuana locations in the 13 states where medical marijuana is legal, as well as in the parts of Europe where marijuana use is legal.

It will not point you to your local dealer in Golden Gate park or to the nearest White Castle, though, so potheads should save themselves the $2.99 download fee.

But, if you're a legitimate user of medicinal marijuana, and you often find yourself in situations where you absolutely must obtain some, then, good lord, get thee to the App Store!

http://www.pcworld.com/article/168736/need_marijuana_your_iphone_can_help.html

SHELBYDOG
07-30-2009, 08:32 AM
Florida's Hydroponic Pot: House-Grown and Super-Potent


By CARMEN GENTILE / MIAMI Carmen Gentile / Miami – Thu Jul 30, 3:15 am ET
California may be the center of the marijuana trade and the controversies over its legalization. But Florida has surpassed it in one important category: the Sunshine State is now the country's leader in indoor marijuana cultivation. It is a potent distinction because most of the marijuana grown this way is cultured hydroponically - that is, mostly without soil and with a carefully calibrated cocktail of chemicals and lighting - to create some of the highest level of highs on the market.


In 2006, Florida law enforcement here discovered 480 homes growing marijuana indoors. Last year, 1,022 grow houses were busted. "This isn't your grandma's marijuana," quipped a Miami-Dade narcotics officer at one bust as he tossed garbage bags stuffed with confiscated marijuana into an unmarked police truck. Levels of THC - the agent in marijuana that produces feelings of euphoria, and in some users mild hallucinations and paranoia - have risen dramatically because of indoor techniques. Thirty years ago, most marijuana contained about 7% THC. Today, indoor growers boast THC levels of 25% or higher thanks to the additional care that indoor plants receive. (See pictures of 4/20, the unofficial pot holiday.)


Indoors, high-powered lights that stimulate growth can remain on all day, their nourishing rays reflected off the metallic-coated paper covering walls. The chemical fertilizers used are just as powerful and nourishing, spawning fast-growing plants that produce more THC than those raised outdoors. (See pictures of America's cannabis culture.)


TIME accompanied undercover agents on a recent bust on a quiet street of a working-class Miami suburb. As soon as the agents enter the front door, they know they've acted on a good tip. The pungent smell of plant life fills the air. The ceiling of the master bedroom is a constellation of high-powered lightbulbs emitting a nourishing glow onto what officers estimate is more than 100 lb. of particularly potent marijuana plants with a street value upwards of $800,000. (See pictures of stoner cinema.)


While most of the marijuana is freshly cut and drying on a clothesline stretched across the room, pots of smaller plants still months away from maturing line the walls. An irrigation system supplies water and chemical fertilizers to the plants via a hose that runs into the adjacent bathroom, where the toxic brew used to accelerate plants' growth is dumped down a drain.


On the Florida market, a pound of indoor grown marijuana goes for upwards of $4,000. But in the Northeast, the best market for Florida growers, the same marijuana goes for about $8,000 a pound. Unlike their closest regional rivals, Florida growers can produce up to four crops annually.


"These operations are mushrooming all over the state of Florida," says State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle for Miami-Dade County, the de facto capital of the state's indoor pot industry. Taking these operations down is dangerous work. Some growers stockpile automatic weapons to protect themselves - and to fend off thieves who are after the valuable crop. (Watch TIME's video "Medical Marijuana Home Delivery.")


Miami Police Major Charles Nanney says informants played a crucial role in the success of a statewide crackdown in June that resulted in the seizure of 6,828 marijuana plants and 120 residential marijuana labs over the course of a few days. Among the best tipsters, they say, are electricians paid big money by growers to wire the sophisticated network of lights and air conditioners used to cool plants and subject them to round-the-clock illumination. The energy-chugging networks require an expert's touch to bypass the electric meter and tap straight into the grid. A sharp increase in electricity used to be a telltale sign of a grow house. Some growers have caught on, however, and are learning to mask their energy profile.


Money-laundering is an attendant crime. But so is trafficking in undocumented migrant workers. A single marijuana growing operation can consist of a dozen homes or more, requiring many hands to tend to the plants. And when arrests are made, those taken in are often neither the homeowner nor the person named on the lease. The actual operators usually elude capture. Still, workers are lured by the promise of a piece of the profits and rent-free living, sometimes raising children among the deadly high-voltage lights and other potential life-threatening apparatuses associated with indoor marijuana. (Read "Is Marijuana the Answer to California's Budget Woes?")


The state's real estate catastrophe contributes to the problem as well. Captain Joe Mendez from the South Florida High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), says operators flush with cash are attracted to the abundance of cheap homes in Florida, particularly in Miami-Dade, which leads the state in foreclosures. While Florida's legitimate economy continues to flail, the HIDTA captain says indoor marijuana is thriving even though law enforcement is arresting more people every year. Says Mendez: "If the economic downturn remains as it is, I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel."


Download the new TIME BlackBerry app at app.time.com.


See more about marijuana.


View this article on Time.com

Related articles on Time.com:

Is Marijuana the Answer to California's Budget Woes?
It's High Time
Why Legalizing Marijuana Makes Sense
Medical Marijuana Policy Tweaks
Why I Would Vote No On Pot

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090730/us_time/08599191340100



Hydro weed is everyones reason for not legalizing pot.

ElleGee
08-10-2009, 02:03 PM
State Rep. Thomas Slater dies


NBC 10 NEWS
Published: August 10, 2009

PROVIDENCE—Rep. Thomas Slater, a state lawmaker who successfully urged legalizing marijuana to ease the pain of chronically ill patients, died of cancer Monday at his Providence home, legislative leaders said. He was 68.

Despite being seriously ill with cancer, Slater, D-Providence, faithfully attended sessions of the General Assembly into the summer to oversee an expansion of the state’s medical marijuana program. He insisted he would recover just weeks ago.

First elected to office in 1994, Slater is best known for sponsoring legislation that in 2006 made Rhode Island that 11th state in the country to allow chronically ill patients to possess small amounts of marijuana to ease their symptoms. The drug remains illegal under federal law.

But the law had a defect: It never explained how those patients could legally purchase the drug. Several patients reported being robbed and assaulted after turning to street dealers.

At Slater’s urging, lawmakers passed legislation this year by a wide margin allowing up to three nonprofit stores in the state to legally sell marijuana to registered patients. Slater received a standing ovation from his colleagues - and even some critics - when the bill passed in the House.

As representative of a poor section of Providence, Slater spoke out against budget cuts that limited welfare benefits to the poor and reduced health care for children.

He is survived by his wife, Jody McKiernan, and three grown children. Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced.

http://www2.turnto10.com/jar/news/local/article/state_rep._thomas_slater_dies/21419/


:(

ElleGee
09-06-2009, 08:23 PM
State to set rules to govern compassion centers

01:00 AM EDT on Monday, September 7, 2009

By W. Zachary Malinowski

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — So, what’s next with the new law that calls for the establishment of three compassion centers in Rhode Island that will provide medically licensed patients with places to legally buy marijuana?

Officials from the state Health Department will soon review a transcript from a recent community hearing in which dozens of people interested in running the marijuana distribution centers raised many questions about how the program will work.

Among the questions: What kind of security system will be required? What must be done with the excess marijuana? Can vans or other forms of transportation be used to ship the marijuana to patients in other parts of the state?

Meanwhile, law enforcement officials have continued to question the wisdom of the program. They have expressed ongoing concerns that the operators could illegally peddle drugs on the side, or they could be targeted by criminal groups seeking to grab their valuable stash of marijuana.

Two state officials, including Charles Alexandre, chief of the Health Department’s Office of Health Professionals Regulation, patiently fielded the questions at the community hearing, but they had few answers. Instead, they repeatedly said that they are required to follow the General Assembly’s statute that permits the opening of the compassion centers.

Rhode Island is just one of three states in the nation that has approved the sale of marijuana for medicinal purposes — the others are California and New Mexico. And, no one is quite sure how it’s all going to play out.

“We are definitely trailblazing right now,” said Stephen Hogan, executive director of the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition. “We don’t really know what’s going to happen. This is all new.”

At the hearing, the Health Department distributed a 22-page document that covered the proposed draft amendments in the “Rules and Regulations Related to the Medical Marijuana Program.” Included in the draft were nine pages involving the operation of compassion centers.

Among the issues addressed are security, criminal background checks on people employed at a compassion center and how much marijuana can be dispensed to a licensed patient — 2.5 ounces over a 15-day period.

The compassion centers are designed to augment the medical marijuana program that allows caregivers approved by the Health Department to grow up to 24 marijuana plants inside their homes for licensed medical marijuana users.

Since the legislation became a permanent law in 2007, about 900 medical marijuana users have been issued licenses, while 725 caregivers have been approved to grow and distribute the drug. The users must provide the Health Department with a signed form from a physician that says they suffer from illnesses such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, epilepsy or other debilitating conditions.

Annemarie Beardsworth, spokeswoman for the Health Department, said that there will not be another informal community hearing. Instead, she said, Health Department officials will address many of the issues raised at the recent hearing and incorporate them into the rules and regulations for opening a compassion center.

Once the rules and regulations are completed and posted for public viewing, the Health Department has 30 days to change anything. After that, she said, the department will begin accepting applications from those interested in opening a compassion center.

“The rules and regulations will set the minimum standards for what the compassion centers will have to meet,” Beardsworth said. “When the applications come in, you have to make sure they meet all of the minimum requirements.”

She said that the Health Department should begin accepting applications this fall, and that the first compassion center should open for business early next year. Hogan, of RIPAC, said that about 50 individuals or organizations have expressed an interest in opening centers.

Once the first one is up and running, the legislation calls for two more to open in the months that follow.

http://www.projo.com/news/content/MEDICAL_MARIJUANA_09-07-09_UNFJHJ6_v11.3387595.html
-------------------------------------

Now I have no idea why this story is posted for the 7th.. but that's RI for you ;)

ElleGee
09-07-2009, 12:53 PM
Thankfully, in every state in America you can buy marijuana. It is said that 40% of American's have smoked marijuana at least once in their life. Some (like yours truly) prefer to smoke more than just that one time.

CelebStoner has an article featuring which states in the union have the highest percentage of marijuana smokers. It turns out the tiny state of Rhode Island beat out the other 49 states to be crowned the biggest stoners in America by having 16.12% of its population 12 and older smoke on at least a monthly basis. However, Vermont came in a close second with 15.75%. Then, it drops off a bit at the third place state, New Hampshire, which had 13.82%.

Personally, I live in Michigan, which came in 10th place with 11.91%. That makes sense to me. I live 45 minutes away from Detroit and that's where everyone I know gets their bud. It's never out of stock, always cheap, and its always quality.

Also, is it just me or does Alaska seem ridiculously high on this list? They came in 4th place with 13.79%. Alaska's current population is 686,293. This means 94,639 people are smoking reefer with Russia in their backyard. Is it even possible to hot-box an igloo?

The one state that seems low on this list is Hawaii. It came in 38th place with a sad and confusing 9.04% stoner population. Its the ****ing Aloha State for God's sake! Hawaii is all about island living; Surfing, eating pineapples, chilling on the beach, and smoking some good weed. Apparently stereotypes are not always true.

In last place with only 7.17% of its citizens smoking, is Utah. I can't say that this is surprising, considering 60.4% of the state's population is Mormon. I guess if you're Mormon you are too busy wearing magic underwear, banging your multiple under-age wives, and being racist to enjoy ripping a bong-load.

This graph shows the percent of people 12 and older who have used marijuana in the past month. (From a 2006-2007 government survey)
1) Rhode Island 16.12%
2) Vermont 15.75%
3) New Hampshire 13.82%
4) Alaska 13.79%
5) Massachusetts 13.49%
6) Oregon 13.12%
7) Colorado 12.99%
8 ) Maine 12.66%
9) Montana 12.62%
10) Michigan 11.91%
11) Washington 11.81%
12) New York
11.64%
13) Connecticut 11.36%
14) Wyoming 11.31%
15) Minnesota 11.28%
16) California 11.24%
17) New Mexico 11.20%
18) Delaware 11.16%
19) Ohio 10.69%
20) Wisconsin 10.61%
21)Nevada 10.17%
22) Virginia 10.13%
23) Arkansas 10.09%
24) Kentucky 10.03%
25) Louisiana 10.01%
26) Tennessee 9.96%
27) Missouri 9.95%
28) Georgia 9.88%
29) Indiana 9.87%
30) Maryland 9.71%
31) Kansas 9.70%
32) Illinois 9.53%
33) Florida 9.44%
34) Arizona 9.35%
35) Pennsylvania 9.32%
36) North Carolina 9.22%
37) New Jersey 9.10%
38) Hawaii 9.04%
39) West Virginia 8.82%
40) Nebraska
8.71%
41) South Carolina 8.66%
42) Idaho 8.64%
43) North Dakota 8.59%
44) South Dakota 8.56%
45) Oklahoma 8.51%
46) Alabama 7.96%
47) Texas 7.92%
48) Mississippi 7.79%
49) Iowa 7.32%
50) Utah 7.17%

Are you surprised the state you live in is high (or low) on this list? Let me hear your thoughts.

Good Times,

Kyler Durden

http://hailmaryjane.com/rhode-islanders-are-the-biggest-pot-heads-in-america/
================================================== ====

I thought this was interesting..

jeanea33
09-07-2009, 01:12 PM
wooohoo we our number 11

hesnothere
09-07-2009, 01:19 PM
I have a feeling people in New Jersey are lying through their pipes.

stresseater
09-07-2009, 02:28 PM
I have a feeling people in New Jersey are lying through their pipes.
So are the people in Oklahoma. Maybe they did the survey by counting raised hands in church. lol

hesnothere
09-07-2009, 03:12 PM
So are the people in Oklahoma. Maybe they did the survey by counting raised hands in church. lol

That sounds about right http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b143/threwabrick/smileys/2185.gif

Jolie Rouge
10-08-2009, 09:11 AM
Pot legalization gains momentum in California
Marcus Wohlsen, Associated Press Writer
Wed Oct 7, 9:49 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Marijuana advocates are gathering signatures to get as many as three pot-legalization measures on the ballot in 2010 in California, setting up what could be a groundbreaking clash with the federal government over U.S. drug policy.

At least one poll shows voters would support lifting the pot prohibition, which would make the state of more than 38 million the first in the nation to legalize marijuana.

Such action would also send the state into a headlong conflict with the U.S. government while raising questions about how federal law enforcement could enforce its drug laws in the face of a massive government-sanctioned pot industry.

The state already has a thriving marijuana trade, thanks to a first-of-its-kind 1996 ballot measure that allowed people to smoke pot for medical purposes. But full legalization could turn medical marijuana dispensaries into all-purpose pot stores, and the open sale of joints could become commonplace on mom-and-pop liquor store counters in liberal locales like Oakland and Santa Cruz.

Under federal law, marijuana is illegal, period. After overseeing a series of raids that destroyed more than 300,000 marijuana plants in California's Sierra Nevada foothills this summer, federal drug czar Gil Kerlikowske proclaimed, "Legalization is not in the president's vocabulary, and it's not in mine."

The U.S. Supreme Court also has ruled that federal law enforcement agents have the right to crack down even on marijuana users and distributors who are in compliance with California's medical marijuana law.

But some legal scholars and policy analysts say the government will not be able to require California to help in enforcing the federal marijuana ban if the state legalizes the drug.

Without assistance from the state's legions of narcotics officers, they say, federal agents could do little to curb marijuana in California.

"Even though that federal ban is still in place and the federal government can enforce it, it doesn't mean the states have to follow suit," said Robert Mikos, a Vanderbilt University law professor who recently published a paper about the issue.

Nothing can stop federal anti-drug agents from making marijuana arrests, even if Californians legalize pot, he said. However, the U.S. government cannot pass a law requiring local and state police, sheriff's departments or state narcotics enforcers to help.

That is significant, because nearly all arrests for marijuana crimes are made at the state level. Of more than 847,000 marijuana-related arrests in 2008, for example, just over 6,300 suspects were booked by federal law enforcement, or fewer than 1 percent.

State marijuana bans have allowed the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to focus on big cases, said Rosalie Pacula, director of drug policy research at the Rand Corp.

"It's only something the feds are going to be concerned about if you're growing tons of pot," Pacula said. For anything less, she said, "they don't have the resources to waste on it."

In a typical recent prosecution, 29-year-old Luke Scarmazzo was sentenced to nearly 22 years and co-defendant Ricardo Ruiz Montes to 20 years in federal prison for drug trafficking through a medical marijuana dispensary in Modesto.

At his bond hearing, prosecutors showed a rap video in which Scarmazzo boasts about his successful marijuana business, taunts federal authorities and carries cardboard boxes filled with cash. The DEA said the pair made more than $4.5 million in marijuana sales in less than two years.

The DEA would not speculate on the effects of any decision by California to legalize pot. "Marijuana is illegal under federal law and DEA will continue to attack large-scale drug trafficking organizations at every level," spokeswoman Dawn Dearden said.

The most conservative of the three ballot measures would only legalize possession of up to one ounce of pot for personal use by adults 21 and older — an amount that already under state law can only result at most in a $100 fine.

The proposal would also allow anyone to grow a plot of marijuana up to 5 feet-by-5 feet on their private property. The size, Pacula said, seems specifically designed to keep the total number of plants grown below 100, the threshold for DEA attention.

The greatest potential for conflict with the U.S. government would likely come from the provision that would give local governments the power to decide city-by-city whether to allow pot sales.

Hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries across the state already operate openly with only modest federal interference. If recreational marijuana became legal, these businesses could operate without requiring their customers to qualify as patients.

Any business that grew bigger than the already typical storefront shops, however, would probably be too tempting a target for federal prosecution, experts said.

Even if Washington could no longer count on California to keep pot off its own streets, Congress or the Obama administration could try to coerce cooperation by withholding federal funds.

But with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement earlier this year that the Justice Department would defer to state laws on marijuana, the federal response to possible legalization remains unclear.

Doug Richardson, a spokesman for the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, said the office is in the process of re-evaluating its policies on marijuana and other drugs.

Richardson said the office under Obama was pursuing a "more comprehensive" approach than the previous administration, with emphasis on prevention and treatment as well as law enforcement.

"We're trying to base stuff on the facts, the evidence and the science," he said, "not some particular prejudice somebody brings to the table."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091008/ap_on_re_us/us_marijuana_legalization

Jolie Rouge
10-15-2009, 09:37 PM
Pa. man busted with weed stuck to forehead
Thu Oct 15, 8:33 pm ET

LEBANON, Pa. – Police in central Pennsylvania say they've nabbed a real pothead. They said an officer spotted 29-year-old Cesar Lopez inside a convenience store with a bag of marijuana stuck to his forehead. Investigators said Lopez was seen peering inside his baseball cap early Saturday morning in Lebanon, about 75 miles northwest of Philadelphia. When Lopez looked up, the officer noticed a small plastic bag appearing to contain marijuana stuck to his forehead.

Police said the officer peeled the bag off Lopez's forehead and placed him under arrest. He has been charged with drug possession. Police do not know whether Lopez has an attorney.

Authorities say the sweatband of a baseball cap is a frequent hiding place for drugs.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091016/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_drugs_on_forehead;_ylt=Ao23TAqebqSqlEL1apq_ a5Ws0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNhMjM2YThoBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkx MDE2L3VzX29kZF9kcnVnc19vbl9mb3JlaGVhZARjcG9zAzkEcG 9zAzYEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl9oZWFkbGluZV9saXN0 BHNsawNwb2xpY2VwYW1hbmI-

Jolie Rouge
10-19-2009, 08:01 AM
Feds to issue new medical marijuana policy
Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Writer
2 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Pot-smoking patients or their sanctioned suppliers should not be targeted for federal prosecution in states that allow medical marijuana, prosecutors were told Monday in a new policy memo issued by the Justice Department.

Under the policy spelled out in a three-page legal memo, federal prosecutors are being told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law.

The guidelines issued by the department do, however, make it clear that federal agents will go after people whose marijuana distribution goes beyond what is permitted under state law or use medical marijuana as a cover for other crimes.

The memo advises prosecutors they "should not focus federal resources in your states on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana."

The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.

"It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana, but we will not tolerate drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.

By the government's count, 14 states allow some use of marijuana for medical purposes: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

California stands out among those for the widespread presence of dispensaries — businesses that sell marijuana and even advertise their services. Colorado also has several dispensaries, and Rhode Island and New Mexico are in the process of licensing providers, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, a group that promotes the decriminalization of marijuana use.

Advocates say marijuana is effective in treating chronic pain and nausea, among other ailments.

Holder said in March that he wanted federal law enforcement officials to pursue those who violate both federal and state law, but it has not been clear how that goal would be put into practice.

The memo spelling out the policy was sent Monday to federal prosecutors in the 14 states, and also to top officials at the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration.

The memo written by Deputy Attorney General David Ogden emphasizes that prosecutors have wide discretion in choosing which cases to pursue, and says it is not a good use of federal manpower to prosecute those who are without a doubt in compliance with state law.

"This is a major step forward," said Bruce Mirken, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project. "This change in policy moves the federal government dramatically toward respecting scientific and practical reality."

At the same time, officials said, the government will still prosecute those who use medical marijuana as a cover for other illegal activity.

In particular, the memo urges prosecutors to pursue marijuana cases which involve violence, the illegal use of firearms, selling pot to minors, money laundering or involvement in other crimes.

And while the policy memo describes a change in priorities away from prosecuting medical marijuana cases, it does not rule out the possibility that the federal government could still prosecute someone whose activities are allowed under state law.

The memo, officials said, is designed to give a sense of prosecutorial priorities to U.S. attorneys in the states that allow medical marijuana. It notes that pot sales in the United States are the largest source of money for violent Mexican drug cartels, but adds that federal law enforcement agencies have limited resources.

Medical marijuana advocates have been anxious to see exactly how the administration would implement candidate Barack Obama's repeated promises to change the policy in situations in which state laws allow the use of medical marijuana.

Soon after Obama took office, DEA agents raided four dispensaries in Los Angeles, prompting confusion about the government's plans.

___

On the Net:

Justice Department memo on medical marijuana: http://blogs.usdoj.gov/blog/archives/192

Drug Enforcement Administration: http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/

Marijuana Policy Project: http://www.mpp.org/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091019/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_medical_marijuana;_ylt=AlBVsDYmwjqbBuyIIAv8Y8is 0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTMyOW1lc2p0BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkxMDE5 L3VzX21lZGljYWxfbWFyaWp1YW5hBGNwb3MDMwRwb3MDOQRwdA Nob21lX2Nva2UEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDZmVkc3Rv aXNzdWVu

Jolie Rouge
10-19-2009, 08:37 AM
Longtime readers will know that I have been very supportive of state initiatives on medical marijuana dating back to my years at the Seattle Times ... http://michellemalkin.com/2009/10/19/about-the-new-federal-medical-marijuana-policy/

So, I have no general policy quarrel with this at all. Finally, an Obama policy that officially reduces the role of the federal government.

Or so it seems: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Njg5YTc5NjQ0M2U4OTc5NzJjMjkwYjM0NzU0N2FkNTc=


Federal drug agents won’t pursue pot-smoking patients or their sanctioned suppliers in states that allow medical marijuana, under new legal guidelines to be issued Monday by the Obama administration.

Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law…Fourteen states allow some use of marijuana for medical purposes: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.


The question is: Why is this “news?”

AG Eric Holder announced it back in March: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/us/19holder.html?_r=1


Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Wednesday outlined a shift in the enforcement of federal drug laws, saying the administration would effectively end the Bush administration’s frequent raids on distributors of medical marijuana.

Speaking with reporters, Mr. Holder provided few specifics but said the Justice Department’s enforcement policy would now be restricted to traffickers who falsely masqueraded as medical dispensaries and “use medical marijuana laws as a shield.”

In the Bush administration, federal agents raided medical marijuana distributors that violated federal statutes even if the dispensaries appeared to be complying with state laws. The raids produced a flood of complaints, particularly in California, which in 1996 became the first state to legalize marijuana sales to people with doctors’ prescriptions.

Graham Boyd, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union drug law project, said Mr. Holder’s remarks created a reasonable balance between conflicting state and federal laws and “seem to finally end the policy war over medical marijuana.” He said officials in California and the 12 other states that have authorized the use of medical marijuana had hesitated to adopt regulations to carry out their laws because of uncertainty created by the Bush administration.

Mr. Holder said the new approach was consistent with statements made by President Obama in the campaign and was based on an assessment of how to allocate scarce enforcement resources. He said dispensaries operating in accord with California law would not be a priority for the administration.

Mr. Holder’s comments appeared to be an effort to clarify the policy after some news reports last month interpreted his answer to a reporter’s question to be a flat assertion that all raids on marijuana growers would cease. Department officials said Mr. Holder had not intended to assert any policy change last month but was decidedly doing so on Wednesday.


The “clarifying” memo that will be sent out today, seven months after Holder first announced the “shift,” makes clear that the Obama administration will actually retain the same discretion the Bush administration exercises to prosecute someone whose activities are deemed legal in states that allow medical marijuana use.


A three-page memo spelling out the policy is expected to be sent Monday to federal prosecutors in the 14 states, and also to top officials at the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration.

The memo, the officials said, emphasizes that prosecutors have wide discretion in choosing which cases to pursue, and says it is not a good use of federal manpower to prosecute those who are without a doubt in compliance with state law.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the legal guidance before it is issued.

“This is a major step forward,” said Bruce Mirken, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project. “This change in policy moves the federal government dramatically toward respecting scientific and practical reality.”

At the same time, the officials said, the government will still prosecute those who use medical marijuana as a cover for other illegal activity. The memo particularly warns that some suspects may hide old-fashioned drug dealing or other crimes behind a medical marijuana business.

In particular, the memo urges prosecutors to pursue marijuana cases which involve violence, the illegal use of firearms, selling pot to minors, money laundering or involvement in other crimes.

And while the policy memo describes a change in priorities away from prosecuting medical marijuana cases, it does not rule out the possibility that the federal government could still prosecute someone whose activities are allowed under state law.


In other words, they will continue Bush-era policies when they find it expedient to do so in the future — but they want praise and obeisance from the Left for paying lip service to Transformative Change now. It’s the Obama way!

***

Meanwhile, the Big Nanny feds continue their power grab over tobacco:

FDA bans flavored cigarettes

Except menthol, that is: In other words, they will continue Bush-era policies when they find it expedient to do so in the future — but they want praise and obeisance from the Left for paying lip service to Transformative Change now. It’s the Obama way!

***

Meanwhile, the Big Nanny feds continue their power grab over tobacco:

FDA bans flavored cigarettes http://www.philly.com/inquirer/health_science/daily/20090924_FDA_bans_flavored_cigarettes.html


Tobacco companies can no longer sell candy-, spice-, or fruit-flavored cigarettes in the United States, regulators said, acting to enforce a ban signed into law in June by President Obama.

Making, selling, or shipping cigarettes, rolling papers, or filters with flavors such as clove, cinnamon, and strawberry may result in sanctions as of Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration said in a letter to makers led by Altria Group Inc. and Philip Morris USA.

Congress gave the FDA power to regulate the $80-billion-a-year tobacco industry after a decadelong fight. The law banned most flavored cigarettes, advertising to children, and the introduction of products without scientific review. Menthol, the most popular flavored cigarette and the one preferred by blacks, was allowed to stay on the market over objections from seven former U.S. secretaries of Health and Human Services. "These flavored cigarettes are a gateway for many children and young adults to become regular smokers," FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said Tuesday in a statement.

Companies that violate the ban may be fined, have products seized, or face criminal prosecution, according to the letter. The agency also is "examining options for regulating both menthol cigarettes and flavored tobacco products other than cigarettes," the FDA said.

Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in this country, killing about 443,000 people a year, including 49,000 from secondhand exposure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Studies show that 17-year-olds are three times more likely to use flavored cigarettes than people over 25, according to the FDA. The agency is encouraging people to report any flavored cigarettes that remain on the market.

Except menthol, that is: http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/30/loophole-creates-toothless-tobacco-ban/


Because of a loophole written into the law, the FDA banned all flavored cigarettes except menthol. The only flavor sold by Philip Morris, the FDA’s industry ally in passing legislation to allow the ban, just happens to be menthol.

Sold as a way to protect public health, the ban is more flash than substance. At the time he signed the legislation President Obama crowed, “The decades-long effort to protect our children [has] emerged victorious. … Today, change has come.” Change came, but it didn’t do much when it got here.

Menthol is the No. 1 cigarette flavor used by underaged smokers and the most popular among all smokers. A menthol ban would have had many times the impact of banning all other flavors combined.

The menthol exception makes the new regulation particularly toothless among blacks. Mentholated brands are preferred by three-quarters of black smokers. Blacks tend to be more likely to smoke and to smoke more. As a result, blacks suffer a disproportionate share of lung cancer.

Consumers should be able to decide for themselves whether they want to smoke or go hang gliding or eat fattening ice cream, but even by the standards of nanny state advocates this rule is ludicrous. There is no logical health explanation for why menthol flavored cigarettes are allowed but other flavors are banned.

However, there is an economic reason for the distinction and for Philip Morris to be a cheerleader for regulation. The more regulatory hurdles faced by potential competitors, the easier it is for large tobacco concerns to keep their markets.





59/1,877

Jolie Rouge
10-20-2009, 08:52 PM
A federal misstep with medical marijuana?
By the Monitor's Editorial Board
Tue Oct 20, 5:00 am ET

The federal government has limited resources to fight drugs, and funds should not be wasted on prosecuting users and providers of medical marijuana who comply with state laws, the Obama administration said this week.

While this argument may indeed seem a sensible prioritizing of federal effort and dollars, the White House and the public should realize it comes with a cost.

That cost is Washington's tacit approval of state-sanctioned medical marijuana, which the drug's proponents will take as a green light to push even harder for their ultimate goal: full legalization of marijuana use and distribution.

Backers would like to see the buying and selling of pot regulated and taxed much like alcohol and tobacco. Their patient and well-funded route to this goal is through the states, with one avenue being state legalization of medical marijuana.

Since 1996, 13 states have allowed such use – in defiance of a federal statute that outlaws marijuana as a controlled substance. Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration does not approve of marijuana as safe or effective for any medicinal use, and the drug has never gone through the FDA's rigorous approval process. Yet several more states are considering medical marijuana laws at the urging of pro-pot and patients-rights groups.

Their stated reason is compassion. They argue that marijuana alleviates suffering for certain illnesses. No one wants to deny compassion for the sick, but Americans need to be aware of the larger context in this debate.

To begin with, state medical marijuana laws have opened the door to distribution beyond those who are ill. California shines glaringly as Exhibit A – just like the green neon signs that advertise so many of its medical marijuana dispensaries.

The Golden State was the first to legalize marijuana for medical purposes and its law is notoriously loose. All it takes to buy pot is a doctor's permission – and some doctors are willing to fill prescriptions on the thinnest of pretenses. With hundreds of marijuana storefronts in Los Angeles, the city put a moratorium on new dispensaries in 2007. A Superior Court judge ruled this week that an extension of the moratorium is invalid, a move that is likely to spur the opening of even more pot shops.

Other states have looked aghast at California's experience. They've tried to fashion stricter laws. For example, the Minnesota legislature this year amended a medical marijuana bill so that it applied only to terminally ill patients.

Yet Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty wisely vetoed the bill in May. He said he shared law enforcement concerns about expanded drug use. (Consider the problems with controlling wider use of prescribed painkillers, for instance). He also noted the lack of federal regulation.

The federal regulation question gets at another fundamental issue – the safe use of marijuana as a medicine.

The FDA is not alone in its refusal to sanctify marijuana for medical purposes. Neither does the American Medical Association approve of it – though it has encouraged its study. Doctors hesitate to approve a medicine that is smoked. And questions linger about dosage, purity, and unpredictability.

Generally, marijuana is not nearly as harmless as its proponents make it out to be. While pot cannot directly kill its user the way that alcohol or, say, an overdose of heroin can, heavy use can lead to dependence. About 1 in 10 people who have ever used marijuana become dependent at some time, according to Kevin Sabet, in the 2006 book, "Pot Politics." Mr. Sabet, a staunch opponent of legalizing marijuana, is now a drug policy adviser to the president.

Heavy use can also lead to serious mental-health problems, especially in young people. Even casual use distorts perception, reduces motor skills, and affects alertness – a hazard in driving and other activities.

These concerns should cause the public to stop and rethink its growing support for legal use of marijuana (44 percent, according to an October Gallup poll, up from 34 percent in 2003).

Thankfully, the Obama administration does not support the legalization of marijuana. And this week's Justice Department directive, which formalized a decision taken last March, by no means lets dispensaries off the hook. The feds will still go after misuse of state medical marijuana laws – prosecuting, for instance, providers that serve minors, launder money, or illegally possess firearms.

"We will not tolerate drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal," Attorney General Eric Holder said.

All well and good. The problem is, the line between legal and illegal regarding marijuana is fading year by year. The pro-pot groups would rub it out altogether. For the sake of a clear-thinking and healthy America, that must not be allowed to happen.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20091020/cm_csm/emarijuana_1

Jolie Rouge
11-17-2009, 11:15 AM
Colo. medical pot suppliers will have to pay taxes
1 hr 1 min ago

DENVER – Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter plans to direct medical marijuana dispensaries to start paying sales tax.

Ritter's move comes after Colorado Attorney John Suthers concluded in an opinion issued Monday that medical marijuana is considered personal property that can be taxed and shouldn't be treated like prescription drugs, which are tax exempt.

Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer says the administration will immediately tell dispensaries to get retail licenses and start paying sales tax.

Colorado lawmakers estimate the state could collect up to $15 million a year on the sales.

The decision comes just as Denver moves to impose sales tax on medical marijuana. Denver plans to notify dispensaries that it will start collecting municipal sales tax starting in December.

___

Information from: The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091117/ap_on_re_us/us_medical_marijuana

ElleGee
12-26-2009, 01:39 PM
R.I. lawmakers to consider loosening marijuana laws
By Ray Henry
Associated Press / December 26, 2009

PROVIDENCE - A Senate commission will soon explore whether Rhode Island should decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana and tax the drug, a path recently taken by Massachusetts.

Commission members are exploring several questions that suggest an underlying skepticism with criminalizing marijuana, including whether existing prohibitions have decreased drug use, caused corruption among law enforcement officials, and resulted in violence. The panel will present its findings early next year.

Commission member Nick Horton, a policy researcher for OpenDoors, which works to reintegrate criminal offenders into society, said presidential candidates have admitted using marijuana but people in his Providence neighborhood still get jailed for it. “That double standard does more harm than good to our justice system,’’ he said.

State Senator Joshua Miller, a Democrat from Cranston, created the commission and serves as its chairman. He has not yet backed any specific changes to Rhode Island’s drug laws, but members will hear testimony about recent changes in Massachusetts.

In November 2008, Bay State voters decided to make possession of an ounce or less of marijuana punishable by a $100 fine and confiscation of the drug rather than a crime carrying a maximum six-month prison sentence and a $500 fine.

The measure was approved over the objections of police and prosecutors, who feared it would encourage use of what they consider more harmful drugs and interfere with their ability to prosecute traffickers who sometimes become suspects because of marijuana possession.

Some cities and towns in Massachusetts have since created additional penalties to discourage marijuana use.

Rhode Island lawmakers already have taken steps to legalize some marijuana use. In 2006, they started allowing patients who registered with the state to possess small amounts of marijuana if it’s used to relieve pain or chronic ailments.

In June, the General Assembly expanded the medical marijuana program by authorizing up to three nonprofit stores to sell marijuana legally. State health officials still are determining how those stores will be licensed and regulated.

Governor Donald L. Carcieri, a Republican, and the State Police have opposed expansions of the medical marijuana system.

Miller’s panel is required to examine the cost of prosecuting and jailing offenders, as well as consider the possibility of legalizing marijuana sales and imposing a tax of $35 per ounce or more.

Financial arguments could be tempting because Rhode Island faces a $220 million budget deficit for the fiscal year ending in June, about 7 percent of what state authorities originally expected to collect.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2009/12/26/ri_lawmakers_to_consider_loosening_marijuana_laws/

Jolie Rouge
01-27-2010, 03:41 PM
CO pot dispensaries welcome state regulation
By Colleen Slevin, Associated Press Writer
1 hr 17 mins ago

DENVER – Colorado lawmakers have an unlikely ally in their first attempt to curb the state's booming medical marijuana industry: owners of the some of the shops that sell pot.

Many dispensary owners say they're on board with regulations if they give them uniform guidelines and avert a more severe crackdown like one approved this week in Los Angeles. Hundreds of Los Angeles pot shops face closure after the City Council voted Tuesday to cap the number of dispensaries in the city at 70.

The Colorado proposal — which a legislative committee approved 6-1 Wednesday — would make it more difficult for recreational pot users to become legal medical marijuana patients. It would bar doctors from working out of dispensaries, make it illegal for them to offer discounts to patients who agree to use a designated dispensary, and require follow-up doctor visits.

Most of the 150 people at the hearing opposed the bill. Many of them worry it will cost them hundreds of dollars on top of the $90 annual fee they pay to register as a medical marijuana user.

William Chengelis said he can't get his regular Veterans Administration doctors to sign off on medical marijuana and said buying pot illegally and paying the $100 fine would be cheaper than paying a private doctor for follow-up visits.

"I cannot afford this bill," Chengelis told lawmakers.

In response, the committee backed allowing the state to waive the $90 fee for those who can't afford it. Sponsor Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, said he would also see if there was a way to allow dispensaries to reimburse veterans for doctor visits.

While some advocates see any regulations as a violation of the medical marijuana law passed by voters in 2000, many dispensaries say they welcome the certainty that more regulation would provide.

"We're saying we really can't operate without any rules," said Matt Brown, a medical marijuana patient and leader of a coalition of about 150 dispensaries and over 1,000 patients.

Erik Santos, who operates a dispensary out of an office building in a trendy part of Denver's downtown section, thinks it makes sense to limit large marijuana growers to industrial areas and keep dispensaries out of residential areas. He wants lawmakers to pass laws now before even more dispensaries open up and prevent those with possible criminal ties from giving the industry a bad name.

Another bill still in the works could set up more regulations on dispensaries and suppliers.

Colorado cities are also looking to lawmakers to pass regulations. Hundreds of dispensaries have popped up across the state — in empty storefronts, office buildings and even a historic movie theater.

Some cities have passed moratoriums on pot shops as they figure out how to regulate them and wait for more guidance from the state. The Denver suburb of Centennial voted to ban dispensaries and close a shop that had already opened, but a court blocked that move.

"Everyone is waiting to see what happens this (legislative) session," said Mark Radtke, a lobbyist for the Colorado Municipal League.

Colorado already has some rules in place for medical marijuana dispensaries, including prohibiting dispensaries within 1,000 feet of schools, day cares and other dispensaries. Felons convicted within the last five years would be barred from running shops. Dispensary owners would have to be licensed, pass a criminal background check and pay a $2,000 application fee along with $3,000 a year to renew licenses.

The rules are set to take effect March 1, although they could change depending on what state lawmakers to decide to do.

Fear that dispensaries would attract crime has been raised by those concerned about the growth of dispensaries. But police in Denver are discounting that.

Police say medical marijuana dispensaries were robbed or burglarized at a lower rate than liquor stores or even banks last year. A memo reported by The Denver Post on Wednesday says they were hit at about the same rate as pharmacies.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100127/ap_on_re_us/us_medical_marijuana_colorado

justme23
01-28-2010, 12:55 AM
Thankfully, in every state in America you can buy marijuana. It is said that 40% of American's have smoked marijuana at least once in their life. Some (like yours truly) prefer to smoke more than just that one time.

CelebStoner has an article featuring which states in the union have the highest percentage of marijuana smokers. It turns out the tiny state of Rhode Island beat out the other 49 states to be crowned the biggest stoners in America by having 16.12% of its population 12 and older smoke on at least a monthly basis. However, Vermont came in a close second with 15.75%. Then, it drops off a bit at the third place state, New Hampshire, which had 13.82%.

Personally, I live in Michigan, which came in 10th place with 11.91%. That makes sense to me. I live 45 minutes away from Detroit and that's where everyone I know gets their bud. It's never out of stock, always cheap, and its always quality.

Also, is it just me or does Alaska seem ridiculously high on this list? They came in 4th place with 13.79%. Alaska's current population is 686,293. This means 94,639 people are smoking reefer with Russia in their backyard. Is it even possible to hot-box an igloo?

The one state that seems low on this list is Hawaii. It came in 38th place with a sad and confusing 9.04% stoner population. Its the ****ing Aloha State for God's sake! Hawaii is all about island living; Surfing, eating pineapples, chilling on the beach, and smoking some good weed. Apparently stereotypes are not always true.

In last place with only 7.17% of its citizens smoking, is Utah. I can't say that this is surprising, considering 60.4% of the state's population is Mormon. I guess if you're Mormon you are too busy wearing magic underwear, banging your multiple under-age wives, and being racist to enjoy ripping a bong-load.

This graph shows the percent of people 12 and older who have used marijuana in the past month. (From a 2006-2007 government survey)
1) Rhode Island 16.12%
2) Vermont 15.75%
3) New Hampshire 13.82%
4) Alaska 13.79%
5) Massachusetts 13.49%
6) Oregon 13.12%
7) Colorado 12.99%
8 ) Maine 12.66%
9) Montana 12.62%
10) Michigan 11.91%
11) Washington 11.81%
12) New York
11.64%
13) Connecticut 11.36%
14) Wyoming 11.31%
15) Minnesota 11.28%
16) California 11.24%
17) New Mexico 11.20%
18) Delaware 11.16%
19) Ohio 10.69%
20) Wisconsin 10.61%
21)Nevada 10.17%
22) Virginia 10.13%
23) Arkansas 10.09%
24) Kentucky 10.03%
25) Louisiana 10.01%
26) Tennessee 9.96%
27) Missouri 9.95%
28) Georgia 9.88%
29) Indiana 9.87%
30) Maryland 9.71%
31) Kansas 9.70%
32) Illinois 9.53%
33) Florida 9.44%
34) Arizona 9.35%
35) Pennsylvania 9.32%
36) North Carolina 9.22%
37) New Jersey 9.10%
38) Hawaii 9.04%
39) West Virginia 8.82%
40) Nebraska
8.71%
41) South Carolina 8.66%
42) Idaho 8.64%
43) North Dakota 8.59%
44) South Dakota 8.56%
45) Oklahoma 8.51%
46) Alabama 7.96%
47) Texas 7.92%
48) Mississippi 7.79%
49) Iowa 7.32%
50) Utah 7.17%

Are you surprised the state you live in is high (or low) on this list? Let me hear your thoughts.

Good Times,

Kyler Durden

http://hailmaryjane.com/rhode-islanders-are-the-biggest-pot-heads-in-america/
================================================== ====

I thought this was interesting..

That Texas stat is a damned lie... I don't know anyone here who DOESN'T smoke weed... except my husband.

Jolie Rouge
02-03-2010, 01:29 PM
FBI: Unruly passenger blames medical pot cookies
By Joe Mandak, Associated Press Writer
31 mins ago

PITTSBURGH – A San Francisco man claims he was high on a double dose of medical marijuana cookies when he screamed, dropped his pants and attacked crew members on a cross-country flight, forcing its diversion to Pittsburgh, the FBI said Wednesday.

Kinman Chan, 30, was charged in a criminal complaint with interfering with the duties of a flight attendant on allegations that he fought with crew members of US Airways Flight 1447 from Philadelphia to Los Angeles on Sunday. His federal public defender, Jay Finkelstein, declined to comment.

Crew members said Chan made odd gestures before he entered the plane's rear restroom shortly after takeoff and began to scream, according to the complaint.

Chan told the FBI that he "came back to reality" and exited the restroom, at which point the crew noticed his "pants were down, his shirt was untucked and all the compartments in the restroom were opened."

When crew members tried to get Chan to sit, he fought them and had to be subdued in a choke hold, the complaint said.

Chan told agents who interviewed him in Pittsburgh that he ate marijuana cookies while waiting for his flight to depart in Philadelphia.

"Chan advised he has a medical marijuana card and he took double his normal dose," the complaint said.

Margaret Philbin, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Pittsburgh, said Chan has a legally issued medical marijuana card for a "legitimate" health issue, which she declined to identify.

The flight was diverted to Pittsburgh International Airport, where Chan was arrested, then jailed until a federal magistrate granted him bond Tuesday, Philbin said.

Chan remained jailed Wednesday because Allegheny County officials have also charged him with disorderly conduct, Philbin said.

Chan arrived at Philadelphia International Airport after attending a conference in the Dominican Republic. The flight to Los Angeles was part of his trip home to San Francisco, authorities said.

Chan was scheduled for a preliminary hearing Wednesday afternoon, but that was postphoned until Friday because of a paperwork delay, Philbin said.

The charge of interfering with the duties of a flight attendant carries up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100203/ap_on_re_us/us_unruly_passenger

hesnothere
02-04-2010, 06:09 AM
Ohforpetessake, I've been eating cookies most of my life and I have never, ever screamed, dropped my drawers and attacked people.

unless absolutely necessary.

stresseater
02-04-2010, 02:52 PM
Ohforpetessake, I've been eating cookies most of my life and I have never, ever screamed, dropped my drawers and attacked people.

unless absolutely necessary.
Yeah I gotta raise the BS flag on that one as well.

Jolie Rouge
02-04-2010, 03:30 PM
posted in the wrong thread ... don't know what I was thinking ... must have been the cookies I was eating :shakebutt:

jasmine
02-04-2010, 05:51 PM
Yeah I gotta raise the BS flag on that one as well.

not understanding what you said... BS about what? Not screaming, dropping her drawers and attacking people after she eats cookies or what? I know people that can handle there cookies.

Jolie Rouge
02-19-2010, 09:34 AM
HempCon 2010 to be held this weekend at L.A. Convention Center
Daily News Wire Services
Updated: 02/19/2010 07:31:25 AM PST


A three-day celebration of all things related to medical marijuana opens today in downtown Los Angeles -- but don't expect to see any of the green stuff.
HempCon 2010 Los Angeles, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, allows exhibitors from across the country to showcase products and services while promoting medical marijuana and the movement to legalize pot. Smoking it at the event, however, is verboten.

"There's not going to be any cannabis -- but we're trying to spread the word," said Cheryl Shuman, executive director of Beverly Hills NORML 90210, a new branch of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

More than 150,000 people are expected to attend the event, the medical marijuana activist said.

"Los Angeles is the heartbeat of the entire cannabis community," Shuman said. "Everyone looks to Southern California for leadership and guidance. Now is the time to come out of the closet."

Fourteen states allow legal medicinal use of cannabis.

Last month, the Los Angeles City Council gave final approval to an ordinance aimed at ending the proliferation of illegal marijuana dispensaries while giving qualified patients access to the drug. There are currently an estimated 1,000 marijuana dispensaries across Los Angeles.

"I think what you'll find (at the convention) is that the negative stereotype of the laid-back stoner is wrong," Shuman said. "People who need and use medical marijuana include business professionals, lawyers, doctors, teachers and corporate types."

HempCon will showcase booths from collectives, retail vendors, graphic/Web designers, appliance manufacturers and cultivation experts, Shuman said.

Keynote addresses will be delivered by Shuman and Frederic Rhoades, a medical marijuana activist also from the Beverly Hills office of NORML.

Topics to be discussed include the impact of the Los Angeles medical marijuana ordinance; Assembly Bill 390, which would legalize marijuana in California; and taxing and regulating cannabis to revitalize the state's economy.

And there will be plenty of food stalls in case of naturally occurring munchies.

"My goal is full legalization for responsible adult use so California can save its economy," Shuman said. "We have such momentum now. This is our time."

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_14431217?source=rss

Jolie Rouge
02-22-2010, 10:52 AM
Marijuana use by seniors goes up as boomers age
Matt Sedensky, Associated Press Writer – 22 mins ago

MIAMI – In her 88 years, Florence Siegel has learned how to relax: A glass of red wine. A crisp copy of The New York Times, if she can wrest it from her husband. Some classical music, preferably Bach. And every night like clockwork, she lifts a pipe to her lips and smokes marijuana.

Long a fixture among young people, use of the country's most popular illicit drug is now growing among the AARP set, as the massive generation of baby boomers who came of age in the 1960s and '70s grows older.

The number of people aged 50 and older reporting marijuana use in the prior year went up from 1.9 percent to 2.9 percent from 2002 to 2008, according to surveys from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The rise was most dramatic among 55- to 59-year-olds, whose reported marijuana use more than tripled from 1.6 percent in 2002 to 5.1 percent.

Observers expect further increases as 78 million boomers born between 1945 and 1964 age. For many boomers, the drug never held the stigma it did for previous generations, and they tried it decades ago.

Some have used it ever since, while others are revisiting the habit in retirement, either for recreation or as a way to cope with the aches and pains of aging.

Siegel walks with a cane and has arthritis in her back and legs. She finds marijuana has helped her sleep better than pills ever did. And she can't figure out why everyone her age isn't sharing a joint, too.

"They're missing a lot of fun and a lot of relief," she said.

Politically, advocates for legalizing marijuana say the number of older users could represent an important shift in their decades-long push to change the laws.

"For the longest time, our political opponents were older Americans who were not familiar with marijuana and had lived through the 'Reefer Madness' mentality and they considered marijuana a very dangerous drug," said Keith Stroup, the founder and lawyer of NORML, a marijuana advocacy group.

"Now, whether they resume the habit of smoking or whether they simply understand that it's no big deal and that it shouldn't be a crime, in large numbers they're on our side of the issue."

Each night, 66-year-old Stroup says he sits down to the evening news, pours himself a glass of wine and rolls a joint. He's used the drug since he was a freshman at Georgetown, but many older adults are revisiting marijuana after years away.

"The kids are grown, they're out of school, you've got time on your hands and frankly it's a time when you can really enjoy marijuana," Stroup said. "Food tastes better, music sounds better, sex is more enjoyable."

The drug is credited with relieving many problems of aging: aches and pains, glaucoma, macular degeneration, and so on. Patients in 14 states enjoy medical marijuana laws, but those elsewhere buy or grow the drug illegally to ease their conditions.

Among them is Perry Parks, 67, of Rockingham, N.C., a retired Army pilot who suffered crippling pain from degenerative disc disease and arthritis. He had tried all sorts of drugs, from Vioxx to epidural steroids, but found little success. About two years ago he turned to marijuana, which he first had tried in college, and was amazed how well it worked for the pain.

"I realized I could get by without the narcotics," Parks said, referring to prescription painkillers. "I am essentially pain free."

But there's also the risk that health problems already faced by older people can be exacerbated by regular marijuana use.

Older users could be at risk for falls if they become dizzy, smoking it increases the risk of heart disease and it can cause cognitive impairment, said Dr. William Dale, chief of geriatrics and palliative medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

He said he'd caution against using it even if a patient cites benefits.

"There are other better ways to achieve the same effects," he said.

Pete Delany, director of applied studies at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, said boomers' drug use defied stereotypes, but is important to address.

"When you think about people who are 50 and older you don't generally think of them as using illicit drugs — the occasional Hunter Thompson or the kind of hippie dippie guy that gets a lot of press maybe," he said. "As a nation, it's important to us to say, 'It's not just young people using drugs it's older people using drugs.'"

In conversations, older marijuana users often say they smoke in less social settings than when they were younger, frequently preferring to enjoy the drug privately. They say the quality (and price) of the drug has increased substantially since their youth and they aren't as paranoid about using it.

Dennis Day, a 61-year-old attorney in Columbus, Ohio, said when he used to get high, he wore dark glasses to disguise his red eyes, feared talking to people on the street and worried about encountering police. With age, he says, any drawbacks to the drug have disappeared.

"My eyes no longer turn red, I no longer get the munchies," Day said. "The primary drawbacks to me now are legal."

Siegel bucks the trend as someone who was well into her 50s before she tried pot for the first time. She can muster only one frustration with the drug.

"I never learned how to roll a joint," she said. "It's just a big nuisance. It's much easier to fill a pipe."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100222/ap_on_re_us/us_seniors_marijuana;_ylt=Av9OvtKdirg4i8AVp1IOCiGs 0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFpaDZybjQwBHBvcwMzNgRzZWMDYWNjb3Jk aW9uX21vc3RfcG9wdWxhcgRzbGsDbWFyaWp1YW5hdXNl

Jolie Rouge
03-01-2010, 10:37 PM
Drug gangs taking over US public lands
Alicia A. Caldwell And Manuel Valdes, Associated Press Writers – Mon Mar 1, 9:12 pm ET

SEQUOIA NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. – Not far from Yosemite's waterfalls and in the middle of California's redwood forests, Mexican drug gangs are quietly commandeering U.S. public land to grow millions of marijuana plants and using smuggled immigrants to cultivate them.

Pot has been grown on public lands for decades, but Mexican traffickers have taken it to a whole new level: using armed guards and trip wires to safeguard sprawling plots that in some cases contain tens of thousands of plants offering a potential yield of more than 30 tons of pot a year.

"Just like the Mexicans took over the methamphetamine trade, they've gone to mega, monster gardens," said Brent Wood, a supervisor for the California Department of Justice's Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. He said Mexican traffickers have "supersized" the marijuana trade.

Interviews conducted by The Associated Press with law enforcement officials across the country showed that Mexican gangs are largely responsible for a spike in large-scale marijuana farms over the last several years.

Local, state and federal agents found about a million more pot plants each year between 2004 and 2008, and authorities say an estimated 75 percent to 90 percent of the new marijuana farms can be linked to Mexican gangs.

In 2008 alone, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, police across the country confiscated or destroyed 7.6 million plants from about 20,000 outdoor plots.

Growing marijuana in the U.S. saves traffickers the risk and expense of smuggling their product across the border and allows gangs to produce their crops closer to local markets.

Distribution also becomes less risky. Once the marijuana is harvested and dried on the hidden farms, drug gangs can drive it to major cities, where it is distributed to street dealers and sold along with pot that was grown in Mexico.

About the only risk to the Mexican growers, experts say, is that a stray hiker or hunter could stumble onto a hidden field.

The remote plots are nestled under the cover of thick forest canopies in places such as Sequoia National Park, or hidden high in the rugged-yet-fertile Sierra Nevada Mountains. Others are secretly planted on remote stretches of Texas ranch land.

All of the sites are far from the eyes of law enforcement, where growers can take the time needed to grow far more potent marijuana. Farmers of these fields use illegal fertilizers to help the plants along, and use cloned female plants to reduce the amount of seed in the bud that is dried and eventually sold.

Mexican gang plots can often be distinguished from those of domestic-based growers, who usually cultivate much smaller fields with perhaps 100 plants and no security measures.

Some of the fields tied to the drug gangs have as many as 75,000 plants, each of which can yield at least a pound of pot annually, according to federal data reviewed by the AP.

The Sequoia National Forest in central California is covered in a patchwork of pot fields, most of which are hidden along mountain creeks and streams, far from hiking trails. It's the same situation in the nearby Yosemite, Sequoia and Redwood national parks.

Even if they had the manpower to police the vast wilderness, authorities say terrain and weather conditions often keep them from finding the farms, except accidentally.

Many of the plots are encircled with crude explosives and are patrolled by guards armed with AK-47s who survey the perimeter from the ground and from perches high in the trees.

The farms are growing in sophistication and are increasingly cultivated by illegal immigrants, many of whom have been brought to the U.S. from Michoacan.

Growers once slept among their plants, but many of them now have campsites up to a mile away equipped with separate living and cooking areas.

"It's amazing how they have changed the way they do business," Wood said. "It's their domain."

Drug gangs have also imported marijuana experts and unskilled labor to help find the best land or build irrigation systems, Wood said.

Moyses Mesa Barajas had just arrived in eastern Washington state from the Mexican state of Michoacan when he was approached to work in a pot field. He was taken almost immediately to a massive crop hidden in the Wenatchee National Forest, where he managed the watering of the plants.

He was arrested in 2008 in a raid and sentenced to more than six years in federal prison. Several other men wearing camouflage fled before police could stop them.

"I thought it would be easy," he told the AP in a jailhouse interview. "I didn't think it would be a big crime."

Scott Stewart, vice president for tactical intelligence at Stratfor, a global intelligence company in Austin, Texas, said recruiters look for people who still have family in Mexico, so they can use them as leverage to keep the farmers working — and to keep them quiet.

"If they send Jose from the hometown and Jose rips them off, they are going to go after Jose's family," Stewart said. "It's big money."

When the harvest is complete, investigators say, pot farm workers haul the product in garbage bags to dropoff points that are usually the same places where they get resupplied with food and fuel.

Agents routinely find the discarded remnants of camp life when they discover marijuana fields. It's not uncommon to discover pots and pans, playing cards and books, half-eaten bags of food, and empty beer cans and liquor bottles.

But the growers leave more than litter to worry about. They often use animal poisons that can pollute mountain streams and groundwater meant for legitimate farmers and ranchers.

Because of the tree cover, armed pot farmers can often take aim at law enforcement before agents ever see them.

"They know the terrain better than we do," said Lt. Rick Ko, a drug investigator with the sheriff's office in Fresno, Calif. "Before we even see them, they can shoot us."

In Wisconsin, the number of confiscated plants grew sixfold between 2003 and 2008, to more than 32,000 found in 2008.

Wisconsin agents used to find a few dozen marijuana plants on national forest land. Now they discover hundreds or even thousands.

"If we are getting 40 to 50 percent (of fields), I think we are doing well," said Michigan State Police 1st Lt. Dave Peltomaa. "I really don't think we are close to 50 percent. We don't have the resources."

Vast amounts of pot are still smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico. Federal officials report nearly daily hauls of several hundred to several thousand pounds seized along the border. But drug agents say the boom in domestic growing is a sign of diversification by traffickers.

Officials say arrests of farmers are rare, though the sheriff's office in Fresno did nab more than 100 suspects during two weeks of raids last summer. But when field hands are arrested, most only tell authorities about their specific job.

When asked who hired him, Mesa repeatedly told an AP reporter, "I can't tell you."

Washington State Patrol Lt. Richard Wiley said hired hands either do not know who the boss is or are too frightened to give details.

"They are fearful of what may happen to them if they were to snitch on these coyote people," Wiley said of the recruiters and smugglers who bring marijuana farmers into the U.S. "That's organized crime of a different fashion. There's nothing to gain from (talking), but there's a lot to lose."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100302/ap_on_re_us/us_drug_war_pot_farms;_ylt=AuZjnN3yvudVBDL21fsM7kK s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTJpcWhxcTQwBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMzA yL3VzX2RydWdfd2FyX3BvdF9mYXJtcwRwb3MDNQRzZWMDeW5fb W9zdF9wb3B1bGFyBHNsawNhcGltcGFjdGRydWc-



ok they re on our soil, so now what is the government going to do about it? not a damn thing ! they re in on it or they have more than the resources to run to mexican gangs off us soil.. cmon now, if they cant handle these low life mexican pot growers!! how are they gonna handle some much smarter terrorists on us soil?? lololololol what a joke , but they ll bust some kid with 100 dollars worth of pot, but not go after these mexican gangs growing millions of dollars worth of pot on us soil!!! note i said millions!!! as in m i l l i o n (u $ a).


Legalize it Problem solved.


legalize, problem solved. no mop needed.


its those damm dutch .. invading our country and taking over our home depots.. . .


The only intelligent long-term solution is decriminalization.

It is marijuana prohibition, just like alcohol prohibition in the early 20th Century, that provides the opportunity to organized crime and fuels the growth of a wasteful police state. Marijuana is much less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco to society, absent the ills associated with prohibition. A huge amount of organized crime and bloated federal, state, and local agencies are vested in maintaining the status quo. It is time for this country to wake up and come to a better solution to 'the drug problem.' Decriminalize it and tax it.

zumali
03-03-2010, 01:13 PM
A three-day celebration of all things related to medical marijuana opens today in downtown Los Angeles -- but don't expect to see any of the green stuff.
HempCon 2010 Los Angeles, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, allows exhibitors from across the country to showcase products and services while promoting medical marijuana and the movement to legalize pot. Smoking it at the event, however, is verboten

Jolie Rouge
03-18-2010, 07:17 PM
Medical marijuana a frequent target for criminals
Lisa Leff, Associated Press Writer – 41 mins ago

SAN FRANCISCO – Patients, growers and clinics in some of the 14 states that allow medical marijuana are falling victim to robberies, home invasions, shootings and even murders at the hands of pot thieves.

There have been dozens of cases in recent months alone. The issue received more attention this week after a prominent medical marijuana activist in a Seattle suburb nearly killed a robber in a shootout — the eighth time thieves had targeted his pot-growing operation.

Critics say the heists and holdups prove that marijuana and crime are inseparable, though marijuana advocates contend that further legalization is the answer. News of crimes related to medical marijuana comes at an awkward time for California and Washington advocates who are pushing to pass ballot measures to allow all adults, not just the chronically ill, to possess the drug.

"Whenever you are dealing with drugs and money, there is going to be crime. If people think otherwise, they are very naive," said Scott Kirkland, the police chief in El Cerrito, Calif., and a vocal critic of his state's voter-approved medical marijuana law.

"People think if we decriminalize it, the Mexican cartels and Asian gangs are going to walk away. That's not the world I live in," Kirkland said.

Activists and law enforcement officials say it is difficult to get an accurate picture of crimes linked to medical marijuana because many victims don't notify the police for fear of drawing unwanted attention to their own activities. But the California Police Chiefs Association used press clippings to compile 52 medical marijuana-related crimes — including seven homicides — from April 2008 to March 2009.

There also is plenty of anecdotal evidence:

• A man in Washington state was beaten to death last week with what is believed to be a crowbar after confronting an intruder on the rural property where he was growing cannabis to treat painful back problems.

• Medical marijuana activist Steve Sarich exchanged gunfire with intruders in his home Monday in Kirkland, Wash., shooting and critically injuring one of them.

• In California, a boy was shot to death in 2007 while allegedly trying to steal a cancer patient's pot plants from his home garden.

• A respected magazine editor was killed that same year by robbers who targeted his Northern California home for marijuana and money after hearing that his teenage son was growing pot with a doctor's approval.

• Robbers killed a security guard at a Los Angeles medical marijuana dispensary in 2008.

Police and marijuana opponents say the violence is further proof that the proliferation of medical marijuana carries problems that would worsen if pot is legalized or decriminalized.

Pot activists say the opposite: that prohibition breeds crime and legalization would solve the problem. They also say the robberies have exposed the need for more regulation of medical marijuana laws in states like California, Washington and Colorado.

"The potential for people to get ripped off and for people to use guns to have to defend themselves against robbers is very real," said Keith Stroup, founder and chief legal counsel for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. "But it's nothing to do with medical marijuana. It is to do with the failure of states to regulate this."

Marijuana advocates say there is adequate regulation in New Mexico, where officials say there have been no violent medical marijuana robberies.

Medical cannabis is primarily grown by a small number of regularly inspected nonprofits in New Mexico, and the state keeps their names and locations confidential. The law includes extensive requirements covering security, quality control, staff training and education about the use of the drug.

Most medical marijuana states have only vague rules for caregivers or dispensaries participating in a business with products that can fetch $600 an ounce. Some states, including California and Colorado, can only guess how many pot dispensaries they have because the businesses don't have to register with the state.

"This is ridiculous, in my opinion, to have medical marijuana and no regulation," Stroup said. "A jewelry store wouldn't open without security, and if it did, a scuzzy person's going to break in and steal all their diamonds."

Stephen Gutwillig, California director of the pro-pot Drug Policy Alliance, said that while the robberies are disturbing, there is no way to conclude that legalized marijuana breeds any more crime than convenience stores, banks or homes stocked with expensive jewelry and electronics.

In fact, Denver police said the 25 robberies and burglaries targeting medical marijuana in the city in the last half of 2009 amounted to a lower crime rate than what banks or liquor stores there suffered.

"I think what we are seeing is a spate of crime that reflects the novelty of medical marijuana cultivation and distribution through unregulated means," Gutwillig said.

Marijuana is still illegal under federal law, but the Obama administration loosened its guidelines for prosecutions of medical pot last year. The Justice Department told federal prosecutors that targeting people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws was not a good use of their time.

The decision energized the medical marijuana movement and came as Washington state and California are trying to get pot legalization measures on the ballot. Activists are still gathering signatures, and it's not yet known if the measures will qualify for the ballot.

Meanwhile, California cities have been trying to rein in the drug in response to a medical marijuana law that is the nation's most liberal.

Detective Robert Palacios of the Los Angeles Police Department said he has investigated a half-dozen dispensary robberies in the last year, but he has seen the number of such crimes drop in recent weeks after the City Council moved to close many stores.

In all the cases he's investigated, armed robbers have stolen marijuana, cash and other items. They often resell the drug on the street.

"They are going into a business and using a threat of force," Palacios said. "Even though they are in an establishment that itself is questionably legal, it's our duty to investigate."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100319/ap_on_re_us/us_medical_marijuana_violence;_ylt=AiSB3SqAdkobkHu nXMftGmes0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFlczM4dTJ0BHBvcwM2OQRzZWM DYWNjb3JkaW9uX3Vfc19uZXdzBHNsawNtZWRpY2FsbWFyaWo-



Critics say the heists and holdups prove that marijuana and crime are inseparable!!! So are 7-elevens and hold ups. Lets get rid of those too!!


This is, of course, ignoring the crime, disease and deaths associated with the legal drugs in use now: Alcohol and Tobacco./quote]

[quote]They should allow persons to grow MJ for personal use. Like alcohol, growing MJ will never, ever go away. Its place in society over the past 40-50 years have shown that. What the big deal?


Legalize it! Prohibition didn't work, and gave us Al Capone. These Mexican drug gangs are just the modern version, the Al Capones of today. Legalize and tax it, and profits for the criminals will disappear just as they did for booze. The crimes listed in this article are not evidence against legalization, they are arguments for it. Partial legalization is causing these crimes, full legalization will remove the incentives. The El Cerrito police chief quoted here is ignoring the lessons of history. And, for the record, I don't use pot, some I have no vested interested in this other than to see the level of violence in our society (and in Mexico) decrease.


Up until the 1900s marijuanna was the #1 cash crop in the USA and worldwide.

The seeds in marijuanna are the BEST scource of medical use to lower cholesterol, 1 acre of marijuanna = 2.5 acres of tree's for paper production. Marijuanna seeds can be made into a plastic-like product that is 100% bio-degradable. Marijuanna is proven to regrow damaged brain cells. Marijuanna is neither phisically or mentally addictive.

Marijuanna was used to make every sail, all rope and a multitude of baskets, containers and countless other products. There is NO other plant in the world that has the certain properties of Maijuanna.

The ONLY reason it is illegal is because in the early 1900s when plastic were being introduce from the DuPont corp marijuanna was a direct competitor of petroleum products. Oil can easily be regulated and taxed, marijuanna grows like a weed and couldn't be taxed or controlled as easily.

And of course if everyone could grow it the wealthy elite wouldn't have enough control.

Jolie Rouge
03-28-2010, 08:58 PM
Many felony pot cases getting tossed out of court
Paul Elias, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 59 mins ago

SAN FRANCISCO – Police in a northern California town thought they had an open-and-shut case when they seized more than two pounds of marijuana from a couple's home, even though doctors authorized the pair to use pot for medical purposes.

San Francisco police thought the same with a father and son team they suspected of abusing the state's medical marijuana law by allegedly operating an illegal trafficking operation.

But both cases were tossed out along with many other marijuana possession cases in recent weeks because of a California Supreme Court ruling that has police, prosecutors and defense attorneys scrambling to make sense of a gray legal area: What is the maximum amount of cannabis a medical marijuana patient can possess?

No one can say for sure how many dismissals and acquittals have been prompted by the ruling, but the numbers are stacking up since the Supreme Court on Jan. 21 tossed out Patrick Kelly's marijuana possession conviction.

The high court struck down a 7-year-old state law that imposed an 8-ounce limit on the amount of pot medical users of marijuana could possess. The court said patients are entitled to a "reasonable" amount of the drug to treat their ailments.

Law enforcement officials say the ruling has made the murky legal landscape of marijuana policy in California even more challenging to enforce.

Since California voters legalized medical marijuana in 1996, there has been tension between local law enforcement officials and federal authorities, who view marijuana as absolutely illegal.

That tension is expected to become even more pronounced if the state's voters approve a November ballot measure legalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana.

"The way the law is now it puts law enforcement between a rock and a hard place," said Martin J. Mayer, a lawyer who represents California State Sheriff's Association, California Police Chief's Association and California Peace Officers' Association. "The measure, if it passes, will make it even more difficult. They just don't like being in the middle."

Prosecutors are backing away from some cases filed before the court ruling.

"Gray is not a good color for the law," said Shasta County District Attorney Gerald Benito, who dismissed a case earlier this month and is considering dropping several more because of the ruling. "It makes it very difficult for us to enforce the law — I think everyone is crying out for a clear line."

Benito cited the Supreme Court ruling in dropping charges on March 5 against James Bradley Hall, who was arrested in October and charged with growing 40 marijuana plants.

The next week, a San Francisco jury acquitted a father and son charged with growing three dozen plants. The lawyers for Thomas Chang, 62, and his son, Errol Chang, 30, based their defense on the Kelly case, arguing that the men needed that much pot to treat their medical conditions.

In Vacaville, located between San Francisco and Sacramento, prosecutors in February dropped their two-year pursuit of Johanna and Joe Azevedo, a husband and wife charged with possessing about two pounds of marijuana. Both sides agreed to put the Azevedo case on hold until the Supreme Court decided the Kelly case.

"Fighting this pretty well drained what little money we had," Johanna Azevedo said of her legal fight with Solano County prosecutors. "But it was a very happy day when the Kelly case was announced."

Still, not all defense attorneys and marijuana advocates are as content with the ruling as the Azevedos and others who had their criminal cases dropped.

Some argue that clear-cut limits actually would shield medical marijuana patients from law enforcement officials who have a strict interpretation of what constitutes a "reasonable" amount.

"I wish there was a bright line," said Bruce Margolin, one of the nation's most renowned marijuana defense attorneys. "It's the only protection against arrest."

A closely-watched Sacramento case was expected to help clarify what a reasonable amount of medical marijuana is. But it further muddied the question.

The jury acquitted Matthew Zugsberger of a felony possession charge but convicted him of a felony charge of marijuana transportation for trying to take three pounds of marijuana from the Sacramento airport to New Orleans in 2008. The jury, which deliberated for more than three days, also convicted Zugsberger of a misdemeanor possession charge. In the end, nothing was solved.

"The jury was absolutely confused," said his attorney Grant Pegg. "What is reasonable is an absolutely gray area."

Despite the confusion, there does not appear to be a political push to develop guidelines, which the Supreme Court said must be done by voters.

Law enforcement lobbying arms, such as the California District Attorney Association, steer clear of most medical marijuana issues because of the wide variety of views of the law.

"It is different than a lot of areas in criminal law where there is a consensus," said W. Scott Thorpe, chief executive of the district attorney's association. "There are varying approaches from county to county in the way law enforcement is dealing with medical marijuana laws."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100329/ap_on_re_us/us_pot_cases_tossed;_ylt=AvNzaXdNG74XoOHzYC8_oTOs0 NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNuaXRuNTh1BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMzI5L 3VzX3BvdF9jYXNlc190b3NzZWQEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXI EY3BvcwM0BHBvcwMxBHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5faGVhZ GxpbmVfbGlzdARzbGsDbWFueWZlbG9ueXBv

Jolie Rouge
04-08-2010, 07:31 AM
Bill to snuff incense clears House criminal justice panel
By MICHELLE MILLHOLLON Advocate Capitol News Bureau Apr 8, 2010 - Page: 1A

Lighting up a bag of herbal incense from the local convenience store would become illegal under legislation that advanced through a House committee Wednesday.

House Bill 173 is one of a number of bills that targets what public officials are characterizing as “synthetic marijuana” that is being smoked by users. Now legal, the product is sold as incense under an array of names locally, including Voodoo, Fiya, Mo-Joe and Gonjah. The Asian-manufactured blend of herbs simulates marijuana without registering on drug tests, critics claim.

The Ra Shop on Highland Road by LSU sells herbal incense and touted “Purp” as its best deal for $39.95 in a 3.5 gram package. The Ra Shop also sold herbal incense for as little as $10 in a 1 gram package. “It’s in convenience stores, gas stations, novelty shops … and sells for about $20 a gram,” said Lt. Rob Chambers, of the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office, while testifying Wednesday before the House Committee on Administration of Criminal Justice.

He said his office is being bombarded with calls from the parents of children who are getting high on the substance. The committee approved the bill without dissent.

Critics of the move to outlaw the product countered that users will just turn to the Internet. “It will go from the stores to the streets. It will create a black market,” said Tracy Donovan Smith, a lobbyist for wholesalers.

The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Ricky Templet, argued that the ban is necessary.

Templet, R-Gretna, presented the bill along with state Reps. Bodi White, R-Central, and Girod Jackson III, D-Harvey. White and Jackson have bills similar to HB173. “It’s in our high schools and it’s spreading rapidly,” Templet said.

HB173 would prohibit a number of plants from being blended and smoked or inhaled. The plants in question include mugwort, honeyweed, sacred lotus and dwarf skullcap. Many of these plants are listed as ingredients in herbal incense products. Those who distribute the combined herbs would face up to five years in prison. Smoking the herbs would be punishable by up to six months in jail.

Templet said he bought bags of the herbal blend a block from the LSU baseball game Tuesday night. He said he was able to negotiate the price. “This is something we don’t want our children, our businesses dealing with,” he said.

Smith, the lobbyist, brought a bagful of household products that he purchased at Wal-Mart. He displayed the cooking spray, bathroom cleaner, markers, paint thinner and other products on a table in front of the legislative committee. He said children use the products to get high, yet they are readily available.

The committee’s chairman, state Rep. Ernest Wooton, R-Belle Chasse, said the products are not manufactured with the intent of people using them to get high.

State Rep. Walt Leger III, D-New Orleans, said he is tired of harmful products manufactured in China. He listed drywall, shrimp and toys with lead paint. However, Leger questioned whether the state should be regulating products from other countries, especially plant matter. He wanted to just ban the synthetic marijuana for those under 18.

Wooton said the product will become like beer. Underage users will just get their friends to buy it for them, he said.

Leger’s amendment failed.

The committee did tinker with the legislation, removing a mandatory jail sentence, before advancing the bill.

Jordan Blum with the Capitol news bureau contributed to this report.


http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/90186517.html


there are so many things wrong with this .... I'll have to come back later :weed:

Jolie Rouge
04-12-2010, 08:01 AM
Benefits from a marijuana tax? California is dreaming.
ByThe Monitor's Editorial Board Thu Apr 8, 4:28 pm ET

Backers of the November ballot initiative to legalize marijuana in California are selling the idea based on economics: The state is in dire financial straits; taxing and regulating the drug – much like alcohol – could raise $1.4 billion for state coffers.

That estimate comes from the California Board of Equalization, which administers the state's sales taxes. The source gives the economics argument an air of credibility. Even so, voters shouldn't inhale it.

The board's estimate "is based on a series of assumptions that are in some instances subject to tremendous uncertainty and in other cases not validated," said Rosalie Liccardo Pacula of the RAND Corporation, in testimony before the state Assembly. Dr. Pacula is an economist who has studied drug policies for 15 years.

One of the highly questionable assumptions is that a legal market can sustain a proposed $50-an-ounce tax on marijuana. The black market can easily undercut that tax, siphoning sales away from legal distributors and eroding tax revenues.

This is exactly what happened in Canada with cigarette taxes. In the 1990s, a mere $2 price difference between Canadian and US cigarettes created such a smuggling problem that Canada repealed its tax hike.

And then there are the costs that will be incurred with increased use – and legalization will drive use.

These costs relate to treatment of dependency (over a third of self-reported users of marijuana in the past year are dependent), missed and tardy work, drugged driving accidents, and increased crime.

The Netherlands, so often pointed to as the reasonable case for legalization, has discovered that normalizing marijuana increased dependence on the drug, spawned more dealers of harder drugs, and attracted a flood of rowdy "drug tourists" from other countries. Add to this the cost of regulation itself.

America's experience with alcohol and tobacco shows that health, lost productivity, and law enforcement costs far exceed tax revenues. These industries have not managed to keep their products from young people. A legal pot-smoking age of 21 would similarly fail to keep this drug away from youth.

Other states, such as Washington, Oregon, and Nevada, are looking at regulating and taxing marijuana. The budget argument is enticing. But economically, and in many other ways, legalizing pot does not add up.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100408/cm_csm/292545;_ylt=AnWhaP3i5vjpxxy5ZBRePlqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oD MTFlMjE2amJ1BHBvcwMyMTkEc2VjA2FjY29yZGlvbl9vcGluaW 9uBHNsawNiZW5lZml0c2Zyb20-

Jolie Rouge
04-17-2010, 09:46 PM
Pot enthusiasts gather at California cannabis expo
By Sudhin Thanawala, Associated Press Writer 2 hrs 45 mins ago

DALY CITY, Calif. – Medical marijuana users near San Francisco lit up Saturday at the opening of the two-day International Cannabis and Hemp Expo, where vendors displayed bongs, vaporizers, hash brownies and other marijuana-related products.

Organizers of the event at the Cow Palace said they insisted on having an onsite medicating area before holding the expo. Under a white-canopied courtyard, young adults in baggy jeans and baseball caps smoked alongside aging hippies.

Adrian Hernandez said marijuana use helps him deal with chronic knee pain.

"Everybody needs their medication when they need it," said Hernandez, who is in his 30s. "We'd have to step out and go hide in our cars."

In 1996, California voters approved a measure that allowed sick people to use marijuana if they have doctor referrals and an identification card.

But marijuana advocates want to take it a step further. In November, voters will consider a ballot measure on whether to legalize and tax pot in California.

Bob Katzman, chief operations officer for the expo, said one of the goals of the event — held in an arena that once hosted The Beatles and the 1964 Republican Convention — was to show just how big and far-reaching the state's pot industry has become.

"I think we're already mainstream," he said. "At least in Northern California."

Katzman said he obtained permission for the medicating area last year from the Cow Palace, which is controlled by the state, after years of negotiations. He credited the recent push to legalize marijuana in part for the approval.

The expo, and others like it, will help develop the multibillion dollar pot industry, said Bucky Fisher, national sales manager for Medical Marijuana Inc., which sells hemp-related products and provides services to ensure marijuana dispensaries follow the law. "It makes the industry more of a community, more visible, more powerful," he said. "This country is definitely in need of a homegrown industry, and this could be it."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100418/ap_on_re_us/us_marijuana_expo;_ylt=AgmWDVw3TiVOPfH85fSW_gCs0NU E;_ylu=X3oDMTFlN2M2OGRhBHBvcwM2NgRzZWMDYWNjb3JkaW9 uX3Vfc19uZXdzBHNsawNwb3RlbnRodXNpYXM-

Jolie Rouge
04-20-2010, 09:02 AM
Pot smokers out, proud for 4/20 high holiday
By Lisa Leff, Associated Press Writer 45 mins ago

OAKLAND, Calif. – Forget Hippie Hill. For thoroughly modern marijuana smokers in the San Francisco Bay area, the hip place to celebrate their movement's high holiday this year was the inside of stretch Hummer parked outside a pot gardening superstore where entrepreneurs mingled with investors and a city councilman.

Marijuana legalization advocates across the country are expected to light up during Tuesday's annual observance of 4/20, the celebration-cum-mass civil disobedience derived from "420" — insider shorthand for cannabis consumption. IGrow, a 3-month-old cultivation equipment emporium, got a 24-hour jump start on the festivities by sponsoring a "420 Eve" festival Monday afternoon.

Several hundred revelers lined up outside the 15,000-square-foot shop — security guards kept them at bay until 4:20 p.m. — waiting for the chance to revel in their drug of choice's rising commercial clout. Inside the gates, they perused booths stocked with pipe-shaped lollipops and specialty fertilizers, entered a medical marijuana delivery service's raffle for an oversized joint and toured a 53-foot-long portable grow room with a starting price of $60,000.

"I wouldn't have thought we would be able to consume on site," marveled John Corral, 19, of San Jose, after he obtained a wristband that gave him access to the event's two "vapor lounges," the one inside the Hummer and another inside a companion Range Rover limousine.

Two years ago, before he had a doctor's recommendation to smoke pot, Corral commemorated 4/20 on Hippie Hill, the Golden Gate Park promontory where an earlier generation of pot aficionados made their stand. IGrow has arranged to have a doctor working at the store three days a week to evaluate people seeking to become medical marijuana patients, and a handful of those at the 420 Eve party were able to snag last-minute appointments.

Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said the drug's steady movement from counterculture indulgence to mainstream acceptance will be evident elsewhere in the United States Tuesday, when four cable television channels have scheduled "a good chunk of programming to 420."

St. Pierre said that with the terms "marijuana" or "cannabis" regularly showing up on the top Internet searches and a measure to legalize the plant's recreational use appearing on as many as four state ballots in November, it's clear that groups like his, which has lobbied to decriminalize marijuana since 1970, are no longer blowing smoke.

"There is a large mainstreaming of all of this," he said. "Some of it is happening because of natural forces and some of it is happening because commercial entities looking to comport with local social mores and values are taking advantage of this bizarre numerology."

At the iGrow event, Tom Patton of GrowOp Technology, proudly discussed the inspiration for the "Big Bud" growing trailer he developed with Derek Peterson, a former stock broker. Patton said he kept hearing about pot growers who "were constantly putting up and taking down" grow rooms built inside warehouses or residential homes because of complaints from neighbors, fires sparked by faulty wiring or threats of law enforcement raids.

His pot room on wheels, which comes outfitted with a security system and technology to adjust temperature and humidity levels from an iPhone, may not completely eliminate the last concern, but that hasn't stopped a pair of New York bankers from investing in the invention.

"This is an enabling technology, not a hiding-out technology," Patton said.

The lure of revenue and respectability has prompted some veterans of the marijuana wars to diversify. Joshua Freeman, a Sonoma County pot grower, was at the 420 Eve festival handing out samples of the specialty plant food he recently developed and is trying to market. "We are not just a bunch of stoners sitting back on a couch playing video games," Freeman said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100420/ap_on_re_us/us_high_holiday;_ylt=An5H361UkUE1gxAT3HE1eJes0NUE; _ylu=X3oDMTFlOWszODlxBHBvcwM2OARzZWMDYWNjb3JkaW9uX 3Vfc19uZXdzBHNsawNwb3RzbW9rZXJzb3U-



There is no reason why pot is illegal. You can not overdose. It does not cause people to get violent. People need to just chill and understand that cigarettes and alcohol cause way more damage to us then any bit of weed smoking could. If they legalized it there would be less people in jell.


I bet California nets back a huge chunk of its state deficit collecting taxes on weed. Yes, these guys are pot heads, but their $ is finally going back into OUR economy instead of funding cartel malitias. The state will also enjoy not paying for the incarceration of common pot heads. Good job, Cali


Enjoy today ,Enjoy the earth, Enjoy the toke, Happy 4:20. Pass the chips ...

Jolie Rouge
04-20-2010, 09:06 AM
AP-CNBC Poll: Most in US against legalizing pot
By Greg Risling, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 43 mins ago

LOS ANGELES – Most Americans still oppose legalizing marijuana but larger majorities believe pot has medical benefits and the government should allow its use for that purpose, according to an Associated Press-CNBC poll released Tuesday.

Respondents were skeptical that crime would spike if marijuana is decriminalized or that it would lead more people to harder drugs like heroin or cocaine. There also was a nearly even split on whether government spends too much or the right amount enforcing marijuana laws. Almost no one thinks too little is spent.

Marijuana use — medically and recreationally — is getting more attention in the political arena. California voters will decide in November whether to legalize the drug, and South Dakota will vote this fall on whether to allow medical uses. California and 13 other states already permit such use.

The balloting comes against the backdrop of the Obama administration saying it won't target marijuana dispensaries if they comply with state laws, a departure from the policy of the Bush administration, which sought to more stringently enforce the federal ban on marijuana use for any purpose.

In the poll, only 33 percent favor legalization while 55 percent oppose it. People under 30 were the only age group favoring legalization (54 percent) and opposition increased with age, topping out at 73 percent of those 65 and older. Opposition also was prevalent among women, Republicans and those in rural and suburban areas.

Some opponents worried legalization would lead to reefer madness.

"I think it would be chaos if it was legalized," said Shirley Williams, a 75-year-old retired English teacher from Quincy, Ill. "People would get in trouble and use marijuana as an excuse."

Those like Jeff Boggs, 25, of Visalia, Calif., who support legalization said the dangers associated with the drug have been overstated.

"People are scared about things they don't know about," said Boggs, who is married and works for an auto damage appraisal company.

Americans are more accepting of medical marijuana. Sixty percent support the idea and 74 percent believe the drug has a real medical benefit for some people. Two-thirds of Democrats favor medical marijuana as do a slim majority of Republicans, 53 percent.

Peoples' views on legalizing marijuana or on allowing its use for medicinal purposes were largely uniform across different regions of the country, despite the fact that legal medical marijuana use is concentrated in the West.

Bill Hankins, 77, of Mason, Mich., opposes legalizing marijuana but strongly favors using the drug medicinally. Michigan is among the states that allow medical pot.

"It has been shown through tests to alleviate pain in certain medical conditions," said Hankins, who said he experimented with pot when he was younger. If Hankins fell gravely ill and "my doctor said I should have it to control the pain, I would use it," he said.

California was the first state to approve medical marijuana, in 1996, and has been the hub of the so-called "Green Rush" to legalize marijuana. But a patchwork of local laws in the state has created confusion about the law and lax oversight led to an explosion of medical marijuana dispensaries in some places.

In Los Angeles, the number of dispensaries exploded from four to upward of 1,000 in the past five years. Police believe some were nothing but fronts for drug dealers to sell marijuana to people who have no medical need, and the city recently adopted an ordinance to reduce that number to 70 in coming months.

Among those surveyed, 45 percent said the cost of enforcing existing laws is too high and 48 percent said it's about right. Democrats, men and young people were most apt to say the cost is exorbitant.

With state and local governments desperate for cash, some legalization proponents are pushing marijuana as a potential revenue stream. But only 14 percent of those surveyed who oppose legalization would change their mind if states were to tax the drug.

John Lovell, a spokesman with the California Narcotics Officers' Association, said he wasn't surprised by the poll results because people already are aware of widespread abuse of legal prescription drugs and alcohol.

"Given that reality, we don't need to add another mind-altering substance that compromises people's five senses," Lovell said.

Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said that, since the organization was formed in 1970, there's been a slow but steady erosion of opposition to marijuana.

"Every single metric is pushing toward a zeitgeist in marijuana reform," he said.

Ann Broadus, 58, of Petros, Tenn., strongly opposes legalization and medicinal use, but even she sees the day when the laws will change.

"Probably somewhere down the road it will be legalized, but I hope not," she said. "I think if it becomes legal, these druggies would be worse off."

The AP-CNBC Poll was conducted April 7-12, 2010, by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media. It involved interviews with 1,001 adults nationwide on landline and cellular telephones. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.

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On the Net: http://marijuana.cnbc.com

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100420/ap_on_re_us/us_ap_poll_legalizing_marijuana;_ylt=Ar8aBTT3woXLy 8vlvcHiUYOs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFlZDM2YWY5BHBvcwM2NwRzZ WMDYWNjb3JkaW9uX3Vfc19uZXdzBHNsawNhcC1jbmJjcG9sbG0-


How stupid people can be. Whisky and Beer are just fine and yet cause thousands of accidents and engender violence in those that use them in excess, but benign Pot must be illegal. Millions of families have been destroyed and billions of tax dollars wasted putting people in prison over a harmless natural herb. I don't indulge myself, but it being illegal is INSANE.


Most have been brainwashed by the media controlled big business that will loose $$ if hemp is legal - like oil companies, textile, paper, timber companies. That is why it was made illegal not it being dangerous

jasmine
04-21-2010, 07:02 AM
http://www.gadling.com/2010/04/20/historic-l-a-hotel-remodeled-as-pot-friendly-lodging/?icid=main|htmlws-main-n|dl4|link6|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gadling.com%2F2010%2F 04%2F20%2Fhistoric-l-a-hotel-remodeled-as-pot-friendly-lodging%2F

Historic L.A. hotel remodeled as pot-friendly lodging
by Jeremy Kressmann (RSS feed) on Apr 20th 2010 at 3:00PM

A California entrepreneur is reopening a historic 1920's L.A. hotel as America's first pot-friendly accommodation. Dennis Peron, a long-time marijuana dispensary owner and medicinal marijuana advocate, is currently remodeling Los Angeles' Hotel Normandie with plans to turn its 106 rooms into a haven for smokers around the world.

Though the property is far from complete, Peron is planning a grand opening for the new residence today, April 20th, or "4/20" in smoker slang. Once complete, Peron's vision is a hotel with a "hippie rustic" theme and a rooftop deck where users could light up, framed by the hotel's vintage neon sign.

Unfortunately the dreams for America's first marijuana hotel are threatening to go up in flames. As it currently stands, Peron and friend Richard Eastman are running short on funding for the ambitious project. A few rooms have been remodeled but the majority are not. The proposed renovation is likely to cost upwards of $500,000 and the real estate investor who purchased the property for Peron is $200,000 behind on payments.

Will this pot-friendly hotel ever see the light of day? The answer, it appears, is hidden by a cloud of smoke.

pepperpot
04-21-2010, 07:25 AM
http://www.gadling.com/2010/04/20/historic-l-a-hotel-remodeled-as-pot-friendly-lodging/?icid=main|htmlws-main-n|dl4|link6|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gadling.com%2F2010%2F 04%2F20%2Fhistoric-l-a-hotel-remodeled-as-pot-friendly-lodging%2F

Historic L.A. hotel remodeled as pot-friendly lodging
by Jeremy Kressmann (RSS feed) on Apr 20th 2010 at 3:00PM

A California entrepreneur is reopening a historic 1920's L.A. hotel as America's first pot-friendly accommodation. Dennis Peron, a long-time marijuana dispensary owner and medicinal marijuana advocate, is currently remodeling Los Angeles' Hotel Normandie with plans to turn its 106 rooms into a haven for smokers around the world.

Though the property is far from complete, Peron is planning a grand opening for the new residence today, April 20th, or "4/20" in smoker slang. Once complete, Peron's vision is a hotel with a "hippie rustic" theme and a rooftop deck where users could light up, framed by the hotel's vintage neon sign.

Unfortunately the dreams for America's first marijuana hotel are threatening to go up in flames. As it currently stands, Peron and friend Richard Eastman are running short on funding for the ambitious project. A few rooms have been remodeled but the majority are not. The proposed renovation is likely to cost upwards of $500,000 and the real estate investor who purchased the property for Peron is $200,000 behind on payments.

Will this pot-friendly hotel ever see the light of day? The answer, it appears, is hidden by a cloud of smoke.

I'd like to own the concession for the minibar and snacks. :lol

Jolie Rouge
04-22-2010, 01:24 PM
Legalizing pot may kill buzz in California enclave
By Alexandria Sage Thu Apr 22, 11:45 am ET

ARCATA, California (Reuters) – Below the perpetual fog that shrouds the redwood groves, green hills and rocky coastline of remote Humboldt County thrives a lucrative but hush-hush industry -- marijuana.

Pot pays the bills in this Northern California enclave, home to hippies and good old boys alike who espouse the weed's curative and economic benefits. The expensive trucks, bustling restaurants, escalating rents and plentiful wads of cash all point to profitable pot cultivation in Humboldt.

Now, a state voter initiative on the November ballot that would make California the first U.S. state to legalize and tax this cash crop has locals jittery about losing their dominant market position.

"We've always had a cannabis tinge to our culture," said Kevin Hoover, editor of weekly newspaper The Arcata Eye. "What we have now is a very entrenched industry that's making a lot of money off the fact that it's illegal."

Starting in the 1960's, free-thinkers wanting to get away from it all moved to the area long dominated by the lumber and fishing industries. Marijuana cultivation supported these new residents and newly unemployed blue-collar workers who watched the demise of Humboldt's traditional manufacturing base.

Although the underground pot economy makes for poor statistics, Beth Wilson, an associate professor of economics at Humboldt State University, estimates the area's annual income from marijuana at about $500 million.

The "multiplier effect" of that money circulated to support local businesses -- garden centers do a brisk business and the town of Arcata's sushi restaurant is always packed -- could push that figure to $1 billion annually, she said.

"It's not negligible," said Wilson.

PURPLE KUSH PLEASE

Everyone knows someone who grows pot. In the north county, indoor growing that fetches prices of over $3,000 per pound is popular, while in the south, marijuana is planted outdoors.

The industry has also fueled an itinerant labor force of "trimmers" who make $20 per hour or more snipping the leaves from the more potent dried buds of the plant.

"This vote has become a conflict of interest," said Deniz Farnell, 31, an Arcata hotel worker, who, like the vast majority of locals, supports decriminalizing pot smoking.

"Do you vote for the good of the state or for the next-door neighbor who's a mom who's supplementing her income through trimming? When that law passes, she'll be on food stamps."

That is because legalizing marijuana could turn a cottage industry into Pot Inc. Locals fear big tobacco will swoop in and drive down prices, supplying millions of new, legal pot smokers with "Marlboro Green."

Rumors abound in Arcata that the tobacco giants have already snatched up land and copyrights to the most popular names of weed strains, whether Purple Kush, Big Bud, Headband, Trainwreck or L.A. Confidential.

But at least one big tobacco company, Reynolds American, says it has no plans to move in. "Everything else would be purely rumors and speculation," said spokesman David Howard.

"We better hope it doesn't become legal because this area is going to become a ghost town," one reader wrote to the North Coast Journal in a response to a recent article on how to stay afloat in the post-illegal pot era.

The Tax Cannabis campaign has gained traction in the cash-strapped state of California, historically at the forefront of contentious social issues. It led the nation in 1996 by approving the use of cannabis for medical purposes.

An April 2009 Field Poll showed 56 percent of state voters supported legalizing pot for social use and taxing the sales.

On a statewide level, that could bring in $1.4 billion per year, according to the office that regulates sales tax.

"Think of all the pot smokers out there," said a mid-30s mom who has grown for six years, plans to enter law school, and favors legalization. "They can bail California out of its deficit. Smoke more pot!"

Under the initiative, possession and cultivation of small amounts of pot for personal use would be legal for those 21 and over. The measure allows municipalities to determine how to tax and regulate the drug -- with monies going to local governments -- and does not affect medical marijuana laws.

Pot is illegal under U.S. law but the Obama administration halted raids on medical marijuana clinics last year. It is unclear how state legalization would be affected by federal law, and whether the U.S. government would interfere.

APPELLATION FOR HUMBOLDT BUD?

Those who favor legalization predict it could curtail the seamier side of the industry. The profusion of "grow houses," gutted to accommodate indoor greenhouses, have pushed up rental prices, while robberies of cash and plants are on the rise.

With no real organized opposition to the measure, local leaders in Humboldt say it's time to face up to the future and brainstorm creative ideas to offset any impending slump.

"Here we have an industry with whom our county's name has, quite frankly, become synonymous," said County Supervisor Mark Lovelace. "We've lived with the downside of that name association for the past thirty years. Maybe it's time to capture some of the upside."

Ideas include taking a tip from French champagne, branding the Humboldt name as an appellation and focusing on terroir and tasting rooms. Others say that's a pipe dream.

"We don't need to panic and create weed Disneyland," said one grower, who believes the risk to growers has been overblown and foresees a continuing black market even if the law passes.

The 32-year-old illegal grower, who declined to be identified, predicts connoisseurs will eschew the cheaper varieties in a legal market and pay a premium for Humboldt's best strains.

Pot growers could also harness their know-how for other horticultural pursuits, he said.

"It's easy money right now," said the self-described "average indoor grower" with $40,000 in income every two and a half months. "But these might be the future organic farmers of the area. That skill can be applied to more things than just marijuana."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100422/us_nm/us_california_marijuana/print;_ylt=AmSNS_Pdq5XYVPk8Y_0qmEwXIr0F;_ylu=X3oDM TBvajZzaTFyBHBvcwMxNQRzZWMDdG9wBHNsawNwcmludA--

Jolie Rouge
05-03-2011, 09:16 AM
States reassess marijuana laws after fed warnings
By Mike Baker, Associated Press – Tue May 3, 3:49 am ET

OLYMPIA, Wash. – Several states have started reassessing their medical marijuana laws after stern warnings from the federal government that everyone from licensed growers to regulators could be subjected to prosecution.

The ominous-sounding letters from U.S. attorneys in recent weeks have directly injected the federal government back into a debate that has for years been progressing at the state level. Warnings in Washington state led Gov. Chris Gregoire to veto a proposal that would have created licensed marijuana dispensaries.

Gregoire, the chair of the National Governors Association, now says she wants to work with other states to push for changes to federal marijuana laws to resolve the legal disputes caused by what she described as prosecutors reinterpreting their own policies. "The landscape is changing out there. They are suggesting they are not going to stand down," Gregoire said.

The Department of Justice said two years ago that it would be an inefficient use of funds to target people who are in clear compliance with state law. But U.S. attorneys have said in their recent memos that they would consider civil or criminal penalties for those who run large-scale operations — even if they are acceptable under state law.

In a letter to Gregoire, Washington state's two U.S. attorneys warned that even state employees could be subject to prosecution for their role in marijuana regulation. The letter does not specify how that would happen, but the implication is that state workers who are involved in approving and regulating the sale of an illegal drug are committing a crime.

No state workers have been charged federally for regulating medical marijuana laws, and legal experts say such a move would be extraordinary — if not unprecedented in recent history. Gregoire said she didn't want to take the chance, arguing that it would be irresponsible for her to leave her workers vulnerable.

Letters with various cautions have also gone to officials in California, Colorado, Montana and Rhode Island. Federal authorities recently conducted a series of raids at grow operations in Montana, helping push lawmakers to put stricter limits on the industry. Federal raids also targeted at least two dispensaries in Spokane on Thursday, a day before Gregoire decided to veto the proposed law.

More than a dozen states have approved the medical use of marijuana, which is not legal under federal law. About half of those states regulate medical marijuana dispensaries.

The impact of the U.S. attorneys' letters is growing. New Jersey is in the process of preparing to implement its new medical marijuana law, but Gov. Chris Christie's administration doesn't want to get operations fully up and running until it can get some clarity about the legal warnings issued in other states and how they might affect New Jersey workers and marijuana operators. "Those letters raised serious questions about legal jeopardy," said Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak. The state's attorney general has officially asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for guidance.

Gregoire said she is interested in working with other governors to push for a change in federal law to reclassify medical marijuana as a Schedule 2 substance, putting it on par with addictive but accepted drugs such as morphine or oxycodone.

Justice Department officials said in 2009 that, as a general rule, prosecutors should not focus federal resources "on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana." A memo on the subject did leave open the possibility of federal prosecution even when people comply with state law, but Holder indicated that would not be policy. "The policy is to go after those people who violate both federal and state law," Holder told reporters at the time.

The latest memos carry a more direct warning: "We maintain the authority to enforce (federal law) vigorously against individuals and organizations that participate in unlawful manufacturing and distribution activity involving marijuana, even if such activities are permitted under state law."

Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said in a statement that prosecutors aren't going to look the other way while significant drug-trafficking organizations try and shield their illegal efforts through the pretense that they are medical dispensaries. "We will not tolerate drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal," she said.

The federal comments have angered supporters of medical marijuana, who had believed that the Obama administration was honoring state laws. Ezra Eickmeyer, political director for the Washington Cannabis Association, said it appears prosecutors are operating under a more aggressive policy. "Coming in and trying to strong-arm legislatures is way over the top," Eickmeyer said. "We would have expected this sort of thing form the Bush administration, but not Obama."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110503/ap_on_re_us/us_medical_marijuana_feds

Amazing how when the government wants something they just do it, when did the American people VOTE to make this drug illegal in the first place? They didn't, the government just told us it was illegal after years of trying democratically and when we would not make it illegal, they did it for us. Legalize it now! End the 1937 Marijuana prohibition!!!

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The federal government is crying about being broke, too much debt, not enough money, yet they throw an unimaginable amount away on this dead horse. Legalize it, tax and regulate it, and be done with it.

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Does it make sense to anyone else to legalize and tax it? Reduced drug violence? Reduced inmate populations? Increased revenue? All from an all natural substance that's less harmful personally, and to society as a whole than alcohol? It's a weed? Should we outlaw and prosecute people who market dandelions? Really, can we have a policy that makes sense?

"Instead of war on poverty, they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me"

Jolie Rouge
06-21-2011, 07:40 PM
Former Seattle US attorney pushes pot legalization
Gene Johnson, Associated Press – 51 mins ago

SEATTLE – A man who once served as the Justice Department's top official in Seattle said Tuesday that he is sponsoring an initiative to legalize possession of up to an ounce of dried marijuana in Washington state, a measure he hopes will help "shame Congress" into ending pot prohibition.

John McKay spent five years enforcing federal drug laws as the U.S. attorney in Seattle before he was fired by the Bush administration in early 2007. He told The Associated Press on Tuesday that laws criminalizing marijuana are wrongheaded because they create an enormous black market exploited by international cartels and crime rings. "That's what drives my concern: The black market fuels the cartels, and that's what allows them to buy the guns they use to kill people," McKay said. "A lot of Americans smoke pot and they're willing to pay for it. I think prohibition is a dumb policy, and there are a lot of line federal prosecutors who share the view that the policy is suspect."

McKay is joining Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, travel guide Rick Steves and the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union in forming a group called New Approach Washington. They're pushing an initiative to the Legislature that would regulate the recreational use of marijuana in a way similar to how the state regulates alcohol. Their bill would legalize marijuana for people over 21, authorize the Liquor Control Board to regulate and tax marijuana for sale in "standalone stores," and extend drunken driving laws to marijuana, with blood tests to determine how much of pot's active ingredient is present in a driver's blood.

New Approach Washington planned a news conference Wednesday to announce the effort. No state has legalized marijuana for recreational purposes in such a way, though some have decriminalized it, and the initiative would put Washington squarely at odds with federal law banning the drug.

The legislation would set limits on how much cannabis people can have: an ounce of dried bud, 16 ounces of marijuana-infused foods in solid form, and 72 ounces of marijuana-infused liquids, or all three, said Alison Holcomb, drug policy director of the ACLU of Washington. The limits are necessary to help ensure that people don't buy large amounts for resale in other states, she said.

The bill would not allow for the recreational growing of marijuana; it would be up to the state's Liquor Control Board to license grow operations and set limits for how large they can be. The measure would not affect the rights of medical marijuana patients in Washington, who are allowed to have at least 24 ounces and 15 plants, and more if needed.

Activists would have until the end of this year to gather more than 240,000 signatures to get the initiative before the Legislature. Lawmakers will have a chance to approve it or allow it to go to the ballot.

Taxing marijuana sales would bring the state $215 million a year, conservatively estimated, Holmes said.

Another group, Sensible Washington, is already pushing a legalization initiative this year that would remove all state criminal and civil penalties for marijuana use, possession and cultivation in any amount. Their effort is an initiative directly to the voters, meaning that if it qualifies for the November ballot and passes, it would become law without any input from the Legislature.

Sensible Washington failed to gather enough signatures to make the ballot last year, and Seattle medical marijuana attorney Douglas Hiatt, who leads the effort, said Tuesday he did not know whether their measure would qualify this year. Hiatt criticized the approach of the ACLU-led effort, saying it wouldn't allow Eastern Washington's farmers to grow hemp or really end prohibition at all. Furthermore, he said, the blood test limit for driving under the influence purposes — 5 nanograms of active THC per milliliter of blood — are so strict that most medical marijuana patients would fail even if they hadn't recently medicated.

Last year in California, voters rejected Proposition 19, which would have allowed for personal possession and growing of limited amounts of marijuana, 54 percent to 46 percent.

In a telephone interview from Idaho, where he was about to leave on a six-day rafting trip on the Salmon River, McKay said he has long considered marijuana prohibition a failed policy, but that as U.S. attorney his job was to enforce federal law, and he had no problem doing so. Among the people he prosecuted was Canada's so-called "Prince of Pot," Marc Emery, who fought extradition after his 2005 arrest but eventually was sentenced to five years in prison for selling millions of marijuana seeds to U.S. residents. "When you look at alcohol prohibition, it took the states to say, `This policy is wrong,'" McKay said. "This bill might not be perfect, but it's a good step forward. I think it will eventually shame Congress into action."

Holmes said McKay's involvement in the legalization effort helps demonstrate its sensibility. "Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, in law enforcement or a medical provider, you look at the data and you come to the same conclusion: The war on drugs has failed," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110622/ap_on_re_us/us_legalizing_marijuana;_ylt=AvTOS_G5PN8t3Ix0oF1K4 Sus0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNyampsbjY4BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTEwN jIyL3VzX2xlZ2FsaXppbmdfbWFyaWp1YW5hBGNjb2RlA21vc3R wb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDNgRwb3MDMwRwdANob21lX2Nva2UEc2VjA 3luX2hlYWRsaW5lX2xpc3QEc2xrA2Zvcm1lcnNlYXR0bA--


comments

Prohibition of alcohol in the US, from 1920 to 1933, was a failure. All it did was create a lot of opportunities for criminals. The current illegal status of marijuana is doing the same thing, at a huge cost to taxpayers.

Just legalize and tax the crap out of it. It could even turn the recession around.

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What a hoot...."...eight banks refused to handle the campaign's online contributions because of its association with marijuana...". Since when did bankers get a social and moral conscience??

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It remains illegal because of crooked politicians that accept money from lobbyist for the alcohol industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the prison industry, the legal industry, and law enforcement industry, and probably even the drug cartels.The Attorney General makes claims that there are no legitimate medical uses for marijuana, nut on the other hand the U.S. govt. holds a patent for cannabinoids- US patent #6630507 for their anit-oxidant and neuro-protective properties. If people were allowed to legally grow their own medicine health care cost would go down. The Government should seriously consider going back to prohibition on alchohol and legalizing pot. No body ever died from smoking too much pot, nobody ever got high and beat or killed thier wifes and children. The politicians learned the hard way when prohibition ended they stopped recieving their kick backs from the criminals.

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I don't agree with legalization...but it should be decriminalized.

Jolie Rouge
01-31-2012, 09:23 PM
Pot legalization efforts forge ahead in key states
By Alex Dobuzinskis | Reuters – 8 hrs ago

Efforts to legalize marijuana for recreational use are gaining momentum in Washington state and Colorado, despite fierce opposition from the federal government and a decades-long cultural battle over America's most commonly used illicit drug. Officials in Washington state on Friday said an initiative to legalize pot has enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in November. In Colorado, officials are likely this week to make a similar determination about an initiative there.

Supporters are prepared to possibly spend millions of dollars ahead of the November ballot, when they hope a strong voter turnout, particularly among youth, for the U.S. presidential election will aid their cause. "Whether it's make or break depends on what public opinion does after 2012, but in terms of voter turnout this is the best year to do it," said Alison Holcomb, director of New Approach Washington, the initiative's sponsor.

While 16 states, including Washington and Colorado, along with the nation's capital, now allow marijuana use for medical purposes, cannabis remains an illegal narcotic under U.S. law - and public opinion is sharply divided on the merits of full legalization. California voters turned back a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana for recreational use in 2010, in part because of concerns about how production and sale of the drug would be regulated.

Since then, the U.S. Department of Justice has cracked down on medical cannabis operations in California, Washington state and elsewhere, raiding dispensaries and growing operations and threatening landlords with prosecution. "Our highest priority are the folks that violate both state and federal law," said Rusty Payne, spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration. "There are places that have made a lot of money who claim to be nonprofit, and they have faced both local and federal scrutiny."

Undeterred, supporters of the Washington state initiative say it represents the "grown-up" approach to legalization. Sales would only be allowed to adults 21 and older through marijuana-only stores licensed by the state Liquor Control Board, which would also oversee production and processing of the drug. Laws on drunken driving would be amended to include maximum blood content thresholds for THC, the main psychoactive element in pot plants.

Colorado already has a robust regulatory system for medical marijuana that includes a registry of over 80,000 card-carrying patients and rules governing how physicians and distributors operate. Here, too, legalization advocates are stressing a rational regulatory approach. "Voters aren't being asked to imagine as much as they are in other states, they have seen that marijuana can be regulated and it doesn't result in significant problems," said Mason Tvert, co-director of the Colorado-based Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol.

Organizers of the Washington effort have collected over $1.1 million in campaign funds, with $250,000 of that coming from Progressive Insurance chairman Peter Lewis, public disclosure records show. Loren Collingwood, senior researcher for the nonpartisan Washington Poll run by the University of Washington, said the initiative could pass, but that backers must spend between $2 million and $4 million to run a competitive campaign.

A poll done by the university in October found 48 percent of Washington residents support the idea of pot legalization, but that was not tied to any particular initiative. "If young voters turn out in droves like they did in 2008 or even start to approach those numbers ... then I think this will pass, but they very well may not," Collingwood said.

NATIONAL SHIFT

Pot legalization supporters have argued for decades that prohibition has failed to curb pot use, and that the policy enriches drug cartels, hurts casual users and deprives governments of a potentially lucrative source of tax revenue.

Now, they see momentum on their side, pointing to an October Gallup Poll that found a record 50 percent of Americans support legalizing marijuana use, up from 36 percent five years before. The poll also found 62 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 29 back legalization, and that the young are driving the shift in attitudes. "There's a set of factors that suggest both the Washington and Colorado initiates have a better chance of winning than any of the initiatives that have happened before," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "But that said, even with a majority of likely voters in both states saying they favor legal marijuana, we know in the final stretch there's always a small percentage that get nervous or scared off or fearful of change," he said.

Opponents of legalization, meanwhile, say it would simply promote the use of a sometimes-addictive drug that has been linked to short-term memory loss and other behavioral problems such as lack of motivation. Legalization "is not good for states and citizens who live in those states, and it's certainly not good for the outlook of children who live in those states," said Calivina Fay, head of the Florida-based Drug Free America Foundation.

One study published in 2011 by researchers with the University of Colorado Denver found 39 out of 80 teens in a Denver substance abuse program had at least once obtained pot from someone with a medical marijuana license.

LOCAL OPPOSITION

For supporters of legalization, the medical marijuana trade has been a mixed blessing. Critics say dispensaries, in addition to serving the truly sick, supply recreational users who have no real medical problems despite claims of backaches or pain. In Washington state, about 30 or 40 cities have passed moratoriums on collective medical marijuana gardens allowed under state law, said Jim Doherty, legal consultant for the Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington. Some residents see medical marijuana sales as a nuisance, he said.

Meanwhile, Seattle has over 100 medical marijuana shops, said City Attorney Peter Holmes, who supports full legalization. "Right now in Seattle, we're feeling that it's a bit unfair that we are being tolerant of medical marijuana users, when other localities are not, because we tend to become suppliers for the whole state rather than our own citizens," Holmes said.

Holcomb, the director of the Washington state initiative campaign, acknowledged some voters view a large share of medical pot users as illicit recreational tokers. But she said her campaign will turn the argument around, when it seeks to convince voters full legalization is good for the state. "You're ending that hypocrisy and restoring respect for the law," she said.

http://news.yahoo.com/pot-legalization-efforts-forge-ahead-key-u-states-175321189.html

commenta

We all know what the big problem is with legalization, don't we? The politicians don't yet have fields of it growing to make a big profit - whether taxed or not. During the heydays of tobacco, the southern politicos had acres and acres of it and then told us cigarettes wouldn't hurt us. Despite warning labels and such, tobacco continues to be a money making venture. Just check out ownership records to see who's on the BOD of the tobacco companies. You shouldn't be surprised to see some of the names of our mighty legislative body. As a child of the 60's, I firmly support legalization and might even enjoy a few tokes myself, if it were legal, of course.

..

Just let all the people vote on it ...

...

back in the 30's went to the federal government to help the state curtail its use and the government made up a propaganda program without any evidence to back its claims. so after 80 years of lies by the government, it's trying to block the states rights to pass their own laws to regulate the sale and distribution of MJ. these states are smart enough to realize it is better to legalize it, tax it, than keep it underground and in the hands of the drug dealers.

...

this will never happen no matter how logical it is. Legalize pot; Mexican cartels will go bankrupt. Legalize pot and 11 million illegals will have to go back to Mexico for lack of ability to support their baby factories.

...

There currently is a very strong effort in Florida to legalize marijuana, as a matter of fact in the last election help in Florida for Governor all the candidates except one was in favor of legalizing pot, Rick Scott and he is living proof that an election can be bought. There is a petition that any Florida resident can sign to help get it on the 2012 ballot

hblueeyes
02-01-2012, 09:43 AM
Cook County is working on making it a misdemeanor and issue tickets instead of the cost of housing them in jails. It just makes fiscal sense in these tough times. Why jail a guy with a bit for his own use? Its the importers they should go after. If they legalize it they can control it.

Me

Jolie Rouge
04-18-2012, 10:26 AM
Economists say U.S. would save billions if pot was legal
5 hrs ago

​Where there's pot, there's gold. So conclude more than 300 economists who say that the government -- if it got out of the business of enforcing marijuana laws -- could save a whopping $7.7 billion annually. Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron also figures there's another $6 billion to be mined each year by taxing the drug at rates similar to booze and tobacco. The economists, who have signed a petition, don't exactly go as far as Miron in suggesting pot be legalized but maintain that it's high time, so to speak, for an "open and honest debate."

http://now.msn.com/money/0417-billions-saved-by-legalizing-weed.aspx

Discuss.... money gained by taxing marijuana farms; money saved by not jailing people for minor drug offenses.

justme23
04-18-2012, 12:22 PM
I think it's stupid that pot isn't legal... I don't have an long drawn out researched reasons which is why I don't usually post... but even an idiot can see the dollar signs on legalization. Is that a good enough reason? Well, I'd rather be around someone high than drunk... or maybe it's just the idiots not being able to handle their liquor... I don't know... I just really dislike the way some ppl act on alcohol... but I've never seen anyone do anything but giggle and be lazy on pot... maybe they don't have the good stuff?

Jolie Rouge
04-18-2012, 12:41 PM
Don't see a lot of fights with pot like w/ "angry drunks" ... give em a bag o' cheesy poofs and no more problems. Don't have too many pot related accidents ... they are usually drving about 5 MPH which give others a chance to get out of the way...

janelle
04-18-2012, 02:12 PM
Interesting thread. Where are all these people who posted anyway? Where are they now? Hmmmmm.

Jolie Rouge
04-21-2012, 07:55 PM
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s320x320/306565_3371479519861_1055434766_3074058_141324074_ n.jpg

hblueeyes
04-22-2012, 07:31 AM
Jolie, you hit the nail on the head. I read where the paper industry was the reason pot was made illegal in the 1920s. They legalized alcohol because everyone did it (politicians) and the mob was out of control, controlling it.

Me

Jolie Rouge
04-23-2012, 03:12 PM
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/419313_365282400170178_100000652631537_1187725_133 3507175_n.jpg

I feel that this single image can essentially undo almost 100 years of lies and propaganda and misdirection. PLEASE SHARE AND MAKE IT GO VIRAL!!

I spent almost a hundred hours researching all the various companies that work in these industries, and took out companies that look like they're doing their part to be environmentally friendly or use renewable energies or whatever. So I feel fairly confident in saying this list represents the true "bad guys" that benefit from cannabis being illegal and probably lobby for it to stay that way.

[Note: If you want to see more detail and read the text, click "Download" on the picture to see the high-res version.]

{{ note : stole from a friend on FB****

hblueeyes
04-23-2012, 08:54 PM
I was close to begging my Mom while she was dying to smoke a dub to relieve her stress and pain. She was fearful she would somehow kill herself. I laughed and tried to set her straight. But it is hard to undo the 83 years of crap she was fed. I asked her how she thought I was dealing with her situation as well as I was. She did not know. I told her I smoked it to be able to manage some normalcy for her and my self and kids. I could not have coped as well without it. I continued for about 3 weeks after she passed. It sure took the edge off.

Me

Jolie Rouge
05-24-2012, 12:33 PM
.
Poll shows strong support for legal marijuana: Is it inevitable?
A national Rasmussen Reports poll found that 56 percent of Americans back legal marijuana regulated like tobacco or alcohol. Trends show support on the upswing.
By Daniel B. Wood | Christian Science Monitor – 20 hrs ago.

A new national poll shows a clear majority of Americans in favor of legalizing and regulating marijuana – "the strongest support ever recorded," according to one pro-marijuana activist. The Rasmussen poll found that 56 percent of respondents favored legalizing and regulating marijuana similar to the way alcohol and tobacco cigarettes are currently regulated. Thirty-six percent were opposed.

Critics have dismissed the survey, saying its questions were asked in a particularly leading fashion – a charge that Rasmussen contests. But experts who track the issue say the poll is consistent with the overall trend of steadily rising acceptance of marijuana use.

Despite California’s failure to pass Proposition 19 in 2010 – which would have legalized recreational use – some state may legalize marijuana soon, perhaps as early as this November, says Robert MacCoun, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, who follows marijuana laws. That means it is time to consider shifting the debate from legalization to consideration of how it should be done, he adds. “For example, if we tax and regulate, should we tax by weight or should we tax by THC content to discourage the most potent products?” he asks. “Can we set taxes high enough to offset the inevitable steep drop in prices or are we willing to allow consumption to increase?”

Anti-marijuana groups say those questions are premature. If Rasmussen had put facts in the question’s premises, the outcome would have been the opposite, they say. “If they had asked, ‘If you knew that a majority of homicide convicts in New York had smoked marijuana within 24 hours of their convictions, would you be in favor of legalizing it?’ they would have gotten a far different answer,” says David Evans, special adviser to the Drug Free America Foundation. “These questions are so biased and leading, it’s embarrassing.”

He cites Question 10: “As long as they don’t do anything to harm others, should individuals have the right to put whatever drugs or medication they want into their own bodies?”

“This is a clearly very biased finding," he says. "They’ve asked leading questions to get the responses they wanted.”

Beth Chunn, spokesman for Rasmussen Reports, disagrees. She says the firm conducted the study the way it did to answer a specific question: "This survey tested whether legalization and regulation generated more support than legalizing and taxing. It did.”

Pro-marijuana groups are using the findings to argue that the Obama administration’s raids on state medical marijuana dispensaries are not in concert with the public’s wishes, and that politicians who don’t support further relaxation of penalties are behind the times. “This is the strongest support ever recorded in favor of marijuana legalization in the US,” says Dale Gieringer, state coordinator of California NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws). “It confirms a trend that originated in 2009, when for the first time polls began to show plurality support for legalization.”

He says the trend can be expected to continue, since younger voters are more favorable toward ending marijuana prohibition than older ones. “Politicians ought to take note of the changing political wind," he says. "Marijuana legalization appears destined to become the next big social freedom issue after gay rights.”

Other supporters of a more liberal US drug policy also seized on the poll. They say this shows the drug war has failed, and that it’s time not only to ease up on social attitudes while bringing in much needed revenue for strapped government. "Polling now consistently shows that more voters support legalizing and regulating marijuana than support continuing a failed prohibition approach,” says Neill Franklin, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). "If the trends in public opinion continue in the direction they are going, the day is not far away when supporting a prohibition system that causes so much crime, violence, and corruption is going to be seen as a serious political liability for those seeking support from younger and independent voters."

The telephone survey of 1,000 likely voters was conducted May 12.

http://news.yahoo.com/poll-shows-strong-support-legal-marijuana-inevitable-225325394.html?cache=clear

Jolie Rouge
11-27-2012, 10:55 AM
Humboldt State University launches marijuana institute
10:56 AM 11/27/2012

Humboldt County, California, “the heartland of high-grade marijuana farming” in the Golden State according to The New Yorker, now boasts the first and — for now — only academic institute dedicated solely to cannabis.

The Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research on the campus of Humboldt State University sponsors scholarly lectures and will be a hub for research among 11 faculty members from a wide range of fields including economics, geography, politics and psychology, The Associated Press reports.

One of the professors is analyzing the politics of pot legalization, reports the Times-Standard of Eureka, CA. Another professor is researching the effects of marijuana cultivation on the environment. Politics professor Jason Plume will present a lecture this week on the marijuana reform movement — one of seven lectures the institute is scheduled to host this year.
Humboldt State University in Arcata, about 280 miles north of San Francisco, is the northernmost campus of the California State University system.

“If anyone is going to have a marijuana institute, it really should be Humboldt State,” economist Erick Eschker, the institute’s co-chair, told the Times-Standard. “It has the potential to be a world-class institute, and we’re just getting going.”

Eschker is currently collecting local marijuana production data and investigating its connection to employment in the county.

While various other American universities have institutes that bring together multiple disciplines to focus on illicit drugs, the one at Humboldt State appears to be the only one devoted exclusively to marijuana.

The notion for the institute first took root among Humboldt State faculty in 2010, reports the AP. At the time, California was in the midst of an intense political battle over Proposition 19, which, had it passed, would have made marijuana essentially the equivalent of alcohol under state law.

“With these public discussions, there were a lot more questions than there were answers,” said sociology professor Josh Meisel, the other co-chair of the institute, the Times-Standard says.

Meisel and other faculty members who are now part of the institute wanted to apply academic rigor to the economic, political and health-related issues raised by marijuana usage.

Now that voters in Colorado and Washington have passed ballot measures legalizing marijuana at the state level, the institute is more vital than ever.

“Our goal is to try and aid some more informed policy-level decisions,” Meisel said, according to the Times-Standard.


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/27/higher-education-humboldt-state-university-launches-marijuana-institute/#ixzz2DRlmmm2f

hblueeyes
11-27-2012, 11:46 AM
Illinois said they are considering medicinal marijuana. Cook county made it a ticket offense and these idiots do not know it was already done in 1978. The problem has been between the State Police and HHS for setting the protocol.

Me

Jolie Rouge
03-14-2013, 12:26 PM
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/7132585216/hDCB73A03/

Jolie Rouge
04-23-2013, 11:41 AM
Police say the college student who created this 2.5 pound, 4 foot joint was about to open up a booth offering tokes off the monster joint, when they confiscated it. Read more here http://bit.ly/ZMTwAS

College student arrested for creating 2.5 lb marijuana joint
April 23, 2013 6:42 AM CDT

http://www.wafb.com/story/22050425/worlds-biggest-joint?utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer:%20@WAFB%20on%20twitter&buffer_share=eda43&autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=8801125

(CNN) - Could it be the world's biggest doobie?

At about four feet in length, a gigantic joint in California would seem to smoke the competition. Or it would have, if police hadn't stepped in before anyone had a chance to light up. It's enough to make a regular joint feel...disjointed. Just look at the size of this beast.

Campus police at the University of California at Santa Cruz confiscated the over 2 pound joint at the annual smoke-out. A crowd of a couple thousand had gathered to celebrate weed. But the celebrating was cut short for the guy wearing the "keep Santa Cruz stoned" T-shirt. Police say he was about to open up a booth offering tokes off the monster joint, when they confiscated it.

So did the kid with the giant joint actually end up in the joint?"

Police say they walked 25-year-old Gennady Tsarinsky away from the crowd before arresting him to avoid causing a scene. "Oh dude, we're going to court. We're totally going to court."

He's totally going to court all right, on a misdemeanor citation for possession of more than an ounce of Marijuana. Sure, there have been plenty of other humongous joints at previous celebrations. They circulate like smoke rings on YouTube. "We wondered how many rolling papers it takes to roll a gargantuan joint...This is the kind of question you wonder when you're stoned."

Answer: around 200 papers for the one pounder.

So imagine the effort that went into the 4-foot, well over 2 pounder.

Of course they all pale compared to the one created out of wacky weed and papyrus in the Mel Brooks movie "History of the World Part I, but that was make believe.

This was a real joint so mighty that the officer rested it on his shoulder like a rifle

http://www.wafb.com/story/22050425/worlds-biggest-joint?utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer:%20@WAFB%20on%20twitter&buffer_share=eda43

SHELBYDOG
04-23-2013, 05:47 PM
It's on FOX 4 News Thursday night here in SW FL how tax-payers will be paying for "medical marijuana" not exactly sure about this it's not legal yet in FL.
So you thought birth control was bad, now you'll be paying for what you want Welfare recipients tested for. lol

Jolie Rouge
06-08-2013, 08:36 PM
Vermont decriminalizes marijuana possession
Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin has signed into law a measure that replaces criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana with civil fines.
1 day ago |By Associated Press

ESSEX JUNCTION, Vt. — Vermont has become the 17th state to get rid of criminal penalties for the possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Gov. Peter Shumlin signed a measure into law Thursday.

Pot possession decriminalized in Vermont 1 day ago Duration: 2:29 Views: 937 The law replaces criminal penalties with civil fines similar to a traffic ticket for possession of up to an ounce of marijuana or five grams of hashish.

The law also treats possession of such amounts of marijuana by people under age 21 the same as underage possession of alcohol, including referral to court diversion for a first offense, potential civil penalties and/or license suspension, and criminal penalties for a third violation.

Previously, possession of up to 2 ounces of marijuana was punishable by a six- to 24-month jail term. Vermont legalized the use of medical marijuana in 2004.


http://news.msn.com/us/vermont-decriminalizes-marijuana-possession?ocid=ansnews11

Jolie Rouge
06-30-2013, 09:09 AM
Marijuana's march toward mainstream confounds feds
Public opinion has moved dramatically toward general acceptance of marijuana
— even if the federal government has yet to catch up.
21 hr ago | By Alicia A. Caldwell of Associated Press

http://bigkball.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/choom_gang_obama.jpg

WASHINGTON — It took 50 years for American attitudes about marijuana to zigzag from the paranoia of "Reefer Madness" to the excesses of Woodstock back to the hard line of "Just Say No."

The next 25 years took the nation from Bill Clinton, who famously "didn't inhale," to Barack Obama, who most emphatically did.

Now, in just a few short years, public opinion has moved so dramatically toward general acceptance that even those who champion legalization are surprised at how quickly attitudes are changing and states are moving to approve the drug — for medical use and just for fun.

It is a moment in the United States that is rife with contradictions:

• People are looking more kindly on marijuana even as science reveals more about the drug's potential dangers, particularly for young people.

• States are giving the green light to the drug in direct defiance of a federal prohibition on its use.

• Exploration of the potential medical benefit is limited by high federal hurdles to research.

Washington policymakers seem reluctant to deal with any of it.

Richard Bonnie, a University of Virginia law professor who worked for a national commission that recommended decriminalizing marijuana in 1972, sees the public taking a big leap from prohibition to a more laissez-faire approach without full deliberation.

"It's a remarkable story historically," he says. "But as a matter of public policy, it's a little worrisome."

More than a little worrisome to those in the anti-drug movement.

"We're on this hundred-mile-an-hour freight train to legalizing a third addictive substance," says Kevin Sabet, a former drug policy adviser in the Obama administration, lumping marijuana with tobacco and alcohol.

Legalization strategist Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, likes the direction the marijuana smoke is wafting. But he knows his side has considerable work yet to do.

"I'm constantly reminding my allies that marijuana is not going to legalize itself," he says.

BY THE NUMBERS

Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have legalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes since California voters made the first move in 1996. Voters in Colorado and Washington state took the next step last year and approved pot for recreational use. Alaska is likely to vote on the same question in 2014, and a few other states are expected to put recreational use on the ballot in 2016.

Nearly half of adults have tried marijuana, 12 percent of them in the past year, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center.

Fifty-two percent of adults favor legalizing marijuana, up 11 percentage points just since 2010, according to Pew.

Sixty percent think Washington shouldn't enforce federal laws against marijuana in states that have approved its use.

STICKY ISSUES

Where California led the charge on medical marijuana, the next chapter in this story is being written in Colorado and Washington state.

Policymakers there are grappling with all sorts of sticky issues revolving around one central question: How do you legally regulate the production, distribution, sale and use of marijuana for recreational purposes when federal law bans all of the above?

The Justice Department began reviewing the matter after November's election. But seven months later, states still are on their own.

Both sides in the debate paid close attention when Obama said in December that "it does not make sense, from a prioritization point of view, for us to focus on recreational drug users in a state that has already said that under state law that's legal."

Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat who favors legalization, predicts Washington will take a hands-off approach, based on Obama's comments. But he's quick to add, "We would like to see that in writing."

The federal government already has taken a similar approach toward users in states that have approved marijuana for medical use.

It doesn't go after pot-smoking cancer patients or grandmas with glaucoma. But it also has made clear that people who are in the business of growing, selling and distributing marijuana on a large scale are subject to potential prosecution for violations of the Controlled Substances Act — even in states that have legalized medical use.

"A REGULATED SYSTEM"

There's a political calculus for the president, or any other politician, in all of this.

Younger people, who tend to vote more Democratic, are more supportive of legalizing marijuana, as are people in the West, where the libertarian streak runs strong.

Despite increasing public acceptance of marijuana overall, politicians know there are complications that could come with commercializing an addictive substance. Opponents of pot are particularly worried that legalization will result in increased use by young people.

Sabet frames the conundrum for Obama: "Do you want to be the president that stops a popular cause, especially a cause that's popular within your own party? Or do you want to be the president that enables youth drug use that will have ramifications down the road?"

Marijuana legalization advocates offer politicians a rosier scenario, in which legitimate pot businesses eager to keep their operating licenses make sure not to sell to minors.

"Having a regulated system is the only way to ensure that we're not ceding control of this popular substance to the criminal market and to black marketeers," says Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, a trade group for legal pot businesses in the United States.

COURSE CORRECTION

While the federal government hunkers down, Colorado and Washington state are moving forward on their own with regulations covering everything from how plants will be grown to how many stores will be allowed.

Tim Lynch, director of the libertarian Cato Institute's Project on Criminal Justice, predicts "the next few years are going to be messy" as states work to bring a black-market industry into the sunshine.

California's experience with medical marijuana offers a window into potential pitfalls that can come with wider availability of pot.

Dispensaries for medical marijuana have proliferated in the state, and regulation has been lax, prompting a number of cities around the state to ban dispensaries.

In May, the California Supreme Court ruled that cities and counties can ban medical marijuana dispensaries. A few weeks later, Los Angeles voters approved a ballot measure that limits the number of pot shops in the city to 135, down from an estimated high of about 1,000.

This isn't full-scale buyer's remorse, but more a course correction before the inevitable next push for full-on legalization in the state.

Jolie Rouge
06-30-2013, 09:09 AM
"A NEW INDUSTRY"

Growing support for legalization doesn't mean everybody wants to light up: Barely one in 10 Americans used pot in the past year.

Those who do want to see marijuana legalized range from libertarians who oppose much government intervention to people who want to see an activist government aggressively regulate marijuana production and sales.

For some, money talks: Why let drug cartels rake in untaxed profits when a cut could go into government coffers?

There are other threads in the growing acceptance of pot.

People think it's not as dangerous as once believed. They worry about high school youths getting an arrest record. They see racial inequity in the way marijuana laws are enforced. They're weary of the "war on drugs."

Opponents counter with a 2012 study finding that regular use of marijuana during teen years can lead to a long-term drop in IQ, and another study indicating marijuana use can induce and exacerbate psychotic illness in susceptible people. They question the notion that regulating pot will bring in big money, saying revenue estimates are grossly exaggerated.

They reject the claim that prisons are bulging with people convicted of simple possession by citing federal statistics showing only a small percentage of federal and state inmates are behind bars for that alone.

They warn that baby boomers who draw on their own innocuous experiences with pot are overlooking the much higher potency of today's marijuana.

In 2009, concentrations of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in pot, averaged close to 10 percent in marijuana, compared with about 4 percent in the 1980s, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

"If marijuana legalization was about my old buddies at Berkeley smoking in People's Park once a week, I don't think many of us would care that much," says Sabet, who helped to found Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a group that opposes legalization. "It's really about creating a new industry that's going to target kids and target minorities and our vulnerable populations just like our legal industries do today."

WHAT'S NEXT?

So how bad, or good, is pot?

J. Michael Bostwick, a psychiatrist at the Mayo Clinic, set out to sort through more than 100 sometimes conflicting studies after his teenage son became addicted to pot, and turned his findings into a 22-page article for Mayo Clinic Proceedings in 2012.

For all the talk that smoking pot is no big deal, Bostwick says, he determined that "it was a very big deal. There were addiction issues. There were psychosis issues.

"But there was also this very large body of literature suggesting that it could potentially have very valuable pharmaceutical applications, but the research was stymied" by federal barriers.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse says research is ongoing.

Dr. Nora Volkow, the institute's director, worries that legalizing pot will result in increased use of marijuana by young people and impair their brain development.

"Think about it: Do you want a nation where your young people are stoned?" she asks.

Partisans on both sides think people in other states will keep a close eye on Colorado and Washington as they decide what happens next.

But past predictions on pot have been wildly off base.

"Reefer Madness," the 1936 propaganda movie that pot fans turned into a cult classic in the 1970s, spins a tale of dire consequences "ending often in incurable insanity."

http://news.msn.com/us/marijuanas-march-toward-mainstream-confounds-feds?ocid=ansnews11

Jolie Rouge
07-15-2013, 08:24 AM
Natural Cures Not Medicine
10 Cannabis Studies The Government Wishes It Never Funded

10) MARIJUANA USE HAS NO EFFECT ON MORTALITY: A massive study of California HMO members funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) found marijuana use caused no significant increase in mortality. Tobacco use was associated with increased risk of death. Sidney, S et al. Marijuana Use and Mortality. American Journal of Public Health. Vol. 87 No. 4, April 1997. p. 585-590. Sept. 2002.

9) HEAVY MARIJUANA USE AS A YOUNG ADULT WON’T RUIN YOUR LIFE: Veterans Affairs scientists looked at whether heavy marijuana use as a young adult caused long-term problems later, studying identical twins in which one twin had been a heavy marijuana user for a year or longer but had stopped at least one month before the study, while the second twin had used marijuana no more than five times ever. Marijuana use had no significant impact on physical or mental health care utilization, health-related quality of life, or current socio-demographic characteristics. Eisen SE et al. Does Marijuana Use Have Residual Adverse Effects on Self-Reported Health Measures, Socio-Demographics or Quality of Life? A Monozygotic Co-Twin Control Study in Men. Addiction. Vol. 97 No. 9. p.1083-1086. Sept. 1997

8) THE “GATEWAY EFFECT” MAY BE A MIRAGE: Marijuana is often called a “gateway drug” by supporters of prohibition, who point to statistical “associations” indicating that persons who use marijuana are more likely to eventually try hard drugs than those who never use marijuana – implying that marijuana use somehow causes hard drug use. But a model developed by RAND Corp. researcher Andrew Morral demonstrates that these associations can be explained “without requiring a gateway effect.” More likely, this federally funded study suggests, some people simply have an underlying propensity to try drugs, and start with what’s most readily available. Morral AR, McCaffrey D and Paddock S. Reassessing the Marijuana Gateway Effect. Addiction. December 2002. p. 1493-1504.

7) PROHIBITION DOESN’T WORK (PART I): The White House had the National Research Council examine the data being gathered about drug use and the effects of U.S. drug policies. NRC concluded, “the nation possesses little information about the effectiveness of current drug policy, especially of drug law enforcement.” And what data exist show “little apparent relationship between severity of sanctions prescribed for drug use and prevalence or frequency of use.” In other words, there is no proof that prohibition – the cornerstone of U.S. drug policy for a century – reduces drug use. National Research Council. Informing America’s Policy on Illegal Drugs: What We Don’t Know Keeps Hurting Us. National Academy Press, 2001. p. 193.

6) PROHIBITION DOESN’T WORK (PART II): DOES PROHIBITION CAUSE THE “GATEWAY EFFECT”?): U.S. and Dutch researchers, supported in part by NIDA, compared marijuana users in San Francisco, where non-medical use remains illegal, to Amsterdam, where adults may possess and purchase small amounts of marijuana from regulated businesses. Looking at such parameters as frequency and quantity of use and age at onset of use, they found no differences except one: Lifetime use of hard drugs was significantly lower in Amsterdam, with its “tolerant” marijuana policies. For example, lifetime crack cocaine use was 4.5 times higher in San Francisco than Amsterdam. Reinarman, C, Cohen, PDA, and Kaal, HL. The Limited Relevance of Drug Policy: Cannabis in Amsterdam and San Francisco. American Journal of Public Health. Vol. 94, No. 5. May 2004. p. 836-842.

5) OOPS, MARIJUANA MAY PREVENT CANCER (PART I): Federal researchers implanted several types of cancer, including leukemia and lung cancers, in mice, then treated them with cannabinoids (unique, active components found in marijuana). THC and other cannabinoids shrank tumors and increased the mice’s lifespans. Munson, AE et al. Antineoplastic Activity of Cannabinoids. Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Sept. 1975. p. 597-602.

4) OOPS, MARIJUANA MAY PREVENT CANCER, (PART II): In a 1994 study the government tried to suppress, federal researchers gave mice and rats massive doses of THC, looking for cancers or other signs of toxicity. The rodents given THC lived longer and had fewer cancers, “in a dose-dependent manner” (i.e. the more THC they got, the fewer tumors). NTP Technical Report On The Toxicology And Carcinogenesis Studies Of 1-Trans- Delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol, CAS No. 1972-08-3, In F344/N Rats And B6C3F Mice, Gavage Studies. See also, “Medical Marijuana: Unpublished Federal Study Found THC-Treated Rats Lived Longer, Had Less Cancer,” AIDS Treatment News no. 263, Jan. 17, 1997.

3) OOPS, MARIJUANA MAY PREVENT CANCER (PART III): Researchers at the Kaiser-Permanente HMO, funded by NIDA, followed 65,000 patients for nearly a decade, comparing cancer rates among non-smokers, tobacco smokers, and marijuana smokers. Tobacco smokers had massively higher rates of lung cancer and other cancers. Marijuana smokers who didn’t also use tobacco had no increase in risk of tobacco-related cancers or of cancer risk overall. In fact their rates of lung and most other cancers were slightly lower than non-smokers, though the difference did not reach statistical significance. Sidney, S. et al. Marijuana Use and Cancer Incidence (California, United States). Cancer Causes and Control. Vol. 8. Sept. 1997, p. 722-728.

2) OOPS, MARIJUANA MAY PREVENT CANCER (PART IV): Donald Tashkin, a UCLA researcher whose work is funded by NIDA, did a case-control study comparing 1,200 patients with lung, head and neck cancers to a matched group with no cancer. Even the heaviest marijuana smokers had no increased risk of cancer, and had somewhat lower cancer risk than non-smokers (tobacco smokers had a 20-fold increased lung cancer risk). Tashkin D. Marijuana Use and Lung Cancer: Results of a Case-Control Study. American Thoracic Society International Conference. May 23, 2006.

1) MARIJUANA DOES HAVE MEDICAL VALUE: In response to passage of California’s medical marijuana law, the White House had the Institute of Medicine (IOM) review the data on marijuana’s medical benefits and risks. The IOM concluded, “Nausea, appetite loss, pain and anxiety are all afflictions of wasting, and all can be mitigated by marijuana.” While noting potential risks of smoking, the report acknowledged there is no clear alternative for people suffering from chronic conditions that might be relieved by smoking marijuana, such as pain or AIDS wasting. The government’s refusal to acknowledge this finding caused co-author John A. Benson to tell the New York Times that the government loves to ignore our report; they would rather it never happened. (Joy, JE, Watson, SJ, and Benson, JA. Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base. National Academy Press. 1999. p. 159. See also, Harris, G. FDA Dismisses Medical Benefit From Marijuana. New York Times. Apr. 21, 2006)


http://www.naturalcuresnotmedicine.com/2013/07/10-cannabis-studies-government-wishes.html#J9kb3dSBC6RgDgVg.99

Jolie Rouge
07-15-2013, 09:55 AM
Legal pot prompts a question: What about hash?
As some states make marijuana legal,
they're forced to grapple with regulating hash
and other stronger, more concentrated forms of the drug.
1 day ago |By Gene Johnson of Associated Press

SEATTLE — Jim Andersen has a 40-year history with hashish, the concentrated cannabis sometimes referred to as the cognac of the marijuana world. When he served in the Air Force in Southeast Asia, he said he smuggled it home in his boots. When he was in grad school in California, he made it with a centrifuge in a lab after hours.

So when Washington was on the verge of legalizing the sale of taxed pot last fall, Andersen decided to move back to his home state and turn his hobby into a full-time, legitimate paycheck — a business that would supply state-licensed, recreational marijuana stores with high-quality hash oil. "Every major culture that has marijuana associated with it has hash associated with it as well," said Andersen, whose company, XTracted, already has two Seattle locations serving medical marijuana dispensaries. He said his business would help prevent such pot extracts from ending up on the black market.

Substance-abuse experts are concerned that such increasingly popular, extremely potent and potentially dangerous pot extracts will be sold and that state regulators' interpretation of the recreational marijuana law will allow people to buy vastly more hash than they need for personal use.

That, they fear, will increase the chances that some of it will end up in the black market out of state. "It's a concern not just for our kids, but for kids in neighboring states as well," said Derek Franklin, president of Washington Association for Substance Abuse and Violence Prevention.

The legal-weed law, passed by voters last fall, allows adults over 21 to possess up to an ounce of dried pot, 16 ounces of pot-infused solids such as brownies or 72 ounces of infused liquids such as soda. When the state-licensed stores open sometime early next year, that's how much people will be allowed to buy. The law precluded the sale of pure hash and hash oil but didn't specifically address concentrated-marijuana sales. That has led to a conversation about hash's place in the new legal-pot world.

The regulators at the Washington State Liquor Control Board, who are charged with overseeing the creation of the new legal-pot industry, issued draft rules this month saying hash and hash oil can be used in "marijuana-infused products" — even if the product that's being infused is just a drop of olive oil or glycerin, for example. In effect, the stores can get around the ban on hash or hash-oil sales by simply adding a minuscule amount of some other substance to what is otherwise nearly pure THC, the primary high-inducing compound in cannabis.

Hash oils can sell for $40, $60 or more per gram, depending on quality — meaning more tax revenue for the state. If such extracts are considered a "marijuana-infused product," people would be allowed to buy up to 16 ounces of oils in solid form, or 72 ounces in liquid form. Such transactions could run tens of thousands of dollars. "When we set the 72-ounce limit, we were thinking about marijuana juice or tea, not a high-potency extract like that," said Alison Holcomb, the Seattle lawyer who primarily drafted Washington's law.

Holcomb said it will be up to state lawmakers to adopt new ceilings on marijuana concentrate sales early next year — before the state-licensed stores open for business. The Legislature also could tweak the law to allow for sales of pure hash and hash oil — something hash makers would like to see. They say if they have to adulterate their product with even a drop of olive oil or glycerin, customers might instead turn to medical dispensaries or the black market.

In Colorado, which also legalized recreational pot last fall, stores will be allowed to sell hash and hash oils. "Our goal is to replace marijuana prohibition with a system in which marijuana is regulated and taxed similarly to alcohol," said Mason Tvert, who led Colorado's legalization campaign. "Some marijuana consumers choose to use more potent forms of marijuana, just as some alcohol consumers prefer a martini or glass of scotch over a beer."

The term "hash" covers a variety of marijuana preparations but is generally the compression or concentration of cannabis resin rich in THC.

The preparations can involve anything from the simple shaking of the resin off the plant and pressing it into bricks to the use of stainless steel, closed-loop extraction systems that cost tens of thousands of dollars, use butane or carbon dioxide as a solvent and turn out oil that is more than 90 percent THC.

Drug-abuse prevention advocates argue the proliferation of extracts also has coincided with a dramatic rise in marijuana-related emergency-room visits, often for severe panic attacks. According federal figures, there was a 62 percent jump in marijuana-related emergency-room visits nationally from 2004 to 2011 — from 281,000 to 455,000.

There also have been explosions as home chemists try to make hash with sometimes dangerous solvents.

Hash oils, which already are sold at medical-marijuana dispensaries around the country, can be taken by medicine droppers in liquid form or by vaporization in the solid forms known as shatter, glass, budder or wax. By means of a metal wand, users place a "dab" about the size of a grain of rice on a glowing-hot metal stem of a pipe and inhale the resulting cloud, which delivers a powerful, nearly instantaneous high. Andersen said many users prefer it because it gives a "cleaner" high: No plant material is burned, and people know right away what the effect is — rather than waiting an hour or more for a pot-laced brownie or other edible to kick in.

"Dabbing" has become ever more popular over the past decade; a recent festival in Denver was devoted to it. Ralph Morgan, owner of OrganaLabs in Denver, with two medical-marijuana dispensaries, said hash and other concentrates now make up nearly a third of his business. "This is the way the industry is going," he said.

http://news.msn.com/us/legal-pot-prompts-a-question-what-about-hash?ocid=ansnews11

Jolie Rouge
08-10-2013, 02:08 PM
Dr. Sanjay Gupta: I was wrong about medicinal marijuana
By Liz Raftery, August 10, 2013 1:00 PM CDT

CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is reversing his position on medical marijuana and now endorses its use in a new essay and upcoming documentary. "We have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that," Gupta, who penned an article for Time in 2009 titled "Why I Would Vote No on Pot," writes for CNN.com. "I didn't look hard enough, until now. I didn't look far enough. ... I was too dismissive of the loud chorus of legitimate patients whose symptoms improved on cannabis.

For his film, titled simply "WEED", Gupta writes that he spoke to "medical leaders, experts, growers and patients" around the world. In a departure from the DEA's view on marijuana, Gupta now believes that "it doesn't have a high potential for abuse, and there are very legitimate medical applications. In fact, sometimes marijuana is the only thing that works." He cites research estimating that 9 to 10 percent of adult marijuana users become dependent, as compared to 20 percent of cocaine users, 25 percent of heroin users and 30 percent of tobacco users.

However, Gupta adds, "developing brains are likely more susceptible to harm from marijuana than adult brains," and that regular marijuana use in teenagers could lead to a "permanent decrease in IQ" or "possible heightened risk of developing psychosis."

"Much in the same way I wouldn't let my own children drink alcohol, I wouldn't permit marijuana until they are adults," he writes. "If they are adamant about trying marijuana, I will urge them to wait until they're in their mid-20s when their brains are fully developed."

Gupta specifically endorses the use of marijuana to treat cancer, neuropathic pain and post-traumatic stress disorder. "It is irresponsible not to provide the best care we can as a medical community, care that could involve marijuana," Gupta writes.

What do you think of Gupta's new position?

http://www.wafb.com/story/23085259/dr-sanjay-gupta-i-was-wrong-about-medicinal-marijuana?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffer2e90d&utm_medium=facebook

Jolie Rouge
08-19-2013, 01:45 PM
Now that marijuana is legal in Washington, Seattle police gave attendees at the city's Hempfest new rules about recreational use -- printed on bags of Doritos: Do YOU agree with Washington's legalization?

:canabis: :canabis: :canabis: :canabis:

Holly Yan and Elwyn Lopez- CNN

Monday, August 19, 2013 - 11:00am

NATIONAL NEWS (CNN) — When Seattle pot smokers got the munchies this weekend, the cops had their back.

Now that marijuana is legal in Washington, there's not much police could do about weed-toting revelers at the city's Hempfest. But they did want to explain the new rules surrounding recreational marijuana use in the state -- and hit upon a novel distribution format: Doritos.

Sticking the cops' messages on something edible was a no-brainer, Seattle police Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said. "We knew if we did leaflets, it would turn into litter," he said. "We wanted people to be able to access the information. It's actually fun to read. We wanted to do it in a way that is deliberately ironic."

Each bag contained some sage Dos and Don'ts.

The Don'ts included "Don't drive while high," and "Don't use pot in public. You could be cited but we'd rather give you a warning." :thrasher:

And the Dos? "Do listen to Dark Side of the Moon at a reasonable volume." :rock:

The crowd ate it up.

In less than 30 minutes, police ran out of all 1,000 bags of chips during #OperationOrangeFingers.

Minor marijuana possession has been the Seattle's police department's lowest priority since 2003, but voters last year cast ballots to make recreational use legal. Initiative 502 says residents over 21 years old may possess up to an ounce of pot for personal use. There are also guidelines for the possession of oils and edibles.

Hempfest, which began Friday and runs through Sunday, says its goal is "to educate the public on the myriad of potential benefits offered by the cannabis plant, including the medicinal, industrial, agricultural, economic, environmental, and other benefits and applications."

The Seattle Police Foundation paid $260 for the Doritos, CNN affiliate KING said. "I initially said let's try 500 Dorito bags, but we did a thousand. Ultimately our goal was to start a conversation," Whitcomb said.

And it's worked. Some even tried hawking the Doritos bags on eBay.

By the end of the giveaway, even the cops were feeling the effects of Hempfest. "We're headed home. Feelin' kinda Spacey," the department tweeted, with a picture of actor Kevin Spacey speaking into a walkie-talkie. :beamup:

At least 1,000 revelers were cured of the munchies, with a little more knowledge of the state law and a little more orange on their fingers.

-- CNN's Elliott C. McLaughlin contributed to this report.

http://www.fox44.com/news/seattle-police-cure-munchies-doritos-giveaway-citys-hempfest

Jolie Rouge
08-20-2013, 09:38 PM
"WEED : Safer than Peanuts"

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/p320x320/1185256_648001718550856_1234022260_n.jpg

Jolie Rouge
08-31-2013, 09:39 PM
Marijuana Ruling Could Signal End of Prohibition on Pot
COLLEEN CURRY 13 hours ago

It's legal to light up in Colorado and Washington, and soon smoking pot could be legalized across the country following a decision Thursday by the federal government.

After Washington state and Colorado passed laws in November 2012 legalizing the consumption and sale of marijuana for adults over 18, lawmakers in both states waited to see whether the federal government would continue to prosecute pot crimes under federal statutes in their states.

Both Colorado and Washington have been working to set up regulatory systems in order to license and tax marijuana growers and retail sellers, but have been wary of whether federal prosecutors would come after them for doing so. They are the first states to legalize pot, and therefore to go through the process of trying to set up a regulatory system.

Consumption and sale of marijuana is still illegal in all other states, though some cities and towns have passed local laws decriminalizing it or making it a low priority for law enforcement officers. There are also movements in many states to legalize pot, including legalization bills introduced in Maine and Rhode Island, discussion of possible bills in states including Massachusetts and Vermont, and talk of ballot initiatives in California and Oregon.

But on Thursday, the Department of Justice announced that it would not prosecute marijuana crimes that were legal under state law, a move that could signal the end of the country's longtime prohibition on pot is nearing. "It certainly appears to be potentially the beginning of the end," said Paul Armantano, deputy director of the pot lobby group NORML.

The memo sent to states Thursday by the DOJ said that as long as states set up comprehensive regulations governing marijuana, there would be no need for the federal government to step in, a decision that will save the Justice Department from having to use its limited resources on prosecuting individuals for growing or smoking marijuana.

"This memo appears to be sending the message to states regarding marijuana prohibition that is a recognition that a majority of the public and in some states majority of lawmakers no longer want to continue down the road of illegal cannabis, and would rather experiment with different regulatory schemes of license and retail sale of cannabis," Armantano said.


Richard Collins, a law professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, said that the memo from the DOJ points out specifically that the federal government will only walk away from marijuana crimes in states where there is a solid regulatory system for the drug's growth and disemenation.

For other states to mimic the systems in Colorado and Washington, they will first have to get legalization laws on their ballots or in their state houses, which could post a challenge, he said.

While Colorado and Washington have not yet set up their regulatory systems, both states will likely sell licenses to farmers who want to grow marijuana as well as to manufacturing plants and retail sellers. The marijuana will also likely be taxed at each stage of its growth, processing, and sale.

"In both Colorado and Washington, legalization was done by citizens with no participation by elected representatives until they had to pass laws to comply with the initiative. In other initiative states I would expect such measures - I would expect a new one in California, for instance - and roughly half the states permit this and the rest don't.

"In the states that do have initiatives I expect efforts to get it on the ballot. The other half it will be much tougher. It's hard to get elected representatives to do this," Collins said.

Armantano is more optimistic about the spread of legalized pot. He compared the DOJ's announcement to the federal government's actions toward the end of alcohol prohibition in America a century ago, when states decided to stop following the federal ban on alcohol sales and the federal government said it would not step in and prosecute crimes.

"For first time we now have clear message from fed government saying they will not stand in way of states that wish to implement alternative regulatory schemes in lieu of federal prohibition," Armantano said.

He predicted that within the next one to three years, five or six other states may join Colorado and Washington in legalizing the drug, setting the stage for the rest of the country to follow.

Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation's largest police union, was disappointed with the Justice Department's decision, but said that he had already reached out to set up meetings to talk with leadership in the department and he was "open to discussion" about the benefits.

"I would tell you that certainly the overwhelming majority of law enforcement officers oppose legalization," he said, "but that is not to say that we're not willing to have a conversation about it. It is, from our perspective, a gateway drug and opinions to the contrary don't have the weight of fact behind them."

"We want to talk to (the DOJ) about their thought process and ours and where the disconnect is," he said. "From our perspective the only fault with the status quo is that we aren't making a bigger dent and we'd like to make a bigger one."

http://news.yahoo.com/marijuana-ruling-could-signal-end-prohibition-pot-151612677--abc-news-topstories.html

Jolie Rouge
09-01-2013, 04:27 PM
Thursday, the Department of Justice announced that it would not prosecute marijuana crimes that were legal under state law, a move that could signal the end of the country's longtime prohibition on pot is nearing.

The memo sent to States Thursday by the DOJ said that as long as states set up comprehensive regulations governing marijuana, there would be no need for the federal government to step in, a decision that will save the Justice Department from having to use its limited resources on prosecuting individuals for growing or smoking marijuana.

What do you think?

hblueeyes
09-01-2013, 09:39 PM
This is as it should be.

Me

Jolie Rouge
01-16-2014, 05:51 AM
Thursday, January 16, 2014

CNN REPORTER "ACCIDENTALLY" GETS HIGH ON AIR


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXW6IeeiQ8g&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXW6IeeiQ8g&feature=player_embedded

http://www.kprcradio.com/pages/waltonandjohnson.html?feed=473140&article=11978381#ixzz2qZ6xo7VL

Jolie Rouge
01-16-2014, 04:56 PM
https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/1507651_10151943749562987_1310073995_n.jpg

https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/1507651_10151943749562987_1310073995_n.jpg

Jolie Rouge
01-19-2014, 07:42 PM
Obama: Pot is not more dangerous than alcohol
Jan 19, 2014 2:36 PM CST

http://www.marijuana.com/news/wp-content/gallery/4th-of-july-2/obama_smoking_pot.jpg

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama said he doesn't think marijuana is more dangerous than alcohol, "in terms of its impact on the individual consumer."

"As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don't think it is more dangerous than alcohol," the president said an interview with "The New Yorker" magazine.

Smoking marijuana is "not something I encourage, and I've told my daughters I think it's a bad idea, a waste of time, not very healthy," Obama said.

Obama's administration has given states permission to experiment with marijuana regulation, and laws recently passed in Colorado and Washington legalizing marijuana recently went into effect. The president said it was important for the legalization of marijuana to go forward in those states to avoid a situation in which only a few are punished while a large portion of people have broken the law at one time or another.

The president said he is troubled at the disproportionate number of arrests and imprisonments of minorities for marijuana use. "Middle-class kids don't get locked up for smoking pot, and poor kids do," he said. "And African-American kids and Latino kids are more likely to be poor and less likely to have the resources and the support to avoid unduly harsh penalties."

He said in the interview that users shouldn't be locked up for long stretches of time when people writing drug laws "have probably done the same thing."

But Obama urged a cautious approach to changing marijuana laws, saying that people who think legalizing pot will solve social problems are "probably overstating the case."

"And the experiment that's going to be taking place in Colorado and Washington is going to be, I think, a challenge," the president said.

Ethan Nadelmann, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance praised Obama's words, saying his use of the word "important" about the new Colorado and Washington laws "really puts the wind in the sails of the movement to end marijuana prohibition.

Critics of the new laws raise concerns about public health and law enforcement, asking whether wide availability of the drug will lead to more underage drug use, more cases of driving while high and more crime.

http://www.wafb.com/story/24493891/obama-pot-is-not-more-dangerous-than-alcohol?utm_content=buffer9a75d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Jolie Rouge
01-21-2014, 12:00 PM
Obama to young blacks: Go ahead and smoke pot, it's not that big a deal
Dan Calabrese on Monday January 20th, 2014

No, those were not his words. But yes, that's the message he delivered.

Barack Obama may be one of the worst things that ever happened to young black people, for this simple reason: He does not implore them to be the very best they can be. Given the opportunity to inspire them to the very best of their nature, he instead says interminable crap like this: http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/19/22360951-obama-pot-not-more-dangerous-than-alcohol


“As has been well-documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life,” Obama said in a lengthy profile in the current issue of the New Yorker magazine. “I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”

Here is the problem with this, and it has nothing to do with whether marijuana or alcohol is the more "dangerous" substance. Using either of them is stupid so that is an idiotic issue to even raise. The problem is that Obama completely fails when given an opportunity to tell those who actually respect what he says that there is a higher standard to which they can and should hold themselves. Look how he says he presented this issue to his daughters: " . . . it’s not something I encourage, and I’ve told my daughters I think it’s a bad idea, a waste of time, not very healthy."

That's it? It's a "waste of time"? It's "not very healthy"? That's it?

I actually pray that he is a better father than this and that he is just watering down what he really said for the benefit of his left-wing admirers. Because if that's all he really said to his daughters, he did not tell them the truth by any stretch of the imagination.

Obama's daughters are 15 and 12. Smoking pot at this point in their lives would do more than waste their time. It would put them at heightened risk of psychosis. http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/teens-who-smoke-pot-at-risk-for-later-schizophrenia-psychosis-201103071676 It would desensitize them to the physical, psychological and spiritual issues inherent to the use of mind-altering chemicals, and put them at greater risk of serious addition issues. It would stunt their learning capabilities. And it could very possibly turn them into the kind of mind-numbed, blithering idiots whose drivel you will no doubt find in the comment section following this column, just as you find such comments following everything I write about marijuana.

Maybe Obama is reluctant to make a stronger statement because he thinks he would be a hypocrite in doing so, having smoked pot himself as a younger person as he readily admits. Maybe Obama just doesn't have very strong convictions about it.

But he should know that as president of the United States his words can and do influence the decisions people make. Young people are not going to be very affected when all you have to say about a behavior is that it's a "waste of time" and a "bad habit." Weak sauce like that is not much different from saying, "Hey, it's no big deal, we all do dumb things, and hey, I did it. I became president. So I have to kinda sorta discourage it but I'm not really feeling all that convicted about it. It's no worse than alcohol. Whatever." Making a statement this weak is tantamount to telling them to just go ahead and do it, which is why I headlined my piece in the way I did.

What he could have said - and I for one would have respected him for it no matter what else he has done - is this:


Regardless of the legality question, young people - and I'm especially talking about urban and minority youth who are facing great economic challenges - don't smoke pot. It's stupid. It can do serious harm to you at a time in your life when that is the last thing you need. What you need to do to overcome the challenges in your life is to keep your mind clear and focused on doing the right things. In no way will smoking pot ever help you to do that. You should be looking to rise above the less admirable inclinations of the crowd you hang with, not to fall in with them. You should be learning every day about the good things you can and should be putting into your body and your mind so you can better yourself. There is no way marijuana will ever be on that list, so don't smoke it. And don't give me the excuse that alcohol is just as bad or worse. Even if that's true, so what? Is this the most you expect of yourself? To use the mind-altering substance that is "not quite as bad" as some other substance? Really? Because if that's all you expect of yourself, you'll never get anywhere in life and it won't be anyone's fault but yours.

That is what he should have said. A strong statement like that would have gotten the attention of the young people who look up to him. It would have given some young, urban minorities who face long odds in life a better chance of beating those odds. But the best Barack Obama could come up with is that it's a "vice" and a "waste of time" and "not very healthy."

Pathetic. Young people, the president of the United States is not a role model for you to follow.

http://www.caintv.com/obama-to-young-blacks-go-ahead


Monday, January 20, 2014
NANCY GRACE VS NANCY GRACE ON POT

Nancy Grace says pot is dangerous and it will lead to more violent crimes....but wait a second...last year during the Trayvon Martin trial, Nancy said that Trayvon couldn't be violent because he was high on weed.

Which is it, Nancy? It can't be both...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUU1AOQNbko&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUU1AOQNbko&feature=player_embedded
Read more: http://www.kprcradio.com/pages/waltonandjohnson.html?article=11986983#ixzz2r3qhHu mN

Jolie Rouge
01-24-2014, 09:13 AM
Rick Perry, of All People, Backs Decriminalizing Marijuana
The Atlantic Wire - By Philip Bump - 21 hours ago

In the battle between the hippies and squares, the hippies just won: Texas Gov. Rick Perry supports decriminalizing marijuana. According to a report at the San Antonio Express-News, Perry made the surprising announcement during a panel on drug legalization at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Gov-Rick-Perry-for-decriminalization-of-pot-5168667.php


His spokesman confirmed that Perry is staunchly opposed to legalization of marijuana because of medical issues, but is committed to policies to lower the punishment for its use in order to keep smokers out of jail.
“As governor, I have begun to implement policies that start us toward a decriminalization" by introducing alternative “drug courts” that provide treatment and softer penalties for minor offenses, Perry said.

“The goal is to keep people out of jails and reduce recidivism, that kind of thing," the spokesperson told the Express-News. The executive director of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition offered her opinion to the site: "I am shocked."

A report from the American Civil Liberties Union last year made clear the extent of Texas' marijuana arrests. Nearly all of the marijuana-related arrests in the state are for possession — to the tune of more than 74,000 arrests in 2010 alone. The state saw nearly three times as many marijuana-related arrests in 2010 than in 2001. And it's not cheap: The ACLU estimates Texas spent $126 million on police, $85 million in the court system, and $40 million incarcerating people convicted of marijuana crimes in 2010.

Perry has long been an advocate of having states develop their own drug laws. In his 2010 book Fed Up!, he criticized California's embrace of medical marijuana while celebrating its decision to stand up to the federal government. Perry's apparently not yet ready to be quite that bold, but as a possible 2016 Republican candidate for the presidency, he's going further than many might have expected.

This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/01/rick-perry-all-people-backs-decriminalizing-marijuana/357317/

http://news.yahoo.com/rick-perry-people-backs-decriminalizing-marijuana-184105872.html

Jolie Rouge
02-28-2014, 07:10 PM
https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/t1/1932492_10152065087658473_470050614_n.png

This is a picture of a young Obama with a group of [mostly gay] men who he use to party and do drugs with in his teenage years. Yesterday he spoke publicly about his teenage drug use and his lack of a father.

http://www.kprcradio.com/onair/walton-johnson-51391/obama-talks-about-his-history-w-12110522/

comments

He opened up recently about his thoughts on marihuana. . Didn't you hear his words verbally recently on this issue?? At least he said he didn't believe that marijuana was more lethal than alcohol. At least he knows & finally had the balls to say it nationally on tv! For that I commend you sir.. MUCHOS GRACIAS

....

Walton and Johnson Yeah, we didn't add the caption to the meme, we just thought it was interesting how it related to the news story that broke yesterday. This meme was made by a black liberal who thinks that Obama isn't liberal enough, ironically.

..

April Martin McElroy He also cracked down on the white folk. What a phony negro he has become. He was raised by the whites and hung out with the whites and got to power by the whites. Now he and his wife can be as black as they want. Isn't that funny, they all seem to make their money off the whites then turn full blown negro racist. Oprah, OJ etc.

..

Is that guy doing the Spock "live long and prosper" sign?

..

Why would it matter whether they're gay or not?

Jolie Rouge
03-03-2014, 04:04 PM
Medical Marijuana Bill passes in Georgia House 171-4

ATLANTA (AP) - Medical marijuana would be legalized in Georgia for patients with certain medical illnesses under legislation set for a vote in the state Legislature.

Lawmakers face an important deadline Monday in the General Assembly. Under legislative rules, any bill that is not approved by at least one chamber in the General Assembly is unlikely to become law this year. There are some exceptions.

Senior Republicans are planning a vote on state Rep. Allen Peake's proposal to revive a long-dormant research program allowing academic institutions to distribute medical cannabis to those suffering from medical conditions. The cannabis oil would be administered orally in a liquid form.

Peake has said the cannabis oil is low in THC, the active ingredient that produces the marijuana high.

http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/story/24872402/ga-lawmakers-debate-legalizing-medical-marijuana

Jolie Rouge
03-06-2014, 06:06 AM
Common sense, humanity argue for relaxation of La.’s marijuana laws, so it may not happen any time soon.
Claims on pot seem like bunk
James Gill - March 06, 2014

The proposition that marijuana users commit 95 percent of violent crimes in this country is so clearly absurd that state Sen. Bob Kostelka, R-Monroe, was quick to claim he had been misquoted.

Kostelka wants you to know his actual words were that “95 percent of total crime can be associated with illegal drugs.”

That’s OK, then. Here is one legislator with a firm grip on reality.

Kostelka is not just any legislator. A retired judge, he chairs the committee that will consider a bill in the upcoming session to reduce the savage prison sentences prescribed for marijuana possession in Louisiana. He led the fight to kill similar legislation last year.

Even such law-and-order stalwarts as Gov. Bobby Jindal recognize the folly of locking up nonviolent dope smokers for decades, and want to switch the emphasis to rehabilitation. But Kostelka smells a rat. The bill, filed by Rep. Austin Badon, D-New Orleans, “is nothing more than a ruse, a step toward legalization,” according to Kostelka, who vows to “fight it every step of the way.”

Badon’s bill would leave the maximum sentence for first offenders unchanged at six months. A second offense could bring two years, instead of five, and a third offense five years, instead of 20. If Badon’s scheme is really to flood the streets with skunk, he is certainly making a modest start.

Kostelka aired his ideas on drugs and crime at a meeting of the state Sentencing Commission, which nevertheless passed a resolution noting that Badon’s bill “comports with the desires of a majority of Louisiana citizens” and other southern legislatures.

Supporters of Badon’s bill, calling themselves Louisianians for Responsible Reform, issued a news release asserting that Kostelka could have gotten his over-the-top numbers from only one source, a seriously wacky website called Marijuana Makes You Violent. The site not only blames marijuana for 95 percent to 99 percent of violent crime, but claims toking brings “immediate death.” It quotes the imaginary National Institute on Marijuana Abuse and Marijuanaism. A spoof, surely.

Kostelka said he had never even heard of the website, and had arrived at his 95 percent independently. “That comes directly from law enforcement officials I’ve asked and from my 20 years as a judge,” he said. Unless Monroe residents are disproportionately prone to seek narcotic relief from everyday tedium — a possibility we cannot entirely discount — Kostelka’s memory must be faulty.

The law enforcement officials he consulted cannot have been feds, because they would have wised him up to a study of drug use in the criminal classes conducted last year. According to White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske — try getting a stoner to spell that — more than 60 percent of people arrested in five major cities tested positive for illegal drugs, marijuana being the most common. That falls a long way short of what Kostelka claimed, either in his version or the Responsible Reform crowd’s.

The pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project’s response to the study was to note that most criminal suspects had been drinking water but that didn’t mean water caused crime, which just goes to show that neither side in this debate has a monopoly on dumb remarks. It is true that correlation is not the same as causation, but the link between crime and illegal drugs is too strong to be dismissed as coincidence. Opinions may vary on just how harmful weed may be, but we know for a fact that water does not remove inhibitions, and a ready supply may be obtained without knocking over a convenience store.

Jindal has indicated he might approve marijuana to ease the pain of the chronically sick, but Kostelka thinks any legislation to achieve that would be another “ruse” on the “slippery slope” toward overall legalization.

Common sense and humanity argue for a relaxation of Louisiana’s marijuana laws, so there may not be much chance it will happen any time soon. Kostelka, we may be confident, will play a prominent role in discussions. As to what percentage of his remarks will be tosh, I wouldn’t put it below 95.

http://theadvocate.com/columnists/8549135-55/james-gill-claims-on-pot

Jolie Rouge
03-26-2014, 05:35 PM
My Trip to the Pot Shop
Medical marijuana is quite literally a life saver.
By Michelle Malkin - March 26, 2014 12:00 AM

Pueblo West, Colo. – It’s 9:00 a.m. on a weekday, and I’m at the Marisol Therapeutics pot shop. This is serious business. Security is tight. ID checks are frequent. Merchandise is strictly regulated, labeled, wrapped, and controlled. The store is clean, bright, and safe. The staffers are courteous and professional. Customers of all ages are here.

There’s a middle-aged woman at the counter nearby who could be your school librarian. On the opposite end of the dispensary, a slender young soldier in a wheelchair with close-cropped hair, dressed in his fatigues, consults with a clerk. There’s a gregarious cowboy and an inquisitive pair of Baby Boomers looking at edibles. A dude in a hoodie walks in with his backpack.

And then there’s my husband and me.

The dispensary is split in two: “recreational” on one side, “medical” on the other. Medical customers must have state-issued cards and a doctor’s approval. The inventory is not taxed, so prices are lower on that side. On the recreational side, where I’m peering at mysterious jars of prickly green goods, “Smoke on the Water” is thumping from stereo speakers. Yes, there’s a massive banner advertising a Tommy Chong appearance, and issues of High Times are on display. But the many imposing signs posted on the wall emphatically warn: No smoking, no open drug consumption, and absolutely no entry allowed into the locked lab where the cannabis plants sit under bright lights.

Before I tell you how and why my hubby and I ended up at Marisol Therapeutics, some background about my longtime support of medical marijuana. More than 15 years ago in Seattle, while working at the Seattle Times, I met an extraordinary man who changed my mind about the issue. Ralph Seeley was a Navy nuclear-submarine officer, pilot, cellist, and lawyer suffering from chordoma, a rare form of bone cancer that starts in the spine. He had undergone several surgeries, including removal of one lung and partial removal of the other, and was confined to a wheelchair.

Chronically nauseous from chemotherapy and radiation, weak from a suppressed appetite, and suffering excruciating pain, Seeley turned to marijuana cigarettes for relief.

Contrary to cultural stereotype, Seeley was far from “wasted.” While smoking the drug to reduce his pain, he finished law school — something he couldn’t have done while on far-more-powerful “mainstream” narcotics, which left him zonked out and vomiting uncontrollably in his hospital bed after chemo. Seeley had the backing of his orthopedic doctor and University of Washington School of Medicine oncologist Dr. Ernest Conrad. He took his plight to the Washington state supreme court, where he asserted a constitutionally protected liberty interest in having his doctor issue a medical-pot prescription.

The court rejected Seeley’s case for physician-prescribed marijuana, arguing that the government’s interest in preserving an “interlocking trellis” of costly and ineffective War on Drugs laws trumped his right to individual autonomy and physician treatment. After a decade-long battle with cancer, Seeley died in 1998. But his spirit persevered. Seeley bravely paved the way for medical-marijuana laws in nearly two dozen states, including Washington’s Initiative 692, approved by voters ten months after he died, and Colorado’s Amendment 20, passed by popular referendum in 2000.

Support for these ballot measures and similar efforts (like the newly enacted Charlee’s Law in Utah, legalizing medical cannabis oil) transcends political lines. Why? Because cancer, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and other chronic and terminal diseases have no partisan affiliations.

This brings us back to Pueblo. For the past three months, my mother-in-law, Carole, whom I love with all my heart, has battled metastatic melanoma. After a harrowing week of hospitalization and radiation, she’s at home now. A miraculous new combination of oral cancer drugs seems to have helped enormously with pain and possibly contained the disease’s spread. But Carole’s loss of appetite and nausea persist.

A month ago, with encouragement from all of her doctors here in Colorado, she applied for a state-issued medical-marijuana card. It still hasn’t come through. As a clerk at Marisol Therapeutics told us, there’s a huge backlog. But thanks to Amendment 64, the marijuana drug-legalization act approved by voters in 2012, we were able to legally and safely circumvent the bureaucratic holdup. “A lot of people are in your same situation,” the pot-shop staffer told us. “We see it all the time, and we’re glad we can help.”

Our stash included ten pre-rolled joints, a “vape pen,” and two containers of cheddar-cheese-flavored marijuana crackers (they were out of brownies). So far, just one cracker a day is yielding health benefits. Carole is eating better than she has in three months. For us, there’s no greater joy than sharing the simple pleasure of gathering in the kitchen for a meal, with Grandma Carole at the head of the table.

Do I worry about the negative costs, abuses, and cultural consequences of unbridled recreational pot use? Of course I do. But when you get past all the “Rocky Mountain High” jokes and look past all the cable-news caricatures, the legalized marijuana entrepreneurs here in my adopted home state are just like any other entrepreneurs: securing capital, paying taxes, complying with a thicket of regulations, taking risks, and providing goods and services that ordinary people want and need. Including our grateful family.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/374221/my-trip-pot-shop-michelle-malkin

hblueeyes
03-26-2014, 06:13 PM
Illinois has passed medical mj but is moving very slowly. We buy ours from a local dealer which is still illegal buy has been tiered down to a misdemeanor. I do not know how hubby could live day by day without it. It's a beautiful thing. (Martha Stewart voice).

Me

Jolie Rouge
03-26-2014, 07:50 PM
Illinois has passed medical mj but is moving very slowly. We buy ours from a local dealer which is still illegal buy has been tiered down to a misdemeanor. I do not know how hubby could live day by day without it. It's a beautiful thing. (Martha Stewart voice).

Me

When my dad was terminal I was getting "herbal folk remedies" from a friend. Illegal - yes. Do it again - if I have too

Jolie Rouge
03-03-2015, 08:11 PM
DEA warns of stoned rabbits if Utah passes medical marijuana
By Christopher Ingraham March 2, 2015

Utah is considering a bill that would allow patients with certain debilitating conditions to be treated with edible forms of marijuana. http://fox13now.com/2015/02/25/bill-introduced-to-legalize-medical-marijuana-in-utah/

If the bill passes, the state's wildlife may "cultivate a taste" for the plant, lose their fear of humans, and basically be high all the time. That's according to testimony presented to a Utah Senate panel (time stamp 58:00) last week by an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
http://utahlegislature.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=74&clip_id=18619#.VPE143586KY.facebook

"I deal in facts. I deal in science," said special agent Matt Fairbanks, who's been working in the state for a decade. He is member of the "marijuana eradication" team in Utah. Some of his colleagues in Georgia recently achieved notoriety by raiding a retiree's garden and seizing a number of okra plants. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/06/heavily-armed-drug-cops-raid-retirees-garden-seize-okra-plants/

Fairbanks spoke of his time eliminating back-country marijuana grows in the Utah mountains, specifically the environmental costs associated with large-scale weed cultivation on public land: "Personally, I have seen entire mountainsides subjected to pesticides, harmful chemicals, deforestation and erosion," he said. "The ramifications to the flora, the animal life, the contaminated water, are still unknown."

Fairbanks said that at some illegal marijuana grow sites he saw "rabbits that had cultivated a taste for the marijuana. ..." He continued: "One of them refused to leave us, and we took all the marijuana around him, but his natural instincts to run were somehow gone."

It's true that illegal pot farming can have harmful environmental consequences. Of course, nothing about these consequences is unique to marijuana. If corn were outlawed and cartels started growing it in national forests, the per-plant environmental toll would be about the same. http://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/forest-service-video-shows-illegal-marijuana-cultivation-devastating-californias-public-lands

But backcountry marijuana grows are a direct result of marijuana's illegal status. If you're concerned about the environmental impact of these grows, an alternative is to legalize and regulate the plant so that people can grow it on farms and in their gardens, rather than on remote mountainsides.

Now, regarding rabbits. Some wild animals apparently do develop a taste for bud (and, yes, best to keep it away from your pets). But I don't know that the occasional high rabbit constitutes grounds for keeping marijuana prohibition in place, any more than drunk squirrels are an argument for outlawing alcohol. And let's not even get started on the nationwide epidemic of catnip abuse.

There was a time, not too long ago, when drug warriors terrified a nation with images of "the devil's weed" and "reefer madness." Now, it seems that enforcers of marijuana law conjuring up a stoned bunny?

Not scary enough for the Utah Senate, it seems: the panel approved the bill and sent it to the full Senate, where it will be debated this week.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/03/02/dea-warns-of-stoned-rabbits-if-utah-passes-medical-marijuana/

:weed:

Jolie Rouge
03-05-2015, 04:33 PM
Sheriffs sue Colorado over legal marijuana
Trevor Hughes, USATODAY 12:08 a.m. EST March 5, 2015

DENVER — Sheriffs from Colorado and neighboring states Kansas and Nebraska say in a lawsuit to be filed Thursday that Colorado's marijuana law creates a "crisis of conscience" by pitting the state law against the Constitution and puts an economic burden on other states.

The lawsuit asks a federal court in Denver to strike down Colorado's Amendment 64 that legalized the sale of recreational marijuana and to close the state's more than 330 licensed marijuana stores.

Lead plaintiff, Larimer County, Colo., Sheriff Justin Smith, calls the case a "constitutional showdown." Each day, he says, he must decide whether to violate the Colorado Constitution or the U.S. Constitution. Colorado legalized recreational marijuana sales Jan. 1, 2014, but marijuana remains illegal at the federal level.

Colorado is "asking every peace officer to violate their oath," Smith said. "What we're being forced to do ... makes me ineligible for office. Which constitution are we supposed to uphold?"

The out-of-state sheriffs say the flow of Colorado's legal marijuana across the border has increased drug arrests, overburdened police and courts and cost them money in overtime.

Felony drug arrests in the town of Chappell in Deuel County, Neb., 7 miles north of the Colorado border, jumped 400% over three years, a USA TODAY report tracking the flow of marijuana from Colorado into small towns across Nebraska found. Deuel County Sheriff Adam Hayward is one of the plaintiffs.

Police officers monitoring the flow of marijuana outside Colorado say volumes have risen annually. The Colorado-based Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force is still compiling 2014 numbers but expects to see the trend continue, director Tom Gorman said. He said non-residents often strike backdoor deals with legal growers to buy more than they are allowed, then illegally drive, fly or mail the marijuana across state lines.

The lawsuit invokes the federal government's right to regulate drugs and interstate commerce and argues that Colorado's decision to legalize marijuana hurt communities on the other side of the state lines. Attorneys general of Nebraska and Oklahoma filed a similar lawsuit late last year.

Colorado has not responded to the suit from the attorneys general, and Gov. John Hickenlooper, the defendant in the sheriffs' lawsuit, has not been served. Hickenlooper has said he respects the will of Colorado's voters. He has sought guidance from the federal government.

The Justice Department said it would largely take a hands-off approach in states that have legalized marijuana as long as regulations seek to keep the drugs away from children and criminals. Smith, the sheriff from Larimer, said that guidance amounts to instructing people "how to violate federal law but not get prosecuted."

Supporters of legalization criticize such lawsuits as last-ditch attempts by conservative politicians to derail states' movement toward marijuana legalization.

Speaking about the Nebraska-Oklahoma lawsuit in December, Mason Tvert of the Marijuana Policy Project said police should focus their attention on serious crimes and leave alone people who choose to use marijuana. "These guys are on the wrong side of history," Tvert said.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/03/05/sheriffs-from-three-states-sue-colorado-over-marijuana/24385401/

:smokin:

hblueeyes
03-06-2015, 08:07 AM
I wonder how those states feel about illegal immigration.

Me

boopster
03-08-2015, 10:08 AM
right now the supreme court has to decided if a law is legal based on what is written or what is intended (obamacare). if they rule for what is intended then we will become even a more lawless country than we were the day before. we have a president and ag who have taken the constitution and personally decided what they want to accept and what not to accept thus making them level with god. i can envision people using the defense of intended vs accusation. we can have illegals saying they never intended to illegally cross the border to make money without paying taxes, never intended to collect benefits paid for by legal residents, never intended the irs to send them thousands of dollars each year, never intended to steal americans ids etc. how about the rapist who says they never intended to commit rape they just wanted free sex. how about the person who drove drunk and killed someone pleading they never intended to get behind the wheel...they just want to take a nap in the front seat and they do not know how they got behind the wheel and drove so since they never intended to do that then they are innocent of killing anyone. how about hillary saying she intended to use the gov.com email and forward all her emails to state therefore she is innocent of using her own server and her own private email account....or bill saying he intended to smoke that cigar but............. right now the only people who are not backing down from actions and intensipms are terrorists because they intend on murdering people and are doing it.

Jolie Rouge
05-12-2015, 02:19 PM
Legalizing pot ?
Viewing Poll Results: Total Voters: 8.

Good idea ? 6 = 75%

Bad Idea ? 0 = 0%

Only conditionally - for medical use : 2 = 25%


Why Morgan Freeman Thinks Marijuana Should Be Legalized
By Catarina Cowden 22 hours ago

Marijuana legalization has been a hot topic lately and many celebrities have used their status in the media to vocalize their own thoughts on the matter. There are those we’ve grown accustomed to speaking loud and proud of their marijuana use (Snoop Dogg anyone?) but then there are those that to some may seem unexpected. One in particular is Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman who just pretty much destroyed the argument against legalizing weed.

In sitting down with The Daily Beast to discuss Freeman’s newest film 5 Flights Up, the actor opened up about his own use of marijuana as well as his support for the movement to legalize it. Freeman, who suffered a serious injury in a car accident years ago is in a great deal of pain. And marijuana has been the only thing that offers him relief. Freeman is a long time user of weed though, and he says this movement towards legalization has been a long time coming. But the biggest problem is that people need to realize that alcohol has no medicinal use, while marijuana does.


Marijuana has many useful uses. I have fibromyalgia pain in this arm, and the only thing that offers any relief is marijuana. They’re talking about kids who have grand mal seizures, and they’ve discovered that marijuana eases that down to where these children can have a life. That right there, to me, says, ‘Legalize it across the board!’

Clearly marijuana has played an important role in Freeman’s later success. Since, as he puts it, is the only thing truly able to help ease the pain in his arm. Without that relief, who knows whether or not the actor could still be going strong with his film career. But, aside from his own personal use of the drug, he makes a particularly solid point in pointing out the negative effects of weed, where he finds none. Freeman recalls the peaceful Woodstock vs. its less marijuana-friendly 30th-anniversary event where riots broke out:


And what negative effects does it have? Look at Woodstock 1969. They said, ‘We’re not going to bother them or say anything about smoking marijuana,’ and not one problem or fight. Then look at what happened in ’99.

And what negative effects does it have? Look at Woodstock 1969. They said, ‘We’re not going to bother them or say anything about smoking marijuana,’ and not one problem or fight. Then look at what happened in ’99.

http://www.bigbigforums.com/news-information/438391-free-weeds.html

boopster
05-12-2015, 03:08 PM
Marijuana use involved in more fatal accidents in Colorado
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-05/uocd-mui051514.php

Marijuana use involved in more fatal accidents in Colorado
http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2014/02/04/study-fatal-car-crashes-involving-marijuana-have-tripled/

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

FreeBnutt
05-12-2015, 04:43 PM
hmmm... If it had so many medicinal qualities, makes some one wonder why hasn't the big drug companies included that in its pain meds?

Seems like a lot of BS to me.

boopster
05-12-2015, 09:14 PM
Marijuana for medical use i can understand but like most things it will and i am sure has been misused and abused. I think of all those cars/vans with the handicap tags...i see them park in the handicap spot and then the driver jumps out of their vehicle and jogs uphill to the store and no one else is in the vehicle.....and then i see a van searching for a spot and they have to park far away and have to find 2 spots next to each other so that they can get the ramp down to exit in their wheel chair.

FreeBnutt
05-13-2015, 07:09 AM
Ok, marijuana for medical use. Then why not normal cigarettes for medical use for those that suffer from ADHD (if those are the right initials - kept thinking AD&D, and that's dungeons and dragons... he,he>. I have a nephew who took up smoking in his late teens, and that was more of drug for him to keep him emotionally balanced, not too hyper, and not passed out from the prescription drugs.

Surprised my brother, and I said "why not" cigs are more for relaxing when stressed out. Yet, those are banned almost everywhere today. The kid is 20 or 21 now, and DADDY buys his cigs for him, cuz he lives with daddy.

A brain <especially mine> is a terrible thing to waste.

Jolie Rouge
05-13-2015, 03:17 PM
Marijuana for medical use i can understand but like most things it will and i am sure has been misused and abused. I think of all those cars/vans with the handicap tags...i see them park in the handicap spot and then the driver jumps out of their vehicle and jogs uphill to the store and no one else is in the vehicle.....and then i see a van searching for a spot and they have to park far away and have to find 2 spots next to each other so that they can get the ramp down to exit in their wheel chair.

They have a disability - it is a lack of empathy, a lack of courtesy, and a moral compass that has no direction. I suggest a regime of azz beatings to teach them to mend their ways. You will always have people abuse things. How many people abuse RX drugs - alcohol - gambling - all legal.

Medical marijuana is so beneficial in so many ways ... legalize it, regulate it, tax it. Stop jailing people for non violent, minor drug offences and pursue the BIG dealers who would then be cutting in on Uncle Sam's business.

Jolie Rouge
08-30-2015, 09:44 AM
World’s Chillest Couple Has Weed Bar And Budtender At Their Wedding

Most people are stoked when you have an open bar at a wedding. But at recent a wedding in Oregon, guests enjoyed an open weed bar, complete with a knowledgable bud tender.

John Elledge, a professional cannabis farmer, married Whitney Alexander on Aug. 8 at a Christmas tree farm in West Linn, Oregon. “We were shocked by how much people loved it,” Elledge told local news outlet KGW in an interview. “I’m still getting a couple of texts a day from guests who enjoyed the weed tent.”

The bud bar featured 13 hand-picked varietals, but because of state law, they were limited to 8-ounces of pot total. “Even an 81-year-old woman who hadn’t smoked weed since the ’60s came into the tent at our wedding,” said Elledge. “Though skeptical at first, she ended up loving it.”

http://2l9qrt3qasud2pxgh21ym8qe.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/unnamed-11.jpg

Because the wedding was held on private property, no liquor license was required.

http://2l9qrt3qasud2pxgh21ym8qe.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/LegalOregonWeed-002.jpg

Caterers should be aware there cannot be bartenders and budtenders,” Pettinger told KGW.


http://practicallyviral.com/worlds-chillest-couple-has-weed-bar-and-budtender-at-their-wedding/

Jolie Rouge
10-29-2015, 06:27 PM
Philip Morris Marlboro ‘M’ Brand Marijuana Cigarettes Now For Sale In Four U.S. States

http://now8news.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/PM.jpg

Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Alaska residents are celebrating the release of Phillip Morris Marlboro ‘M’ Brand Marijuana Cigarettes available next month for recreational use. The world’s largest cigarette producer, announced today that they will join the recreational marijuana bandwagon and begin the sale of marijuana cigarettes in these 4 U.S. states beginning November 1, 2015. -

This product is marketed under the brand “Marlboro M” and will be available for sale through marijuana licensed outlets. Serafin Norcik, Philip Morris’ Senior Vice President for marketing said in an interview,
“Our company has been high on the idea for marketing cannabis and has been monitoring the market for some time. We have finally made the decision to take the leap and support these states in their right to legalized recreational marijuana use.”

Currently the law limits the purchase to only one pack at a time. Prices start at $89 per pack. You must be 21 years or older to purchase and must provide a photo ID. Any resale of the Philip Morris Marlboro “M” Brand Marijuana cigarettes is subject to fines and jail time according to local laws.

http://now8news.com/philip-morris-marlboro-m-brand-marijuana-cigarettes-now-for-sale-in-four-u-s-sates/

Too Good to be True : http://mic.com/articles/80067/did-phillip-morris-just-release-a-new-marlboro-marijuana-cigarette-here-s-the-full-story

FreeBnutt
10-29-2015, 07:16 PM
OMG all the free stuff I've got from Marlboro over the years.
:canabis::bandit::bandit:
:rofl::rofl: