Cannabis News

Amid an increased crackdown on medical marijuana producers across the nation, including a recent high-profile raid on a California training school, President Barack Obama faced questions in a new interview with Rolling Stone about the seeming disconnect between his 2008 campaign rhetoric and his administration’s actions since he took office.

“I’m not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws [on medical marijuana],” Obama promised in 2008, according to an earlier Rolling Stone report. But Attorney General Eric Holder announced in 2010 that federal authorities would continue to prosecute individuals for marijuana possession, despite its legalized status in some states.

The Huffington Post’s Lucia Graves reported recently on subsequent enforcement activity:

Since then, the administration has unleashed an interagency cannabis crackdown that goes beyond anything seen under the Bush administration, with more than 100 raids, primarily on California pot dispensaries, many of them operating in full compliance with state laws. Since October 2009, the Justice Department has conducted more than 170 aggressive SWAT-style raids in 9 medical marijuana states, resulting in at least 61 federal indictments, according to data compiled by Americans for Safe Access, an advocacy group.

Speaking with Rolling Stone, the president tried to explain his original comments, claiming that the recent pressure on dispensaries and providers was in line with his intent.

“What I specifically said was that we were not going to prioritize prosecutions of persons who are using medical marijuana,” Obama said. “I never made a commitment that somehow we were going to give carte blanche to large-scale producers and operators of marijuana — and the reason is, because it’s against federal law.”

The president continued: “I can’t nullify congressional law. I can’t ask the Justice Department to say, ‘Ignore completely a federal law that’s on the books.’ What I can say is, ‘Use your prosecutorial discretion and properly prioritize your resources to go after things that are really doing folks damage.’ As a consequence, there haven’t been prosecutions of users of marijuana for medical purposes.”

Obama then shifted gears away from marijuana, saying that a “broader debate” on drug laws was warranted.

While the president appears to believe that his administration’s actions against medical cannabis don’t conflict with his earlier statements on the issue, some lawmakers around the country disagree.

Lawmakers in five states that have legalized medical marijuana recently wrote a letter to Obama criticizing him for a supposed “contradiction” on the matter and calling on the federal government “not to interfere with our ability to control and regulate how medical marijuana is grown and distributed.”

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Published: April 25, 2012
Copyright: 2012 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Discussions About Legalizing Marijuana Should Start With a Few Basic Truths.

One is that legalization would save the law-enforcement and social costs of arresting hundreds of thousands of adults each year.  ( Most proposals would keep marijuana illegal for those under 21.  ) Another is that pot’s underground economy – estimated at $15 billion to $30 billion annually – would be largely wiped out if marijuana were legalized throughout the country.  Finally, it is clear that legalization would greatly decrease price and, therefore, increase the number of both recreational and heavy marijuana users.

Beyond these facts, the ramifications get extremely murky.  Being honest about the uncertainties involved is the price of admission to any serious discussion about marijuana legalization.

When my RAND colleagues and I tried to project the consequences if California passed a 2010 marijuana-legalization ballot initiative, we started by calculating the cost of producing marijuana in residential grow-houses, a likely production venue if the drug were legalized at the state level.  We calculated that the pretax price for high-potency, indoor-grown marijuana could drop by more than 80%.  If national legalization allowed producers to switch to greenhouses and outdoor farming, the prices would drop even further: A “joint” might cost pennies rather than dollars.

Such a huge drop in price would certainly increase use.  But no one knows by how much because no modern country has experienced prices that low.  Taxes could not come close to maintaining prohibition-level prices without being undercut by a “gray” market.  Indeed, tobacco-tax evasion is already a serious issue in the U.S., where the average state tax is a few dollars a pack, and a pack of cigarettes weighs just about an ounce.  By comparison, an ounce of high-quality marijuana now sells for about $300.

Another big unknown is how marijuana legalization would influence alcohol consumption.  It is natural to assume that pot would serve as a substitute ( higher use would decrease heavy drinking ), but it is equally likely that it would be a complement ( higher use would increase heavy drinking ).  The scientific literature on this is inconclusive.

That uncertainty is crucial because heavy drinking is much more common – and much more harmful – than heavy marijuana use.  Alcohol is strongly connected with violence, traffic fatalities and chronic disease.  Even a small decrease in heavy drinking could outweigh any social costs from legalizing marijuana.  By the same token, even a small increase in heavy drinking could outweigh any benefits of legalization.

Similar questions can be asked about how greater marijuana use might affect the use of “hard” drugs like cocaine and heroin.  The debate about “gateway” effects when young people experiment with marijuana is bitter and unsettled, but claims of a pharmacological link to the use of other drugs seem to have been overplayed in the past.

One thing is certain.  Nothing we do about marijuana would dramatically reduce the harms associated with the larger “war on drugs.” The market for hard drugs is much larger in dollars, in violence and in the number of offenders behind bars.  If these are the critical problems, then marijuana legalization is a sideshow, not the main event.

Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
Copyright: 2012 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.wsj.com/
Author: Beau Kilmer

The man who put Marc Emery behind bars is now advocating for the legalization of marijuana.

A pro-legalization event Wednesday in Vancouver featured a bizarre pairing at the head table of two important figures in the self-styled Prince of Pot’s life – his wife, Jodie Emery, and his prosecutor, John McKay.

“Nearly one million people every year are imprisoned for simple marijuana possession,” said McKay, who believes none of those criminals should be serving time.

The former U.S. Attorney, free to lobby for legal changes since he left his job in 2007, said the push for pot changes in America reminds him of the long campaign that led to the eventual legalization of alcohol.

“The Prohibition era provided huge illegal profits for the Mafia and terrible violence,” said McKay, pointing to today’s ultraviolent Mexican drug cartels. “If that sounds familiar, it should.”

McKay noted that both Washington and Colorado will vote soon to legalize small quantities of pot for adults, with another 14 states at various stages in a move to decriminalize pot, essentially issuing the equivalent of a traffic ticket for simple possession.

But McKay made no apologies for Emery’s imprisonment.

Emery should have lobbied to change the law, he said, not broken the law in order to get it changed.

“If that was his purpose – to change policy – I think he took the wrong route,” said McKay, who put Emery in prison in 2010 for selling marijuana seeds to U.S. customers from his Vancouver headquarters.

“He made a decision that would have given every juvenile in the United States access to marijuana, which I think is wrong.”

Emery and McKay sat side by side, extolling the virtues of pot legalization, and afterward The Province asked how they could get along so well, considering McKay sent Emery’s husband to jail.

“I think Jodie is a gracious person,” said McKay.

“I have no animosity toward her husband at all. I just think he made a mistake.”

Jodie Emery was delighted to have someone of McKay’s reputation on board.

“It’s one thing for a hippie to say he thinks marijuana should be legalized,” she said.

“To have someone who’s on the front lines, who’s seen what’s happening, say he thinks marijuana should be legalized, that gives us credibility.”

 

INITIATIVE 502

It goes by the innocuous name Washington Initiative 502, but it could be a radical game-changer for B.C.’s $8-billion marijuana industry.

In November, Washington state residents will vote on I-502, which would legalize possession of small amounts of marijuana for adults 21 and over.

As happened in B.C. with the anti-HST movement, petitioners south of the border were first required to sign up huge numbers of proponents – 241,153 to be exact – who signed on the dotted line in a bid to change the state’s marijuana laws.

As with the harmonized sales tax, legislation to legalize pot could have been introduced, but – as in B.C.- the state government instead chose to put it to a referendum vote, coinciding with this fall’s general election.

B.C. has, at least until now, been seen as more liberal than its U.S. neighbours when it comes to drug laws.

But a successful initiative south of the border would in one fell swoop make Washington state the more lenient jurisdiction for possession of pot – with wide-ranging implications for everyone involved on both sides of the border.

Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.theprovince.com/
Author: Ian Austin

The pungent smell of pot that blankets a popular quadrangle at the University of Colorado-Boulder every April 20 is being replaced by the stench of fish-based fertilizer Friday as administrators try to stamp out one of the nation’s largest annual campus celebrations of marijuana.

After more than 10,000 people — students and non-students — attended last year’s marijuana rally on Norlin Quadrangle, university officials decided this year to apply the stinky fertilizer to the quad to deter pot-smokers. They’re also closing the campus Friday to all unauthorized visitors and offering a free campus concert by Haitian-born hip-hop star Wyclef Jean timed to coincide with the traditional 4:20 p.m. pot gathering.

The measures pit Colorado’s flagship university, which has tired of its reputation as a top party school, against thousands who have assembled, flash mob-style, each year to demand marijuana’s legalization or simply to have a good time.

With more than 30,000 students, Colorado was named the nation’s top party school in 2011 by Playboy magazine. The campus also repeatedly ranks among the top schools for marijuana use, according to a “Reefer Madness” list conducted by The Princeton Review.

“We don’t consider this a protest. We consider this people smoking pot in the sunshine,” said university spokesman Bronson Hilliard. “This is a gathering of people engaging in an illegal activity.”

“I do not see any justification for the university shutting it down,” said student organizer Daniel Ellis Schwartz, who contends the measures infringe on First Amendment rights to protest. Schwartz, a physics major, and other supporters of the 4/20 smoke out plan to move it to a nearby park off-campus. He suggests there also will be some form of off-campus protest against the measures.

“We do have to play a game of chess with the authorities,” Schwartz said.

Many students at the University of Colorado and other campuses across the country have long observed 4/20. The counterculture observation is shared by marijuana users from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park to New York’s Greenwich Village.

The number 420 has been associated with marijuana use for decades, though its origins are murky. Its use as code for marijuana spread among California pot users in the 1960s and spread nationwide among followers of the Grateful Dead.

Like most counterculture slang, theories abound on its origin. Some say it was once police code in Southern California to denote marijuana use (probably an urban legend). It was a title number for a 2003 California bill about medical marijuana, an irony fully intended.

Others trace it to a group of California teenagers who would meet at 4:20 p.m. to search for weed (a theory as elusive as the outdoor cannabis crop they were seeking). Yet the code stuck for obvious reasons: Authorities and nosy parents didn’t know what it meant.

In Colorado, recent 4/20 observations have blossomed alongside the state’s medical marijuana industry. Approved by Colorado voters in 2000, medical marijuana boomed after federal authorities signaled in 2009 they would pursue higher-level drug crimes. All marijuana is illegal under federal law, though Colorado voters this November will consider a ballot measure to legalize it for recreational use by adults over 21.

A larger rally is planned for Denver near the state capitol on Friday and Saturday. Police have suggested they’ll be taking a hands-off approach to the gathering, which could draw tens of thousands of people, said chief organizer Miguel Lopez.

Others are rebelling against the gatherings.

In Colorado, several high schools across the state are hosting drug-free events on Friday. The University of Colorado’s student government supports the university’s anti-4/20 actions this year. And other Colorado students created a Facebook campaign urging their colleagues to wear formal clothing to school on Friday to repudiate the party-school reputation.

Campus police officers will be stationed at school entrances, allowing in only those with university IDs or permission. Anyone on campus without proper ID could be ticketed for trespassing, which carries a maximum $750 fine and up to six months in jail, said campus police spokesman Ryan Huff.

Anyone caught smoking on campus will be ticketed, just as they would any other day, Huff said. That includes anyone with a medical marijuana card, which requires that consumption be in private.

Off campus, Boulder police could also issue tickets for people smoking pot, and the Colorado State Patrol will be watching for any motorists under the influence, Huff said.

“This is not about the war on drugs. It isn’t even about marijuana per se,” insisted Hilliard, the university spokesman. “Ten thousand to 12,000 (people) doing anything in the academic heart of the campus would be a problem.”

Associated Press writer Kristen Wyatt contributed to this report.

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Rema Rahman, The Associated Press
Published: April 20, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The Associated Press

Among the many broken promises of the 2008 campaign rests the widening destruction that was a key campaign promise for the eventual winner.  Then-Sen.  Obama promised in his campaign and eventually issued policy memorandums promising not to interfere with state-sanctioned medical marijuana.

I sincerely hope those of you who voted for him based on those promises of hope, change and transparency —- not to mention the end of civil rights violations —- have recognized the only trait the man carries that discriminates him from his predecessors is his skin color.

Congratulations, America; we finally have true equality when a black president can be just as horrible as his white predecessor.  Truly, equality has arrived.  For those of you still zealously supporting Comrade Zero, you haven’t done enough reading.

In the history of the U.S., few presidents have violated the Bill of Rights and Constitution as frequently as this alleged former-Constitutional Law professor.  I’m not a cheerleader for Colorado State’s Political Science Department, but I learned from two professors more knowledgeable of the Constitution than he’s demonstrated.  Then again, it’s likely he doesn’t care about the Constitution, which seems certain.

Regardless of his hate for checks and balances, Congressional authority and a litany of other areas in which he has unabashedly disappointed his voters, the hypocrisy is what aggravates me.  Not his —- he’s an Illinois politician educated in the Ivy League, hypocrisy is his first language, but the hypocrisy of his supporters.

I continue to point to the continued failure that is the drug war as proof the American voter has less influence on federal legislation than corporate entities.  In the year since I wrote about the contradictions of the federal alcohol and prescription painkiller laws compared to marijuana, the federal government not only reinvigorated their idiotic campaign against cannabis, but they’ve done so as a direct violation of executive policy.  Want to guess why?

The president is running for reelection from slightly-right-of-center.  He’s continued the interventionist foreign policy of the 20th century, he attempted to extend the occupation of Iraq, he’s going to support whatever version of SOPA Congress gives him as the American people slumber on and never mind the assassinations of American citizens.

Meanwhile, Ron Paul creeps along like the Constitutional Septuagenarian Ninja Turtle, not for three years, but for three decades of consistently calling for an end to the drug war, illustrating the folly of interventionist foreign policy and, with an eerily accurate understanding of economics you usually won’t hear from him.

But this year is different —- 2008 proved the “new media” of the Internet cannot be controlled by the “old media” of newspapers, TV and radio but the old media mirrored the new.

In 2012, young voters are realizing there is only one man in either party they can trust to keep his word to end draconian federal acts, and they are doing so almost entirely utilizing new media, as the old media has inexplicably failed to accurately cover the popularity of Paul’s campaign.

Admittedly, there are complicated reasons —- most of which revolve around the failure of primaries to identify the candidates most appealing to undecided, unregistered, third party and Independent voters.

In that specific area, Paul beats everyone.  Add registered Democrats to the mix and he’s the only Republican candidate to consistently beat the president in non-partisan polls.  But that runs counter to what the GOP actually wants.

Primaries are decided by the politically active members of each party, then the general election starts and both candidates race to the center.  This establishes a pattern of candidates changing positions like frightened rabbits, while providing as much leadership as the trailing end of a lemming migration.

But not my man Ron Paul —- this weekend his and a recently withdrawn candidate’s delegates took the majority of Colorado’s delegates to the national convention.  This isn’t over, and consistency of message may very well upset the apple cart of empty rhetoric.

Source: Rocky Mountain Collegian, The (Colorado State U, CO Edu)
Copyright: 2012 Rocky Mountain Collegian
Contact: http://www.collegian.com/home/lettertotheeditor/
Website: http://www.collegian.com/
Author: Seth Stern

I am what is commonly referred to as a Red Tory.  Which means that, while I am a card-carrying member of both the Conservative Party of Canada and the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario ( and a board member on both riding associations ), I don’t necessarily agree with everything that my two political parties set as policy.

And that’s fine; this is a democracy, and the policies of the parties I belong to are built from the grassroots-up.  Any party member can propose a policy or policy change, which then is debated locally, regionally, and nationally.

Most of us Red Tories are lockstep with the economic policies of the Conservative parties, but tend to be a little more relaxed when it comes to social policies.  I like to look at each of these issues individually, and base my opinions on my own understanding of the facts.

I don’t let my political beliefs drive my attitudes; it’s my attitudes and beliefs that drive my political affiliations.

And, in what my conservative colleagues will call a sharp left-turn, I think it’s high time ( pun intended ) that we legalize marijuana.

Now, I don’t smoke pot.  I am not advocating for the legalization of the stuff in the hopes that I will be able to get high in peace.  My reasons are more practical and pragmatic.

There are massive amounts of research into marijuana, its use, medical consequences of use, and its addictive properties.  The vast majority of the science indicates that marijuana is no more harmful to humans than alcohol or tobacco.

Yet, it has gained an unfair stigma as a “gateway drug.” Advocates of that theory postulate that because most harder-drug users admit to using marijuana in the past anyone who uses marijuana today runs the risk it will serve as a “gateway” to these more toxic, more addictive substances.

Yet, what those against the legalization of pot fail to mention is the fact that those who use harder drugs also admit to using tobacco and alcohol.

Besides, a reverse-proof argument like this has no merit.  All politicians may have ridden bicycles as children, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that all children who ride bicycles will become politicians.

Laws are implemented by our elected officials, and maintained by the state, for the protection of the citizenry.  Yet, the more I look at this issue, I see more harm coming to us from the “war on drugs” and illegality of marijuana than if it was legalized.

Prohibition of something high in demand never works – it didn’t work with alcohol, and it certainly doesn’t work with pot.  In fact, it creates a criminal industry that produces higher property crime rates, more violence, and less support for those who use the drug.

The economic side of it is what really blows my mind.  How many hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each year by our federal, provincial, and local police services to enforce these anti-marijuana laws?

Are we really winning this “war” against our own citizenry? Imagine the tax revenues and economic benefits that would come from completely legalizing and regulating the industry.

Would we need the austerity measures currently proposed by our federal and provincial governments if we had this additional tax base? Perhaps, but the level of cuts would probably be lessened.

In poll after poll, the majority of Canadians have indicated that they believe marijuana should be legalized.  I have yet to see a convincing argument to the contrary.

It’s up to each family to live by their own moral code; just because something is legal, doesn’t mean my family has to do it.  But if freedom is truly what we stand for, then it’s time our federal government listened to the majority.

Let’s legalize marijuana, and move on to solving more important issues.

Source: Intelligencer, The (CN ON)
Copyright: 2012, Osprey Media Group Inc.
Contact: http://www.intelligencer.ca/feedback1/LetterToEditor.aspx
Website: http://www.intelligencer.ca/
Author: Glenn May-Anderson

When federal agents raided Oaksterdam University, Richard Lee’s downtown Oakland, Calif.-based trade school, earlier this month, it wasn’t simply a crackdown on a local pot business, it was one of the highest-profile moves in the Obama administration’s nationwide assault on medical marijuana.

DEA and IRS agents hauled away computers, files and pot plants, leaving behind little more than office furniture. They did not disclose the reason for the raid and have not charged Lee with any crime as of yet. In an exclusive interview with The Huffington Post, his first since the raid, Lee, 49, blasted the federal crackdown as a senseless act of intimidation. “This is one battle of a big war,” said Lee, “and there’s thousands of battles going on all over.”

“Before he was elected, [President Barack Obama] promised to support medical marijuana and not waste federal resources on this,” Lee said. “About a year and a half ago, the policy seemed to change. They’ve been attacking many states, threatening governors of states to prevent them from signing legislation to allow medical marijuana. They’ve been attacking on many fronts.”

Lee was a vocal advocate behind California’s Proposition 19, a 2010 ballot question that sought to legalize marijuana. He put more than a million dollars behind the effort, which was opposed by the Obama administration and ultimately went down to defeat.

Medical marijuana is currently legal in California and 15 other states, plus the District of Columbia, and during his campaign for president, Obama vowed to stop the raids on medical marijuana users that were prevalent under George W. Bush, saying raiding patients who use marijuana for medicinal purposes “makes no sense.”

It was in that political climate, in the fall of 2007 that Oaksterdam was founded by Lee, who started using medical marijuana for pain control more than 20 years ago, after a work accident left him paralyzed from the waist down. Often referred to as “the Princeton of pot,” the school has offered classes to would-be medical cannabis caregivers and patients in subjects ranging from horticulture to business to the finer points of running a dispensary.

About 15,000 students have graduated from Oaksterdam to date, according to Dale Sky Jones, the school’s executive director. On October 15, 2010, however, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that federal authorities would continue to prosecute individuals for marijuana possession, even in states that have legalized it. That “threw a wet blanket” on enrollment at Oaksterdam, Jones said.

Then, last June, the Justice Department went even further. Deputy Attorney General James Cole argued in a memo that “caregiver” protections applied only to “individuals providing care to individuals with cancer or other serious illnesses, not commercial operations cultivating, selling or distributing marijuana.” That meant pot shops, even those operating legally under state law, were vulnerable again.

Since then, the administration has unleashed an interagency cannabis crackdown that goes beyond anything seen under the Bush administration, with more than 100 raids, primarily on California pot dispensaries, many of them operating in full compliance with state laws. Since October 2009, the Justice Department has conducted more than 170 aggressive SWAT-style raids in 9 medical marijuana states, resulting in at least 61 federal indictments, according to data compiled by Americans for Safe Access, an advocacy group. Federal authorities have also seized property from landlords who rent space to growers, threatening them with prosecution, and authorities have even considered taking action against newspapers selling ad space to dispensaries.

“There’s no question that Obama is the worst president on medical marijuana,” Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, told Rolling Stone in February.

The IRS has joined in the attack, invoking an arcane tax code provision originally intended to stymie druglords. That law, known as IRS Code Section 280E, is an uncontroversial measure aimed at preventing criminals from deducting the costs of their illicit activities from their taxable income. But the IRS has interpreted it to apply to medical marijuana dispensaries in such a way that they can no longer deduct the cost of salaries, rent, inventory and other operating expenses. Few brick-and-mortar businesses are able to survive under those terms, as taxes end up being substantially larger than profits.

Lee told HuffPost he thinks the tax issue is where the school may have run into trouble with the authorities.

“It may have something to do with the 280E taxes we’ve been forced to pay,” he said. “It was impossible to pay them on top of the other taxes we’re forced to pay: $60,000 to the City of Oakland for the permit fee, $130,000 for the Oakland Business Tax, 10 percent state sales tax, state income tax, federal income tax, unemployment insurance, workman’s comp insurance, health insurance.”

“Our income tax more than doubled because payroll, rent and other tax deductions were disallowed,” he added. “On top of this, the federal government has been closing our bank accounts, making it more difficult for us to operate as a normal business and pay our taxes.”

Jones said she’s almost surprised the raid didn’t come sooner. “There’s just no way we can afford the building as it is,” she said. “We always half expected it.”

The IRS used the same provision in late 2011 to pursue Oakland’s Harborside Health Center, one of the largest and most respected dispensaries in the state, demanding $2.4 million in taxes, a full $2 million more than the 83,000-member dispensary actually paid for the year. “Federal prosecutors are not trying to clean up the regulated medical cannabis industry, they are trying to destroy it,” said Harborside President Steve DeAngelo at a press conference in San Francisco in October.

“This is not just an attempt to tax us,” he explained earlier this year. “It’s an attempt to tax us out of existence.”

Harborside has filed a petition in tax court to protest the IRS’ assessment, which Harborside has characterized as “a dagger pointed at the heart of medical cannabis.”

U.S. attorneys have repeatedly claimed that the decision to crack down on medical pot establishments was their own decision and not the result of any directive from Washington.

“The actions taken by U.S. attorneys are solely in response to concerns expressed in their communities and by law enforcement about the proliferation of large-scale grow facilities and distributors that clearly fall outside of the definition of individual caregiver,” Justice Department spokesperson Laura Sweeney said.

Deputy attorney Cole has argued that the memo speaks for itself and has refused to say whether the crackdown in California represents a shift in federal policy that could lead to raids in other states.

It wasn’t the policy that shifted, according to Sweeney, but rather “the landscape has evolved,” she said, citing “industrial-scale marijuana operations planned in several states.”

With the apparent disconnect between Obama’s 2007 campaign promises and the actions of his administration over the last four years, voters may be skeptical of any statements out of the incumbent in the course of the coming election. The issue itself has growing and wide-spread support among the electorate. Gallup has found that a full 70 percent of Americans favor the legalization of prescription marijuana to reduce pain and suffering. In Colorado, a key swing state, two-thirds of voters favor legalizing medical marijuana.

If Lee is charged, Jones says she hopes his case goes before a jury. “If they bring a fight, Richard is prepared to take it all the way,” she said. “They can come after the guy in the wheelchair, and he’ll stand up for his rights and the rights of the rest of us.”

“It makes me irate that this is how we’re spending our resources right now,” she said of the federal raids. “And to watch them try to take down a school that’s teaching everyone how to do it right, it just puts the exclamation point on it.”

Oaksterdam, which will cease operations at its current location at the end of the month, “will have to start from scratch,” said Jones, who is looking for a smaller, more affordable home.

Lee, for his part, is largely stepping away from Oaksterdam and is planning to focus his efforts on campaigns in Colorado and Washington state, where legalization initiatives are on the ballot this year.

As for the administration’s murky position on drug legalization, Lee takes a dim view. “They can’t have their cake and eat it, too,” he said. “They can’t keep it illegal and tax it. No more taxation without legalization.”

Carly Schwartz contributed reporting.

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Lucia Graves
Published: April 18, 2012
Copyright: 2012 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Leaders at a summit meeting of many of the Western Hemisphere nations on Saturday discussed alternatives to what many consider a failed “war on drugs” that is too reliant on military action and imprisonment. But President Obama said flatly that “legalization is not the answer.”

The issue was placed on the agenda of the Summit of the Americas this weekend by the host, Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos. Even so, Mr. Santos suggested that he had in mind some unspecified middle ground short of fully decriminalizing the drug trade that for years has undermined societies throughout the region, notably in Colombia.

“We have the obligation to see if we’re doing the best that we can do, or are there other alternatives that can be much more efficient?” Mr. Santos said during an informal panel discussion with Mr. Obama and President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil just before the summit meeting began. “One side can be all the consumers go to jail. On the other extreme is legalization. On the middle ground, we may have more practical policies.”

In his turn, Mr. Obama said, “I think it is entirely legitimate to have a conversation about whether the laws in place are ones that are doing more harm than good in certain places.”

But, he added, “I personally, and my administration’s position, is that legalization is not the answer.” Drug operations could come to “dominate certain countries if they were allowed to operate legally without any constraint,” he said, and “could be just as corrupting if not more corrupting then the status quo.”

The prominence of the drug-enforcement issue at the meeting, which drew more than 30 leaders from North, Central and South America and Caribbean nations, in part reflected a positive development: the increased prosperity in Latin America in recent years has made economic issues less of a problem, and at the same time has emboldened Latin American leaders to take a bigger role in setting the agenda when they meet.

Mr. Santos, in opening the meeting on Saturday afternoon, said the leaders should stop stalling in re-examining the region’s approach to the war on drugs, which he dated more than four decades back to President Richard Nixon in 1971. President Otto Pérez Molina of Guatemala has called for full legalization of narcotics, though no specific proposals are on the table here.

“Despite all of the efforts, the immense efforts, the huge costs, we have to recognize that the illicit drug business is prospering,” Mr. Santos told the leaders. “This summit is not going to resolve this issue,” he added. “But it can be a starting point to begin a discussion that we have been postponing for far too long.”

Mr. Obama, in his remarks at the formal session, before reporters were ushered out, said: “I know there are frustrations and that some call for legalization. For the sake of the health and safety of our citizens — all our citizens — the United States will not be going in this direction.”

Earlier, on the informal panel before an audience of corporate executives and members of the nations’ official delegations, Mr. Obama had drawn applause when he said of narcotics trafficking, “We can’t look at the issue of supply in Latin America without also looking at the issue of demand in the United States.”

Latin Americans have long complained that the United States criticizes its neighbors’ antidrug efforts when it is American users and guns that stoke the drug trade and violence.

At the formal meeting, Mr. Obama said: “As I’ve said many times, the United States accepts our share of responsibility for drug violence. That’s why we’ve dedicated major resources to reducing the southbound flow of money and guns to the region. It’s why we’ve devoted tens of billions of dollars in the United States to reduce the demand for drugs. And I promise you today — we’re not going to relent in our efforts.”

Absent from the meeting was Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, who is battling cancer; officials said he stayed away on his doctors’ advice. The absence of Mr. Chávez, a fierce critic of the United States, eliminated the potential for a tense meeting with Mr. Obama. After the previous Summit of the Americas in 2009, when the two presidents were photographed shaking hands, Mr. Obama was criticized by some Republicans.

Separately, in an interview with Univision, Mr. Obama strongly reiterated a promise to seek an overhaul of immigration policy in a second term. But Mr. Obama, who also pledged in 2008 to seek a new law, said he needed more support in Congress, where Republicans have led the opposition.

“This is something I care deeply about,” he said. “It’s personal to me.”

Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Jackie Calmes
Published: April 14, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The New York Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/

President Barack Obama touted a progressive attitude on medical marijuana on the campaign trail, but since taking office, Obama’s administration has hardened its stance and supporters of the drug are crying foul on the flip-flop.

In a March 2008 interview, Obama told the Oregon Mail Tribune that medical marijuana ranked low on his list of priorities.

“I think the basic concept of using medical marijuana for the same purposes and with the same controls as other drugs prescribed by doctors, I think that’s entirely appropriate,” Obama said. “I’m not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue.” But the numbers tell another story.

Since October 2009, Americans for Safe Access, a group committed to legalizing medical marijuana, estimates the Justice Department has carried out 170 raids on dispensaries and cultivation facilities in nine states.

“Every time a dispensary is shut down, there are literally hundreds of people waking up that day wondering where they will get their medication,” saysKris Hermes, the spokesperson for the Americans for Safe Access.

Hermes says he’s confident that the number of raids since the president took office is actually around 200.

“He’s broadened his attack,” Hermes says. “Until Obama was elected, George W. Bush had the most aggressive posture toward medical marijuana…he’s been even more aggressive than his predecessor.”

Americans for Safe Access estimates that during the entire eight years of the Bush administration, roughly 200 raids were carried out, something Hermes says the Obama administration has accomplished in less than four years.

Asked why the Obama administration had been so aggressive in pursuing federal drug law violations involving medical marijuana, the DOJ told Whispers, “Sorry, we do not have statistics to support [that accusation].”

Pro-marijuana groups say Obama has expanded the attack on medical marijuana from DOJ to a wide array of other federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, which has lead dozens of audits of medical marijuana businesses. The IRS has also aggressively penalized medical marijuana businesses for selling an illegal drug by requiring the businesses to pay federal taxes on gross income, not net income, eliminating the tax break most businesses receive from deducting payroll costs.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development released a memo in 2011that allows public housing agencies to evict tenants who use medical marijuana. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also issued a memo in September banning the commercial sale of firearms to medical marijuana patients.

There are 16 states and the District of Columbia that have their own medical marijuana laws.

And experts say U.S. attorneys’ threats against local and state officials who enact medical marijuana laws in their states have even slowed down the implementation of new laws in Arizona, Montana, Rhode Island, and Washington.

“It’s a weaselly threat, but it has scared a few governors,” says Bill Piper, the director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, a group committed to finding alternatives to current drug laws. “The intensity and multi-agency assault is far worse than the Bush administration and the Clinton administration.”

Allen St. Pierre, executive director for NORML, which seeks to reform marijuana laws, says the president might have political as well as legal motivations for reversing his initial position on medical marijuana. St. Pierre argues that current laws prohibit the Obama administration from turning a blind eye to state’s medical marijuana legalization.

“In essence, the administration is sort of hamstrung,” St. Pierre says.

St. Pierre says letting states regulate marijuana as they please would burn up a lot of the president’s political capital, adding that Obama has to take action or he risks earning a reputation in 2012 election as soft on drugs.

Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Author: Lauren Fox, U.S. News & World Report
Published: April 12, 2012
Copyright: 2012 Chicago Tribune Company
Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/

Enderby politicians want marijuana decriminalized and taxed.

A majority of council voted Monday to ask senior government to regulate cannabis as a way of reducing crime, rationalizing police resources and creating a new source of revenue for communities.

“We’re not saying we agree with marijuana but the current process is not working and it fuels the gangs,” said Mayor Howie Cyr, a former RCMP officer.

“Instead of throwing countless people into jail ( for marijuana possession ) and spending money on enforcement, treat it like cigarettes or prescription drugs.”

Cyr believes marijuana-related investigations, which can take years, can be a drain on policing resources, and they prevent authorities from dealing with other matters.

“Smaller communities paying for policing are being hit really hard.”

Cyr suggests a new approach to marijuana could also benefit those who use the substance.

“We need to regulate it and tax it and put money into education and rehabilitation,” he said.

Lone opposition came from Coun.  Beryl Ludwig.

“Any drug addicts or former addicts you talk to say they started with marijuana,” she said.

“Marijuana is the gateway to harder drugs.”

Ludwig admits, though, that she understands the concerns about drug-related crime and police officers spending time on marijuana grow-ops that keep surfacing in the community.

“It would be nice to have the taxes from marijuana but would the taxes be enough to pay for the people that need rehabilitation?” she said.

“It’s hard to legalize something that wrecks so many lives.”

The officer in charge of the North Okanagan RCMP was reluctant to comment on Enderby council’s decision.

“The RCMP’s position is the politicians make the laws and we enforce them,” said Supt.  Reg Burgess.

“At this point, we are going with the laws given to us to enforce and there is no change there.”

Council decided to lobby for cannabis control after a request from Stop the Violence B.C., which advocates for a new approach to marijuana.

“The coalition, along with other organizations such as the Health Officers Council of B.C.  and the Canadian Public Health Association, believes that a strictly regulated legal market for marijuana could better control availability of the drug while at the same time starve organized crime of this enormous cash cow,” said Evan Wood, Stop the Violence B.C.  spokesperson and a University of B.C.  professor of medicine.

Source: Morning Star, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 The Morning Star
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.vernonmorningstar.com/
Author: Richard Rolke