Cannabis – Page 142

14 Jun 2013

Colorado Localities Make Own Rules On MJ Sales

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As Colorado moves closer to issuing temporary regulations on the sale of marijuana, now legal in small quantities here, some cities and towns are not waiting for the new rules to take effect.

More than a dozen municipalities across the state have decided to enact moratoriums on retail marijuana sales, restricting them for now or at least until after the rules are finalized later this year.

Others, unsettled at the prospect of dispensaries within their borders, have banned marijuana sales entirely — which they are permitted to do under Amendment 64, the 2012 constitutional amendment passed by voters that legalized recreational use of the drug.

“As we talked to our police department and our building code enforcement people, it didn’t seem to be a very logical answer for us,” said Mayor Tom Norton of Greeley, a conservative farm town north of Denver that banned marijuana sales outright this month. “It seemed like it had the potential for creating more mischief than what we wanted to put up with.”

Discussions about how marijuana is to be regulated, and how the state will handle a legal drug market, played a central role during Colorado’s 2013 legislative session. Meanwhile, communities from Littleton to Vail have taken it upon themselves to ponder the issue publicly.

In the past six months, a task force of lawmakers, representatives of the state’s growing marijuana industry and others have wrestled with developing the rules.

Initial regulations, including licensing provisions — described as “emergency rules” by the Colorado Department of Revenue — will go into effect on July 1. Permanent rules will be drafted later this summer.

Voters will also consider proposed sales and excise taxes on marijuana on the ballot in November. The first license to sell marijuana in Colorado will not be issued until 2014.

But in the meantime, local governments have until October to decide whether they will allow licensed marijuana businesses to start operating in their areas early next year.

Not surprisingly, reactions in Colorado’s communities have varied according to whether their citizens supported Amendment 64.

In Denver, where residents overwhelmingly backed the measure and medical marijuana dispensaries line thoroughfares, city councilors have indicated their desire to move forward with marijuana sales.

Smaller communities like Montrose, the seat of Montrose County, where most voters opposed legalization, have chosen to prohibit sales.

Some have opted for a middle ground.

City councilors here in Aurora, for example, voted last week to delay the date when residents could start applying for marijuana business licenses to next May, so that local officials could take more time to devise their own regulations.

“There is another legislative session next year following the ballot issue this fall, which could change everything,” Mayor Steve Hogan said. “We’re interested in the possibilities related to retail establishments. But we’re not going to do anything until next spring.”

According to data compiled by the Colorado Municipal League, nearly three dozen cities and towns have banned retail marijuana sales outright so far, while 25 have passed moratoriums.

But Christian Sederberg, a lawyer with the Amendment 64 campaign, pointed out that many local governments had taken no action and were planning to embrace the new law.

And he said he thought it was more prudent for officials to examine the regulations after they were codified before deciding on a full-scale ban.

“I think opting out before you’ve seen the regulations on July 1 is premature,” he said. “A lot of these officials don’t understand that there is nothing compelling them to act right now.”

If, after reviewing the final rules, a community opts out, “then that’s something people can live with,” he added.

Officials in the state’s second-largest city, Colorado Springs, will be weighing the issue at a meeting this month.

Voters in El Paso County, where the city is situated, were split down the middle on the question of legalization.

The City Council president, Keith King, said he believed most residents were in favor of a moratorium on marijuana sales until the final rules and taxes were fully in place.

“For us, we’re making sure our approach doesn’t hurt the military bases here and doesn’t hurt the economy,” Mr. King said. “We’ll be very deliberative on this and take our time, no matter which way we go.”

A version of this article appeared in print on June 13, 2013, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Decisions About Marijuana Sales Loom for Colorado Localities.

Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Dan Frosch
Published: June 13, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The New York Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/

14 Jun 2013

Obama Helps Nip Pot Legalization In Latin America

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President Obama helped prevent a move toward pot legalization by some Latin American leaders. But will he be as bold against Colorado, Washington state?

Peter Bensinger, a former Drug Enforcement Administration chief, was one of eight former DEA chiefs who recently spoke out in favor of the federal government needing to nullify Colorado and Washington’s laws legalizing recreational marijuana use. They said the Obama administration has reacted too slowly and should immediately sue to force the states to rescind the legislation.

For all the political flak that President Obama is receiving for digital surveillance of Americans, he deserves some praise for protecting Americans on another front. His administration has helped dampen moves by some Latin American leaders to legalize marijuana in the Western Hemisphere.

The Christian Science Monitor

A meeting of the Organization of the American States ended Thursday in Guatemala without the expected “serious” discussion among the 34 nations to legalize pot. Just last month, an OAS report recommended legalization as one alternative to the current anti-drug approaches.

The report, which called for “flexibility,” came as quite a shock to many in the region. Polls in most of Latin America, unlike in the United States, show legalization to be unpopular.

Leaders in a few states, such as Uruguay and Guatemala, favor legalization. Others, such as in Brazil and Peru, decidedly do not. Yet with two states in the US ( Washington and Colorado ) having legalized recreational use of pot last year, some in Latin America saw an opening to push Mr. Obama to bend.

Fortunately, his secretary of State, John Kerry, did not accommodate such voices at the OAS assembly. “These challenges simply defy any simple, one-shot, Band-Aid” approach, he said. “Drug abuse destroys lives, tears at communities of all of our countries.” Other administration officials have been working for months to squash the region’s legalization efforts.

A few Latin American leaders were more explicit than Mr. Kerry. “We need a policy that is anti-crime and not pro-drug,” said Alva Baptiste, St. Lucia’s foreign minister. And Nicaragua’s OAS envoy, Denis Moncada, said, “Replacing and weakening the public policies and strategies now in use to combat the hemispheric drug problem would end up creating dangerous voids and jeopardize the security and well-being of our citizens.” Many of the region’s drug experts say countries need to focus on rule of law, addiction treatment, and gang suppression.

Obama does need to be plain about federal intentions toward legalization in the US. His embattled attorney general, Eric Holder, must uphold federal law by cracking down on the selling of recreational marijuana in Washington and Colorado. If he doesn’t, the president can hardly complain about states defying aspects of his Affordable Care Act ( “Obamacare” ).

Drug-producing countries such as Mexico, Colombia, and Peru that have suffered from a military approach in the struggle against trafficking cannot be faulted for seeking different approaches. They are right to point to the US, which is the world’s largest consumer of illicit drugs, as a major cause of their woes. But drug trafficking is also a sign that such countries need fundamental reform to root out corruption and raise social indicators. Both Mexico and Colombia are well along that path.

The uncertainties of legalizing pot, let alone the moral arguments against government promoting its use, call for Obama to be vigilant against legalization. He has now done that strongly abroad. He must do much better at home.

Source: Christian Science Monitor (US)
Copyright: 2013 The Christian Science Publishing Society
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.csmonitor.com/

13 Jun 2013

The Many Different Faces Of Marijuana In America

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On Tuesday, Vermont moved to decriminalize the possession of marijuana for quantities up to an ounce, replacing potential prison time for arrests with fines.

Peter Shumlin, the state’s governor, made a telling distinction between weed and “harder” drugs when he announced the move. “This legislation allows our courts and law enforcement to focus their limited resources more effectively to fight highly addictive opiates such as heroin and prescription drugs that are tearing apart families and communities,” he said.

The idea that weed isn’t that big a deal and that governments need to readjust their priorities is pretty common. There’s little vocal anti-pot government outcry, no temperance movement analog for cannabis. Recent polls have found that a majority of Americans think marijuana should be legalized.

Even our mainstream faces of stoner culture are generally silly, harmless and amiable (Jeff Spicoli, Cheech & Chong, Harold & Kumar, and whatever Snoop is calling himself these days) except when they’re revered and saintly (read: Bob Marley). On TV, there was Weeds, a dramedy about an upper-middle-class widow who starts selling marijuana to make ends meet. Change the drug to something else like heroin or meth, drugs with more sinister reputations, and it becomes something much darker. You’d pretty much have to go all the way back to Reefer Madness to find a widely seen film that portrayed pot as dangerous or threatening. (And the whole reason we all know about that movie is because the concerns at its center are often mocked as kitschy and histrionic.)

Mona Lynch, a professor at the University of California, Irvine who studies the criminal justice system, says that stereotypes of marijuana usage in popular culture don’t come across as very threatening. “There’s not a lot of uproar around marijuana [as] a crushing problem,” she says.

But this image of weed use as benign recreation or banal nuisance doesn’t square with another great fact of American life — the War on Drugs. And more and more, that War on Drugs means marijuana.

Ezekiel Edwards, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Criminal Law Reform Project, says that 10 years ago, marijuana possession arrests made up 37 percent of all drug arrests. And now? “Half of all drug arrests are now marijuana-related,” he says — and 9 in 10 of those are for possession.

The focus of the continuing law enforcement battle on marijuana lands disproportionately on people of color. The ACLU crunched some Justice Department numbers on drug arrests, and released a much-discussed report last week on their findings. The upshot: African-Americans are four times as likely to be arrested for possessing marijuana than whites, even though blacks and whites consume weed at about the same rate.

For blacks — and black men in particular — marijuana is a gateway drug into the criminal justice system.

“The thing that was shocking about the report was the pervasiveness, that this [disparity in arrests] is happening everywhere,” Lynch tells me. “It’s happening in small towns, big towns, urban and rural.”

Both Edwards and Lynch say that part of the reason marijuana is getting more attention from law enforcement agencies is that police departments are being subsidized with lots of federal dollars to stop drugs, but the crack epidemic has since waned. “Institutions don’t like to shrink,” Lynch says. “It’s actually a reverse kind of pattern — drug arrests are going up [even] as crime drops.”

At the same time that marijuana’s become a more central focus of the War on Drugs, there are plenty of business types who are already making their plans for selling marijuana after, uh, all the smoke clears. They’re trying to give pot an altogether new face: as a widely available commercial product backed by big business. No one knows what that market might even look like quite yet, but it could be incredibly lucrative.

Might you be able to cop some weed at your supermarket behind the counter with cigarettes? Would your favorite coffee shop start selling some “extra special” lattes? What about an over-the-counter headache medicine packaged in a box with a little green leaf in the corner?

Seriously — it might not be that far-fetched.

Don Pellicer, a company that hopes to open marijuana stores in Washington and Colorado, is looking for investors. Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, was a guest speaker at a Don Pellicer event last week, and has said that he would grow marijuana if weren’t against the law. “Once it’s legitimate and legal, sure, I could do it,” he told reporters. “I’m a farmer. Producers of all types can participate.” (Fox, it’s worth noting, used to run Coca-Cola in Mexico, and its sales jumped by 50 percent during his tenure.)

There are already vending machine companies working on cannabis-dispensing kiosks for retail stores for the people who don’t want the hassle of humoring those talky connoisseur types. “The way we see it, when you walk into a shop, you don’t need the expert or aficionado to help with selection,” says the head of one such vending company. “The people who are using this in the recreational space — they know what they want, and they don’t want to hear the whole spiel every time.”

And there are all the industrial, non-psychoactive applications. Hemp fiber, which is especially strong, is already used in all sorts of textiles. One researcher told writer Doug Fine that a decade after weed became legal, a domestic hemp industry would sprout up in the United States to the tune of $50 billion a year — which would outpace the estimates of what smokable reefer would bring in.

“When America’s 100 million cannabis aficionados (17 million regular partakers) are freed from dealers, some are going to pick up a six-pack of joints at the corner store before heading to a barbecue, and others are going to seek out organically grown heirloom strains for their vegetable dip,” Fine wrote.

So now we have to reconcile the many different faces of marijuana — a jokey, pop-culture staple, a continuing fascination of law enforcement agencies whose attentions fall disproportionately on people of color, and the potential cash crop of a bright, green future.

Which of these will give way? Or will any of them?

Source: National Public Radio (US)
Author: Gene Demby
Published: June 12, 2013
Copyright: 2013 National Public Radio
Website: http://www.npr.org/
Contact: http://www.npr.org/contact/

12 Jun 2013

Bill Maher on The Greening of America

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It’s a brave new pothead world. Until fairly recently, even a year ago, I would not have guessed that we would be at the place we are now – with 18 states legalizing medical marijuana and, according to one recent poll, a whopping 85 percent of the nation supporting medical use. For all our political rancor, it turns out, what ultimately unites us is pot. Weed is one of the few things that both hillbillies and hippies like. Rappers smoke pot, and country artists smoke pot. There’s just as much pot on Willie Nelson’s tour bus as there is on Snoop Dogg’s tour bus. Marijuana is bridging the red and blue divide and becoming a purple issue.

For those who worry that we will become a nation that sits on the couch eating Cheetos all day, relax. Smoking pot does not equal laziness. Weed was something I could always justify because it excited my brain. Some people it puts to sleep, others it turns paranoid. Some it makes creative, and we’re the lucky ones, because if it has done any damage to us, at least we have a receipt. I’ve gotten a lot of good ideas from pot. Including smoke more pot.

Legalization is another one of those issues, like gay marriage, that drives the Tea Bag people crazy. That Leave It to Beaver black-and-white 1950s image that Mitt Romney fit into so well is going away, and one big reason is marijuana. Bill Clinton once said, “If you look back on the Sixties and think there was more good than harm, you’re probably a Democrat. If you think there was more harm than good, you’re probably a Republican.” Well, for those people who loved the Fifties, pot played a huge role in the cultural revolution that they detest.

The Next Seven States to Legalize Pot: http://www.cannabisnews.org/the-next-seven-states-to-legalize-pot/2012/12/20/

Republicans have always been an uneasy alliance of Jesus freaks, gun nuts, generic obese suburbanites and the super-rich, but what binds them is this idea that life was perfect in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1958. As soon as President Obama was elected, this visual of a black guy who liked smoking pot walking into the White House was too much. Whenever you hear them say, “I want my country back” – from what? Did Blackmanistan invade us? They may want it back, but that America is gone forever.

Of course, there’s a big economic incentive to legalizing marijuana. More than a decade ago, there was a county in Georgia where the people fired the sheriff because he was busting pot farmers. The crop was their lifeblood, so they got rid of the hardass and elected a sheriff who pledged to look the other way. That’s the kind of sea change that’s happening in America right now. If 40 years of abject failure of the War on Drugs has taught us anything, it’s that the customer base is large, strong and loyal. So as in everything, money talks. And money is there to be made. There’s no going back. We’ve reached the tipping point, legal marijuana is here to stay – it’s just a matter of how fast it will happen across the country.

This story is from the June 20th, 2013 issue of Rolling Stone.

Newshawk: John Tyler
Source: Rolling Stone (US)
Author: Bill Maher
Published: June 10, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Straight Arrow Publishers Company, L.P.
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.rollingstone.com/

10 Jun 2013

Five Myths About Legalizing Marijuana

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With 16 states having decriminalized or legalized cannabis for non-medical use and eight more heading toward some kind of legalization, federal prohibition’s days seem numbered. You might wonder what America will look like when marijuana is in the corner store and at the farmers market. In three years spent researching that question, I found some ideas about the plant that just don’t hold up.

1. If pot is legal, more people will use it.

As drug policy undergoes big changes, I’ve been watching rates of youth cannabis use with interest. As it is for most fathers, the well-being of my family is the most important thing in my life. Whether you like the plant or not, as with alcohol, only adults should be allowed to partake of intoxicating substances. But youth cannabis use is near its highest level ever in the United States. When I spoke at a California high school recently and asked, “Who thinks cannabis is easier to obtain than alcohol?,” nearly every hand shot up.

In Portugal, by contrast, youth rates fell from 2002 to 2006, after all drugs were legalized there in 2001. Similarly, a 2011 Brown University-led study of middle and high school students in Rhode Island found no increases in adolescent use after the state legalized medical marijuana in 2006.

As for adult use, the numbers are mixed. A 2011 University of California at Berkeley study, for example, showed a slight increase in adult use with de facto legalization in the Netherlands (though the rate was still lower than in the United States). Yet that study and one in 2009 found Dutch rates to be slightly lower than the European average. When the United States’ 40-year-long war on marijuana ends, the country is not going to turn into a Cheech and Chong movie. It is, however, going to see the transfer of as much as 50 percent of cartel profits to the taxable economy.

2. Law enforcement officials oppose legalization.

It is true that many law enforcement lobby groups don’t want to end America’s most expensive war (which has cost $1 trillion and counting), but that’s because they’re the reason it’s so expensive. In 2010, two-thirds of federal spending on the drug war, $10 billion, went toward law enforcement and interdiction.

But law enforcement rank and file know the truth about the drug war’s profligate and ineffective spending, says former Los Angeles deputy police chief Stephen Downing, one of 5,000 public safety professionals who make up the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “Most law enforcers find it difficult not to recognize the many harms caused by our current drug laws,” he wrote to me in an e-mail. Those harms include, according to a new ACLU report, marijuana-possession arrests that are skewed heavily toward minorities.

Since marijuana prohibition drives the drug war, these huge costs would end when federal cannabis law changes. Sheriff Tom Allman in Mendocino County, Calif., helped permit, inspect and protect local cannabis farmers in 2010 and 2011. When I asked him why, he said: “This county has problems: domestic violence, meth, poverty. Marijuana isn’t even in the top 10. I want it off the front pages so I can deal with the real issues.”

3. Getting high would be the top revenue generator for the cannabis plant.

I called both of my U.S. senators’ offices to support inserting a provision into this year’s farm bill to legalize hemp for domestic cultivation. Based on my research on industrial cannabis, commonly called hemp, I’m staggered by the potential of this plant, which is not the variety you smoke.

In Canada, where 90 percent of the crop is bought by U.S. consumers, the government researches the best varieties for its hemp farmers, rather than refusing to issue them permits, as the United States tends to do. In a research facility in Manitoba, I saw a tractor whose body was made entirely of hemp fiber and binding. BMW and Dodgeuse hemp fibers in their door panels, and homes whose insulation and wall paneling are made partially of hemp represent a fast-growing trend in the European construction industry.

Jack Noel, who co-authored a 2012 industrial hemp task force report for the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, says that “within 10 years of the end of the war on drugs, we’ll see a $50 billion domestic hemp industry.” That’s bigger than the $40 billion some economists predict smoked cannabis would bring in.

Foods such as cereal and salad dressing are the biggest U.S. markets for hemp today, but industrial cannabis has the brightest future in the energy sector, where a Kentucky utility is planning to grow hemp for biomass energy.

4. Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol would control the legal cannabis industry.

In 1978, the Carter administration changed alcohol regulations to allow for microbreweries. Today the craft-beer market is worth $10.2 billion annually. The top-shelf cannabis farmers in California’s Emerald Triangle realize this potential. “We’re creating an international brand, like champagne and Parmigiano cheese,” says Tomas Balogh, co-founder of the Emerald Growers Association in Humboldt, Calif. Get ready for the bud and breakfast.

When America’s 100 million cannabis aficionados (17 million regular partakers) are freed from dealers, some are going to pick up a six-pack of joints at the corner store before heading to a barbecue, and others are going to seek out organically grown heirloom strains for their vegetable dip.

As Balogh puts it: “When people ask me if the small farmer or the big corporation will benefit from the end of prohibition, I say, ‘Both.’ The cannabis industry is already decentralized and farmer-owned. It’s up to consumers to keep it that way.” So Big Alcohol might control the corner store, but not the fine-wine shop or the farmers’ market.

5. In the heartland, legalization is a political nonstarter.

President Obama, in an interview last December, for the first time took seriously a question about the legalization of cannabis. He said that he didn’t yet support it but that he had “bigger fish to fry” than harassing Colorado and Washington.

In Colorado in 2012, 40 percent of Republican voters chose to legalize cannabis, and a greater share of Coloradans voted for legalization than voted for Obama.

In Arizona, a pretty conservative and silver state, 56 percent of those in a poll last month supported regulating cannabis for personal use. Maybe fiscal conservatives know about the $35 billion in annual nationwide tax savings that ending prohibition would bring. In Illinois, 63 percent of voters support medicinal marijuana, and they’re likely to get it. Even 60 percent of Kentuckians favor medical cannabis.

I’m not surprised. I live in a conservative valley in New Mexico. Yet as a woman in line at the post office recently told me: “It’s pills that killed my cousin. Fightin’ pot just keeps those dang cartels in business.”

Doug Fine is the author of “Too High to Fail: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution,” in which he followed one legal medicinal cannabis plant from farm to patient.

Source: Washington Post (DC)
Author: Doug Fine
Published: June 7, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Washington Post Company
Contact: [email protected]

8 Jun 2013

Colorado Regulators Ditch ‘Absurd’ Rule

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Marijuana-themed publications won’t be treated like pornography in Colorado, state regulators announced Thursday in the face of lawsuits.

The rule would have forced stores to keep publications with a “primary focus” on pot away from shoppers under the age of 21, and was mandated by a package of legislature-approved marijuana regulations signed into law by Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper on May 28.

Colorado’s State Licensing Authority said the rule was unconstitutional and would be ignored. An “emergency rule” issued by the licensing authority said “such a requirement would violate the United States Constitution” and Colorado law.

The decision was made with input from the state attorney general’s office. “We support the laudable goal of keeping retail marijuana out of the hands of those under 21, but that has to be consistent with the Constitution,” a spokesperson for the state attorney general told The Denver Post.

Colorado’s marijuana-regulating legislation mandated that the licensing authority adopt a rule by July 1 “requiring that magazines whose primary focus is marijuana or marijuana businesses are only sold in retail marijuana stores or behind the counter in establishments where persons under [21] years of age are present.”

“We applaud the Attorney General’s decision to declare as unconstitutional this absurd rule that marijuana-related publications be treated like pornographic material,” said Mason Tvert, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project.

“The idea that stores can prominently display magazines touting the joys of drinking wine and smoking cigars, yet banish those that discuss a far safer substance to behind the counter, is absolutely absurd,” said Tvert, who co-directed the successful Amendment 64 campaign that legalized pot in Colorado. “The fact that legislators passed this rule despite being informed it is a gross violation of the U.S. Constitution demonstrates the bigotry that still exists with regard to marijuana. It is time for our elected leaders to get over their reefer madness and recognize that a majority of Coloradans – and a majority of Americans – think marijuana should be legal for adults.”

It’s unclear if other restrictions might be deemed unconstitutional. Two federal lawsuits, one filed by the three pot publications – High Times Magazine, The Daily Doobie and The Hemp Connoisseur – and another by the ACLU on behalf of booksellers, had sought to have the rule declared unconstitutional in court.

Permanent rules for recreational marijuana will be crafted by Colorado’s State Licensing Authority with input from an appointed “representative group” of citizens over the summer. A formal rule-making hearing is scheduled for the week of August 19.

Source: U.S. News & World Report (US)
Author: Steven Nelson
Published: June 6, 2013
Copyright: 2013 U.S. News & World Report
Website: http://www.usnews.com/

8 Jun 2013

It’s Time To End Failed War On Marijuana

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Marijuana has become the drug of choice for police departments nationwide — a trend that is playing out with serious consequences here in Brown County.

According to a new report released Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union, police have turned much of their zeal for fighting the failed War on Drugs toward the enforcement of marijuana laws in communities across Wisconsin and the country.

In 2010, cops in Wisconsin busted someone for having marijuana once every 28 minutes. The majority of these arrests are happening in communities of color. Despite roughly comparable usage rates, blacks in Wisconsin are nearly six times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession.

These racial disparities are particularly bad in Brown County. Compared to other Wisconsin counties with more than 300,000 residents, in 2010 Brown had the third-highest rate of racial disparity for marijuana possession arrests.

Black people in Brown County are more than seven times more likely than whites to be arrested for the same offense — even though blacks constitute only 2.2 percent of Brown County’s population.

And across Wisconsin, these disparities are only getting worse. Between 2001 and 2010, racial disparities in marijuana possession arrests soared more than 150 percent. Only two other states in the nation had higher increases during this period.

The aggressive enforcement of marijuana possession laws in Wisconsin needlessly ensnares thousands of people in the criminal justice system, crowds our jails, diverts precious police resources away from focusing on serious crimes, and wastes millions of taxpayer dollars. In 2010 alone, Wisconsin blew as much as $73.1 million enforcing marijuana laws.

Legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana in Wisconsin would end racially biased enforcement. Taxing and regulating marijuana would also save millions of dollars currently spent on enforcement while raising millions more in revenue, which could be invested in community and public health programs, including drug treatment.

Barring legalization, state legislators should work with law enforcement to de-penalize marijuana possession by removing all civil and criminal penalties. Low-level marijuana possession should be decriminalized to a civil offense, and prosecutors should focus on more serious offenses.

Brown County police departments can take action by reforming policing practices, including ending racial profiling, unconstitutional stops, frisks, searches, and programs that create incentives for officers to make low-level drug arrests.

This is an issue of racial justice, fiscal responsibility and common sense. What’s happening in Brown County, all over Wisconsin and across the nation proves that it’s time to end the failed War on Marijuana.

Source: Green Bay Press-Gazette (WI)
Copyright: 2013 Green Bay Press-Gazette
Website: http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/
Author: Chris Ahmuty

7 Jun 2013

Ky.’s senators blocked in effort to legalize hemp

posted in: Industrial Hemp | 0

By BRUCE SCHREINER, Associated Press

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky’s U.S. senators suffered a setback Thursday in their efforts to re-establish industrial hemp as a legal crop, but they vowed to continue their campaign after getting blocked as they tried to attach hemp language to the Senate farm bill.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul said they would oppose the Senate farm legislation.

Their amendment would have removed federal restrictions on the domestic production of industrial hemp. The crop once flourished in Kentucky until it was banned decades ago when the federal government classified it as a controlled substance related to marijuana.

Hemp has a negligible content of THC, the psychoactive compound that gives marijuana users a high.

The push by McConnell and Paul to legalize industrial hemp comes after Kentucky’s legislature passed a bill this year to allow the crop to be reintroduced in the Bluegrass State, but only if the federal government lifted its prohibition on the plant.

“Although we’re disappointed in the lack of consideration of our industrial hemp amendment, it is only the beginning of our legislative efforts,” the Republican U.S. senators said in a joint statement. “We are committed to continuing to look at all options to win approval of this important legislation for job creation in Kentucky.”

McConnell and Paul blamed majority-Senate Democrats for blocking consideration of additional amendments to the five-year farm bill, including their hemp proposal.

“This year’s Senate farm bill is in need of serious improvement and the refusal to allow better ideas and more sensible allocations of taxpayer dollars to be considered is very disappointing,” McConnell and Paul said. “We will be opposing the Senate farm bill as a result.”

The Courier-Journal first reported the senators’ reaction to the hemp amendment’s setback.

The farm bill advanced on a 75-22 procedural Senate vote Thursday that sets up a vote to pass the measure next Monday. The bill would cost almost $100 billion annually and would set policy for farm subsidies, food stamps and other farm and food aid programs.

Republican House leaders have said their chamber will vote on the bill, possibly as soon as this month.

In Kentucky, the industrial hemp movement has firmly taken root as the plant’s advocates hope for a breakthrough at the federal level.

State Agriculture Commissioner James Comer says its reintroduction would give farmers a new crop and would create processing jobs to turn the fiber and seeds into products ranging from paper to biofuels. Dozens of countries already produce the crop.

Comer went to Washington to meet with federal officials to lobby for a change on hemp policy at the federal level.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear let the state’s hemp bill become law without his signature. The Democratic governor said he wouldn’t sign the legislation out of concerns, shared by some in law enforcement, that marijuana growers could camouflage their illegal crops with hemp plants.

6 Jun 2013

Americans See Pot War As Futile Fight

posted in: Cannabis News | 1

It could happen as early as 2014.

In the wake of ballot measures legalizing marijuana in Washington state and Colorado, it’s not at all out of the question that Oregon voters will have another shot at legalizing marijuana in this state.

Now, it’s true that Oregon voters just last November rejected another initiative, Ballot Measure 80, which would have legalized marijuana. But our sense is that voters were reluctant to ratify that particular measure because — well, because it was loony.

If there’s a pot-legalization measure on the Oregon ballot in 2014 — and if the measure appears to have been crafted with somewhat more care than went into Measure 80 — our hunch is that the measure will pass.

And Oregon state law on marijuana will lurch into head-on conflict with federal law.

The Obama administration hasn’t given much guidance on this matter to its federal attorneys in Washington state and Colorado after the marijuana votes in those states. In fact, Obama himself said that his administration had “bigger fish to fry” than figuring out strategies to help cut through the thicket of contradictions between state and federal drug laws.

Now, though, it’s likely that the fish Obama famously blew off is just going to get bigger — and there’s the sense, as U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer told our editorial board last week, that the U.S. public is ahead of Congress on this issue. Recent national polls have suggested that, for the first time, a majority of Americans favor legalization of marijuana — and younger Americans are heavily in favor of legalization.

Congress has a bit of a window to try to unravel the growing conflict between state and federal law, but the window is starting to close. Blumenauer, who represents Oregon’s Third District in Multnomah County, pointed to a variety of legislation pending before Congress that could help cut through the bramble.

Some of those measures, such as a bill to clarify that farmers legally can grow industrial hemp, enjoy at least a measure of bipartisan support and frankly are long overdue.

Other measures pending before Congress, such as bills to legalize marijuana at the federal level to the extent it’s legal in each state, obviously are more controversial.

But the bottom line seems increasingly clear: Americans are growing weary of what they see as an increasingly futile war against marijuana. If Congress doesn’t take advantage of this opportunity to lead, Americans will take matters into their own hands, one state at a time.

Source: Albany Democrat-Herald (OR)
Copyright: 2013 Lee Enterprises
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/HPOp5PfB
Website: http://www.democratherald.com/

6 Jun 2013

Pot Potential

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

Maybe marijuana isn’t all that bad. A story titled “Marijuana waste helps turn pot-eating pigs into tasty pork roast” caught the attention last Tuesday, as it described how a five-acre farm north of Seattle has discovered how using weed waste into pig food could potentially revolutionize the hog industry and increase per pig profits.

The article went on to point out pigs who were supplemented with the “herbal remedy” ended up 20 to 30 pounds heavier than other pigs in the same litter, in turn creating more revenue for its owners.

Just as with the perceived positive impact of pot-smoking in the pork processing industry, if other countries and industries got on board with a law allowing grass-smoking, perhaps the pot puffing people would potentially create other particular positives for the general population ( I hope you enjoyed the alliteration ): – First off, there would be no one happier than the Cheetos’ cheetah.

After all these years of ( attempting to ) keeping his recreational activities hidden, Chester the Cheetah will finally be able to achieve his lifelong dream of being pictured on a chips bag holding a finely-wrapped toque rather than a cheesy snack.

And, just like modern-day athletes ‘coming out of the closet’ motivates their peers to do the same, Chester ‘emerging from the smoke’ may motivate cartoon-mates to follow.

It would explain why the Pillsbury Dough Boy continues to laugh every time a finger is wedged in to his belly ( when any normal being would have likely snapped like Tiger Woods’ ex by now ). Toucan Sam’s exploits and continuous flight attempts resulting in him soaring straight in to a tree would suddenly make sense ( don’t puff and pilot ). After various featured Wheaties’ box athletes have tested positive for some kind of drug or steroid, it would only seem fitting the wheatie character followed suit ( perhaps there’s more to being a champion than simply one’s breakfast ). And Tony, c’mon, those Frosted Flakes are good, but ar! e they really that Grrrrrrrrreat!? ( guess it depends on who yo! ur dealer is ). – Any business stalking food could forget about the ‘poor economy’. Grocery stores could expect evening hordes of half-hazed, red-eyed residents slowly filing into their store with zombie-like precision and intelligence with only three thoughts on the mind: cookies, chips and pizzas.

There would be an unequivocal growth in restaurant delivery sales, as well as requests for take-out menus ( a few puffs and things apparently start disappearing, too ). On the negative, there would be a sudden inflation in wage expectancy for restaurant telephone operator controllers as they’d have to decipher through calls that included periods of silence, giggling, and orders that comprised not of the actual name of the food wanted but rather orders by description such as, “I’ll take this one” ( as the caller points to the menu in their home, temporarily oblivious to the fact the person they are calling can’t see what they’re looking at ), or “I had it the last time…it was that g! ood one”, or “Anything with lots of cheese on it” followed by a followup phone call request of, “Can I get extra cheese on that”. On the positive, restaurant owners will no longer have issue with wrong orders; customers will either a ) call back giggling hysterically at the humorous prank pulled on them or b ) take the wrong order as a philosophical epiphany ( “I really did want lasagna instead of ribs. How did they know?” ). Delivery boys would also see a huge spike in tips ( although they would likely come in the form of hugs and compliments about how nice their uniform is ). -The NHL could see a huge spike in revenue.

The “Crime Commissioner” Brendan Shanahan would see his job become irrelevant as dirty hits would become self-eliminated by now-perenially-positive players, and fights would reach an all-time low ( with the only altercations being spurred on by a debate of which Bob Marley song is the all-time greatest ). Scoring would return to its golden years like in the pre-90′! s as either a ) goaltenders become complacent midway through the game wh! ile internally debating why they should stop the puck while no one else on their team is or b ) the keepers become distracted by the nacho tray sitting on the lap of a fan in the first row. Meanwhile, all special teams play would be eliminated as the men in stripes would allow players 30 seconds to talk and hug it out rather than make anyone sit on their own in the penalty box. -While making late-night arrests, lawmakers would no longer have to argue with citizens or worry about anyone resisting cuffs.

Training for officers will also change, as they would no longer be taught how to tackle, restrain or pursue culprits.

That training time would instead be used to ensure all recruits earn a minor in philosophy to instead cause criminals to fall in to submission through confusion or mental distraction. Meanwhile, the COPS television show would face an all-time viewership drop as available footage of chases and violence plummets ( although show producers would likely bring the show back to relevance after revamping its storyline to resemble that of a ‘Beavis and Butthead’ script and renaming it “The Great Cornholio!” ). Well that was fun! I’m sure this could continue on, but we’re out of space, so be sure to keep a smile on your face for the week and I’ll be sure to keep a soberly-induced smirk on mine as well.

Source: Neepawa Press, The (CN MB)
Copyright: 2013 Glacier Community Media
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.neepawapress.com/
Author: Kaiten Critchlow

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