30 Nov 2012

Why Obama Won’t Be The One To End The War on Drugs

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

In New York magazine, Benjamin Wallace-Wells has a long article about the failure of the War on Drugs, in which he says, “Without really acknowledging it, we are beginning to experiment with a negotiated surrender.” This is in reference to the recently passed marijuana legalization initiatives in Colorado and Washington, which will likely be followed by other states in upcoming elections. Hanging over these policy changes is the still-to-be-determined reaction of the Obama administration, which hasn’t yet said whether it plans to send DEA agents to crack down on the businesses these laws allow for, or the growing operations they’ll produce. And I’m beginning to suspect that the administration will try to set some kind of policy course intended to be as low-key and neutral as possible, neither giving the two states the green light to proceed as their new laws envision, nor embarking on some kind of dramatic and visible crackdown.

Why? Because that’s what Barack Obama appears to want. One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers noted a video from 2007 in which candidate Obama evaded and hedged in his response to a question about legalization; the reader said, “the sense I got was that whatever Obama’s actual position on marijuana is, he’s not about to let that be the issue that he wastes political capital on. That’s not going to be the issue that prevents him from becoming president and fixing everything else that he cares more about.” That sounds about right to me: While Obama may believe that the War has been a failure and it’s absurd to lock up hundreds of thousands of people for possessing, buying, or selling small amounts of marijuana, it just isn’t all that high on his priority list. If making a major policy change is risky, he’s not going to bother. On the other hand, he doesn’t want to alienate the 50 percent of the country that now supports legalization, many of whom are his staunch supporters, so his preferred outcome would be that no one pays much attention to the issue for the next four years.

Obama has been a continuing disappointment to his supporters who favor legalization, but there’s a kind of inverse Nixon-to-China thing going on with him. As the first president who admits to being an enthusiastic pot smoker in his youth (and of course the first black president), he’ll be the last person to begin the dismantling of the War on Drugs. But maybe, bit by bit, it’ll happen without him.

Source: American Prospect, The (US)
Author: Paul Waldman
Published: November 27, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The American Prospect, Inc.
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.americanprospect.com/

28 Nov 2012

Ag commissioner: Sheriff’s support for industrial hemp a big boost to legalization efforts

posted in: Latest Hemp News | 0

Industrial hemp was widely grown in Kentucky until the late 19th century and was re-established briefly in the 1940s to make products for the military.

 

FRANKFORT, Ky. (Nov. 28, 2012) — Agriculture Commissioner James Comer applauded Christian County Sheriff Livy Leavell Jr. on Wednesday for supporting the production of industrial hemp in Kentucky during the annual conference of the Kentucky Association of Counties in Louisville.

RELATED: Kentucky Industrial Hemp Commission ramps up; receives $100,000 in donations

“Sheriff Leavell’s support is a big step for the industrial hemp initiative,” Comer said. “By having a high-ranking member of Kentucky’s law enforcement community on our side, we can more effectively break down any myths that are still attached to this potential crop. I am so grateful to all the local elected officials for their overwhelming support of this effort. Together, we will bring jobs to Kentucky and new opportunities to our farmers.”

Comer was joined in his remarks to KACo by Katie Moyer, chairperson of the Kentucky Hemp Coalition, and John Riley, a former magistrate from Spencer County. Moyer and Riley are members of the Kentucky Industrial Hemp Commission, which is chaired by Comer.

“I am so proud of my hometown sheriff,” Moyer said. “Sheriff Leavell made the effort to get the facts about industrial hemp — what it is, what it isn’t, and how it can benefit Kentucky’s economy.”

Comer told the assembled county judge/executives, magistrates, sheriffs and other county officials that legislation to allow Kentucky farmers to grow industrial hemp will be one of his top legislative priorities in 2013. The Kentucky Industrial Hemp Commission will meet again before the 2013 session of the Kentucky General Assembly to finalize legislation it hopes will pass during the session.

Industrial hemp would create manufacturing jobs in Kentucky, Comer said, and provide farmers with another crop that would help them continue to make a living on the farm. He said it is important for Kentucky to be first in the nation to establish an industrial hemp production and manufacturing industry.

The industrial hemp initiative also continues to make progress on the national level. Recently elected U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of northern Kentucky on Tuesday became the 36th co-sponsor of federal legislation that would require the federal government to honor state laws allowing production of industrial hemp. U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Bowling Green sponsored a companion bill in the U.S. Senate in August.

Industrial hemp was widely grown in Kentucky until the late 19th century and was re-established briefly in the 1940s to make products for the military. A Congressional Research Service study says hemp is contained in as many as 25,000 products in the global market including textiles, automotive applications, furniture, food products, paper, construction materials and personal care products.

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26 Nov 2012

Marijuana’s Foot in The Door

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Small-time marijuana use will soon be legal in Colorado and Washington state. Sort of.

This month voters in those states approved ballot measures permitting possession of up to an ounce of pot. But the federal government has not changed its policy, which labels the drug an illegal substance. Members of Congress introduced legislation Nov. 16 that would allow state marijuana rules to preempt federal ones. But that, in effect, would resemble federal legalization, and it’s unlikely to pass anytime soon.

So the states’ leaders are asking for guidance from President Obama’s Justice Department, which, NPR’s Carrie Johnson reports, has a few options. It could enhance its own anti-marijuana enforcement in the states. It could sue to halt the laws’ application.

Or the Justice Department could keep its hands off, perhaps continuing the approach the feds have largely taken for some time — focusing scarce resources on major violators, such as big growers that might serve multi-state markets, cultivators using public lands or dispensaries near schools. The last option is clearly best.

There is reason for caution about ditching federal pot restrictions. Marijuana can be harmful, and the Drug Enforcement Administration reports that potency levels are higher than ever. The possibly major effects on public health of more driving under the influence of marijuana is a particular concern. If the federal government removed its restrictions, other states would find it easier to follow Colorado and Washington’s path. Dismantling current federal law, meanwhile, could have a range of effects on the U.S. relationship with Mexico that lawmakers should take time to consider fully, as drug cartels’ involvement in U.S. medical marijuana markets indicates.

But it’s unrealistic and unwise to expect federal officials to pick up the slack left by state law- enforcement officers who used to enforce marijuana prohibitions against pot users and small-time growers. Unrealistic, because it would require lots more resources. Unwise, because filling prisons with users, each given a criminal stain on his or her record, has long been irrational. For the latter reason, we favor decriminalizing possession of small amounts of pot, assessing civil fines instead of locking people up.

Also, for that reason and others, the Justice Department should hold its fire on a lawsuit challenging Colorado and Washington’s decision to behave more leniently. And state officials involved in good-faith efforts to regulate marijuana production and distribution according to state laws should be explicitly excused from federal targeting.

It’s not yet clear how a quasi-legal pot industry might operate in Colorado and Washington or what its public-health effects will be. It could be that these states are harbingers of a slow, national reassessment of marijuana policy. Or their experiment could serve as warning for the other 48 states.

For now, the federal government does not need to stage an aggressive intervention, one way or the other. It can wait, watch and enforce the most worrisome violations as they occur.

Source: Washington Post (DC)
Published: November 25, 2012
Copyright: 2012 Washington Post Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/

26 Nov 2012

Colorado MJ Activists Debate How Hard to Push

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

Colorado marijuana activists, empowered after backing a successful legalization effort in the state, are in the midst of a dialogue about how far to press their success.

At a recent forum, advocates talked about whether the movement should continue to step lightly in Colorado politics — being accommodating toward law enforcement and welcoming of strict regulations — or act like a political powerhouse whose measure garnered more votes than any presidential, gubernatorial or U.S. Senate candidate has ever received in Colorado.

“We have a mandate,” said attorney Christian Sederberg, one of the legalization campaign’s chief organizers. “We need to lead, and we need to flex that muscle — with deference to certain things.”

It is a classic political dilemma: If election wins can be said to grant political capital, how, then, is it best spent?

That is new territory for marijuana-legalization supporters, who have never before won such widespread support for such widespread change. Amendment 64, the initiative that legalized limited possession and retail sales of marijuana in Colorado, passed in 34 of the state’s 64 counties. It won in liberal Denver by more than 90,000 votes and in conservative El Paso County by 10 votes.

Statewide, 1.36 million voters cast their ballot for the amendment.

Buoyed by those figures, lawyer Rob Corry said he believes activists should move aggressively to implement Amendment 64 to what he says is its full extent.

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Complete Article: http://www.denverpost.com/news/marijuana/ci_22060980/

Source: Denver Post (CO)
Author: John Ingold, The Denver Post
Published: November 25, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The Denver Post
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/

26 Nov 2012

Seed store goes to pot downtown

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

Windsor’s new downtown business sports marijuana leaves on its sign, an oversized poster of a marijuana plant inside and a mural-sized price list for its only product – marijuana seeds.

On Thursday, customers walked in, inquired about various strains and were invited to peruse a catalogue. If the store doesn’t have something a customer is looking for, Danielle Capin, a 25-year-old Hamilton, Ont., woman who’s running the store with her brother Joel, said she can get it within a week.

In short, Seeds for Less on Maiden Lane is selling the seeds to grow an illegal drug as openly and casually as Home Depot sells geraniums. How can they do that?

To Capin, the question is amusing. In the Greater Toronto Area, where her brother owns another location of the store, there are so many other places selling marijuana seeds that nobody bats an eyelash.

“Out there it’s saturated. Everybody’s already doing that,” she said. “Out here it’s some-thing new.”

Capin said the business is not only perfectly legal, it’s not even promoting illegal activity – i.e., growing marijuana for recreational use or sale on the street. She sells the seeds to people with medical marijuana licences or as novelty items, she said.

“In Canada, if you have a licence, you can grow marijuana,” she said. “We’re not trying to promote illegal things.”

But Windsor police Sgt. Matt D’Asti said the Capins had better take another look at the Controlled Substances Act.

People with licences to grow medical marijuana are supposed to get their seeds from Health Canada, he said.

It’s illegal for anyone else to sell seeds capable of sprouting, whether it’s a compassion shop – a store that sells marijuana and seeds for medicinal use – or a drug dealer.

D’Asti said police are consulting with Health Canada and researching the issue. If police decide to pursue the matter and test the seeds to determine whether they’re viable, Seeds for Less could be in trouble.

“Compassion shops have no right to be selling marijuana seeds or products to people with licences,” D’Asti said. “We will be definitely monitoring the store for any criminal activity and, if warranted, charges will be laid.”

As for what neighbouring business think of Seeds for Less, Downtown Windsor BIA president Larry Horwitz was diplomatic.

“They could make the downtown a little more interesting,” he said.

“They could attract a good crowd. But we don’t know enough about it to really say.”

Horwitz promotes attracting a more diverse mix of entertainment and retail downtown, but admits this wasn’t exactly what he had in mind.

“It’s certainly not the direction we’re going in.”

Source: Windsor Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2012 The Windsor Star
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/
Author: Claire Brownell

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