12 Nov 2012

Tough New Law Irks MLA, Pot Supporters

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

C-10.  Federal bill’s mandatory sentencing for serious drug crimes came into effect on Tuesday

If you grow six marijuana plants, prepare to spend six months in the slammer.

Canada’s drug prohibition laws got tougher as a component of Bill C-10 came into effect Tuesday, legislation B.C.  MLA and former police chief Kash Heed dubbed “ridiculous” when it comes to marijuana.

The bill imposes harsher penalties and mandatory jail time for drug offenders who participate in organized crime, sell drugs to or near youth, and produce drugs where they could be a safety hazard to youth or residents.  While the law doesn’t put mandatory penalties on simple possession, it includes jail time for production of six to 200 marijuana plants and increases maximum sentences to 14 years.

This will “fog up our court system” by putting people in jail for “such a ridiculous amount of marijuana,” Heed said in an interview.

After 30 years in law enforcement, Heed is “dumbfounded” the government isn’t taking a balanced approach that focuses on demand reduction as well as locking up gangsters.

“We will never arrest our way out of this particular problem,” Heed said.  “Marijuana prohibition has not worked in Canada for many years, and it will not work in Canada.”

The Conservative government does not support legalization or decriminalization, federal Ministry of Justice spokeswoman Julie Di Mambro said in a statement.  The bill targets criminals, she said.

“Criminal organizations that rely on the drug trade do not respect the current penalties – they simply see them as the cost of doing business,” Di Mambro said.

The new sentencing laws won’t necessarily change how Vancouver police enforce drug crimes, Const.  Brian Montague said.

But Dana Larsen of the Medical Cannabis Dispensary said his organization could receive mandatory minimums for trafficking more than three kilograms of cannabis.

“We rely on the tolerance of our community,” he said.  “If I was elsewhere outside Vancouver, I’d be a little more nervous.”

Source: Metro (Vancouver, CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Metro Canada
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.metronews.ca/vancouver
Author: Emily Jackson

11 Nov 2012

KELLY: Hemp vs. oil: How corporate & gov’t collusion perverted the free market

posted in: Latest Hemp News | 0

Travis Kelly

 

mmj2

Since the days of Cain and Abel, hemp has been one of the world’s largest and most versatile crops, used to make textiles, paint, soap, rope, building materials, fuel oil, protein supplements, and medicines. An acre of hemp produces far more paper than an acre of trees — and you would have to smoke an acre of it to get high, as industrial hemp, though similar in appearance to its close cousin, marijuana (cannabis), contains almost no THC.
Today, in only one industrialized nation in the world, is the cultivation of hemp illegal. You guessed it: Ours truly. And it makes as much sense as outlawing ALL mushrooms because some of them are psychoactive or poisonous. How this travesty came about in 1937 is a lesson in the collusion of big corporations with big government and big media to pervert the free market and stymie competition.
In the early 1930s, Henry Ford’s experimental biomass plant in Michigan extracted methanol, charcoal, tar pitch, and other distillates from hemp, demonstrating that it was an alternative to fossil fuels as an energy source, as well as a competitor to other petrochemical products then being introduced by the DuPont corporation, DuPont had a powerful ally in Washington — Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon, a banker who also had a controlling interest in the Gulf Oil Corporation.
Mellon appointed his loyal nephew, Harry Anslinger, as chief of the new Federal Bureau of Narcotics in 1932. Anslinger promptly began lobbying Congress to outlaw “marihuana,” using a series of hysterical propaganda stories run by newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst — that era’s Rupert Murdoch. Hearst owned vast timber lands in the Northwest that supplied the wood pulp for most of the American newspaper industry; DuPont chemicals were used to process that pulp. The “reefer madness” scare featured lurid, racist stories of “Mexicans and Negroes” going on murderous rampages while stoned; innocent white women seduced into ruin; teenagers going instantly insane after a puff; and other fearmongering fictions.
Anslinger told Congress that hemp — ALL hemp, whether smokable or not — was “entirely the Monster Hyde, the harmful effects of which cannot be measured.” The Marijuana Tax Act was rammed through Congress in secret committees controlled by DuPont allies. That same year, 1937, DuPont filed its patent on Nylon, which took over the textile and cordage markets that had been dominated by hemp. DuPont also supplied GM, which produced more than half of all American cars, with its petrochemical paints, varnishes, plastics and rubber, all of which could have been produced equally well from hemp. But no more. The competition had been criminalized.
The prohibition was suspended during WWII, with a Hemp for Victory campaign, then reinstated in 1955. Since then, our closest cousins, England, Australia and Canada (1998), have all legalized industrial hemp. China is the world’s number-one producer, exporting most of it to us — the world’s leading hemp importer — exacerbating our trade imbalance.
As global oil supplies continue to decline versus growing demand, and become harder to extract and import due to geological and political factors, domestic hemp could easily replace many petrochemical products with significant advantages.
Hemp is a renewable resource, one of the fastest growing and most productive plants on earth, yielding four crops and 25 tons of dry matter per hectare per year. It requires few pesticides and no herbicides. It is now being used as a building material, Hempcrete, and, combined with fiberglass and flax, to make body panels for automobiles. It has also proved excellent as a “mop crop” for cleaning up contaminated soil. In all these cases, hemp is carbon neutral or even carbon negative, scrubbing and sequestering CO2 from our warming atmosphere.
Several states have licensed the growing of industrial hemp — California, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Vermont, and West Virginia — but have not yet grown a single plant due to continued resistance by the DEA, who is still stuck in 1930s “reefer madness” paranoia, despite now overwhelming evidence that hemp’s cousin, marijuana, is far less harmful than alcohol for both health and public safety. To grow industrial hemp, the DEA must issue a permit under the 1970 Controlled Substances Act — and it never does.
Colorado can join that roster on Nov. 6 by voting for Amendment 64. Eventually, we will budge the DEA from its archaic stupidity, end the virtual dictatorship of the petrochemical industry, and safeguard our national security by again realizing Thomas Jefferson’s maxim: “Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country.”
Travis Kelly is a web/graphic designer, writer and cartoonist in Grand Junction. See his work or contact him at www.traviskelly.com.

CONTINUE READING…

8 Nov 2012

Colorado Legalizes Marijuana For Recreational Use

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

The Rocky Mountain High just got a whole lot higher. On Tuesday night, Amendment 64 — the measure which sought the legalization of marijuana for recreational use by adults — was passed by Colorado voters, making Colorado the first state to end marijuana prohibition in the United States.

With about 36 percent of precincts reporting at the time of publishing, 9News and Fox31 report that Amendment 64 has passed. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper reacted to the passage of A64 in a statement late Tuesday night:

The voters have spoken and we have to respect their will. This will be a complicated process, but we intend to follow through. That said, federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug so don’t break out the Cheetos or gold fish too quickly.

The passage of the state measure is without historical precedent and the consequences will likely be closely-watched around the world. In an interview with The Huffington Post, the authors/researchers behind the book “Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs To Know” pointed out that the measure in Colorado is truly groundbreaking, comparing it to the legalization that Amsterdam enjoys:

A common error is to believe that the Netherlands has already legalized cannabis (the preferred term for marijuana in Europe). What has been de facto legalized is only the retail sale of 5 grams (about a sixth of an ounce) or less. Production and wholesale distribution is still illegal, and that prohibition is enforced, which is largely why the price of sinsemilla in the “coffee shops” isn’t much different than the price in American dispensaries.

Although Colorado “legalized it,” it will be several months, perhaps as long as a year, before Colorado adults 21-and-over can enjoy the legal sale of marijuana. However, the parts of the amendment related to individual behavior will go into effect as soon as Governor Hickenlooper certifies the results of the vote, a proclamation he is obligated to do within 30 days of the election, The Colorado Independent reported.

It’s a huge victory for the Campaign To Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, the pro-pot group behind Amendment 64. This is the second time Colorado voted on legal weed, in 2006 Coloradans voted the measure down, but not in 2012. Mason Tvert, co-director of the campaign, told The Huffington Post in an August interview why he thought this year might be different:

The 2006 initiative would have simply removed the penalties for the possession of marijuana legal for individuals 21 years of age or older. The current initiative proposes a fully regulated system of cultivation and sales, which will eliminate the underground marijuana market and generate tens of millions of dollars per year in new revenue and criminal justice savings. It also directs the legislature to regulate the cultivation of industrial hemp, a versatile, popular, and environmentally friendly agricultural crop.

More importantly, voters are more informed about marijuana than ever before. They have also experienced the emergence of a state-regulated medical marijuana system that has not produced any serious problems, but has provided a number of benefits. We now know that marijuana cultivation and sales can be regulated, and that medical marijuana businesses do not contribute to increased crime.

We have also seen marijuana use among high school students decrease since the state began implementing regulations, whereas it has increased nationwide where there are no regulations. And, of course, localities and the state have seen how much revenue can be generated through the legal sale of marijuana that would have otherwise gone into the underground market. Voters in Colorado no longer need to imagine what a legal and regulated system of marijuana sales would look like; they have seen it.

It’s also worth noting that 2012 is a presidential election year, so we will benefit from increased voter turnout compared to an off-year election like 2006. Historically, the more people who vote, the more support marijuana reform initiatives receive.

Under Amendment 64, marijuana is taxed and regulated similar to alcohol and tobacco. It gives state and local governments the ability to control and tax the sale of small amounts of marijuana to adults age 21 and older. According to the Associated Press, analysts project that that tax revenue could generate somewhere between $5 million and $22 million a year in the state. An economist whose study was funded by a pro-pot group projects as much as a $60 million boost by 2017.

However, the big unknown still is if the federal government will allow a regulated marijuana market to take shape. Attorney General Eric Holder, who was a vocal opponent of California’s legalization initiative in 2010 saying he would “vigorously enforce” federal marijuana prohibition, has continued to remain silent on the issue this year.

In September, Holder was urged by by nine former heads of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to take a stand against marijuana legalization again. “To continue to remain silent conveys to the American public and the global community a tacit acceptance of these dangerous initiatives,” the nine said in the letter to holder obtained by Reuters.

Earlier this month those same DEA drug warriors joined by former directors of the Office of National Drug Control Policy on a teleconference call to put additional pressure on Holder to speak out against Colorado’s marijuana measure as well as similar initiatives on the ballot in Washington state and Oregon.

The drug warriors say that states that legalize marijuana for recreational use will trigger a “Constitutional showdown” with the federal government.

In a report published Sunday by NBC News, President Obama’s former senior drug policy advisor said that if the marijuana initiatives pass, a war will be incited between the federal government and the states that pass them. “Once these states actually try to implement these laws, we will see an effort by the feds to shut it down,” Sabet said.

But proponents of the legislation say they don’t foresee federal agents interfering in states that have legalized cannabis, citing the federal government’s silence on the issue this election cycle.

The DOJ has yet to formally announce its enforcement intentions, however, the clearest statement from the DOJ came from Deputy Attorney General James Cole, who said his office’s stance on the issue would be “the same as it’s always been.” During a recent appearance on “60 Minutes” Cole elaborated, “We’re going to take a look at whether or not there are dangers to the community from the sale of marijuana and we’re going to go after those dangers,” Reuters reported.

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Matt Ferner
Published: November 6, 2012
Copyright: 2012 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

8 Nov 2012

Voters Approve I-502 Legalizing Marijuana

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

Washington enthusiastically leapt into history Tuesday, becoming the first state, with Colorado, to reject federal drug-control policy and legalize recreational marijuana use. Initiative 502 was winning 55 to 45 percent, with support from more than half of Washington’s counties, rural and urban.

The vote puts Washington and Colorado to the left of the Netherlands on marijuana law, and makes them the nexus of a new social experiment with uncertain consequences. National and international media watched as vote counts rolled into I-502′s election-night party in Seattle amid jubilant cheers.

“I’m going to go ahead and give my victory speech right now. After this I can go sit down and stop shaking,” said Alison Holcomb, I-502′s campaign manager and primary architect.

“Today the state of Washington looked at 75 years of national marijuana prohibition and said it is time for a new approach,” she said.

As of Dec. 6, it will no longer be illegal for adults 21 and over to possess an ounce of marijuana. A new “drugged driving” law for marijuana impairment also kicks in then.

Tuesday’s vote also begins a yearlong process for the state Liquor Control Board to set rules for heavily taxed and regulated sales at state-licensed marijuana stores, which are estimated to raise $1.9 billion in new revenue over five years.

Many legal experts expect the U.S. Justice Department, which remained silent during presidential-year politics, to push back and perhaps sue to block I-502 based on federal supremacy.

But Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes said Seattle’s U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan told him Tuesday the federal government “has no plans, except to talk.”

Initiative 502 ran a disciplined campaign with a tightly focused message, criticizing what it called the failed “war on drugs” without endorsing marijuana use itself.

A study, released late in the campaign, found more than 67,000 arrests for low-level marijuana possession in the past five years in Washington, with African Americans and Latinos arrested at widely disproportionate rates.

I-502 spent heavily, raising more than $6 million, including more than $2 million from Peter B. Lewis of Ohio, chairman of Progressive Insurance.

A broad group of mainstream leaders — including former top federal law-enforcement officials, the King County sheriff, the entire Seattle City Council, public-health experts, African-American leaders and the state labor council — backed the measure. John McKay, U.S. attorney in Seattle under the George W. Bush administration, became a public face of the campaign.

The initiative faced surprisingly little organized opposition. The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs and a state drug-treatment-prevention group were opposed, but did not raise money to counter I-502′s $2.8 million TV-ad spending in October.

At debates, police and treatment providers predicted I-502 would lead to marijuana use, especially among teenagers. “It is a grave social injustice to trade the right of a minority to get ‘high’ for the right of youth to grow up drug free,” said Derek Franklin, president of the drug-treatment group.

The loudest opposition came from some in the medical-marijuana industry, who said they feared being ensnared by I-502′s DUI law, which does not exempt patients.

The DUI law also sets a zero-tolerance level for marijuana for drivers under 21, significantly stiffening current law.

Initiative 502 does not change the medical-marijuana law, leading to allegations that opposition from the industry was self-serving.

Tuesday’s result was quickly hailed by activists such as Keith Stroup, founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He called I-502 “the single most important thing in the marijuana legalization movement in the last 75 years,” and predicted it will become a template for other states to confront the federal ban on marijuana.

“That’s exactly what happened at the end of alcohol prohibition. I think that’s exactly what’s going to happen here,” Stroup said.

Staff reporter Katherine Long and news researcher Gene Balk contributed.

Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Author: Jonathan Martin, Seattle Times Staff Reporter
Published: November 7, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The Seattle Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.seattletimes.com/

7 Nov 2012

Colorado Set To Legalize Marijuana PPP Survey Says

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With just hours before polling places open for Election Day, advocates for the legalization of marijuana in Colorado got some good news from Public Policy Polling about the popularity of Amendment 64, a ballot measure which seeks to regulate marijuana like alcohol, on Monday.

According to PPP, 52 percent of voters support Amendment 64 while only 44 percent are opposed to the measure leaving the state “set to legalize marijuana tomorrow,” PPP’s Tom Jensen writes about the results of their latest survey.

PPP also found that of the 1,096 likely Colorado voters, 56 percent favored the legalization of marijuana in general, while only 39 percent said the drug should remain illegal.

This is the highest percentage of support that PPP has found since they began surveying the issue of marijuana legalization. Back in September, PPP found 47 percent in favor of A64 and 38 percent against with 49 percent in favor of marijuana being legal, in general.

The highest support ever polled was from a June Rasmussen survey of 500 likely Colorado voters which showed 61 percent were in favor of legalizing marijuana if it is regulated the way that alcohol and cigarettes are currently regulated.

Voters in Colorado, Oregon and Washington are all considering measures that would effectively end marijuana prohibition in their respective states. Marijuana legalization has become an issue that defies the stereotypes of party lines, garnering the support of key progressives and conservatives in Colorado, Washington and Oregon. And although all three states have pot initiatives on their ballots, Colorado and Washington’s pot ballot measures appear to be quite popular with voters, according to recent polling.

If marijuana is legalized in Colorado under Amendment 64 it would be taxed and regulated similar to alcohol and tobacco. It would give state and local governments the ability to control and tax the sale of small amounts of marijuana to adults age 21 and older. According to the Associated Press, analysts project that that tax revenue could generate somewhere between $5 million and $22 million a year in the state. An economist whose study was funded by a pro-pot group projects as much as a $60 million boost by 2017.

However, the big unknown still is if the federal government would allow a regulated marijuana market to take shape. Attorney General Eric Holder, who was a vocal opponent of California’s legalization initiative in 2010 saying he would “vigorously enforce” federal marijuana prohibition, has continued to remain silent on the issue this year.

In September, Holder was urged by by nine former heads of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to take a stand against marijuana legalization again. “To continue to remain silent conveys to the American public and the global community a tacit acceptance of these dangerous initiatives,” the nine said in the letter to holder obtained by Reuters.

Earlier this month those same DEA drug warriors joined by former directors of the Office of National Drug Control Policy on a teleconference call to put additional pressure on Holder to speak out against Colorado’s marijuana measure as well as similar initiatives on the ballot in Washington state and Oregon.

The drug warriors say that states that legalize marijuana for recreational use will trigger a “Constitutional showdown” with the federal government.

In a report published Sunday by NBC News, President Obama’s former senior drug policy advisor said that if the marijuana initiatives pass, a war will be incited between the federal government and the states that pass them. “Once these sates actually try to implement these laws, we will sen an effort by the feds to shut it down,” Sabet said.

But proponents of the legislation say they don’t foresee federal agents interfering in states that have legalized cannabis, citing the federal government’s silence on the issue this election cycle.

With Election Day less than 24 hours away, the DOJ has yet to formally announce its enforcement intentions regarding the ballot measures that, if passed, could end marijuana prohibition in each state. The clearest statement from the DOJ came from Deputy Attorney General James Cole, who said his office’s stance on the issue would be “the same as it’s always been.” During a recent appearance on “60 Minutes” Cole elaborated, “We’re going to take a look at whether or not there are dangers to the community from the sale of marijuana and we’re going to go after those dangers,” Reuters reported.

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Matt Ferner
Published: November 5, 2012
Copyright: 2012 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

2 Nov 2012

Cops To Marijuana Business Owners Torn On Amendment 64

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

Nuanced Measure Sparks Debates Over Law-Enforcement Resources, Cartels

Locals from law enforcement to elected officials to marijuana business owners say they don’t know how to feel about a ballot measure asking voters to legalize limited amounts of cannabis and regulate the drug “like alcohol.”

The statewide question would amend the Colorado Constitution to allow people over the age of 21 to consume and possess marijuana and provide for the licensing of cultivation and manufacturing facilities as well as retail stores.  The measure also directs state lawmakers to levy a tax on the sale of marijuana, directing the first $40 million in revenue generated annually to be directed to the public school capital construction assistance fund.

But the nuanced proposal has wide-reaching implications ranging from law-enforcement issues to education impacts, and many local officials and business owners say they can see many sides of the issue.

“Keeping it criminal at this point is probably a waste of time,” Summit County Sheriff John Minor said.  “I have mixed feelings on this thing all the way around.”

As do local medical marijuana dispensary owners, who say they don’t know how the ballot measure could impact their businesses.

“My answer, up until ( recently ) was, I don’t know what to wish for,” said Charlie Williams, owner of Alpenglow Botanicals in Breckenridge.  “I know I can live with what I’m doing and work in this framework.  If I have to change radically, I don’t know what it’s going to cost.”

Williams said he plans to vote against Amendment 64.

Jerry Olson, owner Medical Marijuana of the Rockies in Frisco, expressed similar uncertainty about how the measure would impact existing marijuana businesses, but said he supports the amendment.

“I don’t know if it will be good or bad for my business and I really don’t care,” he said.  “We’re going to quit wasting our resources on cannabis and instead we’re going to make cannabis a resource.”

Proponents of the amendment say legalizing and regulating marijuana would weaken a strong black market for the drug that feeds millions of dollars to drug cartels, eliminate a senseless drain on law-enforcement resources and limit young people’s access to marijuana, while creating a new tax revenue source.

“Marijuana prohibition has failed,” said Mason Tvert, spokesman for the Yes on 64 campaign.  “It’s been ineffective, wasteful and it’s caused way more problems than it’s solved.  It’s time for a new, more sensible approach.”

Amendment 64 is projected to save approximately $12 million in criminal justice costs in its first year, according to an analysis from the Colorado Center on Law and Policy.  More than 10,000 people were arrested for marijuana possession in 2010, according to an October report from the Marijuana Arrest Research Project.

But opponents of the legalization amendment say the measure would increase youth access to the drug and has no place in the state’s constitution.

“It effectively establishes Colorado as the marijuana capital of the United States,” Vote No campaign spokeswoman Laura Chapin said.  “There’s an inherent conflict with federal law …  it could drag us into a very long and expensive series of court battles that, at least at this point, we probably wouldn’t win.”

Law-enforcement officials are concerned that, rather than keeping Colorado dollars out of the hands of cartels, the measure might attract the cartels to Colorado.

“Put yourself in their shoes,” Minor said.  “Would you want to keep smuggling tons of stuff across the border or would you want to just go across the border ( yourself )?”

Opponents have also indicated in the possible logistical problems of keeping the drug inside Colorado’s borders and regulating an industry the banking sector won’t back due to federal law.

As an amendment to the Colorado constitution, it would take another constitutional amendment to revise 64 to address unexpected problems or to repeal it all together.

Amendment 64 is one of three constitutional amendment proposals voters will find on their ballots this year.

Source: Summit Daily News (CO)
Copyright: 2012 Summit Daily News
Contact: http://apps.summitdaily.com/forms/letter/index.php
Website: http://www.summitdaily.com/home.php
Author: Caddie Nath

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