Cannabis News

Federal Government Seeking To Uphold MMAR Provisions

Ontario’s top court is hearing an appeal of a ruling that struck down key provisions of the law governing access to marijuana for medical use.

In asking that the decision be set aside, the federal government will rely on what it argues is a series of “palpable and overriding errors” by Superior Court Justice Donald Taliano, who last year stayed a production charge against Toronto marijuana activist Matthew Mernagh.

The appeal, scheduled to begin on May 7, is the latest legal battle over the federal government’s medical marijuana scheme, aspects of which have been ruled unconstitutional by courts a number of times over the past decade.  The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the B.C.  Civil Liberties Association and a coalition of groups representing people who are HIV-positive have been granted intervener status by the Court of Appeal in R v.  Mernagh.

In his decision, Justice Taliano accepted Mernagh’s contention that the federal Marihuana Medical Access Regulations ( MMAR ) made it too difficult for patients in need to access the drug.  The Superior Court judge simultaneously struck down the regulations and the associated prohibitions against marijuana production and possession in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act-although the declaration of invalidity has been put on hold, while the case is before the Court of Appeal.

“The combined effect of the CDSA and the MMAR is to make sick people sicker,” said Toronto lawyer Paul Lewin, who represents Mernagh.

The federal Crown meanwhile, is arguing that the findings of Justice Taliano lacked an evidentiary foundation.  “He relied on inadmissible evidence, misapprehended the legal effect of amendments that were made to the MMAR, substituted his own opinions for those of the treating physicians, and engaged in speculation,” says Crown attorney Croft Michaelson, in written arguments filed with the court.

“There was simply no basis to conclude that medical practitioners in Canada had acted in any manner other than the best interests of their patient,” he adds.

The MMAR requires applicants to obtain a signed declaration from a doctor, before they can receive government authorization for medical use.

After a constitutional challenge to the scheme in 2003, certain conditions in the MMAR were relaxed so that doctors were no longer required to recommend a daily dosage of marijuana for patients or indicate that the benefits of such a treatment outweighed the risks.

But Mernagh - ​who uses marijuana to treat his symptoms from fibromyalgia, scoliosis and seizures - ​argued in court that the revised regulations remain illusory, saying he has been unable to find any doctor willing to sign a medical marijuana declaration.  He was therefore precluded from accessing the drug legally, Mernagh argues.

Justice Taliano noted: “The physicians of Canada have massively boycotted the MMAR and their overwhelming refusal to participate in the medicinal marihuana program completely undermines the effectiveness of the program.”

The Crown says the judge erred on a number of fronts, citing no evidence of a “massive boycott.” It stated that between 1998 and 2010, the annual number of doctors who signed medical marijuana declarations rose to more than 2,000 from fewer than 10.

The judge’s suggestion that physicians were failing to meet the legitimate demands for medical marijuana was additionally problematic, Michaelson wrote, because there was no evidence adduced at trial to determine how many Canadians had a valid medical need for the drug.

“The Charter does not mandate that physicians rubber-stamp their patients’ treatment preferences,” the factum states, noting that the only way to ensure marijuana is restricted to those with valid medical needs, is to require a doctor’s declaration.

Lewin disagrees.  He suggested the current regulatory framework simply encourages “doctor-shopping” among desperate patients.

“The doctors made it abundantly clear they are not knowledgeable with this unapproved plant therapy,” said Lewin.  “They’re not comfortable dealing with the potential legal repercussions.”

“The doctor-as-gatekeeper idea has been a bad fit from day one…and from day one the government has denied there was a problem,” Lewin’s responding factum states, noting some doctors became “hostile” or discontinued treatment when patients requested a marijuana declaration.

There are other ways to regulate marijuana use, such as creating a registry of doctors educated about marijuana where patients can turn for a prescription, Lewin suggested.

Source: Lawyers Weekly, The (Canada)
Copyright: 2012 LexisNexis Canada Inc.
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.lawyersweekly.ca/
Author: Megan O’Toole

– While delivering his remarks at the 2012 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, comedian Jimmy Kimmel addressed the issue of marijuana legalization.

“What is with the marijuana crackdown? Seriously, what is the concern? We will deplete the nation’s Funyun supply?” Kimmel said. “Pot smokers vote too. Sometimes a week after the election, but they vote.” Kimmel then posed a challenge to the crowd, which was made up of celebrities like Kim Kardashian and George Clooney.

“I would like everyone in this room to raise your hand if you’ve never smoked pot,” Kimmel said.

Few hands went up.

Noting the crowd’s reaction, Kimmel addressed Obama directly.

“Marijuana is something that real people care about,” Kimmel said.

Obama, who recently said he doesn’t “mind a debate” about drug legalization, has increased the crackdown on medical marijuana producers across the nation, including a recent high-profile raid on a California training school. He addressed the crackdown and attempted to clarify his 2008 comments that he was “not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws [on medical marijuana]” in a recent interview with Rolling Stone:

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.”

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Paige Lavender
Published: April 28, 2012
Copyright: 2012 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Recently, the Huffington Post ran an article stating that according to more than 300 economists, the U.S.  government could potentially save $13.7 billion dollars by not enforcing the prohibition and taxing it like tobacco and alcohol.

As someone who has always been pro-legalization, I found this interesting and saw it as a ray of light through the thunderstorm that is this ridiculous marijuana prohibition.

So, if it could potentially save the States billions of dollars, what about Canada?

According to the 2009 Angus Reid poll, 53% of Canadians were in favour of legalizing cannabis.

Obviously, possession, trafficking and growing of marijuana is illegal in Canada.

Simple possession ( anything under 30 grams ) can result in a maximum $1000 fine or six months in jail, and trafficking can result in anything from a slap on the wrist and a fine to jail time.

Drug prohibition in Canada started in 1908 with the Opium Act.  It forbade the sale, manufacture and importation of opium for anything other than medical use, and it later expanded to include morphine and cocaine in 1911.

It wasn’t until 1923, when the Opium and Narcotics Act came in, that cannabis was added to Confidential Restricted List.

While it was criminalized in 1923, it didn’t start getting attention until the 1930s, and the first arrest wasn’t made until 1937.  Even in the next two or three decades, it was barely a blip on police radar.

Between 1946 and 1966 cannabis only accounted for 2% of drug arrests in Canada.

In 2002, Jean Chretien’s Liberal government introduced a bill that would have decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana.  Possession of a half ounce or less would have only resulted in a fine, and those possessing up to a full ounce would be either ticketed or charged.  Up to seven plants for personal use would have also become a summary offence, but any more than that would have a more severe punishment.

It looked like the bill might have been able to pass, too, but it died when Parliament prorogued.

Not only that, but the DEA supposedly put a lot of pressure on our government, threatening to slow down border-crossings along the border just in case someone decided to try to smuggle our legal weed into their country.  As if that wasn’t happening already.

An identical bill was introduced again in November 2004 by Paul Martin’s Liberals, but it got shot down too.

So should it be illegal?

There are reports of cannabis use for medicinal purposes as far back as 2727 BC in China and apparently even Queen Victoria used cannabis to relieve her menstrual cramps.

In 1937 it is criminalized in the United States, and by 1965 over 1 million Americans had tried it, and that number jumped to 24 million by 1972.

Now, marijuana is America’s number one cash crop, raking in around $36 billion per year.

In 1996, California introduced Proposition 215, making marijuana legal for medicinal use, and since then around 14 other states, and Canada, have followed.

Of course, it’s not as easy as just flipping a switch and legalizing it.  There are a few things that would need to be considered: what about the price? The quality?

It makes sense that the illegality of the substance has influence on the price because of the risk factor.  If it was legal, would the price go down?

Would the government employ growers that are already in operation? And will the quality increase or decrease if the government gets their hands on it?

Recreational marijuana users and those who need compassionate care services ( medical marijuana – for more information, visit www.medicalmarijuanacure.com ) obviously want it to be legalized, and I would have to say that I agree with them.

Sure, weed is a drug, but so are alcohol and tobacco.  People are getting smarter since the “Reefer Madness” days, where everyone was afraid that one toke of weed would turn their poor innocent children into raving homicidal maniacs.

Anyone who has ever ingested the drug knows how false those claims are.

Marijuana is not physiologically addictive like alcohol or cocaine; it can be habit-forming but normally users do not report withdrawal symptoms like those of alcohol or other narcotics.

Also, to those of you that say that if it’s legal, more people will use it, I have this to say: In Holland, where marijuana is legal, it was reported that once it became legal, usage of marijuana and hard drugs dropped significantly.

As it is, there is practically unlimited access to weed whether it’s legal or not, so people are going to get it no matter what.

If it was legalized, the soft drug trade would stop feeding organized crime, stop congesting our prison system with nonviolent offenders and make obtaining the drug safe and risk-free, especially for those looking for compassionate care.

The way I see it, marijuana is just like alcohol.  Some people come home and relax on the couch with a beer, and some do it with a joint.

It has even been proven that alcohol does more damage to your body than marijuana does, and there have been no recorded deaths that could be directly attributed to using marijuana.

Besides, I don’t know about you, but I would rather be in a room full of stoned people than a room full of drunk people.

You never hear of a marijuana user getting high and coming home and beating his wife and children; the most damage he is likely to do is to his refrigerator.

So what do you guys think? Should it be legalized, decriminalized, or should the laws stay the way they are?

Source: Fairview Post (CN AB)
Copyright: 2012 Fairview Post
Contact: http://www.fairviewpost.com/feedback1/LetterToEditor.aspx
Website: http://www.fairviewpost.com/
Author: Jacquie Maynard

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/