• Cannabis & Hemp - Drug Policy

    US CO: When Capitalism Meets Cannabis

    Newshawk: Please Write a LTE www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides
    Pubdate: Sun, 27 Jun 2010
    Source: New York Times (NY)
    Page: BU1
    Webpage: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/business/27pot.html
    Copyright: 2010 The New York Times Company
    Contact: [email protected]
    Author: David Segal
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 (Cannabis – Medicinal – U.S.)

    WHEN CAPITALISM MEETS CANNABIS

    BOULDER, Colo. — ANYONE who thinks it would be easy to get rich
    selling marijuana in a state where it’s legal should spend an hour
    with Ravi Respeto, manager of the Farmacy, an upscale dispensary here
    that offers Strawberry Haze, Hawaiian Skunk and other strains of
    Cannabis sativa at up to $16 a gram.

    She will harsh your mellow.

    “No M.B.A. program could have prepared me for this experience,” she
    says, wearing a cream-colored smock made of hemp. “People have this
    misconception that you just jump into it and start making money hand
    over fist, and that is not the case.”

    Since this place opened in January, it’s been one nerve-fraying
    problem after another. Pot growers, used to cash-only transactions,
    are shocked to be paid with checks and asked for receipts. And there
    are a lot of unhappy surprises, like one not long ago when the
    Farmacy learned that its line of pot-infused beverages could not be
    sold nearby in Denver. Officials there had decided that any
    marijuana-tinged consumables had to be produced in a kitchen in the city.

    “You’d never see a law that says, ‘If you want to sell Nike shoes in
    San Francisco, the shoes have to be made in San Francisco,'” says Ms.
    Respeto, sitting in a tiny office on the second floor of the Farmacy.
    “But in this industry you get stuff like that all the time.”

    One of the odder experiments in the recent history of American
    capitalism is unfolding here in the Rockies: the country’s first
    attempt at fully regulating, licensing and taxing a for-profit
    marijuana trade. In California, medical marijuana dispensary owners
    work in nonprofit collectives, but the cannabis pioneers of Colorado
    are free to pocket as much as they can – as long as they stay within the rules.

    The catch is that there are a ton of rules, and more are coming in
    the next few months. The authorities here were initially caught off
    guard when dispensary mania began last year, after President Obama
    announced that federal law enforcement officials wouldn’t trouble
    users and suppliers as long as they complied with state law. In
    Colorado, where a constitutional amendment legalizing medical
    marijuana was passed in 2000, hundreds of dispensaries popped up and
    a startling number of residents turned out to be in “severe pain,”
    the most popular of eight conditions that can be treated legally with
    the once-demonized weed.

    More than 80,000 people here now have medical marijuana certificates,
    which are essentially prescriptions, and for months new enrollees
    have signed up at a rate of roughly 1,000 a day.

    [snip]

    Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n491.a09.html

  • Letter of the Week

    Web: Letter Of The Week

    Newshawk: Published Letters Awards www.mapinc.org/lteaward.htm
    Pubdate: Fri, 25 Jun 2010

    LETTER OF THE WEEK

    LEGALIZE DRUGS, ELIMINATE DEALER

    John Monte (letter, June 16) claims that he can’t get an answer to
    his question of what is
    the treatment for a drug dealer. I have an answer:
    legalization.

    If drugs were legalized, taxed and regulated, the black market where
    drug dealers operate would be eliminated. Unfortunately, so would Mr.
    Monte’s police career of arresting and filling our jails with
    low-level drug dealers.

    Maybe he can explain how these drug dealers are so quickly replaced
    when he puts one of them away.

    Mr. Monte also makes the mistake of lumping real victims of crime —
    murder, robbery and rape — with drug addicts who are not victims.
    They willingly chose to participate in these consensual crimes.

    Despite 40 years of waging a war on drugs, hard drugs have increased
    in purity, decreased in price and filled our prisons with nonviolent
    offenders. It’s a failed and stupid policy as three national research
    groups have stated.

    When we ask law enforcement to protect us from ourselves, there are
    all kinds of unintended consequences, such as the drug-related crime
    that plagues our communities, the enormous profits for drug cartels
    and the corruption of law enforcement.

    How can Mr. Monte support a policy that creates all of these serious
    problems?

    William Aiken

    Schenectady

    Member, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

    Pubdate: Sun, 20 Jun 2010

    Source: Times Union (Albany, NY)

    Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n451/a01.html

  • Drug Policy

    US TX: Column: The New Jim Crow By Michelle Alexander

    Pubdate: Fri, 25 Jun 2010
    Source: Ft. Worth Star-Telegram (TX)
    Copyright: 2010 Fort Worth Star-Telegram
    Contact: http://www.star-telegram.com/submit-a-letter/
    Website: http://www.star-telegram.com/
    Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/162
    Author: Leonard Pitts

    THE NEW JIM CROW BY MICHELLE ALEXANDER, A MUST READ

    “You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the
    blacks.

    The key is to devise a system that recognizes this all while not
    appearing to.” — Richard Nixon as quoted by H.R. Haldeman, supporting
    a get-tough-on drugs strategy.

    “They give black people time like it’s lunch down there. You go down
    there looking for justice, that’s what you find: just us.” — Richard
    Pryor.

    Michelle Alexander was an ACLU attorney in Oakland, preparing a racial
    profiling lawsuit against the California Highway Patrol. The ACLU had
    put out a request for anyone who had been profiled to get in touch.
    One day, in walked this black man.

    He was maybe 19 and toted a thick sheaf of papers, what Alexander
    calls an “incredibly detailed” accounting of at least a dozen police
    stops over a nine-month period, with dates, places and officers’
    names. This was, she thought, a “dream plaintiff.”

    But it turned out he had a record, a drug felony — and she told him
    she couldn’t use him; the state’s attorney would eat him alive. He
    insisted he was innocent, said police had planted drugs and beaten
    him. But she was no longer listening. Finally, enraged, he snatched
    the papers back and started shredding them.

    “You’re no better than the police,” he cried. “You’re doing what they
    did to me!” The conviction meant he couldn’t work or go to school, had
    to live with his grandmother. Did Alexander know how that felt? And
    she wanted a dream plaintiff? “Just go to my neighborhood,” he said.
    “See if you can find one black man my age they haven’t gotten to already.”

    She saw him again a couple of months later. He gave her a potted plant
    from his grandmother’s porch — he couldn’t afford flowers — and
    apologized. A few months after that, a scandal broke: Oakland police
    officers accused of planting drugs and beating up innocent victims.
    One of the officers involved was the one named by that young man.

    “It was,” says Alexander now, more than 10 years later, “the beginning
    of me asking some hard questions of myself as a civil rights lawyer.
    What is actually going on in his neighborhood? How is it that
    they’ve already gotten to all the young African-American men in his
    neighborhood? I began questioning my own assumptions about how the
    criminal justice system works.”

    [snip]

    Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n489/a05.html

  • Drug Policy - What You Can Do

    The truth about cannabis prohibition – Governor Gary Johnson

    Why would I, as a former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico,
    speak out so strongly on behalf of California’s Regulate, Control,
    and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010?

    Because no matter how you look at it, our policy of cannabis
    prohibition has failed — and I couldn’t just sit on the sidelines
    while Californians have an historic opportunity to lead the nation in
    fixing it.

    But I’m not just speaking out — I’m putting my money where my mouth
    is by contributing to this critical effort today. Will you stand with me?

    Please
    join me in contributing $5 to the Control & Tax Cannabis campaign today!

    The results of cannabis prohibition have been disastrous:
    * Half of what the U.S. spends on law enforcement — on courts
    and on prisons — is drug-related. We spend about $70 billion a year
    on victimless crimes.
    * We arrest 1.8 million people per year on drug-related crimes.
    * Over one hundred million Americans have tried marijuana — yet
    we still label them criminals.

    These policies need to end. You know it, and I know it. And if the
    Control & Tax Cannabis Campaign can reach our ambitious $50,000
    online fundraising goal by June 30, we can take a big step toward
    changing these disastrous policies.

    Make
    a generous contribution of $5 or more to the Control & Tax Cannabis
    Campaign — and help us reach our goal of raising $50,000 online by June 30!

    We’ve got a lot of work to do to show undecided voters that this
    initiative is a sensible solution for California.

    We need voters to know that, even after cannabis is legalized, it’ll
    never be OK to get behind the wheel of a car while under the
    influence. We need to tell voters that this initiative will make it
    illegal to sell cannabis to minors — just as it is with alcohol. And
    we need to assure voters that, based on evidence from Holland,
    Portugal, and elsewhere, legalization will likely reduce marijuana
    use, both among adults and youths.

    But the voters will never know these facts unless we tell them — and
    the campaign needs our financial support to get the message out.

    Please
    join me in supporting this truly historic campaign by contributing $5
    or more right now.

    I’m proud to stand with you in this movement. With your support, I am
    confident that California will vote to move us toward more sensible
    marijuana policy in November.
    Sincerely,

    Governor Gary Johnson (R-NM)
    1995-2003

    Tax Cannabis 2010. Sponsored by S.K. Seymour LLC, a Medical Cannabis
    Provider, dba Oaksterdam University, a Cannabis Educator. FPPC 1318272

  • Cannabis & Hemp

    US WI: OPED: Lawmakers to Sick People: We Don’t Care

    Newshawk: Is My Medicine Legal YET? www.immly.org
    Pubdate: Thu, 24 Jun 2010
    Source: Isthmus (WI)
    Copyright: 2010 Isthmus
    Webpage: http://www.isthmus.com/isthmus/article.php?article=29634
    Contact: [email protected]
    Author: Gary Storck
    Video: TV commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRB1ppPRJ0M
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Jacki+Rickert

    LAWMAKERS TO SICK PEOPLE: WE DON’T CARE

    Rejection of Wisconsin Medical Marijuana Bill Was a Profile in Cowardice

    Jason Glaspie did everything he could. The former Marine, a veteran
    of the first Iraq war, has endured numerous treatments for brain and
    spinal cancer that left him disabled and often in terrible pain. One
    thing that alleviates his suffering is smoking marijuana.

    And so when it looked as though Wisconsin might join the 14 other
    states (and the District of Columbia) that allow the medicinal use of
    cannabis, Glaspie became an activist for the cause.

    The Fitchburg resident attended hearings and events held in support
    of the proposed bill. He starred in a TV commercial on the issue and
    let his story be told in the press. And, in the end, like hundreds of
    other people in Wisconsin, he was bitterly disappointed. The bill
    died in the just-ended legislative session after state lawmakers
    failed to bring it forward for a vote.

    “The bill’s failure to pass forces patients to make the horrible
    choice between [enduring pain] and being a criminal,” says Glaspie.
    “I should not have to fear prosecution just because I want to move
    around without my cane. People with chronic health issues have enough
    on their plates without adding more fear.”

    But fear is what they are left with. The political structure of the
    state of Wisconsin has given them the back of their hand. Again.

    Just ask former Marine Sgt. Erin Silbaugh (videos here
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ2-q5q3zTk and here
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQw7P0Jkcns ), who served three tours
    in the current Iraq war, returning with severe post-traumatic stress
    disorder. The Lodi resident recalls a conversation with his
    Assemblyman, Rep. Keith Ripp (R-Lodi). He asked if Ripp cared that
    Silbaugh had to risk arrest and jail to treat his service-related
    disability. Ripp, he says, responded by shrugging his shoulders.

    “I’ve been on over 10 different prescriptions provided by the VA to
    control my PTSD since returning from Iraq, each with its own list of
    side effects,” says Silbaugh. “Why won’t the Legislature allow me to
    use something less harmful and more helpful?”

    Why indeed?

    [snip]

    Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n485.a01.html

  • Cannabis & Hemp

    US CA: Column: Arrest Sparks Her Fight Against Pot Laws

    Newshawk: Citizen Advocacy www.mapinc.org/resource/#activism
    Pubdate: Thu, 24 Jun 2010
    Source: Orange County Register, The (CA)
    Webpage: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/hawes-254821-norml-marijuana.html
    Copyright: 2010 The Orange County Register
    Contact: [email protected]
    Author: David Whiting
    Cited: Orange County NORML http://orangecountynorml.org/
    Cited: The State Referendum http://www.taxcannabis.org/
    Referenced: Attorney General Jerry Brown’s guidelines
    http://mapinc.org/url/kKMJR2lu
    Referenced: Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It
    http://www.judgejimgray.com/whyourdruglawshavefailed.php
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/NORML (NORML)

    ARREST SPARKS HER FIGHT AGAINST POT LAWS

    Sitting across the table, at a Starbucks in San Clemente, Kandice
    Hawes is all business in black Capri pants, a fashionable top and a
    demure gray sweater.

    “Of course I smoke pot,” she says in a loud voice that expresses both
    surprise and amusement at the question.

    Holy smoke! I look around, worried someone might hear. After all, I
    lived through Nancy Reagan’s America when smoking marijuana was
    pretty much the same as shooting heroin, when all drugs were lumped
    together under the “Just Say No” campaign.

    But Hawes, 28, is a generation younger. She came of age after 1996,
    when California voters approved Proposition 215, the Compassionate
    Use Act allowing medical marijuana.

    [snip]

    Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n484.a02.html

  • Cannabis & Hemp

    US MI: Growth Industry: Learning How to Grow Medical Marijuana

    Pubdate: Mon, 28 Jun 2010
    Source: Time Magazine (US)
    Webpage: http://mapinc.org/url/STjpe80L
    Copyright: 2010 Time Inc
    Contact: [email protected]
    Author: Steven Gray
    Cited: Michigan’s department of community health
    http://drugsense.org/url/nDFeNDPs
    Cited: Coalition for a Safer Detroit http://www.saferdetroit.net/
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Michigan+medical+marijuana
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 (Cannabis – Medicinal – U.S.)
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?261 (Cannabis – United States)

    GROWTH INDUSTRY: LEARNING HOW TO GROW MEDICAL MARIJUANA

    This is what a medical-marijuana class looks like. Twenty-five or so
    students – men, women, young, middle-aged – listen attentively as an
    instructor holds up a leafy green plant and runs down the list of
    nutrients it needs. Nitrogen: stimulates leaf and stem growth.
    Magnesium: helps leaf structure. Phosphorous: aids in the germination
    of seeds. Michigan’s Med Grow Cannabis College is one of several
    unaccredited schools to have sprung up in the 14 states and the
    District of Columbia that have legalized medical use of marijuana.
    Many of its students suffer from chronic pain. Others are looking to
    supply those in need of relief.

    [snip]

    Fear of violent crime is one reason recreational use of marijuana is
    still illegal almost everywhere. And yet, ironically, the reason
    Detroit may follow Philadelphia’s lead and liberalize restrictions on
    possession of small amounts of marijuana is to alleviate the strain
    on the local criminal-justice system.

    In November, Californians will vote on a measure that would legalize
    marijuana for recreational use – and allow the drug to be taxed. Tom
    Ammiano, a Democratic assemblyman from San Francisco, estimates such
    a tax could generate up to $2 billion in annual revenue for
    California. “When I speak about this issue, there’s always a line of
    people with a business angle – an idea for a dispensary or a new grow
    light,” he says. “We’re a capitalistic society, and realistically,
    the tax will push people over the edge [to] realize, ‘There’s gold in
    them thar hills.'” And Nick Tennant will have his pickax at the ready.

    Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n483.a07.html

  • International

    International Drug Crime Measures ‘Lead to Executions’

    Newshawk: http://www.novembercoalition.org
    Pubdate: Mon, 21 Jun 2010
    Source: Guardian, The (UK)
    Page: 21
    Copyright: 2010 Guardian News and Media Limited
    Contact: [email protected]
    Website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
    Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
    Author: Mary O’Hara
    Cited: International Harm Reduction Association http://www.ihra.net/
    Referenced: The report
    http://www.ihra.net/Assets/2538/1/IHRA_DeathPenaltyReport2010.pdf

    INTERNATIONAL DRUG CRIME MEASURES ‘LEAD TO EXECUTIONS’

    Enforcement by Britain, the UN and the EU Backs Up Regimes That
    Ignore Human Rights, Says Report

    The United Nations, the European commission and individual states
    including Britain are flouting international human rights law by
    funding anti-drug crime measures that are inadvertently leading to
    the executions of offenders, according to a report seen by the Guardian.

    The International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA), a
    non-governmental organisation that advocates less punitive approaches
    to drugs policy globally, says it has gathered evidence revealing
    “strong links” between executions for drugs offences and the funding
    of specific drug enforcement operations by international agencies.

    It says programmes aimed at shoring up local efforts to combat drug
    trafficking and other offences are being run “without appropriate
    safeguards” that could prevent serious human rights violations in
    countries that retain the death penalty.

    The report concludes that the UN Office on Drugs and Crime are all
    actively involved in funding and/or delivering technical assistance,
    legislative support and financial aid intended to strengthen domestic
    drug enforcement activities in states that retain the death penalty
    for drug offences.

    [snip]

    Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n472.a05.html

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Drug Policy

    US MI: Who’s Making Money Off Medical Marijuana?

    Newshawk: Please Write a LTE www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides
    Pubdate: Mon, 21 Jun 2010
    Source: Detroit Free Press (MI)
    Page: 4A
    Webpage: http://mapinc.org/url/ZU02YgTA
    Copyright: 2010 Detroit Free Press
    Contact: http://www.freep.com/article/99999999/opinion04/50926009
    Author: Katherine Yung, Free Press Business Writer
    Cited: Michigan Department of Community Health
    http://drugsense.org/url/nDFeNDPs
    Referenced: Michigan’s law http://drugsense.org/url/8mvr7sW8
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Michigan+medical+marijuana
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 (Cannabis – Medicinal – U.S.)

    WHO’S MAKING MONEY OFF MEDICAL MARIJUANA?

    It’s Not Who You’d Think; Growers Don’t Get Rich — Unless They Break the Law

    In a small second-story office on Main Street in Ann Arbor, Liberty
    Clinic is doing brisk business, selling medical marijuana for $360 to
    $400 an ounce. In just 3 1/2 months, 750 patients have come through its doors.

    In Lansing, Danny Trevino has expanded beyond his HydroWorld
    hydroponics store, adding two medical clinics, grow classes and a dispensary.

    And in Ypsilanti, Darrell Stavros and his partners have set up a
    medical marijuana service center, renting space to a support group,
    doctors and a bong shop. “This is creating an enormous amount of
    businesses that never existed,” he said.

    Medical marijuana, one of the state’s newest industries, is taking
    off. Dozens of hydroponics stores, medical clinics and grow schools
    are popping up. And at support groups, cafes and dispensaries,
    patients and growers are buying and selling the drug.

    As with any industry, there are challenges, such as crop failures and
    theft. And limits on the size of growers’ crops make it all but
    impossible for growers to get rich, though they can earn some decent money.

    “A few people will make a few bucks. Most people won’t make much,”
    said Adam Brook, organizer of the annual Ann Arbor Hash Bash.

    Entrepreneurs Cashing in on Services Tied to Growing

    [snip]

    Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n471.a09.html