• Cannabis & Hemp

    Column: Just Another Casualty in the Criminal War on Drugs

    Pubdate: Wed, 12 May 2010
    Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
    Copyright: 2010 The Ottawa Citizen
    Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/letters.html
    Author: Dan Gardner, The Ottawa Citizen
    Image: DEA administrator Karen Tandy’s statement, July 29, 2005 http://www.mapinc.org/images/Tandystatement.jpg
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Marc+Emery
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

    JUST ANOTHER CASUALTY IN THE CRIMINAL WAR ON DRUGS

    It’s certainly not the worst crime committed in the name of the war on drugs.

    That title probably belongs to the countless innocent people killed in botched raids.  Or the police officers who died in pursuit of the impossible.  Or the lives lost to easily preventable overdoses, adulterations, and blood-borne diseases.  Or the funding handed on a silver platter to thugs, terrorists, and guerrillas, like those killing our soldiers in Afghanistan.  Or the civil liberties eroded, the corruption fostered, the chaos spread.  Or maybe it belongs to the hundreds of billions of dollars governments have squandered in a mad, futile, and destructive crusade.

    Next to all that, the extradition of Marc Emery to the United States is no great travesty.

    Emery is the Vancouver activist who has spent most of his life campaigning for the legalization of marijuana.  To fund his efforts, he ran a little seed company similar to thousands of other little seed companies, except when Emery’s seeds were put in soil, watered, and given sunlight, they grew into cannabis plants.

    Showing rare good sense, Canadian officials decided that prosecuting a man for selling the seeds of a common plant is not a public priority.  In effect, they permitted Emery’s business, and others like it, to operate.  Health Canada officials were even known to direct those licensed to possess medical marijuana to Emery, so patients could grow their own medicine in the kitchen window.

    But such modesty and pragmatism smacks of heresy to the holy warriors of prohibition.  Verily, the plant is Evil unto the last seed.

    In 2005, Emery was arrested by Canadian police acting at the behest of the U.S.  Drug Enforcement Administration.  Innocent Americans had been lured into purchasing Emery’s wicked wares, the DEA alleged.

    Emery fought extradition for five years.  On Monday, justice minister Rob Nicholson ordered him handed over.  Thanks to the insanely punitive sentencing laws in the Land of the Incarcerated, Emery faced as much as 20 years.  He accepted a plea bargain for five.

    Emery argued all along that he was a political target, that the DEA was out to get him in order to silence a prominent advocate of marijuana legalization.  One might suspect Emery has delusions of grandeur, except the DEA issued a press release in which the agency’s chief is quoted saying pretty much exactly what Emery alleges: “Today’s DEA arrest of Marc Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture Magazine, and the founder of a marijuana legalization group, is a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S.  and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement.”

    Incidentally, the DEA posts all its old press releases on its website, but that release has vanished.  There is, however, a different press release, which makes no mention of the legalization movement.

    Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n358/a03.html

  • Cannabis & Hemp

    Calif. Cities Sued Over Medical Marijuana

    Pubdate: Wed, 12 May 2010
    Source: National Law Journal (US)
    Copyright: 2010 NLP IP Company
    Author: Amanda Bronstad
    Cited: Americans for Safe Access http://www.americansforsafeaccess.org/
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/dispensaries
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis – California)
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Americans+for+Safe+Access

    CALIF. CITIES SUED OVER MEDICAL MARIJUANA ORDINANCES

    Medical marijuana dispensaries have filed lawsuits against California
    cities, including Los Angeles, challenging ordinances that
    effectively threaten the existence of their businesses.

    Besides the dispensaries, the plaintiffs include medical marijuana
    users and organizations that promote the use of medical marijuana.

    Vincent Howard, founding partner of Howard | Nassiri, based in
    Anaheim, Calif., who represents at least 10 dispensaries in Los
    Angeles, expects more suits to be filed.

    “As long as cities want to turn a blind eye and pretend like this
    isn’t coming, there’s going to be a lot of lawsuits and a
    proliferation of dispensaries,” he said.

    Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n357.a01.html

  • Drug Policy

    Ethan Nadelmann Critiques Obama’s New Drug War

    Pubdate: Tue, 11 May 2010
    Source: Huffington Post (US Web)
    Copyright: 2010 HuffingtonPost com, Inc.
    Author: Ethan Nadelmann
    Note: Ethan Nadelmann is the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance (www.drugpolicy.org)
    Referenced: The 2010 National Drug Control Strategy http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/strategy/
    Referenced: Wall Street Journal article http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n514/a02.html
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Gil+Kerlikowske

    ETHAN NADELMANN CRITIQUES OBAMA’S NEW DRUG WAR STRATEGY

    The White House’s 2010 National Drug Control Strategy, released this morning by President Obama and drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, is both encouraging and discouraging.  There’s no question that it points in a different direction and embraces specific policy options counter to those of the past thirty years.  But it differs little on the fundamental issues of budget and drug policy paradigm, retaining the overwhelming emphasis on law enforcement and supply control strategies that doomed the policies of its predecessors.

    First, to give credit where credit is due: The Obama administration has taken important steps to undo some of the damage of past administrations’ drug policies.  The Justice Department has played an important role in trying to reduce the absurdly harsh, and racially discriminatory, crack/powder mandatory minimum drug laws; Congress is likely to approve a major reform this year.  DOJ also changed course on medical marijuana, letting state governments know that federal authorities would defer to their efforts to legally regulate medical marijuana under state law.  And they approved the repeal of the ban on federal funding of syringe exchange programs to reduce HIV/AIDS, thereby indicating that science would at last be allowed to trump politics and prejudice even in the domain of drug policy.

    The new strategy goes further.  It calls for reforming federal policies that prohibit people with criminal convictions and in recovery from accessing housing, employment, student loans and driver’s licenses.  It also endorses a variety of harm reduction strategies ( even as it remains allergic to using the actual language of “harm reduction” ), endorsing specific initiatives to reduce fatal overdoses, better integration of drug treatment into ordinary medical care, and alternatives to incarceration for people struggling with addiction.  All of this diverges from the drug policies of the Reagan, Clinton and two Bush administrations.

    Director Kerlikowske told the Wall Street Journal last year that he doesn’t like to use the term “war on drugs” because “[w]e’re not at war with people in this country.” Yet 64% of their budget – virtually the same as under the Bush Administration and its predecessors – focuses on largely futile interdiction efforts as well as arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating extraordinary numbers of people.  Only 36% is earmarked for demand reduction – and even that proportion is inflated because the ONDCP “budget” no longer includes costs such as the $2 billion expended annually to incarcerate people who violate federal drug laws.

    There’s little doubt that this administration seriously wants to distance itself from the rhetoric of the drug war, but its new plan makes clear that it is still addicted to the reality of the drug war.  Still missing is the full throttle commitment to treating drug misuse as a public health issue, and to harm reduction innovations that have proven so successful in Europe and Canada.  Still present is the old rhetoric about marijuana’s great dangers and the need to keep current prohibitionist polices in place, with no mention of the fact or consequences of arresting roughly 750,000 people each year for possession of small amounts of marijuana.

    I had the pleasure of testifying a few weeks ago before the Congressional subcommittee charged with oversight of the drug czar’s office.  The subcommittee chair, Dennis Kucinich, broke new ground on Capitol Hill by challenging the drug czar, whose testimony preceded mine, on his continuing commitment to supply control strategies notwithstanding their persistent failure, and on his resistance to embracing the language of harm reduction notwithstanding its growing acceptance by governments elsewhere.  In my testimony, I asked the subcommittee to reform the ways that federal drug policy is evaluated by de-emphasizing the past emphasis on reducing drug use per se and focusing instead on reducing the death, disease, crime and suffering associated with both drug misuse and counter-productive drug policies.

    So, yes, this administration is headed in a new direction on drug policy – but too slowly, too timidly, and with little vision of a fundamentally different way of dealing with drugs in the U.S.  or global society.  The strategy released today offers nothing that will reduce the prohibition-related violence in Mexico, Central America and Colombia, or seriously address the challenges in Afghanistan.  It dares not take on the embarrassment of America’s record breaking and world leading rate of incarceration, especially of non-violent drug offenders.  And it effectively acknowledges that politics will continue to trump science whenever the latter points toward politically controversial solutions.

    We still have a long way to go.

  • Cannabis & Hemp

    Will Medical Marijuana Be Legalized in Nebraska?

    Pubdate: Tue, 11 May 2010
    Source: North Platte Telegraph, The (NE)
    Copyright: 2010 North Platte Telegraph
    Contact: http://www.nptelegraph.com/forms/letters/
    Author: Paul Hammel
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 (Cannabis – Medicinal – U.S.)

    WILL MEDICAL MARIJUANA BE LEGALIZED IN NEBRASKA?

    LINCOLN – The seeds of a discussion about legalizing marijuana for
    medical purposes have been planted in Nebraska.

    Three members of the State Board of Pharmacy plan to quiz their
    colleagues about the controversial topic at the May 22-25 annual
    meeting of the National Boards of Pharmacy in Anaheim, Calif.

    Board Chairman Rick Zarek, a Gothenburg, Neb., pharmacist, said the
    Nebraskans hope to learn more about “the pros and cons” of
    legalization and any problems that have arisen in the 14 states that
    now allow pot to be used for pain relief, appetite enhancement and
    other medical purposes.

    “It’s probably an issue we’re going to have to address in the
    future,” said Zarek, who said he has no personal opinion on the subject.

    Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n354.a10.html

  • Cannabis & Hemp

    L.A. Reins in Its Pot Shops

    Pubdate: Tue, 11 May 2010
    Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
    Webpage: http://mapinc.org/url/JJyXeB02
    Copyright: 2010 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
    Contact: [email protected]
    Author: Tamara Audi
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/dispensaries
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis – California)

    L.A. REINS IN ITS POT SHOPS

    Explosion of Marijuana Dispensaries Leads to Fight Over How to Regulate Them

    LOS ANGELES-City officials here are hoping that a new get-tough
    policy will finally allow them to gain control of the hundreds of
    medical-marijuana dispensaries that have sprung up over the past few years.

    But many owners of the 600 or so pot outlets currently operating
    openly here don’t want to go quietly. They have hired lawyers and
    plan to fight the city in court.

    What was supposed to be a comprehensive resolution to Los Angeles’s
    long-running pot controversy is shaping up instead to be a long, strange trip.

    Continues:  http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n353.a03.html

  • Drug Policy

    Arizona’s Real Problem

    Pubdate: Mon, 10 May 2010
    Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
    Column: The Americas
    Copyright: 2010 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
    Contact: [email protected]
    Author: Mary Anastasia O’Grady

    ARIZONA’S REAL PROBLEM: DRUG CRIME

    The Vicious Violence the Border States Are Experiencing Is Not
    Committed by Migrant Laborers.

    The organized-crime epidemic in Latin America, spawned by a U.S. drug
    policy more than four decades in the making, seems to be leeching
    into American cities. Powerful underworld networks supplying gringo
    drug users are becoming increasingly bold about expanding their
    businesses. In 2008, U.S. officials said that Mexican drug cartels
    were serving their customers in 195 American cities.

    The violence is only a fraction of what Mexico, Guatemala and
    Colombia live with everyday. Yet it is notable. Kidnapping rates in
    Phoenix, for example, are through the roof and some spectacular
    murders targeting law enforcement have also grabbed headlines.

    Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n350.a05.html

  • Hot Off The 'Net

    Marc Emery

    It’s Official: Conservatives Extradite Marc Emery

    By Jeremiah Vandermeer and Jacob Hunter, Cannabis Culture – Monday, May 10 2010

    Video: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2010/05/12/pkg.brown.canada.drug.king.CTV

    Marc Emery kisses his wife Jodie goodbye before turning himself in to Canadian authorities. Marc will be extradited to the USA to face charges for selling cannabis seeds on the Internet. (Photo by Bill Keay, PNG)Marc Emery kisses his wife Jodie goodbye before turning himself in to Canadian authorities. Marc will be extradited to the USA to face charges for selling cannabis seeds on the Internet. (Photo by Bill Keay, PNG)CANNABIS CULTURE – The extradition order to send marijuana activist Marc Emery to the United States for an expected five-year prison term has been signed by the Canadian Minister of Justice, Rob Nicholson.

    Cannabis Culture has learned that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada made their decision shortly after Emery turned himself in to Canadian authorities this morning: The Prince of Pot will be handed over to the United States for selling marijuana seeds over the Internet.

    READ THE JUSTICE MINISTER’S LETTER CONFIRMING HIS DECISION (PDF)

    “I am absolutely devestated that this Conservative government has opted to send my husband, a Canadian citizen, to the United States for a ‘crime’ that amounts to a $200 dollar fine in Canada,” said Marc’s wife Jodie Emery. “This case is about silencing my Husband for his marijuana activism. This Conservative government has declared a culture war in Canada and my husband is it’s latest victim.”

    Marc spoke to reporters outside of the downtown Vancouver Law Courts before turning himself in, and said orders to extradite him would be the equivalent of outsourcing our justice system. He said he hopes some good comes from his imprisonment.

    “If he sends me away, it will anger millions of Americans and millions of Canadians,” he told the press. “I need them to be angry, otherwise we won’t get any change on this drug war.”

    Marc’s lawyer and fellow marijuana activist Kirk Tousaw told Cannabis Culture that in all likelihood, Marc would be sent south across the border by the end of the week where he will eventually appear before a sentencing judge. Marc is expected to be sentenced to five years as part of a plea deal arranged with American prosecutors.

    YOU CAN STILL HELP! Please contact Judge Ricardo Martinez in Seattle, Washington and tell him that he should let Marc Emery return home to Canada with a no-prison sentence instead of the 5-year term in the plea deal.

    Mail: Honorable Ricardo S. Martinez
    U.S. Courthouse
    700 Stewart Street, Suite 13134
    Seattle, WA
    98101-9906
    USA

    You can also contact Conservative Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews and tell him to allow Marc to sever his time in Canada as part of the Treaty Transfer process.

    Office of Public Saftey
    Phone: 613-944-4875
    E-mail: webmail.psepc-sppcc.gc.ca
    Web Contact Form: https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/abt/min-eng.aspx
    CLICK HERE for more contact info.

    You can also call the Minister of Justice’s Rob Nicholson and voice your displeasure in his decision.
    (613) 995-1547
    (905) 353-9590
    (905) 871-9991
    (905) 354-0527
    [email protected]

    Honourable Robert Nicholson
    House of Commons
    Ottawa, Ontario
    K1A 0A6

    CLICK HERE for more information of how to HELP MARC EMERY

    Opting to wait until Marc was in custody on a bail technicality, Nicholson sent the order to Marc’s lawyers shortly after he entered custody. Marc had expected to be out on bail again today as the Justice Minister was expected to request another extension on the controversial move.

    Marc’s case started in 2005 when American Authorities raided his Vancouver store and offices with the help of the Vancouver Police Department. Marc, whose business sold marijuana seeds to “Overgrow the Government” donated all the proceeds of his business to various activism groups working to legalize marijuana and medical marijuana.

    “Today’s decision is another step in Canada’s adoption of the failed and harmful drug war approach that, ironically, the American government is moving away from,” said Tousaw. “Canadians are deeply opposed to this extradition and the outsourcing of Canadian criminal justice policy. This unpopular decision is sure to hurt the Conservative government at the ballot box in the next election. Mr. Emery is resolute and told me, from his jail cell, to never give up the fight for cannabis freedom.”

    MORE INFO AS IT BECOMES AVAILABLE…

    News clippings at http://www.mapinc.org/people/Marc+Emery

  • Cannabis & Hemp

    Could marijuana save California?

    In the 60s hippies fled to the backwoods of northern California to grow pot. There they have been joined by growers of ‘medical marijuana’ – available with a doctor’s recommendation – as well as by Mexican drug cartels. With cannabis now its largest cash crop, the state will soon vote on whether to legalise it fully – and even Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is thinking the enormous tax revenues might just solve his budget deficit…

    Jim Hill in his greenhouse growing medical marijuanaJim Hill in his greenhouse where he and his wife Trelanie grow medical marijuana. Photograph: Sarah Baldik for the Observer

    ‘When I see that, it’s like looking at a shed full of cows. I see a whole lot of work,” says Jim Hill, opening the little gate into his humid greenhouse in which a forest of marijuana grows, and from which a pungent, heady scent exudes at gale force. Not work as in hard labour, emphasises Hill – though there is a bit of that – but expertise growing some of the most potent weed on the planet.

    Nearby there are vineyards and horses graze the sun-stroked farmland, but this verdant hillside near the town of Potter Valley in northern California lies in an area called the Emerald Triangle: three counties bordered by mountains to the east and the Pacific to the west that connect the lyrical terrain north of San Francisco with the wilderness of the Oregon state line. This breathtakingly beautiful corner of earth is the marijuana capital of the western hemisphere thanks to three conspiring factors: its perfect climate; the pervading culture; and topography – this is a maze of mountain dirt roads, locked access gates, isolated villages, secluded slopes and wooded glades, far from prying eyes.

    Jim Hill, however, is a respectable figure – neither old stoner nor criminal – and he is not afraid to show off his working practices. “You’re just going to have to smell of weed for the rest of the week,” he jokes as we clamber through his greenhouse. “Squeeze this,” he enthuses, “take a sniff, feel the nice, rich oily texture…”

    Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n347.a02.html

  • Letter of the Week

    Demand Supplied; Drug Lords Winning

    LETTER OF THE WEEK

    DEMAND SUPPLIED; DRUG LORDS WINNING

    Regarding Jim Kennedy’s April 6 letter, “War on drugs showing no progress,” there is an obvious demand for drugs.

    The black market will sell as much as possible for the highest price possible.  This has created an endless international stream that has captured most of the attention and resources of our law enforcement, judicial system, and penal institutions.  Investigating, arresting, prosecuting, and incarcerating people for drug offenses that don’t involve victims is a waste of time and taxpayer money.  Mere possession or use of a drug should not be a criminal offense.

    Actually, incarcerating young people with long sentences can be more damaging than the use of the drug.  Outlawing of drugs has not made them magically go away, yet more than a half-million Americans are incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses.  The “war on drugs” has waged for more than 40 years with no success.  All we have managed to do is make drug lords richer, ourselves poorer, and our prisons fuller.

    Sandra Gadsberry

    Vancouver

    Pubdate: Fri, 30 Apr 2010

    Source: Columbian, The (WA)

    Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n000/a009.html