• Cannabis & Hemp - What You Can Do

    Bring Marc Emery Home

    We, the undersigned, petition Mr. Vic Toews, Canada’s Public Safety Minister, to immediately approve Mr. Marc Emery’s application for a treaty transfer from the U.S. to Canada.

    A media figure for marijuana and drug law reform, Mr. Emery is a Canadian citizen who carried out all his activities in Canada. His seed selling business never contracted any US-based employees, and no business was ever conducted on U.S. soil. Yet, when the Canadian government refused to charge or punish him, Mr. Emery was extradited to the United States to be punished under much harsher laws.

    Therefore, we urge that you please grant Mr. Emery’s request for a prison transfer so that he at least may serve out the remainder of his sentence in Canada.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - What You Can Do

    Proposition 19 Money Bomb

    We’re going to make a statement. We’re going to show our movement is strong, and that we can win in November.

    On one day, September 13, the Prop 19 campaign will raise $50,000 — $1,000 for each day left until Election Day, November 2. This couldn’t be more important and timely, so we need everyone to stand up and chip in.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Focus Alerts

    #452 Time for California to End the Unwinnable Marijuana War

    TIME FOR CALIFORNIA TO END THE UNWINNABLE MARIJUANA WAR

    **********************************************************************

    DrugSense FOCUS Alert #452 – Sunday, September 11th, 2010

    Kevin Zeese, the president of Common Sense for Drug Policy
    www.csdp.org wrote the following for posting to various websites,
    including ours.

    The facts presented both in the article and the references may assist
    you in writing letters in response to the many articles, both pro and
    con, appearing in California newspapers.

    Proposition 19 news clippings may be found at http://mapinc.org/find?272

    To date only about a dozen letters on our side which mention
    Proposition 19 have been published in California newspapers. In an
    election that may be close your letters could influence enough voters
    to make the difference.

    A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed,
    it’s the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead

  • Cannabis & Hemp

    Canada’s ‘Prince of Pot’ Sentenced to Five Years

    Pubdate: Sat, 11 Sep 2010
    Source: Seattle Times (WA)
    Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/rxc0sghl
    Copyright: 2010 The Seattle Times Company
    Contact: [email protected]
    Author: Mike Carter
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?196 (Emery, Marc)

    CANADA’S ‘PRINCE OF POT’ SENTENCED TO FIVE YEARS FOR SELLING MILLIONS
    OF CANNABIS SEEDS

    Marc Emery, Canada’s “Prince of Pot” and a powerful voice in the
    debate over the decriminalization of marijuana, was sent to federal
    prison for five years on Friday for selling millions of cannabis
    seeds by mail and phone order, the culmination of a five-year
    prosecution and plea agreement that saw Emery extradited from Vancouver.

    In a statement to U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez and in a
    letter to the court, Emery admitted his attempt to force a change in
    U.S. and Canadian drug laws through “civil disobedience” and flouting
    the laws was “overzealous and reckless.”

    “I acted arrogantly in violation of U.S. federal law,” he wrote. “I
    regret not choosing other methods — legal ones — to achieve my
    goals of peaceful political reform.

    “In my zeal, I had believed that my actions were wholesome, but my
    behavior was in fact illegal and set a bad example for others,” he said.

    The five-year prison sentence was no surprise. Emery and the
    government had agreed to it as part of a deal that saw Emery
    surrender to U.S. authorities in May after fighting extradition from
    Canada for four years.

    Two clerks who worked for him at his seed store in Canada had pleaded
    guilty earlier and received probation.

    Emery was indicted in 2005, and at the time, the then-director of
    Drug Enforcement Administration, Karen Tandy, called Emery’s 2005
    arrest a “significant blow” to drug trafficking and the
    “marijuana-legalization movement.”

    “Drug-legalization lobbyists have one less pot of money to rely on,”
    Tandy said at the time.

    Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n745.a04.html

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Drug Policy - Question of the Week

    How is marijuana’s potency determined

    Drug Policy Question of the Week – 9-6-10

    As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 9-6-10. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3052

    Question of the Week: How is marijuana’s potency determined?

    The World Drug Report 2009 states,

    “The amount of THC in a cannabis sample is generally used as a measure of ‘cannabis potency.’”

    As described in that report,

    “The secretion of THC is most abundant in the flowering heads and surrounding leaves. The amount of resin secreted is influenced by environmental conditions during growth …, sex of the plant, and time of harvest.”

    The report also notes that,

    “Most data on cannabis potency are derived from the analysis of seized [marijuana] samples. This means that these samples need to be representative of the entire seizure so that inferences and extrapolations can be made.”

    As described in a 2004 report from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Addiction,

    “Data on the THC content of cannabis products in the USA have been collected by [Dr.] ElSohly et al. (1984, 2000) for many years as part of the University of Mississippi Potency Monitoring Project. Samples were submitted by law enforcement agencies and it is assumed that they are representative of the market.”

    To assist data analysis, details concerning the aforementioned environmental conditions, the type of cannabis, and the size of the plant canopy if known accompany the seized samples to a lab at University of Mississippi’s School of Pharmacy. Here they are put through a series of chemical tests to determine their THC percentage, as well as percentages of the cannabinoids, CBD, CBN, and CBC. One of their recent reports read,

    “As of March 15, 2009, the Project has analyzed and compiled data on 65,247 Cannabis, 1365 Hashish, and 476 Hash Oil samples.”

    That’s since the project’s inception.

    These facts and others like them can be found in the Marijuana chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

    Questions concerning these or other facts concerning drug policy can be e-mailed to [email protected]

    is marijuana’s potency determined?
  • Cannabis & Hemp - What You Can Do

    Stop the Lies about Marijuana Legalization

    Opponents of California’s Prop. 19 are already ramping up a misinformation campaign to scare voters with wild claims about the dangers of legalizing marijuana for adults 21 and up. Let’s fight back! Sign the petition below to tell the drug war fearmongers that the whole country is watching and their tactics aren’t fooling anybody.

    Shame on Prop. 19 opponents for distorting the facts about ending the failed war on marijuana. Misinformation and scare tactics have no place in the debate about changing California’s marijuana laws.

  • Cannabis & Hemp

    Marijuana Gateway Risk Overblown: Study

    A young woman smokes a joint outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. New research suggests use of marijuana as a teen is not a major factor in using hard drugs later in life. (Jonathan Hayward)
    Ethnicity, employment better predictors of hard drug use

    Long-held fears that the use of marijuana will lead to harder drugs are overblown, according to new research from the University of New Hampshire.

    The research, in the September issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, found that other factors, such as whether or not a person has a job, or is facing severe stress, are far more predictive of future hard drug use than whether they smoked pot as a teenager.

    “Employment in young adulthood can protect people by closing the marijuana gateway, so over-criminalizing youth marijuana use might create more serious problems if it interferes with later employment opportunities,” said co-author Karen Van Gundy.

  • Cannabis & Hemp

    Smoking Marijuana Relieves Some Pain: Study

    Smoking marijuana does help relieve a certain amount of pain, a small but well-designed Canadian study has found.

    People who suffer chronic neuropathic or nerve pain from damage or dysfunction of the nervous system have few treatment options with varying degrees of effectiveness and side-effects.

    Neuropathic pain is caused by damage to nerves that don’t repair, which can make the skin sensitive to a light touch.

    Cannabis pills have been shown to help treat some types of pain but the effects and risks from smoked cannabis were unclear.

    Smoked cannabis for chronic neuropathic pain: a randomized controlled trial, http://mapinc.org/url/THI4fclA

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Six Drug Czars, and Between Them They Can’t Muster a Decent Argument for Marijuana Prohibition

    By Jacob Sullum

    “Our opposition to legalizing marijuana is grounded not in ideology but in facts and experience,” say drug czar Gil Kerlikowske and his five predecessors in a Los Angeles Times op-ed piece that urges Californians to vote against Proposition 19. They argue that voters should listen to them because they are “experts in the field of drug policy, policing, prevention, education and treatment.” If this is the best case the experts can make against marijuana legalization, they had better call in the amateurs.

    Kerlikowske et al. say it’s not true that “legalizing and taxing marijuana would generate much-needed revenue,” because everyone will grow his own, thereby avoiding sales and excise taxes. Although “people don’t typically grow their own tobacco or distill their own spirits,” they say, marijuana is different because it is “easy and cheap to cultivate, indoors or out.” If growing pot were as easy as the Six Drug Czars imply, there would not be much of a market for all the books and periodicals that explain how to do it properly. In any case, one could also say that tomatoes are “easy and cheap” to grow, or that beer is “easy and cheap” to brew. I’ve done both, but I still buy tomatoes and beer in stores. The supply is more reliable and varied, and it’s a lot easier. Accounting for the time and effort required to grow tomatoes and brew beer, buying them in the store is cheaper too, even though I have to pay taxes on them.