Pubdate: Mon, 3 May 2010
Source: North County Times (Escondido, CA)
Webpage: http://mapinc.org/url/G1Dn3nUX
Copyright: 2010 North County Times
Contact: http://www.nctimes.com/app/forms/letters/index.php
Website: http://www.nctimes.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1080
Author: Edward Sifuentes
Cited: Americans for Safe Access http://www.americansforsafeaccess.org/
Cited: Drug Policy Alliance http://www.drugpolicy.org/
Cited: American Civil Liberties Union in San Diego http://www.aclusandiego.org/issues.php?sub_cat_sel=000066
Cited: San Diego County Board of Supervisors http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/general/bos.html
Referenced: The draft ordinance http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/dplu/docs/POD_09-007_Medical_Marijuana.pdf
Referenced: The ACLU letter to the County http://mapinc.org/url/gReM0Nkx
Referenced: Conant v. Walters http://www.safeaccessnow.org/downloads/conantvwalters.pdf
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/San+Diego+County+supervisors

ACLU ATTACKS DRAFT POT-DISPENSARY ORDINANCE

Proposal Would Violate Patient Privacy Rules, Activists Say

The county’s proposed medical marijuana dispensary ordinance would violate patient privacy laws because it opens patient lists and other records to law enforcement, medical marijuana advocates and civil rights groups say.

County officials released a draft of the document in March. It was heavily criticized by patient advocacy groups and others, including Americans for Safe Access, the Drug Policy Alliance and the American Civil Liberties Union in San Diego.

Since the criticisms started to pour in, county officials have refused to answer questions about the ordinance, including whether any medical professionals helped draft it.

Critics, including medical marijuana activist Rudy Reyes, say the county’s refusal to work cooperatively with patients and advocacy groups led to a poorly written document.

The ACLU, which last year won a lawsuit against the county forcing it to implement the state’s medical marijuana ID program, said in a letter criticizing the proposed ordinance that county leaders once again were trying to deter patients’ right to access the drug.

“The county is trying to do indirectly what it couldn’t do directly, which is ban collectives in the county,” said David Blair-Loy, legal director for the ACLU in San Diego.

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n334/a03.html

Pubdate: Sat, 1 May 2010
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Page: 13A
Webpage: http://mapinc.org/url/JiVvKvjJ
Copyright: 2010 The Sacramento Bee
Contact: http://www.sacbee.com/2006/09/07/19629/submit-letters-to-the-editor.html
Website: http://www.sacbee.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376
Author: John Russo
Cited: Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act http://www.taxcannabis.org/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Tax+Cannabis+Act
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis – California)

IT’S TIME TO LEGALIZE AND REGULATE POT

When it comes to marijuana policy, California has been stuck in a fairy tale for decades.

This particular fairy tale is like “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

Everybody can see that marijuana prohibition has done nothing to prevent its use, and that arresting tens of thousands Californians every year for misdemeanor possession diverts police resources away from violent felonies.

And nobody is blind to the fact that marijuana has funded and empowered the sociopathic drug cartels responsible for untold suffering and violence on both sides of the border.

It’s time for Californians to acknowledge the truth about the war on marijuana. Not only is it ineffective, it directly compromises public safety in our state.

In November, California can become the first state to recognize this reality by passing the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010.

This smart initiative would legalize personal cultivation and possession of small amounts of marijuana for adults over the age of 21. Individual cities and counties could strictly regulate distribution and sales as they see fit. It would increase the penalty for providing marijuana to minors, and sales by unlicensed dealers those now funding the cartels and wreaking havoc in our cities would still be illegal.

California banned cannabis almost a century ago based on sensational and unscientific notions about the plant. Modern prohibition, based on some of the same anachronistic ideas, has failed to control widespread availability and use. Like the 18th Amendment’s prohibition against alcohol, it is routinely overlooked by millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens.

Others have made common-sense arguments about the economic benefits of taxing this major industry. Cannabis is by far the largest cash crop in the state, with an estimated value of about $14 billion. Estimated tax revenue from sales alone would be $1.4 billion money that could go to police, public schools and other critical services now being gutted by California’s budget crisis.

As the city attorney of Oakland a city where dozens of people are killed in drug-related murders every year my primary concern is the war on marijuana’s collateral damage to public safety.

Black-market marijuana is a main source of fuel powering the vast criminal enterprises that threaten peace on our streets and weaken national security on our borders. According to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the Mexican drug cartels get more than 60 percent of their revenue from selling marijuana in the United States.

Money is the oxygen of these organizations. For decades, our approach to fighting violent drug gangs has been like trying to put out a house fire with a watering can. Why not try shutting off the fire’s main oxygen supply?

The actual costs of enforcing prohibition are hard to estimate. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars and countless law enforcement hours arresting people for low-level marijuana crimes, further overburdening courts and prisons. Jail beds needed for marijuana offenders could be “used for other criminals who are now being released early because of a lack of jail space,” the state Legislative Analyst’s Office wrote.

More than 61,000 Californians were arrested for misdemeanor marijuana possession in 2008. That same year, about 60,000 violent crimes went unsolved statewide. The reality is that resources tied up fighting marijuana would be better spent solving and preventing violent felonies and other major crimes.

Regulating and controlling marijuana is really a law-and-order measure. It takes marijuana off street corners and out of the hands of children. It cuts off a huge source of revenue to the violent gangsters who now control the market. And it gives law enforcement more capacity to focus on what really matters to Californians making our communities safer.

It’s time we call marijuana prohibition what it is an outdated and costly approach that has failed to benefit our society. In November, we will finally have the chance to take a rational course with the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act.

Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis – California)

Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?207 (Cannabis – United Kingdom)

WHY CAN’T OUR POLITICIANS COME CLEAN ON DRUGS?

What is the single most curable evil afflicting community life in London? The answer is the criminalisation of drug use under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act.

It blights half the capital’s youth at some stage or other. It hovers as a black cloud over every neighbourhood, pub and street corner.  It causes crime and gangland disorder.  It packs the courts and fills the prisons.  It costs billions of pounds in personal loss and public spending.

Needless to say, not one party in the current General Election is prepared to discuss it.  As a result, London is about to be taught a lesson in social policy by, of all places, America.

As I whiled away last week waiting in Los Angeles for Her Majesty’s Government to find an ash cloud policy, I decided to pop into one of many local cannabis “dispensaries” — strictly in the interests of research.

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n325/a03.html

Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?251 (Cannabis – New Zealand)

BUST ‘BREAKS CORNERSTONE’ OF CANNABIS INDUSTRY

Police Minister Judith Collins has congratulated police on shutting down what they allege is a major source of equipment for commercial cannabis growers.

A nationwide drugs bust was executed today, closing down the 16 branches and distribution centre of hydroponic gardening chain Switched On Gardener.

Hundreds of people, ranging in age from 20 to 60, were arrested and will appear before the courts, with many of them facing charges for selling equipment to make secret gardens for growing cannabis.

Continues http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n326/a12.html

Visitors from around the planet are already gathering in Nimbin for MardiGrass – the famous cannabis law reform rally – this Saturday and Sunday, May 1 and 2.

Mardigrass has been going since 1993 in protest against the prohibition of cannabis and will continue “every year until we are not criminals,” MardiGrass spokesperson Michael Balderstone said.

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n326/a01.html and http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n326/a02.html

The lawyer for four California patients has cited the Americans with Disabilities Act and the fact that Congress allowed the city of Washington’s medical marijuana initiative go into effect as the reason a federal judge should hear their case.  The judge agreed as these two articles state:

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n319.a02.html

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n319.a01.html

Pubdate: Sat, 24 Apr 2010
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2010 Los Angeles Times
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Photo: Of Jack Herer printed in black and white in the newspaper http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2010-04/53454182.jpg

JACK HERER, 1939 – 2010

Proselytizer for Legal Pot

Jack Herer, an energetic advocate for marijuana legalization who was a mesmerizing presence on the Venice Boardwalk and achieved worldwide renown after he wrote a treatise extolling the virtues of hemp, died April 15. He was 70.

Herer suffered a debilitating heart attack in September, minutes after he delivered a typically pugnacious pro-pot speech at the Hempstalk festival in Portland, Ore., insisting that marijuana ought to be smoked morning, noon and night. “You’ve got to be out of your mind not to smoke dope,” shouted Herer, dressed in a green short-sleeved shirt and shorts made from hemp. “It is the best thing the world has ever had.”

He never recovered and died at home in Eugene on tax day. “Dad has not filed taxes in over 30 years, so it was wonderful he died on tax day, it really was,” said his son Mark Herer, who is the president of The Third Eye, the family’s smoke shop and hippie wares store in Portland.

Herer researched and wrote an exuberant book that became the bible of the movement to legalize hemp, a non-psychoactive strain of marijuana. “The Emperor Wears No Clothes,” which was first published in 1985, has sold more than 700,000 copies. In it, Herer wields extensive documentation to ridicule the government’s ban on hemp cultivation and to highlight the plant’s versatility as paper, fiber, fuel, food and medicine.

The book made Herer into one of the most recognizable figures in the marijuana movement and converted him into a pop icon memorialized by a strain of cannabis. For decades, Herer, known as the Emperor of Hemp or the Hemperor, crisscrossed the country, rhapsodizing about the wonders of weed.

Bruce Margolin, one of L.A.’s best-known marijuana defense lawyers, recalls that Herer was always trying to teach people about hemp. “At that time I was ignorant of it like everyone else,” he said. “He educated me and many, many other people through his book and his lectures.”

Herer was born June 18, 1939, in New York City, the youngest of three children, and served in Korea as an Army military police officer. He discovered his mission in Los Angeles after he moved to the city in 1967 with his wife and three sons to work at a neon sign company. He tried marijuana two years later and quickly became engrossed in learning about it. “He was always a very curious person about everything. He read everything he got his hands on,” said Vera Donato, who was married to Herer from 1960 to 1969.

In the early 1970s, he wrote “G.R.A.S.S.,” which stood for “Great Revolutionary American Standard System.” It promoted a 1-to-10 scale for grading marijuana. He also began to invent drug paraphernalia.

In 1973, he launched a relentless effort to legalize marijuana in California, working year after year on initiatives that failed, often in league with Ed Adair, a head shop owner who died two decades ago. In 1980, the two became co-commanders of Reefer Raiders and set up camp on the lawn of the federal building in Westwood, openly smoking joints for the media. A year later, they pushed their own measure.

Herer opened a head shop in Van Nuys called High Country and recruited other owners to help fund his initiatives. In 1983, he ran afoul of a new state law that made it a misdemeanor to sell devices to use with illegal drugs. Police confiscated more than 6,000 items in two raids. Three years later, Herer was convicted and ordered to pay a $1,500 fine and serve two years’ probation.

In the 1980s, he could frequently be found at an information booth on the Venice Boardwalk, a gregarious man who showed obvious pleasure in trying to persuade skeptics. “I think the thing that motivated him the most was his love and respect for planet Earth and that he was a kind and good-hearted person just naturally,” said Jerry Rubin, a fellow activist who was often stationed nearby. “He was doing a consciousness-raising lifetime exercise.”

Herer researched “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” for years, scouring the archives of the Library of Congress for evidence that he believed the government suppressed when marijuana was outlawed in 1937.

The book, updated many times, sparked a hemp resurgence, and he became a circuit-riding preacher. In 1990, Herer addressed 60 rallies in 48 places in one six-week stint.

At 6 feet and 230 pounds, with unkempt hair and a bushy beard, Herer was an imposing, but not intimidating figure, a bearish counterculture holdout who was often found in tie-dyed shorts and a T-shirt with a pot leaf overlaid on an American flag on the front and a history of hemp on the back.

Herer had a heart attack and stroke at a hemp festival in 2000. He boasted that his rehabilitation was aided by cannabis oil. When he concluded his last speech, he said, “Come over to my booth, over there, and I will see you next time.”

“He didn’t write the script, but you couldn’t write it better,” Mark Herer said. “Dad has a speech, the crowd cheers and he walks off into the sunset.”

Herer was married four times. He is survived by his wife, six children, a brother and a sister. A memorial will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday at Eden Memorial Park, 11500 Sepulveda Blvd., in Mission Hills.