Reason.tv dishonors go to the Drug Warrior-in-Chief Barack Obama, whose DEA banned fake pot, thwarted a scientist’s decade-long campaign to study marijuana, and raided dispensaries in Montana and California—all in one month!
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STOP PUTTING GARDENERS BEHIND BARS
It looks like the taxpayers of Illinois are going to be paying for
the room and board of another felony gardener. ( “Area drug agents
seize cannabis plants, suspect still at large” 3-10-11 ).Have your local police solved all of your rapes, robberies and
murders? If not, why are they going after gardeners?If you would regulate, control and tax cannabis, the state of
Illinois could make money off it instead of giving free housing to
non-violent gardeners.Kirk Muse
Mesa, Ariz.
Pubdate: Mon, 14 Mar 2011
Source: Journal Standard, The (Freeport, IL)
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n000/a013.html
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Drug Courts are Not the Answer finds that drug courts are an ineffective and inappropriate response to drug law violations. Many, all the way up to the Obama administration, consider the continued proliferation of drug courts to be a viable solution to the problem of mass arrests and incarceration of people who use drugs. Yet this report finds that drug courts do not reduce incarceration, do not improve public safety, and do not save money when compared to the wholly punitive model they seek to replace. The report calls for reducing the role of the criminal justice system in responding to drug use by expanding demonstrated health approaches, including harm reduction and drug treatment, and by working toward the removal of criminal penalties for drug use.
Drug Courts Are Not the Answer: Toward a Health-Centered Approach to Drug Use. Drug Policy Alliance; March 2011.
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Project by Connie Littlefield
Conceptafilm is making a feature length documentary called “Better Living Through Chemistry.” This film will tell the story of underground psychedelic chemistry: the people who made the drugs; their adventures evading the law; and society’s mixed emotions about the experiences they produced.
Beginning with the prohibition against LSD in 1966 and lasting until Sand’s final capture in 1996, a large amount of the underground LSD available in North America was made by
Nicholas Sand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Sand and Tim Scully: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Scully , initially in partnership with Owsley Stanley: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owsley_Stanley .
This film tells the story of ‘Orange Sunshine,’ ‘White Lightening,’ ‘Purple Monterey’ and other incarnations of LSD. Sand & Scully made the finest, purest LSD ever created, & evaded the law for a really long time.
We are currently raising development money for what will be a feature-length documentary. With the funds we raise through Kickstarter, we will shoot & edit a short demo, and write a treatment for the film. A budget and marketing plan will complete the development package. With these tools, we will have no trouble finding completion financing.
All donations will result in eternal gratitude & enhanced karma. Patrons who donate more than $250 will receive a DVD copy of the feature film signed by the filmmaker and a ‘thanks to’ on the website. As well, donors of over $1000 will receive a screen credit in the film. Silent blessings and smiles also appreciated.
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CRIMINAL PROHIBITION MAKES CANNABIS WORTH FIGHTING FOR
In attempting to blame cannabis consumers for black market violence
(“Violence follows industry, cops warn,” March 9), RCMP Cpl. Peter
DeVries came tantalizingly close to understanding the problem.DeVries remarked “because of its monetary value as a commodity,
marijuana is inextricably tied to serious acts of violence.”Indeed, criminal prohibition makes the “street value” of cannabis
worth fighting for. Additionally, black marketeers have no recourse
to the law, and must settle their own disputes. Starbucks employees
are not found left for dead by Tim Hortons employees.We do not know what percentage of cannabis cultivators and merchants
are violent criminals, because the market is unregulated, but a
survey of Canadian prisoners serving time for high-level cultivation
and trafficking found that about 70 per cent were otherwise law-abiding.Just as alcohol consumers supported Al Capone, and cocaine consumers
supported Pablo Escobar, if you buy cannabis (rather than grow your
own) and you do not know its origins, then you might be supporting
violent criminals. If you still support cannabis prohibition, then
you most certainly are.Matthew Elrod
Victoria
Pubdate: Fri, 11 Mar 2011
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n160/a10.html
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
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Drug Policy Question of the Week – 3-22-11
As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 3-22-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3304
Question of the Week: Can people with a drug conviction vote?
Just before the election last fall, the Sentencing Project reported,
“… more than 5 million citizens will be ineligible to vote in the midterm elections in November [2010], including nearly 4 million who reside in the 35 states that still prohibit some combination of persons on probation, parole, and/or people who have completed their sentence from voting.”
The Bureau of Justice Statistics “Prisoners in 2009” report found that by year end 2008, 251,400 inmates were housed in state facilities as a result of a drug conviction. For 95,079 federal prisoners, a drug offense was the most serious offense.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ “Probation and Parole in theUnited States, 2008” calculated a total of 646,493 probationers for which a drug offense was the most serious offense. Similarly, there were 265,634 adults on parole as a result of a drug conviction.
Totaling all of the above numbers computes whopping 1,258,606 adults subject to disenfranchisement or the loss of voting rights for drug convictions in 2008.
The Sentencing Project’s 2011 report Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States states that
“48 states and the District of Columbia prohibit inmates from voting while incarcerated for a felony offense. Only two states – Maine and Vermont – permit inmates to vote. … Two states deny the right to vote to all persons with felony convictions, even after they have completed their sentences.”
Those states are Iowa and Kentucky. Please check the report to find out where your state stands.
These facts and others like them can be found in the Civil Rights and Prisons and Jails Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org
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Drug Policy Question of the Week – 3-12-11
As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 3-12-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3302
Question of the Week: What is dronabinol?
A November 2010 Federal Register posting by the Drug Enforcement Administration defined dronabinol as,
“the United States Adopted Name (USAN) for [Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol or THC], which is believed to be the major psychoactive component of the cannabis plant [aka] (marijuana).”
Bantam Medical Dictionary defines, a “United States Adopted Name” as the
“US generic name for any compound to be used as a drug.”
Dronabinol is generic for tetrahydrocannabinol or THC.
Abbott Laboratories markets the pharmaceutical drug Marinol®, containing, using the DEA’s definition,
“dronabinol in sesame oil and encapsulated in both hard gelatin or soft gelatin capsules.”
Because Abbott lists dronabinol as the only active ingredient of Marinol®, sesame oil is inactive. Abbott states that dronabinol
“is also a naturally occurring component of Cannabis sativa L. (Marijuana)”
and that Marinol is
“controlled [Schedule III] under the Controlled Substances Act,”
The naturally occurring Cannabis sativa L, is a tightly restricted and highly illegal plant under Schedule I.
The Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis argued in its 2002 Petition to Reschedule Cannabis,”
Cannabis is a natural source of dronabinol (THC), the ingredient of Marinol, a Schedule III drug. There are no grounds to schedule cannabis in a more restrictive schedule than Marinol”.
Minus the inactive sesame oil, the DEA seemed to agree with the petition by stating in the Federal Register that,
“dronabinol products, both naturally-derived or synthetically produced, … meet the criteria for placement in schedule III.”
If they do, then shouldn’t the source of “naturally-derived” dronabinol (THC) – the tightly restricted and highly illegal Cannabis sativa L plant – be a legal Schedule III as well?
These facts and others like them can be found in the Medical Marijuana Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.
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Drug Policy Question of the Week – 3-2-11
As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 3-2-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3289
Question of the Week: What can hemp be used for?
A 2010 report from the Congressional Research Service defines,
“Hemp, also called “industrial hemp,”3 [as] cannabis varieties that are primarily grown as an agricultural crop (such as seeds and fiber, and byproducts such as oil, seed cake, hurds) …”
According to the 2008 National Hemp Strategy from the Manitoba Agriculture,
“The hemp plant has three primary components: bast fibre, hurd, and seed / oil.”
The report goes on to describe the uses of each,
“Hemp bast fibres are among the strongest and most durable of natural fibres, with high tensile strength, wet strength, and other characteristics favourable for various industrial products …including cordage (rope, twine, etc.), specialty papers, fabrics for clothing and other applications, and industrial textiles such as geotextiles and carpeting. The strength of hemp fibre also makes it ideal for use in a range of composites for applications such as moulded car parts and fibreboard for construction.”
“The whole hemp stalk can also be used to produce various biofuels such as bio-oil (or pyrolytic liquid), cellulosic ethanol, (synthetic gas) and methane. … The processes by which hemp is converted to biofuels may also produce valuable chemicals and other materials as bi-products.”
“Hemp oil is extremely nutritious, and is used in foods and nutraceutical products for humans and animals, as well as in personal care products. Hemp oil is also suitable for use in industrial products such as paints, varnishes, inks and industrial lubricants, and can be used to produce biodiesel. The crushed seed meal left over from oil production is frequently used for animal feed.”
These facts and others like them can be found in the recently updated Hemp Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.
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By Ernest Drucker
Bill S-10 currently being considered by the House of Commons calls for the introduction of mandatory sentences as deterrents to organized crime and large scale drug dealing in Canada. There are serious doubts about the value of this strategy , and many of the country’s health, research, and academic leaders have objected , aware of the many hazards of this approach . But there is also a body of evidence from the US that can inform Canada’s decision on S -10 and help avoid the disastrous mistake that mandatory drug sentencing has been for the US – in effect launching a 35 year epidemic of mass incarceration and collateral harms to million of Americans.
During the first 20 years of mandatory drug sentencing I ran a large drug treatment program in the Bronx. Under our Rockefeller drug laws ( the model for mandatory drug sentencing laws in the US ) I watched New York State’s prison system grow from 12,000 to 73,000 – as drug offenders rose from 10% to over 40% of the prison population. Since their passage in 1973 over 150,000 drug users were sentenced to prison under these laws. After release most returned to drugs and related crime – with 1/3 back behind bars in 12 months and 2/3 by 3 years after release. Under such laws the US prison population exploded, reaching 2.5 million by 2009 – the highest incarceration rate in US history and in the world today – six times Canada’s imprisonment rate. Today, as a direct result of mandatory drug sentencing , there are more drug offenders in US prisons (over 600,000) than in all of the prisons of the EU for all offenses. Is this an experiment that Canada really wants to repeat?