• Cannabis & Hemp

    US CA: NAACP Signs Onto Pot Legalization Measure

    Pubdate: Tue, 29 Jun 2010
    Source: Oakland Tribune, The (CA)
    Webpage: http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_15395193
    Copyright: 2010 Bay Area News Group
    Contact: http://www.insidebayarea.com/feedback/tribune
    Author: Josh Richman, Oakland Tribune
    Cited: California NAACP http://www.californianaacp.org/
    Cited: Proposition 19 http://www.taxcannabis.org/
    Referenced: Targeting Blacks for Marijuana http://mapinc.org/url/btjAQH1v
    Referenced: Marijuana Arrests and California’s Drug War
    http://mapinc.org/url/gf9Qvr0S
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Tax+Cannabis+Act

    NAACP SIGNS ONTO POT LEGALIZATION MEASURE

    The state NAACP is expressing “unconditional support” for the
    November ballot measure to legalize marijuana, continuing proponents’
    framing of it as a civil rights issue.

    “We are joining a growing number of medical professionals, labor
    organizations, law enforcement authorities, local municipalities, and
    approximately 56 percent of the public, in saying that it is time to
    decriminalize the use of marijuana,” state NAACP President Alice
    Huffman said in a news release Monday. “There is a strong racial
    component that must be considered when we investigate how the
    marijuana laws are applied to people of color.”

    The measure, Control and Tax Cannabis Initiative 2010, was designated
    Monday as Proposition 19.

    [snip]

    Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n499.a04.html

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Marc Emery: U.S. Federal Prison Blog #5

    Free from 21 days of isolation

    By Marc Emery

    (Marc Emery’s U.S. federal prison blog #5 originally ran here on the Cannabis Culture Web site.)

    At 6:00pm on Thursday, June 24th, I was finally released from solitary confinement after three weeks of isolation.

    The Disciplinary Hearing Officer was very gracious (in so much as I was in solitary for 21 days) and agreed that the phone use infraction – the podcast to supporters that was never released – was minor in the big picture. He made it a “397” which involves no loss of good time (the discount of 15% a year on my sentence). He also said “Everyone here knows you are famous and it was a shout-out to your supporters that was not harmful, and we know you didn’t criticize the Federal Detention Centre, but you can’t do third-party political lobbying over the phone.” So lesson learned. I don’t have phone access until July 25th, but at least I can “email” Jodie through CorrLinks and have visits in person, instead of the cruel “video visits” they’ve recently designated for inmates in solitary confinement.

  • Hot Off The 'Net - What You Can Do

    Experts call for new course on illegal drugs in fight against HIV

    VIENNA (June 28, 2010): A team of experts and health organisations on Monday called for a scientific approach to illicit drugs, arguing that their criminalisation has been costly and ineffective and has fuelled a high HIV infection rate among intravenous drug users. The experts made the appeal in the lead-up to the 18th International AIDS Conference, to be held July 18-23 in the Austrian capital Vienna. They are launching a global signature drive for a declaration on a “science-based” approach to illegal drugs.

    “As scientists, we are committed to raising our collective voice to promote evidence-based approaches to illicit drug policy that start by recognizing that addiction is a medical condition, not a crime,” Julio Montaner, conference chairman and president of the International AIDS Society, said in a statement.

    The failure by law enforcement to prevent the availability of illegal drugs where there is demand “is now unambiguous,” the so- called Vienna Declaration says. The declaration – drafted by 32 medical doctors and leading specialists – appeals to governments, the United Nations and other international organisations to review the effectiveness of current drug policies, increase “evidence-based” drug addiction treatments and abolish compulsory drug treatments that violate human rights.
    The declaration also calls for an increase in funding for drug treatment and “harm reduction” measures.

    The consequences of failed drug-enforcement efforts are manifold, the declaration says, pointing to HIV epidemics fuelled by the unavailability of sterile needles, HIV outbreaks among prisoners and record incarceration rates in many countries.

    The massive market for illicit drugs, worth some 320 billion dollars annually, has also destabilised entire countries, such as Colombia, Mexico and Afghanistan. Outside sub-Saharan Africa, intravenous drug use accounts for roughly one in three new cases of HIV, the declaration says. In some areas where HIV is spreading most rapidly, such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia, as many as 80% of those infected with HIV are intravenous drug users.

    Alternative approaches to illicit drug use – such as those implemented in the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland and other countries – have proven effective, conference organisers said

  • Hot Off The 'Net - International

    Drug and Health

    June 26 marks International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. According to World Drug Report 2010 by the UN, drug use is shifting towards new drugs and new markets. To better understand the current situation on drug use around the world, we have ….

    Guests:

    Jack Cole, Executive director of LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
    Prof. Dr. Liu Renwen，Director of the Department of Criminal Law with Law Institute of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
    Prof. Lu Lin, Director of National Institute of Drug Dependence, Peking University Health Science Center

  • Drug Policy

    US MO: OPED: Prescriptions Scarier Than ‘Devil Weed’

    Pubdate: Sun, 27 Jun 2010
    Source: Columbia Daily Tribune (MO)
    Webpage: http://mapinc.org/url/Mf7JhJ3G
    Copyright: 2010 Columbia Daily Tribune
    Contact: [email protected]
    Author: Eddie Adelstein
    Note: Eddie Adelstein, associate professor of pathology at the
    University of Missouri, is Boone County’s deputy medical examiner.

    PRESCRIPTIONS SCARIER THAN ‘DEVIL WEED’

    I remember hearing 62 years ago that Robert Mitchum had been caught
    with a joint of marijuana in his suitcase, was arrested and his
    acting career ended. I remember thinking, “He’s done for, now — that
    devil weed has entered his brain, and it is all over for him.” Such
    was the power of public disinformation. In people of my generation,
    those concepts still hold true for many.

    Every morning, we review the cases that come before the medical
    examiner’s office. During the past few years, more and more deaths
    are related to prescription drugs, often taken with legal
    prescriptions for opiates. In 2009, drug overdoses reportedly
    exceeded automobile deaths in 15 states. Some studies indicated
    deaths from ingesting multiple prescription drugs is up by 60
    percent. This is partially fueled by the ever-increasing volume of
    advertisements for prescription drugs on television. Serotonin
    selective reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) are epidemic. You know them as
    drugs such as Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil. The costs to health care are enormous.

    [snip]

    In the 25 years I have been a medical examiner, however, I have
    neither seen nor heard of a death caused by marijuana. Given the
    choice of being placed in a room of either marijuana smokers or
    alcoholics, I would choose the marijuana smokers. Except for
    lethargy, there are few side effects of this drug.

    [snip]

    Often, the older generation that demands punishment for marijuana has
    never actually used this natural herbal drug. They believe the old
    stories about “devil weed.” If they actually smoked marijuana, they
    would be surprised because the first time, almost nothing happens. If
    they try it again, they might notice a feeling of relaxation, of
    overlooking the small annoyances of life and of a small increase in
    appetite. They would notice that, unlike with alcohol, they have
    greater tolerance for their fellow man and tend to be more careful
    about their activities, such as driving. The next day, they are
    often relaxed and somewhat apathetic to carrying out tasks. Humans
    become more sensitive to marijuana, rather than developing a
    resistance, as with some mind-altering drugs. I would never advocate
    any drug, but this one has fewer side effects than most.

    [snip]

    Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n496.a03.html

  • 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