As a 29 year-old bi-racial male raised in both the inner-city and suburbs of Worcester, having Black, White, and Latino family members and friends who responsibly consume marijuana, I repeatedly experienced and witnessed the disproportionate enforcement of marijuana laws in a racially biased manner. Despite virtually identical usage rates among whites and non-whites, research has consistently found that punitive marijuana laws disproportionately target non-white citizens. A recent study from the ACLU found that in 2010 - even after Massachusetts had decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana - black citizens in Massachusetts were four times more likely to be charged for marijuana possession than whites. [continues 99 words]
This week's Republican National Convention was marked by the appearance of 100 naked women holding mirrors, a photography project by Spencer Tunick. Tunick has positioned the naked bodies of people in 70 different photoshoots across the world. In a statement prior to the RNC, Tunick said, "By holding mirrors, we hope to suggest that women are a reflection and embodiment of nature, the sun, the sky and the land." I mention Tunick's project not just to explain to the Journal's beleaguered I.T. team what the heck is going on with my browser history (for those not afraid of rippling, dimpled white flesh and ungroomed pubic thatches, Tunick's photos are actually pretty amazing) but to juxtapose this political statement against one rolling (sorry) toward Philadelphia next week: a 51-foot joint to be held aloft by cannabis lovers outside the Democratic National Convention. [continues 461 words]
I recently read with interest an article by Mike McFeely , (a WDAY host and Forum columnist) entitled "Medical marijuana a needed debate in North Dakota." At the end of his article he stated that North Dakota backers of medical marijuana would be wise to do some storytelling. Shortly before marijuana was banned by The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, new technologies were developed that made hemp a potential competitor with the newly-founded synthetic fiber and plastics industries. Hemp's potential for producing paper also posed a threat to the timber industry. Evidence suggests that commercial interests having much to lose from hemp competition helped propagate reefer madness hysteria, and used their influence to lobby for marijuana prohibition. [continues 223 words]
WHILE the latest research on cannabis confirms anecdotes that weed slows and even removes Alzheimer's, the dagga couple of SA still have a long fight to change the illegal status of the drug in South Africa. On their non-profit organisation website, Fields of Green for All, the infamous dagga couple, Julian Stobbs and Myrtle Clarke, said their case will finally come to court on July 31, 2017. And after all their effort to get there, the Pretoria high court will have to escalate the questions raised on the constitutionality of being arrested for possessing dagga to the Constitutional Court. The couple have also sued seven South African government departments on charges of enacting unlawful laws. [continues 831 words]
Cops and Prosecutors Are Embracing a Radical Idea: Not Filing Drug Possession Cases HERE'S THE DEAL: People are using drugs in this city, despite decades of law enforcement's best efforts. That fight has landed thousands of people in jail and prison-far too many of them people of color. It's created hardships for Portlanders who need jobs and a place to stay, but find that a criminal record has closed the door to those things. It's led to tensions between police and communities of color that are playing out-vividly, tragically-every day around the country. [continues 1255 words]
Slowly but surely, marijuana prohibition is ending. Legalization can help undo the racist impact of the war on this widely used drug - but it could also help perpetuate injustice. Four states and the District of Columbia have passed measures to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use, and many more allow use for medical purposes. Those numbers will almost certainly grow this year, with my home state of California likely leading the way. But state governments, as well as the burgeoning legal marijuana industry, need to get this right. [continues 429 words]
What to Watch for in the Question 2 Campaign August 28, 1953: California Attorney General Edmund (Pat) Brown announced that the fight against marijuana was "showing marked results." Voters have become accustomed to seeing and hearing the truth shaved in political campaigns. Yet it often comes in a subjective form. Yes, Candidate A is misrepresenting Candidate B about Issue C, but it's done in a way that it hangs from the edge of truth by the fingernails and no one can actually say it was a case of lying. That word is rarely used in political campaigns. [continues 2823 words]
Mark Davis: Those Pushing for This Don't Know What It Does to Neighborhoods Looks like this is my year for congratulating the Dallas City Council, although I do not pretend that the horseshoe is bending toward my worldview. First they found a way to reject the absurdity that there was a First Amendment obligation to host a porn convention on city property. Now, at least for the moment, they are resisting widespread urgings to loosen marijuana laws. As some state-level experiments plod forward with outright pot legalization, the Dallas issue involved ratcheting pot-possession penalties down from a jailable offense to a mere ticket. [continues 581 words]
The Liberal government is making a hash of marijuana legalization by embarking on a needless consultation exercise led by a task force of well-meaning volunteers. Four U.S. states made cannabis legal in 2012 and others are vocally following suit. Canada, which has had a legal medical scheme for more than 15 years, has had calls for legalization for half a century. The 1969 Le Dain Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs, set up by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's dad, recommended after three years' study that the country decriminalize cannabis. [continues 675 words]
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one part of the American people to affirm the political bands which connect them to the other parts, and to assume within the nation, the connected and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of their fellow citizens requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to affirm their connection. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among us, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and, if they choose the path of alteration, to abandon old and institute new legislation, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing the powers of government in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that legislation long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to repudiate the integral connection among Americans, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such legislation, and to provide new Guards for their future security. - Such has been the patient sufferance of African Americans; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to advocate the end of Prohibition. The history of the present War on Drugs is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having as a direct consequence the severing of the connection between African Americans and the rest of the American polity. [continues 755 words]
As a society, I ask you: "Do you want a welfare system where money is spent on food for families or illegal drugs pushed by predators?" The crystal meth wave responsibly reported by this newspaper and so alarming to all thinking people is swamping our emergency responders. Like all illegal drug flows, it is powered by cash. And this is where our welfare system fails our vulnerable Australians. We have always tried to limit the debilitating drugs, destroying generations of children, by attacking the supply. Our current police and welfare structure can only address the symptoms, not the cause of social disadvantage. [continues 1044 words]
Federal Liberals' legalization effort stinks of unfocused busy work The Liberal government is making a hash of marijuana legalization by embarking on a needless consultation exercise led by a task force of well-meaning volunteers. Four U.S. states made cannabis legal in 2012 and others are vocally following suit. Canada, which has had a legal medical scheme for more than 15 years, has had calls for legalization for half a century. The 1969 Le Dain Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs, set up by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's dad, recommended after three years' study that the country decriminalize cannabis. [continues 674 words]
The World Health Organization defines addiction or dependency as a complex health condition that often requires long-term treatment and care. Sadly, that is the case with Indonesia's policy on drug crimes. To address the global problem of drugs, world leaders and activists gathered on April 19-21 at the UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs in New York. Most countries represented moved from criminalization to decriminalization for personal possession or use. Some opted to regulate drug markets for certain types of drugs, mostly marijuana. Almost all delegates from the EU, Latin America, UN organizations and the special rapporteurs against torture and the right to health agreed to abolish the death penalty for drug offenders. [continues 608 words]
The Supreme Court just gave police sweeping new powers to rummage through people's pockets The Supreme Court threw out more than a half century of precedent this week when it ruled that evidence gathered after an illegal stop can be used in criminal prosecutions if the person searched has an outstanding warrant. In a 5-3 ruling, the justices substantially weakened the longstanding exclusionary rule that generally makes such evidence inadmissible in court. The court's action threatens Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches and represents a dangerous departure from settled law that prevented police from randomly stopping and questioning people on the streets. [continues 540 words]
Part of Ohio's new medical marijuana law that sets aside a piece of the state's budding pot business for minorities appears to be unconstitutional, legal experts told The Associated Press. The provisions were inserted into the fast-tracked bill at the request of Democrats, whose votes were key to its passage in both Republican-controlled legislative chambers. The law made Ohio the 25th state to legalize medicinal cannabis. It takes effect Sept. 8. The benchmarks require at least 15 percent of Ohio's cultivator, processor, retail dispensary and laboratory licenses to go to the businesses of one of four economically disadvantaged minority groups - - blacks, Hispanics, Asians or Native Americans - so long as an adequate number apply. [continues 534 words]
The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government - or that's how it works in theory, anyway. In practice, though, court decisions over several decades have created so many exceptions to this constitutional principle as to render it effectively meaningless in many real-world situations. On Monday, the Supreme Court further weakened the Fourth Amendment by making it even easier for law enforcement to evade its requirement that stops be based on reasonable suspicion. The justices ruled 5 to 3 that a police officer's illegal stop of a man on the street did not prevent evidence obtained from a search connected to that stop to be used against him. [continues 497 words]
It would appear no amount of weed is too small for the federal government to prosecute as it works toward legalizing the drug for recreational use. Brandon Richards was pulled over after leaving the parking lot of a Guelph strip club shortly after 1 a.m. in October 2014 for a sobriety check. He passed, but the officer said he detected the odour of marijuana. The big discovery: 1.15 g of pot. A street value of about $10. Richards was charged with simple possession and the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC), the federal agency that handles drug crimes, chose to take the matter to court, where Richards was found guilty and ordered to pay a $100 fine in April 2015. [continues 458 words]
TRENTON - In the sticky heat of his downtown restaurant, Ed "NJ Weedman" Forchion sat at a table and wiped the plastic cloth covering absentmindedly. He had three things on his mind - first his broken air conditioning, then the broken plumbing, then the cops. Money is tight at the Trenton staple, which is aptly named "Weedman's Joint." Months ago a series of police raids and activity at the combination restaurant and "pot temple" scared many of his customers away, Forchion said. [continues 967 words]
After Grant Scott-Goforth's parting shot last week debunking the racist connotations of the word "marijuana," it seemed only fitting to follow up with another column blatantly pandering to the etymology nerds in our readership. We were initially intrigued by the word "bong," which, according to an online etymology dictionary, comes from the Thai word "baung," meaning "cylindrical wooden tube," and came to the United States along with returning Vietnam War veterans. As we dug deeper into the words that surround cannabis connoisseurship, a pattern developed. [continues 680 words]
Man Acquitted Over Charter Violation An Ontario Superior Court judge has quashed the conviction of a man stopped outside a strip club in Guelph with $10 worth of marijuana in his car, because of a serious Charter violation by police. Justice Casey Hill excluded the seizure of just over one gram of marijuana, set aside a conviction for simple possession and a $100 fine, and entered an acquittal for Brandon Richards in the latest chapter of a legal proceeding that began with a traffic stop more than 20 months ago. [continues 771 words]
