No Cap on Permits; Policy Among Most Liberal in Area RICHMOND - This city could soon become a major hub for marijuana cultivation and manufacturing after the passage of one of the most liberal policies in the Bay Area. Starting Friday, Richmond will allow an unlimited number of permits for commercial cannabis grows as well as businesses that produce edibles like cookies, brownies and tinctures. The goal of the new law is to bring a sometimes shady industry into the light and generate money for a city that is perpetually strapped for cash. [continues 335 words]
What Five Years in Prison Taught California Former Dispensary Owner Dale Schafer, and Why He's Thinking About Getting Back into the Marijuana Biz A judge sentenced Dale Schafer to 60 months federal prison in 2008, but now the attorney and celebrity drug-war is out - and getting back into marijuana. The 62-year-old resident of Roseville, a suburb just east of Sacramento, and his wife, Dr. Marion "Mollie" Fry, became a poster couple for outrage over the federal crackdown on medical pot when federal prosecutors indicted them for operating a clinic in the Northern California foothills. [continues 786 words]
The medi-pot industry is racing to professionalize itself and lobby Sacramento before new rules remake the multibillion-dollar sector. California's medi-pot industry is racing to organize itself and lobby Sacramento lawmakers before local and statewide rules remake the Golden State's multibillion-dollar legal weed sector. Almost twenty years after state voters legalized medical cannabis, California's historic Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act (MMRSA) took effect on January 1. The state Assembly held its first joint committee meeting on implementing MMRSA on January 19. Representatives of many of the dozen or so state agencies that are tasked with regulating medical weed gave testimony at the meeting, as did members of the medi-pot industry. [continues 776 words]
Jean Kennedy has a BS in biology and a master's in special education. Now, she's trying to decide what to do with her third degree: a certificate of achievement from Oaksterdam University, the Harvard Business School of marijuana. "I'm Italian," said Kennedy, 56, a retired high school biology teacher with graying hair and a heavy New York accent. "You know Italians, we grow tomatoes. Maybe I'll grow some plants." Horticulture 102 is one of the many subjects Kennedy studies at Oaksterdam, whose storefront campus is set amid the hip cafes, restaurants and cannabis dispensaries of downtown Oakland. Founded in 2007, the school sees itself as a training ground for citizen advocates in the fight to legalize marijuana. [continues 1416 words]
Oakland Plans to Capitalize on the State's New Regulations, and Is Proposing to Double the Number of Pot Shops, and to License Farms, Couriers, Hash Labs, and More. but Some Existing Clubs Don't Want the Competition. The City of Oakland is moving swiftly to capitalize on California's historic, state-level medical marijuana regulations with a vast expansion of The Town's cannabis industry permit system. The number of permitted dispensaries could double from eight to sixteen, or the cap on dispensary permits could be eliminated entirely. [continues 802 words]
Nearly two decades after California established a medical marijuana program, the patchwork of local regulations on the billion-dollar industry is often distilled to just two words: Wild West. Supporters and critics alike use the same description, but year after year in the Legislature, attempts to enact statewide controls on medical marijuana cultivation and sales fall through. Now that sophisticated political operators are crafting a 2016 measure to legalize pot, dispensary and law enforcement groups who want a regulatory framework for medical cannabis believe it's time to settle the issue. [continues 978 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - On a dark corner here in the Mission District on March 31, the doors opened at 7 p.m. for an under-the-radar pop-up dinner. Stationed at the entrance was a man who meticulously carded each of the 60 guests, even two with white hair. Inside the bar, long tables were set with wineglasses, place cards and something you don't see much of anymore: ashtrays. Soon after the party began, smoke wafted through the chandelier-lit room. Servers passed kimchi mini-pancakes prepared by the evening's chef, Robin Song, of the Mission's popular ham-and-oyster bar, Hog & Rocks. [continues 1259 words]
I hate to be the party pooper but I feel there is a need to point out that the possession, transportation, processing and use of marijuana is still illegal. It is not legal in Alaska, nor Colorado, nor Washington, nor Oregon. It's not legal in your house, nor in a car, or on a train, or in a plane. No Charlo Green I am; it's not legal to grow pot in this here land. There is this thing called the Controlled Substances Act. You can find it in Title 21, Section 800 or so of the U.S. Code. Section 812 lists marihuana (with an h) as a schedule I substance. [continues 779 words]
Professional reformers, longtime activists, and stakeholders in the marijuana industry attended an invitation-only meeting at the Waterfront Hotel in Oakland January 9 to discuss plans for a marijuana 'legalization' initiative to be on the ballot in California in 2016. The invitations came from the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform (CCPR), a group led by Dale Sky Jones that was formed after the defeat of a legalization measure in 2010, and the Drug Policy Alliance, represented by lobbyist Jim Gonzales The keynote speaker was Bill Zimmerman, a Los Angeles campaign consultant who is widely credited with masterminding the 1996 Proposition 215 campaign, which legalized marijuana for medical use in California. [continues 3333 words]
The authors miss the point entirely by using Gonzales v. Raich as evidence that federal jurisdiction over home-grown marijuana for personal use "has been legitimately invoked." It is as absurd to think marijuana grown at home for personal use affects interstate commerce as it is to think the tomatoes I grow in my garden affect interstate commerce and should likewise be subject to federal regulation. While the conservative Justice Antonin Scalia jumped ship in Raich, the stalwart Justice Clarence Thomas with his usual adherence to the written word of the Constitution did not. He wrote in dissent that "in the early days of the Republic, it would have been unthinkable that Congress could prohibit the local cultivation, possession, and consumption of marijuana," and warned, "if the Federal Government can regulate growing a half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption . . . then Congress' Article I powers . . . have no meaningful limits." Justice Thomas then concludes: "If the majority is to be taken seriously, the Federal Government may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives, and potluck suppers throughout the 50 States. This makes a mockery of Madison's assurance to the people of New York that the "powers delegated to the Federal Government are 'few and defined', while those of the States are 'numerous and indefinite.'" Mr. Rivkin and Ms. Foley, Congress, and the majority in Raich got it badly wrong. Marc Garrett Remsenburg, N.Y. [end]
2014 was a weird year for me, and good riddance. I started out 2014 in the horrible Burlington County Jail and ended it as the writer of this weekly column for The Trentonian yeah, that's weird! My new year's resolution(s): to eat better and to open a religious temple in Trenton that provides marijuana to its congregants. I hope everyone has a happy new year, but we all know there will be a lot of unhappiness in 2015 as there is every year. Sorry to be a schleprock. My hope is marijuana legalization happens in 2015, but I'm not a dope. It won't, but we are winning the war on the herb. [continues 925 words]
The recent U.S. Justice Department move giving Native American tribes the green light to legalize marijuana on their reservations gives us pause. While we respect the sovereign right of tribal governments to run their affairs as they see fit, the situation in the Coachella Valley is somewhat unique. The close proximity of tribal territory and adjacent cities gives decisions made by one entity tremendous impact on the entire region. This is especially true in Palm Springs, where the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians has authority over 32,000 acres in the western Coachella Valley, including a checkerboard grid of sections encompassing about half the city. [continues 1110 words]
Irate about harmful spillover from Colorado's marijuana legalization, two neighboring states sue to overturn it. The attorneys general of Nebraska and Oklahoma have asked the Supreme Court to declare unconstitutional Colorado's law legalizing marijuana. The lawsuit states that, "The Constitution and the federal anti-drug laws do not permit the development of a patchwork of state and local pro-drug policies and licensed-distribution schemes throughout the country which conflict with federal laws." Many conservatives have criticized Nebraska and Oklahoma for being "fair-weather federalists" because their claims hinge, in part, on Gonzales v. Raich, a 2005 Supreme Court decision, upholding the broad reach of Congress's power to regulate commerce. [continues 907 words]
Time was when the only Nebraska- Colorado rivalry was about pigskin prowess. That annual NU-CU fall tilt gave sportswriters a chance to tell crude jokes about each other's jurisdictions to rile the fan base while coaches worked the teams to fever pitch by game day. That all went away, of course, when CU decided that it was too good for the Midwest and, seemingly forgetting that Boulder is still located on the Great Plains, looked westward in search of greener financial pastures. So far at least, that hasn't worked out very well. Rivalries are now few and far between. [continues 775 words]
A weird lawsuit filed in the Supreme Court of the United States against Colorado only formalizes what we know. Colorado's marijuana free-for-all is a burden to our neighbors. We grow and sell some of the most potent pot in the world and it crosses into other states as dealers and drug tourists come and go. Colorado voters chose to subject themselves and their children to this ill-fated experiment, but neighboring states get to live with an abundance of our spillover. [continues 483 words]
Measure Z Designates Oakland Pot Crime As the Police Department's "Lowest Enforcement Priority" - Yet Raids and Arrests Persist. Oakland's marijuana speakeasies - dispensaries that do not have a license to operate from the city - are facing renewed heat despite the fact that we're in the waning days of the war on pot. The Oakland Police Department has raided at least three unlicensed cannabis shops since December. Police rousted so-called "Measure Z" clubs in North Oakland and Uptown in December and January. And last week, authorities raided "Herbal Wellness Center" at 1921 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. [continues 922 words]
The fact that people of color are punished disproportionately by drug prohibition is now widely acknowledged in the United States. Just last week in the New Yorker David Remick quoted the President stating: "Middle-class kids don't get locked up for smoking pot, and poor kids do. And African-American kids and Latino kids are more likely to be poor and less likely to have the resources and the support to avoid unduly harsh penalties." Still unacknowledged, however, is the leading role that African Americans have played not as victims but as active opponents of prohibition. This being Black History Month (we knew her when she was Negro History Week) O'Shaughnessy's is honoring some men and women whose contributions to the abolitionist cause have been underappreciated or overlooked. Starting with... [continues 1785 words]
Five members of a Browns Valley family have sued Yuba County, alleging their rights were violated when a sheriff's deputy confiscated most of their medical marijuana plants. The lawsuit filed this month in Yuba County Superior Court seeks an injunction to stop future "unlawful seizures" and "reasonable compensation" for the lost plants. "What I hope, a case like this will discourage the county or the Sheriff's Office from taking similar actions against other legal patients in the future," said Oakland attorney Robert Raich, who represents the family members. "It's sad that we need something like this to send a message to reluctant law enforcement about the need to comply with state law." [continues 297 words]
The President Decides Not to Enforce Another Law He Doesn't Like. One irony of the Syria debate is that President Obama is now appealing for support on foreign policy from a Congress that he treats with contempt on domestic issues. Witness, in merely the latest example, his decision to suspend the enforcement of a federal drug law because it doesn't fit his political agenda. In a sweeping memorandum last week, the Justice Department all but ordered U.S. attorneys nationwide not to enforce federal marijuana laws. The memo was a long-delayed response to voter referenda last November in Colorado and Washington states that legalized adult recreational use of marijuana, not merely in the usual fake "medical" context. [continues 671 words]
Legislative Panel Oks Rules on Sale for Medical Use Hartford- The General Assembly's Regulations Review Committee approved regulations Tuesday covering who produces, dispenses and purchases medical marijuana. Shouts and cheers rose from the audience as Sen. Andres Ayala, D-Bridgeport, announced that the regulations had been approved after a voice vote. Tracey Gamer- Fanning of West Hartford, who suffers from brain cancer and turned 43 Tuesday, said this was the best birthday present ever. "I am not a criminal. I have a card that says I am allowed to use medical marijuana and I have wanted people to understand what this meant," Gamer-Fanning said. She said she is a mom and had a career and never thought she would get brain cancer at age 36. [continues 904 words]
The painfully slow evolution of California medical marijuana law. Last week, the California Democratic Party took the historic step of endorsing statewide regulations for medical cannabis. Such regulations, however, are not going to happen this year, experts say. But this summer, a separate bill, SB 439, could represent yet another baby step toward regulation, thereby exemplifying the Golden State's painful, decades-long evolution of medical cannabis law. Authored by State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, SB 439 builds on past law and court rulings by explicitly legalizing cash sales of medical cannabis at dispensaries. The bill also would clear up a persistent legal gray area that allows police in places like Los Angeles and San Diego to imprison citizens for the same activities - dispensary sales - that are fully permitted in Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond, and other cities that regulate dispensaries. [continues 751 words]
A medical marijuana cultivation ordinance adopted by Tehama County supervisors three years ago was upheld by the 3rd District Court of Appeal on Wednesday. The published decision sets precedent statewide, Tehama County Counsel Arthur Wylene said. "We are obviously very pleased with the ruling," Wylene said. "The court upheld the county's ordinance in its entirety, including all of the provisions that have been challenged by the plaintiffs." Shortly after its adoption in April 2010, Jason Browne and a group of patients sued, arguing the ordinance was unconstitutional and conflicted with the voter-approved Compassionate Use Act of 1996 and the Medical Marijuana Program, passed in 2003 in part to clarify the original legislation. [continues 429 words]
Burning Questions What protection will the state offer to doctors who recommend medical marijuana to their patients, as well as patients, caregivers, and dispensaries, from federal prosecution? - --ALERT IN ALLSTON "Doctors have the First Amendment right to talk about things with their patients," including marijuana, explains well-known local pot attorney Steve Epstein. But patients, caregivers, and dispensaries? What protection will the state offer them? "None," says Epstein. "The initiative specifically says the state will provide you with no protection against federal prosecution." [continues 801 words]
With Amendment 64's passage, Colorado voters expect marijuana to be treated like alcohol: regulated, taxed and made legally available to adults. Yet the federal Controlled Substances Act still criminalizes the cultivation, sale and possession of marijuana. Having thrown down the gauntlet, what happens next? Whether you voted for Amendment 64 or (like me) against it, honoring voters' will means putting differences aside and finding a workable national compromise. The status quo, based on an outmoded federal marijuana policy that gives state officials the Hobson's Choice of defying federal law or gambling on limited enforcement, isn't the answer. [continues 544 words]
To appreciate how powerless Colorado may be if the Obama administration tries to block Amendment 64, you must first go back to possibly the worst Supreme Court decision of the past decade. In Gonzalez vs. Raich in 2005, the court ruled 6 to 3 that the federal government could ban possession of homegrown medical marijuana that had never crossed state lines or been sold. The decision was a huge blow to any notion of federalism under the Constitution's Commerce Clause. If Congress can regulate even non-commercial, purely intrastate activity under the clause, it can regulate just about anything. There are no limits to its regulatory power. [continues 511 words]
It's legal to smoke pot in Colorado and Washington state now - except that it's not. Colorado voters passed an initiative this week allowing possession of 1 ounce and six plants. Washington voters said adults can buy an ounce from a licensed seller. But the federal government has the last word, and its ban on possession and distribution of marijuana stands. What happens next depends on the Obama Justice Department. The feds can crack down or let a new haze dawn. There is plenty of history to suggest the administration will go with a hard line - and a few glimmers of hope that it won't. [continues 571 words]
America's war on drugs got a lot more interesting Tuesday night when Colorado and Washington voted to legalize marijuana. Legalization advocates were quick to call the two measures "the beginning of the end" of marijuana prohibition in the United States. "The beginning of the end has begun," Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), wrote at his blog. "Yesterday's elections have forever changed the playing field regarding cannabis prohibition laws in America (and probably in large parts of the world too)," he went on. [continues 1654 words]
LODI - Joshua Dougherty looked in on a new batch of marijuana seedlings that he had been growing in a closet in the upstairs of his south Lodi home Wednesday afternoon. Dougherty, a medical marijuana patient, hopes to move the plants outside for harvesting in February. However, how and where he is able to plant the cannabis is something that will be in the hands of the Lodi City Council in the next month and a half. The Lodi City Council approved a 45-day moratorium on all medical marijuana cultivation Wednesday night and directed the City Attorney's Office to draft an ordinance that will place limitations on how and where patients can grow marijuana within city limits. [continues 520 words]
LODI - A Tokay High School graduate turned medical marijuana advocate said she will implore Lodi to start a commission or panel to meet monthly to hear complaints and deal with issues that arise with the cultivation of cannabis within city limits. Angel Raich, 46, is a medical marijuana patient who has a terminal brain tumor. She has been a longtime advocate who helped write Proposition 215, the compassionate-use act passed by California voters in 1996. She lobbied at the state level for patient rights in recent years. [continues 395 words]
WASHINGTON - Marijuana supporters told a federal appeals court panel Tuesday that government agencies have created a "self-fulfilling prophecy" by keeping cannabis illegal despite evidence that using it can be medically beneficial. Marijuana activists are seeking to "reschedule" marijuana as a drug suitable for medical use and thus remove it from Schedule I of the government's drug classification system, reserved for drugs with high abuse potential. The Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services say marijuana has no medical use, is as dangerous as ecstasy and heroin, and has even more abuse potential than cocaine. [continues 229 words]
We all must share responsibility for the ignorance of our leaders. The comments that Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) made in August about legitimate rape helped expose a sad truth about modern-day Washington, D.C.-it has become entirely disconnected from the people it is supposed to represent. People are shocked that a six-term Congressman could be unaware that the abortion policies he and his party support would require rape victims to carry the rapist's child. But we all must share responsibility for the ignorance of our leaders. [continues 630 words]
There are many reasons that a voter might approve a given ballot initiative, but trying to start a fight with the federal government shouldn't be one of them. Consider Measure 80, a legislative Hail Mary even by the standards of our long and controversial history with the initiative process. The measure would legalize the recreational production, possession and use of marijuana in Oregon. One might question whether the proponents of the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act had considered D.C.'s inevitable reaction, regardless of who wins in November. Then the obvious answer presents itself: That's exactly what proponents are counting on. [continues 563 words]
Arizona's Medical Marijuana Act was narrowly passed by the voters in November of 2010. The Director of the Arizona Department of Health Services states that we have a "model" program, and that the demographics of the card users show the "vast majority are legitimately accessing the system." (Az. Republic 7/20/12) Do the facts really support these claims? ADHS has issued 30,550 medical marijuana patient cards. Only 1,275 of the cards are for cancer; 27,330 of the cards are for self-defined chronic pain. Interestingly, 74 percent of the patient cards have been issued to males; 26 percent to females. Forty-seven percent of the cards have been issued to users between the ages of 18 and 40. [continues 395 words]
Arizona's Medical Marijuana Act was narrowly passed by voters in November 2010. The director of the Arizona Department of Health Services states that we have a "model" program and that the demographics of the card users show "the vast majority are legitimately accessing the system" (Valley & State, July 20). Do the facts really support these claims? The ADHS has issued 30,550 medical-marijuana patient cards. Only 1,275 of the cards are for cancer; 27,330 of the cards are for self-defined chronic pain. Interestingly, 74 percent of the patient cards have been issued to males; 26 percent to females. Forty-seven percent of the cards have been issued to users between the ages of 18 and 40. [continues 400 words]
Like many legal disputes, it started out over something small. In July, 1940, an Ohio wheat farmer named Roscoe Filburn was planning for the fall planting of his wheat crop. But he ran into some of the new government regulations on farming. During the early years of the Great Depression, the value of farm commodities had plummeted. Farmers were producing plenty of food, but with the general slowdown in economic activity, they could not get enough money for what they produced. [continues 718 words]
The City's 21 licensed medical marijuana dispensaries are all illegal, according to a court filing by District Attorney George Gascon that could portend a seismic shift in San Francisco cannabis policy. City law allows medical marijuana to be bought in businesses called dispensaries and delivered to patients who have been prescribed marijuana by a licensed physician. Dispensaries must acquire business licenses and seller's permits from the state Board of Equalization before receiving city Department of Public Health permits to sell marijuana. [continues 474 words]
Butane Hash Oil Is Blasting Off-Both in Popularity And, Sometimes, Literally Hash of all kinds is more popular than ever in Sacramento. But a lot of it is made with butane: Is this safe for patients to consume? Or even make? On February 7, a woman shattered all the windows in her San Francisco apartment and was sent to the hospital, along with a 12-year-old boy, for treatment of burn wounds. And on February 19, three people in Tracy were rushed to the hospital, critically wounded after an explosion in their apartment. Authorities have said that these explosions resulted from failed attempts to make butane hash oil. [continues 739 words]
Many Golden State cities have frozen dispensary permitting while awaiting word on Pack v. Long Beach Last October, the city of Sacramento temporarily suspended its medical-cannabis-dispensary permitting process. The reason: An unexpected court ruling from down south that put the legality of all California pot ordinances into question. Even San Francisco, a hotbed of marijuana-law reform, froze its medical-cannabis-dispensary permitting this winter, just as dozens of others cities across the state, and now everyone nervously awaits a decision by the California Supreme Court on the very legality of such permits. [continues 866 words]
The Gazette's recent editorial (Jan. 13 - "Suthers should defend MMJ law") lecturing me on my responsibilities as Colorado Attorney General reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the rule of law in America. As Colorado's Attorney General I take an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution and the Colorado Constitution. As part of this job, I frequently urge upon the state and federal courts a particular interpretation of these constitutional documents. But the final word on the meaning of the U.S. Constitution is the U.S. Supreme Court and the final word on the meaning of the Colorado Constitution is the Colorado Supreme Court. In a dispute on whether federal laws trump state laws under the Supremacy Clause, the U.S. Supreme Court has the final say. [continues 324 words]
ADRIAN, Mich. - Michigan's attempt to legalize medical marijuana has created widespread confusion, as two more cases before the state Supreme Court illustrate, and ongoing conflict with federal law. So backers of a new Michigan proposal to legalize marijuana outright should refocus their efforts at the root of the problem. By now, virtually everyone concedes Michigan's 2008 ballot initiative legalizing medical marijuana was well-intentioned but had serious problems. To name just a few were vagueness over how patients could be certified, how caregivers could legally obtain plants and the issue of dispensaries. [continues 509 words]
REDWOOD VALLEY The U.S. drug agents' vehicles rumbled past vineyards and cattle ranches, traversed winding roads through oak woodlands and cleared a gate marked with a sign: "Member, Mendocino Farm Bureau." Camouflaged and heavily armed, Drug Enforcement Administration officers brought a battering ram to the door of Matthew Cohen and a chain saw to cut down his 99 marijuana plants earlier this month. The raid on Cohen's Northstone Organics garden, which boasted of "farm direct" marijuana deliveries to medical users, has stoked a fierce debate over whether federal authorities sought to nullify California's most renowned local regulatory program for medical marijuana cultivation. [continues 1404 words]
It's Not the Federal Government's Issue In the design of America's founders, the states are supposed to be centers of democratic experiment. They're not supposed to be uniform. So it is disturbing to us that the Obama administration has launched a crackdown on medical marijuana, which is legal in Colorado, 15 other states and the District of Columbia. Numerous controversies pit medical marijuana users and dispensaries against state and local authorities. But overall, things have worked fairly well. The dire consequences of critics -- of a state lost in a pot haze -- never happened. The Bush administration, despite cracking down in many areas of the "war on drugs," never seriously challenged state medical marijuana laws. There was great hope that Obama would normalize the matter by formally letting states set their own policies. [continues 530 words]
Legal Funds and Protests Are Countering the Federal Demagoguery. Marijuana activists in California are gearing up this week for a flurry of statewide protests during President Obama's October 25 visit to the Bay Area, and then again for the election in the first week of November. The recent federal crackdown, in other words, is galvanizing the weed community. "We're pushing them back," said Stephen DeAngelo, founder of Harborside Health Center in Oakland. The medical cannabis club has started a legal defense fund to fight a recent $2.5 million IRS bill. "We're already beginning to regain momentum from this outrageous travesty of a federal assault." [continues 909 words]
Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Deal With Bushels of New State Regulations The medical marijuana game is about to get some new rules that will make it a lot harder to play in the state of Colorado. On July 1, 77 pages of regulations from the state's Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division (MMED) will go into effect, stipulating in excruciating detail everything from the type of locks to be installed on dispensaries' doors to the kind of cable used for their video monitoring equipment. The regulations come on top of -- and as a result of -- a series of bills that have been passed in the state legislature over the past 18 months designed to both crack down on the industry and take advantage of its tax revenue potential. [continues 2167 words]
Nearly nine years after filing a petition to reschedule marijuana for medical use, a coalition of advocates has filed suit in federal court to require the government to answer their petition within 60 days. The rescheduling petition, filed to the DEA on October 9, 2002 by a coalition of groups including NORML and Cal NORML (Coalition to Reschedule Cannabis), argues that marijuana has "accepted medical use" and should therefore be removed from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. The petition was filed following the passage of Proposition 215 and half a dozen other state medical marijuana laws. Marijuana's schedule one status - meaning it has no federally accepted medical use -has been a fundamental reason for the ongoing conflict between state and federal marijuana laws. This lawsuit, filed on May 23 in the DC District Court of Appeals, argues that the government has unreasonably delayed in responding to the petition. [continues 378 words]
Marian "Mollie" Fry, MD, and her husband Dale Schafer, an attorney, turned themselves to U.S. marshals Monday, May 2. They were taken to the Sacramento County jail, where they are awaiting transfer to federal prisons. They have begun serving five-year terms -ostensibly for the crime of Cannabis cultivation (growing plants), but actually for the crime of political organizing (educating people). Mollie Fry is a founding member of the Society of Cannabis Clinicians, the group organized by Tod Mikuriya, MD, in 2000 to enable doctors entering the field to share and publish findings and observations - and defend themselves against persecution. Law enforcement at the state and federal levels had loudly opposed Proposition 215, the measure enacted by voters in 1996, and has curtailed its implementation ever since. [continues 2702 words]
Seattle Times Editorial Columnist Bruce Ramsey Replays the Legislative Debates in Olympia on the Medical-Marijuana Bill. Legislative debate for a bill to legalize growers and dispensers of medical marijuana was all over the board. The bill now awaits the governor's signature. Some were scoffers. One was Jim McCune, R-Graham, who declared to the House of Representatives that cannabis is "more cancer-causing than cigarettes," and that it "stinks more." McCune is from the fish business. Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, and a farmer, called it "crap" and said his mother, who has cancer, "didn't need" it. [continues 502 words]
Those who choose to use, grow or sell marijuana under Arizona's "medical" marijuana law might not care that they are violating federal law. On the other hand, Arizona Department of Health Services employees who implement these laws very well might care that they are violating federal law, but they are faced with a dilemma. Arizona's "medical" marijuana law, which squeaked by with 50.1 percent of the vote last November, contains provisions that will force law-abiding citizens, people who have never touched an illegal drug in their lives, to violate federal drug laws. ADHS employees are in a lose/lose situation. [continues 612 words]
Nullification. The word evokes images of white-haired men with tri-fold hats, holding up signs about the "evils" of Obamacare and socialism. States around the country are considering laws to reject federal laws on health care, guns, the Environmental Protection Agency regulations and more. The pundits scream "racism," the legal experts cite the "supremacy clause," and the entire country - left to right - just might be missing the point. As executive director of the Tenth Amendment Center, the organization which created the "Health Care Nullification Act" introduced in more than 10 states, I see many people who fit this stereotypical "tenther" image, too. [continues 637 words]
U.S. Will Enforce Drug Laws Even If State Measure Passes, Attorney General Says. Stepping up the Obama administration's opposition to Proposition 19, the nation's top law enforcement official promised to "vigorously enforce" federal drug laws against Californians who grow or sell marijuana for recreational use even if voters pass the legalization measure. U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder's response to the initiative comes as the administration has been under pressure to campaign against it more forcefully. Last week, Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon, chided the Obama administration for not doing enough to defeat it. And last month, nine former heads of the Drug Enforcement Administration publicly urged Holder to speak out. [continues 1042 words]
