JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Proponents of initiatives aimed at sales taxes, cigarette taxes and medical marijuana submitted petitions Sunday in hopes of getting their proposals on the November ballot in Missouri. The petitions submitted Sunday involved two proposed constitutional amendments, one that would prohibit state and local governments from charging sales tax on any services that weren't taxed as of 2015, and another that would allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes. A third ballot initiative would phase in a 23-cent-per-pack increase in the cigarette tax from 2017 to 2021. [continues 495 words]
COLUMBIA - Initiative petitions have begun circulating that would revive a proposal for the decriminalization of growing up to six marijuana plants in Columbia. The petition would limit cultivation to a person's home in locked area indoors inaccessible to children. It would make cultivation a municipal offense with a fine of $250 or community service or counseling. The petition also states that medical marijuana may be obtained, possessed and cultivated by seriously ill patients. Under the proposal, cultivation and/or possession of up to six or fewer plants would not result in arrest, loss of driver's license, detention, incarceration or require the posting of a bond. Punishment would be limited to a city summons and a fine of up to $250. In 2004, 62 percent of Columbia voters approved an ordinance that made posession of up to 35 grams of marijuana a municipal offense with a fine of no more than $250. [continues 248 words]
COLUMBIA - A civil liberties expert and a former drug law enforcement officer will weigh in on marijuana legalization during two talks at MU on Thursday. The events will take place a week after marijuana law reform advocates filed an initiative petition to the Missouri Secretary of State for the 2016 ballot. Both events are free and open to the public. The first presentation will be by Neill Franklin, national executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and will be held at 4:30 p.m. in Room 2-07 of the MU Agriculture Building. Franklin is also a former law enforcement officer who oversaw drug task forces with the Maryland State Police. [continues 295 words]
State Rep. Paul Curtman's attempt to get an additional $7 million added to the state's drug court program was unsuccessful in the Missouri House, but he plans to keep up the effort. The Missouri House passed its version of the budget without the additional funding that Curtman proposed. Now the budget has gone to the Senate, where Curtman hopes he can work with senators to put more funding into the system. State Rep. Dave Schatz, R-Sullivan, plans to help Curtman work with the Senate to get additional drug court funding added to the budget. However, they may not be able to get the full $7 million, but any increase will be better than nothing, Curtman, R-Pacific, said. [continues 226 words]
SIKESTON, Mo. -- About 50 people attended the Show-Me Cannabis town hall meeting Tuesday at the Clinton Building in Sikeston to discuss the possibility of legalizing marijuana. John Payne, executive director of Show-Me Cannabis, said his efforts are not motivated by a desire to legally get high -- he doesn't use cannabis. His motivations include freedom, human-rights issues, meeting medical needs and economic development. The sale of hemp products is a $500 million-a-year industry in the U.S., according to Payne. [continues 895 words]
There is a magic pill that cures addiction. It is used in other countries and used to be legal here. You take one pill, one time, and without going through the painful detox symptoms one normally experiences you emerge a clean, non-addict. The success rate in the few studies that have been done show more than 85 percent of patients still clean after five years. It works for all types of addiction because the addiction is almost never to the drug itself but to the escape it offers from other problems. However, much like MDMA and PTSD, simply because others use a drug for fun means genuine patients in need must be denied. [continues 166 words]
Missouri voters, not legislature, should make decision on marijuana legalization Dan Viets, chairman of Show-Me Cannabis Regulation, is doing the correct thing taking the issue of re-legalizing the plant cannabis (marijuana) to the voters rather than the legislature. The Missouri legislature is likely a prohibitionist majority and it only takes a few bad apples to spoil the bunch. Colorado re-legalized cannabis over a year ago and the sky hasn't fallen in. A sane reason to continue caging responsible adults for using what God says is good on the first page of the Bible doesn't exist. Stan White is a resident of Dillon, Colo. [end]
Columbia - A local attorney has created a new proposal for marijuana legalization in Missouri that would take the issue directly to voters, asking them to approve an amendment to the state Constitution and bypassing the state legislature. Attorney Dan Viets, chairman of Show-Me Cannabis Regulation, has submitted an initiative petition to the Missouri secretary of state's office seeking an amendment to legalize the plant. "The legislature would repeal it if it were just a statute change," he said. The proposal seeks to legalize marijuana for those 21 and older while taxing marijuana sales to help fund law enforcement, retirement plans for firefighters and police, education, mental health services, drug treatment, and enforcement of new marijuana regulations. [continues 334 words]
COLUMBIA - About 70 people showed up to Stewart Hall at MU on Thursday to hear two prominent drug law reform advocates recount reasons to legalize drugs, such as marijuana, and how to run a successful campaign in favor of the issue. Maj. Neill Franklin is a 33-year veteran of the Maryland State Police and the Baltimore Police Department. In the 1980s, he worked as an undercover narcotics officer in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., where most of the arrests he made were for non-violent drug crimes, usually related to marijuana, he said. [continues 412 words]
There are predictions that, sooner or later, marijuana use will be legal in most states in this country. We've all read that the recreational use of marijuana is now legal in Colorado and Washington state. It also is legal for medical purposes in about a dozen states. Medical research shows a clear link between marijuana use and mental illness, especially schizophrenia. Samuel T. Wilkinson, resident physician in the Department of Psychiatry at The Yale School of Medicine, wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal about the connection between pot-smoking and schizophrenia. Every high school should make the reading of this column mandatory for students. [continues 403 words]
JEFFERSON CITY A bill filed in the House would reduce penalties for marijuana possession in Missouri, effectively setting the same penalties statewide as those already in place in Columbia. Barring certain exceptions, people who are caught with less than 35 grams of marijuana would be guilty of a Class A misdemeanor punishable by a fine of no more than $250. Thirty-five grams is about 1.25 ounces. The bill sponsored by Rep. Rory Ellinger, D-University City, and seven other Democrats also would allow individuals to expungethe offense from their record if he or she performs community service and pays the fine. [continues 239 words]
COLUMBIA - The MU chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana will host an event Saturday to encourage votes for Missouri's marijuana legislation reform. The conference will be held from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m Saturday in MU's Allen Auditorium. Defense attorney Dan Viets, a spokesman for the organization's MU chapter, said the Saturday event will include a discussion about the current marijuana reform occurring across the nation and the organization's tentative plans to push for reform in Missouri's 2014 or 2016 election. Viets said marijuana reform typically fairs better in presidential elections because more youth and progressives are likely to vote. [continues 177 words]
Bob Parker Bob Parker is adamant -- he doesn't think drugs should be legal. But the Republican challenger to U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson's 8th District Congressional seat says it is not the federal government's role to decide and should be a matter left to individual states. But the Texas County rancher stopped short of calling for a federal decriminalization of drugs on Monday, a fact that had Emerson's camp criticizing him for holding a "reckless position" and failing to properly understand the legislative process. [continues 570 words]
COLUMBIA - A low turnout didn't keep Missouri cannabis supporters from discussing marijuana legalization on Friday. The Show-Me Cannabis Regulation ballot initiative campaign held a signature drive outside the Missouri state Capitol in Jefferson City. The drive aided the campaign in its goal to obtain 144,000 valid signatures by May 4. The signatures, gathered by about 1,000 unpaid volunteers, are required to qualify the campaign's proposed constitutional amendment. Signatures from six out of nine congressional districts are needed. [continues 396 words]
The ramifications are "huge" if Missouri voters would approve a proposition to legalize marijuana in the state, the head of Franklin County's drug task force said. A group of citizens under the title of Show Me Cannibis are collecting signatures on petitions to put the initiative petition on the ballot in November. If approved it would, among other things, legalize the possession of marijuana for people 21 years old and older, allow for the state to collect a $100 per pound tax on marijuana sold at licensed cannabis stores, allow individuals to grow marijuana on their property for personal use in a 10-by-10 plot, and mandate the release of all people serving time in prison for nonviolent possession or sale of marijuana and expunge the conviction from their records. [continues 334 words]
COLUMBIA - A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Monday filed against the city of Columbia and 12 police officers involved in a February 2010 SWAT raid in which two dogs were shot, one fatally. Jonathan Whitworth was arrested during the raid on the house he shared with his wife and child in the 1500 block of Kinloch Court in southwest Columbia and later pleaded guilty to unlawful use of drug paraphernalia. His child, who was 7 at the time, was present during the raid. MoreStory [continues 384 words]
COLUMBIA --An MU law professor challenged the war on drugs and current criminal codes during a speech Saturday at a conference advocating marijuana law reform. "We warehouse, we incarcerate, that's what we do," MU associate law professor S. David Mitchell said. "We don't treat." The National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws conference was held in MU's Arts and Sciences Building on Friday and Saturday. Mitchell is not involved with the organization, but Dan Viets, the coordinator of the organization's Missouri chapter, invited him to speak after seeing a comment he made on a newspaper story about Missouri Chief Justice William Ray Price Jr. [continues 317 words]
The decisions of the Citizens Police Review Board and Columbia's police chief concerning a February SWAT raid have been confirmed by City Manager Bill Watkins. The decisions of the Citizens Police Review Board and Columbia's police chief concerning a February SWAT raid have been confirmed by City Manager Bill Watkins. Watkins' letter is dated Friday and addressed to California marijuana activist Ed Rosenthal, who appealed the board's decision. The letter says that based upon his review of Rosenthal's complaint, a Columbia Police Department internal investigation, Chief Ken Burton's decision and the recommendations of the review board, Watkins supports Burton's decision in the matter. [continues 355 words]
Child, Wife Subjects Of Several Claims COLUMBIA -- A Columbia Police Department SWAT raid that happened in February has prompted a lawsuit against the city of Columbia by the family targeted in the raid. The lawsuit was filed before noon on Monday in the U.S. Western District Court by attorneys Milt Harper and Jeff Hilbrenner, who represent the family. Three plaintiffs, Jonathan Whitworth, Brittany Whitworth and Brittany Whitworth's 7-year-old son, all of whom were present at the house during the raid, have been listed. [continues 715 words]
COLUMBIA - The Citizens Police Review Board spent most of its meeting Wednesday night debating whether it should discuss its first appeal, which it did briefly before tabling the discussion. Ed Rosenthal, a California-based marijuana activist, filed the review board's first appeal June 10 after viewing a YouTube video of the Feb. 11 SWAT raid in which officers killed a dog at 1501 Kinloch Court. The SWAT team also injured another family dog and a child was present during the raid. Police found a small amount of marijuana in the house. [continues 562 words]
