Kucinich - His New Chairmanship Could Signal A Change In Drug Enforcement Policies. The Democratic sweep in the 2006 mid-term elections has done more than finally install a woman as Speaker of the House. It also has put one of the most vocal critics of the ill-starred "war on drugs" in a position to affect federal drug policy. On January 18, Ohio Congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, one of the most progressive Democratic voices in the House, was appointed as chair of the new House Government Reform and Oversight subcommittee on domestic policy, causing drug reform organizations coast-to-coast to rejoice in hopes that a moment for significant change may have finally come. [continues 1100 words]
Progressive Dennis Kucinich takes over a new House subcommittee, signaling changes in national drug policy. The Democratic sweep in the 2006 mid-term elections has done more than finally install a woman as speaker of the House. It has also put one of the most vocal critics of the ill-starred "War on Drugs" in a position to affect federal drug policy. On January 18, Ohio Congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, one of the most progressive Democratic voices in the House, was appointed as chair of the new House Government Reform and Oversight subcommittee on domestic policy, causing drug reform organizations coast-to-coast to rejoice in hopes that a moment for significant change may have finally come. [continues 1133 words]
In the Race for Governor, Schwarzenegger and Angelides Have Abandoned Reform and Learned to Love the Powerful Prison Guards Union California can't afford to keep 56-year-old Beverly Henry in prison. But those who work there just won't let her go. Once a struggling Venice Beach drug addict, she was sent to prison in 1998 for 15 years for selling a $20 bag of heroin to an undercover officer in order to support her habit. Taxpayers know that drug treatment is cheaper than prison that's why they voted in Proposition 36 in 2000, which would send a case like hers to rehab instead but back when Henry got popped, the state lacked the minimum resources necessary to treat drug addiction, so Henry ended up in Chowchilla, at the Central California Women's Facility. [continues 2763 words]
Facing Life In A U.S. Prison, The 'Prince Of Pot' Sparks An Extradition War That Could Test The Limits Of The War On Drugs - And Legalize Pot In Canada At Last Looking back, Marc Emery says it was like a scene out of Bonnie and Clyde. The publisher of Cannabis Culture magazine and Canada's leading marijuana rabble-rouser, Emery was sitting in Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia - the Lawrencetown Restaurant, in fact - getting himself together to speak at a legalization rally. It was July 29, 2005, and the second annual Atlantic Hemp Fest was already in full swing, with bands and speakers organized by Maritimers United for Medical Marijuana already entertaining a crowd of about 400-500 people. [continues 3784 words]
Across the country on Monday, newspapers and websites described how the U.S. Supreme Court dealt medical marijuana advocates a "stinging defeat" (MSNBC.com), "a blow" (Washington Post), and a "setback" (Baltimore Sun) in the decision handed down in the case Gonzales v. Raich. True, Angel Raich and co-defendant Diane Monson, both members of a Santa Cruz medical marijuana co-op that was operating legally under California's 1996 Compassionate Use Act, may now be subject to federal drug charges. But the reality is: They always were. [continues 1226 words]
A little-known law may finally challenge the feds' 30-year stall in recognizing medical marijuana. But it also raises a big question: Who decides what is medicine? By now, America has heard a lot about Oakland, Calif., medical marijuana patient Angel McClary Raich. In arguments Nov. 29 before the U.S. Supreme Court, Raich--possibly the most sympathetic party to ever come before the High Court, a 38-year-old mother of two with a list of ailments including an inoperable brain tumor, wasting syndrome, uterine fibroid tumors, scoliosis, paralysis, endometriosis, and more--got her chance to nail outgoing U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft et al. for trying to take away the only medicine that has helped her. Her case has pitted California's Compassionate Use Act of 1996, which legalized limited medical use of marijuana, against the federal Controlled Substances Act, under which all marijuana is illegal. For Raich, cannabis is the only treatment (out of 35 medicines tried) that has allowed her to keep her weight up, and her doctor says that losing it would be a death sentence. [continues 2855 words]
A Top Doctor at a Major Drug Testing Company Refutes the Efficacy of Medical Marijuana Stuart Hoffman does not believe in the medical use of marijuana -- at least, not the kind you grow in your backyard or buy off the street. And he'd feel that way, he says, even if he wasn't the chief medical review officer for the drug testing services at ChoicePoint, with clients ranging from the U.S. Government to large national retail chains. Born and educated in Minnesota, he was a private oncologist -- a cancer doctor -- with a thriving practice in Downey, California, for 35 years, and had plenty of patients who used pot to relieve symptoms. And while he agrees marijuana does relieve symptoms -- dulling chronic pain, reducing seizures, stimulating the appetite, controlling nausea -- he's seen it surpassed by better drugs. [continues 1272 words]
A little-known law may finally challenge the feds' 30-year stall in recognizing medical marijuana. But it also raises a big question: Who decides what is medicine? By now, America has heard a lot about Oakland, California medical marijuana patient Angel McClary Raich. In arguments November 29 before the U.S. Supreme Court, Raich -- possibly the most sympathetic party to ever come before the High Court, a 38-year-old mother of two with a list of ailments including an inoperable brain tumor, wasting syndrome, uterine fibroid tumors, scoliosis, paralysis, endometriosis, and more -- got her chance to nail outgoing U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft et al. for trying to take away the only medicine that has helped her. Her case has pitted California's Compassionate Use Act of 1996, which legalized limited medical use of marijuana, against the federal Controlled Substances Act, under which all marijuana is illegal. [continues 3566 words]
The Executive Director of the Marijuana Policy Project on Why Pot Is More Legal Than Ever If President George W. Bush's squeaky reelection is supposed to be a mandate on conservative moral values, how do you explain that 17 out of 20 pro-marijuana initiatives on ballots nationwide were approved? For instance, look at Montana: Energized evangelical voters in this pro-Bush state led a charge that amended their state constitution to make gay marriage illegal, but they also approved of medical marijuana by a massive 62 to 38 percent. The churches obviously didn't mobilize against pot like White House Drug Czar John Walters urged them to do. In fact, this election may be the breakthrough on marijuana legalization in general: Conservatives nationwide came out in favor of pot as medicine. [continues 1304 words]
A South L.A. Sickle-Cell Patient Had To Sue The LAPD To Stop Pulling Up Her Legal Pot Harvest. When agents of the DEA came swarming over the garden wall into Sister Somayah Kambui's backyard on October 8, 2003, guns drawn, the snappy, outspoken medical marijuana patient wasn't really surprised. The house she owns in South L.A. had been raided a reported six times since 1996, and usually in September or October - harvest time for marijuana. The agents did not handcuff her, but asked her to step aside so they could pull up 12 healthy plants, one of them the size of a gangly Christmas tree. Kambui, who relies on marijuana to combat debilitating pain from sickle-cell anemia, was in tears. [continues 1256 words]
Judge Jim Gray will be the first to tell you that libertarians, and the Libertarian Party, don't have all the answers. Not yet. But what they do have are principles - the Goldwater principles of less government, fewer taxes, and less infringements upon the Bill of Rights and in a Senate race loaded with compromises and cynicism regarding corporate and special interest power in government, Newport Beach Superior Court Judge Gray believes that will matter. A Gov. Deukmejian appointee, he left the Republican Party when the GOP-controlled Congress passed the USA Patriot Act, incensed at the further erosion of Americans' privacy and civil rights. [continues 1791 words]
Medical marijuana advocates are celebrating more than just a little stash under the Christmas tree this week, as a recent ruling by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals may have ended federal prosecution of many prescription pot users in California. In a major victory for backers of Proposition 215, which legalized medical marijuana use in 1996 by a large majority of state voters, the three-judge panel ruled on December 17 that federal agents lacked the authority to bust two users in the case Raich v. Ashcroft. [continues 709 words]
Serving nine months in federal prison for putting his face on a bong, one of America's most beloved comics contemplates the war on stoners, thoughtcrime and reuniting with Cheech. The joke, of course, is that this is Sgt. Stadanko's revenge. The arch-nemesis of every Cheech & Chong film, actor Stacey Keach seemed like he'd play the greasy, bumbling narc forever, but now U.S. Attorney General and religious jihadist John Ashcroft has taken over the role, and he's not playing it for laughs. [continues 2012 words]
No medical marijuana activist could have foreseen that Proposition 215 - - the 1996 ballot measure that gave California residents the right to grow and distribute marijuana for use with a doctor's prescription - would have led to this moment. Ventura County residents Lynn and Judy Osburn, a married couple who grew pot for AIDS and cancer patients at the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center, stood before U.S. 9th Circuit Judge Howard A. Matz on October 7. Their faces were brave, but their voices were barely audible. As Judge Matz led them through a series of questions to determine whether they understood the consequences of their actions, the Osburns each pled guilty to federal felony drug charges. [continues 1234 words]
In 2001 a Hippie Campground Famous for Peace, Love and Weed Erupted in Violence and Death. Was It Another Ruby Ridge or the Collapse of a Failed Utopia? On the day that he purchased Rainbow Farm, Tom Crosslin said destiny had led him to the place. By the late 1990s the farm would become a well-known stop on the hippie trail, a scenic overlook for the migratory flocks of travelers and Phish fans who crisscrossed the country. For thousands of blue-collar pilgrims who stopped there looking for a few days of fun and freedom in Michigan's vacation lands, it was a benevolent little campground. And on any other Labor Day they would have been there: thousands of happy stoners setting up tents for Crosslin's annual marijuana-legalization fest, a party he'd named Roach Roast. But on Friday morning, August 31, 2001, he was storming around, telling the last of the local kids to leave. [continues 6567 words]
Ventura couple gets burned in crossfire between state and federal medical marijuana laws Lynn and Judy Osburn were preparing for a day of working with their horses on September 28, 2001, when they heard the deep thump of a helicopter suddenly shattering the silence of the Ozena Valley. A line of 15 unmarked SUVs and one Ventura County Sheriff's car pulled up to their horse gate as their four dogs exploded in furious barking and horses scattered through the sage scrub in a panic. [continues 1526 words]
Lynn and Judy Osburn were preparing for a day of working with their horses on September 28, 2001, when they heard the deep thump of a helicopter suddenly shattering the silence of the Ozena Valley. Sitting in the kitchen of their two-story wood and stucco house, set back from the only road a quarter-mile or so in a little copse of pinyon pines deep in the Los Padres National Forest, their hearts sank. A line of 15 unmarked SUVs and one Ventura County Sheriff's car pulled up to their horse gate. As the caravan roared up the gravel drive, their four dogs exploded in furious barking and horses scattered through the sage scrub in a panic. [continues 3898 words]
Why Raid Pot Clubs Now By midafternoon on Thursday, October 25, 10 people had gathered in a storefront in West Hollywood to bake pot brownies and fill 400 sandwich bags with weed. If all went according to plan, about two pounds of marijuana would be distributed the next morning to members of the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Co-op, just as the group had been doing three times every week for the past five years. Founded in 1996, the LACRC had grown to include 960 members who relied on marijuana for medical purposes, including relief from the nausea associated with AIDS and cancer treatments. Pot keeps meds down and appetites up. It relieves the pain and spasticity of multiple sclerosis. It reduces intraocular pressure in glaucoma patients. It's easy to grow and less expensive than pharmaceuticals. One of the side effects is a pleasant buzz - - a similar effect to what one might feel on codeine or other pain relievers. [continues 1722 words]
The New Age Of Intolerance "A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither." - -Thomas Jefferson You're not going to see Drug War movies like Traffic made about Ryan Huntsman. He's not a hotshot local drug dealer or anyone's fortunate son or some kind of dude character. He's just an O.C. regular - a white kid from Newport Beach, now attending UC San Diego - who thought he had a little slack. [continues 3839 words]
