MI Legalize's Lawsuit Challenges Law, Policy That Nulls Signatures Lansing - A Michigan group seeking to put a marijuana legalization question on the November ballot is taking its fight to court. MI Legalize on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the state in the Michigan Court of Claims, challenging a law and policy that effectively invalidated its petition signatures collected outside of a customary 180-day window. Attorneys Jeff Hank, Thomas Lavigne and Matthew Abel, members of the MI Legalize board, argue the law and policy are inconsistent with the Michigan Constitution, which allows for initiated petitions but does not specify a time limit for signature collection. [continues 680 words]
Lansing - A group seeking to legalize marijuana in Michigan submitted an "insufficient" number of valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot after collecting outside of a traditional 180-day window, state elections officials said Tuesday. In a staff report, the Bureau of Elections recommended the Board of State Canvassers reject the MI Legalize petition at its Thursday meeting. The activist-led group last week submitted an estimated 354,000 signatures, more than the 252,523 required to make the ballot, but the bureau said only 146,413 were collected within 180 days of the filing. State law, updated Tuesday to tighten that window, had treated older signatures as "stale and void." [continues 456 words]
Lansing - Michigan marijuana activists on Wednesday submitted more than 350,000 petition signatures in hopes of putting a recreational legalization question before voters this fall, but the prospects of making the November ballot remain cloudy. "It was a huge effort," Jeff Hank, executive director of MI Legalize, told reporters outside the Michigan Secretary of State's Office. "We had thousands of people volunteer to circulate petitions, and we had all sorts of people donate small amounts of money." MI Legalize needed to submit at least 252,523 signatures by Wednesday, but it's unclear how many of its signatures will be considered valid because the group collected well beyond a traditional 180-day window written into state law. [continues 316 words]
Lansing - An increasingly long-shot effort to put a marijuana legalization measure on Michigan's 2016 ballot suffered another setback Thursday, when the Board of State Canvassers deadlocked on a policy revision for proving the validity of old signatures. The two Republicans and two Democrats on the board were at odds over state Bureau of Elections recommendations that would have updated and eased the state policy for "rebutting" and rehabilitating signatures collected outside a traditional 180-day collection window. The proposed updates stalled in a series of 2-2 votes. [continues 633 words]
Lansing - The Michigan Senate voted Thursday to place a hard cap on the 180-day signature collection window for statewide ballot proposals, a move that may snuff out a rule change sought by a pro-marijuana legalization group. The legislation, now headed to the state House of Representatives, would eliminate a part of state election law allowing petitioners to challenge the presumption that signatures are "stale and void" if they are collected outside a 180-day period. The Republican-led Senate approved the bill in a 26-10 vote, mostly along party lines. [continues 479 words]
Lansing - Regulating and taxing the medical marijuana industry could generate up to $63 million a year for the state and local governments, according to a new economic analysis. It's a conservative estimate, said Gary Wolfram, director of economics at Hillsdale College and a former deputy state treasurer for taxation and economic policy. He released the calculations Monday on a legislative package approved last year by the state House but not yet taken up by the Senate. "This is going to generate revenue - probably a lot of revenue," Wolfram said Monday on a conference call organized by the Michigan Cannabis Development Association, which commissioned the report. [continues 476 words]
Whether it's music, activism or daily life, the one ideal to which I have always aspired is constant challenge -- taking risks, stepping out of my comfort zone, exploring new ideas. I am writing because I believe the United States must do precisely that -- and so, therefore, must all of us -- in the case of what has been the most unsuccessful, unjust yet untouchable issue in politics: the War on Drugs. The War on Drugs has failed -- but it's worse than that. It is actively harming our society. Violent crime is thriving in the shadows to which the drug trade has been consigned. People who genuinely need help can't get it. Neither can people who need medical marijuana to treat terrible diseases. We are spending billions, filling up our prisons with non-violent offenders and sacrificing our liberties. [continues 404 words]
Bedouin Sound clashes with the cops. Insite clashes with control. I arrive at the 100-block of east Hastings late afternoon to be greeted by an impressive scene in front of Insite, Vancouver's safe injection site in the Downtown Eastside. Stilt walkers in striped costumes duck out of Insite's doors to waltz amongst the crowd, their oversized bunches of balloons drifting high above their already exaggerated height. A short distance away a DJ nods his head, eyes closed, to the beat of his headphones and the pulse of the crowd. [continues 1315 words]
Teen Forum II made significant headway last Tuesday in mobilizing islanders to take part in an attempt to deal with risk factors in island teen lives. Parent and consultant Bridgid Norman said at the start of the meeting, "Teens take risks. We want to help them to take healthy risks. Every life is precious." And the 411 Vashon teens who took part in an Oct. 2002 survey conducted by RMC Research Corporation of Portland, Ore., validated Normand's statement. That report described a series of risk factors identified by students in grades 6, 8, 10, and 12, and it named particular areas of concern that the community can address. [continues 642 words]
