Time_4_Hemp's topics - tribe.net

Legalize Hemp and Cannabis in California

2009-09-14T06:32:51Z

Hi Family,

Right now there are two competing signature drives to put Cannabis legalization initiatives on the ballot in California in November 2010.

One is found at www.taxcannabis2010.org

The other is found at www.CaliforniaCannabisInitiative.org

Please look carefully at the text of both laws (the text of each is finalized) and make up your own mind which one you support.

I am supporting www.CaliforniaCannabisInitiative.org because our law will protect Cannabis users from discrimination in healthcare, employment, and housing. It is a full legalization measure for industrial hemp and recreational cannabis which will restore full human rights to Hemp farmers and Cannabis users all across California. Of course supplying Cannabis to children will remain illegal just as it is today. Driving vehicles under the influence will remain illegal just as it is today. Cannabis users will still be fired from their jobs if they show up to work impaired.

There are two parts to our plan. The first part is to publicly post and personally distribute our "Freedom Lover's Call to Arms" in order to recruit volunteers. This document is available here-

www.imgur.com/dbU83

The second part of our plan is to ask everyone who volunteers to make a pledge for how many signatures they can collect in the next 30 days or so. 15-30 signatures is a good number. If enough volunteers show this level of commitment we can succeed. You can probably get that number from your family members, friends, co-workers, and neighbors without having to solicit in public too much. This is an "out of the closet" movement. We will have to proudly advocate human rights for responsible, honest, hard-working Cannabis smokers in order to convince legitimate people to support us. I can supply stickers equivalent to each persons pledge number. These stickers can be used to generate interest and be given to voters who sign the petition. Here is the sticker design-

www.imgur.com/2cjvb

Feel free to distribute and use these images. Just don't copyright them.

We have 145 days in order to get the number of signatures that we need. Our petition is hot off the press on 9/11 and we have started collecting the first signatures yesterday 9/12.

We are polling 56% public support for Cannabis legalization in California which menas that this is an initiative which is not doomed. Its time has finally arrived; we are at the tipping point right now. Now is the time to do this and to do it right. We may only get one chance. If a law which is not exactly what we want is implemented then we may lose our critical mass and our ability to set it right.

I believe that less adults will smoke cannabis after it is legal. This is the case in the Netherlands where it has been available over-the-counter for 30 years yet only half as many citizens (percentage-wise) smoke as do citizens here. My economics professor has taught for years that prohibition has not succeeded in decreasing usage by increasing penalties. Instead it has destroyed lives and families without substantial benefit to society. After legalization hard-drug usage will decrease due to a "separation of the markets," a decline in the price of Cannabis relative to hard-drugs, and the restoration of honesty and common sense in drug education. Violence, thievery, and the incarceration of honest people will decrease as well. I also believe that a well regulated market will decrease the availability and appeal of cannabis to children. In fact teenage Cannabis use in California has fallen steadily since the passage of Proposition 215. Furthermore the adults who smoke Cannabis after legalization will be better able appreciate the majesty of nature in peace and unity without learning to fear and disrespect authority figures. This will be better for their spirits and better for society. Finally the human rights of legitimate medical Cannabis patients will be better protected than they are today. Legalizing Cannabis will create a safer, healthier, and more humane California for us all to live in.

If you want to help us in any way please contact the CCI campaign at www.CaliforniaCannabisInitiative.org or write me at
deep_space_underground@yahoo.com I give you my encouragement to modify this message if necessary and distribute it to anyone who might help on any forum or by any mechanism.

Love,
-Fully Committed

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Ed Rosenthal, Eddy Lepp and Marc Emery take Time 4 Hemp!

2009-05-29T00:34:18Z

AND IT'S FREE TO DOWNLOAD at http://www.Time4Hemp.TV

Ed Rosenthal, Eddy Lepp and Marc Emery are three 4-Star Generals in the War On Drugs and they all sat down together to take Time 4 Hemp!

When famous author Ed Rosenthal sat down to talk about joining the 'Time 4 Hemp' Potcast News Team, he ended up becoming the Joint-Host when the nations largest marijuana farmers, Eddy and Linda Lepp, and the founders of Cannabis Culture Magazine, Marc and Jodi Emery, joined in for this historic pow-wow.

Eddy and Linda Lepp discuss the end of Eddy's Medicinal Gardens and the May 18, 2009 court order for him to enter into the United States prison system this summer for a 10 year sentence.

Marc and Jodie Emery discuss the just released last - EVER - printed issue of Cannabis Culture Magazine and his fight against Extradition into the United States prison system that he is set to enter this summer for a 5-10 year sentence.

If you would like to learn more about how to help Eddy Lepp and Marc Emery, please go to:

http://www.eddylepp.com and http://www.cannabisculture.com

You can learn more about Ed Rosenthal at:
http://quicktrading.com/

Musical artists featured (in order of appearance):

Edge Michale - The Black Crowes - Richard Hardesty
The Individuals - Jet Baker - Hemp St. Rhythmz
Tall Brothers - GreenFever - Stevie Wonder

Please pass this information on to everyone you feel would enjoy this show.

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It's time to meet the new Drug Czar at Time 4 Hemp!

2009-05-17T00:50:34Z

Time 4 Hemp wants to take time to introduce you to Gil Kerlikowske (head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy) and jam out to lots of fantastic music along the way and it's free to download at http://www.Time4Hemp.com

News items in this segment feature (in order of appearance):

Bruce Mirken (fromthe Marijuana Policy Project)
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
Jeffery Miron (Senior Economics Lecturer at Harvard University)
John P Walters (Former United States Drug Czar)

Music featured in this segment (in order of appearance):

IQ - OSO-Krazy - Johnny Citizen - Bigga Haitian
Primary Others - Robin Williams - Obeah Vybes
Bill Berry - Elvy Musikka - Bob Dylan

Please pass this information on to everyone you feel would enjoy this show.

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Ed Rosenthal takes Time 4 Hemp PLUS Audio remarks from President Obama!

2009-05-07T03:18:24Z

Featured writer in CANNABIS CULTURE and SKUNK magazines as well as the author of more than a dozen books on growing marijuana - Ed Rosenthal takes 'Time 4 Hemp' and it's free to download at www.Time4Hemp.com Also included in this segment are audio recordings of President Obama talking about his use of marijuana and his approach to the War On Drugs.

Musical artists (in order of appearance):

Luke Scarmazzo - Pato Banton
Red Dirt - The Blaxicans

Please pass this information on to everyone you feel would enjoy this show.

Keep Strong!
Casper Leitch
Host/Creator: Time 4 Hemp
www.Time4Hemp.com

P.S. - Time 4 Hemp has a MySpace group - if you'd like to join, visit:
groups.myspace.com/ATime4Hemp

If you have time to surf the net, take a minute to say 'high' to all our friends at the Marijuana Music Awards:
www.marijuanamusicawards.com and
www.myspace.com/marijuanamusicawards

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April 20th comes but once a year at Time 4 Hemp!

2009-04-19T19:22:16Z

To celebrate the global party that takes place every year on April 20th, 'Time 4 Hemp' as put together a potcast to use as the music for your gatherings - and it's FREE to download at http://www.Time4Hemp.com

Musical Artists (in order of appearance):

Los Marijuanos - Kottonmouth Kings - Bestie Boys
The Individuals - Skiper Just Frost - Rob Rio
Ian Moore - Jet Baker - Adam Sandler
Alvin and the Chipmonks - HannaH's Field - Muck Sticky
Green Fever - The Negative Index - Tom Petty

Please pass this information on to everyone you feel would enjoy this material.

Keep Strong!
Casper Leitch
Host/Creator: Time 4 Hemp
http://www.Time4Hemp.com

P.S. - If you have time to surf the net, take a minute to say 'high' to all our friends at the Marijuana Music Awards:
http://www.marijuanamusicawards.com and
http://www.myspace.com/marijuanamusicawards

Time 4 Hemp has a MySpace group - if you'd like to join, visit:
http://groups.myspace.com/ATime4Hemp

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Free MP3 celebrating the life of Dr Tim Leary!

2009-03-16T02:10:32Z

Time 4 Hemp enjoys the re-birth of the Classic PotCast rss feed with a celebration of the life and times of Dr Tim Leary. This segment is being broadcast jointly on both our rss feeds so everyone can share in the joy that's found in a new journey and it's free to download at http://www.Time4Hemp.com

Featured artists (in order of appearance):

Jefferson Airplane - The 5 O'Donohue's - Echo Movement
Agua Trip - Happy Bones - Astrix - Anders Manga
Jubal - Jules Levy - Tab - Cognac 69 - The Moody Blues

Please share this information with everyone you know would enjoy it.

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David Boaz and Ethan Nadelmann take Time 4 Hemp!

2009-03-05T15:44:28Z

David Boaz (the Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute) and Ethan Nadelmann (Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance) discuss ways in which Congress can move to end the War On Drugs when they take 'Time 4 Hemp' with Casper Leitch and it's free to download at http://www.Time4Hemp.TV

Featured Music Artist (in order of appearance):

Red Dirt - Pato Banton - Chief Greenbud
Steinar Lindblad - Zking Of Hearts
Angeline - Billy Paul

When you have chance, please visit:

http://www.drugpolicy.org and http://www.cato.org

Want to know who in the U.S. Congress Twitters? I found this link and thought that I would pass it on in order to help move forward the more open, transparent and connected version of government championed by President Barack Obama.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Members_of_Congress_who_Twitter

Please pass this information on to everyone who you feel would benefit from it.

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Mystery Roar from Faraway Space Detected

2009-01-08T15:05:13Z

By Andrea Thompson - Senior Writer for Space.com - 01/07/09

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Space is typically thought of as a very quiet place. But one team of astronomers has found a strange cosmic noise that booms six times louder than expected.

The roar is from the distant cosmos. Nobody knows what causes it.

Of course, sound waves can't travel in a vacuum (which is what most of space is), or at least they can't very efficiently. But radio waves can.

Radio waves are not sound waves, but they are still electromagnetic waves, situated on the low-frequency end of the light spectrum.

Many objects in the universe, including stars and quasars, emit radio waves. Even our home galaxy, the Milky Way, emits a static hiss (first detected in 1931 by physicist Karl Jansky). Other galaxies also send out a background radio hiss.

But the newly detected signal, described here today at the 213th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, is far louder than astronomers expected.

There is "something new and interesting going on in the universe," said Alan Kogut of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

A team led by Kogut detected the signal with a balloon-borne instrument named ARCADE (Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Diffuse Emission).

In July 2006, the instrument was launched from NASA's Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas, and reached an altitude of about 120,000 feet (36,500 meters), where the atmosphere thins into the vacuum of space.

ARCADE's mission was to search the sky for faint signs of heat from the first generation of stars, but instead they heard a roar from the distant reaches of the universe.

"The universe really threw us a curve," Kogut said. "Instead of the faint signal we hoped to find, here was this booming noise six times louder than anyone had predicted."

Detailed analysis of the signal ruled out primordial stars or any known radio sources, including gas in the outermost halo of our own galaxy.

Other radio galaxies also can't account for the noise – there just aren't enough of them.

"You'd have to pack them into the universe like sardines," said study team member Dale Fixsen of the University of Maryland. "There wouldn't be any space left between one galaxy and the next."

The signal is measured to be six times brighter than the combined emission of all known radio sources in the universe.

For now, the origin of the signal remains a mystery.

"We really don't know what it is,"said team member Michael Seiffert of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

And not only has it presented astronomers with a new puzzle, it is obscuring the sought-for signal from the earliest stars. But the cosmic static may itself provide important clues to the development of galaxies when the universe was much younger, less than half its present age. Because the radio waves come from far away, traveling at the speed of light, they therefore represent an earlier time in the universe.

"This is what makes science so exciting," Seiffert said. "You start out on a path to measure something – in this case, the heat from the very first stars – but run into something else entirely, some unexplained."

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Time 4 Hemp celebrates the Holidays with an All-Star line-up 4...

2008-12-20T20:27:24Z

...you to party with, and it's free to download at http://www.Time4Hemp.TV

You and your friends are invited to big the holiday party at 'Time 4 Hemp' and smoke out with the remarkable guests who dropped by to share in the fun!

Joining in for this event are (in order of arrival):

Neal Smith - Vice-Chairman of Indiana NORML

Jack Herer - Author of 'The Emperor Wears No Clothes' considered by some to be the Bible of the Hemp Movement

Steve Hager - Creative Director of 'High Times' magazine

Chris Conrad - Publisher of 'The Leaf' newspaper and founder of the Business Alliance of Commence in Hemp

Mikki Norris - Editor of 'The Leaf' newspaper and founder of the Cannabis Consumers organization

Josh Schimberg - President of Texas NORML

Ethan Nadelmann - Founder of the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA)

Alison Myrden - one of the first 20 people in Canada to be granted permission by her government to use Medical Marijuana

Steve Bloom - Publisher of the on-line magazine, 'CelebStoner'

Lynnette Shaw - Co-author of California Proposition 215

Keith Stroup - Founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML)

Eddy Lepp - Marijuana Farmer and Hero of the Marijuana Movement

Paul Krassner - Author of 'Pot Stories For The Soul' and one of the comic geniuses of the 20Th century

Ed Rosenthal - Author of several marijuana grow books and featured writer for 'SKUNK' magazine

Gatewood Galbraith - One of the Founding Fathers of the Hemp Movement

Tokin' Tam - A Founder of the Global Marijuana Music Awards (GMMA)

Peter Christ - A Founder of the Law Enforcement Against Prohibition organization (LEAP)

Holly G. - Colorado activists and medical marijuana user

Marc Emery - Publisher of 'Cannabis Culture' magazine

Jodie Emery - Editor of 'Cannabis Culture' magazine

Featured Musical Artist (in order of FIRST appearance):

Emerald Night - Kenny G - Shirley Bassey
The Killing Time Band - Cannabis Chorus - Afro Man
Jet Baker - Adam Sandler - Brian Setzer
Kevin Bloody Wilson - B B King - Chief Greenbud
The Tall Brothers - Rubber Band - Lana Brown - Willie Nelson

Please pass this information on to everyone who you know would enjoy the programs and have yourself a HAPPY HOLIDAY SEASON AND A GREAT NEW YEAR!!

Keep Strong!
Casper

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new hemp sports gear is coming

2008-12-16T21:43:34Z

we have a few new hemp products coming around guys...

http://dsmma.com

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norml ideas for change

2008-12-12T10:09:00Z

http://blog.norml.org/2008/12/10/ideas-for-change-legalize-marijuana/

The website change.org is offering folks an opportunity to send an unmistakable message to the incoming administration. By logging onto the website here, visitors can “vote” on whether to “legalize the medicinal and recreational use of marijuana.”
Having gained over 1,800 votes so far, pot legalization is currently the top vote getter in the “criminal justice” category.

UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!!

A few folks have written NORML in the past 24 hours expressing difficulty logging on to the change.org website. If so, try cutting and pasting the following url into your browser:

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/legalize_the_medicinal_and_recreational_use_of_marijuana

I’ve also listed instructions in the comments section below to help folks better navigating the site and vote.

According to the website:

The ‘Top 10 Ideas for America’ will be presented to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day.

The ‘Top 10 Ideas for America’ will be determined through two rounds of voting. In the first round, ideas will compete against other ideas in the same issue category. The first round will end on December 31, 2008, and the top 3 rated ideas from each category will make it into the second round. The second round of voting will begin on Monday, January 5, and each qualifying idea will compete against the qualifying ideas from all other categories. Second round voting will end on Thursday, January 15.

What happens after voting?

Our work does not end with the voting process or the delivery of the top 10 ideas to the Obama administration on Inauguration Day. That is rather the end of the beginning. Instead of passively hoping the administration accepts each top idea, we will select a formal nonprofit sponsor for each idea to help create a nationwide movement to lobby the administration and Congress to turn the idea into real policy. … We will then build a national campaign to advance each idea in Congress, marshaling the resources of Change.org, MySpace, and our dozens of partner organizations and millions of combined members.

Want to assure that marijuana law reform is one of the “Top 10 Ideas” presented to President-Elect Obama? Then take five minutes to log on to the website and vote.

Please note that change.org is not affiliated with the with the Obama transition team website change.gov. If you have not yet done so, please take a moment today to contact the Office of the President Elect and demand that our next administration engages in a national dialogue on marijuana policy.

Here are three suggested ways that the Obama administration can take immediate, practical steps to reform America’s antiquated and punitive pot laws.

1. President Obama must uphold his campaign promise to cease the federal arrest and prosecution of (state) law-abiding medical cannabis patients and dispensaries by appointing leaders at the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the US Department of Justice, and the US Attorney General’s office who will respect the will of the voters in the thirteen states that have legalized the physician-supervised use of medicinal marijuana.

2. President Obama should use the power of the bully pulpit to reframe the drug policy debate from one of criminal policy to one of public health. Obama can stimulate this change by appointing directors to the Office of National Drug Control Policy who possess professional backgrounds in public health, addiction, and treatment rather than in law enforcement.

3. President Obama should follow up on statements he made earlier in his career in favor of the decriminalization of marijuana by adults by calling for the creation of a bi-partisan Presidential Commission to review the budgetary, social, and health costs associated with federal marijuana prohibition, and to make progressive recommendations for future policy changes.

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stopthedrugwar.org writing campaign

2008-12-11T07:41:17Z

WRITERS: StoptheDrugWar.org is carrying out an ambitious
week-long writing-based campaign dealing with the mainstream
media's coverage of drug issues -- preparatory work is now
underway with the help of volunteers -- and we are seeking to
expand our team of volunteer writers who want to be part of it.
Along with writing skills, volunteers for this project should
have a fairly good understanding of the effects of drug
prohibition -- visit our Site Map page at
http://stopthedrugwar.org/sitemap and scroll down to the
"Consequences of Prohibition" section to get an idea of what we
mean by that. Contact David Borden at borden@drcnet.org or by
replying to a Chronicle email, or by phone at (202) 293-8340
ext. 301, for further information about this very exciting
effort.

For a seven-day period, hopefully in January, we intend to post rewritten versions of every English-language news story about drugs that appears on Google News. The rewriting will not be massive for any given article; in fact in many cases we will only be making slight changes to each sentence. The idea is to make the point about the drug laws being an example of prohibition, like Alcohol Prohibition, and that many of the types of circumstances that are commonly reported on as "drug-related" are really consequences of drug prohibition. "Drug-related shooting" may change to "prohibition-related shooting," for example, "police officers" to "prohibition agents" and so forth. In some cases we will add extra paragraphs to explain things that a simple word change can't fully relate, and we may add in quotes from allies as well.

There will also be types of stories for which we'll have to think how to address prohibition -- e.g., claims that may be inaccurate about the effects of marijuana, for example -- though we do intend to keep the effort focused pretty tightly on prohibition itself, as opposed to the many other ills and injustices and errors in the drug war. (Those many other ills and injustices are extremely important too, but any given campaign needs to have a specific focus to be effective -- perhaps we will do something similar for other aspects of the drug war in future efforts.)

The rationale behind rewriting every drug story during this timeframe, as opposed to merely choosing a representative sample, is three-fold. First, it's a more interesting hook. I believe that more people will take the time to look at what we are doing this way -- a "stunt" sort of. The second reason is that it is a framework for contacting large numbers of reporters, editors, newspaper ombudsmen and others around the country (around the world, really), to let them know that we rewrote their articles, or articles in their papers. This in turn points back to the first reason -- telling a reporter we have rewritten his or her own story is more likely to get their attention than merely saying go look at our web site where we've rewritten a similar story by someone else. Third, we should be able to get our own rewritten copies of articles picked up on Google News itself, which could be seen by a lot of people and further get the attention of reporters when they their own names come up in their Google news alerts.

So, this project is an effort to get the attention of large numbers of reporters who cover drug stories, get them thinking about prohibition and whether they should be talking about prohibition in their own reporting, and making them aware of our web site, newsletter and availability as sources. (Secondarily, we hope to get some media coverage of the campaign itself, though getting very much of it has probably an outside chance.)

Let me know if you are interested in being part of this, and if I so I will put you on the volunteers list. Thanks for expressing interest in volunteering; we are looking forward to working with you.

David Borden, Executive Director

StoptheDrugWar.org

Washington, DC

http://stopthedrugwar.org

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Pro-Cannabis Law Reform Ad Contest

2008-11-21T22:57:46Z

http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7707

2008 Pro-Cannabis Law Reform Ad Contest

RE: $10,000 In Cash Rewards: NORML’s 2008 Pro-Cannabis Law Reform Ad Contest

Contest Rules

Possible Themes/Narratives

Prizes

Past Contests

Contact Us

Dear NORML Members and Supporters,
Hoping to take advantage of the election of a new presidential administration and Congress, NORML's 2008 Ad Contest has adopted a new and simple narrative:

What do you want to say to President-elect Obama about cannabis?

Produce 30 or 60 second videos or a flash animation, submit your video or animation to the NORML Foundation and you could win the newly increased grand prize of $3,500! (NORML Foundation donors have put up $10,000 in total cash prizes).

Want to have an impact on cannabis law reform? GET GRAPHIC and enter this contest.
Submit as many entries as you want to NORML’s 2008 Ad/video clip contest and qualify to possibly win healthy cash rewards, and recognition by millions of Internet users for your creative contribution to educating the public about the need for alternative policies to cannabis prohibition.

These stakeholder-generated and creative contests are both fun and great ways for citizens all over the world to have more than a vapid, exhibitionistic ‘YouTube’ moment. Rather, their creative contribution in the form of a well-crafted public service announcement will be featured on one of the most popular webpages on the Internet—www.norml.org (and, like last year’s contest winner, television).

Email notice of NORML’s 2008 Pro-Cannabis Law Reform Ad Contest to all your friends, family, classmates, co-workers today. Again, what do you want to say to President-elect Obama about cannabis? Express your outrage at the scope of this social disaster and taxpayer costs of 20 million cannabis-related arrests in America, and maybe you will win some serious cash or get famous, all at the same time.

Thanks for your help and support, financially and creatively.

Ever higher,

Allen St. Pierre
Executive Director
NORML/NORML Foundation

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You & all your friends are invited to a Special Musical Event!

2008-11-08T23:33:58Z

'Time 4 Hemp' presents a FREE Virtual World Concert celebrating all the winners of the Global Marijuana Music Awards 2008 and your front-row seat to this 2-part special can be found at http://www.Time4Hemp.TV

Interviews with many of the winning artists as well as special guests are included in this tribute.

Now in it's 6th year, the Global Marijuana Music Awards are open to all musicians around the world who create music with a 'marijuana flavor'.

In 2008, the winners of the GMMA were announced at the annual 'TEXAS SMOKE OUT' hosted by the chapters of TX-NORML. Download this 2-part special and enjoy be part of the event!

Musical Artists and Special Guests Featured:

Paul Bullock - The Tall Brothers - Jah Roots - The Donnas
Neo Cartoon Lover - E.O.S. - Chief Greenbud - Empress Nola
Barry Cooper - Junior Boogie - Franziska - Winter Springs
Muck Sticky - Jet Baker - The Individuals - Josh Schimberg
Southtown Hounds & Afro Man - Marujuana Logues - Medicine Man
Diego DJ - Switchblade - Johnny Reeferseed - Lynnette Shaw - Tokin' Tam
King Harvest & Dr Jupiter - Green Fever - John Birrenbach - JAI
The Odd Ballaz - Rich Hardesty - DaGoldenChild - George Carlin

To enter the 2009 Global Marijuana Music Awards, check out:

http://www.MarijuanaMusicAwards.com
or
http://www.MySpace.com/MarijuanaMusicAwards
and
listen to the 2008 GMMA WINNERS CONCERT on 'Time 4 Hemp' at:
http://www.Time4Hemp.TV

Please re-post this message every were you can and forward it to everyone you know who would enjoy the information.

Keep Strong!
Casper Leitch
Host/Creator: Time 4 Hemp

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Remember, remember this 4th of November to VOTE!

2008-11-04T00:08:54Z

Obama '08

We no longer want to hear
the old politics of fear
Won't you please vote for Obama
for us all
We refuse to be divided
by what corporate greed's decided
Won't you please vote for Obama
because you've heard the call
We can change the world
Re-arrange the world
We know we can do better
Working for real solutions
to violence, poverty, pollution
Obama's got the courage and the plan
The will to do what's right
and lead us in our fight
to regain our hope, our nation
-- Yes we can!
We can change the world
Re-arrange the world
All we need's a real leader
With Obama we will stand

Feel free to spread it around. No copyright. I sing it to the old Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young "Chicago" tune.

Peace, and Remember, remember this 4th of November to VOTE!

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Massachusetts ballot question #2

2008-10-29T05:19:25Z

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/09/25/marijuana_vote_has_allies_on_both_sides/?page=full

Marijuana vote has allies on both sides
By John Laidler
Globe Correspondent / September 25, 2008
Georgetown lawyer Steven Epstein supports the November state ballot question on decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, seeing use of the drug as a matter of personal liberty.

"We formed the government to protect the individual in the exercise of their rights, amongst which is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," Epstein said, adding that people should be free to exercise those rights as long as they do not harm others.

But Chelsea Police Chief Brian Kyes strongly opposes the ballot proposal, viewing it as a step backward in the fight against drug abuse.

"It definitely sends the wrong message to kids," he said.

"By decriminalizing this offense right now and making it basically the equivalent of a traffic violation, you are sending the message that it's OK, that it's not so bad."

As the decriminalization measure, Ballot Question 2, begins to stir debate around the state, voices on both sides are being sounded in this region.

The measure would replace the state's criminal penalties for possession of an ounce or less of marijuana with civil penalties enforced through citations.

Offenders would be subject to forfeiture of the drug and a $100 fine - for those under 18, the $100 fine would be contingent on their completing within a year a drug awareness program with a community service component. Otherwise, the fine could increase to as high as $1,000.

The offense would not be listed on the individual's Criminal Record Information System (CORI) record.

"People should vote yes on Question Two because it's a simple, commonplace reform based on successful laws from 11 other states," said Whitney A. Taylor, campaign manager for the Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy, the ballot group advocating a "yes" vote.

"We waste $30 million a year in police resources enforcing the current marijuana possession laws."

Taylor said her committee neither promotes nor condones marijuana use. Endorsers of the question range from the American Civil Liberties Union to lawyers, professors, police officers, and marijuana legal reform groups.

"Marijuana remains illegal under Question 2," she said, arguing that the measure actually provides for more certain consequences for offenders under age 18.

While first-time offenders are rarely sentenced to jail, Taylor said inclusion of their arrest on their CORI report can "create huge barriers to getting a job, finding housing, and getting school loans."

Epstein, who as a lawyer has represented many clients charged with marijuana possession, said offenders are "labeled criminals for doing something that over half of us have done at least once in our lifetimes," a label that "follows you around" because of the CORI listing. He also said that enforcement of the existing law is arbitrary.

A founder and spokesman for Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition, Epstein noted that advisory questions calling for decriminalizing marijuana have passed in all 31 legislative districts where they have been on the ballot.

But Middlesex District Attorney Gerard Leone said the ballot measure "derails all the good and hard work we've done on behalf of kids and communities. . . . All the question does is provide another mind-altering substance on the menu of options for our kids to use. . . . It's a virtual certainty that if Question 2 passes, there will be an increase in marijuana use and it will happen amongst our kids."

Leone and his fellow district attorneys are members of the Coalition for Safe Streets, a group opposing the question that also includes police chiefs, local officials, and clergy members.

"We know it's a gateway drug, and we know kids who use marijuana use it in combination with alcohol or other drugs, and step up to other, more potent drugs," Leone said.

"We also know the strain of marijuana on the streets is now nine or 10 times more potent than it was a decade ago."

Essex lawyer Jonathan W. Blodgett agreed that Question 2 "absolutely sends the wrong message, particularly to young people."

"The question people have to ask is, who benefits from decriminalization. Do we really want kids smoking marijuana? . . . We are all promoting healthy choices in our lives today. This is just a major step back," said Blodgett.

"If this passes, we will see more car accidents and more industrial accidents because people will have absolutely no incentive not to smoke marijuana."

Blodgett also said the measure will not reduce police and court costs, noting that in most cases, marijuana possession charges are brought together with more serious offenses.

Also opposed to the ballot question is Amy Harris, clinical director of Chelsea ASAP, an outpatient substance abuse clinic in Chelsea, and coordinator of the Chelsea Mobilization for Change, a coalition that works on substance abuse prevention.

Harris said decriminalization would lead to greater availability of marijuana in the form of "blunts, the cigar-sized marijuana cigarettes now prevalent among young people.

She said such heavy consumption of the drug puts youth at risk for cancer and psychological damage. Decriminalization would also have the effect of "sanctioning the drug so youths can emulate what the adults are doing," she said.

But Ann Allen, a medical technician from Salem, supports Question 2, calling the proposal "long overdue."

"It's just very logical," she said, noting that it would eliminate the CORI records that now burden offenders, and save money for taxpayers.

Allen said she was introduced to the cause of easing marijuana laws when a friend with cancer - who has since died - had to risk legal sanctions to obtain marijuana to relieve chemotherapy symptoms.

"She felt uncomfortable doing it illegally, like every other person I know that has smoked marijuana as a responsible adult," she said.

© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.

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UN Helps Effort To Rid Liberia Of Marijuana

2008-10-24T16:21:40Z

Press Release: United Nations - 10/22/08

The United Nations is assisting Liberian National Police (LNP) tackle the drug trade in remote areas of the West African nation, with the latest joint raid bringing the total amount of marijuana seized to almost 1,000 kilograms.

UN Police (UNPOL) and a Bangladeshi battalion and a Nigerian formed police unit (FPU) serving with the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) took part in the LNP-coordinated surprise operation, one of several recent efforts seeking to identify and destroy marijuana plantations, UNPOL reported today.

The stop and search operation, which took place in Bong County, occurred when officers pulled over a car and found four large sacks of cassava, which they sliced open to reveal tightly packed bags containing over 50 kilograms of dried marijuana. The raid was a result of surveillance and intelligence-gathering that began this May.

“A major aim of these operations is to build the capacity of the LNP,” said UNMIL Police Commissioner Henrik Stiernblad. The UN has organized previous seizures, but the Liberian police are starting to take the reins and command the raids.

During the 14-year civil war that killed almost 150,000 people, mostly civilians, warlords gave away marijuana freely to their young soldiers, including children, to alleviate stress and in a bid to create dependency.

Left in shambles by the conflict, the economy offers few employment opportunities in the formal sector, with many youth still addicted to the drug five years after the end of the war.

Liberian police acknowledge that eradicating plantations is an uphill battle, given many communities’ reliance on marijuana for their income. Nearly 450,000 plants have been destroyed to date.

“Marijuana makes people happy,” said LNP anti-narcotics officer Flomo J. Tomkollie. “To combat the problem, we need to find other ways to make them happy – we need to train people and help them find a job.”

Despite the economic toll stamping out the marijuana trade will take on local village, H. Mulbah Mbetor, chief of the Koshenquelleh region, said he supports Liberian police officers’ efforts, having seen the destruction the drug causes on youth first-hand.

“When young people smoke they don’t have a good understand – they think they can make more money by growing marijuana than by going to school or learning a trade,” he said. “But with the LNP coming and burning the crops, the young people are starting to think they might be better off doing something legal.”

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Former Hedge Funder wants mj sanity

2008-10-22T21:23:52Z

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aLmRPHKZLYmY&refer=home

Lahde Quits Hedge Funds, Thanks `Idiots' for Success (Update1)

By Katherine Burton

Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Andrew Lahde, the hedge-fund manager who quit after posting an 870 percent gain last year, said farewell to clients in a letter that thanks stupid traders for making him rich and ends with a plea to legalize marijuana.

Lahde, head of Santa Monica, California-based Lahde Capital Management LLC, told investors last month he was returning their cash because the risk of using credit derivatives -- his means of betting on the falling value of bonds and loans, including subprime mortgages -- was too risky given the weakness of the banks he was trading with.

``I was in this game for money,'' Lahde, 37, wrote in a two-page letter today in which he said he had come to hate the hedge-fund business. ``The low-hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government.

``All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other sides of my trades. God Bless America.''

Lahde, who managed about $80 million, told clients he'll be content to invest his own money, rather than taking cash from wealthy individuals and institutions and trying to amass a fortune worth hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.

``I do not understand the legacy thing,'' he wrote. ``Nearly everyone will be forgotten. Give up on leaving your mark. Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life.''

Request for Soros

He said he'd spend his time repairing his health ``as well as my entire life -- where I had to compete for spaces at universities, and graduate schools, jobs and assets under management -- with those who had all the advantages (rich parents) that I did not.''

He also suggested that billionaire George Soros sponsor a forum in which ``great minds'' would come together to create a new system of government, as the current system ``is clearly broken.''

Lahde ended his letter with a plea for the increased use of hemp as an alternative source of food and energy that segued into a call for the legalization of marijuana.

``Hemp has been used for at least 5,000 years for cloth and food, as well as just about everything that is produced from petroleum products,'' he wrote. ``Hemp is not marijuana and vice versa. Hemp is the male plant and it grows like a weed, hence the slang term.''

`Innocuous Plant'

He added, ``The evil female plant -- marijuana. It gets you high, it makes you laugh, it does not produce a hangover. Unlike alcohol, it does not result in bar fights or wife beating. So, why is this innocuous plant illegal? Is it a gateway drug? No, that would be alcohol, which is so heavily advertised in this country.

Lahde said the only reason marijuana remains illegal is because ``Corporate America, which owns Congress, would rather sell you Paxil, Zoloft, Xanax and other addictive drugs, than allow you to grow a plant in your home without some of the profits going into their coffers.''

Lahde graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in finance and holds an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles. He worked at Los Angeles-based hedge fund Dalton Investments LLC before founding his own firm two years ago with about $10 million.

Lahde wasn't available for comment. A woman at his firm, who asked not to be identified, confirmed the authenticity of the letter.

To contact the reporter on this story: Katherine Burton in New York at kburton@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 17, 2008 16:27 EDT

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Medical marijuana: Science & Politics Intermingle

2008-10-22T06:15:45Z

By Robyn Rosenthal - Special to the Kalamazoo Gazette - 10/19/2008

KALAMAZOO -- If it were just about the science -- and not the politics -- states would allow marijuana for medical purposes, says a leading researcher who was the first to report the drug's effectiveness in treating Lou Gehrig's disease.

"There is actually an overwhelming abundance of evidence to support the medical efficacy of cannabinoids, the active ingredients in marijuana. There is more evidence (of their effectiveness) than there is for many prescription drugs," said Dr. Gregory Carter, of the University of Washington School of Medicine, where he co-directs the Muscular Dystrophy Association-Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) Clinic.

On Nov. 4, Michigan voters will decide on a ballot proposal that would allow some severely ill patients to use marijuana to treat pain, nausea and other symptoms. If voters pass the initiative, Michigan would become the 15th state -- and the first in the Midwest -- to have some kind of medical-marijuana law.

Supporters of Proposal 1 say the initiative would give relief without fear of arrest to people suffering from debilitating diseases.

Difficulties

Opponents say there are synthetic prescription drugs that offer some of the same benefits as marijuana. Citizens Protecting Michigan's Kids, which opposes the initiative, said the proposal could lead to increased teen drug use and hinder police efforts to fight drugs.

Voter passage of the measure would remove state-level penalties for registered patients using marijuana. But the proposal includes no provision to provide access to the drug through the state or pharmacies, and sale of the drug would remain a felony, even to legal users. Supporters hope users would grow their own plants, but in the interim until harvest, the marijuana would have to be bought on the street.

"The unintended consequences (of the initiative) are too grave and too severe," said Appeals Court Judge Bill Schuette, who helped form Citizens Protecting Michigan's Kids. "I'm a judge. This proposal is a doozy."

Pros and cons

The law would allow people with debilitating diseases, such as cancer, glaucoma, AIDS and Alzheimer's disease or those with severe or chronic pain, seizures, nausea and other ailments approved by the state, to grow, possess and use limited amounts of marijuana. The users would need approval from medical doctors, have identification cards and be entered into a registry.

"I can tell you that, as a physician and researcher specializing in the care of patients with severe neuromuscular diseases, including (Lou Gehrig's disease), marijuana works in ways no other medicines do to help these people, being both a safe and effective medicine," Carter said.

Others aren't convinced.

"They're treating it like a panacea that everybody is waiting for, and it's not so," said state Sen. Tom George, a Republican from Texas Township who is also a physician. George opposes the measure.

George, an anesthesiologist, said a synthetic drug called dronabinol (the commercial name is Marinol) offers benefits similar to those of marijuana.

He said marijuana has many properties not completely known, which could be hazardous to patients. Because patients would be allowed to grow their own marijuana, the drug's purity would not be guaranteed, he said. Neither would it be possible to ensure proper dosage, which could result in overdoses.

Carter said users have found dronabinol too sedating. He also said there has never been a reported overdose of marijuana or dronabinol in humans.

"It's pathetically simple to dose," Carter said.

Groups take sides

More organizations are supporting medicinal marijuana -- or at least urging government support of additional research on the drug.

The American College of Physicians, the second-largest medical society in the United States, is calling for an evidence-based review to determine whether marijuana's classification should be relaxed. The group also argues that all physicians who prescribe medical marijuana and their patients should not face criminal and civil penalties -- regardless state laws.

Former U.S. Surgeon Generals Joycelyn Elders and Jesse Steinfeld have publicly endorsed the medical use of marijuana.

Statewide, however, many health and law-enforcement groups have come out against Proposal 1, including the Michigan State Medical Society and Prosecuting Attorney's Association.

Dianne Byrum, spokeswoman for the Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care, an advocacy group that gathered signatures to put the question on the November ballot, said the law would apply to a small percentage of the state's population, perhaps less than half of 1 percent, or about 50,000 people.

"The reality is, they're getting it now," Byrum said of people using marijuana for medical reasons. "This gives them protection against arrest and prosecution."

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal agencies are focused on battling large-scale drug-trafficking operations, not small-scale users, said spokesman Rich Isaacson, of the DEA's Detroit office. Medical-marijuana users typically would not be targeted by the DEA, he said.

Not a first

If voters approve the marijuana initiative, it wouldn't be Michigan's first law allowing the drug for medical purposes.

In 1979, the Legislature passed a bill that allowed cancer and glaucoma patients to participate in a federal program that made it legal for those patients to purchase marijuana for therapeutic reasons.

Greg Francisco, who is spearheading the local campaign to pass Proposal 1, said the 1979 law allowed patients to use only federally cultivated marijuana. Francisco said the program ended after about two years because the federal supply was inadequate. He said about 300 people were enrolled in the program.

"The research is there. It works," Francisco said of medical marijuana.

Francisco is a former Bloomingdale Public Schools counselor who resigned from his job in 2006 after he was charged with marijuana possession. The charge was later dropped. Francisco now operates a wool mill.

Five Michigan cities have medical-marijuana ordinances. Law-enforcement officials in two of those communities, Flint and Ann Arbor -- similar in size to Kalamazoo -- said they have not had complaints about medical marijuana since their laws went into effect.

Voters in Flint approved the medical-marijuana ordinance in 2007; Ann Arbor voters passed a similar law in 2004.

---------------------------

On the Web
For more information on the medical-
marijuana issue:

Supporting Proposal
http://stoparrestingpatients.org.

Opposing Proposal
http://www.nopotshops.com.

Debatepedia

Should marijuana be made legal for medical purposes?
http://tinyurl.com/DebateMedicalMarijuana.

ProCon.org

Should marijuana be a medical option?
http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org.

Kalamazoo Gazette series;

In March, the Gazette published a four-part series that investigated the benefits and risks of medical marijuana. Read it here: http://tinyurl.com/MedicalMarijuanaSeries.

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Medical Marijuana In The News

2008-10-22T04:37:52Z

The MI Northern Express - By Rick Coates - 10/20/08

When Dr. George Wagoner, a retired obstetrician/gynecologist from Manistee, saw the suffering his wife of 51 years was enduring from her battle with ovarian cancer last year, he turned to marijuana to ease her pain.

“During her chemotherapy she experienced intense nausea, and conventional anti-nausea drugs didn’t help much. One drug cost $46.20 a pill and didn’t help,” said Dr. Wagoner. “Another made her hallucinate, so she refused to take it. Basically, pharmaceutical drugs were ineffective and the marijuana -- just a very small dose -- was most effective.”

Dr. Wagoner and his wife are among many who have taken the path of using marijuana for medical purposes. However, in Michigan, they are breaking the law. On November 4, Ballot Proposal 1 will give Michigan voters the opportunity to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Currently, 12 other states have laws allowing the use of medical marijuana.

For Reverend Steve Thompson, chapter president of the Benzie County NORML (the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), the ballot issue is music to his ears.

“I have been an advocate for this for many years,” said Thompson. “I have been using marijuana for the past 42 years of my life. I am not into alcohol and a prescription drug about killed me. I turn 61 on November 5 and I expect this to be the best birthday present ever.”

SUPPORT & OPPOSITION

Of course, Thompson is assuming that the ballot proposal is going to pass. The most recent survey of Michigan voters conducted by the Detroit News/WYXZ radio shows 66 percent of voters in support of the ballot issue.

However, Michigan Court of Appeals Judge and former congressman, state senator and Michigan Agricultural Director Bill Schuette has been leading the opposition fight against the ballot proposal. Schuette is part of the newly-formed organization Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Kids that has been campaigning against the issue.

“Proposal 1 is flawed and full of unintended consequences which will be devastating to Michigan’s kids and their families,” said judge Schuette. “While there is a need to help people burdened with chronic pain symptoms, Proposal 1, which advocates legalizing marijuana, is carelessly written and opens the door to greater access to drugs for teenagers across Michigan.”

But Thompson counters that the other side has been campaigning on half truths and not giving the voters all of the facts.

“If you look at the states that have passed medical marijuana, the use of marijuana in all of those states by teenagers has declined. A big difference between NORML along with the Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care (the group spearheading the ballot proposal) and Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Kids is transparency,” said Thompson.

“First of all, at our websites we post all of the leaders behind this and our phone numbers and e-mail addresses. It is very difficult to determine who is actually behind the opposition organization. Also, they only post half truths on their website. We post both sides of the issue, including articles that are written against the ballot measure as we want citizens to understand both sides of the issue and make an educated decision when they vote.”

STEP TO LEGALIZE IT?

One of the criticisms launched by those that oppose the legalization of medical marijuana is that it is simply just a step in the process for the outright legalization of marijuana.

“It is no secret the NORML wants to see marijuana legalized,” Thompson said. “It is why we have taken a backseat and the Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care is taking the lead on this. I am confident in Michigan voters being intelligent enough to differentiate between this. I believe there are people who are willing to support this ballot proposal and not willing to see the legalization of marijuana for recreational uses. This ballot proposal is about compassion. It is about providing a medical alternative to prescription drugs that do not help in some medical situations. As for all of these half truths, I encourage people to read the actual law. There are stiff penalties for anyone abusing this law.”

Those in opposition also point to a pharmaceutical drug, Marinol, that accomplishes the same result. They point to the fact that Marinol is prescribed in doses, whereas smoking marijuana is not a controlled dose.

“Marinol does not have the same effect,” said Thompson. ‘This has been proven time and time again. It is the smoking of the marijuana that is most effective in relieving these symptoms -- In particular, loss of appetite, as Marinol does not increase one’s appetite, while smoking marijuana does.”

OTHER CONCERNS

The Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Kids point to their concerns if the proposal passes:

• Allow use of marijuana without a doctor’s prescription.

• Allow a person arrested on any marijuana offense to use a “medical marijuana” defense in court.

• Allow a flood of lawsuits over things such as whether doctors and hospitals must allow patients to smoke marijuana in a doctor’s office or hospital room, despite every other law banning smoking.

• Allow the opening of pot shops and smoking clubs in neighborhood strip malls, like has happened in California under a similar proposal.

But Thompson counters that opponents are using scare tactics; “I am not sure they have read the legislation, but everything they are suggesting has been addressed and they are taking half truths to scare the public,” said Thompson. “This gets down to compassion for those with medical conditions. My mother, who is 82, has had series of strokes in recent weeks and has told me she is going to hang on to see this pass.”

As for the future, Thompson is hopeful that marijuana will someday again be legalized (it was banned in the United States in 1937, although the law was fuzzy at that time and allowed for State’s rights, and a marijuana tax was passed for medical use).

“I hope it will happen in my lifetime. What I don’t get is why growing hemp is illegal. Hemp is not pot and has no THC; and if you grow marijuana in a hemp, field it turns to hemp not the other way around. So instead of letting farmers grow it, we import 97 percent of the hemp we use in this country from Canada,” said Thompson.

“NORML is probably the only organization in the country that is inviting the government to regulate and tax us. But that is not what is at stake today. That is a discussion for another day, instead what we have to do is make a decision whether or not that, and regardless of our opinion of marijuana is, if we want to be compassionate enough to allow for this to help people with certain medical conditions.”

Express readers are encouraged to read the full text of the medical marijuana legislation by Googling it. The use of medical marijuana under the proposed legislation would be only allowed for certain medical conditions and patients would have to receive authorization from their doctor to grow and smoke marijuana for their condition. The conditions covered, as well as some of the concerns from the opposition, are detailed in the legislation including the stiff penalties for violating marijuana laws.

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Medical marijuana gardens worry Clackamas County

2008-10-22T04:18:26Z

PORTLAND (AP) 10/20/08 — An increase in medical marijuana gardens in Clackamas County is being welcomed by patients and advocates, while neighbors are alarmed and police are confused about how to handle it.

From January through July, the number of medical marijuana cardholders in the suburban Portland county jumped 23 percent, from 1,207 to 1,481, according to the Department of Human Services Oregon Medical Marijuana Program.

Statewide, officials have seen a similar 23 percent increase, from 15,927 to 19,646.

Even though the figures suggest more people getting the help they need, they raise concerns about more people abusing legal loopholes, more criminals preying on legal growers, and more problems for police officers and courts.

Paul Stanford, founder and director of the national nonprofit Hemp & Cannabis Foundation, said that law enforcement officials and the public are gradually accepting the benefits of medical marijuana.

“Across the board, we’re seeing increasing support, and it’s so important,” Stanford said. “There are so many people who need medicine, but they don’t want to break the law.”

A marijuana garden that is tended cooperatively by several patients and caregivers who supply marijuana to cardholders who can’t grow their own has produced a great deal of surplus marijuana that Stanford provides free and in strictly controlled quantities to patients in Clackamas and other counties.

“Of course, the real solution is to legalize (marijuana),” he said. “But for the most part, it’s a positive change in understanding.”

Yet the experience of cardholders tends to vary, depending on where they live. In Clackamas County, police contend some cardholders are abusing their rights by growing too much marijuana.

A June report by Oregon’s High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program — a federal grant program administered by the Office of National Drug Control Policy — states that the medical marijuana law has been consistently violated and is a major barrier to effective enforcement and prosecution.

From 2006 to 2007, the number of plants police seized jumped from 77 to 1,013 plants growing indoors, according to program figures.

During that same period, the number of outdoor plants seized jumped from 178 to 494, according to Chris Gibson, director of Oregon’s High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program.

Yet advocates such as Stanford say police often seize plants growing legally and that the claim that medical marijuana growers frequently abuse the system is only a campaign to curtail medical marijuana.

David Langshaw, a Milwaukie-area resident, has for four years been a cardholder and grown marijuana for himself and others.

Yet he knows that could mean law enforcement could show up on his doorstep at any time.

“People here have to watch out for that knock-and-talk stuff,” he said. “I know my rights, but I worry about all those other people out there who think they have to show everything and answer all those questions.”

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Eddy Lepp - Medical marijuana - activist is convicted of growing 24,000...

2008-10-01T00:03:48Z

...marijuana plants. It what may be is last in-depth interview before going to prison for LIFE, the Rev. Eddy Lepp sat down to discuss his past and future when he took Time 4 Hemp - and it's free to download at:
http://www.Time4Hemp.TV

Musical Artist Featured - (in order of appearance):

Los Marijuanaos - Don Marcus - Laid Blak - Sugar Bear
Iriepathie - Marlin Asher - Janet Jackson
Neo Cartoon Lover - Lynnette Shaw - Rich Hardesty
and The Pointer Sisters

A federal court jury has convicted a medical marijuana activist of illegally growing more than 24,000 pot plants that were clearly visible from a highway near his home in Lake County.

Federal prosecutors said Charles "Eddy" Lepp, 56, faces a mandatory sentence of at least 10 years in prison after the jury in San Francisco found him guilty Tuesday of conspiracy and cultivation with the intent to distribute marijuana. Sentencing is scheduled Dec. 1.

Lepp is a longtime medical marijuana advocate whose battles with the government over his prosecution won him a "freedom fighter" award from High Times Magazine.

He was arrested in 2004 after federal agents said they found 32,500 marijuana plants in gardens near his home in Upper Lake. U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled that the seizure was based on an invalid warrant, but allowed prosecutors to offer evidence of more than 24,000 plants that were in plain view of Highway 20.

Lepp also argued that, as a Rastafarian minister, he had a religious right to grow and use marijuana, a sacrament to his faith. He claimed his church had 2,500 members who were all sharecroppers of the plants.

But Patel barred him from using religion as a defense to the charges in a pretrial ruling Aug. 14. She said an individual charged with possession for personal use might be allowed to argue that marijuana was central to his faith. Lepp, however, could not credibly claim that his religion compelled him to distribute thousands of plants to unidentified parishioners, the judge said.

Defense lawyer Michael Hinckley said Lepp would appeal on the religious issue and perhaps on other grounds as well. He said Lepp, whose wife and father both died of cancer, believes strongly in the religious and medical use of marijuana.

Noting that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld such federal prosecutions despite California's medical marijuana law, Hinckley said, "As long as the state and federal government are in conflict on this issue, unfortunate results like this are going to continue to occur."

Please pass this information on to everyone you feel would enjoy this material.

Keep strong!

Casper Leitch
Creator/Host: Time 4 Hemp
http://www.Time4Hemp.com

Time 4 Hemp cell phone Website:
http://www.Time4Hemp.mobi/

"The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know"
President Harry

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FREE MP3 with RON PAUL, BARACK OBAMA, JOHN McCAIN & LOTS OF MUSIC!

2008-09-14T09:30:18Z

Enjoy a real Texas ho-down in celebration of the 2008 Global Marijuana Music Awards and the 3RD ANNUAL 6TH ST SMOKE-OUT hosted by Texas NORML in Austin on September 20th. One of the organizers of this event (a leader in the TX-NORML chapter and founder of the organization Out Grow Big Bro.), Hector Sanchez detailed all the excitement when he sat down and took Time 4 Hemp. It's FREE to download at http://www.Time4Hemp.TV

Not only is it Time 2 Vote for the winning songs at the GMMA - it's Time 2 Vote for a new President of the United States. That's why, in this segment you hear directly from the Democratic candidate, Sen. Barack Obama and the Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain as to where they stand on medical marijuana and the War On Drugs.

You also hear Texas Congressman and former Presidential candidate, Ron Paul discuss the Marijuana Bill that recently went before United States Congress.

If you get the chance to visit the http://www.Time4Hemp.TV Video Vault, you can download these segments as well as many others) and send them in e-mails to your friends and community leaders!

Musical Artists Featured (in order of appearance):

The Individuals
Jet Baker
Johnny Reefer Seed & Afro-man
Sean Reefer and the Resin Valley Boys
Jr. Boogie
Donovan and Afro-man
Love and Rockets

Please pass this information on to everyone who you feel would enjoy it.

Keep Strong
Casper Leitch
Creator/Host: Time 4 Hemp
http://www.Time4Hemp.TV

Time 4 Hemp cell phone Website:
http://www.Time4Hemp.mobi/

"The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know"
President Harry Truman

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FREE MP3 - AL GORE - T BOONE PICKENS - GATEWOOD GALBRAITH - LOTS OF MUSIC!

2008-08-24T13:15:49Z

PLEASE - Help tell everyone - it's Time 4 Hemp 4 FUEL!

Gatewood Galbraith, one of the Founding Fathers of the Marijuana Movement, joins Casper Leitch in a joint effort to RE-INTRODUCE the use of Hemp for FUEL in America. In this very special segment, the two discuses the Pickens' Plan that's being hyped by T. Boone Pickens and Al Gore's historic speech to Congress in which the former Vice-President called for America to be free from dependence of foreign fuel in 10-years or less. This podcast is FREE TO DOWNLOAD at http://www.Time4Hemp.com

Featured Musical Artists (in order of appearance):

Human - Hemp St Rhythymz - Willie Nelson
Counting Crows & Vanessa Carlton - Green fever
Pink Floyd - Stevie Wonder & Ray Charles
George Harrison - Sharl Crow
Los Marijuanaous - Michel Jackson

Also featured is an excerpt from the interview that Peter Jennings conducted with Al Gore on 'Meet The Press' as well as press conference remarks made my T. Boone Pickens.

5 FREE VIDEO DOWNLOADS have been posted on this section of the Time4Hemp.com website. They feature information about the famous Ford Hemp Car as well as the many uses of this fantastic plant. Each video is short and can be e-mailed to friends and elected officials.

Please tell every one you know and post this material on every website that you can.

Keep strong!

Casper Leitch
Creator/Host: Time 4 Hemp
http://www.Time4Hemp.com

Time 4 Hemp cell phone Website:
http://www.Time4Hemp.mobi/

"The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know"
President Harry Truman

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from stopthedrugwar.org

2008-08-23T22:43:52Z

http://stopthedrugwar.org/reader_blogs/2008/aug/22/book_review_the_chemical_muse

The Chemical Muse: Drug Use and the Roots of Western Civilization by D. C.A. Hillman, Ph.D. (2008, St. Martin’s Press)

Dr. Hillman’s Chemical Muse obliterates contemporary drug prohibitionist nonsense by taking the reader on a magical mystery tour to ancient Athens and Rome. There Hillman reveals that recreational drug-taking was the norm for the greatest thinkers of Western civilization.

Hillman exposes a history that until now has been kept under tight wraps. Traditional Classical scholars have been too prudish, too puritanical, or too conscious of modern society’s stigma toward drug users to translate the precise contents of certain ancient Greek and Latin texts into modern languages. With Hillman’s new book, things change.

The written record reveals that the intellectual giants, along with nearly everyone else of the period, used common, not-so-common, and some really strange herbal concoctions to light up their neurocircuits and brain cells like some colossal shopping mall Christmas tree.

Yes, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras, Democritus, Galen, Pliny, and other luminaries and humanitarians, it turns out, were all major druggies. Potheads. Walking, talking pharmacopeias. The collective brain stimulus achieved by ingesting recreational drugs in Athens coincided with their creation or furtherance of medical science, democracy, the atomic theory, mathematics, formal logic, philosophy, poetry, art, architecture and the theater.

In one example [Hillman, p. 177], we find Plato writing in Phaedrus about drug-induced inspirations:

In reality, the greatest of blessings come to us through mania [effects of psychotropic drugs or madness] when it is sent as a gift from the gods.

And later:

And a third kind of possession and madness comes from the Muses. This takes hold upon a gentle and pure soul, arouses it and inspires it to songs and other poetry, and thus by adorning countless deeds of the ancients educates later generations. But he who without divine madness comes to the doors of the Muses, confident that he will be a good poet by art, meets with no success, and the poetry of the sane man vanishes into nothingness before that of the inspired madmen.

The peaceful and favorable coexistence of recreational drug users together with a healthy and productive society is a vision that modern drug warriors condemn as being wholly unrealistic and potentially disastrous. The Classics tell us that nothing could be less true. The wisdom of the sages provides solid evidence that Athenian and Roman cultures integrated recreational drug use into their cultures with minimal blowback.

No hysterical complaints about drug use and its consequences can be found in the ancient record. No evidence exists of efforts to change a pro-drug culture into one of prohibition-plus-persecution. Rather, prohibition schemes would be put on hold until the 4th-century when some bizarre social priorities emerged in Christian-era Rome.

For drug use to be favorably implicated in the dawn of Western civilization means that a safe and effective system of legal distribution of recreational drugs is not only achievable, but is also likely to be beneficial. Industrialized societies with economies partially based on the creative impulses of their individual citizens could not help but profit. In the U.S., estimates are that about 40-percent of the economy is driven by good old Yankee innovation, and it is common knowledge that recreational drugs play an active role in all types of creativity.

With kudos to Dr. Hillman for yanking the sheets off the Classics, a peaceful coexistence between drug users and the opposition culture has just moved a few degrees closer to the higher realms of reason and justice.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/548/mexico_PRD_legalization

from Drug War Chronicle, Issue #548, 8/22/08

Mexico's PRD May Call for Legalization

According to Mexican press reports this week, Mexico's Partido Revolucionario Democratico (PRD -- Democratic Revolutionary Party) is preparing to consider legalization of the drug trade as a response to the wave of narco-violence that has swept the country in the last year and a half. Around 5,000 people have been killed in prohibition-related violence since President Felipe Calderon escalated Mexico's long-running drug war by enlisting the military in the fight in December 2006.

PRD presidential candidate Andre Manuel Lopez Obrador came within a handful of votes of winning the presidency in 2006, and the party remains the second strongest political force in the country, behind the ruling Partido de Accion Nacional (PAN -- National Action Party). But because of party infighting since that election, the PRD may drop into third place after this year's midterm elections, behind both the PAN and the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI -- Revolutionary Institutional Party).

According to the Mexico City newspaper El Universal, the PRD's national council is calling on the party's legislators to begin discussing legalization as part of a "grand national accord" to deal with violence and insecurity in the country. The proposal came from the PRD's New Left faction, led by Jesus Zembrano, and was approved unanimously by the national council.

In an interview with Mexico's Televisa TV network, the PRD coordinator in the lower house, Javier Gonzalez Garza, upped the ante, saying legalization should be considered not only in Mexico, but also in the US. "We can't continue thinking that we are going to combat the problem of drug trafficking without more radical measures, and one of them has to be the legalization of drugs in the United States," he said. "After the United States will we continue with Mexico? Of course, or both at the same time... This war, the way it is outlined, is going to be lost, we're all going to lose, it makes no sense and there need to be some changes."

Some 25,000 Mexican army troops are fighting drug traffickers along the border and in a number of major cities and drug-growing areas. Many observers blame the spike in violence -- more people have been killed already this year than in all of last year -- on the aggressive stance of the Calderon government. But the US government is pleased; it recently passed a $1.4 billion, three-year anti-drug assistance package for Mexico, most of which will go to beefing up military and police capabilities.

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America to ease Police Spy Rules

2008-08-17T18:06:59Z

By Spencer S. Hsu and Carrie Johnson - 08/16/2008 - Washington Post

The Justice Department has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years.

The proposed changes would revise the federal government's rules for police intelligence-gathering for the first time since 1993 and would apply to any of the nation's 18,000 state and local police agencies that receive roughly $1.6 billion each year in federal grants.

Quietly unveiled late last month, the proposal is part of a flurry of domestic intelligence changes issued and planned by the Bush administration in its waning months. They include a recent executive order that guides the reorganization of federal spy agencies and a pending Justice Department overhaul of FBI procedures for gathering intelligence and investigating terrorism cases within U.S. borders.

Taken together, critics in Congress and elsewhere say, the moves are intended to lock in policies for Bush's successor and to enshrine controversial post-Sept. 11 approaches that some say have fed the greatest expansion of executive authority since the Watergate era.

Supporters say the measures simply codify existing counterterrorism practices and policies that are endorsed by lawmakers and independent experts such as the 9/11 Commission. They say the measures preserve civil liberties and are subject to internal oversight.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said the administration agrees that it needs to do everything possible to prevent unwarranted encroachments on civil liberties, adding that it succeeds the overwhelming majority of the time.

Bush homeland security adviser Kenneth L. Wainstein said, "This is a continuum that started back on 9/11 to reform law enforcement and the intelligence community to focus on the terrorism threat."

Under the Justice Department proposal for state and local police, published for public comment July 31, law enforcement agencies would be allowed to target groups as well as individuals, and to launch a criminal intelligence investigation based on the suspicion that a target is engaged in terrorism or providing material support to terrorists. They also could share results with a constellation of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and others in many cases.

Criminal intelligence data starts with sources as basic as public records and the Internet, but also includes law enforcement databases, confidential and undercover sources, and active surveillance.

Jim McMahon, deputy executive director of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said the proposed changes "catch up with reality" in that those who investigate crimes such as money laundering, drug trafficking and document fraud are best positioned to detect terrorists. He said the rule maintains the key requirement that police demonstrate a "reasonable suspicion" that a target is involved in a crime before collecting intelligence.

"It moves what the rules were from 1993 to the new world we live in, but it maintains civil liberties," McMahon said.

However, Michael German, policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the proposed rule may be misunderstood as permitting police to collect intelligence even when no underlying crime is suspected, such as when a person gives money to a charity that independently gives money to a group later designated a terrorist organization.

The rule also would allow criminal intelligence assessments to be shared outside designated channels whenever doing so may avoid danger to life or property -- not only when such danger is "imminent," as is now required, German said.

On the day the police proposal was put forward, the White House announced it had updated Reagan-era operating guidelines for the U.S. intelligence community. The revised Executive Order 12333 established guidelines for overseas spying and called for better sharing of information with local law enforcement. It directed the CIA and other spy agencies to "provide specialized equipment, technical knowledge or assistance of expert personnel" to support state and local authorities.

And last week, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said that the Justice Department will release new guidelines within weeks to streamline and unify FBI investigations of criminal law enforcement matters and national security threats. The changes will clarify what tools agents can employ and whose approval they must obtain.

The recent moves continue a steady expansion of the intelligence role of U.S. law enforcement, breaking down a wall erected after congressional hearings in 1976 to rein in such activity.

The push to transform FBI and local police intelligence operations has triggered wider debate over who will be targeted, what will be done with the information collected and who will oversee such activities.

Many security analysts faulted U.S. authorities after the 2001 terrorist attacks, saying the FBI was not combating terrorist plots before they were carried out and needed to proactively use intelligence. In the years since, civil liberties groups and some members of Congress have criticized the administration for unilaterally expanding surveillance and moving too fast to share sensitive information without safeguards.

Critics say preemptive law enforcement in the absence of a crime can violate the Constitution and due process. They cite the administration's long-running warrantless-surveillance program, which was set up outside the courts, and the FBI's acknowledgment that it abused its intelligence-gathering privileges in hundreds of cases by using inadequately documented administrative orders to obtain telephone, e-mail, financial and other personal records of U.S. citizens without warrants.

Former Justice Department official Jamie S. Gorelick said the new FBI guidelines on their own do not raise alarms. But she cited the recent disclosure that undercover Maryland State Police agents spied on death penalty opponents and antiwar groups in 2005 and 2006 to emphasize that the policies would require close oversight.

"If properly implemented, this should assure the public that people are not being investigated by agencies who are not trained in how to protect constitutional rights," said the former deputy attorney general. "The FBI will need to be vigilant -- both in its policies and its practices -- to live up to that promise."

German, an FBI agent for 16 years, said easing established limits on intelligence-gathering would lead to abuses against peaceful political dissenters. In addition to the Maryland case, he pointed to reports in the past six years that undercover New York police officers infiltrated protest groups before the 2004 Republican National Convention; that California state agents eavesdropped on peace, animal rights and labor activists; and that Denver police spied on Amnesty International and others before being discovered.

"If police officers no longer see themselves as engaged in protecting their communities from criminals and instead as domestic intelligence agents working on behalf of the CIA, they will be encouraged to collect more information," German said. "It turns police officers into spies on behalf of the federal government."

Civil liberties groups also have warned that forthcoming Justice Department rules for the FBI may permit the use of terrorist profiles that could single out religious or ethnic groups such as Muslims or Arabs for investigation.

Mukasey said the changes will give the next president "some of the tools necessary to keep us safe" and will not alter Justice rules that prohibit investigations based on a person's race, religion or speech. He said the new guidelines will make it easier for the FBI to use informants, conduct physical and photographic surveillance, and share data in intelligence cases, on the grounds that doing so should be no harder than in investigations of ordinary crimes.

Rep. Bennie Thompson

(D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said that updating police intelligence rules is a move "in the right direction. However, the vagueness of the provisions giving broad access to criminal intelligence to undefined agencies . . . is very troubling."

Staff writers Joby Warrick and Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report.

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mj decrim bill in Congress

2008-07-29T19:45:46Z

HR 5843, entitled An Act To Remove Federal Penalties for the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults
From NORML.ORG:

Press Advisory: Marijuana Decriminalization Bill in Congress

Monday, July 28, 2008

WHAT:
Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) and other Congressional cosponsors will convene a press conference to announce the introduction of legislation to remove federal penalties for personal marijuana use, and take questions from the media.

HR 5843, entitled An Act To Remove Federal Penalties for the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults, would eliminate federal penalties for possession of up to 100 grams of marijuana, and for the not-for-profit transfer of up to one ounce of marijuana.

This proposal reflects the basic recommendations of the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse (aka the Shafer Commission) in their groundbreaking report to Congress in 1972 entitled Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding.

This is the first federal marijuana decriminalization bill to be introduced in Congress since 1978, and reflects the changing public attitudes that no longer support treating responsible marijuana smokers like criminals. According to a nationwide Time/CNN poll, three out of four Americans now favor a fine only, no jail, for adults who possess or use small amounts of marijuana.

Representatives from the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana LAWS (NORML), the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) and the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) will also participate in this press conference.

WHEN:
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 10:00am.

WHERE:
Room 2220 Rayburn House Office Building

FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL 202-483-5500:
Ask for NORML Legal Counsel Keith Stroup; keith@norml.org

~@~

The complete text of this legislation read:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no penalty may be imposed under an Act of Congress for the possession of marijuana for personal use, or for the not-for-profit transfer between adults of marijuana for personal use. For the purposes of this section, possession of 100 grams or less of marijuana shall be presumed to be for personal use, as shall the not-for-profit transfer of one ounce or less of marijuana, except that the civil penalty provided in section 405 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 844a) may be imposed for the public use of marijuana if the amount of the penalty does not exceed $100.
Sponsor: Rep Frank, Barney
Cosponsors: Rep Baldwin, Tammy, Rep Blumenauer, Earl , Rep Clay, Wm. Lacy, Rep Lee, Barbara , Rep Lofgren, Zoe, Rep McDermott, Jim, Rep Paul, Ron

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Arrested For Ordering Hemp Protein

2008-07-21T23:53:54Z

Greek Health Crusader Is Arrested For Ordering Hemp Protein

On Wednesday morning July 16th, Anna Korakaki went to her local post office in Athens, Greece to pick up her latest health product order from Navitas Naturals, a health food company based in the USA. Anna had previously received shipments from Navitas which included raw cacao from Ecuador, maca from Peru, goji berries from Tibet, and other high-quality nutritious foods. Moments after accepting her package Anna was immediately intercepted by 4 police officers, thrown on the hood of a police car and brutally handcuffed. Police then ransacked her apartment and after finding nothing suspicious or illegal, took Anna to a police station for further interrogation. Anna was then forced to spend the night in an Athens jail cell. The reason for Anna Korakaki's arrest was that she had received 4.5 kilos of hemp protein (a 'super-food' made from powdered hemp seeds), which she had ordered for the express purpose of making healthy smoothies. The order had a value of 57 Euros (US$89), and represented but one of hundreds of hemp products available worldwide in health food stores, super-markets and via the Internet.
Hemp comes from the plant of the botanical name Cannabis Sativa. The difference between marijuana and hemp is the appearance and the respective amounts of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Strains of Cannabis Sativa that are approved for industrial hemp use (such as rope and clothing) and hemp foods contain only minute amounts of this psychoactive compound, whereas marijuana and hashish ('narcotics') contain high amounts of THC. Hemp seeds are considered by leading researchers and medical doctors to be one of the most nutritious food sources on the planet. Hemp seed contain 33 percent pure digestible protein, and are rich in iron and vitamin E, as well as omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.
Hemp products are commonly found in health-food stores and supermarkets in the USA, Canada and Europe including Greece. Hemp is sold as a whole seed, a powder, as nut butter, as oil and salad dressings, and is sprouted for inclusion in healthy breads. Hemp is also used to make organic breakfast cereals, and is increasingly popular as a non-dairy milk (similar to rice, soy and almond milks), and as a non-dairy ice cream. Hemp is the highest source of essential fatty acids in the plant kingdom. Of the three million plus edible plants that grow on Earth, no other single plant source can compare with the nutritional value of hemp seeds. Both the complete protein and the essential oils contained in hemp seeds are in ideal ratios for human nutrition. Hemp protein contains all 21 known amino acids, including the 8 essential amino acids that adult bodies are unable to produce. It is rich in vitamin E, iron, and contains 33% protein. This means that per serving, hemp contains more protein than meat, fish, chicken and cheese.
Unfortunately, paranoia from the so-called 'War on Drugs' has sometimes implicated non-psychoactive industrial hemp varieties of cannabis with psychoactive marijuana varieties. The Greek court system, for instance, finds it difficult to define the difference between hemp food and marijuana. Tests of the Navitas Hemp Protein Powder by chemists at Greek Customs claim to have located trace particles of THC. According to Greek law this renders the hemp protein Anna received as an equivalent to marijuana. This has lead to Anna being charged with four criminal counts of drug possession. As a result, Anna could face prison if the court system cannot be convinced that the hemp food that she received is a valid, and universally legal, form of nutrition. According to Oprah Winfrey-consultant and best selling author Dr. Andrew Weil: "There is absolutely no health concern about trace amounts of THC in hemp foods."
It is well established that the seeds harvested from industrial hemp Cannabis Sativa, such as are grown in Canada and throughout the EU can contain low levels of THC. These levels are typically in the parts per million (ppm). In the USA, hemp foods are legal to sell and there is currently no legal limit on the THC content. In Canada and Europe regulations limit the concentration of THC in hemp seed oil and other food products to less than 10 parts per million.

The hemp protein that Anna Korakaki ordered is made from 100% ground hemp seed, grown and processed in Canada by Hemp Oil Canada Inc. and distributed by Navitas Naturals in the USA. In a statement from Hemp Oil Canada Inc. its president Shawn Crew writes, "From the seed harvested, we are regulated to produce products which must contain less than 10 ppm (as the Canadian legal limit). According to the official Health Canada testing protocol for THC, the limit of detection is 4 ppm. So any analysis result falling under 4 ppm is reported as none detected. We are pleased to report that not a single analysis of our products has ever produced a result over 4 ppm and therefore it is stated and reported as none detected." Because of this fact and that the nutritional information listed for the product declared no THC levels, Anna felt certain that hemp protein was legal in Greece.
The day of Anna Korakaki's arrest, her friends went to a local health food store in Athens to purchase a loaf of sprouted hemp bread (meaning that whole hemp seeds had been imported to Greece, then sprouted and ground for baking). The bread was brought before the judge to demonstrate that hemp foods are available in Greece, which seemed to shock the judge, but made no difference to his thinking towards Anna's parole. Anna is now required to go to her local police station once per month, identify her self and register by signature, until such time as her decisive day in court which, given the typical speed with which Greek justice is served, could be as much as two years away.
It stands to reason that even if someone were to eat an entire 4.5 kilos bag of hemp protein, they would not experience any effects, or an altered state of consciousness, from the THC, perhaps just a bloated stomach. Anna's story is so amazing in its absurdity that all the media in Greece are following it.
Anna Korakaki is the cofounder of Super Foods Greece, a company that provides educational seminars and super-foods in Greece. She introduced raw food nutrition and super-foods to the nation of Greece. Anna travels the world educating people on nutrition and advising them on nutritional cleansing and natural healing, specializing in deep detoxification and cellular rejuvenation. She is a certified massage therapist and certified yoga instructor.
PLEASE post this story in your home country--in any and all media, and please send us the links or clippings.

SEND YOUR RESPONSES TO hempingreece@gmail.com

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Video of a legal medical marijuana operation in California

2008-06-14T10:39:31Z

The fight over medical marijuana in San Diego went to court. Can the county be required to issue medical marijuana cards to qualified patients? John Mattes takes us inside a legal pot operation. 6/10/08

http://www.fox6.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoId=468165@video.fox6.com&navCatId=5&rss=800

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Oregon Court of Appeals protects medical marijuana

2008-06-14T10:31:47Z

By WILLIAM McCALL - The Associated Press 06/13/08

PORTLAND — The Oregon Court of Appeals has ruled that an employer must make a reasonable accommodation for medical marijuana use for a disability.

In an opinion issued Wednesday, the appeals court upheld a ruling by the state Bureau of Labor and Industries.

The agency said that Emerald Steel Fabricators in Eugene violated state laws barring discrimination against the disabled by discharging an employee who used medical marijuana.

A key issue was the fact the employee never used marijuana in the workplace — an issue the Oregon Supreme Court avoided in 2006 when it ruled against a registered medical marijuana user fired from his job at a Columbia Forest Products plant after urine tests detected traces of the drug.

Employers do not have to let patients smoke medical marijuana in the workplace. But the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act approved by voters in 1998 was unclear about whether employers must accommodate workers who smoke medical marijuana off the job.

In the opinion by Judge Timothy Sercombe, the Oregon Court of Appeals went back over the 2006 Oregon Supreme Court ruling to emphasize the Emerald Steel employee never used the marijuana at work — just like the worker in the Columbia Forest case.

The appeals court also noted the Oregon Supreme Court did not address some of the defenses raised in the earlier case, including the argument an employee could be affected by medical marijuana use while on duty or in "safety-sensitive positions."

It also rejected an attempt by Emerald Steel to raise new issues on appeal, including the fact that marijuana remains illegal under federal law despite state law allowing its use for medical purposes.

"Accordingly, we will not consider those issues for the first time on review," Sercombe wrote.

Medical marijuana has been opposed by the construction industry, which wants laws to prohibit medical marijuana users from potentially hazardous jobs such as operating heavy machinery.

Associated General Contractors has lobbied for laws defining safety-sensitive jobs, including driving large trucks, handling explosives, working at construction sites and other jobs listed as hazardous under state work safety laws.

Supporters of restrictions on medical marijuana use, including state Rep. Mike Schaufler, D-Happy Valley, have said they are trying to ensure public safety.

But medical marijuana activist John Sajo says that during legislative hearings last year, nobody was able to identify a single case where a medical marijuana patient had caused a workplace accident or problem.

He also said the vast majority of medical marijuana patients are too ill to work.

Eleven other states — Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington state — have medical marijuana laws.

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The History of Nonmedical Use of Drugs in the United States

2008-06-02T07:13:22Z

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm

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The earth is shaking more than you care 2....

2008-05-31T07:18:59Z

....realize! Check out these links to see how much and how often.

1.) Interactive map from USGS showing recent earthquake activity across the globe.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/

2.) Current & Weekly Earthquake Activity. Images & Lists Are Updated As Events Occur.

http://www.earthwaves.org/current.html

3.) Recent Earthquake Activity. Date, time, location, magnitude, and depth.

http://www.ask.com/earthquake

4.) Interactive map that allows users to monitor global earthquakes in near real-time, visit seismic stations around the world.

http://www.iris.edu/seismon/

5.) Quake Watch: Monitor Earthquake Activity. See recent earthquake activity in the Puget Sound region, Washington State.

http://www.kirotv.com/earthquakes/index.html

6.) Current world seismic activity maps.

http://www.hsv.com/scitech/earthsci/quake.htm

7.) View felt or significant earthquake reports for Canada.

http://earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca/index_e.php

8.)Current Global Activity List with Map Links, National Earthquake Information Service (USGS-NEIC) Current Text Listing of Global Earthquake Activity.

http://www.seismo-watch.com/Regions/global/global.html

9.) A representation of current seismic activity over a 7-day time.

http://share1.esd105.wednet.edu/bishopcj/AU/global_tectonics_watch.html

10.) Provides real-time monitoring and data collection for rapid response and research into earthquake, volcano, landslide, and tsunami hazards.

http://www.geonet.org.nz/

11.) The Edinburgh Earth Observatory provides up-to-date information and detailed dynamic maps of earthquakes across the world within 24 hours of their occurrence.

http://tsunami.geo.ed.ac.uk/local-bin/quakes/mapscript/home.pl

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Medical marijuana user files human rights complaint over smoking laws

2008-05-31T04:46:13Z

CBC NEWS - May 28, 2008 - http://www.CBC.ca/news

Ontario regulations banning medicinal-marijuana users from smoking on bar and restaurant patios violate the human rights of people with disabilities, alleges an Ottawa man who has filed a complaint over the issue.

Russell Barth submitted the complaint to the Ontario Human Rights Commission on Monday on behalf of himself and his wife, Christine Lowe.

"We're not asking for special rights; we're just asking for the right to use cannabis where people use tobacco," Barth, an amateur comedian, said Tuesday.

The letter accompanying the complaint alleges that the Ontario ban "infringes on our rights to gain access to services and infringes on our ability to perform on stage and to seek possible future employment as performers.

"It has also caused us much stress, ill health, embarrassment and humiliation."

Barth said he obtained a Health Canada license to use medical marijuana in 2003 after being diagnosed with a variety of disorders, including post-traumatic stress syndrome, asthma and fibromyalgia, a syndrome characterized by fatigue and multiple pain points in muscles throughout the body.

He lives on a disability pension and is a full-time care giver for Lowe, who has epilepsy and also uses medical marijuana.

Barth said he needs the drug every two to three hours to treat his own medical symptoms.

"If I am having a muscle spasm, if I'm having nausea or anxiety or an asthma attack, I need to have my medicine immediately," he said.

On May 7, after performing at the amateur night of a comedy club in Ottawa, Barth said he began to feel intense pain in his legs and went outside to the outdoor patio area, where people were smoking tobacco.

He walked to the edge of the patio and was about to light up a joint when he was approached by a friend who worked at the comedy club. The staffer asked him not to smoke on the premises because of provisions of the Ontario Liquor License Act that ban liquor-license holders from allowing people to consume a controlled substance on their property.

Afterward, a friend suggested that the incident was the fault of the government's regulations, not the bar owner.

Barth read the regulations and agreed that was the case.

Ontario law has no exemption for medical marijuana
Lisa Murray, a spokeswoman for the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, said there is no provision or exemption for the use of medical marijuana in the regulations on controlled substances as they are currently written.

Under Health Canada's medical marijuana rules, people who possess marijuana for medical use must follow all other federal, provincial and municipal laws regarding controlled substances.

"Smoking marijuana for medical purposes in a public setting, thereby potentially exposing others to the drug's effects, is unacceptable," states a federal government document on the issue. "The authorization simply allows possession but does not give patients permission to use marijuana wherever or whenever he/she chooses; the rights of others must also be considered."

Ontario Liquor License Act, Section 45. (2):

The license holder shall not permit a person to hold, offer for sale, sell, distribute or consume a controlled substance as defined in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (Canada) on the premises or in the adjacent washrooms, liquor and food preparation areas and storage areas under the exclusive control of the license holder. R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 719, s. 45 (2); O. Reg. 247/02, s. 17; O. Reg. 24/04, s. 1.

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Man's death fuels transplant debate

2008-05-31T04:35:18Z

Medical marijuana users denied organs
By Stuart Glascock - Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

May 21, 2008

SEATTLE — Should using doctor-prescribed marijuana be a deal-breaker for someone needing an organ transplant? It is not a theoretical question, but a pressing and emotional one confronting hospitals and patients in states where medical use of marijuana is legal.

Timothy Garon, 56, a Seattle musician, died May 1 after being turned down for a liver transplant, in part because he used medical marijuana. Now, a second critically ill patient in Washington state says he has been denied a spot in two organ transplant programs because he uses doctor-prescribed marijuana.

Jonathon Simchen, 33, of Fife is a diabetic whose kidneys and pancreas have failed. He said he was booted out of the transplant program at Seattle's Virginia Mason hospital because he admitted using medical marijuana, and then the University of Washington Medical Center transplant officials refused him as well.

"I'm just so discouraged," said Simchen, a community college student and would-be teacher. "I've lost all remnants of hope. I look at my life right now as if it is a prison term. I just have to serve each day."

The same lawyer who represented Garon has taken on Simchen's case.

Douglas Hiatt argues that his clients are the victims of a loosely defined transplant policy not based on science. "They are really killing people over this," he said.

Hospital transplant programs, eager to ensure the best possible outcome for each transplant and make optimum use of the limited number of available organs, have strict standards about drug use, smoking and other matters in determining who is eligible for the transplant list.

Hiatt and advocates of medical marijuana are urging hospitals to adjust their policies following the death of Garon, who used marijuana with a doctor's approval to ease symptoms of hepatitis C. He died without ever gaining admission to the University of Washington Medical Center's transplant list.

Hiatt wants to negotiate on behalf of Simchen to get him on a transplant list, but he may have to sue to get that accomplished. If nothing else, Hiatt intends to compel judicial review of the policy.

'It ain't over'
"No, it ain't over," Hiatt said. "Jonathon needs help. He's going to get on that list one way or another. You cannot treat people like this. There's no rational basis for it."

While marijuana remains an illegal substance under federal law, about a dozen states, including Washington, allow doctors to prescribe it for medical purposes. It is used to help patients with a range of illnesses including glaucoma, diabetes, high blood pressure and AIDS.

Citing privacy laws, the University of Washington declined to discuss specifics of individual cases but issued a statement acknowledging that marijuana use is taken into consideration in transplant decisions.

"Although medical marijuana may be an issue in rare cases, it is never the sole determinant in arriving at medical decisions about candidates for organ transplants," its statement said.

A Virginia Mason spokeswoman said one critical point is that the act of smoking any product "can lead to patient-safety and transplant effectiveness issues." Smokers of any kind are precluded, she said. The transplant committee would weigh a patient's use of medical marijuana in pill form, too, she said.

At the University of Washington, the transplant committee reviews "behavioral concerns such as a history of substance abuse or dependency. If such a history exists, the committee looks at the period of abstinence the candidate has demonstrated to date," as well as efforts to maintain abstinence, and potential to abuse again.

Asked why the committee considers marijuana use under a doctor's supervision "a history of substance abuse," a hospital spokesman cited the federal law categorizing marijuana as an illegal drug.

Limited supply
The United Network for Organ Sharing, the nationwide group that oversees the organ transplant system, leaves it up to individual hospitals to determine how to allocate organs for transplant patients. The network's members include 254 transplant centers in the United States.

Currently, about 100,000 people are on the U.S. waiting lists for transplants, according to the network. On average, only 6,000 donors a year are available.

The policy debate has done little to soften the grief for family and friends of Garon, the late singer-songwriter. Tributes fill his MySpace music page on the Internet.

One Seattle-area alternative weekly newspaper was so outraged it listed the telephone numbers of the University of Washington's transplant center staff.

In an editorial, the Ventura County Star in California wrote: "So, be warned, medical marijuana—legal for the last 12 years in California with a doctor's authorization—could cost you your job. And if you need an organ transplant, it could cost you your life."

Los Angeles Times

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FL. 'Marijuana Minister' Pleads Not Guilty

2008-05-31T04:24:06Z

Man Says Pot Used As Religious Sacrament

May 30, 2008 - Orlando News

PALM BAY, Fla. -- The self-proclaimed minister of a fellowship that
promotes marijuana use as a religious sacrament pleaded not guilty on
Thursday after a raid on his Brevard County home netted over 100
cannabis plants in an elaborate grow house operation.

Steven Swallick, 56, of Palm Bay, was arrested May 8 and charged with
cultivation of marijuana after police raided his home on Hulda Street
near Northeast in Palm Bay.

Police said an elaborate marijuana grow operation was uncovered at
Swallick's home, where he operated a makeshift church by the name of
Hawaiian Cannabis Ministries.

"It was a pretty sophisticated operation," said Agent Clifton Graves
in a statement. "This grow house easily netted approximately $100,000
per month."

Police did not elaborate on the ministry, but several Web sites offer
special kits and certificates to those interested in incorporating
marijuana as a religious sacrament akin to the unleavened bread and
wine used as communion in Christian services.

Swallick is being held in the Brevard County Jail on $20,000 bond.

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Marijuana 'grow houses' are creating problems in Arcata, Calif.

2008-05-31T04:01:38Z

Officials estimate as many as 1,000 of the 7,500 homes in town are used for pot, reducing housing stock and creating building-safety problems.

By Tim Reiterman and Eric Bailey
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

7:15 PM PDT, May 30, 2008

ARCATA — LaVina Collenberg thought she had ideal tenants for her tidy ranch-style home on the outskirts of this university town nestled in the redwoods of the North Coast. Then the 74-year-old widow received an urgent call last September from a neighbor, who said firefighters had descended on the house she had rented to a pleasant young man from Wisconsin.

Collenberg found her charred and sooty rental filled with growing lights and three-foot-high marijuana plants. Seeds were germinating in the spa. Water from the growing operation had soaked through the carpeting and sub-flooring. Air vents had been cut into the new roof. A fan had fallen over, causing the fire.

"It was the first time I had been in a grow house," Collenberg said. "I had heard about them but never thought I had one. I was completely shocked."

Law enforcement officials estimate that as many as 1,000 of the 7,500 homes in this Humboldt County community are being used to cultivate marijuana, slashing into the housing stock, spreading building-safety problems and sowing neighborhood discord.

Indoor pot farms proliferated in recent years as California communities have implemented Proposition 215, the statewide medical marijuana measure passed overwhelmingly a dozen years ago. A backlash over the effects and abuses of legally sanctioned marijuana growing has emerged in some of the most liberal parts of the state.

For example, in neighboring Mendocino County, a measure on Tuesday's election ballot seeks to repeal a local proposition passed eight years ago that decriminalized cultivation of as many as 25 pot plants.

The experience of Arcata, a bastion of cannabis culture, reveals the unintended consequences of the 1996 Compassionate Use Act, designed to provide relief to AIDS patients, cancer victims and others.

"If the average citizen . . . could see what I see, they probably would vote against it now," Police Chief Randy Mendosa said of Proposition 215. "We are seeing large-scale grow operations where greedy people are taking huge amounts of affordable housing and are using entire houses to grow marijuana. The going rate is $3,000 a pound [wholesale] and they are selling it and making a huge amount of money."

State officials say such problems exist throughout the state, including Southern California, but are particularly prevalent in northwestern counties that have relatively liberal limits on possession and cultivation of medical marijuana.

"People who clearly are in it for profit see it as a loophole and have flooded into these areas from across California and the U.S.," said Kent Shaw, assistant chief of the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. "What comes along with it is criminal elements who want to come and steal marijuana," sometimes through home invasion robberies.

Medical marijuana advocates say problems have been isolated, and they question the validity of attempts to link crime to a medicine. "Law enforcement sensationalizes a lot of the issues around growing and dispensaries," said Kris Hermes of Americans For Safe Access.

A doctor's recommendation is required for a medical marijuana patient to use, grow or acquire cannabis. Activists estimate there are more than 200,000 patients statewide.

In Arcata's leafy neighborhoods, residents and officials say the telltale signs of grow houses are evident: No full-time dwellers, blacked-out windows, scruffy yards, comings and goings at night. Then there's the skunk-like odor of marijuana and the whirring fans and electricity meters that generate thousand-dollar monthly power bills.

So many houses have been converted into pot farms that the availability of student rentals has been reduced and the community's aura of marijuana is turning off some prospective students, said Humboldt State University President Rollin Richmond. "My own sense is that people are abusing Prop. 215 to allow them to use marijuana . . . as recreational drugs," he said.

Arcata Mayor Mark Wheetley said marijuana growing has become a quality-of-life issue in the town of 17,000. "People from all camps say enough is enough," he said. "It is like this renegade Wild West mentality . . . I think people want to see a greater level of control and oversight."

Mark Sailors, 37, a medical marijuana patient and caregiver who moved here from Baltimore, said the community is overreacting. "They claim to support 215, and do not want you to have access to medicine," he said. "It sounds like the older people . . . are afraid of the younger."

The largest of the city's four pot dispensaries is the Humboldt Cooperative, known as THC, the abbreviation for the psycho-active chemical component in marijuana. Officials say the nonprofit at a former auto dealership has 6,000 registered patients, 2,000 of whom are currently eligible to buy weed, and that it has paid roughly $500,000 in taxes over the last five years.

The dispensary grows marijuana in an on-site warehouse and buys additional pot from about 100 patients, the majority from outside Arcata, who do not need all they have grown under Prop. 215.

THC founder Dennis Turner said many residential growing operations amount to "full-on crime " and he said he would welcome more regulation for dispensaries, particularly to protect marijuana quality. "There are holes in this [Proposition 215] like a piece of Swiss cheese," he said.

The City Council recently issued a moratorium on new dispensaries downtown, on grounds that agriculture is not permitted there. New land-use guidelines also are in the works.

Officials say secretive marijuana operations in houses are their highest priority for increased regulation. They say they do not know how many people are violating the county's legal requirements limiting them to 100 square feet of leaf canopy and as many as 99 plants -- provisions that may be invalidated by a recent state appellate court decision.

Community development Director Larry Oetker said the city does not even know the locations of grow houses because growers tend not to get permits for electrical and plumbing work. Oetker said they fear prosecution by federal authorities who do not recognize the state's medical marijuana law. "The concern is . . . the federal government will use city records to go bust the people."

Some growers have cut holes in floors so plants can go directly in the ground below, officials say. And many use jury-rigged wiring and extension cords that overload electrical circuits.

Arcata Fire Protection District Chief John McFarland says that most local structural fires involve marijuana cultivation -- and that after a fire starts, it often spreads quickly through holes cut for ducts, pipes and wires.

Wade DeLashmutt, a carpenter who had voted for Proposition 215, said he complained for many months about marijuana odors that hovered over his backyard after a man from Montana moved next door.

But the neighbor contended that it was medical marijuana. "He said, 'The voters of California said I could do this,' " DeLashmutt said.

In March, the county drug task force arrested the neighbor and another man after hundreds of marijuana plants, $12,000 and 27 pounds of processed pot were seized at the home and another in town.

Humboldt County Dist. Atty. Paul Gallegos said his office does not keep statistics on prosecutions for marijuana growing in Arcata. But Gallegos said he would prosecute any growers who posed a safety hazard to neighbors, a public nuisance or environmental harm.

"If you converted a house to grow dandelions, petunias and roses, my concerns would be the same," he said.

LaVina Collenberg wishes she had known that her friendly young renters from Wisconsin intended to turn her house into a marijuana-growing cooperative. Her insurance paid $55,000 to repair the damage from the fire and modifications.

The former tenant did not respond to calls seeking comment. Dr Ken Miller, who issued the tenant's medical marijuana recommendation, said he did not recall the patient.

A petition campaign dubbed "Nip It in the Bud" is asking the City Council to bar marijuana growing and dispensing from residential and public gathering areas.

The neighborhood ban is overdue, said 82-year-old Wilma Johnston.

"We are becoming a community of rentals for marijuana plants instead of people," she said.

tim.reiterman@latimes.com

eric.bailey@latimes.com

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Gov. Douglas to allow hemp bill to become law!

2008-05-31T03:54:25Z

Gov. Douglas to allow hemp bill to become law without signing it

The Times Argus - May 30, 2008

MONTPELIER, Vt. --Gov. Jim Douglas will allow a bill that would remove the state law barring the raising of industrial hemp to become law without his signature.

Douglas spokesman Jason Gibbs says the governor regards the bill as "a do-nothing bill" and insignificant, because federal law will continue to prohibit the cultivation of hemp.

Hemp is of the same species as marijuana, but comes from a different part of the plant and the plants are cultivated differently.

Law enforcement officials had objected to the bill, while backers praised hemp as the source of a food additive, an oil used in beauty products, and fiber used in textiles, building materials and fuel.

The governor can allow a bill to become law by forwarding it to the secretary of state without his signature.

------

Information from: The Times Argus, http://www.timesargus.com/

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Senate approves marijuana dispensaries in RI

2008-05-18T06:31:55Z

May 16, 2008 - By Steve Peoples

Released throught: The Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE –– The Senate approved legislation yesterday that would create “compassion centers” where chronically ill patients enrolled in the state’s medical marijuana program could openly purchase the drug.

Despite the 29-to-6 vote, the bill faces opposition in the House of Representatives and is not expected to become law this year.

“I would really have to have a sock over my head if I didn’t know that,” said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Rhoda E. Perry, D-Providence. The legislation is named in part for her nephew, Edward O. Hawkins, who died of complications from AIDS and cancer.

“What I think is important is to show movement,” Perry said of yesterday’s vote. “I think getting it out of a chamber is movement. It’s showing that there is a level of understanding and a level of acceptance.”

The General Assembly last year made permanent a law that allowed the state to offer a medical marijuana program to chronically ill patients. But lawmakers did not offer a legal means for patients to obtain the drug, which is considered illegal by the federal government even when prescribed.

“It was sort of the unasked question,” said House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox. “Do you send someone that may be suffering from cancer or whatnot out into the streets to procure it? I don’t know if that’s necessarily a good solution. I think the natural extension of that is that we provide some sort of safe place to obtain it for those who are legally authorized.”

But Fox couldn’t explain the widespread assumption that the House would block it from becoming law.

“I’m not saying that the leadership’s going to support it,” he said. “I’d like to read the bill. I haven’t looked at what the bill does.”

The legislation would create licensed marijuana dispensaries, or “compassion centers,” that would legally grow and sell the drug at affordable prices to the 359 patients in the state’s program. The centers would be regulated by the state Health Department.

At least 12 states have laws allowing use of medical marijuana. But policies governing dispensaries are more fractured and several states have stumbled trying to pass legislation for distribution centers.

Part of the problem is that federal law still bans marijuana use, even for medical purposes. Dozens of dispensaries in California (one of two states that allows them) have been raided by the federal government, something medical marijuana supporters say they don’t want to see happen in Rhode Island.

speoples@projo.com

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Medical Marijuana Growers Struggle With Legality

2008-05-07T21:49:19Z

NBC11.com - 05/06/08

SAN FRANCISCO -- Since Proposition 215 was passed more than a decade ago, a uniform understanding of how to legally grow marijuana in California has not been sorted out, NBC11 reported.

Medical marijuana is an issue that has sparked debate since Proposition 215 was passed.

However, marijuana continues to be grown behind closed doors in neighborhoods across northern California.

"It's a massive part of the economy. It's not going away, and it's time for it to come out of the shadows and for people to start acknowledging it," a grower told NBC11.

Growers said what they do is legal, creating a gray area, and that every grower makes a choice about how legitimately they want to run their businesses.

In some situations taxes are being paid, with the hope of a legal garden, a legal business, NBC11 reported.

NBC11 took a look into home-growing operations -- the semantics, the debate, the dangers and legalities involved and how it can affect everyone.

The concern is not whether marijuana has medicinal uses but about public safety, NBC11 reported.

NBC11 profiled a home-grow operation, one of many appearing in residential neighborhoods all over the Bay Area and was given rare access to a hydroponics operation.

The garden profiled produces between 75 and 100 pounds of marijuana per year, an amount many in law enforcement say is illegal and far beyond what the law allows.

It's considered a large home facility. The owner said he feels he is doing his part to be legitimate, paying both state and federal taxes and following state law. He said his most important job is to provide medicine to those who are too scared to grow it themselves.

But even with everything he does, he said he still fears law enforcement, both local and federal.

"The federal government -- you live in fear of the DEA kicking in your door, taking you medicine, your computer files and all the cash you have on the premises," the grower told NBC11.

In Sonoma County, the sheriff's department said it is doing everything it can to respect the law, but that home-grow operations are increasing in size and scale beyond what many could imagine.

Detective Sgt. Chris Bertoli of Sonoma County handles the narcotics unit.

"We are seeing a lot more grow operations involving medicinal marijuana, and we are finding that there are a lot of people taking advantage of the medical marijuana recommendations and using those to their advantage to increase their grow operations," Bertoli said.

What Bertoli and the grower do agree on, is the violence associated with home grow operations.

"Every grower -- whether you live in the sticks or in downtown Oakland, Calif. -- wakes up every day with this ghost on their shoulder whispering, 'Today could be the day your door gets kicked in; two or three guys come in with guns; you're duct-taped to a chair, and everything in your house gets taken,'" the grower said.

"In the county of Sonoma and surrounding locations, we have seen an increase in the acts of violent crimes," Bertoli said.

It could be happening closer than residents think.

"We are seeing an increase in the neighborhoods around the county of Sonoma, and we believe its occurring all over the state," Bertoli said.

The grower interviewed by NBC11 said that there might be unreported violence because of what the grower called police intimidation.

"What happens? Do you call the police? No, you don't call the police," the grower said. "Why? Because you're afraid they're going to take all your lights and all the rest of the medicine; and you're going to suffer further humiliation and further discrimination from the people who should be protecting you," the grower said.

U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello said the answer is simple when it comes to the growers themselves and their fears.

"I think they should get out of the business, because the business they are in is a commercial enterprise," Russoniello said. "The business they are in is not contemplated under Prop. 215."

Russoniello also said that from a federal standpoint, marijuana is still a Schedule I controlled substance. To many, the answer seems to be even more complicated than the problem itself.

Copyright 2008 by NBC11.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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An Alternative to Medicinal Marijuana

2008-04-28T03:31:09Z

By Amanda Gardner - Health Day Reporter - 04/27/08

(HealthDay News) -- Scientists think they may have found a way to harness marijuana's medicinal powers without unleashing the plant's memory-robbing properties.

But a new and improved dope-based medication is unlikely to hit doctors' offices near you soon.

"This has great potential but it's years away from human application," said one expert, Dr. Dennis J. Patin, associate professor of clinical anesthesiology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "I expect that some drug company will research further," he said.

And John Casida, senior author of the paper in the April 27 issue of Nature Chemical Biology, stressed that his team "report new fundamental mechanistic discoveries on the cannabinoid system, rather than proposing a medicine or treatment."

Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, can relieve both pain and anxiety but, unfortunately, also results in cognitive problems such as memory loss.

In fact, one recent study found that multiple sclerosis patients who smoke marijuana in search of symptom relief are more likely to suffer cognitive shortfalls and mood disorders, such as depression and anxiety.

Casida and his colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., found that organophosphorus (OP) nerve agents blocked the breakdown of certain enzymes, which has the end result of stimulating the cannabinoid receptors in the brain.

OP nerve agents work like OP pesticides, leading to an excess of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the central and peripheral nervous system.

In this experiment, using mice, the OP compounds had the therapeutic effects of THC (pain relief, lower body temperatures) without the cognitive drawbacks.

"We find that that a single organophosphorus compound is capable of eliciting full-blown cannabinoid effects that mirror those of direct cannabinoid receptor stimulators such as THC," said Casida, who is director of the Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology Laboratory at Berkeley. "We believe our compound does not act directly on the cannabinoid receptors, but instead elicits its effects by blocking the enzymes that degrade the endogenous cannabinoids . . . which in turn stimulate the cannabinoid receptors in the brain."

"Blocking these enzymes not only raises endogenous cannabinoid signaling power but also lowers arachidonic acid levels, which may be relevant for pain relief," Casida added. The arachidonic acid pathway is involved in pain and inflammation.

This raises the tantalizing possibility that, one day, a drug might be developed which has medical value but does not get the patient stoned.

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Marijuana Patient Can't Get A Transplant

2008-04-27T04:36:35Z

In Medical Marijuana States, A Patient's Authorized Pot Use Could Block Access To Transplants

SEATTLE, April 26, 2008 - AP Wire & CBS News

Timothy Garon's face and arms are hauntingly skeletal, but the fluid building up in his abdomen makes the 56-year-old musician look eight months pregnant.

His liver, ravaged by hepatitis C, is failing. Without a new one, his doctors tell him, he will be dead in days.

But Garon's been refused a spot on the transplant list, largely because he has used marijuana, even though it was legally approved for medical reasons.

"I'm not angry, I'm not mad, I'm just confused," said Garon, lying in his hospital bed a few minutes after a doctor told him the hospital transplant committee's decision Thursday.

With the scarcity of donated organs, transplant committees like the one at the University of Washington Medical Center use tough standards, including whether the candidate has other serious health problems or is likely to drink or do drugs.

And with cases like Garon's, they also have to consider _ as a dozen states now have medical marijuana laws _ if using dope with a doctor's blessing should be held against a dying patient in need of a transplant.

Most transplant centers struggle with the how to deal with people who have used marijuana, said Dr. Robert Sade, director of the Institute of Human Values in Health Care at the Medical University of South Carolina.

"Marijuana, unlike alcohol, has no direct effect on the liver. It is however a concern ... in that it's a potential indicator of an addictive personality," Sade said.

The Virginia-based United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation's transplant system, leaves it to individual hospitals to develop criteria for transplant candidates.

At some, people who use "illicit substances" _ including medical marijuana, even in states that allow it _ are automatically rejected. At others, such as the UCLA Medical Center, patients are given a chance to reapply if they stay clean for six months. Marijuana is illegal under federal law.

Garon believes he got hepatitis by sharing needles with "speed freaks" as a teenager. In recent years, he said, pot has been the only drug he's used. In December, he was arrested for growing marijuana.

Garon, who has been hospitalized or in hospice care for two months straight, said he turned to the university hospital after Seattle's Harborview Medical Center told him he needed six months of abstinence.

The university also denied him, but said it would reconsider if he enrolled in a 60-day drug-treatment program. This week, at the urging of Garon's lawyer, the university's transplant team reconsidered anyway, but it stuck to its decision.

Dr. Brad Roter, the Seattle physician who authorized Garon's pot use for nausea, abdominal pain and to stimulate his appetite, said he did not know it would be such a hurdle if Garon were to need a transplant.

That's typically the case, said Peggy Stewart, a clinical social worker on the liver transplant team at UCLA who has researched the issue. "There needs to be some kind of national eligibility criteria," she said.

The patients "are trusting their physician to do the right thing. The physician prescribes marijuana, they take the marijuana, and they are shocked that this is now the end result," she said.

No one tracks how many patients are denied transplants over medical marijuana use.

Pro-marijuana groups have cited a handful of cases, including at least two patient deaths, in Oregon and California, since the mid-to-late 1990s, when states began adopting medical marijuana laws.

Many doctors agree that using marijuana _ smoking it, especially _ is out of the question post-transplant.

The drugs patients take to help their bodies accept a new organ increase the risk of aspergillosis, a frequently fatal infection caused by a common mold found in marijuana and tobacco.

But there's little information on whether using marijuana is a problem before the transplant, said Dr. Emily Blumbrg, an infectious disease specialist who works with transplant patients at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital.

Further complicating matters, Blumberg said, is that some insurers require proof of abstinence, such as drug tests, before they'll agree to pay for transplants.

Dr. Jorge Reyes, a liver transplant surgeon at the UW Medical Center, said that while medical marijuana use isn't in itself a sign of substance abuse, it must be evaluated in the context of each patient.

"The concern is that patients who have been using it will not be able to stop," Reyes said.

Dale Gieringer, state coordinator for the California chapter of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, scoffed at that notion.

"Everyone agrees that marijuana is the least habit-forming of all the recreational drugs, including alcohol," Gieringer said. "And unlike a lot of prescription medications, it's nontoxic to the liver."

Reyes and other UW officials declined to discuss Garon's case.

But Reyes said that in addition to medical concerns, transplant committees _ which often include surgeons, social workers, and nutritionists _ must evaluate whether patients have the support and psychiatric health to cope with a complex post-operative regimen for the rest of their lives.

Garon, the lead singer for Nearly Dan, a Steely Dan cover-band, remains charged with manufacturing weed. He insists he was following the state law, which limits patients to a "60-day supply" but doesn't define that amount.

"He's just a fantastic musician, and he's a great guy," said his girlfriend, Liesa Bueno. "I wish there was something we could do legally. ... I'm going to miss him terribly if he passes."

United Nework for Organ Sharing: http://www.unos.org

Garon performing his song "Goodbye Baby": http://www.youtube.com/watch?vUJDihYn_fJA

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Marc Emery has Time 2 Spare!

2008-04-20T23:19:51Z

The fight is on between Marc Emery and the United States Government - giving the founder and editor of Cannabis Culture Magazine some time to spare -AND more Time 4 Hemp.
This new interview is free to download at http://www.Time4Hemp.tv

Music Artists:

The Tall Brothers
Green Feever
Shen Reefer and the Resin Valley Boys
Marlon Asher
Bob Dylan

Please share this information with everyone you know who would enjoy it.

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A Drought in Australia, a Global Shortage of Rice

2008-04-20T14:35:29Z

New York Times - 4/20/08

DENILIQUIN, Australia — Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of this dusty southern Australian town, remembers the constant whir of the rice mill. “It was our little heartbeat out there, tickety-tick-tickety,” he said, imitating the giant fans that dried the rice, “and now it has stopped.”

The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once processed enough grain to meet the needs of 20 million people around the world. But six long years of drought have taken a toll, reducing Australia’s rice crop by 98 percent and leading to the mothballing of the mill last December.

Ten thousand miles separate the mill’s hushed rows of oversized silos and sheds — beige, gray and now empty — from the riotous streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, but a widening global crisis unites them.

The collapse of Australia’s rice production is one of several factors contributing to a doubling of rice prices in the last three months — increases that have led the world’s largest exporters to restrict exports severely, spurred panicked hoarding in Hong Kong and the Philippines, and set off violent protests in countries including Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Italy, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, the Philippines, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

Drought affects every agricultural industry based here, not just rice — from sheepherding, the other mainstay in this dusty land, to the cultivation of wine grapes, the fastest-growing crop here, with that expansion often coming at the expense of rice.

The drought’s effect on rice has produced the greatest impact on the rest of the world, so far. It is one factor contributing to skyrocketing prices, and many scientists believe it is among the earliest signs that a warming planet is starting to affect food production.

It is difficult to definitely link short-term changes in weather to long-term climate change, but the unusually severe drought is consistent with what climatologists predict will be a problem of increasing frequency.

Indeed, the chief executive of the National Farmers’ Federation in Australia, Ben Fargher, says, “Climate change is potentially the biggest risk to Australian agriculture.”

Drought has already spurred significant changes in Australia’s agricultural heartland. Some farmers are abandoning rice, which requires large amounts of water, to plant less water-intensive crops like wheat or, especially here in southeastern Australia, wine grapes. Other rice farmers have sold fields or water rights, usually to grape growers.

Scientists and economists worry that the reallocation of scarce water resources — away from rice and other grains and toward more lucrative crops and livestock — threatens poor countries that import rice as a dietary staple.

The global agricultural crisis is threatening to become political, pitting the United States and other developed countries against the developing world over the need for affordable food versus the need for renewable energy. Many poorer nations worry that subsidies from rich countries to support biofuels, which turn food, like corn, into fuel, are pushing up the price of staples. The World Bank and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization called on major agricultural nations to overhaul policies to avoid a social explosion from rising food prices.

With rice, which is not used to make biofuel, the problem is availability. Even in normal times, little of the world’s rice is actually exported — more than 90 percent is consumed in the countries where it is grown. In the last quarter-century, rice consumption has outpaced production, with global reserves plunging by half just since 2000. A plant disease is hurting harvests in Vietnam, reducing supply. And economic uncertainty has led producers to hoard rice and speculators and investors to see it as a lucrative or at least safe bet.

All these factors have made countries that buy rice on the global market vulnerable to extreme price swings.

Senegal and Haiti each import four-fifths of their rice, and both have faced mounting unrest as prices have increased. Police suppressed violent demonstrations in Dakar on March 30, and unrest has spread to other rice-dependent nations in West Africa, notably Ivory Coast. The Haitian president, René Préval, after a week of riots, announced subsidies for rice buyers on Saturday.

Scientists expect the problem to worsen. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, set up by the United Nations, predicted last year that even slight warming would lower agricultural output in the tropics and subtropics.

Moderate warming could benefit crop and pasture yields in countries far from the Equator, like Canada and Russia. In fact, the net effect of moderate warming is likely to be higher total global food production in the next several decades.

But the scientists said the effect would be uneven, and enormous quantities of food would need to be shipped from areas farther from the Equator to feed the populations of often less-affluent countries closer to the Equator.

The panel predicted that even greater warming, which might happen by late in this century if few or no limits are placed on greenhouse gas emissions, would hurt total food output and cripple crops in many countries.

Survival Techniques

Paul Lamine N’Dong, an elder in Joal, Senegal, worries that hot weather and failing rains have already crippled his village’s crop of millet, a coarse grain eaten locally and traded for rice.

Sitting on a concrete dais reserved for elders, Mr. N’Dong said on a recent morning, “The price rises very quickly, which means we really have to go and look for money.”

“It is live or die,” he said.

For farmers in a richer nation like Australia, the effects of the current drought are already significant.

The rice farmers who do not give up and sell their land or water rights are experimenting with varieties or techniques that require less water.

Still, Australia’s total rice capacity has declined by about a third because many farmers have permanently sold water rights, mostly for grape production. And production last year was far lower because of a severe shortage of water; rice farmers received one-eighth of the water they are usually promised by the government.

The accidental beneficiaries of these conditions have been the farmers who grow wine grapes in the river basin where the Deniliquin mill stands silent.

Even with the recent doubling of rice prices, to around $1,000 a metric ton for the high grades produced by Australia, it is even more profitable to grow wine grapes. All told, wine grapes produce a pretax profit of close to $2,000 an acre while rice produces a pretax profit around $240 an acre.

Also selling water rights to grape growers are ranchers like Peter Milliken, who raises sheep on 37,500 acres near Hay, Australia. Some ranchers have water to sell because they are reducing the water they use. Mr. Milliken is installing a buried nine-mile pipe to replace an irrigation canal that lost up to 90 percent of its water to evaporation — and is planning for the day when he does not irrigate at all.

Sheep farmers have already worked out cooperative arrangements to send flocks to whatever fields have recently received rain, sometimes herding or trucking them long distances. Keeping an eye on a flock, Frank Cox, a drover, said recently, “We had to move the sheep because they were dying of starvation, and truck them down here.”

The drought is making rice harder to find. For instance, SunRice, the Australian rice trading and marketing giant owned by the country’s rice growers, began preparing to mothball the Deniliquin mill five months ago, when it noticed that Australian farmers were planting almost no rice. To make sure that it could continue supplying the domestic market, as well as export markets in Papua New Guinea, South Pacific island nations, Taiwan and the Middle East, SunRice stepped up rice purchases from other countries, said the chief executive, Gary Helou.

The SunRice purchases became one among the many factors that are making it harder for longtime rice importers elsewhere to find supplies.

Researchers are looking for solutions to global rice shortages — for example, rice that blooms earlier in the day, when it is cooler, to counter global warming. Rice plants that happen to bloom on hot days are less likely to produce grains of rice, a difficulty that is already starting to emerge in inland areas of China and other Asian countries as temperatures begin to climb.

“There will be problems very soon unless we have new varieties of rice in place,” said Reiner Wassmann, climate change coordinator at the International Rice Research Institute near Manila, a leader in developing higher-yielding strains of rice for nearly half a century.

The recent reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change carried an important caveat that could make the news even worse: the panel said that existing models for the effects of climate change on agriculture did not yet include newer findings that global warming could reduce rainfall and make it more variable.

Seeking Hardier Rice

Many agronomists contend that changes in the timing and amount of rain are more important for crops than temperature changes. Rajendra K. Pachauri, the chairman of the panel, said long-range climate forecasts for precipitation would require another 5 to 20 years of research.

In addition to drought, climate change could also produce more extreme weather, more pest and weed outbreaks, and changes in sea level as polar ice melts. Most of the world’s increase in rice production over the last quarter-century has occurred close to sea level, in the deltas of rivers like the Mekong in Vietnam, Chao Phraya in Thailand and Ganges-Brahmaputra in Bangladesh.

Yet the effects of climate change are not uniformly bad for rice. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, can actually help rice and other crops — although the effect dwindles or disappears if the plants face excessive heat, inadequate water, severe pollution or other stresses.

Still, the flexibility of farmers and ranchers here has persuaded some climate experts that, particularly in developed countries, the effects of climate change may be mitigated, if not completely avoided.

“I’m not as pessimistic as most people,” said Will Steffen, the director of the Fenner School of Environment and Society at Australian National University. “Farmers are learning how to do things differently.”

Meanwhile, changes like the use of water to grow wine grapes instead of rice carry their own costs, as the developing world is discovering.

“Rice is a staple food,” said Graeme J. Haley, the general manager of the town of Deniliquin. “Chardonnay is not.”

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One officer in favor of medical marijuana

2008-04-20T14:15:30Z

Published: Chicago Daily Herald - 4/17/2008

A former police officer who lives in Wheeling is taking a stand on medical marijuana.

Jim Ware, who survived stage-4 cancer in 2005, said medical marijuana helped him get through the debilitating after-effects of chemotherapy.

"Instead of lying in bed vomiting and having unexpected diarrhea and really thinking this could be the end, in 10 or 15 minutes, I could be back on my feet and feeling almost normal," said Ware, who was an officer in Anchorage, Alaska.

Ware created a video for the Marijuana Policy Project and has written letters to Illinois lawmakers to show his support of a bill that could be considered soon in the Illinois legislature that would protect seriously ill patients from being arrested for using medical marijuana with a doctor's recommendation.

"Look at the drugs that are administered now," he said. "Morphine is highly addictive, isn't it? And yet, when I was recovering from liver surgery, I'm pretty sure I was on some sort of morphine drip that alleviated my pain."

To watch Ware's video, visit youtube.com/watch?v=lH4JNoOd7aU.

Welcome home: A Buffalo Grove family is hoping to welcome a soldier who's expected to return from Iraq this week.

Paul Graf has been in Iraq with the Army for 14 months on his second tour, said his father Larry Shapiro.

"God willing, he's on a plane today," Shapiro said.

Graf was expected to leave Baghdad on March 11, but that was delayed to Tuesday. He's expected to be back in the U.S. today.

He'll first go to his base and then will get a 48-hour pass to come home. After some more time on his base, he'll return to his home for a month.

Graf, 24, is active in the Army through next spring. He worked as personal security detail for his lieutenant colonel in the First Infantry Division, 28th Infantry Regiment in the Fourth Brigade.

"My wife has 40 e-mails just yesterday of people waiting for him to return," Shapiro said Tuesday.

Breast cancer fundraiser: The Olive Tap in Long Grove and Long Grove Cafe are sponsoring a spring fundraiser for "The Beaubifuls," a team of women from Long Grove and Buffalo Grove who'll be participating in the 2008 Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.

The event will be from 5 to 9 p.m. today at the Cafe, 235 Robert Parker Coffin Road.

The evening will include a wine and olive oil tasting as well as hors d'oeuvres and desserts.

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An important message from the founder of NORML - Keith Stroup

2008-04-20T14:07:57Z

From NORML.ORG:

NORML's Keith Stroup: Celebrate 4/20-ReLegalize It 4/21!

April 19, 2008

Dear Friend of Freedom,

I'm writing today to urge you to be a part of history. That's right, I said history.

For the first time in nearly 25 years, NORML is spearheading a campaign in Congress to end the federal prohibition of marijuana. Congress created cannabis prohibition, and the courts say time and again to reformers: 'Congress is the place to change marijuana laws.'

Bi-Partisan Support in Congress for Reform

To wage this long-overdue effort, NORML has teamed up with two of our closest Congressional allies: Democrat Congressman Barney Frank from Massachusetts and Republican Congressman Ron Paul of Texas. Over the past several months I have worked closely with these courageous Representatives to draft legislation that would strip the federal government of its authority to enforce marijuana possession laws. This legislation is now pending before Congress as House Bill HR 5843, an 'Act to Remove Federal Penalties for Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults.'

Yes indeed, for the first time in more than two decades, we have legislation in Congress that, if enacted, would end the federal prosecution of adult marijuana consumers!

The Federal Marijuana Decrim Bill

As introduced, NORML's proposal would eliminate all federal penalties prohibiting the personal use and possession of up to three ounces of marijuana. Under our measure, adults who consume cannabis would no longer face arrest, prison, or even the threat of a civil fine. In addition, this bill eliminates all penalties prohibiting the not-for-profit transfers of up to one ounce of pot. In other words, for the first time since 1937, the possession, use, and transfer of marijuana by adults would be legal under federal law!

I must admit, in my 40+ years working on marijuana law reform, I've rarely been as excited about the introduction of a piece of legislation – or its prospects of success – as I am today. That is why I'm humbly asking you to join me in making this effort the success I know it can be, but only with your help.

Sustained Funding Drives Successful Congressional Educational Campaigns

Waging and maintaining a high-profile Congressional campaign like this one requires sustained funding, and it requires the involvement of tens of thousands of dedicated citizens like you. By donating $50.00 or more today to NORML's 2008 'Re-Legalization' Campaign, you will enable us to:

Lobby the Democrat Congress for hearings in support of ending the federal government's war on weed;

Build a broad coalition of diverse and powerful allies to petition Congress to pass HR 5843 ;

Coordinate national media efforts to generate frequent news stories and television appearances favorable to HR 5843.

Of course, generating substantive support for HR 5843, requires more than just your financial assistance; it also requires a small donation of your time.

Celebrate Cannabis On 4/20 — Help Re-Legalize It On 4/21!

For a moment, just imagine the impact of 1,000 phone calls to Congress – all on the same day, all at the same time, all with one single message: stop arresting responsible marijuana consumers! Now imagine the impact of 10,000 phone calls – or even 50,000 calls – jamming the Congressional phone lines! That's the outpouring of support we need to show to Congress, and it's the type of support we intend to generate – with your help.

You are receiving this heartfelt appeal from me today, as are hundreds of thousands of other NORML supporters. And on Monday, April 21, we need every one of you to send an unmistakeable and unforgettable message to the 110th Congress.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS

LET'S MAKE APRIL 21 A DAY THAT CONGRESS NEVER FORGETS!

NORML needs you to call your Congressional Representative on Monday, April 21, and deliver the following message:

"Millions of hard-working Americans use marijuana. Most consume it responsibly, in the privacy of their own homes, and in a manner similar to alcohol. Why then are we spending millions of dollars each year to arrest these otherwise law-abiding individuals? It's time to end the madness; it's time to stop arresting responsible marijuana consumers. I urge you to support House Bill HR 5843, an 'Act to Remove Federal Penalties for Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults'."

(You can contact the office of your US Representative directly dialing the Congressional Switchboard at 202-224-3121.)

After you have done so, we also ask that you please e-mail this message to Congress. Simply click here and enter your zip code and NORML will instantly send a pre-written message in your name to your Congressional Representative.

Imagine the 'buzz' on Capitol Hill as thousands upon thousands of phone calls and e-mails begin pouring in to the Congressional offices in support of legalizing marijuana. Never before has the marijuana law reform movement made this sort of political statement to Washington; we intend to make it a statement that our elected officials won't soon forget. As I said at the opening of this letter, we truly will be making history!

Sincerely,

R. Keith Stroup, Esq.
Founder National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
legal@norml.org

PS: If you are organizing one of the hundreds of '4/20' festivals taking place around the country or a SuperHighMe DVD house party, we also ask that you spread the word in support of HR 5843, and that you ask your supporters and guests to join us and take action on April 21.

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Pentagon Studies Human Microchip Implants

2008-04-15T17:34:20Z

The Defense Department's plans to study implanting microchips in soldiers is already sparking concerns about privacy issues (and is likely to send the stock price of tinfoil to new highs).

People are going to say, 'What about my personal rights?' ... Even though you shelve some of your rights as a citizen (in the military), you don't shelve them all," said Joe Davis, spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

The chip would relay vital statistics about the patient such as lactate, glucose and oxygen levels in the blood. Researchers believe the technology would also be useful in other government programs such as measuring astronaut data, as well as civilian first-responder uses, according to a news release from Clemson University.

Clemson researchers believe the program is five years away from human testing. The program will include testing on a new gel developed by Clemson scientists that aids in preventing the chip from being rejected by the human body.

It's only a $1.6 million study, but there's something about human RFID implants that tends -- quite understandably -- to make people's skin crawl.

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 5 replies

A rash of earthquakes off Oregon's coast!

2008-04-15T12:56:12Z

Scientists investigate rash of earthquakes off Oregon's coast

By Jeff Barnard - The Associated Press 04/13/08

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Scientists listening to underwater microphones have detected an unusual swarm of earthquakes off central Oregon, something that often happens before a volcanic eruption — except there are no volcanoes in the area.

Scientists don't know exactly what the earthquakes mean, but they could be the result of molten rock rumbling away from the earthquake faults off Oregon, said Robert Dziak, a geophysicist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State University.

More than 600 quakes have occurred over the past 10 days in a basin 150 miles southwest of Newport. The biggest was magnitude 5.4, and two others were more than magnitude 5.0, OSU reported.

On the hydrophones, the quakes sound like low thunder and are unlike anything scientists have heard in 17 years of listening, Dziak said. Earthquake instruments on land have also detected some of the quakes.

The hydrophones are left over from a network the Navy used to listen for submarines during the Cold War. They routinely detect passing ships, earthquakes on the ocean bottom and whales calling to one another.

Scientists hope to send out an OSU research ship to take water samples, looking for evidence that sediment has been stirred up and chemicals that would indicate magma is moving up through the Juan de Fuca Plate, Dziak said.

The quakes have not followed the typical pattern of a major shock followed by a series of diminishing aftershocks, and few have been strong enough to be felt on shore.

The Earth's crust is made up of plates that rub together while resting on molten rock. When the molten rock, or magma, erupts through the crust, it creates volcanoes. That can happen in the middle of a plate. When the plates lurch against each other, they create earthquakes along the edges.

In this case, the Juan de Fuca Plate is a small piece of crust being crushed between the Pacific Plate and North America, Dziak said.

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

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Russia tests superstrength bomb, military says

2008-04-07T21:37:43Z

By Dmitry Solovyov

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has tested the world's most powerful vacuum bomb, which unleashes a destructive shockwave with the power of a nuclear blast, the military said on Tuesday, dubbing it the "father of all bombs".

The bomb is the latest in a series of new Russian weapons and policy moves as President Vladimir Putin tries to reassert Moscow's role on the international stage.

"Test results of the new airborne weapon have shown that its efficiency and power is commensurate with a nuclear weapon," Alexander Rukshin, Russian deputy armed forces chief of staff, told Russia's state ORT First Channel television. The same report was later shown on the state-sponsored Vesti channel.

"You will now see it in action, the bomb which has no match in the world is being tested at a military site."

It showed a Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber dropping the bomb over a testing ground. A large explosion followed.

Pictures showed what looked like a flattened multi-storey block of flats surrounded by scorched soil and boulders. "The soil looks like a lunar landscape," the report said.

"The defense ministry stresses this military invention does not contradict a single international treaty. Russia is not unleashing a new arms race."

Such devices generally detonate in two stages. First a small blast disperses a main load of explosive material into a cloud, which then either spontaneously ignites in air or is set off by a second charge.

This explosion generates a pressure wave that reaches much further than that from a conventional explosive. The consumption of gases in the blast also generates a partial vacuum that can compound damage and injuries caused by the explosion itself.

"The main destruction is inflicted by an ultrasonic shockwave and an incredibly high temperature," the reports said. "All that is alive merely evaporates."

Rukshin said: "At the same time, I want to stress that the action of this weapon does not contaminate the environment, in contrast to a nuclear one."

"FATHER OF ALL BOMBS"

The Tu-160 supersonic bomber that dropped the bomb, widely known under its NATO nickname of "Blackjack", is the heaviest combat aircraft ever built.

Putin, who has overseen the roll-out of new tactical and anti-aircraft missiles and combat aircraft, has ordered "Blackjacks" and the Tu-95 "Bear" bombers to patrol around the world.

The report said the new bomb was much stronger than the U.S.-built Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb -- MOAB, also known under its name "Mother of All Bombs". "So, Russian designers called the new weapon 'Father of All Bombs'," it said.

Showing the orange-painted U.S. prototype, the report said the Russian bomb was four times more powerful -- 44 metric tons of TNT equivalent -- and the temperature at the epicenter of its blast was two times higher.

In 1999 Russian generals threatened to use vacuum bombs to wipe out rebels from the mountains during the "anti-terrorist operation" in its restive Chechnya province.

New York-based Human Rights Watch then appealed to Putin to refrain from using fuel-air explosives. It remains unclear if weapons of this type were used during the Chechen war.

U.S. forces have used a "thermobaric" bomb, which works on similar principles, in their campaign against al Qaeda and Taliban forces in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

"It (the bomb) will allow us to safeguard our state's security and fight international terrorism in any circumstances and in any part of the world," Rukshin said.

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Top 5 Recreational Drug Experiments

2008-04-06T11:45:15Z

By Aaron Rowe 04/05/08

Recreational drugs are a ridiculously fun topic for scientific research. They could also be the inspiration for powerful new medications. We are often amazed by the fascinating, and sometimes hilarious, stories that make their way into peer-reviewed journals. Here are some of our very favorites:

5. Harvard Scientists Build a Device to Smoke Weed During a Brain Scan
To better understand addiction, and how to treat it, scientists need to get a better look at the human brain as it is under the influence of weed. Unfortunately, smoking weed inside the narrow chamber of a functional MRI is not easy. To prevent smoke damage and allow their research subjects to puff without moving around too much, Blaise Frederick and his team at Harvard built what amounts to a giant bong.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T0N-4NGKVGD-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=29238c4861b592d204e1eea8c88d4cec

4. Stanford Chemists make THC from Scratch
Since 1965, chemists have been trying to make the active ingredient of marijuana [pdf]from scratch. Back then, the researchers could only make tetrahydrocannabinol along with its enantiomers -- impurities that have the same chemical composition, but a different shape. Then, in 2006, a pair of chemists from Stanford University used a Molybdenum catalyst and other sophisticated techniques to produce the coveted molecule in its pure form. Despite their discovery, mother nature is still the best chemist and closets with high-intensity lamps will outperform the most sophisticated laboratories.

http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/jacsat/1965/87/i24/f-pdf/f_ja00952a620.pdf

3. Researchers Learn How Salvia Works
Diviner's sage contains a powerful hallucinogen that may someday inspire a new class of depression, pain, and addiction medications. In at least one instance, a woman has used the substance to rid herself of depression. Tests on animals have shown that the Oxaccan plant, a relative of the culinary herb, can also control pain.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T0C-4P2J0G5-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8cd198c5568edd6fb592fd3fe56aa3c9

Last year, Catherine Willmore and her colleagues at Ohio Northern University ended a controversy about how the drug works. In the Sep. 2007 issue of Neruopharmacology, she explained that the active chemical, Salvinorin A, binds to signal-carrying proteins called kappa opioid receptors.

Willmore and her team trained rats to recognize the sensations caused by a well-understood drug that also targets kappa opioid receptors. It is impossible to know exactly how the rats felt during the test, but they could not tell the difference between the active chemical in sage and the one they had been trained to identify. Since the drugs feel the same, both of them must activate the same target.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T0C-4P2J0G5-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8cd198c5568edd6fb592fd3fe56aa3c9

2. British Army Tests LSD on Soldiers
A video clip of this event can be seen on YouTube at:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=n-rWnQphPdQ

1. Researchers Combine Chemicals from Sea Urchin Eggs and Weed to Make Powerful Painkillers
Scientists at organix, a small research and development firm, made hybrid molecules which resemble the euphoria-causing compounds THC and anandamide. In the Dec. 2007 issue of Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry they explained that both drugs have their own unique advantages and disadvantages. Anandamide starts working faster than its marijuana-derived counterpart, but it is more quickly destroyed by the body. A fusion of the two chemicals may last longer while maintaining an equal or stronger effect.

Although the researchers at Organix did not comment on the recreational potential of their new chemicals, their data makes it very clear that the new drugs push the same pleasure buttons as THC and anandamide.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TF8-4PHJTKX-7&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=cafe4c779e991e626ee99daf34515f6c

[NOTE FROM CASPER LEITCH: You can check out 3 FREE VIDEO DOWNLOADS of my taking part in the Smoked Marijuana Study at UCLA funded by the US Government by going to:
http://www.Time4Hemp.com
Now, if you will excuse me - I'm off to experiment with some herb.]

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Big Brother is shouting at you

2008-03-24T06:29:30Z

The London Daily Mail - 09/16/07

Big Brother is not only watching you - now he's barking orders too. Britain's first 'talking' CCTV cameras have arrived, publicly berating bad behaviour and shaming offenders into acting more responsibly.

The system allows control room operators who spot any anti-social acts - from dropping litter to late-night brawls - to send out a verbal warning: 'We are watching you'.

Middlesbrough has fitted loudspeakers on seven of its 158 cameras in an experiment already being hailed as a success. Jack Bonner, who manages the system, said: 'It is one hell of a deterrent. It's one thing to know that there are CCTV cameras about, but it's quite another when they loudly point out what you have just done wrong.

'Most people are so ashamed and embarrassed at being caught they quickly slink off without further trouble.

'There was one incident when two men started fighting outside a nightclub. One of the control room operators warned them over the loudspeakers and they looked up, startled, stopped fighting and scarpered in opposite directions.

'This isn't about keeping tabs on people, it's about making the streets safer for the law-abiding majority and helping to change the attitudes of those who cause trouble. It challenges unacceptable behaviour and makes people think twice.'

The Mail on Sunday watched as a cyclist riding through a pedestrian area was ordered to stop.

'Would the young man on the bike please get off and walk as he is riding in a pedestrian area,' came the command.

The surprised youth stopped, and looked about. A look of horror spread across his face as he realised the voice was referring to him.

He dismounted and wheeled his bike through the crowded streets, as instructed.

Law-abiding shopper Karen Margery, 40, was shocked to hear the speakers spring into action as she walked past them.

Afterwards she said: 'It's quite scary to realise that your every move could be monitored - it really is like Big Brother.

'But Middlesbrough does have a big problem with anti-social behaviour, so it is very reassuring.'

The scheme has been introduced by Middlesbrough mayor Ray Mallon, a former police superintendent who was dubbed Robocop for pioneering the zero-tolerance approach to crime.

He believes the talking cameras will dramatically cut not just anti-social behaviour, but violent crime, too.

And if the city centre scheme proves a success, it will be extended into residential areas.

The control room operators have been given strict guidelines about what commands they can give. Yelling 'Oi you, stop that', is not permitted.

Instead, their instructions make the following suggestions: 'Warning - you are being monitored by CCTV - Warning - you are in an alcohol-free zone, please refrain from drinking'; and Warning - your behaviour is being monitored by CCTV. It is being recorded and the police are attending.'

Mr Bonner said: 'We always make the requests polite, and if the offender obeys, the operator adds 'thank you'. We think that's a nice finishing touch.

'It would appear that the offenders are the only ones who find the audio cameras intrusive. The vast majority of people welcome these cameras.

'Put it this way, we never have requests to remove them.'

But civil rights campaigners have argued that the talking cameras are no 'magic bullet', in the fight against crime.

Liberty spokesman Doug Jewell said: 'None of us likes litterbugs or yobs playing up on a Saturday night, but talking CCTV cameras are no substitute for police officers on the beat.'

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In depth review of Human Micro-chipping

2008-03-24T05:29:59Z

Very interesting read, I encourage everyone to take a moment to review:

http://www.piercelaw.edu/risk/vol8/fall/ramesh.htm

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

Rep. Frank defends proposal to decriminalize marijuana

2008-03-24T05:14:07Z

AP NEWS 03/23/08 - BOSTON -- Rep. Barney Frank is defending a bill he plans to file this week decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana, saying the federal law unfairly targets those using medical marijuana in California.

Frank, who filed a bill to decriminalize marijuana as a member of the Massachusetts Legislature in the 1970s, said the decision whether to make possession of the drug illegal should be left up to the states.

He also said the federal government shouldn't have a law on the books that is rarely enforced and which doesn't make sense to large portions of the public.

"Do you really think people should be prosecuted for smoking marijuana? I don't think most people agree with that. It's one area where the public is ahead of the elected officials," Frank said in an interview with The Associated Press. "It does not appear to me to be a law that society is serious about."

Frank said he was particularly troubled by federal law enforcement agencies targeting those using marijuana as a legal medical treatment under California law.

"I don't think smoking marijuana should be a federal case," he said. "There's no federal law against mugging."

Marijuana use is illegal under U.S. law, which does not recognize the medical marijuana laws in California and 11 other states.

The Drug Enforcement Agency and other U.S. agencies have been shutting down major medical marijuana dispensaries throughout California in the last two years and charging their operators with felony distribution charges.

Frank first announced the bill on the HBO show "Real Time," hosted by Bill Maher.

Frank's comments come as pro-marijuana activists are pushing a ballot question that would decriminalize possession of an ounce or less of marijuana in Massachusetts.

Instead of facing a criminal record, those caught with a small amount of marijuana for personal use would instead pay a civil fine of $100 -- much like a traffic ticket.

Supporters say the measure would save the state millions of dollars in law enforcement costs and spare thousands of state residents from the burden of a criminal record.

Critics, including the head of the anti-drug education group DARE-Massachusetts, say they oppose decriminalizing any amount of marijuana because it could send a signal to children that smoking pot is no big deal.

They say they while not everyone who smokes pot will end up shooting heroin, almost no heroin addicts begin with the more dangerous drug.

Activists pushing the initiative point to more than two dozen nonbinding referendum questions placed on local ballots in Massachusetts in the past six years. In each, a majority of voters supported the idea of decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana.

About a dozen states have already adopted similar laws.

Asked about the marijuana ballot initiative last December, Gov. Deval Patrick said he had to consult with his Public Safety Secretary Kevin Burke and Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. JudyAnn Bigby before staking out a position.

"I think they are both skeptical," he said at the time.

The ballot question isn't the only effort under way to ease the state's drug laws.

A bill working its way through the Statehouse would also decriminalize possession of an ounce or less of the drug, but set a higher fine of $250.

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Doctors boosting marijuana dosages

2008-03-21T17:02:50Z

March 18, 2008 at 11:10 PM

OTTAWA, March 18 (UPI) -- Canadian health officials say doctors are increasing the dosages of medical marijuana they prescribe for patients.

Health Canada said it appears doctors are unclear about the agency's maximum dosage recommendation. Some doctors said there was a perception the government's marijuana is not as potent as marijuana grown by patients or non-government suppliers, the Ottawa Citizen reported Tuesday.

The study by Les Etudes de marche Createc in Montreal found unanimous agreement among doctors for Health Canada to begin supplying dried marijuana to pharmacists. Doctors, however, suggested quality be improved and the price be reduced, the newspaper said.

© 2008 United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.

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Marijuana Decriminalization Approved by N.H. House

2008-03-21T05:51:58Z

March 20, 2008

New Hampshire residents would be permitted to possess up to a quarter of an ounce of marijuana under a bill approved by the state House of Representatives, the Nashua Telegraph reported March 19.

New Hampshire's governor has vowed to veto the bill, however, and the measure also faces strong opposition in the state Senate.

Turning aside protests from law-enforcement officials, the House voted 193-141 in favor of the bill, which would reduce the penalty for minor possession of marijuana from up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine to a misdemeanor with a $200 fine.

Backers rallied support for the bill by citing a federal law that punishes college students with drug convictions by taking away their financial aid. "How can we expect young people to get back on the right path if we take away every opportunity to do so?" said Rep. Jeffrey Fontas.

Rep. John Tholl was among those who spoke against the measure. "If you send a message to the young people of our state that a quarter ounce of marijuana is no big deal, like a traffic ticket, what you are doing is you are telling them we are not going to be looking at this very hard," he said.

Colin Manning, press secretary for Gov. John Lynch, said the bill "sends absolutely the wrong message to New Hampshire's young people about the very real dangers of drug use. That is why the governor joins with the House Criminal Justice Committee and law enforcement in opposing this bill."

That point may be moot, as Senate Majority Leader Joseph Foster said the measure has no chance of passing. "I know of no interest in the Senate on either side of the aisle to entertain this," he said.

The bill received some bipartisan support, with 40 Republicans joining 153 Democrats in backing decriminalization. "I heard several Republicans say they were for it because they thought it could lead to less overcrowding and less spending for our jails," said Rep. John Hunt, a Republican who opposed the bill.

This information may be freely reproduced and distributed, provided that attribution is made to "Join Together Online (www.jointogether.org)."
Join Together is a project of the Boston University School of Public Health.

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Marijuana possession argued before ALASKA state high court

2008-03-21T05:46:21Z

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - The latest effort to recriminalize marijuana is now in the hands of the Alaska Supreme Court.

The high court heard oral arguments Thursday on a legal challenge to a 2-year-old state law that would make personal at-home use of small amounts of marijuana illegal.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska argues the state constitution's strict privacy provisions protect adults who use marijuana in their homes.

The state argues that marijuana is a more potent and dangerous drug than in the past and it is using findings from the 2006 Legislature to back its case.

The state appealed the case to the high court after a lower court struck down the law shortly after it was passed.

A ruling could come within a year.

©2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast

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Bill Small talks Tall Jive when he takes Time 4 Hemp!

2008-03-06T05:30:59Z

And it's free to download at http://www.Time4Hemp.com

The Tall brothers are the legendary reefer-jazz band based in Vancouver. They are Bill and Thomas Small, actual brothers who grew up in south-western Ontario in a musically-gifted farm family of six.

When Bill Small began dealing with ulcers years ago, he turned to the use of marijuana to help with a cure and moved to Vancouver and helped launch the British Columbia Compassion Club Society, initially operating out of his apartment. This organization provides low-cost, high quality organic medicinal marijuana to anyone with a doctor’s prescription. Still strong after over 10 years, the club now services more than 4000 members and has assisted another 2500 sadly departed. Bill talked about this and much more when he sat down and took Time 4 Hemp.

Please pass this information on to those you know would most enjoy it.

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Medical Marijuana Laws Benefit Big Business

2008-03-05T00:59:17Z

By: Greg Pivarnik - 3/4/08

Marijuana has medicinal uses. Despite numerous scientific studies and the development of synthetic medicines derived from cannabis, the United States government appears to disagree with this statement. Marijuana remains a Schedule I drug according to the DEA, which only benefits the pharmaceutical companies who now have a monopoly on the therapeutic effects of a plant that can be grown with little effort.

Under the Controlled Substances Act, the DEA lists and categorizes drugs, illegal and pharmaceutical, into five categories or schedules. According to the DEA Web site, the drugs are placed in a schedule based upon "the substance's medical use, potential for abuse, and safety or dependence liability." Schedule I drugs are considered the most addictive and have no medical use and are considered the most dangerous. Schedule II drugs have some medical benefits but are highly addictive and so on until Schedule V. Marijuana is considered a Schedule I drug, along with heroin and LSD, because it has a "high potential for abuse" and "has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States." Apparently though, PCP and cocaine have more of a medical basis considering they are Schedule II drugs.

Unfortunately, the rescheduling of marijuana is something that may be far off in the future, despite research pointing to the possible benefits of medicinal use. Scientists studying its medicinal properties have already found a number of possible medical uses. Most notably, marijuana can be used to treat pain and nausea associated with a number of diseases. It is mostly prescribed, in states that allow for its medicinal use, for pain and nausea associated with terminal illnesses. Many times marijuana has been found to be one of the more effective drugs to treat these symptoms. Extreme pain is often associated with severe illnesses such as cancers, AIDS and multiple sclerosis (MS). Marijuana also reduces nausea associated with chemotherapy and AIDS patients. It stimulates appetite and allows patients to eat so they do not lose an excessive amount of weight. Marijuana has been proven to be an effective treatment for neuropathic pain and can control muscle spasms in diseases like MS. However, MS is not the only disease associated with neuropathic pain. There are many other diseases and disorders that can benefit from possible treatments of marijuana. Marijuana has also been found to treat patients with glaucoma by relieving pressure in the eyeball and therefore possibly preventing the blindness associated with the disease. Lastly, there are also the well known calming affects of marijuana that could be used to treat severe anxieties and obsessive compulsive disorder.

The main reason that marijuana remains illegal, or at least not used as medication, is money. Too many companies in the pharmaceutical industry stand to lose too much money from competing with medicinal marijuana. The Pharmaceutical companies do research, create a synthetically made chemical for a treatment of a certain disease and then patent. U.S. patents last around 20 years and effectively give the company a monopoly on that drug. This in turn drives the price up for many years after FDA approval, until the patent runs out and generic forms of the drug are made available. The reason that drug companies would not want marijuana manufactured is that it can been grown cheaply and easily. It could effectively be a less costly alternative to the drug therapies that patients can access now and may treat myriad of disease that could infringe on the consumer market of other medications.

The amount of money derived from the pharmaceutical industry, and hence the lobbyists that work for them, has led to an inherent hypocrisy in U.S. policy towards marijuana. While listing marijuana as a Schedule I drug, which supposedly has no medical benefits, the U.S. still allows pharmaceutical companies to conduct research and make products that harness the medicinal powers of THC, the main psychoactive chemical in marijuana. This already implies that marijuana has medicinal benefit and therefore should not be listed as a Schedule I drug. One such drug, Marinol, is already available for prescription use in the U.S. to treat the side effects associated with chemotherapy and AIDS patients. Another marijuana based drug, Sativex, which is used to treat MS, has already been approved in Canada and has begun trials in the U.S.

It is unfair for the government to conduct a smear campaign against medicinal marijuana, while at the same time allowing drug companies to purify it and market products for staggering amounts of profit. For instance, the base cost per year of Sativex in Canada $4,475. This price is only an estimate before pharmacy costs. On top of that, this estimate only takes into account a minimal amount of doses. Sativex is a spray administered via the mouth. The average dosage is five sprays a day. However, the dosage is variable up to 14 sprays, which would also increase the costs.

There are those that would say it is beneficial for the drug companies to purify the drugs because smoking marijuana is itself a health risk. A risk it may be, but taking any medicine is a risk. In fact, an article in Scientific America espoused a study that concluded that there is no scientific link between lung cancer and smoking marijuana. It was thought that THC "prompts aging cells to die before coming cancerous." A more recent study has seemed to confirm this conclusion. In a lab study, mice with tumors were injected with THC and showed a 50 percent decrease in tumor size after three weeks as compared with untreated mice. Though the studies are preliminary, they still nonetheless cast doubt on long held myths in marijuana.

In the end the only beneficiaries of the current medicinal marijuana policy in the United States are the drug companies. Patients are forced to dole out money for a synthetic form of a medicine that could be grown and obtained naturally and possibly far more cheaply. Of course a side effect of smoking marijuana is that one would get high. However, these side effects no different from warning labels on other medications that indicate drowsiness and warn people against driving and operating heavy machinery. In turn, the question can be asked - What makes a synthetically made chemical safer and more effective than a naturally growing plant? There is a risk when taking any medication. There have been well-known cases in which people have died taking prescription drugs. However, it is nearly impossible to overdose on marijuana.

In the end, the only difference between pharmaceutical marijuana and smoking marijuana is that pharmaceutical products create enormous amounts of revenue for big business, while medicinal marijuana would only benefit the citizens of this country that are in dire need of cheap and effective medication. And as always, the government sides with big business.

Weekly columnist Greg Pivarnik is an 8th-semester molecular and cell biology major. His columns appear on Tuesdays. He can be contacted at Gregory.Pivarnik@UConn.edu.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Copyright 2008 The Daily Campus

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Barry Cooper takes Time 4 Hemp!

2008-03-03T23:19:23Z

In a free download at http://www.Time4Hemp.com is an interview with Barry Cooper, one of the more controversial figures in the Marijuana Movement who now wites for 'Cannabis Culture' magazine and 'SKUNK' magazine.

Barry is an eight year veteran of Law Enforcement
beginning with his career in Texas as a police
dispatcher for the Gladewater Police Department. He
was soon hired by the Big Sandy Police Department
where he trained his own narcotic detector dog and
later became one of the top highway interdiction
officers in East Texas. Now that he no longer works in
Law Enforcement, he has become an out-spoken champion
for ending the War On Drugs.

Barry was nice enough to share his time with our
audience and to talk about his video series, 'Never
Get Busted' when he sat down and took Time 4 Hemp.

Featured Musical Artists:

IQ - Revolution
Savage Kat - Peacetime or War
The Tall Brothers -Prince Of Pot
The Beatles - Revolution #1

Please share this information with those you feel
would most enjoy it.

Keep strong!

Casper Leitch
Creator/Host: Time 4 Hemp
http://www.Time4Hemp.com

Time 4 Hemp cell phone Website:
http://www.Time4Hemp.mobie

"The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know"
President Harry Truman

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Dr. Tim Leary, Elvy Musikka and Los Marijuanos take Time 4 Hemp!

2008-02-25T19:02:42Z

Three great free downloads can be found at http://www.Time4Hemp.com

Time 4 Hemp TODAY - Elvy Musikka is one of only four living Federal IND patients who is receiving medical marijuana from the United States Federal Government. She was granted access to legal marijuana because of eye problems that include glaucoma. After hearing the remarkable interview we did with Deborah Busemeyer, the Communications Director for the New Mexico Department of Health, Elvy made it a point to take some Time 4 Hemp.

Music artists featured in this segment are:
Elvy Musikka
The Individuals
Lynnette Shaw
Angeline
John Denver

Time 4 Hemp MUSIC - Los Marijuanos are the new breed of Mexican Pro-Pot-Poets with 8 years under their belt they have been half way around the world. Two time (13th and 14th Annual) High Times Cannabis Cup performers in Amsterdam, Also 2 year co-headliner for the great Seatle Hempfest performing next to Kottonmouth Kings, Sir MixALot, Daz & Kurupt and Badazz from the Dog Pound and others, 5 year leaders in the Million Marijuana March in downtown Chicago, IL plus dozens of hemp fests featured in multiple magazines which include: High Times, The Source, Murder Dog, Ill Tip to name a few. Performing always for the cause, Los Marijuanos have also been featured on the Latin Throne DVD. With their strong R&B hooks sung by PonyBoy and the stories of real life situations of the Barrio and to end the drug wars and for the legalization of Marijuana this group cannot be silenced. Lots of great music from the band is included in this segment.

Time 4 Hemp CLASSICS - Dr. Tim Leary, pop icon that taught a generation to 'Drop Out, Tune In and Turn Off' took Time 4 Hemp in 1991 for one of his very last ever interviews before his death. In this interview, Dr. Leary is in rare form and very animated.

Please pass this information on to everyone you feel would enjoy hearing any of thses interviews.

Keep Strong!
Casper Leitch
Host:/Creator: Time 4 Hemp
http://www.Time4Hemp.com

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US cop finds huge marijuana haul in senior citizen's car: police

2008-02-23T18:25:03Z

WASHINGTON (AFP - 02/21/08) A 72-year-old man was arrested in the US state of Maryland after more than a million dollars' worth of marijuana was found in his car by a police officer who was helping him with his bags, police said Thursday.

The arresting officer had seen the suspect back his car into another vehicle outside a roadside convenience store in New Carrollton, Maryland, the town's police chief, David Rice, told AFP.

"The officer ran a check on the driver and found out his license was suspended," Rice said.

He then asked the driver if he could help him to get items out of the car before it was impounded, Rice said.

The man, whom Rice identified as New York City resident Rondell Cole, asked the policeman "to pop the trunk, and when he did, the man grabbed this really big duffel bag and asked the officer if he could grab the other one."

According to chief of police Rice, the officer was struck by the strong odors emanating from the bag.

A canine unit was called in "and when the dog hit on it, we opened the bag and thought, oh wow," said Rice.

Inside the two bags were several bales of marijuana, each weighing around 25 pounds (11 kilograms), Rice said.

The haul, which has an estimated street value of around 1.3 million dollars, was one of the biggest in Maryland, Rice said.

One of the eight bales seized in the bust was marked with the number 1 and another with the number 286.

"There are a lot of bales missing," Rice said.

A van that Cole was following drove off when the elderly man was stopped by police.

Cole said he had been paid 500 dollars to follow the van and drive the two bags and their illicit content from New York to North Carolina -- around 500 miles (800 kilometers).

He faces charges of possessing drugs, possession with intent to distribute and drug conspiracy charges.

Comments posted on the Internet praised the police for taking the large haul of illegal drugs off the streets, while others pointed out that drug dealers often prey on financially strapped US seniors, offering what they see as easy money in exchange for serving as mules to transport the drugs.

URL:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080221/ts_alt_afp/usseniorcrimedrugsoffbeat_080221220655

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ND farmers file appeal in right to grow hemp case

2008-02-23T18:12:13Z

The Associated Press - February 21, 2008

BISMARCK — Two North Dakota farmers who have state licenses to grow industrial hemp have appealed a federal judge’s dismissal of a lawsuit they filed against the federal government, which regulates the crop as a drug.

Wayne Hauge’s and Dave Monson’s argument to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is that hemp, which can be used to make everything from lotion to rope, is not a substitute for its cousin, the illegal drug marijuana. Their appeal, which was announced earlier, was filed this week.

“If industrial hemp is not a substitute ... (then) the federal government cannot reach the state-regulated production of industrial hemp,” said Tim Purdon, the attorney for the farmers.

.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland last November said federal law considers industrial hemp to be the same as marijuana. Hovland suggested Congress change the legal definition of industrial hemp to explicitly distinguish it from marijuana, but members of North Dakota’s congressional delegation have said there is little chance that will happen.

Vote Hemp, a nonprofit advocacy group, is funding the farmers’ legal battle.

“The (Drug Enforcement Administration) has banned hemp farming for 50 years by conflating hemp and marijuana on very shaky legal ground while at the same time (Canadian) imports of hemp fiber, seed and oil are allowed,” Vote Hemp President Eric Steenstra said in a statement. “With North Dakota regulating industrial hemp, there is no reasonable threat farmers would be able to grow marijuana without being caught.”

The DEA has 30 days to file a response to the appeal. Purdon said he expects oral arguments in late spring or early summer.

URL:
http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/rss.cfm?id=68014

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American College of Physicians Backs Medical Marijuana

2008-02-23T18:01:19Z

02/17/08 - Marijuana appears to have medical utility and federal constraints should be lifted so that the drug's medical uses can be studied, the American College of Physicians said in a new policy statement.

Reuters reported Feb. 15 that the group -- the second-largest doctors' professional organization in the U.S. -- called for ending the federal ban on medical-marijuana use and more funding for medical-marijuana research.

"Additional research is needed to clarify marijuana's therapeutic properties and determine standard and optimal doses and routes of delivery," according to the statement adopted last week by the ACP's governing board. "Unfortunately, research expansion has been hindered by a complicated federal approval process, limited availability of research-grade marijuana and the debate over legalization."

The ACP said that research has shown that marijuana can help prevent weight loss among AIDS patients and nausea among cancer patients. The group endorsed the use of non smoked forms of THC -- the active ingredient in marijuana -- and urged a review of marijuana's place in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, which states that the drug has no legitimate medical use.

ACP also said that doctors and patients in states with medical-marijuana laws on the books should be exempt from federal prosecution as drug offenders.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE:

Posted by Mary Lynn Mathre, RN, MSN, CARN on Feb 22, 2008 04:48 PM EST
Congratulations ACP!! There is much current state-of-the-art research available that supports the efficacy of therapeutic cannabis/marijuana. I urge all physicians and healthcare professionals to attend The Fifth National Clinical Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics which will be held on April 4-5, 2008 in Pacific Grove, CA. This accredited conference is sponsored by UCSF School of Medicine and Patients Out of Time. The agenda, faculty and registration information is available online at www.medicalcannabis.com. I encourage all to come and learn from researchers and clinicians around the world

Posted by Frank Winkler on Feb 21, 2008 02:34 PM EST
The use of marijuana for medical purposes should include the use of dronabinol (generic-- brand name Merinol)as a legitimate and legal alternative. Dronabinol is a pharmaceutical which is synthesized THC. The many advantages are immediately obvious-- it is free of possibly unknown adulterants, it is legally prescribed in predetermined dosage, it doesn't have to be smoked (and is free of the many toxins present in marijuana smoke)and it works much the same way as THC in pot. Legalization proponents do not like to talk about dronabinol, because it takes the wind out of their sales re justification. Make no mistake-- abuse of dronabinol can induce a buzz much the same as pot, but then many pharmaceuticals are capable of that. Some argue that dronabinol doesn't work as well as pot-- translation: the user doesn't get high. While not risk-free, it is a much more acceptable and safe alternative, and should be promoted, accordingly.

Posted by Dr. Hans J. Kugler, PhD, President on Feb 20, 2008 11:47 PM EST
IAAM, the International Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, a California 501-C non-profit corporation applauds and joins APC in asking our government to follow a more logical and science-based approach to marijuana. We do so in the hope that this will also lead to more common-sense treatments for diseases - rather than the present emphasis on (often excessively toxic, w. unacceptable side-effects, highly over-priced) pharmaceutical company drugs. For people who may disagree with us, we urge them to read OVERDO$ED AMERICA: The Broken Promise of American Medicine, by John Abramson, M.D . A Harper-Collins Book and Marcia Angel, "How the pharmaceutical companies deceive us." Ms. Angel, former NEJM senior editor, is now at Harvard Medical School. IAAM has no financial interest in any of those two books.

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Regulate public use of medical marijuana in Canada:

2008-02-23T17:53:04Z

By Tim Whitnell for the Burlington Post News - 02/17/08

Halton MP Garth Turner pleased with health minister's reply to recent letter

Halton's Member of Parliament has convinced Canada's health minister to re-examine the use of medical marijuana in public places following recent news reports of a Burlington bar owner being taken to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario by a former patron.
Garth Turner, Liberal MP for the riding of Halton, which includes parts of north Burlington and Oakville, told the Post last Thursday he received a response to a Feb. 11 letter he sent to federal health minister Tony Clement.

"Under the current regulations there are no limits on where the medical practitioner can utilize the prescribed (marijuana) medication, an oversight which has led to unfortunate consequences in my riding and, I am sure, in other jurisdictions of Canada," Turner wrote, in his letter to Clement.

"This is a matter that must be addressed, as it affects the health of Canadians who have no wish to be exposed to marijuana, or second-hand smoke.

"Numerous jurisdictions around the world have legalized medical marijuana and many of them have also regulated where it can be used. It is time for Canada to follow their example and implement crystal clear and enforceable restrictions on the use of medical marijuana in public spaces," Turner's letter concluded.

The MP said he is siding with Ted Kindos, the longtime owner of Gator Ted's restaurant/bar on Guelph Line. Kindos is awaiting a Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario hearing in May, following failed Ontario Human Rights Commission mediation talks in the wake of claims of discrimination by former longtime customer Steve Gibson.

Gibson, 42, a local resident who has a federal licence to smoke medical marijuana for a job-related neck injury in 1989, believes he was unfairly treated by Kindos three years ago when he was first asked to stay further away from the bar's entrance than regular cigarette smokers, and later told by Kindos not to smoke his legal pot anywhere near the Gator Ted's property.

Kindos, 42, counters that bar patrons had complained about the marijuana smoke.

Gibson contends that he should have been able to light up his legal weed and stand in the same area where tobacco smokers congregate, which he says is often within 10 feet of the bar's entrance. He has said he's never asked or demanded to be allowed to smoke inside Gator Ted's and that he is not seeking such treatment through his human rights case.

Kindos told the Post on Friday that he tries to keep cigarette smokers at least 10 feet away from the front of his business. He earlier told the Post that he eventually asked Gibson to stay at least 100 feet from the bar when he smokes his marijuana.

The City of Burlington banned all smoking in restaurants in January 2006, in advance of a similar provincial ban that took effect in May 2006. The Gibson-Kindos showdown outside the restaurant occurred in May 2005.

The press secretary for Tony Clement sent the Post an e-mail response Thursday afternoon, when asked if the health minister had received a letter from Turner seeking action by his office on the general issue of medical marijuana use in public places.

"Yes, we agree, marijuana smoke contains a large number of chemicals which can be very damaging to human health. A recent New Zealand study indicated one marijuana cigarette could do as much damage as a pack of 20 tobacco cigarettes," said Laryssa Waler, on behalf of Clement.

"We also agree that individuals who do not smoke licensed marijuana should not be exposed to the harmful effects of the smoke. We are willing to explore ways in which we can protect Canadians from exposure to marijuana smoke."

Turner is ecstatic with the minister's quick response.

"It looks like the government's initial reaction is that they agree (with me) so that's a very positive development.

"I'm not sure this will help the restaurant guy (Kindos) in the immediate short-term with his human rights case, but it might. His lawyer might be able to even use this information to prove that the government that drafted the law says it's faulty. I think it's great news and definitely in the future it should help us avoid this kind of a situation."

Turner said he has talked to Kindos once and Kindos's lawyer a couple of times to receive background information about the human rights case.

"We're working together and seeing if we can get some damn common sense in government. One of the first things we did was find out if there is a bylaw in Burlington related to smoking outside and there isn't, so this is a completely grey area," said Turner.

"The point is, nobody should be exposed to second-hand smoke. The bar owner has got to have some assurance that some guy's not going to come into his bar under the influence of drugs as that endangers his liquor licence. That's why we need restrictions on this federal law. If he (Gibson) has to do it (smoke marijuana) in a private place, then that's not going to be a sidewalk," he added.

Turner said that if Clement stalls on making changes to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which regulates marijuana use, he will introduce a motion in Parliament asking for a limit on the use of medical marijuana "to private residences and other designated locations."

Kindos told the Post he appreciates the support he's getting from Turner and the general public. He has said that the legal bills he faces may put his bar on the brink of bankruptcy.

"The support has been unbelievable. Since (Feb. 8) we've been averaging about 100-200 e-mails a day."

Kindos said he's even had several medical marijuana users come into the bar to say they advocate only smoking their legal pot in private locations.

Gibson could not be reached for comment on Turner's efforts on behalf of Kindos.

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Bill could protect medical marijuana users...

2008-02-23T17:23:27Z

ABC-NEWS - February 22, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A new bill being pushed by a San Francisco assemblyman would protect medical marijuana users from being fired by their employer.

Mark Leno co-authored the bill introduced earlier this week.
It would keep existing provisions barring the use of marijuana at work and would protect employers from liability by making an exception for safety sensitive jobs.

Last month, the State Supreme Court ruled that an employer can terminate a worker solely because they use medical marijuana.

URL:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local&id=5974225

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UN-affiliate calls for marijuana vending machines to be shut down

2008-02-09T04:22:16Z

Associated Press - February 8, 2008 6:03 PM ET

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The U.N.-affiliated drug control board says marijuana vending machines in Los Angeles violate international treaties and should be shut down.

At least three Los Angeles medical marijuana dispensaries have installed vending machines to distribute the drug to people who carry cards authorizing marijuana use. The drug is said to alleviate chronic pain, loss of appetite and other ailments.

Supporters say the machines offer users lower drug prices and increases security, while the U.N. board says it is "deeply concerned."

The Drug Enforcement Agency and other U.S. agencies have been shutting down major medical marijuana dispensaries throughout California in the last two years and charging their operators with felony distribution.

In a 2nd story about this....

UN Affiliate Suggests LA Dispense With Marijuana Vending Machines

VIENNA, Austria -- Marijuana vending machines in Los Angeles violate international treaties and should be shut down, the U.N.-affiliated drug control board said Friday.

"The International Narcotics Control Board is deeply concerned about reports that computerized vending machines to dispense cannabis (marijuana) have been put into operation in Los Angeles," Philip O. Emafo, president of the board, said in a statement.

At least three Los Angeles medical marijuana dispensaries have installed vending machines to distribute the drug to people who carry cards authorizing marijuana use. The drug is said to alleviate chronic pain, loss of appetite and other ailments.

Supporters say the machines, which dispense 1/8th or 2/8th of an ounce of marijuana at a time, offers users lower drug prices and increases security.

U.S. law does not recognize the medical marijuana laws in California and 11 other states.

The Drug Enforcement Agency and other U.S. agencies have been shutting down major medical marijuana dispensaries throughout California in the last two years and charging their operators with felony distribution charges.

"We know that the use of cannabis is illegal under federal law of the United States and we trust the authorities will stop such activities, which contravene the international drug control treaties," Emafo said.

In its statement, the Vienna-based drug board also said scientific research about the therapeutic usefulness of cannabis or cannabis extracts was still in progress and had not produced much evidence.

The board is an independent monitoring body for the implementation of the United Nations international drug control conventions.

The machines resemble large refrigerators. The computerized machines require fingerprint identification and a prepaid card with a magnetic stripe. Once the card and fingerprint are verified, a bright green envelope with the marijuana drops down a slot.

A spokesman for a marijuana advocacy group said the machine also benefits dispensary owners.

"It limits the number of workers in the store in the event of a raid, and it'll make it harder for theft," said Nathan Sands, of The Compassionate Coalition.

Copyright 2008 - all rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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House advance bill allowing hemp to be grown in VT

2008-02-09T03:52:20Z

February 8, 2008 - By DAVE GRAM
The Associated Press

MONTPELIER - The House on Thursday overwhelmingly gave preliminary approval to a bill that would allow hemp to be grown in Vermont if the federal government permits it, while a Senate committee approved reducing the penalty for possessing small amounts of marijuana.

Both are products of the same plant - cannabis - and the House Agriculture Committee member who described the hemp bill to his colleagues and urged its passage later called it unfortunate that the hemp and marijuana measures advanced on the same day.

"It's important for people to realize that industrial hemp is not marijuana," said Rep. Will Stevens, I-Shoreham.

Backers of the hemp measure said the seeds of the cannabis plant can be used in a variety of food products and in the manufacture of high-quality oil. The inside of the plant's stalks historically was an important source of fiber for rope and clothing. The plant would grow well in Vermont and be an important new source of income for Vermont farmers, they maintain.

But while the seeds and stalks can be made into hemp, the leaves and buds of the cannabis plant are marijuana, according to a Web site maintained by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

The DEA site says "many Americans do not know that hemp and marijuana are both parts of the same plant and that hemp cannot be produced without producing marijuana."

The Vermont House bill would require the state to issue licenses to hemp farmers, who would be subject to criminal background checks and could not get into the business if they had a felony on their record.

The farmer would be required to ensure that "all parts of the industrial hemp plant that do not enter the stream of commerce as hemp products, such as flowers and leaves, are destroyed or recycled at the place of production," under the bill.

Under questioning from Rep. Norman McAllister, R-Franklin, Stevens said North Dakota was the only other state to have passed a law to allow hemp to be grown within its borders. He said federal law allows the DEA to issue special permits for hemp production, but that the agency has declined to do so to date.

Hemp supporters hope that a new administration in Washington next year will take a more liberal stance. Stevens argued that the law would make Vermont poised to have its farmers take advantage if the DEA begins issuing permits.

"States that are in the lead on this will be in the best shape if the DEA ever issues permits," he said in an interview.

Gov. Jim Douglas said at his weekly news conference Thursday that he was cool to the hemp bill. "I don't know that it has much significance," he said. "I don't know what purpose it serves."

Meanwhile Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would remove the threat of jail time for someone possessing up to an ounce of marijuana. A person caught with an ounce or less would have the option of going to court diversion - which usually involves counseling and community service, but no criminal record - or through a criminal process, which likely would result in a fine.

The measure passed by the committee was less lenient than the bill as introduced. That would have decriminalized possession or sale of up to two ounces of marijuana.

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Marc Emery, Prince of Pot, Takes Time 4 Hemp!

2008-02-04T03:08:47Z

And it's free to download at http://www.Time4Hemp.com

Marc Emery is called the 'Prince of Pot' and claims to have sold more marijuana seeds than anyone in the world. To date, no one has disputed that claim. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, he is the founder of Cannabis Culture magazien, and considered by the U.S. government to be the biggest drug kingpin in history.

Just days before embarking on his 16-city 'Farewell Tour Across Canada' (and a few short weeks before entering prision for a 10-year stay), Marc was nice enough to sit down and take Time 4 Hemp.

Featured Music Artists:

The Individuals
Muck Sticky
Negative Index
Bob Marley
John Lennon

Please be kind enough to share this information with everyone who you know would enjoy these free downloads.

Keep Strong!

Casper Leitch
Creator/Host: Time 4 Hemp
http://www.Time4Hemp.com

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Medical Marijuana Farm Pitched for Maui

2008-02-04T03:06:52Z

By Gina Mangieri
Medical marijuana could be grown in industrial settings if a bill in the legislature goes through.

Allan Dougherty is a medical marijuana patient in support of the effort. The 84-year-old veteran says marijuana eases the chronic aches in his foot and ankle.

"I take a couple of hits of pot and I forget all about the pain," Dougherty said. “It's great. I enjoy it, and that's the bonus, you enjoy it.”

The state's 4,047 certified patients are permitted to use what they grow -- and in limited amounts.

"The time it takes to grow these plants is inevitably going to be harmful to the patient," said medical marijuana patient Joseph Rattner.

But that could change. A proposed bill would establish a secure growing facility on Maui on several acres, and patients could lease land cultivated by what the draft calls a “certified facilitator.”

"The whole idea is to give an adequate and safe, secure location for parents to get their marijuana," said Brian Murphy, on whose land the proposal would allow the farm.

If it works in the test location, lawmakers and proponents say it could be expanded to other growers.

"Our agricultural farmers [could] help take care of getting the medicine for these patients," Murphy said.

"This can be very beneficial to the state,” said Rep. Tom Brower, (D) Waikiki. “We can be a world leader with this medicine, and also I believe this will help with the hemp industry."

The bill's backers know it won't sit well with federal, state and county authorities, but they're asking for cooperation.

"We need the support of law enforcement,” Brower said. “This can be done. I don't believe this medicine would be abused any more than other medicines."

Lawmakers say allowing the marijuana farm would help move users off black-market goods.

"The state legislature is now going to step forward to make a difference for these folks,” said Rep. Joe Bertram, (D) Maui, “to tighten up our medical marijuana laws."

State authorities say the farm would violate federal law.

Other medical marijuana bills would increase the amount a patient can possess, and give public employees drug-test protections if they hold a medical marijuana registration certificate.

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Bad news regarding Marc Emery. (Crossposted from Politics Tribe)

2008-01-27T08:34:46Z

Bad news I am afraid. It's about Marc Emery.

Please go to the original link here, and help keep this topic open. Please post a reply expressing your concern:

http://uspolitics.tribe.net/thread/7e39f67d-5273-441d-8420-d037264d3cb7

Marc Emery, a Canadian cannabis and libertarian activist, is considering a plea bargain to save his two friends from going to prison in the United States. In the following interview on CBC National News, Emery explains the situation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4uc98rM33M

The plea bargain will most likely sentence Marc to a five-year prison term. In consideration of possible incarceration, Emery is “thinking of embarking on a Farewell Tour across Canada to speak to the people one last time.” The following is the proposed schedule:

St. John's, Newfoundland - Feb. 19
Halifax, Nova Scotia - Feb. 21
Moncton, New Brunswick - Feb. 22
Quebec City - Feb. 23
Montreal - Feb. 25
Ottawa - Feb. 26
Toronto - Feb. 27
London - Feb. 29
Sudbury - March 1
Winnipeg - March 3
Regina - March 4
Saskatoon - March 5
Calgary - March 6
Edmonton - March 7
Whitehorse - March 8
Kamloops - March 10
Victoria - March 12

Emery is also asking for help to raise funds for this tour. It’s estimated that the cost will be approximately $12,500. Once $3,000 is raised, the flights will be booked. The 16-city tour has one message, "Ending Prohibition in Our Time: My Crusade to Free The Cannabis Culture."

You can donate to the FAREWELL TOUR in the following ways:

1) PayPal bank transfer:
Send to jodie_giesz@hotmail.com, or donate to the ChipIn

2) Cheque or money order:
Made out to "Marc Emery", memo "Farewell Tour"
307 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC
V6B 1H6
Canada

3) Cash donations:
Contribute in person at Marc Emery's Cannabis Culture Headquarters, 307 West Hastings Street, Vancouver BC (Deliver only to Marc Emery or Jodie Emery in the CC magazine office downstairs, or to Anna, Rhiannon, or Brandon in the CC Headquarters store on the main floor.)

Additional information on this case and the Cannabis Culture available through the following documentary: The USA vs. Marc Emery.

It’s difficult to explain what it means to witness our society condemn a human being for selling seeds to a plant. Maybe even having the need to explain such a horror, explains why we are at the tipping point, facing extinction due to our destruction of the environment. We, human beings, will never win a war against nature, and by waging it, we are destroying the ecosystem and condemning future generation to a miserable existence on a planet devoid of diverse life.

While we wait for Marc Emery’s future to be decided, we can enjoy and learn from the following documentaries, explaining in detail some of the benefits of Cannabis and the complete disaster known as the ‘War on Drugs’ (Please note that the first few minutes of the first movie are in Dutch, but the rest is in English).

War on Drugs (The Prison Industrial Complex) (1999)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=864268000924014458&hl=en-CA

Hemp Revolution part 1 of 2
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3070358204716119824&hl=en-CA

Hemp Revolution part 2 of 2
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8376961766517588127&hl=en-CA

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 1 reply

If Bob Marley's your cup of tea - this is 4....

2008-01-03T19:42:29Z

....you. Reggae music legend Bob Marley may have passed away over a quarter-century ago, but his music and message live on.

In this never-before-seen interview from 1976, Marley talks with FOX 31 reporter Job Bowman about topics ranging from the meaning of reggae music to his Rastafarian faith, to his use of marijuana.

The interview also includes video of Marley's live performances.

TO WATCH THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW - CLICK ON LINK BELOW:

http://www.myfoxcolorado.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=83246059BE285D8157C753000A4C2950?contentId=5306648&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 1 reply

Despite New Marijuana Law in TX, Some Still Being Jailed

2008-01-01T07:19:55Z

Posted: 9:57 PM Dec 31, 2007 - Reporter: Associated Press

DALLAS -- Many Texans busted for misdemeanor marijuana possession reportedly are still being jailed. That's despite a new state law that allows police to issue a citation instead of making an arrest.

Texas lawmakers had hoped the law, which took effect September 1st, would ease jail overcrowding. But some prosecutors worried what message getting a mere ticket for pot possession might send.

Collin County prosecutor Greg Davis tells The Dallas Morning News that it might "lead some people to believe that drug use is no more serious than double parking."

The newspaper reports the Travis County Sheriff's Department is the only law enforcement agency in the state known to be taking advantage of the new legislation.

Prosecutors in Dallas, Tarrant and Collin counties said they have no plans to set up a system dealing with citations for misdemeanor possession, which is less than four ounces of marijuana.

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

In California, Medical Marijuana Landlords Targeted

2007-12-22T16:45:29Z

December 17, 2007 - http://www.jointogether.org

Landlords who rent to medical-marijuana dispensaries in California are being warned by the federal government that they could lose their property or be sent to prison, the Sacramento Bee reported Dec. 15.

The Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) Sacramento and San Francisco offices recently sent warning letters to landlords, following in the footsteps of the agency's Los Angeles office, which issued about 300 such warnings over the summer. Nathan Sands of the Sacramento-based Compassionate Coalition said the letters have "definitely caused a panic," although he predicted that the tactic would cause a backlash against the DEA.

The antidrug agency contends that federal law trumps the state's medical-marijuana law and that landlords could be prosecuted for renting property for use in distributing a controlled substance. In Los Angeles, no enforcement action was taken after the letters were sent, with a spokesperson for the DEA saying, "What we're trying to do now is educate all of the property owners."

Kris Hermes of Americans for Safe Access said medical-marijuana advocates are urging landlords and tenants to remain calm. "We believe the Department of Justice has limited resources to go after landlords in this egregious manner," he said.

In Congress, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) questioned the tactic, saying that the letters appeared to be an effort to undermine California state law.

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

Jury acquits medical-marijuana grower

2007-12-22T16:31:23Z

By BARBARA ARRIGONI - Staff Writer; Chico Enterprise-Record

Article Launched: 12/22/2007 12:15:34 AM PST

OROVILLE -- After an hour-long deliberation Friday afternoon, a jury found a Chico man not guilty of charges he cultivated marijuana and stored it illegally.

It's thought by attorneys to be the first case tried in Butte County Superior Court under California Senate Bill 420, which allows people with medical marijuana prescriptions to form a cooperative or collective to grow for their recommended use.

Brett Eric Johnsen was on trial for what Butte County authorities said was an illegal garden growing in his house on West First Street. Butte County sheriff's officers found the garden May 30 upon entering Johnsen's home on a search warrant. They reportedly found plants hanging from a bedroom ceiling and an elaborate garden filled with flowering marijuana in the basement.

Johnsen's defense was that he was growing the plants for his own use as a medical-marijuana user and for others who have prescriptions to use it.

The law allows collectives to have eight ounces per patient, or six mature plants or 12 immature plants.

Deputy district attorney A. J. Haggard contended deputies confiscated 31 plants, which is over the legal limit allowed under SB420, and which officer Jacob Hancock testified he estimated to weigh a total of 7.9 pounds.

Johnsen's attorney, Jodea Foster, argued his client was growing the plants as part of a collective with two other people and questioned the amount and weight of the seized plants.

In the second day of testimony, Johnsen testified pot before that time. The two had an agreement to split the costs of the first crop and share the yield equally.

Johnsen also said he agreed to allow Flagg to bring in an extra person for the second crop. "I said fine, as long as everything's legal."

Foster called a witness who contradicted the district attorney's estimate of the weight of the plants seized.

Jason Browne, who was considered an expert, described an extensive background dealing with medical marijuana issues and working with law enforcement and health officials in several counties.

Browne provided a complex formula for determining potential yield from a crop that contradicted the officers' estimate the garden would have yielded 7.9 pounds.

Using a method agreed upon by the Drug Enforcement Agency in studies with the University of Mississippi, he used the square footage of the garden area, the wattage of the lights used to grow and other calculations to determine the garden would have yielded about 1.5 pounds.

Browne also testified that it didn't matter how many plants were in the room because given the square footage, the yield would have been the same. He said the size of the plants is what mattered.

Hancock testified the plants in the basement ranged from 1 to 5 feet high.

The jury went into deliberations shortly after 3 p.m. and returned the verdict at 4 p.m.

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

State court overturns medical pot user's conviction for dealing

2007-12-22T15:51:23Z

Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer - December 22, 2007

A person who carries a small amount of marijuana with a doctor's note allowing medical use can't be convicted of dealing the drug just because police thought he was a dealer, a state appeals court ruled Friday.

In overturning an Orange County man's conviction for possessing marijuana for sale, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana said the prosecutor needed more evidence of sales than the opinion of a sheriff's deputy who specialized in investigating narcotics dealers.

The defendant, Christopher Chakos, was arrested in December 2004 in Rancho Santa Margarita near the medical office where he worked as a phlebotomist, drawing blood for lab tests. Officers found seven grams of marijuana in his car, along with a doctor's note recommending pot for his pain and depression.

They found more marijuana, in varying amounts, in a search of his apartment, along with a digital scale and a closed-circuit camera system.

The marijuana totaled about 6 ounces, less than the 8 ounces that medical marijuana patients can possess under state law. But Chakos was convicted of possession for sale based on expert testimony by Deputy Christopher Cormier, who conducted the search and said he had concluded Chakos was a dealer. Chakos was placed on probation for three years.

Cormier based his conclusion on the exact amount of marijuana in the car, which he said was typical of dealers, and the presence of the scale and the camera system at the apartment, despite defense testimony that the camera system belonged to Chakos' half brother.

Cormier said he had taken part in more than 100 drug investigations, but acknowledged that none involved a medical marijuana patient with a doctor's note.

The appeals court relied on a 1971 state Supreme Court ruling overturning a possession-for-sale conviction of a man who was using Methedrine, a trade brand of a type of methamphetamine, with a doctor's prescription. The court in that case said the arresting officer, who concluded the man was a dealer, lacked experience in cases involving the medical use of otherwise illegal drugs.

In this case, likewise, the deputy's apparent unfamiliarity with medical marijuana cases made him unqualified as an expert witness, the court said. The justices said some of the evidence Cormier cited could have been explained by the difficulties a medical marijuana user often encounters in obtaining the drug, and by the need to comply with the legal 8-ounce limit.

"The record fails to show that Deputy Cormier is any more familiar than the average layperson or the members of this court with the patterns of lawful possession for medicinal use," Presiding Justice David Sills said in the 3-0 ruling.

Online resources
To read the appeals court's ruling, go to:
links.sfgate.com/ZBWR

E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/22/BAJ0U37B7.DTL

This article appeared on page B - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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NDSU moves toward starting industrial hemp research in 2008

2007-12-22T15:40:56Z

By SUE ROESLER, Farm & Ranch Guide - 12/20/07

North Dakota State University may begin planting industrial hemp seed next spring to fulfill a 1999 Legislative mandate, says a university official.

The land grant university has been waiting on the Drug Enforcement Adminis-tration (DEA) to approve its application to conduct hemp and hemp seed research for North Dakota farmers since then.

The DEA finally acted on the application last month within days after a federal judge admonished the agency for its non-action. That rebuff was part of a lawsuit judgement that went against two North Dakota farmers who wanted to grow industrial hemp.

NDSU Vice President for Agriculture and University Extension, Dr. D.C. Coston, said he has been part of continuing discussions on the decision they received from the DEA.

“If everything seems reasonable (with DEA) we quite likely will do it (begin research),” said Coston.

He added that some of the requirements NDSU would have to agree to include:

- a limit of two acres of land could be used for research and there would need to be a border around the inside of the fence and another area inside that, limiting the growing acres significantly.

- 24-hour security including a 10-foot high razor fence and high-powered illumination.

- an accounting for all material that NDSU uses in the growing process and all the material the university generates and harvests as a result.

- allowing for inspection by the DEA at any time without notice.

Coston said there have already been discussions about where they could find funding to build the industrial hemp facilities. Costs could hover in the $50,000 range to meet all the DEA requirements.

“There's going to be significant expenses involved,” he said. “We do have some ideas about where we could go (to ask for funds).”

He added they may ask the N.D. Legislature for help in the next session in 2009, but the university would like to get the research going before then.

“At least we'd want to have the facility built and ready to go in 2008,” Coston said. “I can't imagine that the DEA would not want to come out and inspect it before we plant.”

However, there could be a possibility of planting seed next year. Coston said NDSU is looking at procuring seed - at least initially - from Canada.

“Things growing well in Manitoba have a pretty good chance of growing well here,” he said. “We're not sure, however, how the seed industry works up there.”

NDSU officials would work with the DEA and various resources in Canada on procuring seed.

“We do indeed have relationships with Ag Canada and other sectors in Canada, both private and public,” Coston said, adding they work all the time with other government agencies and public and private companies around the world.

In addition, state Rep. Dave Monson, one of the North Dakota producers in the industrial hemp lawsuit who has sponsored Legislative bills to advance hemp farming in the state, said there is also a biologist's seed collection that could be used if he is hired as a consultant.

Dr. Paul Mahlberg had conducted industrial hemp research during his tenure at Indiana State University. He is now retired but still holds a license to do research, Monson added.

In past discussions with Mahlberg, the plant biologist said he would be willing to bring his significant industrial hemp seed collection with him if he consulted with NDSU.

“He said he'd be willing to help NDSU do some research and help in any way he could,” Monson said.

Regarding the hemp lawsuit that was dismissed last month, Monson said he didn't really expect it to go their way based on the judge's comments during the hearing Nov. 14.

“But I was happy to see the inclusion in the ruling that he wants NDSU to move forward (with industrial hemp research),” he added.

Monson said he doubted there was enough time for NDSU to get the seed in the ground in 2008, but “at least we have some hope.”

He said back in 1999, the first thing the state mandated NDSU to undertake was a research paper on industrial hemp.

“We wanted them to do a study, what we call a white paper, on the crop to see if it was a crop we could raise feasibly and see if it could be grown here,” Monson said. “NDSU did that and the results were quite positive. And that's when we really got on the bandwagon.”

He said the university contacted Canada for some of the research and found out it was an economically viable crop that could be grown in the northern regions.

The next thing the Legislature mandated was for NDSU to apply to DEA to do industrial hemp research, he said. Then, they wanted NDSU to begin research with seeds purchased from Canada, and after that, get feral seeds growing within North Dakota (called ditch weed growing from World War II) and save some of that genetic material.

“If it met the guidelines, then we wanted NDSU to cross it and make varieties, so down the road, there would be enough seed for North Dakota farmers,” Monson said. The reason behind that is because the DEA doesn't want Canadian seed to be used for the long term because of control issues.

He added in the last couple of Legislative sessions, they provided funding for some new greenhouses at NDSU that could be used for research.

“But this is a land grant university, and they'd like to be able to put the seed into the ground as if it were a crop,” Monson said. “It could however be done inside (initially) and we expect it will be a small project at first.”

He added legislators will look at finding some additional funding in the next session for the NDSU research, such as for hiring Mahlberg as a consultant.

Monson continues to believe industrial hemp will become an important alternative, rotational - and economic - crop in North Dakota.

“We talked (in Legislative sessions) about putting money into the budget (for hemp research), but since NDSU had never received any notice from the DEA, we thought it was better used someplace else in the meantime,” Monson said.

The other farmer involved in the lawsuit, Wayne Hauge of Ray, N.D., mirrored Monson's thoughts on industrial hemp as one of the most promising crops of the future in the state.

Hauge said he recently returned from a hemp conference in Saskatoon, Sask., (Canada Hemp Trade Alliance's National Hemp Conference) and found out new products that hemp can be processed into. He also heard from many experts on breeding programs, variety trials, fertilization and fertility rates, fiber research and product development.

One of the newest products is a highly-nutritious hemp milk, according to Hauge. He said that protein needed for growth is easily digestible in the milk because hemp does not contain inhibitors that can block absorption.

He also found out that there is a three-week period after the hemp plant sets up root that it just “sits there” and doesn't grow above ground. Any weeds that are in the ground could establish themselves during this period, and will need to be controlled with broadleaf herbicides. After the plant is grown, it is tall enough to crowd out any weeds.

Hauge also learned about fertility rates and the different needs for nitrogen and phosphorus.

“We also heard that army worms have been bad in hemp this year,” Hauge said. “Hemp tastes good to them.”

If he is able to plant industrial hemp next spring, Hauge said he plans on purchasing Finola hemp seed from Saskatchewan.

“It's a shorter variety, about 6-foot tall,” he added.

Shorter is better because the straw is known to plug up combines. Hauge said he would harvest the straw because he would have to use a header that was raised 4-feet in the air, and he wanted to recoup something from all that work.

“I'll take off the straw. It's a secondary cash market.”

Arthur Hanks, Saskatchewan Hemp Alliance general manager, said they were glad to have Hauge at their conference, adding there were many discussions about hemp processing plants.

HT Naturals, a Vancouver company, has developed a proprietary method that produces three different grades of hemp fiber from the stalks, Hanks said. The first grade is for yarn, the second for sports body armor long-lasting clothing, and the third is for industrial uses.

Hauge said the stalks turn into a “type of goo” where the different fibers are then extracted.

The company also combines the stalks with enzymes in a “batik” process which dyes the fibers for uniform color.

“We're only a 10-year old industry in Canada. Basically we started from zero,” Hanks said. “But there's a lot of interest in the research community to develop the fibers.”

He added that the flax and hemp researchers were working together because there were some similarities between the two.

However, Hauge hopes that North Dakota could start its own processing plant.

“One of the biggest expenses is transportation,” Hauge said. “You can't truck it 500 to 1,000 miles (after it's harvested). It would eat into the profits,” Hauge said. “Industrial hemp is the same as any other business.”

On his own farm, Hauge said he has made plans for next growing season which don't include industrial hemp at this time, although those plans could change.

He plans to grow malting barley, durum, lentils and chickpeas in spring 2008. Some of his malting barley is contracted with the local elevator, but he doesn't contract durum as there is no “Act of God” clause.

“I've got my own seed cleaned and processed,” Hauge said. “I'm in pretty good shape for next year.

“If the price goes up, I would contract some more malting barley,” he added.

He has been a selective seed grower for barley and black bean and this year, he has applied to be a grower for a “new pinto bean.”

He also sold some lentils this week for a “pretty good” price of 22-23 cents a pound.

On Monson's farm, there aren't any spring plans set in stone yet.

Monson said he doesn't really have the acreage to plan alternative crops other than his usual wheat, barley and canola. His 700 acres is divided into a third of each crop.

“I bought some canola seed and cleaned up some of my own barley seed,” he added.

At NDSU, Coston said the university's goal with industrial hemp is “to move the research forward.”

“We're all about trying to help North Dakota advance existing opportunities and ideally, advance some new ones,” Coston said. “This (industrial hemp research) will be interesting to see. People depend on us to be objective in our research, to tell them ‘yes, it will work,' or ‘no, it won't work', and that's what we will do in this case.”

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

Talk about Drug Sense!

2007-12-22T15:30:11Z

Smoochin’ the Pooch
By Nick Welsh

Thursday, December 20, 2007

A CONCEITED PROPOSAL: If audacious times call for audacious measures, then I’m sorry to report that no one in City Hall is willing to put their money where my mouth is. After watching the Santa Barbara City Council deliberate two weeks ago over a new ordinance to regulate the how, where, and when of medical marijuana dispensaries, I was struck more by what wasn’t said than by what was. It was a conspicuous case of the dog that didn’t bark, the other shoe that never dropped. No one ever discussed how City Hall could and should craft the ordinance to ensure that Santa Barbara gets a serious piece of the medical marijuana action. Sure, it’s nice to keep dispensaries away from schools, parks, hospitals, daycare centers, and flamenco dance studios, but can’t we expand the conversation in a remunerative fashion? To steal a line from Duke Ellington, it don’t mean a thing if ain’t got that ka-ching. I’m not being greedy here, folks. Just practical.

Let’s look at the facts. First, there’s the issue of need. If we don’t need the money today, we absolutely will tomorrow. That’s because the bean counters in Sacramento are now projecting a $14.5 billion budget shortfall for the state government. When they get through swinging their machetes in the State House, you can be sure Santa Barbara will have been hacked, gouged, mutilated, and spindled in the process. In addition, Measure D — which for nearly 20 years has provided beaucoup bucks for expensive road repairs and transportation improvements — expires in two years. Given that Measure D needs a two-thirds majority to be renewed, its continued existence should be regarded as very much a long shot. And if it fails at the ballot box next November, that’s a whole lot of dough Santa Barbara won’t be getting anymore. Likewise, legal challenges are looming that could put aspects of the city’s lucrative Utility Users Tax in peril. Should these challenges materialize — and local governments across the state are assuming that they will — City Hall could be out $4 million a year. Even by Santa Barbara standards, that ain’t chicken feed. The traditional way local governments increase revenues is to approve new car dealerships or the construction of new mega malls. But we’ve already done both.

Santa Barbara clearly needs new revenue streams, and medical marijuana dispensaries — for all their legally required nonprofit status — are streaming with revenues. According to an area pot doc I consulted with, there are roughly 3,000 patients who’ve been prescribed medical marijuana living in and around Santa Barbara. Pot sells at about $400 an ounce, so you can do the math. For those without a pocket calculator, NORML (the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) pointed out that the Compassion Center in Alameda County — recently shut down by the feds — generated $350,000 a year in sales taxes, and one in Bakersfield cranked out $427,000. NORML estimates California’s statewide pot crop — which includes both medical and recreational applications — could be worth as much as $2 billion a year. I’m guessing that number is conservative. Earlier this year, Sheriff’s deputies discovered no less than $500 million worth of plants on the property of my editor, Marianne Partridge, whose family owns a ranch outside Lompoc. In this case, guerilla growers associated with a Mexican drug cartel squatted on some of the exceptionally hard-to-reach portions of her property and created a massive pot plantation. Why should ganja gangsters make all the money?

Until this summer, Santa Barbara appeared to be one of the fastest growing medicinal marijuana markets in the state. In the past two years, we went from having two dispensaries to 13. And seven more were on the drawing board. And why not? Santa Barbara has long been home to the newly wed and the nearly dead, and those in the latter category have increasingly sought to create comfortable exit strategies by ingesting marijuana in one form or another.

There are some serious problems, however. Even though state voters resoundingly approved medical marijuana dispensaries 11 years ago, the federal government still maintains they’re against the law. Out of this disagreement, we have a cognitive dissonance that comes with considerable legal peril. The feds have shut down many operations throughout the state and put more than a few operators in the slammer. This past summer, the Drug Enforcement Administration sent out nasty letters to the landlords of Santa Barbara’s dispensaries threatening to seize their assets or put them in jail — or both — if they did not cease and desist immediately. The letters packed major pucker power, and at last count, only five dispensaries are left. My suggestion is City Hall fly in the face of the federal whirlwind by requiring the dispensaries to locate on city-owned properties. That way, they can exact an actual percentage of sales as part of the lease agreement, ensuring that the dispensaries are run in a clean and wholesome manner. During a recent conversation, Councilmember Das Williams rejected this proposal as “insane.” He then added, “But I mean that in the sweetest way possible.” While I appreciate the sweetness, I’d prefer a little daring.

This Tuesday, City Hall passed another anti-war resolution, calling on the United States to withdraw from Iraq during the next year. As much as I like the resolution, it was totally symbolic. Or as Councilmember Brian Barnwell described it, “a popcorn fart in a windstorm.” While we’re at it, why not take a more meaningful stand against the war on drugs, which costs the American public about $70 billion a year with nothing to show for it but about 1.5 million people behind bars. Of those, about half were popped for violating pot laws. If the Iraq War has cost the citizens of Santa Barbara $156 million, then the war on drugs has cost infinitely more. And that doesn’t even begin to consider the colossal waste of life and talent these laws have inflicted.

It’s easy for the council to be brave when making symbolic statements. But our bravery would count for more if our asses were on the line. Sure there are risks involved if City Hall rents space to dispensaries. But without risk, there is no payoff. And in this case, the payoffs could be huge. Think about it.

URL:
http://www.independent.com/news/2007/dec/20/smoochin-pooch/

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

Ron Paul will legalize Marijuana and End the War on Drugs!

2007-12-16T20:21:11Z

Liberty and freedom is being lost everyday and most people see this. But we don't have to sit and watch them take them away from us. And now we have a movement that is truly based in Freedom, Liberty and will follow our Constitution. A movement of Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Independents, Greens, non-voters and more! People from all walks of life. Rich, middle class and poor. All races. This is changing the rules and breaking all the boundaries!

On election day (Nov 6, 2007) a historic record-breaking grassroots fund raiser netted over $4 million in just one day! This is Ron Paul's and our quest for liberty and Freedom in the USA . We did this with the average donation of $40.00! Now we are going for 10 million! Will you help us get the message of liberty and peace to the people of America? We know if we can reach the freedom lovers in this country than we can win! Than we will have a country we can be proud of and a leader we can be proud of. Please join us!

Never heard of Ron Paul?

Find out more at http://www.ronpaul2008.com

You can also google Ron Paul for lots of good links and info.

Ron voted against the war. Against the Patriot Act. He wants to stop out of control government spending and oppression. He wants to end the war on drugs. He introduced a bill to re-legalize Hemp farming in America. He voted against internet restrictions. etc etc

On December 16th, 1773, American colonists dumped tea into the Boston Harbor to protest an oppressive tax. This December 16th, American citizens will dump millions of dollars into the Ron Paul presidential campaign (again) to protest the oppressive and unconstitutional inflation tax -
which has enabled a flawed foreign policy, a costly war and the sacrificing
of our liberties here at home.

Please join us this December 16th 2007 for the largest one-day political donation event in history. Our goal is to bring together 100,000 people to donate $100 each (but whatever you can donate is great), creating a one day donation total of $10,000,000.

Below are videos you can watch to hear what he has to say about the issues that matter to folks like us.

Join The Revolution!

Ron Paul Calls for an End to the War on Drugs!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8S8N2OG7sU

Ron Paul on medical marijuana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p_G9BPouCo

Ron Paul Talks Marijuana, Hemp with the NORML audio stash
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8t7jqis2Mc

Below is one of the many videos that you can view for free about Ron Paul and the Ron Paul Revolution (LOVE), Please share this information with your friends.

Have a safe, healthy and happy new year everyone!

Love & Liberty,
Rob Robinson

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

Hemp I Scream!

2007-12-16T06:51:38Z

This is a company local to Boulder Co, which distributes all over the west through Rainbow.
The ice cream is made straight from raw hemp press cake (most of the oil has been pressed, and the seeds are crushed so they can legally be here raw :P ) from canada
Several stores in Boulder carry it, Vitamin Cottage, Whole Foods, Lolitas. There is also a booth at Red Rocks at nearly all the concerts.
The icecream it's self is allergen free, the cookies used in the sandwitches have whole wheat, though since i started working with them there has been talk of developing a gluten free cookie. There is also some soy lecithin as a binder, because the cookies and ice cream are vegan.
The ice cream is totally cool though if you have allergies, believe me, i have a lot of them and i still eat lots of ice cream with no problem!

http://www.hempiscream.com/

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

Mich. Medical Marijuana Petition Drive Called Success

2007-11-22T03:21:50Z

AP - November 21, 2007

Medical-marijuana supporters in Michigan say they have gathered more than enough signatures in a petition drive to get the issue on the ballot, the Detroit Free Press reported Nov. 21.

The Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care said it has submitted 496,000 signatures from registered voters to the state; only 304,000 are needed to get a medical-marijuana question before the state legislature. If lawmakers don't act on the proposal -- which would make medical use of the drug legal under state law -- it would be placed on the 2008 ballot.

The state's Democratic party has endorsed medical marijuana in theory, but a spokesperson for Senate Republican leader Mike Bishop said that there may not be much support for the proposal in the legislature.

The Michigan proposal limits medical-marijuana use to a narrow list of illnesses, supporters said.

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The Clash Between Federal Drug Law and California's "Medical Marijuana" Law:

2007-11-11T04:15:37Z

How Two Interesting Recent Events Illustrate Their Interplay
By VIKRAM DAVID AMAR - 11/09/07
First printed: http://writ.news.findlaw.com

Two news items during the past couple of weeks in California highlight the complicated legal and political tangle that is American federalism - the relationship between federal and state governments -- today. Both incidents involve the interplay between, on one hand, California's (now decade-old) decision to decriminalize marijuana use for medicinal purposes, and, on the other hand, the continuing illegality under federal law of all marijuana cultivation, possession, distribution and use, for any purpose.

The two events present radically different facts: One involves an alleged criminal conspiracy that is far-flung and linked to violence, whereas the other involves a civil lawsuit brought by a seemingly productive employee against his employer. Yet the two episodes, taken separately and together, nicely illustrate key aspects of the ongoing tug-of-war between so-called "states' rights" and federal supremacy.

The First Episode: The Criminal Charges Against Two Entrepreneurial Brothers

On October 30, federal drug agents executed numerous search warrants against Winslow and Abraham Norton, two young brothers (Winslow is 26 and Abraham 23) who are alleged to have sold an estimated $49 million of marijuana at various locations in the Bay Area during the past three years. The Nortons' medical marijuana dispensary was registered and given a permit to operate under the regime prompted by California's Compassionate Use Act ("the Act"), a 1996 initiative measure adopted statewide by voters that decriminalizes, under state law, marijuana cultivation, distribution, and use in those instances where a physician has given a written or oral recommendation or approval to a patient to use marijuana.

Under the Act and subsequent implementing legislation, an Alameda County Sheriff's Deputy regularly visited the Nortons' facilities to ensure that only those persons with physician recommendations were being given the drug.

According to press accounts, the Nortons paid state and federal income taxes on (at least some) of their income, rewarded their workers well and gave them benefits, and even contributed charitably to the community.

Nonetheless, the Nortons appear to have been flagrantly violating the federal Controlled Substances Act, which designates marijuana as an illegal contraband substance whose manufacture, distribution and use is prohibited in virtually all instances.

The Constitutional Reason Federal Law Trumps California Law Here

How, some people in California are asking, can the feds impose their will on the people of California, who have chosen a different answer than has Congress to the controversial and vexing question of whether marijuana use should ever be allowed?

Column continues below ↓
The answer is short and sweet: The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution makes validly-enacted federal statutes the "Supreme" law of the land, along with the U.S. Constitution itself. So, as long as the Controlled Substances Act is within Congress' constitutional powers to enact (as the Supreme Court held it was a few years ago, in Gonzales v. Raich), Californians can have no state-conferred immunity to be free from federal restraints and prosecution.

Readers who don't easily see why federal statutes ought to be supreme over - and not constrained by - inconsistent state laws may want to consider the example of Southern resistance to federal civil rights laws in the 1950s and 1960s. There too, proponents of local authority argued that the national legislative policy adopted by Congress in Washington DC - in that instance, that racial discrimination in employment and housing should be barred - should not be imposed on states and localities that had reached a different resolution as to how they believed the races ought to interact. In that setting, federal law won out. So too here.

Consider another example in which federal supremacy seems quite intuitive and attractive. Suppose Congress outlawed use of a particular environmental pollutant that many considered dangerous. If a majority of voters in any one state nonetheless wanted to allow persons within the state to use that pollutant, then those voters could decriminalize use of the pollutant under state law, but could not prevent the federal government from punishing those within the state who emit the dangerous chemical.

Is Federal Supremacy Regarding Civil Rights and Pollution Meaningfully Different from Federal Supremacy Regarding Marijuana?

One way to attempt to distinguish the civil rights and pollution examples from example taken from the marijuana setting would be to point out that unless there is federal enforcement in the civil rights and environmental law areas, innocent victims who happen to live in the permissive state may suffer. In other words, there are spillover effects from a state's decision to go its own way concerning racial discrimination and pollution - effects that may harm individuals both in that state and in other states.

But the same can arguably be said for marijuana. If, for example, marijuana use does create a risk that some persons may drive unsafely or do other unwise things while under the influence, then the effects of this behavior are not limited to the marijuana users themselves, nor are the effects even limited to Californians.

California's medical marijuana scheme undoubtedly affects the marijuana market in bordering states, and creates spillover effects in those other states. Drivers cross state lines, as does the violence that tends to follow business enterprises that are illegal in some places. It does not seem coincidental that the Norton brothers' operations involved many young, seemingly healthy customers who nonetheless have physician recommendations. Nor does it seem coincidental that the Nortons have been plagued by armed robberies; news reports suggest that, at least four times, armed assailants have either killed, shot or robbed the Nortons themselves or their employees or customers. This kind of violence rarely can be confined to one small location, or even one state.

Indeed, in upholding Congress' power to regulate all marijuana, including medicinal marijuana, the Supreme Court in Raich noted that the federal government cannot count on California to keep its medicinal marijuana - or the effects of this marijuana - within state boundaries.

The Second Event: The California Supreme Court Hears Ross v. Ragingwire Telecommunications Inc.

The second illustration that helps frame federalism issues in this area is the Ross v. Ragingwire case, in which the California Supreme Court heard oral arguments this past Tuesday. Ross is a U.S. Air Force veteran who sustained disabling injuries as a result of his military service. Since 1999, he has been taking marijuana on the advice of his physician to alleviate back pain. He was hired by the Sacramento technology company Ragingwire, which, pursuant to company policy, required him to submit to a drug test.

Ross complied, and was very open about his medicinal use of marijuana. But when his drug tests came back and they were (predictably) positive for marijuana, he was terminated. Ross then brought an action under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). FEHA, a state law similar to the Americans With Disabilities Act, requires employers in California to accommodate the physical disabilities of an employee or would-be employee so long as the employee can, with accommodation, perform the essential functions of the job. Ross argued that since he was disabled but could, through the use of medical marijuana, perform the essential functions of his job, Ragingwire violated his state law rights in terminating him on account of his marijuana use.

The lower courts ruled in favor of the employer, reasoning that FEHA does not generally bar employers from using drug tests or from requiring that all employees refrain from illegal drugs. Since marijuana is an illegal drug under federal law even though its use by Mr. Ross was not criminal under California law, the lower courts reasoned, employers can terminate marijuana users.

How Is the California Supreme Court Likely to Decide the Ross Case?

Now, the California Supreme Court must decide how to interpret the FEHA in light of this complicated interaction with the federal Controlled Substances Act.

A few things seem clear. One is that federal law could, if Congress wanted it to, explicitly empower employers to discriminate against marijuana users, even if marijuana use is decriminalized under state law. In legal parlance, Congress could, if it wanted to, "preempt" state FEHA claims based on Ross' theory.

But nothing in the federal Controlled Substances Act or elsewhere in federal law seems to say or do that. In other words, there is no federal preemption or (as in the Norton case) federal enforcement of federal law. Instead, there is only the question of whether FEHA claims, as a matter of California state law, can be based on failure to accommodate medicinal marijuana users, given that marijuana is a federally-proscribed substance.

In deciding what FEHA means, or should mean, the California Supreme Court needs to balance a number of factors. First, if Ross prevails, then at a minimum, California employers who are constrained to allow medicinal marijuana should not be held liable under state tort claims for any injuries traceable to the marijuana use. (The state Supreme Court should have the power to confer this tort immunity, since it fashions California tort law. In contrast, the California Justices cannot immunize employers from liability under federal law, but hiring medicinal marijuana users wouldn't seem obviously to violate any federal law.)

Second, even if the specter of state tort liability is removed from employers, it is still not clear whether they should be forced to hire persons who are breaking federal law. Should an employer be forced to bear the (small but perhaps non-trivial) risk that his employee will be arrested by the feds (and thus unavailable for work)? Or that the workplace may be the target of a federal law enforcement search? Or that residual marijuana in the employee's physical system will affect his job performance?

On that last point, recall that FEHA claims are viable only if the employee can perform the essential job functions. So ruling for Ross wouldn't require employers to hire employees whose medical marijuana use deeply impairs job performance. Still, there is a difference between performing the essential functions of a job and excelling at the job, and there is an argument that an employer should be free to pursue excellence, not bare competence, when a federally-proscribed drug is responsible for any lapse in job performance.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the California court will have to consider what the California legislature intended when it enacted a provision in 2003 that made clear that employers did not have to accommodate medical marijuana "use" on the jobsite "premises" or during the hours of employment. Does this provision suggest that accommodation is required so long as the medicinal marijuana is ingested off the employer's property? Or does this language create no such strong inference? And what does "use" mean here, anyway? Is a person "using" marijuana on the jobsite if it is still in her bloodstream when she is on the job, even though she inhaled it at home?

These and other questions are the ones the California Supreme Court's Justices will grapple with, as they issue an opinion some time in the next few months trying to make sense of the federal-state medicinal marijuana hash. Whatever result the Court reaches, both the decision and the fallout should be very interesting.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vikram David Amar is a professor of law at the University of California, Davis School of Law. He is a 1988 graduate of the Yale Law School, and a former clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun. He is a co-author, along with William Cohen and Jonathan Varat, of a major constitutional law casebook, and a co-author of several volumes of the Wright & Miller treatise on federal practice and procedure. Before teaching, Professor Amar spent a few years at the firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

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Documentary to educate about medical marijuana

2007-11-11T03:54:08Z

By Codell Rodriguez, The Southern

CARBONDALE - If there's one thing Jed Riffe can't stand, it's the media's handling of the subject of medicinal marijuana.

Riffe said the subject he takes very seriously is treated as tongue-in-cheek with many news outlets. Because he didn't see anyone else taking it seriously, Riffe made a documentary on the subject.

"Waiting to Inhale" will screen at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Southern Illinois University Carbondale Student Center.

The film follows patients who use marijuana to help with their illness and parents who have lost their children to addiction. Riffe said it was important to show both sides of the argument because it makes a better film and richer learning experience.

"In terms of film storytelling, you need drama and conflict. And, out of drama and conflict, we can learn," Riffe said.

The film will be followed by a panel discussion with Riffe; Christopher Fichtner, former director of mental health with the Illinois Department of Human Services and associate professor of clinical psychiatry at University of Chicago; and Gretchen Steele, a registered nurse, multiple sclerosis patient and medical marijuana advocate from Coulterville.

"The film's a good way of getting a discussion going," said Dan Bernath, assistant director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project.

As a former member of an AIDS foundation, Riffe said he has seen how it can tone down the pain people with serious illness must deal with. He said the film looks at this seriously and the patients are not using the marijuana for recreation.

"A couple of the people don't like to get high, so it was an unpleasant side effect," Riffe said.

Bernath said people should see the film to get a better understanding of the issue.

"I'm not sure people understand how urgent this is," Bernath said. "There are real people suffering right now and we can alleviate that suffering by legalizing medical marijuana."

codell.rodriguez@thesouthern.com

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Technique Separates Hemp From Marijuana

2007-11-04T05:44:42Z

New DNA 'Fingerprinting' Technique Separates Hemp From Marijuana

ScienceDaily (Mar. 23, 2006) — Using new DNA "fingerprinting" techniques, two University of Minnesota researchers have become the first to unequivocally separate hemp plants from marijuana plants with genetic markers. Hemp, a crop grown for durable fiber and nutritious seed, and marijuana, the most abundant illegal drug of abuse in the United States, both belong to the species Cannabis sativa. They differ in levels of the psychoactive drug tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) but are otherwise difficult to tell apart. The technique holds promise for distinguishing different cultivars (domesticated plant lines) in U.S. criminal cases. It may also prove useful in countries where the cultivation of hemp is permitted but marijuana is illegal, as in Canada and Europe. The work appears in the March issue (volume 51, No. 2) of the Journal of Forensic Science.

The new technique is an improvement on previous means of separating the two types of Cannabis, said author George Weiblen, an assistant professor of plant biology in the university's College of Biological Sciences and College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences. For decades it has been possible to identify THC chemically, but the drug is not present in all plant tissues or throughout a plant's life cycle. And other researchers have found that genetic markers known as "short tandem repeats," which are used to identify individuals in paternity and criminal cases, lack the power to distinguish Cannabis cultivars unequivocally.

In tests with three different cultivars of hemp and one of marijuana, the DNA fingerprints of all the cultivars were distinct and nonoverlapping. Weiblen and Shannon L. Datwyler, a postdoctoral associate who is now on the faculty of California State University, Sacramento, found that the AFLP (amplified fragment length polymorphism) technique generated hundreds of genetic markers that together established separate identities for each of the four cultivars.

"We think this technique has the potential to distinguish marijuana varieties as well," said Weiblen. "It has implications not just for separating hemp from marijuana in countries where hemp cultivation is permitted, but in establishing origins of seized drugs and, therefore, conspiracy in drug distribution networks. It also could be used in criminal defenses against claims of conspiracy."

The technique chops up DNA and generates numerous fragments of DNA, each defined by particular "marker" DNA sequences that act like bookends. The lengths of the fragments within the bookends were found to vary according to the cultivar. Thus, the pattern of fragment lengths adds up to a composite picture of each cultivar.

"With this technique, we find hundreds of markers scattered across the genome," said Weiblen. "The larger number of markers, compared to other techniques, gives us the power to separate the cultivars."

The Cannabis plant has been cultivated for millennia and is important in the global economy as both a licit and an illicit crop, said Weiblen. Hemp is a source of durable fiber that provides an alternative to cotton fabric, among other uses. Cotton requires pesticide application and a hot climate, whereas hemp does not, which makes it suitable for local Minnesota agriculture. Weiblen seeks to screen a wider range of Cannabis cultivars to refine the technique. He is also working to identify regions of the Cannabis genome responsible for drug content in marijuana. If enough can be learned about the genome, it may one day be possible to produce an entirely drug-free hemp plant that looks different from marijuana. Currently, all hemp products are imported into the United States. Developing a new variety that could be cultivated in the United States would reduce American dependence on foreign products while creating a new alternative crop for American farmers.

The work was funded by the University of Minnesota and the David and Lucille Packard Foundation.

Adapted from materials provided by University of Minnesota.

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Marijuana Not A Factor In Driving Accidents

2007-11-04T05:29:22Z

University Of Toronto Study Shows Marijuana Not A Factor In Driving Accidents

ScienceDaily (Mar. 29, 1999) — The safety hazards of smoking marijuana and driving are overrated, says University of Toronto researcher Alison Smiley.

Recent research into impairment and traffic accident reports from several countries shows that marijuana taken alone in moderate amounts does not significantly increase a driver's risk of causing an accident -- unlike alcohol, says Smiley, an adjunct professor in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering. While smoking marijuana does impair driving ability, it does not share alcohol's effect on judgment. Drivers on marijuana remain aware of their impairment, prompting them to slow down and drive more cautiously to compensate, she says.

"Both substances impair performance," Smiley says. "However, the more cautious behaviour of subjects who received marijuana decreases the drug's impact on performance. Their behaviour is more appropriate to their impairment, whereas subjects who received alcohol tend to drive in a more risky manner."

Smiley, who has studied transportation safety for over 25 years, drew her results from a "metanalysis" of existing research into the effects of marijuana on driving ability, combined with traffic accident statistics in the United States and Australia. Previous studies showing stronger effects often combined "fairly hefty doses" by researchers with driving immediately after consumption, likely exaggerating the drug's effects, she believes.

While Smiley does not advocate legalizing the drug, she says her results should be considered by those debating mandatory drug tests for users of transportation equipment such as truck or train drivers, or the decriminalization of marijuana for medical use. "There's an assumption that because marijuana is illegal, it must increase the risk of an accident. We should try to just stick to the facts."

Smiley presented her findings at a symposium of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in Florida in February. Her paper was also published in Health Effects of Cannabis, a publication of Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, in March.

CONTACT: Bruce Rolston U of T Public Affairs (416) 978-6974 bruce.rolston@utoronto.ca

Adapted from materials provided by University Of Toronto

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Opium And Marijuana Research Go Underground

2007-11-04T05:24:56Z

Science Daily (Nov. 2, 2007) — The world's leading expert on the opium poppy has joined forces with researchers working on another infamous drug-producing plant -- cannabis -- in hopes of finding new uses for the much-maligned sources of heroin and marijuana.

Peter Facchini, professor of Biological Sciences and Canada Research Chair in Plant Biotechnology, has received a $650,000 NSERC Strategic Project Grant to create new varieties of opium poppy and cannabis that can be used for medicinal and industrial purposes, but will have no value as illicit drugs. And his work is taking him where few Canadians have gone before: Deep underground into the country's ultra high-security medicinal marijuana growth facility.

"It's certainly unusual for a plant biochemist to work in a copper mine hundreds of metres underground," Facchini said. "This is a really great project that involves two of the world's most important medicinal plants and is clearly unique in the plant biology field."

Facchini and a new team of U of C postdoctoral researchers have teamed up with Saskatoon-based Prairie Plant Systems Inc., the National Research Council -- Plant Biotechnology Institute, the Alberta Research Council and the University of Saskatchewan to create and study mutant varieties of opium poppy and cannabis in an unused portion of a copper and zinc mine near Flin Flon, Manitoba. Prairie Plant Systems produces medicinal marijuana under contract with Health Canada in this state-of-the-art facility.

Despite awareness of the importance of crop diversification for the long-term success of agriculture in Canada, few plants are cultivated for the production of high-value bioproducts. Opium poppy accumulates the alkaloids morphine, codeine and thebaine, and cannabis produces psychoactive cannabinoids and is used as a source of high-quality fiber and oil. The domestic market for codeine, morphine and oxycodone, which is derived from thebaine, is in excess of $1.6 billion annually, all of which is currently imported.

"Canada is well-positioned to support the development of new crops cultivated for the production of valuable bioproducts, such as pharmaceuticals and fibers," says Facchini. The research will identify novel genes for use in the metabolic engineering of opium poppy to accumulate high-value pharmaceutical alkaloids and to block cannabinoid production in cannabis. The latter will allow for a safe, legal, made-in-Canada cannabis crop that will have virtually none of the mind-altering chemical of marijuana but can be grown for hemp fibre, oil and food.

"The overall theme of this work is to modify plants to make them more useful as crops and chemical factories," Facchini said. "Alberta is quickly becoming a leader in this area, especially in the area of biofuels. The immense potential of plants as sources of high-value bioproducts for the agricultural and pharmaceutical sectors also needs attention."

The Biosecure Underground Growth Chamber is in a mine owned by Hudson Bay Smelting & Mining Co. Ltd. Facchini says it is a superb venue for his research. "It's not what you would picture an old mine shaft to be. It's clean and well-lit, it's kept at a constant temperature and it's one of the most secure places in the country," he says. "It gives a whole new meaning to 'mining our data.'"

Adapted from materials provided by University of Calgary

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Livingston men open medical marijuana business

2007-11-04T05:19:12Z

By The Associated Press -11/02/07

LIVINGSTON, MT - Two Montana medical marijuana patients have started a marijuana-growing business that supplies several patients across the state.

Dave Minnick and Rick Rusio operate what they call Caregivers Montana. They even have a Web site at www.caregiversmontana.com.

"I could have stayed hidden and done this, but it wouldn't make it any more right," Minnick said Thursday. "Many people who need this are scared."

Three years ago, Montana voters approved an initiative to allow people with certain medical conditions to alleviate their symptoms through the use of marijuana. State law allows doctors to recommend marijuana for specific conditions, such as chronic pain, severe nausea, seizures and severe or persistent muscle spasms. Patients must register with the state as do the "caregivers" who grow marijuana.

The Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services has issued what users call "green cards" to 468 people whose doctors have decided that cannabis can help them. It also has issued "caregiver" cards to 167 people who can grow up to six plants for each patient, said Roy Kemp, who runs the medical marijuana registry program for the state health department.

Minnick and Rusio are among the 23 "caregivers," who legally grow and sell medical marijuana to multiple patients. Minnick said he started his medical marijuana business four months ago for two reasons: to help sick people and to make some money.

Right now, he's got more demand than he can supply, and he's looking for a larger space so he can take on more patients.

"Our issue is providing access in a safe, comfortable manner," he said. "It's about providing a necessary service at a reasonable price."

The partners wouldn't reveal the price of their product, but said they sell it for much less than the street price of $300 an ounce or more.

Minnick said he urges everybody involved with medical marijuana to follow the laws.

"This is a privilege given us by the people of Montana," he said. "It's important that people obey the law and not abuse the system."

They know that marijuana can't cure severe illness, but say it can make it easier to tolerate.

"It makes me get up and go and function every day," said Rusio, who is HIV positive and said marijuana eases the nausea caused by his medication and soothes the arthritis pain in his back.

Minnick has a green card allowing him to use marijuana to treat pain from an old back injury. His wife uses it to treat an eye disease related to diabetes.

"As long as he's operating in compliance with the law, he's legal, and I guess we'll act accordingly," Livingston Police Chief Darren Raney said of Minnick's marijuana business.

The federal government could be another issue. Officials have cracked down on medical marijuana operations in California and on a patient in Missoula who obtained marijuana through the mail, but so far haven't busted any Montana caregivers.

But Minnick said he feels confident he'll be all right as long as he complies with state law.

"I feel it's everyone's right," he said. "I honestly believe it works. I'm dealing with the sick and needy."

Copyright © 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Pot farmers' case may help clarify laws

2007-10-29T01:25:51Z

San Gabriel Tribune - 10/28/2007
By Dan Abendschein, Staff Writer

POMONA - The case of three convicted Azusa pot farmers may help clarify laws on how to legally grow medical marijuana, advocates said.

Bryn Anderson, 38, of Los Angeles; Paul Shaw, 35, of Azusa; and Charles Newcomb, 47, of Azusa were convicted last week of cultivation stemming from the seizure of 700 plants from an Azusa pot factory in May.

"The laws on growing medical marijuana are very broad, and a case like this could be very important in setting a precedent for judges," said Bruce Margolin, a Los Angeles-based medical marijuana advocate and lawyer who represented Newcomb in the early stages of the case.

The appeal in the case would be based on the refusal of Superior Court Judge Charles Horan to allow evidence and witnesses that would allegedly establish the men were growing medical marijuana, according to Antonio Bestard, Newcomb's attorney.

The witnesses included the owner of a West Hollywood dispensary who was prepared to testify that the group was growing marijuana for his patients, according to court documents.

In addition to the grow house at 844 N. Vernon Ave., Newcomb was also convicted of marijuana cultivation at his own home in Azusa, where he had 14 marijuana plants growing in his backyard.
The court did not permit testimony of a medical marijuana prescription holder who lawyers said would testify that Newcomb was his caregiver, records show.

Horan found the defendants guilty and sentenced Anderson and Shaw to 120 days of county jail and three years of felony probation. He sentenced Newcomb to 120 days in the county jail and three years and eight months of felony probation.

Both Anderson and Newcomb said they were unhappy with their sentences and wanted to make an appeal on principle.

"The judge gave us two choices, and neither one was any good," said Anderson. "I didn't do anything wrong."

Anderson, who has a medical marijuana prescription, would be subject to drug screening while on probation and would not be able to use marijuana during that time.

"I am going to have to go back to Vicodin, and that just messes me up," said Anderson, who says he uses medical marijuana for an old stabbing injury to his hand suffered when he was working as a bouncer at a club.

According to state law, a person on felony probation would have to appeal to a judge to be allowed medical marijuana during their probation.

According to Margolin, the case would be the first court appeal in large-scale growing operation case since the passage of SB420, a law meant to clarify how medical marijuana prescription holders can legally grow pot.

The law allows for a prescription holder or "primary caregiver" to possess up to "six mature plants or 12 immature plants for each qualified patient."

Margolin argues that the Anderson, Newcomb and Shaw can show they were growing the marijuana for medical purposes if they were allowed to present evidence linking them to patients at the West Hollywood dispensary. He added Newcomb would be able to use the law to argue that the crops at his house were a legal amount for him and the other prescription holder.

But Horan said during a preliminary hearing in the case that the men did not qualify as caregivers under the law.

"A caregiver would be someone with a good portion of their life spent with a patient, like his mother," said Horan. "That's what caregiver means, not somebody who decided to grow marijuana and sell it."

Horan also said during the hearing that there was evidence in the case that suggested the defendants had profited from selling the pot. He said the law states that it does not authorize "cultivating or distributing marijuana for profit."

The same law allows for a patient or caregiver a "reasonable compensation" for growing someone else's marijuana, leaving it unclear whether a person can support themselves by growing medical marijuana, or just cover their expenses.

Other cases involve dispensaries growing marijuana for patients, Margolin said. But they are about distributing marijuana directly to patients, rather than a separate establishment that grows marijuana and distributes it to dispensaries, as defendants in the case claim they were doing, he said.

The case for the appeal is strong, said medical marijuana advocate and expert witness Chris Conrad, who was slated to testify in the case. A previous case in which the state appeals court threw out the decision of a San Joaquin County court that refused to allow evidence of a medical marijuana operation to be presented in court.

Conrad said the key to Anderson, Newcomb and Shaw's case would be records documenting exactly to whom they were providing medical marijuana.

However, he said, medical marijuana providers are often nervous about documentation because it creates a paper trail that could make them subject to prosecution from the federal government, which does not legally recognize any form of marijuana possession as legal.

"Records that exonerate them under state law convict them under federal law," said Conrad. "It's a tough position to be in."

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Court returns medical marijuana user's supply

2007-10-28T05:20:39Z

A small amount of marijuana and drug paraphernalia was returned by Jefferson County authorities Tuesday to a medical marijuana caregiver who was issued a summons at Mount Falcon Park earlier this year.

Anton Marquez, 29, walked out of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office on Tuesday afternoon with the seized items, ending what Brian Vicente, executive director of Sensible Colorado, said was an ordeal of six months for Marquez.

Marquez provides marijuana to his father and brother, who suffer from epilepsy. He also takes it himself, he said, because of a brain tumor.

"I believe marijuana is the quintessential realization of the term life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," Marquez said.

Vicente said Marquez appeared in court four times on a summons that charged him with possessing less than an ounce of marijuana and possessing paraphernalia.

Each time he told the prosecutor that he was a medical marijuana caregiver, presented a copy of his Medical Marijuana Registry card to the prosecutor and told the prosecutor she should dismiss the case, Vicente said.

"The law could not be more clear - that when presented with a medical marijuana caregiver card or a patient card, the case is to be dropped," Vicente said.

Finally, Vicente said, Marquez went to Sensible Colorado.

"I met with the prosecutor and I said, 'Listen, you have to drop this charge. You have no case,"' Vicente said. "And she said, 'Oh, OK, I guess you are right. We are not going to bring charges.' And ultimately, a judge agreed."

The judge, Roy Olson of Jefferson County Court, also ordered that the seized items be returned.

Pam Russell, spokesperson for the Jefferson County district attorney's office, said prosecutors moved for dismissal of the case because Marquez had a Medical Marijuana Registry card, which meant he could legally be in possession of the small amount of marijuana he

new caption here (Post / Kathryn Scott Osler) had in his car and there was no evidence he had been smoking the marijuana.

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Police arrest four in medical marijuana inquiry

2007-10-28T05:14:48Z

The Statesman Journal - Salem, Oregon - 10/25/07

A South Salem medical marijuana provider has been arrested on accusations of selling and providing marijuana to teens and noncardholding adults, police said Wednesday.

Police were investigating a complaint that a homeowner in the 4400 block of Barrett Street S was dealing marijuana to minors, said Salem Police spokesman Lt. Dave Okada.

"In this particular case, because it involved children, it was very high on the priority," Okada said.

Police served a search warrant at the home and found a man, a woman and two teen girls, Okada said. One girl is a daughter of one of the adults and another girl was a friend staying at the home, Okada said.

In one of the teen's bedrooms, a small amount of methamphetamine was found, Okada said.

Police also seized more than a pound of dried marijuana, 10 mature, recently harvested marijuana plants, 13 budding plants and other marijuana that was being dried, Okada said. Two semi-automatic pistols, about $400, growing equipment and packaging material also was found.

The medical marijuana provider, James Marvin Freeman, 45, was arrested at his Albany workplace, Okada said.

Freeman was out of compliance with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act by allegedly selling and providing marijuana to noncardholders and juveniles, Okada said.

Also arrested were Freeman's girlfriend Kimberly Gay Jensen, 47, and their roommate Gregory Thomas McBride, 47, on drug-related charges. McBride also faces a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

The three adults are set to be arraigned in Marion County Circuit court annex today.

Both girls were taken into foster care, said Patricia Feeny, a spokeswoman with the Department of Human Services.

One of them, a 15-year-old, is being charged with two counts of unlawful delivery of marijuana to a minor and unlawful possession of methamphetamine, Okada said. She was taken to the Marion County juvenile detention center.

This year, Salem police have investigated 30 to 50 cases involving medical marijuana providers, Okada said. Most providers were found to be in compliance, he said.

In Oregon, there are 14,831 medical marijuana cardholders, state program officials said. A grower's license may be suspended for five years if they are convicted of a marijuana-related charge, said program manager Tawana Nichols.

In South Salem, neighbor Mike Lacy said Freeman had lived in the home for about a year, but he has never seen any problems from Freeman's residence, except for noisy vehicles driving by.

"They seemed like decent people," Lacy said.

The Official Charges:

James Marvin Freeman, 45, faces two counts of unlawful manufacturing of marijuana, three counts of unlawful delivery of marijuana, three counts of unlawful delivery of marijuana to a minor, endangering the welfare of a minor, unlawful possession of more than an ounce of marijuana and maintaining a house where drugs are sold and/or used.

Kimberly Gay Jensen, 47, and Gregory Thomas McBride, 47, each face two counts of unlawful manufacturing of marijuana, two counts of unlawful delivery of marijuana, two counts of unlawful delivery of marijuana to a minor, endangering the welfare of a minor, unlawful possession of hashish, unlawful possession of more than an ounce of marijuana and maintaining a house where drugs are sold and/or used.

McBride also faces a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Copyright 2007 Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

This is a brochure that every freedom-minded individual should...

2007-10-22T03:08:03Z

...be copying, printing and distributing!

http://www.fija.org/docout.php?id=194&filename=who_owns_your_body_aug_14_2007_web.pdf&filesize=279992

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

POLICE SEARCHES IN SPACE

2007-10-22T02:41:07Z

Military Satellites May Focus on U.S. Homes in the Name of Homeland Security.

Pubdate: Sat, 13 Oct 2007
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2007 Los Angeles Times

The United States has a strong and well-founded aversion to the use
of military force within its own borders. There have been exceptions
-- President Eisenhower's deployment of the 101st Airborne to enforce
desegregation in Little Rock, Ark., was perhaps the most vivid -- but
for the most part the nation has prospered by the separation of its
police and military, which has helped protect the public from
suppression and the military from distraction.

The underlying principle is enshrined in the Posse Comitatus Act,
enacted soon after the Civil War and intended to bar the Army from
acting as a police force -- originally, to bar it from enforcing
order in the Southern states. Although written with the Army
specifically in mind, it has since been applied to the other branches
of the military and has helped to deter many attempts, well-meaning
and otherwise, to press the military into police work, for instance
in the "war on drugs."

But the "war on terror," which reaches inside American borders as
well as outside, inevitably has caused some to ask whether the
military should fight it at home too. Specifically, the Department of
Homeland Security, without so much as a phone call to Congress, has
developed a program to draw on military surveillance satellites to
help local police. Under the program as envisioned, police or
sheriff's departments could request targets -- a suspected drug
dealer's house, say. A National Applications Office in the Homeland
Security Department would consider the requests and, on approval,
attempt to deliver the information to local law enforcement, which it
refers to as its "customers."

That's tempting. What's the harm in printing out high-resolution
satellite images -- which the government already is producing -- and
sharing them with officials who might use them to thwart criminals?
In most cases, they would simply be photographs capturing activity
outdoors, where there is little reasonable expectation of privacy.
There could, however, be exceptions -- critics warn of infrared
sensors, advanced radar, acoustic scans and devices to pinpoint
various structural materials.

Such applications help to highlight at least three immediate reasons
to greet this idea with skepticism. First, it turns the military away
from its essential mission -- fighting America's enemies abroad --
and toward an area where it doesn't have much expertise, namely
spying on those it's charged to defend. Second, redirecting spy
cameras and sensors onto American rooftops offers up perilous
possibilities in mission and technology creep. And third, this
administration long ago lost the public's trust on domestic surveillance.

Philosophically, refocusing satellites on the home front represents a
new dimension in warrantless surveillance. Cameras said to be able to
make out objects that can fit in one's hand would be trained on
backyards; at some angles, through windows; and with some
technologies, through walls and roofs, probing for heat or other
indicators of life or malfeasance. The government's surveillance
capabilities would be radically expanded. All of that should alarm
anyone who values privacy in the home or who questions the virtue of
a snooping government.

Practically, the ramifications cut another way. Imagine the criminal
defendant brought to court because a military satellite spotted a
marijuana patch in his backyard. He would be entitled to challenge
the imagery that supplied evidence against him. Is the Pentagon ready
to disclose the specs on its super-secret devices in order to help
county sheriffs round up pot farmers?

The sanctity of one's home is not an ideological principle; it is an
American one. Indeed, it was no less a conservative than Justice
Antonin Scalia who wrote for the Supreme Court in 2001 in ruling that
a government thermal analysis of a home was an unlawful "search." His
reasoning deserves repeating as the administration and Congress
consider the use of satellites to crimp still further the remaining
privacy that Americans enjoy. In Scalia's words: "Where, as here, the
government uses a device that is not in general public use, to
explore details of the home that would previously have been
unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a 'search'
and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant."

Newshawk: http://www.drugsens e.org/donate. htm
Pubdate: Sat, 13 Oct 2007
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2007 Los Angeles Times
Contact: letters@latimes. com
Website: http://www.latimes. com/news/ printedition/ front/

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

This is one of the best explanations I've ever seen as to why...

2007-10-22T02:29:18Z

...the Cannabis issue is a lynch-pin issue.

http://420nation.org/

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

Portland OR Friday November 2nd Free Screenings PSU campus 7pm

2007-10-21T02:20:41Z

FREE SCREENING of two documentary films about medical
marijuana.

Date/Time:

FRIDAY NOV 2ND, 2007 7PM

Location:

5TH AVENUE CINEMAS
PSU CAMPUS
510 SW Hall Street
Portland, Oregon
(503) 725-3551

Films:

WAITING TO INHALE 74 Minutes 2005
Directed by Jed Riffe

IN POT WE TRUST 88 MInutes 2007

WAITING TO INHALE examines the heated debate
surrounding marijuana and its use as medicine in the
United States. As seriously ill patients demand laws
to protect their right to use medical marijuana,
opponents claim their argument is just a smokescreen
for a different agenda--to legalize the drug
altogether. How did America go from Reefer Madness
mania to permitting the first clinical trials using
smoked cannabis in decades? And what evidence is there
that marijuana can alleviate the devastating symptoms
of AIDS, cancer and multiple sclerosis? Waiting to
Inhale takes the viewer from underground pot clubs to
the U. S. Supreme Court; from an Israeli scientists
laboratory to massive government-approved marijuana
greenhouses outside London. The film goes inside the
lives of patients who have been forever changed by
illness--and parents who have lost children to drug
overdoses and believe marijuana is the culprit. Above
all, Waiting to Inhale sheds new light on the
controversy and presents shocking new evidence that
marijuana could hold a big stake in the future of
medicine.

IN POT WE TRUST
The medical use of marijuana is examined from every
side of a very complex issue with this documentary
that charts the suffering of four chronically ill
patients whose reliance on the illegal drug as a pain
killer is in jeopardy due to federal anti-narcotic
legislation. Also follows a DEA agent.Reform
organizations, prohibitionist groups, politicians,
drug war critics, scientists, and celebrities all get
their say in this fascinating analysis.
Produced for Showtime.

This event is sponsored by the MPP, the Marijuana
Policy Project. There will be informational handouts,
brochures, and activism opportunities.
For further info about MPP, go to www.mpp.org

***Please Note! No smoking will be permitted in or around theatre. Thank you for your consideration.****

There is a beautiful woman I owe this info to, gracias Lola,
One of the co-producers of Waiting to Inhale is an aquantance from my days in S.F.. She is an incredible person and someone I will always be indebted to.
I love the film. I've seen it many times and own a copy of the DVD.
I'll be at this screening.

Please come. Please invite people to attend with you.

Please don't smoke anywhere in or around the theatre, we have a reputation to build.

Hope to see lotsa you freaks there. '*'
people.tribe.net/mermaidin...c34c9d3b29

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

Free MP3 with Keith Stroup - Founder of NORML

2007-10-20T18:14:31Z

Eight hundred thousand people were arrested in 2006 on marijuana related charges. Today, every 41 seconds someone in America is arrested on a marijuana related charge.

On September 15, 2007 - Keith Stroup (founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws - NORML) was one of those arrested.

This was the second time for Keith to be arrested on a marijuana charge. He recalled getting busted with joint on him while crossing into Canada during the 1970s in an exclusive interview with Casper Leitch when he sat down and took 'Time 4 Hemp'. Download it for free at http://www.Time4Hemp.com

Also - If you get time, you might want to get your fee downloads of the following 'Time 4 Hemp - TODAY PotCast' interviews:

Allen St. Pierre (Dir. of NORML)
Steve Hager (Editor of High Times Magazine)
Steve Bloom (Former Editor of High Times)
Jack Cole (Founder of LEAP)
Gatewood Galbraith (Author)

EACH SEGMENT HAS LOTS OF GREAT MUSIC INCLUDED!!

Interviews SOON to be released:
Ed Rosenthal
and Marc Emery

Don't miss the free downloads on the 'Time 4 Hemp - MUSIC PotCast':

This week, we turned over the controls to the hard working activists at MarijuanaRadio.com because we think everyone should discover their great work! (It just so happens that our host was a guest on this segment!) Tune in and tell your friends about: http://www.MarijuanaRadio.com

And, if you get time, you might want to get your free downloads of the following 'Time 4 Hemp - MUSIC PotCast' interviews:

The Individuals (7-Time winners of the Global Marijuana Music Awards)
Muck Sticky (Check out his new CD ''Bob-O-Link Cove')
Lynnette Shaw (Hemp Activists and song wirter).

Many of interviews from the television series have been released through the PotCast series, 'Time 4 Hemp - CLASSICS' and feature:

Willie Nelson (Super Star)
Dr. Tim Leary (Author)
Jack Herer (Author)
Kevin Zeese (co-founder of the Drug Policy Foundation)

I’ve worked hard to put together some great podcasts designed to feed brains the truth about Marijuana being used for paper, fiber, fuel, and medications. What’s more - the thing that makes these shows so great are the guests!

Please be kind enough to share the http://www.Time4Hemp.com URL with everyone who you know would enjoy hearing what they have to say.

Keep Strong!
Casper Leitch
Creator/Host: Time 4 Hemp
http://www.Time4Hemp.com

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

Treatment options are needed in war on drugs - but not for John McCain

2007-10-04T01:04:56Z

The New Hampshire Eagle-Tribune - Oct 3, 2007
By John Milne

Linda Macia of Manchester rolled her wheelchair into Derry's Pinkerton Academy to see if Republican presidential contender John McCain would endorse medical marijuana.

Macia said Sunday that she has a neurological disorder, and marijuana is the only drug that can ease her pain.

McCain did not take the bait. "Every town hall meeting I have, someone shows up and advocates for medical marijuana, and, by the way, in all due respect, alleges that we are arresting the dead and the dying, and I still have not seen any evidence of that," McCain told Macia.

"I still would not support medical marijuana, because I don't think that the preponderance of medical opinion in America agrees with your assertion that it's the most effective way of treating pain."

Medical marijuana advocates, evidently well organized, have been turning up at presidential candidate appearances during the last few election cycles, one of many groups hoping that by raising the issue in primary campaigns, it will shovel their cause onto the national agenda. In 2004, one activist got Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat, to consider legalization for medical purposes.

I have little enthusiasm for questions posed to presidential candidates by activist groups. But debating the appropriateness of medical marijuana, or even whether to make recreational marijuana legal, misses the point.

The real drug problem the presidential candidates and their state counterparts should address is how to find an antidrug strategy that works. What seems to work are effective prevention and treatment programs. Parents should ask the politicians why there's so much heroin in northern New England. Drug cops should find out why illegal methadone kills more people in this state than any other drug.

For 25 years of the "war on drugs," the nation and the state locked up hordes of marijuana offenders without much success. They're not typically violent offenders. A pothead puts up less of a fight than a mean drunk. But taking marijuana users off the street soaks up limited resources that could be better spent fighting other crimes.

Governments save money and prevent new crime by treating addicted lawbreakers - in particular, alcoholics - and enforcing laws aimed at controlling dangerous drugs.

I don't want to get into the argument for decriminalization of marijuana, the fight that tied up the Legislature early this year. I don't want to get into a car when the driver is high on pot.

Marijuana users are usually nonviolent, but the distributors are no longer peaceful hippies who, like, do their own thing. Weed is distributed by gangsters who are just as prone to violence as the goons who collect gambling debts.

Nor do I want to get in a car that's driven by a drunk. Abuse of America's most popular legal drug, alcohol, brings big trouble. Excessive drinking frequently leads to violence. Booze is a major gateway drug, and many drinkers wind up using illegal narcotics and committing violent crimes. Seven out of 10 parole or probation violations in New Hampshire involve alcohol or drugs.

Last month, a nonprofit prison reform group, The Sentencing Project, issued a sobering report that documented millions of arrests and measured a shrinking pool of resources. "It is clear," the report said, "that the 'war on drugs' has reshaped the way America responds to crime and ushered in an era of instability and mistrust in countless communities."

McCain's GOP rival, Rudolph Giuliani, talks about how data can be used to fight crime.

Here's some data: Half a million people are in state and federal prisons on drug-related offenses, 42 percent of them marijuana-related crimes. State data point: Out of 2,700 inmates in the New Hampshire State Prison system, 61 percent say they used alcohol; 12 percent admit to using marijuana.

The state's drug problem is underestimated because of New Hampshire's weak data. If some drunk beats up an innocent bystander, that's a crime of violence, not a drug crime. The stick-up man who burglarizes a convenience store to get booze or money for drugs commits a property crime, not a drug crime.

The data do show that incarceration for drug-related crimes is going up. And treatment is going down, both here and, The Sentencing Project says, nationally.

Most alcohol abuse treatment in our state prison involves watching a video; there's a waiting list for any other treatment regime.

The Sentencing Project reckons that no more than 15 percent of the inmates receive any substance abuse treatment before they're released.

Instead of asking presidential candidates about medical marijuana, some one ought to ask about how to deal with the nation's real drug crisis. State politicians should be forced to talk about how to treat drug offenders. Prison doesn't work. Who's got a better plan?

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

Compassion Club head wants Quebec to run medical marijuana access plan

2007-10-04T00:41:30Z

Oct 2, 2007 - By Peter Rakobowchuk , The Canadian Press

MONTREAL - The founder of the Montreal Compassion Club wants Quebec to take over the administration of the federal Medical Marijuana Access program in the province.

Marc-Boris St-Maurice said Tuesday the program is "an embarrassing oxymoron."

He complained about major delays processing applications, licence renewals and changes of address.

"Eighteen months ago we requested a supply of application forms for our clients which we still have not received," he said.

"There are also frequent disturbing reports of doctors being pressured by Health Canada bureaucrats to reduce their patients' recommended daily dosage."

St-Maurice wants Quebec Health Minister Philippe Couillard to intervene and hopes to meet with provincial Health Department officials in the coming weeks.

"The field of health is a provincial jurisdiction and we believe that it would be more appropriate if this program was managed by our province instead of Ottawa," St-Maurice said.

Couillard said Tuesday although he's not against the idea it's too soon to say whether the Quebec government should be in charge of medical marijuana in the province.

He added that he first wants to see the scientific evidence that its use is beneficial and therapeutic.

"Before I go in this direction I want to make sure the scientific proof is established," he said.

"I want to make sure that it's necessary and that there are no other options and that it's the only solution."

During a visit to Montreal to announce tougher rules for identity theft, federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said he's not familiar with the particulars of the Compassion Club.

But he reiterated the Tory government's commitment to bring about a tough drug strategy.

"We've indicated that we'll be coming forward with a national anti-drug strategy and it will be co-ordinated between Justice, Public Safety and Health Canada, and we'll be making an announcement in due course," Nicholson said.

St-Maurice made his comments at a news conference where he opened a new storefront location for the Montreal Compassion Club.

The dispensary sells medical marijuana to those who suffer from illnesses like cancer, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and HIV-AIDS.

St-Maurice said the new brightly lit location doesn't have any curtains "because we have nothing to hide. . .numerous courts have concurred that what we do here is not a crime."

"We're being a little more open and visible about what we're doing, but our activities are the same," he added.

The club first opened in 1999 but was shut down a year later when St-Maurice was arrested.

It reopened in 2003 after St-Maurice was acquitted of marijuana trafficking.

"We've been operating a little more discreetly since then," he said.

St-Maurice said the new location, which has a dispensing counter displaying various types of marijuana, is more spacious and is wheelchair-accessible.

He said about 10 per cent of the club's 1,000 members have licences from the federal government authorizing them to buy medical marijuana and others have their doctor's authorization.

The club sells different grades of marijuana for between $7 and $10 a gram, while hashish goes for $15 to $20 per gram, which one club member describes as "market value."

It also offers marijuana cookies that sell for $6 each.

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

Here is a transcript of the 9/23/07 60 Minutes report on medical mariajuana in CA.

2007-09-25T03:48:51Z

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/20/60minutes/main3281715.shtml

The Debate On California's Pot Shops

Morley Safer Reports On Proposition 215

Sept. 23, 2007

(CBS) A decade ago, California became the first of a dozen states in the
nation to legalize medical marijuana. True believers, including many
doctors, say pot works to ease pain or counter the side effects of
chemotherapy. And the National Academy of Sciences agrees, if the drug is
carefully used. Critics see medical use as the gateway to legalizing all
marijuana.

Well, how is the California state law working? As correspondent Morley Safer
reports, the answer involves another statute: the law of unintended
consequences.

For one thing, the federal government still views marijuana, medical or
otherwise, as illegal and has been cracking down on dispensaries that sell
it. For another, it's clear there are legions of people buying medical
marijuana for the sole purpose of getting high. And for them and the truly
ill in California, it's become an easy matter: just drop by your little pot
shop around the corner.

It's just another day at a dispensary, as they call them, in San Francisco.
There, with a note from a doctor, you can buy marijuana for anything you
claim ails you, in just about any form, including cookies, pies and
chocolate milk.

In many dispensaries up and down the state, there's a tasting corner, where
you can sample the wares, and where you'll find any number of satisfied
customers.

"I use medical marijuana for anxiety, neck pain and back pain. It seems to
be the only thing that works that's not an opiate derivative," one man tells
Safer.

Another man says he smokes marijuana because he has a torn ligament in his
knee. "I use a pipe, a little bit of a time when needed," he explains.

There are hundreds of such stores in the state, and as many as 400 in
southern California alone. The people who run them are members of the
state's latest entrepreneurial class, calling themselves "caregivers." The
feds call them something else. Case in point is a young man of many faces
named Luke Scarmazzo.

He has been described as a businessman, a hip hop artist, and, by the
government, as a drug dealer. Asked which of the descriptions apply to him,
Scarmazzo says, "I'm a hip hop artist first. 'Cause that's what I've always
been. And I'm a businessman second. But I'm not a drug dealer."

But he does acknowledge that he is in the drug business.

And like a growing number of people in the business of selling medical
marijuana, Scarmazzo found himself and his dispensary on the receiving end
of an unannounced, early morning raid by the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration.

"They handcuffed me and put me on my kitchen table. And one of 'em walked up
to me and held his badge up and said, 'You knew I'd be coming soon,'"
Scarmazzo tells Safer.

But Scarmazzo says he didn't have a hint that the feds were on his case.

The DEA hits a handful of businesses like Scarmazzo's every few weeks. And
in his case, business was good: in the town of Modesto, population 200,000,
he sold $4.5 million worth of medical marijuana in two years.

And he was paid a good salary, too. "I took home $13,000 a month," he says.
"I was working a lot of hours."

Scarmazzo's lawyer, Tony Capozzi, says the business was above-board, by the
book, and perfectly legal in California.

"We think this is selective prosecution," Capozzi says.

Selected, Capozzi says because of a high profile video Scarmazzo had made.
In some scenes, he's a well-tailored businessman, a caregiver. But in other
shots, he's a different man, flaunting money, pot, babes, and attitude, in a
manner more in tune with drug dealing than care-giving.

"Do you not think that it's easy to see that video as him÷being a smart
ass÷and saying, you know, 'Come and catch me if you can'?" Safer asks.

"In hindsight, yes," Capozzi agrees.

(CBS) Hindsight. One more image in the hall of mirrors that medical
marijuana in California has become. The Supreme Court has upheld the DEA's
right to go after dispensaries, no matter what state law might say. And even
one of the key proponents of medical marijuana says things have gotten out
of hand.

"It's just ridiculous the amount of money that's going through these
cannabis clubs. It's absolutely ridiculous," says Scott Imler, a minister in
the United Methodist Church who has long been active in promoting medical
marijuana.

Eleven years ago, he was working to pass proposition 215, the ballot measure
that legalized it. Today, Imler has second thoughts.

"The purpose of proposition 215 was not to create a new industry. It was to
protect legitimate patients from criminal prosecution," Imler says.

The aim back then, reflected in television spots, was for a highly regulated
system in which licensed pharmacies would dispense medical marijuana to the
seriously ill. Proposition 215's backers had people with AIDS, cancer, and
glaucoma in mind.

"What happened when we were writing it was, as you can imagine, every
patient group in the state and they all have their lobbies. You know, the
kidney patients and the heart patient. Every patient group wanted to be
included in the list," Imler recalls. "And so we didn't wanna get in the
position of deciding what it could be used for and what it couldn't be used
for. We weren't doctors. We weren't scientists. We weren't researchers. We
were just patients with a problem."

Imler says they were forced to make the proposition vague.

So the law voters passed mentioned not only cancer and AIDS but "...any
other illness for which marijuana provides relief." A decade later, if
you've got a note from a doctor, you can buy medical pot for just about any
imaginable condition.

"Let me just ask you plain and simple. Is there this proliferation because
people are simply using, quote, unquote, medical marijuana, to get high?"
Safer asks.

"I think there's a lot of that. And I think you know, a lot of what we have
now is basically pot dealers in storefronts," Imler says.

Many businesses calling themselves dispensaries or cannabis clubs advertise
in alternative papers, as do doctors around the state who will give you a
quick once-over and, for a price, a permit to buy.

Television station KCBS went to a Los Angeles clinic, where the waiting room
was full of young people, joking about what they'd tell the doctor their
ailment was.

The doctor, James Eisenberg, saw four healthy people sent by KCBS. He
rejected a 17-year-old for being underage. But after getting a brief
consultation and paying $175, the other three got their papers. One
complained of dry skin, another of hair loss, and the third said high heels
hurt her feet.

"Do you think someone who complains of foot pain because of high heeled
shoes is a legitimate candidate for medical marijuana?" TV reporter David
Goldstein asked Dr. Eisenberg.

"You know, all I can do is take my patients' statements as factual," the
doctor replied.

And in doing so, he is not breaking any state laws.

Don Duncan is something of an elder statesman in the world of medical
marijuana, running three California dispensaries, including one in
Hollywood. He concedes that compliant doctors are a problem.

"You're not naive about this, I'm sure but obviously someone claiming to
have a mild back pain, and has a friendly doctor," Safer remarks. "Virtually
anyone, theoretically, can come in here and buy it legally."

"Absolutely," Duncan agrees.

"And I'm sure that happens, correct?" Safer asks.

"There's bound to be abuse in the system. You know, our pharmacies are
abused by people who want to abuse prescription drugs. And so it's
reasonable to assume that our medical cannabis facilities are abused as
well. What we really need right now are regulations that address those
issues," Duncan says.

Cities around the state have been tightening the rules.

A city council hearing on limiting the number of dispensaries in West
Hollywood was typical: activists and dispensary owners were out in force, as
well as people who said they rely on medical marijuana for relief from
serious ailments.

An AIDS patient said, "Medical marijuana equals life. My life." A man with
vascular deterioration argued, "I have a deformity here, and a great deal of
pain and discomfort. They help me with that."

On the other side of the argument, a man told the crowd, "I don't want to
see these establishments right next to a school."

There's a growing number of local laws limiting the number of dispensaries
in a given area and the hours they can operate. But American ingenuity will
always find a way.

Kevin Reed was forced to shut down his San Francisco dispensary because of
complaints from neighbors. So he simply went into the delivery business.

Reed is up every morning, turning out a new batch of cookies laced with pot,
part of a delivery menu that includes marijuana strains for every taste:
"Snow White," "Super Girl," "Afghan Dreams," and "New York Diesel."

"If you smoke something like this, it's gonna lay you on the couch. And you
really won't be able to work for the rest of the day," Reed says.

Like many in the business, Reed is both caregiver and patient. Smoking
marijuana, he says, for pain relief. "If I don't smoke marijuana, then the
arthritis in my back starts to inflame. You know, it starts out mildly but
gets worse and worse," he explains.

His couriers fan out across the city, delivering their wares.

In theory, all the medical marijuana sold in California is grown by the
patients themselves.

"We're a collective. And what that means is our members grow it, they bring
excess medicine here and we provide it back to the other members. That way
we have no entanglement with the illicit market," Don Duncan explains.

But skeptics say it doesn't always work that way, and that old fashioned pot
dealers can easily get a compliant doctor to make them patients and
caregivers too.

"Most of these cannabis centers are buying their marijuana off the black
market. They're dumping millions of dollars into the criminal black market,"
Imler says.

"Marijuana - what? Coming in from Mexico or wherever?" Safer asks.

"Some of it is," Imler says. "Some of these places sell hashish, which comes
in from the Becca Valley in Lebanon."

"What you're suggesting is that the traditional black market or part of the
traditional black market is now legal?" Safer asks.

"Yeah. That's essentially what's happened," Imler agrees.

Imler believes there are well-meaning dispensary owners doing their best to
help the seriously ill. That, says Don Duncan, is his goal.

"We just wanna serve our patients and be discreet. Obviously federal law is
still a challenge for us. Because until federal law changes, we're at risk
from the DEA raiding our facility, confiscating our medicine, even arresting
people," Duncan says.

Duncan acknowledges they, the Feds, know where he is and that they could on
a whim bust him.

They could, and they did. Not long after Safer's interview, the DEA raided
one of Duncan's dispensaries, arresting no one but confiscating the
marijuana. Don Duncan got there in time to watch with pro-pot protesters
outside.

"They smashed the doors and they ransacked the building and took all the
medicine from the patients and left the place in shambles," Duncan says.

As for Luke Scarmazzo, rapper and businessman, he goes on trial soon on drug
conspiracy charges in a closely watched case. In his video, he wins over
skeptical authorities with his music and his charm. But real life in federal
court could turn out differently.

Asked if he's worried, Scarmazzo tells Safer, "Worried would be an
understatement. I mean, I'm facing a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of
life in prison."

And looking back on a decade of controversy, Rev. Scott Imler concedes that
good Samaritans with good intentions weren't enough. He argues it's time for
the federal government to step in and legalize and properly control medical
marijuana.

"Until that happens, we're gonna have what we have now, which is chaos," he
says.

Produced By David Browning

(c) MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

COMMENTS
I was mystified by Scott's claim that some
dispensaries are selling hashish from the Bekaa
Valley. The only hashish I have ever seen in
California dispensaries has been locally made.
I know of a couple of dispensaries that used to
sell Mexican, but stopped doing so when it was
pointed out to them that this could make them
more vulnerable to federal prosecution. Maybe
this is still going on in LA, I'm more familiar
with N. Cal.
Also, I think Scott was confabulating about
the so-called "patient lobbies." We decided on
open-ended language regarding medical use from
the outset and never wavered from that. The
only patient lobbies I remember hearing from were
the AIDS groups, who were key early supporters,
and Robert Randall's ACT, representing assorted
cannabis patients. But Dennis, Dr. Mikuriya
and I were always dead set on allowing all
medical uses, knowing the cannabis was good for a
host of conditions and that no other FDA-approved
have usage restrictions.
One other misleading moment in the 60 Minutes
piece - Jeff Jones and the Oakland Coop store
were included among a lineup of providers and
dispensaries, although they haven't distributed
medicine since 1998.
The one person who came off really disgraceful
was the doctor recommending pot for someone whose
shoes hurt. Otherwise, I thought we came off
better than might be expected. It would have
been nice if they mentioned the $1 million in
taxes paid by the Modesto dispensary, and if they
had shown a really desperately ill older patient.
Some people carelessly let themselves be
photographed smoking - never a good way to make a
good impression.
Scott's closing line was good. It set the
blame where it belongs. Don Duncan also came off
well.
- Dale Gieringer

--
For the latest marijuana and medical marijuana news visit:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/mmjnews/

"I have a final word for all the people who use marijuana, don't smoke in
the rain. And if you have to ask why not, or why? Then you're smoking too
much." ---- Dr. Phillip Leveque

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Attachment: http://drugsense.org/temp/12U0GOUquGB8U.html
--
California NORML, 2215-R Market St. #278, San
Francisco CA 94114 -(415) 563- 5858 -
www.canorml.org

Come to NORML's 36th Annual National Conference
October 12-13, 2007 - Los Angeles, CA
Act now for discount rooms and reduced registration costs...
Special 'Student' and 'Senior Citizen' discounts available
www.norml.org / 888-67-NORML
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Attachment: http://drugsense.org/temp/13BXipLnkEX7Y.html

>Address messages for this group to 'affiliates@mail.norml.org'
>
>---
>
>Greetings fellow activists,
>
> I was curious to know if anyone else was able to catch the 60
>Minutes episode last night which featured a segment on medical MJ? Any
>inputs/thoughts? I unfortunately did not get to see it, but from the
>discussion I had with my parents who saw it, it seemed that while it
>wasn't so much of a negative portrayal, the ease of obtaining a
>prescription might have some sort of bad connotation to the uninformed
>mind. From what I gathered on their input, it seems though as reputable
>and respectable 60 Minutes is, they once again failed to take one more
>final step of making a firm, solid, and substantial point: legalize it.
>
> All the best,
>
> Josh Kleinstreuer
> ASU HEMP/NORML
>

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

The INDIVIDUALS + Steve Bloom = 2 great FREE MP3’s

2007-09-09T16:15:14Z

7 time winners of the Global Marijuana Music Awards, The Individuals - along with former editor of High Times Magazine, Steve Bloom - take Time 4 Hemp. Free 2 download at http://www.Time4Hemp.com
The Individuals - Straight from Chicago this Rap/Hip-Hop funky group known as THE INDIVIDUALS took the world storm with their first 2005 CD release 'SOMETHING TO SMOKE TO'. In May of that year, they received three 2005 Global Marijuana Music Awards: one for Best Rap Song; one for Best Reggae Song; and one for Best Video.

In 2006, the group released their follow-up CD 'SOMETHING TO SMOKE TO 2', and recieved 2 more 2006 Global Marijuana Music Awards: one for Best Rap; and one for Best Blues.
One of their songs, 'Let A Thug Smoke', is featured in the Golden Globe Winning televisionseries, 'WEEDS' on SHOWTIME.

You can treat your ears to some great Marijuana Music by THE INDIVIDUALS just by surfing to http://www.ruletheworldrecords.com and buying one of their CD's.

Also, On Time 4 Hemp Today:
Steve Bloom - former editor of High Times Magazine - an outstanding journalist who spent over 20 years working for the magazine as a reporter and editor, sat down and fielded question about his work on the magazine, his new book (soon to be released nation wide) and his new project: http://celebstoner.com/

I’ve worked hard to put together some great potcasts to feed brains the truth about Marijuana being used for paper, fiber, fuel, and medications. What’s more - the thing that makes the shows so great are the guests! Please be kind enough to share the http://www.Time4Hemp.com URL with everyone who you know would enjoy hearing what they have to say.

Keep Strong!
Casper Leitch
Creator/Host: Time 4 Hemp

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

Love the tracking chip? You'll like this!

2007-09-02T19:09:28Z

Press Release Source: AHA Solutions, Inc.

American Hospital Association Exclusively Endorses AeroScout, Inc. for Wi-Fi based Active RFID Patient, Caregiver and Asset Tracking
Tuesday August 14, 3:43 pm ET

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AHA Solutions, Inc., a subsidiary of the American Hospital Association (AHA), today announced an exclusive endorsement of AeroScout, Inc.'s Wi-Fi based Active RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tracking system, which helps hospitals track and manage the location, movement and status of patients, caregivers and vital hospital equipment, allowing hospitals to improve patient care and patient experience as well as reduce costs.

In response to hospital interests, AHA Solutions, Inc. identified tracking systems as an integral element of a new platform of products and services geared to improve operational efficiencies related to patient flow and patient centered care. AeroScout was chosen for endorsement by AHA Solutions after an extensive review and market analysis of the vendors and technologies for RFID and location tracking.

"AeroScout's use of the Wi-Fi standard for asset and patient tracking provides tremendous benefits to hospitals, especially those who need a scalable solution to cover large numbers of equipment and people," said Andy Schoneich, Assistant Vice President, AHA Solutions, Inc. "AeroScout has demonstrated that their solutions can help improve patient care, decrease waste, increase efficiency, and bring financial savings to hospitals."

The AeroScout system uses Wi-Fi networks to deliver accurate, reliable and real-time information about the location and status of any patient, staff member or mobile items such as medication pumps, wheelchairs or defibrillators. This information can be used to quickly find a needed person or item, create asset utilization reports, trigger automated alerts, or interface with a wide variety of health care IT systems - all providing valuable information for optimizing hospital operations. The use of Wi-Fi based Active RFID, pioneered by AeroScout, allows hospitals to easily and quickly install a real-time location solution (RTLS).

"We are extremely pleased to be exclusively endorsed by the American Hospital Association as the recommended Wi-Fi solution for deploying asset and patient tracking across health care enterprises," said Yuval Bar-Gil, CEO and Co-founder of AeroScout. "The market has already embraced the tremendous value that Wi-Fi based asset and patient tracking solutions can provide, and we look forward to working with AHA Solutions to continue this success within the healthcare community."

AeroScout's award-winning products, which include a suite of software, Active RFID tags, and other components, were developed to suit a broad range of health care facility sizes and types. This includes coverage for both indoor and outdoor areas, as well as providers that integrate multiple facilities with varied patient and service mixes. The AeroScout system enables a wide variety of advanced location applications, including but not limited to emergency call-button alerting to temperature monitoring, preventive maintenance reporting and wander prevention for adults. This breadth of coverage and experience was one of AHA's deciding factors in choosing AeroScout.

For further information on the AeroScout solution for WI-FI-based asset and patient tracking, contact Mary Longe, Director, Patient Flow Solutions, at 312-895-2531, AHA Solutions, Inc. or visit the Solutions' web site at http://www.aha-solutions.org/.

About AHA

The American Hospital Association (AHA) is a not-for-profit association of health care provider organizations and individuals that are committed to the health improvement of their communities. The AHA is the national advocate for its members, which includes more than 5,000 hospitals, health care systems, networks, and other providers of care, and 37,000 individuals. Founded in 1898, the AHA provides education for health care leaders and is a source of information on health care issues and trends. For more information, visit the AHA Web site at aha.org.

About AHA Solutions

AHA Solutions, Inc. is a subsidiary of the American Hospital Association (AHA) whose purpose is to identify and/or develop products and services that help hospitals and healthcare organizations operate more effectively - and efficiently. As the only area of the AHA with rights to award the AHA Endorsement, the company relies on its due diligence and healthcare industry knowledge to provide resource to healthcare leaders in the areas of Patient Flow, Human Resources, Finance/Revenue Cycle Management, Technology and Risk Management. For more information, contact AHA Solutions at (800) 242-4677 or visit www.aha-solutions.org.

About AeroScout

AeroScout is the market leader in Active RFID asset tracking and location solutions over standard Wi-Fi networks. The company's enterprise visibility solutions accurately locate and monitor assets and people in both indoor and outdoor environments to improve business processes. A winner of the 2007 Red Herring 100 Spring award for innovative technology, AeroScout has several hundred customers worldwide in the healthcare, manufacturing and logistics industries, including Boeing and more than 35 of the world's leading hospitals. Founded in 2000, AeroScout pioneered the Wi-Fi visibility market by introducing the industry's first Wi-Fi based Active RFID tag, and is widely recognized as leading the market in number of tags shipped. AeroScout is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., with offices in Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit www.aeroscout.com.

AeroScout is a registered trademark of AeroScout, Inc. Wi-Fi is a trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Information is subject to change without notice.

Contact:
American Hospital Association
Matthew Fenwick
312-422-2820
mfenwick@aha.org
or
LEWIS PR for AeroScout
Bryan Pope
415-992-4400
aeroscout@lewispr.com

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies

Will human microchips make us a powerless herd?

2007-09-02T17:43:21Z

August 22, 2007 -

CITYWATCHER.COM, a provider of surveillance equipment, attracted little notice itself – until a year ago, when two of its employees had glass-encapsulated microchips with miniature antennas embedded in their arms.

The "chipping" of two workers with RFIDs – radio frequency identification devices as long as two grains of rice and as thick as a toothpick – was merely a way of restricting access to vaults that held sensitive data and images for police departments, a layer of security beyond key cards and clearance codes, the company said.

"To protect high-end secure data, you use more sophisticated techniques," Sean Darks, chief executive of the Cincinnati-based company, said.

He compared chip implants to retina scans or fingerprinting.

"There's a reader outside the door; you walk up to the reader, put your arm under it, and it opens the door," he said.

Innocuous? Maybe.

But the news that Americans had, for the first time, been injected with electronic identifiers to perform their jobs fired up a debate over the proliferation of ever-more-precise tracking technologies and their ability to erode privacy.

In design, the tag is simple: a medical-grade glass capsule holds a silicon computer chip, a copper antenna and a "capacitor" that transmits data stored on the chip when prompted by an electromagnetic reader.

Implantations are quick, relatively simple procedures. After a local anaesthetic is administered, a large-gauge, hypodermic needle injects the chip under the skin on the back of the arm, midway between the elbow and the shoulder.

To some, the microchip was a wondrous invention – a hi-tech helper that could increase security at nuclear plants and military bases, help authorities identify wandering Alzheimer's patients and allow consumers to buy their groceries, literally, with the wave of a chipped hand. To others, the notion of tagging people was Orwellian, a departure from centuries of history and tradition in which people had the right to go and do as they pleased without being tracked, unless they were actually harming someone else.

Chipping, these critics said, might start with Alzheimer's patients, but would eventually be suggested for prisoners, then parolees, then sex offenders, then illegal immigrants – until one day, a majority of people, falling into one category or another, would find themselves having to be electronically tagged.

Thirty years ago, the first electronic tags were fixed to the ears of cattle to permit ranchers to track a herd's reproductive and eating habits. In the 1990s, millions of chips were implanted in livestock, fish, pets, even racehorses.

Microchips are now fixed to car windshields as toll-paying devices, on "contactless" payment cards. They're embedded in Michelin tyres, library books, passports and, unknown to many consumers, on a host of individual items at the local supermarket.

Within days of the Citywatcher announcement, civil libertarians and Christian conservatives joined to excoriate the microchip's implantation in people.

"Ultimately," says Katherine Albrecht, a privacy advocate who specialises in consumer education and RFID technology, "the fear is that the government or your employer might some day say, 'Take a chip or starve'."

Others saw the implants as fulfilment of the "Mark of the Beast" biblical prophecy and another step towards a Big Brother society.

REPORT found at:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,20797,22283025-8362,00.html?from=public_rss

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U.S. Court hands setback to WAMM's fight for legal medical pot

2007-09-02T17:19:25Z

September 1, 2007 - Santa Cruz Sentinel
By Kurtis Alexander - Sentinel Staff Writer

San Jose - A federal court ruling Thursday dashed hopes of local medical marijuana advocates seeking to keep the government out of their pot gardens.

In the case of Santa Cruz County v. Alberto Gonzales, U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel granted the attorney general's motion to prevent a Santa Cruz marijuana cooperative and its supporters from suing the office to stop federal marijuana raids.

"Naturally, we're disappointed. I had hoped for something better," said Davenport resident Mike Corral, who owned the land where federal agents seized medical pot plants in September 2002, thrusting him, his wife and their collective into the five-year legal battle that's put the them at the center of California's medical marijuana debate.

The suit, filed on behalf of Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, the city of Santa Cruz and the county in 2003, contends that federal agents went too far in seizing 165 marijuana plants from Corral's plot. The suit cites the Compassionate Use Act, passed by California voters in 1996, which makes marijuana legal for medical purposes within the state.

The Attorney General's Office, though, has maintained that marijuana, no matter how it is used, is illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act, prompting the office to seek dismissal of the Santa Cruz County suit.

While dismissing the suit, Fogel's written decision left two of the county's claims:

The argument that medical necessity trumps federal drug laws;
A claim based on the 10th Amendment that states have say over marijuana, not the federal government.

Those points can be pursued further.

"The good news is we're still alive and still in court," said attorney Gerald Uelmen, a member of the county's legal team and professor of law at Santa Clara University.

The county's legal team says it will appeal the dismissal of their suit on grounds of the 10th Amendment and build a stronger case that the federal government underhandedly intervened in what should be the purview of the state.

Uelmen said the legal team would show the U.S. Justice Department was meeting and conspiring to stop states from allowing medical marijuana laws to succeed.

The Attorney General's Office, when reached Friday, had no comment on Fogel's decision or future litigation.

Neither Corral nor his wife Valerie were charged after the 2002 raid on their property.

Mike Corral declined to comment on the status of WAMM's garden. He did say, however, that the collective continues to cultivate and provide marijuana to about 170 patients.

Contact Kurtis Alexander at kalexander@santacruzsentinel.com.

posted in Time_4_Hemp - 0 replies