We have read the proposed initiative and feel it is far too vague on all the details. What specific regulations are they proposing? Who can operate and who cannot operate under their program? If their proposed control board chooses to shut you down what are your options for appealing that decision?  With such a nebulous law how do we end up with fair and impartial rulemaking?  For example we note that a powerful state union (UFCW Local 5) is cosponsoring the initiative and if it passes is ensured a seat on the Medical Marijuana Control Board with absolute power over every entity engaged in any level whatsoever of marijuana commerce in California. Does this mean that they can force every one of those entities to join their union and pay them dues? Remember, this initiative doesn’t propose specific rules, it only creates and empowers a rulemaking body and that group makes up any rules they want after the election. This is worse than a blank check, this is blind trust!

                We have a lot of criticisms of this initiative. Is it a good idea to have such a powerful board with 21 members of whom ten are selected by the Lieutenant Governor (Gavin Newsom these days)? The details of the board are disturbing. It is too tied in to the state political machines and too prone to unlimited growth and unchecked power. This is a bad model for cannabis. It creates more cannabis related crimes than we already have at a time when we need to reduce the number of cannabis related reasons to prosecute and punish people. Attempting to control cannabis has just caused problems in California historically. And we don’t need this new law to collect taxes. As much as we at this blog and many others oppose any taxation of cannabis it is a fact that the state right now is collecting tens of millions of dollars per year in pot taxes without this new law. Additionally local communities are collecting millions of dollars a year in cannabis taxes without this law.

                Lastly, this initiative creates a mandatory state registry of everyone involved in medical marijuana commerce in California. That is stupid. The federal government will use that information against those it chooses to prosecute for selling pot. Federal law absolutely prohibits marijuana. In other words, under this initiative no one could be paid to grow cannabis for any other person unless they first filed a full confession with the State of California that they are violating federal law and updated that confession every year with all the details of the extent to which they are breaking federal law including how much money they are making by so doing.

                These are just a few points to think about when considering this new “Medical Marijuana Regulation, Control & Taxation Act.” There are many more but we will address those in future posts. Frankly we don’t see what problem this initiative purports to solve and we definitely don’t like what it does do. We strongly urge you to take the time to read this 15 page initiative yourself and take it seriously because the chances are very good that the proponents do have the money to buy their way onto the ballot. If you don’t want to live under this law, you better get active today!

Read the initiative at the California Attorney General’s website:

Friday’s (Jan 20, 2012) ruling by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy is a new blow to the reeling medical marijuana industry that has seen tougher state restrictions and a federal crackdown over the last year.

Molloy says those providing medical marijuana can be prosecuted under the federal Controlled Substances Act even if they are following state law. Judge Molloy cited the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which says that if there is any conflict between state and federal statutes, federal law prevails.

John Entwistle notes: This illustrates the problem of excessive local regulations and requirements such as taxes on marijuana sales when the federal authorities are cracking down on people who sell pot. Everything you file with the state to comply with local laws will be used against you in federal court. This applies to all states, not just Montana. In California we have a cabal of power mad “regulate & control” advocates who claim that more state level restrictions will protect us from the federal crackdown. This is completely false. A state level registry of people who are breaking a federal law is about as dumb as e-mailing a holdup note to your local bank telling them you’ll be right over to pick up the cash. Maybe even a little dumber because you are giving them your name and address at the same time as you detail the extent of your crime. As we keep saying, the only way out is Barney Frank’s Bill, HR 1983 – Reschedule and Protect State Medical Marijuana Programs.

Sources: http://www.nbcmontana.com/news/30279722/detail.html

& http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/judge-montanas-medical-marijuana-law-doesnt-shield-providers-from-federal-prosecution/2012/01/23/gIQAqBvgLQ_story.html

Richard Nixon tells all. Marijuana, homosexuality, Liberals, Jews… Nixon talking with Ehrlichman. The real tape from the oval office. Just remember this is the thinking behind the entire war on drugs which is really a war on pot. Take ownership guys!

Medical marijuana in Israel — Check out Kibbutz Na’an in Israel — the video is in Hebrew with English subs.(Toggle the cc thing on the bottom of the screen for the subtitles, I had to try twice but they are good.) They are CURRENTLY conducting a clinical trial at a geriatrics (old folks) home, fully licensed and supported by the Israeli Ministry of Health. So far the program has been a huge success with each of the 14 patients having dropped 4-5 medications from their daily regimen. Medical cannabis is also notably improving the quality of their lives. — This is another reason we have to reschedule cannabis and get it off the single convention treaty.

From The New York Times — Jan 20, 2012:

A jail stint and a heart attack have done nothing to temper the spirit of Dana Beal, who still has his bushy, General Custer-style mustache, his thick head of gray hair, and the activist streak that has defined his nearly half-century of marijuana activism and radical politics.

On Friday, he sat at a table at the Yippie Museum Café on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village and tried to sort out a few more things before going back to “the jail where I died” last fall in Wisconsin.

Mr. Beal, 65, a member of the Youth International Party, better known as the Yippies, was arrested last January outside Madison with a minivan full of potand was sentenced in September to more than two years in state prison. But while in a county jail awaiting transfer, he suffered a heart attack on Sept. 27.

John Entwistle notes: Dana is the grandfather of the entire United States marijuana movement. He raised and spent fortunes to keep the dream alive in the darkest days of the early 1980’s. He is a good friend to myself, Dennis Peron and countless other activists all over the world. Free Dana Beal! Read the whole article below, it has a lot of good history.

Source and Photo Credit:  http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/a-yippie-on-familiar-turf-both-in-new-york-and-in-jail/

Jeff, Thanks for checking in. Good to hear your doing well. We think of you often, you were a major part of what we all did to legalize medical marijuana in California.  Things have gone so far, it is really amazing. Geo is great and her daughter is now a medical doctor. How ‘bout that!?! John (me) dropped in to San Francisco State University and copped a degree in Chinese. We are working on a book about the whole story and yes, you are in it. That book is almost done and we will announce it soon. Come visit us sometime in San Francisco. Dennis is running a bed and breakfast operation that is a very good thing. The website is just starting, we will be adding much to it as time goes by. Put in a good word with god for us. Spread the word about Barney Frank’s Bill, HR 1983. You were there at the beginning and now it has caught up with you in AZ. The end is still unwritten…

John and Dennis in Dennis’s House in San Francisco

p.s.  if you give us your email we can write you back privately.

medcanpoet:

Report of the British Police Foundation-Cannabis on Flickr.

Alex,

Thanks for writing. After a long fight we came out victorious in Utah! That was for possession of a pound in Cedar City. We stayed in Mesquite many times and really loved the town as well as the surrounding country. I am working on an update of that book that we will announce on line soon. Keep fighting for your medical marijuana access in Nevada. I know it is tough but in the end we will all win and be stronger for the fight.

Dennis Peron

PS Perhaps you can write your congressperson and ask that person to support the Barney Frank Bill, H.R. 1983 to reschedule medical marijuana federally. It would help.

The California Supreme Court (voting 7 to 0) will review a medical marijuana case originating in the city of Riverside in which a lower court ruled that cities and counties have the right to ban dispensaries. Throughout the state local governments have shut down medical marijuana clinics within their boundaries using that decision, issued in November by the Fourth District Court of Appeal.

The court will most likely be addressing federal and state issues regarding medical marijuana and the dispensaries that sell it, as well as more fundamental questions of local control.

The Court will also review:

• an unpublished ruling on Upland’s dispensary ban, which closely followed the language of the Riverside ruling
•  a Long Beach case that addresses the illegality of marijuana under federal law and whether that preempts local officials from regulating dispensaries
• a Dana Point case that looks into who has standing to challenge local ordinances regulating dispensaries.

John Entwistle notes: This is a long awaited situation. We have high hopes that the Supremes will do the right thing in light of Prop 215. They very well may end up stopping a lot of the local rules that restrict patients and caregivers from cultivating their own marijuana under Proposition 215. How they rule on the dispensaries is anyone’s guess but it should be fascinating. This is the case to watch!! Read the article linked below.

 “Gingrich’s response to questions about his youthful drug experimentation (“That was a sign we were alive and in graduate school in that era”) was uncharacteristically graceful and…” 1 May 1995, New York Magazine, page 42

 In 1981, Gingrich introduced a bill to the House floor that sought “to provide for the therapeutic use of marihuana in situations involving life-threatening or sense-threatening illnesses and to provide adequate supplies of marihuana for such use.” September 16, 1981, H.R.4498, 97th Congress, 2D Session

 In 1982, Gingrich, in his capacity as a member of the House of Representatives, wrote a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association expressing his support towards medical marijuana:

“Federal law, however, continues to define marijuana as a drug “with no accepted medical use,” and federal agencies continue to prohibit physician-patient access to marijuana. This outdated federal prohibition is corrupting the intent of the state laws and depriving thousands of glaucoma and cancer patients of the medical care promised them by their state legislatures…

We believe licensed physicians are competent to employ marijuana, and patients have a right to obtain marijuana legally, under medical supervision, from a regulated source. The medical prohibition does not prevent seriously ill patients from employing marijuana; it simply deprives them of medical supervision and denies them access to a regulated medical substance…”

— March 19, 1982, Journal of the American Medical Association, Newt Gingrich.

 “If you import a commercial quantity of illegal drugs… it is because you have made the personal decision that you are prepared to get rich by destroying our children. I have made the decision that I love our children enough that we will kill you if you do this.”

— August 27, 1995, New York Times, “Gingrich Suggests Tough Drug Measure.”

He subsequently introduced H.R. 4170 (Drug Importer Death Penalty Act of 1996) to the House of Representatives, which sought to “provide a sentence of death for certain importations of significant quantities of controlled substances”. Under Gingrich’s proposed law, you could be put to death for possession of as little as 200 joints (close to four ounces), which is equal in volume to a carton of cigarettes.

 December 13, 2011 — Gary Johnson became the latest to level a “serial hypocrisy” attack at frontrunner Newt Gingrich over the weekend, telling MSNBC’s Alex Witt that in 1997, Gingrich “proposed the death penalty for marijuana — for possession of marijuana above a certain quantity of marijuana, and yet he is among 100 million Americans who smoke marijuana.”

Sources:  http://www.mediaite.com/tv/gary-johnson-newt-gingrich-supported-death-penalty-for-marijuana-even-though-he-smokes-marijuana/

& http://2012.republican-candidates.org/Gingrich/Marijuana.php

& (Picture credit:) http://cdn.unicornbooty.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Newt-Gingrichs-Jobs-Plan-Make-Children-Janitors.jpeg