Through all his years in politics, despite the endless obligation to shake hands, smile for the cameras and coax money out of contributors, John McCain has somehow avoided becoming a complete phony-something that John Edwards and Mitt Romney managed to achieve within a week of entering politics. Annoy McCain, and you won't have to wait long to find out. Even a sickly, soft-spoken woman in a wheelchair gets no pass from him. The other day, at a meeting with voters in New Hampshire, Linda Macia mentioned her use of medical marijuana and politely asked his position on permitting it. Barely were the words out of her mouth before the Arizona senator spun on his heel, stalked away and heaped scorn on the idea. [continues 633 words]
Automatic weapons. Check. Helicopters. Check. Dogs. Check. Bulletproof vests. Check. You may not buy the government's characterization of its campaign against medical marijuana patients as a "war on drugs," but increasingly violent, militaristic tactics in recent months offer a troubling glimpse into the federal law enforcement community's mentality: To them, this is war. Raids on medical marijuana dispensaries throughout California on July 17 by federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents, often with local law enforcement officers in tow, seemed designed to send a clear signal that the feds were deliberately escalating their war on medical marijuana patients. [continues 588 words]
If elected president, Texas congressman Ron Paul said he would change drug laws to free non-violent offenders from prison. "Mandated lifetime sentences are insane," he said during an interview Friday with the Free Press editorial board. "I'd release them. I'd pardon them." The Republican presidential candidate, who used to be a Libertarian, also would work to extract the federal government from the medical marijuana debate by allowing state laws to stand unfettered. By freeing up law enforcement from chasing down drug users and non-violent drug dealers, Paul said they could spend more time looking for rapists, murderers and child molesters. [continues 241 words]
The title above can be read two ways, depending on the meaning assigned to the word "revolting." Up until recently, if I saw such a phrase, I would think of revolting in the sense of disgusting or repulsive. Most politicians above the local level have supported the drug war without reservation for decades. There have been notable exceptions, like New Mexico's former governor Gary Johnson, but he only spoke out after he decided he wasn't going to run for office again. [continues 427 words]
(1) COPS SAY RESOURCES STRETCHED THIN Pubdate: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 Source: Province, The (CN BC) Copyright: 2007 The Province Author: John Colebourn Vancouver police said yesterday their resources are being "stretched thin" in the war on gangs. "The violence is on everybody's radar," said Insp. Dean Robinson. "We are doing everything we can about it as a police department and we are working in concert with other agencies. "We're stretched thin .... We're not the only section in the department that could use more numbers. [continues 7074 words]
A Decade After Voters Started Approving Medical Marijuana, Congress Still Hasn't Gotten the Message Nevada voters may have voted for medical marijuana, but that doesn't mean that law enforcement is willing to make it easy for them, nor are the politicians who set federal policy. At this point, the greatest hope patients and their physicians have is next year's presidential election, which could bring into office a candidate willing to stop law enforcement raids on health care use of marijuana. And for Nevadans, the best way to affect that decision is in the January presidential caucuses in which most candidates have pledged to stop the raids. [continues 1047 words]
DEAR EDITOR: I always have admired Ron Paul's conservative views on limited government, sovereignty, and a noninterventionist foreign policy, but became leery of him when he was nominated as the "If it feels good, do it" Libertarian Party's presidential candidate in 1988 ["Potheads for Paul," Aug. 8]. We have enough vices in our country and don't need to legalize more of them. I suppose when you look at potential presidential candidates, you have to also look at who supports them. With people like "self-made millionaire" Marc Emery-whose goal in life, it appears, is to get himself and others high-on Paul's side, "I'll have to take a pass, man," when you hand me a Ron Paul for President ballot. Randy Miehls Issaquah [end]
The original Prohibition - of alcoholic beverages - was an abysmal failure, and the sequel is worse. America is hungry for honest politicians ("An opportunity for Edwards to lead," by Michael D. Cutler, Commentary, Aug. 6) to oppose the so-called war on drugs. Other political leaders who fit the description are Ohio's Dennis Kucinich and Texas's Ron Paul. At the very minimum America must re-legalize cannabis and regulate it like alcohol. Murder rates decreased for 10 years after the repeal of the original Prohibition and there's reason to believe ending the sequel will have similar effects. Stan White Dillon, Colo. [end]
He's Looking for a Pardon. Marc Emery agrees his campaign-organizing effort for some 2008 U.S. presidential candidates is a bit unorthodox. He's Canadian, his political base of operations is the B.C. Marijuana Party in Vancouver, and he can be arrested if he sets foot into America. Still, "We have a saying up here: 'American politics is far too important to leave to the Americans,'" says Emery, 49, who is trying to raise cross-border support for dark-horse White House candidates. He likes liberal Democrat Dennis Kucinich well enough, but prefers Republican Ron Paul, a longtime libertarian who, like Emery, opposes the U.S. war on drugs. [continues 1000 words]
LAST week, the Los Angeles City Council voted for a measure that asked the federal government to stop harassing medical-marijuana users in California. Minutes later, the Drug Enforcement Administration raided 10 medical-marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles County. The disrespect for local judgments on local matters could not have been starker. Determined to maintain anti-drug orthodoxy, the DEA is running wild in the laboratories of democracy, smashing experiments in reform and injuring innocent bystanders. The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed this cruel crusade to continue based on the premise that a cancer or AIDS patient who grows a few marijuana plants to relieve his pain or nausea is engaged in interstate commerce and therefore subject to federal regulation. As for Congress, on the day of the L.A. raids, the House again rejected a measure aimed at restraining the DEA. [continues 536 words]
(1) DEA RAIDS 10 POT SHOPS Pubdate: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 Source: Los Angeles Times (CA) Copyright: 2007 Los Angeles Times Author: Steve Hymon, Times Staff Writer Agents Hit the Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Shortly After the L.A. City Council Bars New Facilities for a Year to Write Better Regulations. The gap between state and federal drug laws became apparent again Wednesday when federal agents raided 10 local medical marijuana facilities only minutes after the Los Angeles City Council placed a moratorium on new facilities so rules could be drafted to better regulate them. [continues 7838 words]
Whipping westward across Manhattan in a limousine sent by Comedy Central's "Daily Show," Ron Paul, the 10-term Texas congressman and long-shot Republican presidential candidate, is being briefed. Paul has only the most tenuous familiarity with Comedy Central. He has never heard of "The Daily Show." His press secretary, Jesse Benton, is trying to explain who its host, Jon Stewart, is. "He's an affable gentleman," Benton says, "and he's very smart. What I'm getting from the pre-interview is, he's sympathetic." [continues 5088 words]
OSNABROCK, N.D. - David C. Monson seems an improbable soul to find at the leading edge of a national movement to legalize growing hemp, a plant that shares a species name, a genus type and, in many circles, a reputation, with marijuana. As Mr. Monson rolls past his wheat, barley and shimmering yellow fields of canola, he listens to Rush Limbaugh in his tractor. When he is not farming, he is the high school principal in nearby Edinburg, population 252. When he is not teaching, he is a Republican representative in Bismarck, the state capital, where his party dominates both houses of the legislature and the governor is a Republican. [continues 1143 words]
So this is how he is: The chief lobbyist for the Marijuana Policy Project has short, clean-cut blond hair, and wears crisp, dark suits and conservative red-and-blue patterned ties. There is not a hint of dope pusher about him. He's 28, married with three children, and possesses a boyish face, easy laugh and driven demeanor. He doesn't even have a tattoo. And his office? Downtown Geekville. His desk is neat and tidy. Volumes of Riddick's Senate Procedure and Deschler-Brown Precedents of the U.S. House of Representatives are displayed prominently on it. Like other buttoned-up lobbyists, he dines at locales such as Bistro Bis, The Monocle and Sonoma. [continues 828 words]
A quick look at the list of those who have donated to presidential hopeful Congressman Ron Paul shows a diverse mix of people, including several engineers and investment firms and some who support the legalization of marijuana. Most all of the donors, listed at www.opensecrets.org, are private individuals backing the campaign of the Lake Jackson Republican, said Kent Snyder, Paul's campaign manager. Paul has been a successful fund raiser, getting many donations via the Internet from private individuals, Snyder said. [continues 431 words]
"The Navajo Nation and a number of different Indian reservations have passed legislation to grow industrial hemp, but they are all waiting for me to get it legalized, so I have to do a lot of work. " - Alex White Plume http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2007/standing/update.html The former governor's connections to abusive "tough love" camps Maia Szalavitz, June 27, 2007 http://www.reason.com/news/show/121088.html Enraged by his city's unfair drug policies, the Newark mayor vows to stop being polite and start making a difference. [continues 383 words]
At least 10 of the 18 Democratic and Republican presidential candidates are now on the record in favor of ending the Drug Enforcement Administration's raids on medical marijuana and/or the federal government's prohibition on medical marijuana. Thanks to the Marijuana Policy Project's work, seven candidates have publicly pledged to end the DEA's raids in states where medical marijuana is legal: Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M., and former Gov. Tommy Thompson, R-Wis. [continues 296 words]
Countries urged to provide greater health care to drug addicts. http://www.unodc.org/unodc/world_drug_report.html Two Supreme Court cases show the perils of making excuses for censorship. By Jacob Sullum, June 27, 2007 http://www.reason.com/news/show/121073.html By Anthony Papa, June 25, 2007 On June 25th student free speech joined the panoply of endangered fundamental rights ready to be stripped away from us due to the tragedy of the drug war. [continues 279 words]
Affable and unassuming, Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas steps into a crowded Holiday Inn lobby packed with libertarian activists. They all know him by name. "I haven't seen you in two years," bellows Dick Marple, a former Republican state representative who leans over a vending table and plants a New Hampshire pin on the congressman's tie. Minutes later Paul receives a standing ovation following an anti-war speech that blisters President Bush, the Republican Party and Democrats. "It's another no-win war where Americans are dying needlessly," the Lake Jackson congressman told the New Hampshire Liberty Forum. [continues 1030 words]
It is high time for bipartisan cooperation. Representative Ron Paul, the libertarian Texas Republican, is sponsoring HR 1009, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2007, a bill that would remove restrictions on cultivating nonpsychoactive industrial hemp on United States farms. Mr. Paul joins nine Democratic co-sponsors, including Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, the vegan Ohio Democrat, who, like Mr. Paul, is running for president. This could prove a burning issue in the 2008 campaign. Or not. Hemp is a variety of Cannabis sativa, a plant commonly grown for industrial use around the world, but not in the United States. A more potent variety is known to pot smokers worldwide as marijuana. "It is indefensible that the United States government prevents American farmers from growing this crop," Mr. Paul said in a statement. [end]
