Hoping to give an appeals court time to rule, the Drug Enforcement Administration said yesterday that it will extend a grace period for companies to dispose of food products made with hemp, a plant containing small amounts of the same psychoactive substance found in marijuana. In early October, shortly after Asa Hutchinson became DEA administrator, the agency issued a rule that effectively banned "any product that contains any amount" of the active substance in marijuana, known as tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. Hemp, a close relative of the marijuana plant, does not contain enough of the substance to have a mind-altering effect or to show up on most drug tests. Nevertheless, the guidelines still applied to the dozens of pretzels, snack bars and other food products that are made with hemp seed oil, giving stores and manufacturers until early this month to dispose of them all. [continues 247 words]
Hoping to give an appeals court time to rule, the Drug Enforcement Administration said yesterday that it would extend a grace period for companies to dispose of food products made from hemp, a plant containing small amounts of the same psychoactive substance found in marijuana. In early October, shortly after Asa Hutchinson became D.E.A. administrator, the agency issued a rule that effectively banned "any product that contains any amount" of the active substance in marijuana, known as tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. [continues 326 words]
Dean Becker The New York Times and the Participants of the Drug Policy Forum are proud to announce the Guest appearance on our screens, to answer questions about the decades old drug war, the Governor of the Great State of New Mexico, Gary Johnson! Governor Gary Johnson Hello. This is Governor Johnson. Thank you for all of your questions. I will answer as many as I can within the next hour (until 4 PM Mountain time). Mr. Freedom Governor Johnson, Thank you for being here, and for your public stance on the issue of marijuana legalization. [continues 2229 words]
Re: the feds' crackdown on medical marijuana: We tended the marijuana garden run by patients under the provisions of Proposition 215, located at our Ventura County ranch, which was uprooted by the Drug Enforcement Agency. We are sad to announce that we must suspend cultivation activities until such time as the legal issues surrounding the Sept. 28 and Oct. 25 raids on the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Cooperative can be resolved. After five years of safe and reliable access to medical marijuana, closure of the LACRC Co-Op Dispensary is, as Los Angeles Sheriff's Capt. Lynda Castro said, "a difficult pill to swallow." [continues 581 words]
A country that prides itself on freedom and justice should not arrest the seriously ill for using marijuana as a medicine. Common sense and compassion for the suffering of one's fellows dictate that they shouldn't be arrested for seeking relief from their suffering. But they are being arrested in the United States. The federal government continues to enforce federal marijuana laws against medical marijuana users even in states which have enacted legislation specifically allowing such use. We need to end this injustice by changing the federal law to allow medicinal use of marijuana when recommended by a doctor. [continues 1192 words]
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 -- The House passed legislation to fight money laundering today by a 412-to-1 vote, setting the stage for final approval of the measure that would require American banks to know who their depositors are and authorize a cutoff of banking ties to nations refusing to assist United States law enforcement authorities. On another measure sought by the Bush administration that would allow wiretapping and eavesdropping on terrorist suspects, the House and Senate reached a compromise tonight under which the expanded authority would expire in four years, The Associated Press reported. [continues 629 words]
WASHINGTON -- The House overwhelmingly approved legislation Wednesday aimed at making it more difficult for terrorists, drug traffickers and other criminals to launder money, but lawmakers dropped a provision barring credit-card use for Internet gambling. As their staffs were preparing to evacuate their Capitol Hill offices to make way for an anthrax sweep, lawmakers voted 412-1 for a bill that would, among other things, make it a crime to secretly carry $10,000 or more in cash across U.S. borders; allow the Treasury secretary to set special controls on transactions with banks or countries suspected of money laundering; and force banks to collect more information about their wealthy private-banking clients and correspondent-banking partners. [continues 278 words]
Regarding the column by John Nichols, "Obey lays out his credo and lives it," of August 9. There is one issue that Rep. Obey will not lay out his credo on, and that is his stance on the federal medicinal marijuana bills, Hr 1344 and the new bipartisan version, HR 2592, both sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank, (D-MA). While Rep. Obey's office did meet with Wisconsin patients last April, his staff has not responded to letters and phone calls asking for his position on these bills and this issue. [continues 150 words]
Canada is just finishing a round of radically liberalizing its marijuana laws. For many UI students, this is good news: more marijuana, more legal, and closer to home. Particularly novel is that Canada will soon legalize marijuana farming for the medicinal market. This is a step unseen throughout the world. Hash use is widely permitted in many European countries. Several states have attempted to legalize pot for pharmaceutical use. However, none but Canada has gone so far as to permit private marijuana production. [continues 720 words]
Medical Marijuana Ruling Puts Spotlight On Pending Legislation The national debate over medical marijuana shifted back to the U.S. Congress last month after the Supreme Court handed down an exceedingly narrow decision allowing federal prosecutors to halt the distribution services of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative (OCBC). The pressure is now on Congress to reconsider a well-traveled House bill that would bring federal drug laws more in line with the will of voters in states that support medical cannabis. [continues 2387 words]
Right Joins Left In Call For An End To The Drug War The American drug war may yet grind on, but one by one, the troops are hiking out. Right-wingers like Jesse Ventura, Gary Johnson, Dan Quayle, William F. Buckley, and George Schultz have all voiced support for either ending the costly campaign of interdiction and imprisonment, or at least decriminalizing pot. Through the years, in statements little-noted or splashed onto front pages, they've aligned themselves with leaders around the world, all standing in unlikely opposition to the frat-boy chief commander in the White House. President Bush shows no sign of yielding, instead choosing to harden his stance. In May, announcing the appointment of a drug czar who makes John Ashcroft look like a hippie, Bush thundered, "John Walters and I believe the only humane and compassionate response to drug use is a moral refusal to accept it. We emphatically disagree with those who favor drug legalization." [continues 1623 words]
Right Joins Left in Call for an End to the Drug War The American drug war may yet grind on, but one by one, the troops are hiking out. Right-wingers like Jesse Ventura, Gary Johnson, Dan Quayle, William F. Buckley, and George Schultz have all voiced support for either ending the costly campaign of interdiction and imprisonment, or at least decriminalizing pot. Through the years, in statements little-noted or splashed onto front pages, they've aligned themselves with leaders around the world, all standing in unlikely opposition to the frat-boy chief commander in the White House. [continues 2655 words]
Now That Washington Has Turned Its Repressive Drug Policies Against Students, A Growing Campus Network Is Fighting Back When Shawn Heller and Brian Gralnick joined Students for Sensible Drug Policy in 1998, as sophomores at George Washington University, SSDP was just a handful of students from Rochester Institute of Technology. One of them, Kris Lotlikar, was working in Washington, D.C. at the Drug Reform Coordination Network. Heller met Lotlikar and started the second SSDP chapter, which soon included Gralnick. Their focus was decriminalizing marijuana for medical purposes - until Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind,) decided to target college students with drug convictions who were seeking federal loans. In October 1998, a law was passed as part of the Higher Education Act that prohibits any applicant with an adult drug conviction from receiving federal financial aid. No other group, including convicted murders, was similarly excluded. The Drug War had just hit college campuses. [continues 961 words]
Here's a number that offers telling reasons for voting for Ralph Nader in the fall. Nine Democrats. Not even double digits. Last week, the U.S. Senate finally voted $934 million to wage war in Colombia. The House voted earlier this year to provide $1.7 billion in anti-narcotics aid for Colombia over a two-year period. The Senate bill only covers the first year. So where does the "nine Democrats" number figure in this picture? The sum total of puissant legislators who voted for Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone's amendment, which would have taken $225 million from the $934 million and spent it instead on domestic drug treatment programs, consisted of nine Democrats and two Republicans. Here they are: Boxer, D-Calif. (co-sponsor); Grams, R-Minn.; (Patty) Murray, D-Wash.; Byrd, D-W.Va.; Harkin, D-Iowa; Specter, R-Pa.; Dorgan, D-N.D.; Leahy, D-Vt.; Wellstone, D-Minn.; Feingold, D-Wis.; Mikulski, D-Md. [continues 850 words]
You won't find the latest good news about our war in the foreign-news section of the paper. That's because this war is being fought at home. But you won't find it in the domestic-news section, either. That's because the media are barely reporting anything outside the talking points of the presidential candidates. And George W. Bush and Al Gore would rather talk about drugs they did or didn't take than mention America's ongoing drug war unless to say that we need to get tougher. [continues 955 words]
You won't find the latest good news about our war in the foreign-news section of the paper. That's because this war is being fought at home. But you won't find it in the domestic-news section, either. That's because the media are barely reporting anything outside the talking points of the presidential candidates. And George W. Bush and Al Gore would rather talk about drugs they did or didn't take than mention America's ongoing drug war -- unless to say that we need to get tougher. [continues 905 words]
WASHINGTON - A bill that significantly toughens federal laws and prison sentences for possession of a powerful ``date rape'' drug has passed the House and been sent to President Clinton for his signature. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., the bill's House sponsor, said Clinton indicated he would sign the bill. GHB, or gamma hydroxybutyrate, has been linked to at least 58 deaths since 1990 and more than 5,700 recorded overdoses, the Drug Enforcement Administration has said. A few drops of the drug, which is colorless and odorless, can be slipped into a drink, rendering a victim unconscious within 20 minutes. Victims frequently have no memory of what happened, and the drug is difficult to trace, often leaving the body within 24 hours. [continues 263 words]
[...snip...] For the last 15 or 20 years, the Republicans and Democrats have used what they call "wedge issues," issues on which people's opinions are strong and that can therefore be used to induce them to abandon their traditional political behavior. The first wedge issue that we know about in American political history was slavery, an issue that, beginning in the mid-1840s, caused people to abandon their traditional political behavior and established the Republican Party as the nation's majority party by the end of the Civil War. [continues 944 words]
WASHINGTON -- The Senate approved a bill Friday to crack down on abusers of so-called "date-rape drugs." The legislation is named for girls from Texas and Michigan who died after consuming drug-laced soft drinks. If signed into law, the bill would put gamma hydroxybutyric acid -- an odorless drug that can be made at home -- in the same category as hard drugs, such as cocaine and heroin. "This is one of the most important pieces of legislation to pass the Senate," said Sen. Spencer Abraham, a Michigan Republican who sponsored the bill. "These date-rape drugs are wreaking havoc on our youth. It's time to crack down on those sexual predators that use them." [continues 274 words]
