Marijuana is the most valuable cash crop in the United States, worth more to its growers than corn and wheat combined, according to a new report by a leading American drug reform lobbyist that cites the US government's own figures. Decades of government efforts to crack down on both the cultivation and consumption of pot have had a counter-productive effect, since even the most conservative government estimates suggest domestic marijuana production has increased tenfold in the past 25 years. It is the leading cash crop in 12 states, and one of the top five crops in 39 states. [continues 393 words]
LOS ANGELES - Marijuana is the most valuable cash crop in the United States, worth more to its growers than corn and wheat combined, according to a new report by a leading American drug reform lobbyist that cites the US government's own figures. Decades of government efforts to crack down on both the cultivation and consumption of pot have had a counter-productive effect, since even the most conservative government estimates suggest domestic marijuana production has increased tenfold in the past 25 years. [continues 416 words]
Conservatives Should Do Milton Friedman's Unfinished Business Shell-shocked conservatives should embrace the unfinished agenda of a five-foot-tall free-market giant. Milton Friedman -- 1976's Nobel economics laureate, and both an elevated theorist and fathomable popularizer of capitalist ideas -- passed away November 16 at age 94. The Hoover Institution senior research fellow leaves behind the PBS series Free to Choose, some 25 books, and hundreds of articles, much of this co-produced with Rose, his wife of 68 years. Thousands of academics and think-tank scholars -- inspired by his faith in individual liberty, limited government, and private enterprise -- advance his philosophy of human freedom. [continues 1066 words]
Tributes flowed last week after the death of Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman in San Francisco. The accolades lauded the "grand-master" of free-market economic theory as one of the 20th-century leading scholars of economic conservatism. But did you know that Friedman's passing was also lamented by the Washington-based Marijuana Policy Project? "Dr. Friedman was a lifetime dues-paying member of MPP and a strong advocate for ending marijuana prohibition," the organization's executive director, Rob Kampia, said in a news release. [continues 93 words]
While election night saw voters call for sweeping changes in Congress, drug-law reformers were handed a more mixed bag: Three statewide marijuana-law reform initiatives tanked at the polls, while local initiatives in 10 cities across the country sailed through to passage. Notably, in Eureka Springs, Ark.; Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Santa Monica, Calif.; and Missoula, Mont., voters approved municipal initiatives to decriminalize and/or classify minor pot possession and use by adults as the lowest priority for local police. [continues 862 words]
YVONNE Westbrook of Oakland uses medical marijuana to control the spasms of multiple sclerosis. Valium left her with a heavy, drugged feeling. "A few tokes and the spasticity calms right down," she noted in the documentary "Waiting to Inhale," which will be shown at the Oakland International Film Festival on Thursday. Irvin Rosenfeld sees marijuana as "a muscle relaxing anti-inflammatory" that helps him with multiple congenital cartilaginous exostosis. Without it, he explains, he would be dead or on disability, not a stockbroker who pays taxes. [continues 596 words]
Last week C-Notes described the unmitigated gratitude with which pro-marijuana activists greeted an anti-prohibition op-ed by George Melloan in the Wall St. Journal. I questioned Melloan's motives and his decency, quoting a subsequent op-ed in which he made light of the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by the U.S. bombing and embargo of Iraq between 1991 and 2003. I did not anticipate that knocking George Melloan in the Anderson Valley Advertiser would annoy "progressive" activists back East, but it did, thanks to the Internet. A participant in the Alliance of Reform Organizations' chatroom forwarded this sigh of contempt from Doug McVay, Director of Research, Common Sense for Drug Policy, and Editor/Webmaster, Drug War Facts: [continues 1654 words]
The study's results show marijuana users are less depressed than non-users. A recent study co-authored by a USC College researcher has discovered that there is no real link between regular use marijuana and symptoms of depression, dispelling a widely held assumption regarding the drug's use. Tom Denson, a USC doctoral candidate in psychology worked with Mitch Earleywine, an associate professor at the State University of New York, Albany, in conducting the study and writing the report. To Denson's surprise, the study found marijuana smokers to be less depressed than their non-smoking counterparts. The study was reported in the scientific medical journal "Addictive Behaviors" in June 2005. [continues 573 words]
With medical marijuana locked in legal battles from California to the U.S. Supreme Court, the head of a national marijuana policy group said Sunday that Kansas may be ready to start the legalization process for the embattled weed. Rob Kampia, president of the Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group, said at a forum Sunday that he was headed to Topeka today to test the climate for a possible medical marijuana legalization push. "It's tricky business," Kampia said of passing and enforcing state laws that decriminalize marijuana for medicinal uses, which has been approved in 11 states to treat pain and nausea in cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis patients. [continues 336 words]
The San Diego Libertarian Party, critical of the county's handling of its pension crisis, threw its support firmly behind a proposal to limit county supervisors' service to two terms. The action came during its annual convention here last weekend. Language for such a proposition, earmarked for the November ballot, already has been submitted to the Registrar of Voters by medical marijuana proponents. They're striking back at San Diego supervisors for not only refusing to implement a state proposition allowing medical marijuana use, but for filing a court action to overturn the measure. [continues 78 words]
Canada immigration authorities seem intent on sending Steve Kubby back to the U.S., which could be a death sentence for the prominent activist. Kubby, 58, suffers from a rare form of adrenal cancer that has been in remission since the 1980s thanks to cannabis use. Judge Yvon Picard will rule any day now on his last, desperate appeal to remain north of the border. Kubby and his wife Michele were busted in January '99 for growing 265 indoor plants (more than half of them unsexed seedlings) at their home in Squaw Valley. Placer County prosecutors charged that the plants were for sale to Bay Area clubs; the Kubbys maintained they were for personal use. [continues 1011 words]
Supervisors Want To Overturn Law Two out of three San Diego County voters support the state law allowing sick and dying patients to use marijuana, according to a poll scheduled to be released today. An even wider majority said county supervisors should not spend public money trying to overturn the law. A Washington, D.C., advocacy group called the Marijuana Policy Project commissioned the poll after the San Diego County Board of Supervisors refused late last year to implement the state medical marijuana law. [continues 336 words]
Rhode Island Follows Through on Medical Marijuana When it comes to the legalization of medical marijuana in Rhode Island, the question has generally been when -- not if -- it would happen. Sure, Republican governor Donald L. Carcieri, whose vetoes have withstood the Democratic-controlled General Assembly in the past, could cite a litany of concerns, from distribution to the fear that legalizing medical marijuana will make it far more available to children. But by resoundingly overriding Carcieri's veto in a 59-13 vote, the Rhode Island House of Representatives on Tuesday embraced the compassionate theme long sounded by proponents. [continues 597 words]
PROVIDENCE -- People who suffer from cancer, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, and a variety of other debilitating diseases now have a new medication option: marijuana. In a series of lopsided votes cast even before they officially opened their 2006 sessions, the House and Senate Tuesday overrode Gov. Donald Carcieri's vetoes of identical 2005 bills that remove the threat of arrest, prosecution and forfeiture by state and local authorities of people who use marijuana to relieve pain, nausea and other symptoms as recommended by a doctor. [continues 834 words]
PROVIDENCE -- People who suffer from cancer, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, and a variety of other debilitating diseases now have a new medication option: marijuana. In a series of lopsided votes cast even before they officially opened their 2006 sessions, the House and Senate Tuesday overrode Gov. Donald Carcieri's vetoes of identical 2005 bills that remove the threat of arrest, prosecution and forfeiture by state and local authorities of people who use marijuana to relieve pain, nausea and other symptoms as recommended by a doctor. [continues 832 words]
House Speaker William J. Murphy Welcomes the Legislators Back into Session by Urging Them to Work Together and Put Petty Politics Aside. PROVIDENCE -- Rhode Island became the 11th state yesterday to allow the use of marijuana to ease the pain of people suffering from serious and chronic illnesses such as AIDS and cancer. Patients whose doctors or caregivers recommend marijuana will soon be able to possess up to 12 plants, or 2.5 ounces of marijuana. The new law protects them from arrest under state law, but does nothing to stop federal prosecution, leaving some critics to call the measure nothing more than a symbolic act. [continues 1279 words]
Replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation similar to that used for alcoholic beverages would produce combined savings and tax revenues of between $10 billion and $14 billion per year -- finds a June 2005 report by Dr. Jeffrey Miron, visiting professor of economics at Harvard University. The report has been endorsed by more than 530 distinguished economists, who have signed an open letter to President Bush and other public officials calling for "an open and honest debate about marijuana prohibition," adding, "We believe such a debate will favor a regime in which marijuana is legal, but taxed and regulated like other goods." [continues 388 words]
BOCA RATON, Fla. (CNS)- Despite a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that many considered a blow to the medical-marijuana movement, supporters of such laws have pressed on with state ballot initiatives and lobbying campaigns, the director of a marijuana-policy reform group told an audience at Florida Atlantic University Wednesday. Rhode Island is teetering on the edge of becoming the eleventh state to allow patients to use marijuana medically, and two Michigan cities have medical-marijuana ballot initiatives coming up in the next few weeks, Rob Kampia, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project said. [continues 324 words]
A small clarification is required regarding The Sun's story on Rob Kampia's talk at the University of Florida ("Pro-pot group pushes marijuana reforms," Oct. 19). The Marijuana Policy Project is not "pro-pot," as your headline indicated. We do not advocate or encourage the use of any drug, including marijuana. We simply believe that criminal prohibition has completely failed as a means of reducing the harm associated with marijuana, and in fact causes far more harm than it prevents. [continues 80 words]
BOCA RATON -- Despite a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that many considered a blow to the medical-marijuana movement, supporters of such laws have pressed on with state ballot initiatives and lobbying campaigns, the director of a marijuana-policy reform group told an audience at Florida Atlantic University Wednesday. Rhode Island is teetering on the edge of becoming the 11th state to allow patients to use marijuana medically, and two Michigan cities have medical-marijuana ballot initiatives coming up in the next few weeks, said Rob Kampia, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project. [continues 326 words]
