Double bravo to Ellen Goodman's article on the medical marijuana progress in Canada. But she is perilously wrong on one count about the situation here in the US. She says: "The feds aren't likely to crack down on the terminally ill, nor are law enforcers eager to rip joints out of the hands of AIDS patients." In reality, the feds and law enforcers get downright mean when those ill patients speak up: First, life-long cancer patient Todd McCormick, who sits in jail now because he grew a lot of pot only to study and write a book on medical marijuana. [continues 183 words]
Ann McCormick - Seattle was incredible. So HUGE!!!!! It's great to be here with you tonight. What do you want to talk about? Oh! This is Ann... Richard Lake - Hi, Ann I posted the links to your pictures and the fest site pictures a few messages back. Your Seattle pictures are looking fine now. You could start by telling us a little about the fests? Glad to see you home safely, you road warrior, you! Richard dean_becker - Hi Ann! There's so much to talk about. First off, tell us how Todd is doing, please. [continues 3557 words]
reneeboje Hello all and thank you for having me this evening! I am excited to be a part of this important forum! I have been given an amazing opportunity to help shape the relationship between Canada and the United States in relation to victims of the War on Drugs, especially marijuana for medical purposes. I am fighting extradition from Canada to the US because the US Federal authorities want to lock me up in a US Federal Prison for a mandatory minimum of 10 years to life for medical marijuana charges, that I got in California, where medical marijuana is legal. [continues 4001 words]
Judge Gray: lets start with a opening statement Dean_Becker: Welcome to our DrugSense Chat with Judge Jim Gray! We expect quite a few Judge Gray: Good evening. My name is Judge James P. Gray and I am looking forward to having a discussion with you about drug policy which in my view is the most critical issue facing our country today. Judge Gray: Based upon my background as a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, a criminal defense attorney in Navy JAG and as a trial judge in Orange County California since 1983. I believe we must change away from our laws of Drug Prohibition and develop a policy based upon truthful drug education, drug treatment, depofitization of these often dangerous drugs, and, most importantly, individual responsibility. [continues 4659 words]
Judge Gray: fatfreddy, the federal gov't does not have the resources to prosecute everyday crimes like possession of hemp or marijuana. Like with medical marijuana all they really can do is scare people with threats. Darral Good: Judge, your thoughts on the SCOTUS medical marijuana decision?: Chris_Buors: The jury was meant in English law to be a last resort against the tyranny of Government Ginger: A judge is only supposed to monitor the trial to ensure that it's fair. The jury is supposed to try the defendant, not you, Judge. [continues 3588 words]
Providers Of Medical Marijuana Are Cautious In Wake Of Supreme Court Ruling The U.S. Supreme Court decision that denied the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative the right to claim a medical necessity defense under federal law on behalf of its patient-members left California's medical marijuana law (and the similar laws in eight other states) intact. But it created areas of uncertainty and possible vulnerability for patients and their caregivers that could take months or even years to sort out. [continues 1565 words]
The most disappointing aspect of the U.S. Supreme Court's 8-0 decision to deny the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative a "medical necessity" defense against marijuana production and distribution charges under federal law is that it was written by Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Thomas is the justice I am most inclined to admire, for his sometime independence of thought and his keen awareness of the possibility of oppression by federal agencies. He is also the only justice to have publicly acknowledged smoking marijuana himself, while a student at Yale Law School. [continues 1610 words]
A Medical Marijuana Advocate & Grower Flees Prosecution In The US For Freedom In Canada On July 29th, 1997, while leaving the home of her friend Todd McCormick, Renee Boje was stopped by two police officers. Handcuffed and read her rights, she was brought to a local fire station where 60 agents of the DEA, the IRS's criminal investigative unit, and the LA County Sheriff's Department waited in riot gear to raid her friend's Bel Air home. Renee had become the first arrest in the federal government's operation against a man that the local press would later dub "the Pot Prince of Bel Air. [continues 2544 words]
Number of Americans arrested since 1970 on marijuana-related charges: over 13 million Estimated U.S. deaths in year 2000 attributed to TOBACCO: 400,000 ALCOHOL: 110,000 PRESCRIPTION DRUGS: 100,000 SUICIDE: 30,000 MURDER: 15,000 OVER-THE-COUNTER PAINKILLERS: 7,600 MARIJUANA: 0 "One of the problems that the marijuana-reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer-madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could." [continues 2590 words]
Number of Americans arrested since 1970 on marijuana-related charges: over 13 million Estimated U.S. deaths in year 2000 attributed to TOBACCO: 400,000 ALCOHOL: 110,000 PRESCRIPTION DRUGS: 100,000 SUICIDE: 30,000 MURDER: 15,000 OVER-THE-COUNTER PAINKILLERS: 7,600 MARIJUANA: 0 "One of the problems that the marijuana-reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer-madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could." [continues 2272 words]
Politics: The Ceaseless Argument Over Who Gets To Do What To Whom, For How Long, And Against What Degree Of Dissent. When Senator Ron Volesky (D-Huron) introduced a medical cannabis bill in the South Dakota legislature in January, he specified the appropriate medical conditions for marijuana therapy as "glaucoma and nausea from cancer chemotherapy", thus excluding all other medical conditions for which cannabis might have an application. I testified in the Senate State Affairs Committee that the conditions under which one might use cannabis legally should be broadened to all conditions in which patient and doctor concur in the therapeutic use of cannabis. [continues 1428 words]
Twelve Months in the Life of Marijuana Prohibition One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could. --Richard Cowan, former head of NORML, now editor of Marijuana News. http://www.marijuananews.com/ [continues 1960 words]
A list of the people pardoned or commuted Saturday before President Clinton left office, as released by the White House: COMMUTED: Benjamin Berger Ronald Henderson Blackley Bert Wayne Bolan Gloria Libia Camargo Charles F. Campbell David Ronald Chandler Lau Ching Chin Donald R. Clark Loreta De-Ann Coffman Derrick Curry Velinda Desalus Jacob Elbaum Linda Sue Evans Loretta Sharon Fish Antoinette M. Frink David Goldstein Gerard A. Greenfield Jodie E. Israel Kimberly Johnson Billy Thornton Langston Jr. Belinda Lynn Lumpkin Peter MacDonald [continues 464 words]
The Gentlest Ride Into Hell Americans Have Ever Experienced Recent history judges a President on two things: the state of the economy and foreign affairs. During his two terms in office President Bill Clinton presided over a booming stock market and managed to avoid any unseemly military quagmires. Thus, despite dozens of personal scandals and serious political-and perhaps criminal-problems, he'll probably be remembered as a great, if flawed, leader. But not to the millions who've fallen prey to the Clinton Drug War machine, the most well-oiled policing apparatus America has ever known. [continues 4210 words]
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- If members of For a Better Ohio had their way, the state legislature would pass a law allowing Ohioans with illnesses to smoke marijuana to alleviate pain. The organization is sending Ohio legislatures a bill proposal because it believes it is a patient's right to use marijuana if a physician deems it will be helpful in alleviating the patient's illness. "Thousands of research studies have stated marijuana has many medical values," said Al Byrne, the co-founder of For a Better Ohio. "A 1999 research study funded by the Clinton government, which questioned the medical aspects of marijuana, contradicted every claim the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) previously stated, by classifying marijuana as a schedule-one drug." [continues 505 words]
"One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could." –Richard Cowan [continues 3296 words]
Californians will now try to treat drug users rather than use the truncheon. Malcolm Knox reports. Robert Downey jnr, arrested for drug possession in Palm Springs last week, has been flooded with support from his Hollywood mates. Even an arch-conservative like Mel Gibson says he hopes his troubled fellow actor will be allowed to sort out his problems without having to return to jail. Thanks to a law passed by voters on November 7, Downey (who is still, surreally, starring in Ally McBeal each week) may evade a jail term on more solid grounds than mere Hollywood goodwill. [continues 1194 words]
Regarding your Oct. 6 news story, " 'Compassionate release' may come in time for Glancy to die in R.I.": If serious illness is a criterion for releasing federal prisoners, then it is time for federal authorities to release Rhode Island native and childhood cancer survivor Todd McCormick from a federal prison in California, where he has been in solitary confinement for several months. Todd is a medical marijuana patient and victim of the Clinton-Gore administration's failed "War on Drugs." Todd has a severe spinal condition, tumors, cancer and the pelvis of a nine-year-old. His co-defendant, the late author Peter Mcwilliams, an AIDS/cancer patient, choked to death on his own vomit last June, because a federal judge ordered him not to use the medical marijuana he needed to keep his AIDS medications down while on bail awaiting sentencing. [continues 96 words]
In their zealous pursuit of justice, American officials seem content to disregard the individual rights of their own citizens. One would hope that officials would honour their own law, California's Proposition 215, the Compassion Care Act that made it legal for seriously ill persons to purchase and use marijuana if recommended by a doctor. The law was voted upon by the same public who put these people in office. Does the United States not have compassion for the terminally ill? I can think of no greater indignity than placing a terminally ill man in solitary confinement. What benefit does this serve? None. [continues 920 words]
Renee Boje, Now A Roberts Creek Resident, Hopes That Canada's Justice Minister Will Reject Extradition Request. OTTAWA - With her peasant skirts, willowy looks and gentle voice, Renee Boje appears to be just the sort of flower child one would expect to meet at Roberts Creek on B.C.'s Sunshine Coast. But not everyone agrees. U.S. drug enforcement officials insist Boje, 30, is a serious criminal on the run from justice, a woman guilty of such a terrible crime that she must be punished as harshly as rapists and murderers. [continues 1569 words]
