Nov. 8 Initiative Would Authorize 15 % Tax on Retail Sales Ofmarijuana in California SAN FRANCISCO - California voters will decide again this November whether to decriminalize the recreational use of marijuana by adults, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday, calling the looming vote a "pivotal moment" in the national debate around pot legalization and the 45-year-old war on drugs. Newsom and other leaders of a coalition behind the Adult Use of Marijuana Act announced they have collected enough signatures to place on the Nov. 8 ballot a measure that would make it legal for adults 21 and older to possess, sell or transport up to an ounce of pot. California voters rejected a similar measure in 2010. [continues 782 words]
Gavin Newsom Says Too Many People Are in Jail for Drugs He and Others Point to 2010 Effort As Turning Point in Debate Opponents Unveil Their Campaign, Begin Critiquing Details The coalition behind the campaign to legalize recreational marijuana in California launched Wednesday, vowing to avoid the stumbles that undermined past efforts here to legitimize the drug. The as-yet unnumbered initiative aiming for November has begun submitting more than 600,000 signatures, far more than the 365,000 needed. It was California that led the legalization debate six years ago with Proposition 19, a pivotal moment in the national discourse that spurred Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska to formally recognize cannabis, California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom said at the downtown event. [continues 574 words]
In a milestone victory for the cannabis industry, the federal government agreed to drop its four-year bid to shut down Oakland's Harborside Health Center, the biggest medical marijuana dispensary in the country with more than 100,000 patients, city leaders said Tuesday. The Department of Justice did not immediately comment on the deal, which Harborside said still needed to be finalized, with all of the parties in the legal fight signing off. But Oakland officials joined the pot dispensary in an exultant news conference at City Hall, heralding a move they saw as symbolic of a federal withdrawal in the battle against an industry that is steadily marching toward acceptance - and is viewed in Oakland not as a scourge but an economic engine. [continues 1035 words]
The Industry Is Intensifying Its Battle Against Pesticide Rules. The Colorado marijuana industry is stepping up its fight against the state's efforts to regulate the application of pesticides on cannabis. After passing in the state House, a bill that would have codified Gov. John Hickenlooper's November executive order - telling state agencies that any marijuana grown with unapproved pesticides is a threat to public safety and should be removed from commerce and destroyed-died in a state Senate committee last week. [continues 632 words]
California blazed a trail to legalize medical marijuana 20 years ago. But the Golden State is only now confronting the full complexity of regulating consumer safety and business practices in an industry that's ballooned to an estimated $2.7 billion annually. It's no simple task, requiring startup-like coordination and enforcement across a dozen state agencies looking to rein in a sector of the economy that has thrived in a decidedly spotty patchwork of local oversight. California's lack of control over the industry thus far has not gone unnoticed, according to John Hudak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who focuses on marijuana policies. [continues 1263 words]
Job Could Be One of Highest-Paid in State Government State health officials want to hire someone to keep an eye on marijuana legalization - at potentially one of the highest salaries in state government. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is advertising a position for a "marijuana health effects and research manager." The job will involve monitoring the health consequences of legalization; gathering data from hospitals, emergency rooms and poison control centers; and helping to lead an advisory committee that produces a report on legalization's outcomes. [continues 270 words]
Dear Stoner: Why did the annual 4/20 rally (the one with Lil Wayne and Wiz, canceled on April 16) have to jump through so many obstacles for a permit, but the stoner fest at Civic Center on April 20 was just fine? Scott Dear Scott: The Official 4/20 Rally isn't just a group of potheads coming together; it comes with vendor booths, food carts and musical performances, and it requires tickets to get in, with some of the VIP tickets costing significant amounts of money. Because of all those commercial factors, the City of Denver considers it a "special event," so the event's organizers must register with the city for permits to hold the rally at Civic Center Park every year. And it's not just one or two permits that are needed: After notifying the surrounding neighborhood of the event, organizers must obtain permits from the Denver Fire Department, the Denver Police Department, Excise and Licenses and the Department of Environmental Health - and that's just the first four, with more to go after that. Unfortunately for everyone on April 16, Mother Nature doesn't issue permits. [continues 251 words]
A Victoria police officer who won a human-rights complaint against the force says "on the ground" experience led him to support drug legalization - and he says he doesn't think he's alone on the force. Constable David Bratzer was awarded $ 20,000 last week after the B. C. Human Rights Tribunal ruled the Victoria Police Department violated his rights by preventing him from advocating for legalization. A civil-liberties group describes the ruling as precedent-setting. Constable Bratzer filed the complaint after the force barred him from participating in the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which advocates for regulated legalization of illicit drugs. He was also banned from speaking at a panel discussing harm reduction in Victoria. [continues 452 words]
A state Assembly Bill that could eventually impose a medical marijuana excise tax to collect an estimated $77 million annually moved forward Thursday. AB 2243 by Assemblyman Jim Wood, D-Healdsburg, cleared the Assembly Revenue and Tax Committee without Republican support. It is expected to be heard next in the Assembly Appropriations Committee in the next two weeks. If moved forward to Gov. Jerry Brown for final approval, Wood said AB 2243 would implement a $9.25 per ounce tax on cannabis flowers, a $2.75 per ounce tax on cannabis leaves and a $1.25 tax on immature cannabis plants from nurseries. [continues 353 words]
When you think about what greens are helping to extend California's drought, you probably don't think of cannabis, but in California, marijuana and alfalfa may have more in common than you think. California is, in fact, responsible for two-thirds of the agriculture produced in the United States and 60 percent of the marijuana found around the country, mostly originating from growers in northern California. Unsurprisingly, both these water-intensive industries greatly contribute to, and worsen, the drought that California has been facing for the past five years. [continues 688 words]
A U. N. Special Session Will Examine the Effects of the Hard- Line Approach and Will Study Alternatives. At what is being billed as the most significant high-level gathering on global drug policy in two decades, the stage will be set for world leaders to discuss what would have once been unthinkable - reversing course in the war on drugs. The United Nations General Assembly Special Session on the World Drug Problem, which begins Tuesday in New York, will bring together government, human rights and health leaders to discuss whether the hard-line tactics of combating drug trafficking and money laundering have failed. [continues 800 words]
MEXICO CITY - More than a dozen conspirators gathered at the headquarters of the Honduran National Police just after 9:30 p.m. One of them clicked open a briefcase, and bundles of American dollars were distributed among the police officers - payment for the next day's hit job. After everyone else filed out of the room, the three highest-ranking officers stayed behind to make a call. "Keep watch over the news tomorrow, sir," one of them said, according to case files gathered by Honduran investigators. "We'll do it all in the morning, good night, sir." [continues 1549 words]
While most of Shasta County works to restrict access to medical marijuana through bans on growing, dispensaries and collectives, Shasta Lake decided to go in another direction. The city of some 9,000 boasts the last two medical marijuana dispensaries in the county, and the City Council this past week approved a third one. The city had to slightly bend its rules to allow the dispensary to open in the former Starbucks next to Rite Aid and a tobacco shop at Shasta Dam and Cascade boulevards. The rules originally said dispensaries could be no closer than 1,000 feet from each other. [continues 493 words]
There is a wise old adage which reads, "Be careful what you wish for, you may just get it." That message certainly applies to the proposed initiatives on the ballot later this year to legalize the use of recreational marijuana in California. Voters in California passed Proposition 215 almost 20 years ago, and only recently has this state established a viable method for making this product available for those who have a legitimate medical need. Recreational use, however, is an entirely different matter. [continues 586 words]
Nearly half of the states have approved the medical use of marijuana, as prescribed by a physician, recognizing its therapeutic value for patients with long term pain from cancer, seizures, PTSD, multiple sclerosis, AIDS and other ailments. Not South Carolina, though. Not yet. Members of the Senate Medical Affairs Committee on Thursday expressed their sympathy for those South Carolinians who could benefit from having marijuana medically prescribed for pain or nausea. Then they voted to kill the bill, after first rejecting an amendment that would have resolved many of the issues raised by those who had opposed the bill, including law enforcement officials. [continues 407 words]
A Harper's Magazine writer recently reiterated a stomach-turning admission of racist societal control concocted by the Nixon Administration. That scandal plagued presidency was the first to declare war on drugs, and did so squarely in the midst of social and racial upheaval, as well as a foreign war. In a recent article arguing in favor of the legalization of drugs, writer Dan Baum recounted how he'd tracked down former Nixon advisor John Erlichman in 1994 for a book Baum was working on. [continues 534 words]
I HAVE yet to read the texts recommended by Clifford Schaffer in his letter "Drug laws not helping" on March 15, but otherwise I agree wholeheartedly with his views. Richard Nixon, under immense pressure following the US disaster in Vietnam and the looming Watergate affair, desperately needed a rallying cry to divert the public's attention and a "war on drugs" fitted the bill perfectly. It also put the blame for the thousands of returning heroin-addicted GIs wholly on the drug itself and not on their horrific wartime experiences. [continues 787 words]
Even if you oppose marijuana legalization, as I firmly do, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision recently not to interfere in the decision of Colorado voters to end cannabis prohibition was a major victory for states' rights, federalism and the 10th Amendment. It was also a victory for all Oklahomans who do not want to be ruled by unaccountable and out-of-touch bureaucrats and politicians thousands of miles away in Washington, D.C. - and even abroad - acting in defiance of our Constitution. [continues 512 words]
AS parents, it's our absolute worst fear. For Lisa, it began when her 6-month-old daughter Cynthia was diagnosed with Dravet syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy. Her child's small body would spend the next five-plus years racked daily by punishing, life-threatening seizures - until Lisa discovered that a cannabis tincture could control the neurological disease that would otherwise cause her daughter's death. Today, Cynthia is 9 and is an energetic and vivacious little girl. When Washingtonians legalized cannabis for recreational use in 2012, consumers were assured safe products. But as The Seattle Times recently reported, fines are now being levied by the Washington State Liquor Cannabis Board (LCB) against two major cannabis producers for using illegal pesticides. I was distressed to learn one of the businesses in violation markets cannabis medicines for children just like Cynthia. [continues 487 words]
In the mountains of Pondoland in the Eastern Cape, 'intsangu' is green gold: the key to the rural poor's economic survival. Why then, despite global progress towards decriminalising cannabis, are police spraying crops with poison from helicopters? Niren Tolsi investigates. THE mountains meet the Indian Ocean on the Wild Coast. At Ebulawu, south of Port St Johns, green-topped peaks undulate up towards sheer drops into the blue maelstrom below, where waves crash against cliffs of white, grey and red. [continues 2891 words]
