I hate to be the party pooper but I feel there is a need to point out that the possession, transportation, processing and use of marijuana is still illegal. It is not legal in Alaska, nor Colorado, nor Washington, nor Oregon. It's not legal in your house, nor in a car, or on a train, or in a plane. No Charlo Green I am; it's not legal to grow pot in this here land. There is this thing called the Controlled Substances Act. You can find it in Title 21, Section 800 or so of the U.S. Code. Section 812 lists marihuana (with an h) as a schedule I substance. [continues 779 words]
Burning Questions What protection will the state offer to doctors who recommend medical marijuana to their patients, as well as patients, caregivers, and dispensaries, from federal prosecution? - --ALERT IN ALLSTON "Doctors have the First Amendment right to talk about things with their patients," including marijuana, explains well-known local pot attorney Steve Epstein. But patients, caregivers, and dispensaries? What protection will the state offer them? "None," says Epstein. "The initiative specifically says the state will provide you with no protection against federal prosecution." [continues 801 words]
It's legal to smoke pot in Colorado and Washington state now - except that it's not. Colorado voters passed an initiative this week allowing possession of 1 ounce and six plants. Washington voters said adults can buy an ounce from a licensed seller. But the federal government has the last word, and its ban on possession and distribution of marijuana stands. What happens next depends on the Obama Justice Department. The feds can crack down or let a new haze dawn. There is plenty of history to suggest the administration will go with a hard line - and a few glimmers of hope that it won't. [continues 571 words]
LODI - Joshua Dougherty looked in on a new batch of marijuana seedlings that he had been growing in a closet in the upstairs of his south Lodi home Wednesday afternoon. Dougherty, a medical marijuana patient, hopes to move the plants outside for harvesting in February. However, how and where he is able to plant the cannabis is something that will be in the hands of the Lodi City Council in the next month and a half. The Lodi City Council approved a 45-day moratorium on all medical marijuana cultivation Wednesday night and directed the City Attorney's Office to draft an ordinance that will place limitations on how and where patients can grow marijuana within city limits. [continues 520 words]
LODI - A Tokay High School graduate turned medical marijuana advocate said she will implore Lodi to start a commission or panel to meet monthly to hear complaints and deal with issues that arise with the cultivation of cannabis within city limits. Angel Raich, 46, is a medical marijuana patient who has a terminal brain tumor. She has been a longtime advocate who helped write Proposition 215, the compassionate-use act passed by California voters in 1996. She lobbied at the state level for patient rights in recent years. [continues 395 words]
WASHINGTON - Marijuana supporters told a federal appeals court panel Tuesday that government agencies have created a "self-fulfilling prophecy" by keeping cannabis illegal despite evidence that using it can be medically beneficial. Marijuana activists are seeking to "reschedule" marijuana as a drug suitable for medical use and thus remove it from Schedule I of the government's drug classification system, reserved for drugs with high abuse potential. The Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services say marijuana has no medical use, is as dangerous as ecstasy and heroin, and has even more abuse potential than cocaine. [continues 229 words]
Like many legal disputes, it started out over something small. In July, 1940, an Ohio wheat farmer named Roscoe Filburn was planning for the fall planting of his wheat crop. But he ran into some of the new government regulations on farming. During the early years of the Great Depression, the value of farm commodities had plummeted. Farmers were producing plenty of food, but with the general slowdown in economic activity, they could not get enough money for what they produced. [continues 718 words]
REDWOOD VALLEY The U.S. drug agents' vehicles rumbled past vineyards and cattle ranches, traversed winding roads through oak woodlands and cleared a gate marked with a sign: "Member, Mendocino Farm Bureau." Camouflaged and heavily armed, Drug Enforcement Administration officers brought a battering ram to the door of Matthew Cohen and a chain saw to cut down his 99 marijuana plants earlier this month. The raid on Cohen's Northstone Organics garden, which boasted of "farm direct" marijuana deliveries to medical users, has stoked a fierce debate over whether federal authorities sought to nullify California's most renowned local regulatory program for medical marijuana cultivation. [continues 1404 words]
Nearly nine years after filing a petition to reschedule marijuana for medical use, a coalition of advocates has filed suit in federal court to require the government to answer their petition within 60 days. The rescheduling petition, filed to the DEA on October 9, 2002 by a coalition of groups including NORML and Cal NORML (Coalition to Reschedule Cannabis), argues that marijuana has "accepted medical use" and should therefore be removed from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. The petition was filed following the passage of Proposition 215 and half a dozen other state medical marijuana laws. Marijuana's schedule one status - meaning it has no federally accepted medical use -has been a fundamental reason for the ongoing conflict between state and federal marijuana laws. This lawsuit, filed on May 23 in the DC District Court of Appeals, argues that the government has unreasonably delayed in responding to the petition. [continues 378 words]
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Backers of California's Proposition 19 call it a landmark challenge to America's war on drugs. But passage of the initiative to legalize pot for recreational use may open up a legal war between California and the federal government. Some fear a renewed surge of federal raids - similar to actions that shut down medical pot shops, targeted suppliers and doctors after California voters passed Proposition 215, its medical marijuana law in 1996. Even some fervent proponents of the initiative to allow anyone 21 and over to smoke pot say federal authorities will quickly sue California to overturn the new law. [continues 989 words]
Backers of California's Proposition 19 call it a landmark challenge to America's war on drugs. But passage of the initiative to legalize pot for recreational use may open up a legal war between California and the federal government. Some fear a renewed surge of federal raids, similar to actions that shut down medical pot shops, targeted suppliers and doctors after California voters passed Proposition 215, its medical marijuana law, in 1996. Even some fervent proponents of the initiative to allow anyone 21 and over to smoke pot say federal authorities would quickly sue California to overturn the new law. [continues 961 words]
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum (and anyone who thinks suing the feds over health care is a good idea) should refer to Raich v. Gonzales or Raich v. Ashcroft. Angel Raich sued the U.S. government saying that the Controlled Substances Act (1971) was unconstitutional in that all powers not explicitly given to the federal government was therefore inherent to each individual state. The court ruled that Raich's six or so cannabis plants were breaking federal law (even though growing medicinal cannabis is legal in California) and therefore affected interstate commerce. I don't remember the Tea Party screaming when the precedent was set with Raich. Jordan Diaz, Gainesville [end]
Officials in a dozen states who oppose the health care bill say they hope to block it in court by arguing that requiring people to buy health insurance is an unprecedented intrusion by the federal government into people's lives - the equivalent of going a step beyond simply regulating automobiles to requiring people to buy a car. They add that the bill would rewrite the relationship between federal and state government, and they plan to make their argument in court as soon as the legislation becomes law. [continues 802 words]
Requirement That Citizens Buy Insurance Is Unconstitutional, They Say Republicans in Minnesota want Attorney General Lori Swanson to file a lawsuit blocking federal health care reforms, citing the U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause and 10th Amendment. Standing in their way, though, might be a pot-smoking medical marijuana advocate from California named Angel Raich. During a Capitol news conference Wednesday, prominent Republicans said they will introduce a resolution on the Senate floor today asking the Minnesota delegation to vote against the bill and seeking a lawsuit to block it if Congress passes it. In doing so, they raise an issue that has reverberated from tea party rallies to statehouses across the country -- that the federal health care bill is unconstitutional. [continues 763 words]
Uncle Sam will no longer bother with medical marijuana users and their caregivers, so long as they adhere to medical pot laws in the 14 states that have them, according to new guidelines Attorney General Eric Holder announced Monday. The guidelines, laid out in a memo sent to all United States attorneys, formalize earlier statements by both Holder and President Barack Obama that the administration has no interest in pressing a clash between federal and state pot laws that brought frequent marijuana dispensary raids and occasional prosecutions of backyard growers during the Clinton and Bush eras. [continues 979 words]
Why can't we smoke dope . when we are sick? In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Gonzales v. Raich 545 U.S. 1 (2005) that the federal government may ban the use of marijuana, even for medical purposes, under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution (a.k.a. the Commerce Clause) which allows the federal government to "regulate Commerce.among the several States." The bench used the Commerce Clause to say that the marijuana trade (even though illegal) is just that - trade. Therefore, Congress can pass laws that regulate the use and control of marijuana. [continues 482 words]
December has been an interesting month for marijuana, or cannabis as it is known to scientists and all too few others. To kick off the month, the U.S. Supreme Court decided against reviewing a California state appellate court ruling arguing that its medical marijuana law trumped federal law. That, in effect, set the stage for better implementation of medical-marijuana law in not just California, but every state that has one, while also reminding local police that the job of enforcing federal drug policy is, in fact, not its job. [continues 1434 words]
A Shepherd Q&A With High Times Editor David Bienenstock People have been smoking pot ever since they discovered that sparking one was good clean fun. So why do we need The Official High Times Pot Smoker's Handbook, published just in time for the holidays? Editor David Bienenstock explains that even an experienced stoner could learn a few things-as well as get involved in the larger marijuana movement to make pot smoking legal, especially for those who are chronically ill. [continues 2509 words]
Rep. Jerry McNerney is now willing to vote for an amendment he'd opposed last year that would bar the federal government from spending money to arrest or prosecute medical-marijuana patients in the states - -- including California -- where medical marijuana is legal. "In the past year, the congressman has met several patients with debilitating illnesses that use doctor-prescribed medical marijuana," McNerney spokesman Andy Stone said Friday. "Hearing their stories, he feels that he cannot in good conscience deny doctor-prescribed treatment to a person that experiences excruciating pain on a daily basis." [continues 563 words]
The federal government is waging war on some of our most vulnerable citizens, who Washington voters have acted to protect. Soon, our congressional representatives will have the chance to stand up for those people -- seriously ill patients who need medical marijuana. This is an issue we both know personally. One of us is a physician and researcher specializing in rehabilitation medicine and neuromuscular diseases such as ALS ("Lou Gehrig's disease"). The other is a cancer survivor who got through the nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy with the help of marijuana, and who has again found relief with marijuana from the chronic pain caused by injuries in a car accident. [continues 489 words]
