President Barack Obama on Thursday commuted the 20-year prison sentenced imposed on Richard Ruiz Montes, convicted in 2008 for his role in the Modesto's pot-dealing California Healthcare Collective. In one of his final presidential acts, Obama used his executive authority to cut Montes' sentence by more than half. Now held at a federal facility in Atwater, according to the Bureau of Prisons' inmate locator, the 36-year-old Montes will be released May 19. He is identified as Richard by the White House and Bureau of Prisons, but has also been known as Ricardo. The White House listed his hometown as Escalon. [continues 184 words]
A Pew Research Center survey of nearly 8,000 police officers finds that more than two-thirds of them say that marijuana use should be legal for either personal or medical use. The nationally representative survey of law enforcement, one of the largest of its kind, found that 32 percent of police officers said marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use, while 37 percent said it should be legal for medical use only. Another 30 percent said that marijuana should not be legal at all. [continues 424 words]
S.C. legislators are gearing up for another fight over a bill that would allow the legal use of medical marijuana in the Palmetto State. A half-dozen lawmakers Tuesday made their first order of business on the session's opening day the unveiling of the S.C. Compassionate Care Act. The bill would allow South Carolinians with "debilitating medical conditions" to use medical pot, when approved by a doctor. Last year, bipartisan efforts to legalize medical marijuana died in House and Senate committees. That effort was opposed by law enforcement officials, who said they feared that legalizing medical marijuana would lead to more pot being available in the state for non-medical uses. [continues 305 words]
Mary Louise received her first dose of CBD oil Saturday, about four months after the bill allowing children to receive the oil extracted from marijuana was signed into law. The oil helps children like Mary Louise with severe epilepsy control their seizures. It took only a simple phrase to see how Mary Louise Swing's life would improve from cannabidiol. On vacation with family in Myrtle Beach last weekend, Mary Louise stunned her mother, Jill, and a roomful of relatives with a simple "Hi everybody" as she got out of bed. [continues 685 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]
ORANGEBURG, S.C. - Hillary Clinton, who has long declined to endorse legalized medical or recreational marijuana at the federal level, said over the weekend that she favors changing the rules to allow more research into medical marijuana. Clinton said she supports removing marijuana from a list of schedule 1 drugs, a classification that prevents federally sponsored research into its effects. As a schedule 1 drug, marijuana is classified among the most dangerous drugs that the federal Drug Enforcement Agency regulates. "We haven't done research, why? Because it's considered a schedule 1 drug," Clinton said Saturday during a town hall meeting at Claflin University in South Carolina. "I'd like to move it from schedule 1 to schedule 2." [continues 189 words]
Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday proposed reclassifying marijuana to make it a less dangerous substance and to encourage more research into its medicinal benefits. At a town hall in Orangeburg, S.C., Clinton said marijuana, classified in the most dangerous category ("Schedule I") of the Controlled Substances Act, should be "Schedule II" so it can be experimented with and implemented for medical use. "I do support the use of medical marijuana," she said at the town hall, hosted by journalist Roland Martin and held at Claflin University. [continues 101 words]
A local prosecutor in South Carolina said Tuesday that she would not bring charges against a police lieutenant who fatally shot a 19-year-old man during an attempted drug arrest in a Hardee's parking lot in July. The case has drawn outrage in some quarters, partly because a private autopsy on the man, Zachary Hammond, who was unarmed, indicated that he had been shot from the side and the back, and through his car's side window. That seemed to contradict the account of the officer who killed him, Lt. Mark Tiller of the Seneca Police Department, who said that he had fired two shots at point-blank range because Mr. Hammond had rapidly accelerated as he drove toward the officer, and that he would have been run over had he not pushed himself off Mr. Hammond's car. [continues 584 words]
It took only a simple phrase to see how Mary Louise Swing's life would improve from cannabidiol. On vacation with family in Myrtle Beach last weekend, Mary Louise stunned her mother, Jill, and a roomful of relatives with a simple "Hi everybody" as she got out of bed. For 6-year-old Mary Louise, who suffers from intractable epilepsy, it was a small, uplifting first step. "She just doesn't say that," Jill Swing said. "It's been delightful. She was nonverbal, but she's saying more words now. She's a chatterbox." [continues 641 words]
COLUMBIA - A bill that would allow for patients who have severe epilepsy to be treated with a type of medical marijuana is headed for a final vote in the General Assembly next week, where it's expected to pass. The bill, H. 4803, has already moved through the S.C. House and its passage in the S.C. Senate is expected next week after a key Senate committee moved it unanimously on Thursday. The bill provides for the potential use of cannabidiol oil (CBD), which contains marijuana extract but little THC, the chemical that produces a "high." The drug has offered hope to many who have difficult-to-treat epileptic symptoms, although clinical trials and extensive medical research is in early stages. [continues 445 words]
South Carolina superintendent of education candidate Sheila Gallagher called for legalizing marijuana when she addressed Democrats at the South Carolina Democratic Party convention in Columbia on Saturday afternoon. Gallagher, of Florence, said legalizing marijuana should be put to a vote and the revenue that would be gained could go toward investing in the state's education system. "It isn't about getting high," Gallagher said. The revenue that could be obtained from legalizing marijuana could be used to invest millions of dollars into the education system until S.C. has the best schools in the nation, she said. [continues 167 words]
In 2010, Congress acted to reduce the disparity in mandatory minimum standards used to sentence criminals, particularly in regard to drug offenders. Last week, President Barack Obama announced that the Justice Department would take the next logical step - rescuing some of the thousands of inmates still serving time under the old, unfair sentencing rules. The president intends to canvass the entire federal prison population - - now numbering about 216,000 - to find inmates who are languishing behind bars under the unjustly harsh sentencing laws established during the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s. While the clemency program will not specifically target the roughly 7,000 inmates serving time for crack-related crimes, the guidelines for granting clemency would cover most of them. [continues 418 words]
Columbia, SC - It is good news that legislators are considering a law to allow doctor-prescribed use of marijuana. More than 20 states that have approved its use for nausea. The primary reason, as I understand it, is that most pain medication has after-effects of severe nausea. I am prescribed several medications to eliminate the pain I experience due to neuropathy; however, they cause extreme nausea. I certainly would appreciate being able to use medical marijuana to relieve severe nausea, as I am sure many others would be. I believe that legislators will find more and more states approving marijuana for the treatment of nausea. Ronald B. Bolton Aiken [end]
Never mind that Roger Goodell didn't officially open the door to medical marijuana use within a National Football League beset with concussion controversy. The drive-by mention by the NFL commissioner at the Super Bowl struck a chord. Pro football players, agents and media types continue to chime in, most without scientific input. Before this goes too far - indeed before the notion of pot as concussion treatment trickles into a serious college football discussion - it might be beneficial to seek actual medical facts. [continues 782 words]
Columbia - With little debate but many qualifications, a state Senate panel Thursday advanced a bill to allow the cultivation of hemp in South Carolina. That's industrial hemp, not marijuana. The distinction is why qualifications came with nearly every statement in the Senate agriculture subcommittee meeting. "This has nothing to do with legalizing marijuana," was the opening statement of subcommittee chairman Sen. Yancey McGill, D-Williamsburg. The bill, S.839, makes the difference clear. Industrial hemp is genetically different from the hemp plants that produce the quality of tetrahydrocannabinol that gives marijuana its mind-altering properties. The S.C. legislation also would remove industrial hemp from the state's current definition of marijuana. [continues 655 words]
Where does the Herald-Journal get these columnists, such as Kathleen Parker (Jan. 22 edition), who advocated legalizing marijuana? She describes forming this opinion through maturity and experience. She rightly says that alcohol or any drugs are bad for children. Then why are drugs OK for adults? The truth is that they are harmful to adults as well. One of the arguments made against the drug war is that it is ruining young lives by giving them criminal records. Our law enforcement officers are not giving our young people criminal records. They are doing this to themselves. [continues 98 words]
I believe marijuana should be legalized. Legalizing pot and taxing it would generate millions in extra revenue to help provide health insurance for the poor and help maintain Social Security. Pot is no more harmful than alcohol. If it's legal for bars, stores and restaurants to sell alcohol to rake in money, legalizing pot seems logical. Marijuana users should have the same freedom as the millions of alcohol users. A person should be able to make his or her own choice. [continues 126 words]
LEXINGTON COUNTY, S.C. - Shortly after midnight on June 5, Lexington County sheriff's deputies and narcotics officers swooped down on a single-story home in one of the county's rural areas. Acting on a tip that people were inside cooking up batches of methamphetamine in not one but two kitchens, officers surrounded the house. Deputies tiptoed to a window and peered inside. "I was at this time able to detect a strong chemical emitting from the residence," investigator M.L. McCaw later wrote in his report. [continues 1280 words]
Charleston County Sheriff Al Cannon says accusations that his deputies are arresting too many blacks on pot charges are part of the American Civil Liberty Union's agenda to get marijuana legalized in South Carolina. What's next? NAACP leaders are holding a town-hall meeting to talk about racial disparities in marijuana arrests at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Morris Brown AME Church, 13 Morris St. in downtown Charleston. "I think they make it pretty clear that South Carolina ought to decriminalize marijuana," Cannon said at a press conference outside his office Tuesday. "This is their method of promoting that agenda." [continues 386 words]