Heads Of The Class As if Monday's Iowa caucuses weren't bad enough for former Vermont governor Howard Dean, now comes this: a score card created by Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana (GSMM) rates Dean's position on medicinal marijuana as nearly comparable to those of President George W. Bush. Indeed, the Manchester, New Hampshire-based group gave Dean a D-, which barely squeaks by Bush's grade of F. In response to questions put to candidates by GSMM, Dean has said that, if elected, he would halt Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raids on terminally ill patients who use pot to ease their pain - a bare-minimum requirement for a "passing" grade from the advocacy group. [continues 368 words]
Why Does The Bush Administration Seem So Intent On Denying Medical Marijuana To Adults In Extreme Discomfort? THE WHITE HOUSE Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) -- whose anti-pot road show blew through Boston last week -- wants you to believe that everything about marijuana is bad, bad, bad. That the plant's promising medicinal benefits are simply a "Trojan-horse issue," perpetrated by drug-reform advocates who are taking advantage of sick and dying people to advance a decriminalization agenda. [continues 1534 words]
Why Does The Bush Administration Seem So Intent On Denying Medical Marijuana To Adults In Extreme Discomfort? THE WHITE HOUSE Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) -- whose anti-pot road show blew through Boston last week -- wants you to believe that everything about marijuana is bad, bad, bad. That the plant's promising medicinal benefits are simply a "Trojan-horse issue," perpetrated by drug-reform advocates who are taking advantage of sick and dying people to advance a decriminalization agenda. That legalizing medical marijuana would confuse the "just say no" message for adolescents and cause them to glamorize debilitating diseases like cancer, AIDS, and multiple sclerosis. [continues 1511 words]
Marijuana Movement Grows As the country's ganja guru, Ed Rosenthal has penned cannabis self-help books and the High Times advice column "Ask Ed." He's also been a deputized "officer" growing pot for medicinal purposes for the City of Oakland. That is, until the Bush administration targeted him in its assault against medical marijuana On February 12, 2002, Rosenthal was arrested by federal agents on charges of marijuana cultivation and conspiracy. His January 2003 trial made banner headlines after the jury offered him a public apology for convicting him (jury members complained that prosecutors had withheld pertinent facts - most notably that the City of Oakland had authorized Rosenthal to grow marijuana for medicinal use). Last June, he was sentenced to one day in prison and a $1000 fine - a sentence the feds have since appealed. On September 20, Rosenthal will speak at the Boston Common for the 14th annual Freedom Rally, sponsored by the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition (MASSCANN). The Phoenix caught up with him at his home in Oakland, where he discussed his brush with the Bush "ideologues." [continues 788 words]
From hounding medical-marijuana growers to stacking the courts with conservative judges, the Bush administration is pandering to the right while America prepares for war A SECOND resolution on war in Iraq. A Bush post-invasion plan. Millions of antiwar protesters take to the streets. Saddam Hussein gets feisty with weapons inspectors. It's no surprise that stories without an Iraq angle get little or no attention these days. The all-Iraq-all-the-time media myopia is even understandable, given how momentous an event it would be for President George W. Bush to send American troops off to battle. [continues 884 words]
Illegal Colombian Immigrants Face Deportation To A War-torn Country. But They Can't Get Amnesty Because Colombia Is A US Ally In The War On Drugs. The fear set in a decade ago. Lucas Cardona, then a community advocate in the Antioquia region of Colombia, awoke one day to find a note tucked under his front door. On it were scrawled two simple words that sent a chill up his spine: Beware, revolucionario. Cardona (not his real name) had been branded a traitor, accused of sympathizing with the wrong side in the complicated civil war that has raged in his country for nearly half a century. [continues 871 words]
Illegal Colombian Immigrants Face Deportation To A War-torn Country. But They Can't Get Amnesty Because Colombia Is A US Ally In The War On Drugs. Violent death has been a fixture of the Colombian political landscape for the past 40 years, as a civil war fought by factions of bad guys -- there have been no good guys -- has engulfed the country. Today's conflict stems from a guerrilla insurgency that arose in the 1960s. As legend has it, a group of poor farmers appealed to the government for assistance. Instead of receiving help, they were butchered. [continues 843 words]
Illegal Colombian Immigrants Face Deportation To A War-torn Country. But They Can't Get Amnesty Because Colombia Is A US Ally In The War On Drugs. Those Colombians who are now safe in the US have embraced their new home in the most American of ways -- by becoming political activists. On a brisk September morning, just six months into the Colombian amnesty campaign, a crowd gathered in the dimly lit basement of Parroqua Nuestra Senora Del Carmen Catholic Church in Lowell. They had come for information about HR 2741, otherwise known as "la amnestia." Close to 75 men and women, roughly between 20 and 60 years old, milled about speaking in Spanish, their faces flushed with anticipation. [continues 1163 words]
