Marijuana is not the villain that it is often portrayed to be. In fact, the plant has a lot of beneficial uses which will never be exploited because of our paranoia against "weed." Let's start with the hemp fibers that are extracted from the cannabis plant. According the article "Hemp: A New Crop with New Uses for North America" by Ernest Small and David Marcus, posted on the website of the horticulture department at Purdue University, hemp is one of the earliest domesticated plants known. It is a low-maintenance, resilient, soft, and durable fiber that is used to make every thing from biodegradable plastics to textiles, clothing, paper, natural oils and fuels. It is used in construction and even has many medical uses. [continues 728 words]
It wasn't the highest old time you could imagine at the inaugural THC Expo held at the Los Angeles Convention Center this weekend. But even though actual consumption of marijuana was strictly forbidden at the two-day trade show, the capacity crowd seemed to enjoy the contact high of checking out booths full of everything from hemp-oil massage lotions to Marley Brand Jamaican coffee to brochures from groups like Law Enforcement Against Prohibition - active and retired cops who want to, well, legalize everything. [continues 494 words]
A Deep Cove woman who faces a minimum 10-year U.S. prison sentence for allegedly moving and watering marijuana plants at a Bel Air, California residence eight years ago, is appealing an extradition order from the U.S government. "I face something that's incredibly scary, " says Renee Boje. "It's been devastating for me. It's caused a great deal of stress in my life. I feel I don't need to be persecuted in this way. On July 29, 1997 Boje, a recent graduate from Marymount University, was working on her first freelance arts project illustrating a book called, How to Grow Medical Marijuana. [continues 813 words]
"The history of the 'war on drugs,' and more specifically the well-documented history of marijuana legislation, makes it clear that the goals of the repeatedly declared 'wars' have little to do with availability and use of harmful substances, and a lot to do with what is called 'population control' in the literature of counterinsurgency. The targets are both at home and abroad-overwhelmingly the poor and defenseless... The 'war on drugs' has the dual function of eliminating the disposable people (being civilized, we lock them up rather than murdering them) and frightening the rest, and has been cynically used for these purposes. The case of Renee Boje illustrates this cynical abuse of power..." [continues 700 words]
But 'Gnostic' Renee Boje Is Free On Bail And Preparing To Ask B.C. Appeal Court To Reverse Decision Renee Boje, the 34-year-old U.S. marijuana refugee, checked herself in and out of jail at the B.C. Law Courts Friday after federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler ordered her out of the country. She surrendered to sheriffs at about 8:30 a.m. and was granted bail about 90 minutes later after a five-minute hearing in a packed B.C. Supreme Court. [continues 614 words]
Justice Minister Irwin Cotler has ordered the extradition of a woman who faces trial in California for tending marijuana plants at the Cannabis Castle, a Bel Air mansion that served as one of the state's first medical marijuana grow-ops in the 1990s. Renee Boje, 35, who has a Canadian husband and young son, surrendered herself yesterday to court officials in British Columbia. She was granted bail while pursuing judicial review of Mr. Cotler's decision. That process will postpone her extradition until at least the end of September. [continues 672 words]
No American Has Ever Been Granted Canadian Refugee Status Because of the War on Drugs, but the Times They May Be Changing. To shirts at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), she's a dangerous criminal on the run from justice, a big-time narcotics dealer who should be punished more severely than rapists and murderers. To her friends and supporters, she's a symbol of the drug war run amok, a political victim of the U.S. government's vendetta against medical marijuana. [continues 3514 words]
Marc Emery In between producing Pot-TV and publishing Cannabis Culture magazine, Canadian marijuana seed magnet Marc Emery somehow finds time for his unique brand of in-your-face activism. Most recently Emery has been on a cross-country college speaking tour promoting the cause of cannabis legalization. After his March 22nd speech in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Emery was arrested and charged with drug trafficking for the two joints he was smoking with the crowd. Emery was jailed for three days before finally being granted bail. Emery remains unfazed by the ordeal and has promised to come back to Saskatoon 'a lot, and not just for the trial.' Emery continues to be a major force for cannabis law reform on this continent. [continues 282 words]
Dale Gieringer of California NORML, a co-author of Prop 215, was among the organizers who filed papers in Oakland Feb. 19 to get a "tax-and-regulate-cannabis" initiative on the city's November ballot. C-Notes: What are you trying to achieve? Gieringer: The Oakland Cannabis Revenue and Regulation Ordinance directs the city to establish a system of regulated and taxed cannabis distribution for adults as soon as possible under California law. It will call on the police to make arrests for private adult use their lowest priority. "Private adult use" is the key. [continues 1130 words]
Read This Publication On-line at: http://www.drugsense.org/dsw/2004/ds04.n333.html TABLE OF CONTENTS: * This Just In (1) Feds To Revamp Drug Testing (2) Couple Faces Federal Pot Charges (3) Worthing's Cannabis Champion Jailed (4) Lawsuit Filed After Swat Raids High School * Weekly News in Review Drug Policy (5) Miami Federal Court Has 'Secret Docket' To Keep Cases Hidden (6) 9 Officers Cited for Contempt in Pot Case (7) Benefit Ends With 10 Arrests (8) Herald-Tribune Analyzes '02 Teen Drug Use Survey [continues 564 words]
Read This Publication On-line at: http://www.drugsense.org/dsw/2004/ds04.n332.html TABLE OF CONTENTS: * This Just In (1) Medicinal-Pot Crusader Busted (2) Montel Williams Goes To Pot (3) Leman Puts Marijuana Initiative On Ballot (4) Hearing New Voices On The Campaign Trail * Weekly News in Review Drug Policy (5) Two Tied To Ogilvy Contract With U.S. Are Indicted (6) Goose Creek Principal Leaving Post (7) Chief Justice Attacks a Law As Infringing on Judges (8) Judge Eyes High School Drug Policy [continues 874 words]
Read This Publication On-line at: http://www.drugsense.org/dsw/2003/ds03.n305.html * This Just In (1) Rat Study Shows Using Dope Kills Brain Cells (2) Drink And Drug Abuse 'Is In The Genes' (3) Pot Smoking, Risky Behaviour Linked (4) Pot Smokers' Campaign Aimed At Boosting Tourism * Weekly News in Review Drug Policy (5) Drug Law Reform Falters (6) Reefer Badness (7) Supreme Court Won't Hear Drug-Test Appeal Law Enforcement & Prisons (8) Debacle of Tulia Defendants an Ongoing Outrage (9) 17 Officers Accused of City Reign of Terror [continues 134 words]
Please know that you are arguably the most important segment of the drug policy reform movement. Your commitment to our common cause is unparalleled. You provide the information and resource that allows the rest of us to gain the knowledge and ability to articulate needed in this political battle. Congratulations on this remarkable milestone. Yesterday I had the privilege of debating an assistant DA from the Orange County District Attorney's office at a drug symposium at Orange Coast College produced by the United Student Sociologists and Psychology Club. Our debate was concerning marijuana decriminalization. My ability to bring a clear and rational message to the student audience was a direct result of the hard work of the MAP volunteers. The ADA left the stage quite embarrassed as he was obviously less informed of the facts and students were notably moved by information to which they had never been exposed. [continues 2122 words]
Along the rugged coastline of British Columbia, more than a generation ago, the first American refugees trickled in. As the Vietnam War raged, draft dodgers who chose to flee America rather than fight an unacceptable war gravitated to Canada's west coast, to rain-washed Vancouver and northward in tiny villages astride deep fiords left by the glacial past. A few of the new arrivals brought with them a taste for marijuana, and some began cultivating pot gardens. Isolated from the law by rugged terrain, separated from most of civilization by deep bays, a marijuana industry was born. As the tale goes, the coast north of Vancouver became a pot lover's paradise. [continues 4165 words]
Here's How Hollywood-Raised Renee Boje Became The Pot Madonna Gorgeous, guileless and naturally blissed out, Vancouver's Renee Boje, 32, is the perfect poster girl for pot activists; she's also a new mother and martyr for a cause she never dreamed she'd represent, a marijuana madonna with everyone from Noam Chomsky to Woody Harrelson writing letters on her behalf. Boje lies back on the couch, her baby Shiva curled against her breast. Images of Ganesh and Shakti smile down from the walls. Outside, the traffic on Commercial Drive has almost faded. Across the room Shiva's father, author Chris Bennet, talks quietly about ancient Egypt. [continues 3151 words]
'Persecuted' Medicinal Marijuana Users Seek Asylum In Canada A group of Americans are seeking political asylum in Canada, claiming they face persecution by their own government because of their use of medicinal marijuana. Their cases are being considered by the Canadian legal authorities, who are assessing whether they face "genuine fear of persecution" if they are sent back. Hundreds of Americans have crossed the border into Canada in recent months following clampdowns ordered by the attorney general, John Ashcroft, on medicinal marijuana clubs that exist in states where voters have passed measures approving them. [continues 637 words]
It's a different war, but some things never change. Forty years ago, Americans fled to Canada to avoid fighting in Vietnam. Today, American medical marijuana patients are following in their footsteps, claiming to be political refugees of the U.S. government's war on drugs. "I'm a member of a class of society they're trying to oppress or wipe out completely," says Renee Boje, from her home in Vancouver, British Columbia. Boje is probably the most famous American fugitive in Canada. The U.S. is currently trying to extradite her to face charges for conspiracy to cultivate hundreds of cannabis plants at the Los Angeles home of Todd McCormick, a cancer patient and medical marijuana activist. [continues 1062 words]
They ran out of beer early at the jammed, raucous, spit-and-baling-wire emergency party that closed this April's National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws annual conference in San Francisco. Thirsty guests found thirstful ways to compensate for the suds, and if you ignored the computers and filing cabinets, it was easy to forget you were violating fire codes at an ad hoc shindig at a hotshot law office. The wife and I decamped around midnight, not content with the five cases of water trucked in to replenish the sweat the crowd had been shaking on each other jitterbugging to a 40-piece (stationary) marching band. We landed in a little North Beach boite. At one point, my New Yorker was aghast to see a purse all by its lonesome on the floor by the jukebox. Voicing her alarm, she was told don't be silly, woman - this is San Francisco. [continues 8168 words]
from the Media Awareness Project WEEKLY: The DrugSense Weekly, the originial drug policy weekly on the 'net, has the largest email and web following of any single item we provide. Distributed late Fridays, you can always check the current issue at http://www.drugsense.org/current.htm or sign up to receive it by email in text or HTML web page format at http://www.drugsense.org/news.htm BY EMAIL: Our most popular email service is called the DrugNews Digest (DND). Each digest contains an average of about ten news items - but only the first paragraph or two of the item along with a link to the entire article. Here is an example (spaces not in the DND's have been added so that this example, as archived, will appear as close to correct as possible): [continues 2376 words]
On June 14, 2000, Peter McWilliams had just drawn a bath at his home in the Hollywood Hills when he suddenly collapsed. At the time of his death, the flamboyant and controversial 50-year-old best-selling author, publisher, and medical-marijuana activist, whose supporters crossed the political spectrum from William F. Buckley on the right to Paul Krassner on the left, was awaiting sentencing on 1998 federal charges the he'd financed several large-scale marijuana grows. An AIDS patient and cancer survivor, he had been instructed by the judge who presided over his case, Federal District Court Judge George H. King, that if he smoked the marijuana that kept him from vomiting the multiple medications he needed to stay alive, he would forfeit his bond, and the homes that his mother and brother had put up for collateral would be seized. [continues 5205 words]
McCormick, Todd
