Latest Supreme Court Ruling Could Radically Reshape Nature of Illicit Drug Trade With U.S. The United States has a very sensitive relationship with Mexico pertaining to illegal drugs. It is constantly claiming that Mexico has been lax in assisting in the interdiction of illegal drugs that are produced or staged in Mexico and shipped to destinations within the U.S. American policymakers and would-be presidential candidates point to the corruption within the Mexican government that is fueled by the billions in revenues of illegal drugs that Mexico's cartels send to the U.S. [continues 729 words]
Critics of Practice Blame Ailing Economy, Profit Motive Recent years have brought public scrutiny on a controversial law enforcement practice known as civil asset forfeiture, which lets police seize and keep cash and property from people who are never convicted of- and in many cases never charged with - wrongdoing. A new report Tuesday from the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit civil liberties law firm, found that there has been a "meteoric, exponential increase" in the use of the practice in the past decade. [continues 677 words]
Sheila Polk, the Yavapai County attorney, is perhaps the most high-profile person standing against efforts to legalize marijuana in Arizona. Her organization, Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy, boasts support of dozens of municipal leaders across the state. But looming developments to our south and west could render pointless their crusade to stop Arizona going the way of Colorado, Oregon and Washington -- states that have already legalized recreational pot. Our two biggest neighbors - Mexico and California - are standing on the cusp of monumental change that could powerfully pull the state of Arizona in its wake. [continues 541 words]
Mexico may soon enter an elite club composed of Holland, Portugal, Uruguay and Colorado, Oregon and Washington state: It's on the verge of excluding marijuana from the destructive war on drugs. But will the United States stand in its way? On Nov. 4, Mexico's Supreme Court voted by a wide margin to declare unconstitutional the country's ban on the production, possession and recreational consumption of marijuana. A group of citizens had banded together in a so-called cannabis club (named SMART, for the initials in Spanish of its full title) and requested permission to grow and exchange marijuana among themselves; the government's health agency (the equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) denied them permission; the group sought a writ of habeas corpus, and went all the way to the Supreme Court, which granted them the writ and ordered the agency to legalize the club and allow it to function. [continues 538 words]
Yes on Issue 1 We strongly support Issue 1 on the Ohio ballot this Tuesday. It sets up a much fairer process for drawing district lines for Ohio House of Representative and Senate seats. Under the current corrupt system, maps for state legislative and congressional districts are redrawn every 10 years, after updated Census numbers are released. A five-member state Apportionment Board, whose members include the governor, secretary of state, state auditor and a legislator from each major party, draws the legislative districts. A simple majority wins any vote on the board, so the party that controls the board (Republican in recent years) has absolute control over how the legislative lines are drawn. [continues 1267 words]
Issuing tax certificates gives a false sense of legitimacy, city lawmakers say. Los Angeles lawmakers want to stop letting new marijuana shops sign up to pay city taxes because they say there is no way the businesses could be legal under restrictions approved by voters more than two years ago. "We shouldn't be making money off of illegal businesses," City Councilwoman Nury Martinez said. The council voted Wednesday to request that City Atty. Mike Feuer ask the finance office to stop issuing business tax registration certificates to newly established pot shops, one of several proposals meant to prevent illegal businesses from using city documents to convince customers they are operating with city approval. [continues 392 words]
The Ohio Bankers League recently released a statement expressing the organization's opposition to Issue 3, the controversial constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana in Ohio that will be on the ballot in November. The trade association's board of directors voted to oppose the issue, citing the conflict that it would create between state and federal law. "Marijuana is illegal at the federal level and handling proceeds connected to marijuana-related businesses also remains illegal - regardless of state law," OBL president and CEO, Mike Adelman, said in the press release. "To bank marijuana-related businesses, financial institutions would be in violation of the Controlled Substances Act, the Bank Secrecy Act, the Patriot Act and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act." [continues 308 words]
Another Failure of the War on Drugs Each year, the United States spends more than $51 billion on the war on drugs - a war we're clearly losing. The war has become so futile that the federal agency charged with leading the fight has undermined its own mission - and no one is being held accountable. A Justice Department review found that, for years, DEA agents assigned to Colombia indulged in sex parties involving prostitutes supplied by drug cartels. The report found that local police often stood guard during the parties, keeping an eye on the agents' weapons and other belongings, and that three DEA supervisors involved in the parties accepted gifts of money, weapons and other items from the cartels. [continues 354 words]
America will never get control of illegal drugs or immigrants until it accepts the failure of the "war on drug." For over four decades, the U.S. government has been on a quixotic mission to stamp out drug use through prohibition, mass incarceration and international interdiction. One trillion dollars and millions of arrests later, 49.2 percent of Americans aged 12 or older reported illicit drug use in their lifetimes, 16.7 percent in the past year and 10.2 percent in the past month, according to the 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. [continues 554 words]
The end of the second prohibition era draws near. The disastrous consequences of the misbegotten "War on Drugs," with its focus on marijuana, are now widely recognized. More humane approaches to drug use are being implemented as states ease restrictions. But not if the bitter-enders prevail - as witness Gov. Chris Christie's struggle with the issue in the most recent GOP debate. President Nixon declared war on drugs in 1971, placing the counter-culture's favored drug, marijuana, on Schedule I of controlled substances. Since then, countless lives have been ruined, not so much by the drug itself, but by the legal regime that followed. [continues 658 words]
Council Examines Charges That Outlets Are Registering to Claim Legitimacy. Even as Los Angeles tries to crack down on marijuana businesses, one arm of city government - its tax registration office - has continued to register pot shops that may not be allowed to operate under voter-approved regulations. Rick Loomis Los Angeles Times COUNCILWOMAN Nury Martinez wants officials to verify that shops comply with city rules before issuing certificates, but they say that's not doable. The practice has alarmed some city lawmakers, who complain that marijuana shops not complying with the rules have used business tax registration documents to convince customers and landlords that they are operating legally. [continues 504 words]
Today I walked out of my Joint smoking a joint, and I ran into a billboard on East State Street near City Hall across the street from the Federal Courthouse. (Yeah, I feel in the open air I should have as much right to smoke my joint as the tobacco addict does to smoke his plant.) I instantly loved this billboard, it was right up my antagonistic alley. Here was a big sign calling the courts corrupt, right at the Fisher Federal Building - that's ballsy. Somebody wanted some attention, and me being a media whore myself - I'm game. So check out this billboard. [continues 1021 words]
Colorado's About to Celebrate a Pot-Tax Holiday. Is It Time to Break Out the Cheetos and Goldfish? On September 16, and September 16 alone, the state will not collect the 15 percent retail marijuana excise tax - a tax holiday that could reduce state revenues by as much as $3.7 million, but greatly increase the happiness of Colorado's cannabis consumers. When Amendment 64 passed, Governor John Hickenlooper cautioned people not to "break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly." Now, nearly three years later, is the time finally right? To find out, the Stoner sat down with Governor Hickenlooper and Andrew Freedman, his director of marijuana coordination, to talk about the state of cannabis in Colorado. [continues 5125 words]
Michael Minna, Tadich Grill, Charles Schwab, and Citibank have a new neighbor in the Financial district. They're all the rage: tech startup hubs, new media hubs, popup restaurant hubs - shared workspaces where multiple small businesses incubate and enjoy network effects and efficiencies. Now that concept is coming to cannabis. The City of San Francisco surged back into the avant-garde of medical marijuana policy with the approval last week of the licensed, shared workspace for up to sixteen medical cannabis delivery businesses. The San Francisco Planning Commission formally greenlighted the world's first weed delivery hub license last Thursday, allowing a fleet of cannabis courier companies to occupy suites on the second floor of 214 California Street. [continues 698 words]
The city's long strange trip toward its first medical cannabis dispensary may be finally reaching its climax. For years, San Leandro's city leaders wanted absolutely no part of the medical cannabis industry. Medical cannabis patients could always go to Oakland, officials often said. But then two years ago, two opponents of medical pot on the San Leandro City Council switched sides. But not completely. The council decided in late 2013 that it would permit only one dispensary in the city. And the resulting competition for that single permit has attracted a number of strong and controversial applicants, including the country's largest dispensary, one that was recently tied to a federal corruption case in Oakland, and an untested local bidder that has close connections to San Leandro's political and business class. [continues 1609 words]
The most credible effort is late out of the gate, while campaign warchests are missing in action. Meanwhile, California lawmakers are rushing to write rules for medical pot. In 439 days, Californians are expected to cast a historic vote on an initiative legalizing cannabis for recreational adult use. But the text of that initiative and the hard proof that activists have the $20 million necessary to campaign for it have yet to materialize. The California Secretary of State's Office suggested July 7 as the last day to submit a measure to the state attorney general and request an official title and summary for a November 2016 ballot measure. But the leading coalition will not file an initiative until some time in early September, said Dale Sky Jones, chancellor of Oaksterdam University in Oakland and chair of what's referred to as ReformCA - the post-Proposition 19 coalition that includes the most effective, major reform groups: Drug Policy Alliance, Marijuana Policy Project, and the American Civil Liberties Union. [continues 712 words]
As America entered the 21st century, Florida became the home of retirees, tourists and prescription drug abusers. Law enforcement officials referred to Interstate 75 as the 'Oxy Express,' as people flooded into Florida to take advantage of the state's easy access to drugs. 'Florida was ground zero for pill mills,' said Assistant U.S. Attorney Simon Gaugush. During a six-month period in 2010 at just one pill mill in Tampa, 1,906 patients from 23 states made 4,715 visits. Doctors at this one facility wrote prescriptions for 1 million oxycodone pills. [continues 2762 words]
On Aug. 5, the marijuana legalization group Bay State Repeal filed three versions of a new ballot question with the state Attorney General's office, all of which would allow persons 21 years of age or older to legally grow, acquire, and possess marijuana for personal consumption. The purpose of the initiative is to establish moderate taxes and regulations on marijuana so that, over time, legal sales would drive out illegal sales, said Steven Epstein, the group's press secretary. The proposed legislation, he said, "treats farmers like farmers, treats private producers like processors of food - subject to local and state zoning and health rules - and sets the same rules for dealers that apply to tobacconists." [continues 192 words]
Don Winslow's epic new novel, "The Cartel," about Mexican drug lord Adan Barrera's desperate moves to stay on top of a quickly changing political and competitive landscape, couldn't have been released at a better time. The book, which begins with a Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman-esque prison break, came out mere weeks before the real Guzman, the head of the Sinaloa cartel, disappeared from a Mexican prison cell through a tunnel. This wasn't solely coincidental - "The Cartel," along with Winslow's 2005 novel "The Power of the Dog," is well-researched and chronicles the recent history of the Mexican drug cartels from 1975 to 2004. [continues 596 words]
So did some big marijuana person get arrested or something? What's going on? - -Connie Phused Yup. United Food and Commercial Workers honcho and cannabis activist Dan Rush has been indicted on a variety of bribery and corruption charges. The FBI alleges that Rush solicited bribes in exchange for him influencing the dispensary permitting process in Oakland, as well as taking bribes to teach dispensary operators how to avoid becoming a union-run shop. (Read more at http://weedactivist.com/wp-content/uploads/rush_indictment.pdf.) This allegation, if true, is heartbreaking. The idea that a union organizer would give advice on how to break unions is stunning. [continues 411 words]
