In 2000, Hawaii's Legislature was the first in the nation to pass medical marijuana legislation to provide medical relief for the state's seriously ill. Existing law recognizes the benefits of marijuana for alleviating pain and other symptoms associated with certain debilitating illnesses, but patients until now have to obtain marijuana on the "black market" or must grow their own supply of medical marijuana. The plain fact is: It does not work. Fifteen years ago, Hawaii led by example and now we must do it again by passing legislation to create a well-regulated cultivation and retail dispensary system. [continues 505 words]
BLOOMFIELD, N.M. - Charles C. Lynch seemed to be doing everything right when he opened a medical marijuana dispensary in the tidy coastal town of Morro Bay, Calif. The mayor, the city attorney and leaders of the local Chamber of Commerce all came for the ribbon-cutting in 2006. The conditions for his business license, including a ban on customers younger than 18 and compliance with California's medical marijuana laws, were posted on the wall. But two years later, Lynch was convicted of multiple felonies under federal law for selling marijuana. He is one of hundreds of defendants and prisoners caught up in the stark conflict between federal law, which puts marijuana in the same class as heroin with no exception for medical sales, and the decisions by many states to authorize medical uses. [continues 654 words]
Froma Harrop should give more credit to the Rand Paul, RKy., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., bill ("Half a heart on marijuana better than no heart at all," Star-Advertiser, March 21). Reducing cannabis (marijuana) from its current discredited classification as a Schedule I substance alongside heroin will allow a chain reaction of credible drug law reform, all by itself. Like the original experiment with alcohol prohibition, the sequel has been not only a failure; it's one of America's worst policy failures. Cannabis prohibition has been reinforced by lies, half-truths and propaganda, perhaps none worse than the Schedule I lie. America cannot move forward without fixing that blatant injustice. Stan White Dillon, Colo. [end]
For Years, Huge Budgets and Plenty of Manpower Were the Norm - but Those Days Are Long Gone The Hawaii National Guard was a pioneer in the war on drugs, flying Huey helicopters in support of a big law enforcement roundup of marijuana plants in a 1977 Hawaii island operation called Green Harvest. Former Gov. George Ariyoshi related in a 1982 New York Times story how 49 National Guardsmen flew into Kauai's mountains by helicopter in 1981 to ferret out a dozen marijuana growers because police were afraid to go. [continues 1036 words]
Hawaii's Medical Marijuana Patients Could See Outlets As Early As Next Year The push to allow for medical marijuana dispensaries in Hawaii - some 15 years after state leaders permitted medical use of the drug - continues to advance through the Legislature, with key lawmakers in support saying they hope to give the state's nearly 13,000 medical pot patients access to such outlets by early 2016. On Wednesday the state Senate Health and Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs committees unanimously voted to approve House Bill 321, which would create a framework to permit medical pot dispensaries across the islands. [continues 595 words]
A bipartisan trio of U.S. senators - New Jersey's Cory Booker, New York's Kirsten Gillibrand and Kentucky's Rand Paul - are sponsoring a bill to classify marijuana as a Schedule II drug, meaning the federal government would allow it be used as medicine. Some critics worry that such a bill could become a "gateway law" to full legalization of recreational weed; defenders say sick patients need the pain relief best provided by marijuana. Should the bill get approval? Joel Mathis and Ben Boychuk, the RedBlueAmerica columnists, debate the issue. [continues 531 words]
(AP) - State senators are taking up a proposal to develop a system of medical marijuana dispensaries, which would give patients legal access to the drug nearly 15 years after it became legal in Hawaii. A Senate panel heard the proposal Friday. Maria Eloisa Reyes attended the hearing with her son, who, because of a medical condition, has about 14 seizures per month despite taking several medications, she said. The seizures last as long as a half-hour. Reyes wants her son to try medical marijuana, and she has a degree in agriculture, but she doesn't believe she can grow the plant herself because she doesn't have legal access to the correct strain to help her son, she said. [continues 403 words]
Why is marijuana illegal in Hawaii? It's safer than alcohol. Don't legislators represent the people who elected them? According to a poll of Hawaii voters by QMark Research in 2014, 66 percent of respondents said they endorsed legalizing cannabis. Colorado took in $76 million in marijuana related fees and taxes in 2014. Significant portions of marijuana sales went to tourists. Colorado is also reporting 10,000 new marijuana-related jobs. Couldn't Hawaii benefit from an increase in revenue and job opportunities? [continues 62 words]
Give thanks for the little things, they say. A bill that would stop the feds from going after medical marijuana users in states that permit such activity is something for which we should give thanks. But it is little. Let's not criticize the sponsoring senators - Rand Paul, R-Ky., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Cory Booker, D-N.J. - for such a small reprieve from the war on drugs. They've probably gone about as far as they could within the two-faced confines of our national politics. [continues 538 words]
A Justice Department report released last week makes a strong case that Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson acted in self-defense when he shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, last August. The report suggests that Robert McCulloch, the much-maligned St. Louis County prosecutor, made the right call when he decided not to pursue criminal charges against Wilson. McCulloch nevertheless was the wrong person to make that call. His lack of credibility, as illustrated by the upside-down grand jury process that he orchestrated to clear Wilson, highlights the need for independent prosecutors to review police shootings. [continues 574 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) - Two Democratic senators and a possible Republican presidential candidate joined forces Tuesday to push a bill to remove federal prohibitions on medical marijuana in 23 states where it's already legal. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Democrats Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Cory Booker of New Jersey said their unusual coalition is a sign of growing acceptance of medical marijuana. The lawmakers introduced a bill intended to eliminate uncertainty surrounding marijuana use in states and the District of Columbia that allow it for medicinal purposes. The bill also would allow doctors at veterans' hospitals to prescribe pot for medical purposes and allow banks to provide checking accounts and other financial services to marijuana dispensaries. [continues 109 words]
The Measure Would Allow Patients to Legally Obtain Medical Marijuana A bill to authorize the first legal medical marijuana dispensaries in Hawaii cleared a critical hurdle at the Legislature this week by winning approval from the House Finance Committee. That nod from the powerful committee that controls state funding means the bill is now positioned for a vote by the full state House of Representatives. Nearly 15 years after state lawmakers approved the prescription and use of medical marijuana, patients still have no legal way of purchasing cannabis. They are in effect legally required to grow their own supply, and officials say many are apparently relying instead on the black market for marijuana to obtain medicinal pot. [continues 526 words]
Last week the newly created Coalition for Public Safety, a bipartisan, transideological campaign to reform the criminal justice system, made a big splash by bringing together political adversaries such as Koch Industries and the Center for American Progress. Notably absent from celebrations of this strange-bedfellows alliance: any mention of actual policy changes the coalition plans to pursue. The lack of specifics was understandable but telling. While there seems to be broad agreement within the coalition about what should be done to "make our criminal justice system smarter, fairer and more cost effective," the current Congress may settle for little more than lip service to those goals. [continues 571 words]
According to the national group NORML, 18 states have decriminalized marijuana, at a minimum. Typically, according to its website, that means "no prison time or criminal record for first-time possession of a small amount for personal consumption" - essentially treating offenses like a minor traffic violation. A legislative bill that would make Hawaii the 19th such state has advanced. Passing it would make sense. Even some of those who look askance at marijuana legalization don't want to see small-time users criminalized and public money spent on prosecuting them. [end]
The city that brought America government shutdowns and all-night filibusters is set to make pot legal on Thursday. But by the time the chaos over implementing the law is settled, most everyone in the District of Columbia might wish they were smoking some. Residents voted overwhelmingly in November to allow growing and possessing small amounts of marijuana. But Congress, using its oversight authority over the nation's capital, inserted a provision into a massive December spending deal that prevented the local government from enacting the law. [continues 148 words]
WEST PALM BEACH, FLA. (AP) - Republican lawmakers in Florida who once opposed medical pot are now embracing it, motivated by the strong show of support from voters and worried that another constitutional amendment during next year's presidential race could drive opponents to the polls. Last year lawmakers in the GOP-controlled Legislature passed a law to allow low-potency strains of marijuana helpful to a very limited group of patients. But many people argued it was inadequate and took the fight to voters with a constitutional amendment that would have widely expanded the drug's availability to the sick. It got about 58 percent of the vote in November but needed 60 percent to pass under Florida law. [continues 447 words]
The push to develop dispensaries for medical marijuana will be back in the Hawaii Legislature this week when a joint meeting of two House committees takes up the proposal. Supporters say providing legal access to marijuana for patients is long overdue, and House Speaker Joe Souki agreed with that assessment in his opening-day remarks. More than 200 pages of testimony were submitted for and against the proposal by those who feel strongly that access is needed and others who fear marijuana will fall into the hands of susceptible youths. The House's Health and Judiciary committees plan to vote on the measure Tuesday afternoon. [continues 166 words]
One Word Could Help the District Around a Congressional Action WASHINGTON - Last fall, voters in the District of Columbia chose to join a handful of states in legalizing the production and possession of small amounts of marijuana. But unlike in the states, the free will of district voters - no matter how overwhelmingly expressed - is never the end of the story. Congressional Republicans believe they have successfully nullified the law. But officials here, seizing on a single word in the congressional legislation designed to scuttle the policy, beg to differ, setting up one of the most closely watched collisions between the two Washingtons in years. [continues 843 words]
Jari Sugano said she supports a bill that would make dispensing marijuana easier to help her 6-year-old daughter, Maile, who suffers from seizures. "It's time to come together and support this," said Sugano, sitting next to Maile, who was in a wheelchair at a legislative hearing Saturday. State laws allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes and for people to grow or have grown enough to supply 4 ounces at a time. But Sugano and others told lawmakers Saturday that obtaining the drug is difficult because it's illegal to sell it in Hawaii. [continues 270 words]
During her confirmation hearings last week, Loretta Lynch, President Barack Obama's choice to succeed Eric Holder as attorney general, called civil forfeiture, a form of legalized theft in which the government takes people's property without accusing them of a crime, "a wonderful tool." Lynch, currently the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, suggested that innocent owners need not worry about getting hammered by this tool, because forfeiture "is done pursuant to supervision by a court," and "the protections are there." [continues 593 words]
