Officials, former inmate contrast the emphasis on treatment vs. incarceration When Leola Bivins was first sent away for dealing drugs, she was a 22-year-old high school dropout with a 2-year-old daughter at home. Addiction was the center of the life she knew in East Stroudsburg, where she was born and raised, she recalled recently. Bivins' mother was a heroin addict - she eventually died of an overdose - and seemingly everyone around her was either selling drugs or abusing them, Bivins said. [continues 2766 words]
Island Health is forging ahead with preparations for supervised-consumption sites in Victoria, saying the mounting drug-overdose deaths demand action. "The sense of urgency we have is that we have citizens within our community who are dying every day," Island Health CEO Brendan Carr said at a health board meeting in Victoria. Applications for two of three supervised-consumption sites are on track to be submitted to Health Canada by the end of the month, Island Health said. It wants to open supervised consumption services on Pandora Avenue next to Our Place, on Bridge Street near the Rock Bay Landing shelter, and at 844 Johnson St., which has been converted to housing for former residents of Victoria's tent city. [continues 614 words]
Mayor Bill de Blasio, who took office in 2014, has made some progress in cutting back on the unfair and sometimes illegal police practices under which thousands of New Yorkers are arrested every year for possessing trivial amounts of marijuana. But despite research showing that whites and minority citizens use marijuana at similar rates, black and Latino New Yorkers are still far and away more likely to be singled out for low-level arrests that have little public safety value, but seriously damage their lives. [continues 422 words]
Letter to the editor: Regarding USA TODAY's editorial "Marijuana on the ballot," no further studies are needed. The results are in. If the goal of marijuana prohibition is to deter use, prohibition is a failure. Few Americans had heard of marijuana, much less smoked it, until Congress made it illegal in 1937. Racial profiling was the clear intent of Reefer-madness-era legislation. The ugly legacy of racially disproportionate enforcement continues. This, despite mainstream use of marijuana, generated by the forbidden-fruit appeal. If the goal is to subsidize violent drug cartels, marijuana prohibition is a success. [continues 90 words]
Dispensary works in 'legal grey zone' awaiting new federal law The smell is unmistakable. There must be a small mountain of pot lying somewhere in a back room of the storefront office on St-Laurent Blvd. That thick, skunky aroma - strong enough to trigger memories of a misspent youth - is apparent the moment patients are buzzed through the front door of Fondation Marijuana. A whiteboard by the reception desk advertises strains with names like Grand Daddy Purps, Jean Guy and Blue Magic. [continues 2168 words]
Illegal drug use and trafficking have led to a multitude of ills in the United States, sometimes because of racially infected law enforcement, particularly in black neighborhoods. But is decriminalizing small amounts of narcotics at least part of the answer to the scourge? Two major human and civil rights organizations make a good case for it and advance the decriminalization discussion in a report released Wednesday. Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are engaged in a major push to change the way federal, state and local governments deal with drug enforcement and abuse. [continues 770 words]
Our view: Legislators should investigate apparent inconsistency in medical marijuana commission's criteria for who gets grower licenses When the General Assembly legalized medical marijuana in Maryland, it required the commission running the program to "actively seek to achieve racial, ethnic, and geographic diversity when licensing medical marijuana growers." But the attorney general's office advised the commission that, absent a study documenting racial disparities in the medical cannabis industry, creating racial and ethnic preferences was unconstitutional. As a result, the regulations the commission adopted make no mention of racial diversity. [continues 919 words]
DENVER - Many Californians will vote to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use Nov. 8 because - hell, yeah! But many of the rest of us are hoping for a longer, deeper high from legalization. We're hoping it brings some social justice. That benefit of legalization, I fear, is being a bit oversold in California. Ask Candi CdeBaca. Legalizing pot hasn't started to solve decades of inequities in her neighborhood because not enough people there have made social justice a priority. [continues 908 words]
Judge who acquitted Nosakhare Ohenen says case raises 'serious prospect' that police planted drugs on him In 2010, a judge ruled that Nosakhare Ohenhen's version of events detailing his arrest, including the allegation that Toronto police planted drugs on him, to be a "fabrication" and "totally implausible." He was convicted on a number of drug and firearm offences, as well as for resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. He was sentenced to nine years in prison, with credit for time spent in custody since his 2008 arrest. [continues 1361 words]
Judge blasts cops for actions that sent man to prison for 5 years It's another black eye for Toronto Police delivered from the judicial bench. Unfortunately, it comes rather late for Nosakhare Ohenhen. Long after the admitted drug dealer finished serving five years in prison, Justice Michael Quigley has acquitted him of all charges at his retrial, slamming Toronto cops for racial profiling and suggesting they may have even planted the drugs found in the man's Jaguar when he was stopped on Aug. 21, 2008. [continues 645 words]
Medical Marijuana Panel Leaders Set Meeting With AG on Minority Dispensers Leaders of the state's medical marijuana commission are meeting with Attorney General Brian E. Frosh next week to figure out how to achieve more racial diversity when the panel awards licenses to companies to dispense the drug. The Medical Cannabis Commission has come under scrutiny because most of the 30 companies to which it has awarded preliminary licenses to grow or process marijuana are led by white men. None of the companies that won lucrative licenses in the state's fledgling industry are led by African-Americans. About a third of the state's population is African-American. [continues 488 words]
No Black Businesses Received Licenses to Grow Medical Marijuana Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) have joined black state lawmakers in expressing dismay about the lack of diversity in Maryland's burgeoning medical-marijuana industry. At the same time, the head of the legislative black caucus is calling for legislation to ban elected officials from taking jobs in the industry. Del. Cheryl D. Glenn (D-Baltimore), who was instrumental in passing the bill that legalized medical marijuana, said she's angry that another leader in that effort later joined a company seeking a license to grow, process and sell the drug, without publicly making clear his dual roles. [continues 752 words]
The latest casualty in the administration's "war" against drugs is tiny Danica May Garcia, all of five years old. Danica May, young Rowena Tiamson, 22; Jefferson Buhain, 20; Roman Clifford Manaois, 20, have all paid the ultimate price for an illegal drug trade that was allowed to prosper unabated by previous administrations. These innocents have been categorized as "collateral damage." To dehumanize them so in the effort to play down the accountability of those responsible is really to watch them die twice. [continues 1000 words]
Black Lawmakers Say Cannabis Licensees Lack Racial Diversity The head of the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland is asking the governor to intervene in the awarding of medical cannabis licenses because the selected companies lack diversity, denying minorities the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of an emerging industry. "I am completely disappointed with the medical marijuana commission and the decision that they have made in terms of awarding licenses," said Del. Cheryl D. Glenn, chairwoman of the black caucus. "Clearly, there was no effort at all to factor in minority participation and make sure that it's inclusive of everybody in the state of Maryland." [continues 1240 words]
State among several to allow treatment not yet approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Pennsylvania and the federal government disagree about the usefulness of marijuana as medicine. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn't approved marijuana as safe and effective for treating any illness, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as recently as Aug. 11 kept marijuana in the same drug category as heroin, LSD and ecstasy. But Pennsylvania enacted a law in April that lists 17 conditions for which doctors can prescribe marijuana, including cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, posttraumatic stress disorder, autism, epilepsy and Parkinson's, Crohn's and Huntington's diseases. [continues 1090 words]
Health-care specialists in Pennsylvania prescribe the drug despite the federal government's reluctance to approve it as safe and effective for treating illness. Pennsylvania and the federal government disagree about the usefulness of marijuana as medicine. ELLEN F. O'CONNELL/Staff Photographer The van Hoekelen Greenhouses Inc. facility is located on Lofty Road in Kline Township. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn't approved marijuana as safe and effective for treating any illness, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as recently as Aug. 11 kept marijuana in the same drug category as heroin, LSD and ecstasy. [continues 1378 words]
African-Americans Ticketed, Arrested for Pot Offenses in Chicago Far More Than Any Racial Group Four years after the Chicago City Council decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana, African-American neighborhoods continue to bear the brunt of enforcement, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation has found. As anticipated, the Chicago Police Department is making a fraction of the arrests for misdemeanor marijuana possession it made in 2011 - the last full year before cops were given the option of ticketing, rather than locking up, people caught with about half an ounce or less. [continues 1364 words]
The Aug. 16 editorial "Don't reclassify marijuana yet - research it" would have benefited from more research itself. The Drug Enforcement Administration's refusal to reschedule cannabis has nothing to do with health, for if it cared about safety, it would need look no further than itself. You're more likely to be shot by a DEA agent than you are to die from an overdose of pot because the latter has never happened. The burden of proof has unjustly fallen on legalization advocates; initially convicted by racism and xenophobia, cannabis has been proclaimed guilty until proved innocent. [continues 63 words]
Critics Say MD. Diversity Isn't Reflected; Decisions May Be Challenged Maryland set up its legal medical marijuana industry with hopes of racial diversity and equity in the division of profits, but not one of the 15 companies that were cleared this week for potentially lucrative growing licenses is led by African Americans. Some lawmakers and prospective minority-owned businesses say this is unacceptable in a state where nearly a third of the population is black, the most of any state with a comprehensive legal pot industry. They say the lack of diversity is emblematic of how, across the country, African Americans are disproportionately locked up when marijuana use is criminalized but are shut out of the profits when drug sales are legalized. [continues 1046 words]
Much has changed in the cannabis world since Russ Feingold lost to Ron Johnson in 2010. Then, about 15 states had legalized medical cannabis, a number now at 25. Today, four states and Washington, D.C., have legalized adult use. This November, at least three more will vote on medical, and five more will vote on adult use. Feingold's record has been thin. While cannabis activists extensively advocated for his support, he never sponsored any bills. The federal CARERS Act would make it easier for researchers to study marijuana. It is sponsored by U.S. Sens. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, and Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, and has 19 cosponsors including U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison. [continues 88 words]
