Double Toke! Ammiano Reintroduces Bill to Legalize, Tax Marijuana
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has reintroduced his pioneering bill seeking to legalize and tax pot in California.
In a statement released this afternoon, Ammiano's office said the San Francisco Democrat hopes the new legislation will build on support garnered by AB 390, his first pot-legalization measure, which passed out of committee in Sacramento but overran its deadline for consideration by the rest of the Legislature.
The bill's expiration last month appeared more or less in line with the grand strategy of Ammiano, who said he wanted to take plenty of time to build consensus on the issue. Now AB 2254, the latest incarnation of the Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education Act, will get a second shot.
"We're even more optimistic about the fate of this bill than we were about AB 390," Aaron Smith, California director for the Marijuana Policy Project, told SF Weekly.
Despite Obama admin’s promise, DEA continues raids on medical marijuana growers
On Thursday, a Denver news station interviewed Chris Bartkowicz about his medical-marijuana operation in the basement of his home. Bartkowicz, confident of his compliance with state laws, boasted of its size and profitability.
"I'm definitely living the dream now," he told 9News.
The following day, the dream was over.
Drug-enforcement agents raided his home, placed him under arrest, and carried off dozens of black bags of marijuana plants and growing lights.
The Obama administration promised in October that the federal government would respect state laws allowing the growing and selling of marijuana for medicinal use, but the Drug Enforcement Agency sent a loud message with the arrest of Bartkowicz.
Legalizing and taxing marijuana would benefit society
California's budget turmoil is the worst in the nation. Sacramento closed a $42 billion deficit this summer only to face tens of billions more red ink already. Most expect another round of tortured budget balancing that further slashes aid to the most vulnerable, raises taxes and fees and kicks the can down the road with billions more in borrowing.
Meanwhile, California's largest cash crop is being largely ignored in the frenzied search for politically-viable revenue. The state’s marijuana yield is conservatively valued at $14 billion annually – nearly double the combined value of our vegetable and grape crops. The state Board of Equalization estimates that taxing adult marijuana consumption like alcohol would generate $1.4 billion in new revenue for the state. While that’s only a modest contribution toward our fiscal woes, it’s one more incentive to end decades of failed marijuana prohibition. In fact, the financial and human price that we currently pay for criminalizing pot is far too high.
Two sides of medical marijuana: Anne’s story — to pill, or not to pill?
Anne Gamet poses with her pipe filled with marijuana at her Greeley home. She is undergoing chemotherapy to fight cancer and uses the drug legally after receiving her medical marijuana certificate from the state this year. Credit: Eric Bellamy
Anne Gamet doesn't know how much longer she has to live, but all that matters to the 45-year-old Greeley woman is she's living, and she's going to keep fighting as long as she can.
She has a lot to live for — her 28-year marriage to Charlie, her 27-year-old daughter Miranda, and her son 24-year-old Cody, who will not come second to any stares, stigmas or attitudes people may have when they find out how she gets out of bed each morning and how she falls asleep each night.
Because for Gamet, if it wasn't for the legalization of medical marijuana in Colorado, she wouldn't be living at all.
“When I first decided to do this, I told my husband I'm not going to do pictures,” she said of telling her story about what the medicine has done for her. “But then when I thought about it, I thought, ‘If I expect to put a new face on this thing, I sure as the heck can't hide my face.' ”
Gamet lives every day of her life thankful for the little pipe that sits on her living room table and the marijuana she legally buys to put into it.
OREGON: Legal marijuana: a cure for state budget woes?
Legalizing marijuana for adults could help plug holes in the state budget, supporters of legalized marijuana said Wednesday, but opponents warned of hidden costs.
In a time of tight budgets and a sluggish economy supporters said about $30 million could be raised in state revenue by allowing anyone 21 and over to buy marijuana from stores regulated by a newly created Oregon Cannabis Control Commission.
Madeline Martinez of Oregon’s chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws is one of two petitioners wanting to put the issue before Oregon voters. The other is Paul Stanford who led an attempt to legalize marijuana 24 years ago – in 1986 – and was arrested that same year for an illegal pot grow in his home.
Martinez said one of their primary arguments for legalizing marijuana will be its benefit to the state’s budget. She said sales would be taxed and 90 percent of the revenue would go toward the general fund.
Some Medical Marijuana Millionaires Are Turning to Philanthropy
Richard Lee, left, owner of the Blue Sky Shop/dispensary, teaching Chris McCatheran about medical marijuana plants. Credit: Peter Dasilva/European Pressphoto Agency
The popularity of pot clubs in the Bay Area has led to a burgeoning crop of medical marijuana millionaires. Call them the ganja riche. Like many of their nouveaux predecessors, they are trying to figure out what to do with their cash.
Some are giving to charity, but you will not see any fanfare or buildings named in their honor. Medicinal marijuana remains a legal gray area, and nothing — even philanthropy — is simple when it comes to the proceeds. Oakland’s medical marijuana headquarters, Oaksterdam University, could not even sponsor a local food bank.
“They refused our sponsorship because of other money they get from the federal government,” said Richard Lee, founder of Oaksterdam.
While marijuana money and munchies might sound like the perfect fit, the food bank worried that such a partnership would have put the federal dollars it receives in jeopardy.
“We appreciated the offer from Oaksterdam and gave it due consideration,” said Brian Higgins, the food bank’s spokesman. “In the end, it was not worth the risk.”
The sense of legal uncertainty is created by the maze of laws surrounding medical marijuana. California voters approved it, but it remains a federal crime.
DETROIT: Michigan cities try to block medicinal marijuana sales
Medical marijuana is legal in Michigan, but communities across the state are putting up barriers to block entrepreneurs from setting up shop in what critics say is a clear attempt to subvert the law.
Cities are taking vastly different approaches to regulating how medical pot is dispensed -- from bans in Livonia to months-long moratoriums on marijuana businesses in Grand Rapids and Saginaw, to an environment of open mindedness in Hazel Park, where city leaders see pot dispensaries as a potential revenue source.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan says it is keeping an eye on the dizzying array of laws popping up across the state as local leaders from big cities to rural enclaves try to interpret Michigan's Medical Marijuana Act, which passed in 2008 by 63 percent and establishes the right of certified patients and caregivers to possess pot. Patients can legally use it.
Cannabis by product helps reduce effects of Parkinson disease medication
Brazilian researchers have tested the positive effects of canabiodiol
Six patients with Parkinson were given during a whole month small doses of "canabiodiol" one of the 400 substances in marijuana, following which encouraging results were confirmed according to scientists from the Riberao Preto Medicine School from the SP University.
"Patients with Parkinson developed improvements in their sleeping alterations, in their psychotic symptoms and could even reduce their trembling" said psychiatrist Jose Alexander Crippa, Neuro-sciences Department professor.
The paper on the discovery was published last November and next year an additional paper with test results on the anxiolytic effects of "canabiodiol" in patients with obsession and compulsion disorders will be released.
Life after cannabis prohibition – Plant saves planet! Marijuana saves world! Herb saves Earth?
Credit: Dexter Phoenix Salem-News.com
These are some of the headlines we might see, if things continue the way they've been going - with the increasingly global movement towards a more rational policy regarding the use of a naturally occurring, yet chemically compelling plant/substance called Cannabis. Cannabis Sativa, and its sister, Cannabis Indica, otherwise know as Pot, Marijuana, Mary Jane, Herb, Grass, Weed, Reefer, Gage, Kind, Ganja, et cetera (the list goes on and on) is the world's most popular social relaxant, but simultaneously most controversial "narcotic" drug. The terminology is debatable, as many don't consider it a drug at all. Many find it just helps them unwind.
Although its effects, especially from the Indica strains such as Afghan and cross-bred hybrids such as White Widow can be a bit narcotizing, in that they can make you sleepy (good for insomnia), Cannabis in its various forms such as "Bud", the dried flowers of the plant, and "Hash" or Hashish or "Kief", the concentrated resin glands of the plant, cannot credibly continue to be classified by the US DEA, NIDA, FDA, ONDCP et al, as a dangerous "Schedule I" narcotic lumped in with the likes of LSD, PCP, Heroin etc. as having a high potential for abuse and having no medical applications.
As California's current governor once said "It's not a drug, it's a leaf!" More recently he added "It's time for a debate" about whether we should consider the ramifications of legalization of the herb by examining those countries (Portugal has over seven years of success with decriminaliztion of most drugs) that've implemented drug reforms such as decriminalization and legalization. He could make a tremendous difference to the forward movement of this thinking by signing such legislation into law before he leaves office. That just might happen.
Mankind has a symbiotic (mutually helpful) history with marijuana, or cannabis, going back many thousands of years - no one knows for sure how long, but medical uses in China have been documented as far back as 5,000 BC. Modern medicine was just beginning to understand this unique plant's potential protective, anti-emetic, anti-inflammatory, anti-spasmodic, and psychopharmacological properties when the US Government took drastic steps to ban its use and study.
The plant and hominids have happily coexisted in harmony for many millenia, as evidenced by the fact that humans have developed an "endocannabinoid" system which mimics the cannabinoids (active elements) in Cannabis itself. The human brain and nervous system has evolved with specific receptor sites that match cannabinoids such as THC and CBD, thus enhancing the existence of both man and plant.
This coming year should prove very interesting indeed with respect to developments on the medical cannabis front. With the AMA's recent reversal of its 70-some year boycott on the beneficial herb, maybe congress or the President himself will see fit to remove this incredibly medicinally useful plant from the Schedule I, paradoxical purgatory it has languished in for decades. The stars (movie and cosmological) are aligning in support of this potentially earth-shaking plant. By 'earthshaking' I mean it can literally save lives, economies and the overall ecology of the planet on which we have but a tenuous hold.
NORML: A Father’s greif: Cannabis Prohibition, Race and My Son
An unfortunate college photo of Barack Obama comes back to bite. During Obama’s freshman year at Occidental College, a classmate took a picture of the “cool cat.”
Despite the bizarre claims of some prohibitionists and law enforcement representatives that ‘no one in America gets arrested or goes to jail for cannabis charges’, NORML receives hundreds of emails and letters a week from our fellow citizens who’ve been negatively impacted by cannabis prohibition laws–notably due to an encounter with law enforcement.
A few weeks ago I received a letter from a father of a young man arrested and incarcerated on minor cannabis-related charges in Arlington, Virginia. The father’s lament is deep and profound, beyond the standard pleas for help NORML so regularly receives. So much so that I asked him if he would send NORML the original letter for publication.
Nurses and doctors support compassionate cannabis use in Wisconsin
Madison: At the Dec. 15 combined committee (cannabis) hearing on AB554/SB368, the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act, support from health care professionals, particularly those who treat patients in real pain or represent professions that do, was strong. This was evident to those attending the hearing and to those viewing it on Wisconsin Eye.
Unfortunately, the representative of the Wisconsin State Medical Society (SMS), Dr. Michael Miller, an addiction specialist with a lucrative practice treating people involuntarily referred for counseling after detection of marijuana use, was not among those supporting the JRMMA Dec. 15.
But even Dr. Miller's on record opposition on behalf of the SMS to the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act was tempered by statements he made. As to "gateway drugs", Dr. Miller identified tobacco, a legal substance, as the number one gateway drug. He also acknowledged not only had SMS members not been polled as to whether they supported the JRMMA, but if they were, "you might get a lot of members saying yes".
