Attorney General’s New Pot Rules Not Enough
September 27, 2008, 2:37 am
Filed under: Hemp&Law, HempTherapy, hemp in general | Tags: cannabis, cannabis law, Dea, ganja, hashish, hemp, Jerry Brown, marijuana, medical cannabis, medical marijuana, pot, Proposition 215, skunk, therapeutic use, weed
Filed under: Hemp&Law, HempTherapy, hemp in general | Tags: cannabis, cannabis law, Dea, ganja, hashish, hemp, Jerry Brown, marijuana, medical cannabis, medical marijuana, pot, Proposition 215, skunk, therapeutic use, weed
CA — California Attorney General Jerry Brown’s new attempt to settle the nerves of medical marijuana dispensers and patients is a weak attempt to make proposition 215 stronger.
Attorney General Brown has introduced an eleven-page directive aimed at clearing up some issues between state and federal governments. He believes his new guidelines will minimize legal worries and ease patient worries.
In 1996 when proposition 215 was passed by an overwhelming vote, medical marijuana dispensaries started popping up like Trader Joes all over the state. People started getting prescriptions for their “back pain” and everyone was happy.
At the same time, federally, this was all very illegal.
Twelve years has gone by and dozens of dispensaries have been opened, been raided, and been reopened just to be raided again. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been made from the profits and millions have been spent on trying to fight the legislation.
Brown’s eleven-page directive now gives police the ability to distinguish between criminals and legitimate marijuana sellers. It also protects patients from getting arrested unlawfully. Brown’s plan also will change dispensaries into non-profit or cooperatives, to cut out big money operations that exploit the medical label and sell to just about anyone.
One other step Brown wants to take is to change the amount of pot on the market, making it so only a patient, caregiver or dispensary could grow the small amount of medical marijuana needed. Brown’s plan has just cleaned up the legislation at the state level. It will not stop the DEA from raiding dispensaries or harassing patients.
The police should already be able to distinguish criminals from legitimate marijuana sellers. Don’t the legitimate guys usually sell during the day at a place with a sign that says medical marijuana in neon green?
As for turning these dispensaries into non-profits, they probably only report a quarter of their earnings as it is so this will be no big hurdle for them to get around. I am sure there are millions of tax-free dollars going through legitimate dispensaries.
The amount of pot on the market will not change by only allowing patients or dispensaries to grow the plants. The law now says a patient is allowed to grow up to six plants and a dispensary is allowed to grow six plants per patient it serves. There is no way a dispensary knows how many patients it has from week to week or even day to day. If they have 65 regular patients they must 65 people that try and go to a different dispensary every week. Does that mean they have 130 patients and are allowed to grow 780 plants?
Making all these changes at the state level is continuing to get the medical marijuana laws nowhere. The changes need to be made federally and only then will the dispensers be able to run their business with out fear from the DEA.
Note: Medical marijuana laws must be changed federally to have any impact.
Source: Sonoma State Star
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New Laws Have Tougher Penalties for Pot Growers
People who can’t pay fines for noncriminal traffic offenses will be able to pay off their debt through community service.
Aggravated abuse of an elderly person or disabled adult will be a first-degree felony. Law-enforcement personnel will be trained over the next three years to better recognize abuse.
Law-enforcement agencies will have to adopt written policies and procedures to be used when investigating missing-children and missing-adult reports.
June 30, 2008, 9:32 am
Filed under: Hemp&Law, HempTherapy, hemp in general | Tags: cannabis, cannabis law, ganja, grow house, hemp, marijuana, pot, weed
Filed under: Hemp&Law, HempTherapy, hemp in general | Tags: cannabis, cannabis law, ganja, grow house, hemp, marijuana, pot, weed
Starting Tuesday, a new state law will bring harsher penalties for marijuana growers.
Under the new Florida law, a “grow house” will be classified as a building containing 25 or more marijuana plants. Before, the threshold was 300 plants. The charge will remain a second-degree felony.
“Our laws were way out of date on that,” Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum told the Tallahassee Democrat .
The law also allows law-enforcement agencies to dispose of grow-house equipment after taking pictures or recording video.
Tallahassee police say that in the past, they have had to store every single marijuana plant and piece of equipment until the people arrested went to trial.
“The storage is expensive, and we spend a lot of time packaging the material, time we could be investigating other criminal activity,” said David McCranie, spokesman for the Tallahassee Police Department.
Also, it will be a third-degree felony for someone to own, lease or rent a place while knowing that it is being used for drug trafficking or making drugs.
Here are highlights of other new Florida laws taking effect Tuesday:
n Salvia divinorum , a plant native to Mexico, and Salvinorin A, both believed to cause hallucinogenic effects, will be illegal to possess or sell.
- People who have been wrongfully convicted of a crime and incarcerated in the state Department of Corrections system will be able to seek compensation.
Source:http://www.tallahassee.com/
VOTERS SAY YES’ ON B
June 5, 2008, 1:49 am
Filed under: Hemp&Law | Tags: cannabis, cannabis grow, cannabis law, Marijuana Reform, mendocino county
Filed under: Hemp&Law | Tags: cannabis, cannabis grow, cannabis law, Marijuana Reform, mendocino county
Marijuana Reform Measure Approved
After six months of forums, discussions, political mailers and vigorous, and sometimes vociferous, debate, Mendocino County voters finally had the opportunity to say their piece on the future of the county’s marijuana policy.
With 100 percent of the precincts reporting at 12:35 a.m. Wednesday, Measure B was winning 52.15 percent to 47.85 percent. The Elections Office recorded a 34.94 percent turnout for the election and counted 16,436 ballots.
Provisional ballots remain to be counted.
“We’re very confident that we’re going to win,” Ross Liberty, spokesman for the Yes on B Coalition, said earlier in the evening.
Measure B repeals Measure G, the county’s personal use marijuana law, and sets medical marijuana possession limits in Mendocino County at the state limits of six mature or 12 immature plants and eight ounces of dried marijuana.
Measure G was passed by county voters in 2000 and instructed law enforcement to make the prosecution of possession of 25 marijuana plants or fewer the lowest possible priority.
No on B campaign spokeswoman Laura Hamburg said early in the evening that she was optimistic and excited about the results despite the fact that initial reports showed Measure B passing by a margin of more than 10 percent of the vote.
“The early results are always brutal,” she said. “It’s the most conservative group.”
While the measure appeared to be passing from the earliest returns, Liberty said he was disappointed with the margin. Liberty said a poll conducted before Measure B was put on the ballot showed it passing with 65 percent of the vote.
“That’s my personal belief of where we were before we started,” he said.
Liberty said even if Measure B ended up passing by a narrow margin, he would still be happy with the victory.
“It’s important to win,” he said.
“We will all have done a great disservice to this county if we lose,” Liberty said.
As the evening wore on, Yes on B maintained its almost 11 percent lead, though it eventually narrowed to around 5 percent.
Hamburg said no matter what the results of the election were, it would be counted as a victory by No on B because the campaign had created a dialogue about marijuana in Mendocino County.
“What happens tonight is just one slice of it,” she said.
Liberty acknowledged that the fight over Measure B had been a divisive campaign and that a dialogue between the groups would be good.
“We have more common ground than we tended to acknowledge during the campaign,” he said.
Hamburg said representatives of both campaigns as well as public health and other county entities would be meeting soon to discuss what can be done to deal with the crime and environmental degradation that often surrounds illegal marijuana grows.
“The whole county says no to that,” she said.
All results from election night are unofficial. The definitive results will not be released until a canvas of the votes is completed, which could take up to 28 days.
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MARIJUANA MILESTONES IN COUNTY SINCE PROP. 215
1996 – California voters passed Proposition 215, the compassionate use act, which legalized the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. The law allowed medical marijuana patients to have as much marijuana as their doctors recommended.
2000 – Mendocino County voters passed Measure G with 58 percent of the vote. The resolution ordered Mendocino County law enforcement agencies to make prosecution of the possession of 25 or fewer marijuana plants the lowest possible priority. The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors was instructed to use its budgetary authority to enforce the voters’ will.
2003 – The California Legislature passed Senate Bill 420, which set legal limits on the amount of medical marijuana a patient with a doctor’s recommendation could possess.
SB 420 set statewide possession limits at either six mature or 12 immature plants and eight ounces of dried marijuana. The bill also provided an exception to the rule, allowing medical marijuana patients to have more than the state mandated amount of marijuana if a doctor signed a letter indicating that they needed more.
Patients were also allowed to designate care givers who could grow marijuana for them if they were not able, establishing the practice of care givers and patients growing collectively. The sale of marijuana for profit remained illegal under SB 420 but care givers were allowed to take reasonable compensation for their work.
SB 420 also gave individual counties Advertisement the right to set higher limits for medical marijuana but not lower ones. It also required every county to establish a voluntary medical marijuana identification card program.
August, 2007 – The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to set medical marijuana limits in Mendocino County at 25 plants and two pounds of marijuana. Before the vote, members of the board said they were acting in accordance with the will of the voters as specified in Measure G.
December, 2007 – The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors set medical marijuana plant limits at 25 plants per parcel of land, regardless of the number of qualified patients living there.
Jan. 9, 2008 – The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors puts Measure B on the June 3 ballot. The measure proposes to repeal Measure G and set medical marijuana plant limits at the state level of six mature plants or 12 immature plants and eight ounces of marijuana. Under the measure, medical marijuana patients would still be allowed to have more if they have a signed letter from their doctor saying they need more.
April 16, 2008 – The Ukiah City Council votes to endorse Measure B, joining endorsements from the city councils of Willits and Fort Bragg.
April 24, 2008 – Two lawsuits against Measure B, one filed by Green Party member Richard Johnson and the other filed by county residents Paula Laguna and George Hanamoto, were dismissed by Mendocino Superior Court Judge John Behnke. Both suits aimed to get Measure B off the ballot, arguing that it violated the California constitution as well as previous medical marijuana laws.
May 1, 2008 — Mendocino County District Attorney Meredith Lintott endorsed Measure B, saying it will make her job easier by clarifying Mendocino county’s medical marijuana laws.
May 13, 2008 — Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman endorsed Measure B after previously declining to take a stand on the measure.
May 22, 2008 — The California Appellate Court rules in people v. Kelly that the medical marijuana limits set forth in SB 420 are unconstitutional and that the state does not have the right to set medical marijuana limits under Proposition 215.
Source: Ukiah Daily Journal, The (CA)
Website: http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/
HAILEY OFFICIALS NOT SWAYED BY PRO-POT VOTE
Marijuana Lawsuit to Continue in 5th District Court
Hailey city officials will continue with their anti-marijuana lawsuit despite an election earlier this week in which the city’s electorate approved three pro-pot initiatives for the second time.
“I have no intention of withdrawing it,” City Councilman Don Keirn said Wednesday. “The whole purpose of the lawsuit is to get this in front of the court. We need a declaratory judgment, maybe now more than ever.
“In theory, the judge will say this whole thing is illegal and that’s the end of it. I’d like to get it behind us.”
Keirn, Mayor Rick Davis and Police Chief Jeff Gunter filed a lawsuit earlier this month in Blaine County 5th District Court seeking a ruling on three marijuana reform initiatives that were approved by the electorate last November.
“I have no intention of withdrawing it either,” Gunter said Thursday. “Just because it passed twice doesn’t mean it’s not in conflict with state law and we need to have it resolved.”
Davis was on vacation and could not be reached for comment.
The three initiatives, one to legalize medical use of marijuana, another to legalize industrial hemp and a third to make enforcement of marijuana laws the city’s lowest police priority, were first approved in November. They were approved by voters once again on Tuesday.
Marijuana advocate Ryan Davidson, the man who initiated petition drives to get the initiatives on the ballots, said Wednesday that Hailey city officials should follow the will of the electorate.
“If they don’t do that, I think they should be recalled,” said Davidson, a former Bellevue resident who now lives in Garden City and is chairman of The Liberty Lobby of Idaho.
In Tuesday’s election, the medical marijuana initiative passed with a 58 percent positive vote, up from the 53 percent it received last November.
Also passed was the industrial hemp measure, which received 56.5 percent voter approval, up from the 53 percent it received in the first election.
The police priority initiative was approved at 53 percent, up from the 51 percent it received in the first vote.
Defeated for a second time was an initiative to require the city to tax and regulate distribution and use of marijuana. Forty-seven percent of the electorate voted for the initiative on Tuesday, the same percentage that voted for it in November.
“I think this is just a great expression on how people feel on the issues and they’re not going to change,” Davidson said. “I was right to do it the first time and I was right to do it again. When the people speak on an issue two times like that, it speaks volumes. I don’t think there was any question that they knew what they were voting for this time.
“Now it’s tough to ignore the mandate from the voters.”
But Councilman Keirn doesn’t see the vote as a mandate at all, pointing out that less than 20 percent of Hailey’s electorate voted in Tuesday’s election.
“We don’t have a huge mandate there,” he said. “You figure all the numbers and it’s not that large.”
References: http://www.mapinc.org
Pot Prevails Again in Hailey
Source: Idaho Mountain Express
Idaho — As Hailey officials prepare to battle about marijuana in court, the city’s electorate prepares to go to the polls to vote once again on four pro-pot initiatives.
The latest round in the city’s ongoing cannabis dispute will be settled Tuesday between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. when the same initiatives voted upon last November will once again be put to the ballot-booth test.
Three passed last time and one failed. Approved were initiatives to legalize medical use of marijuana, to legalize use of industrial hemp and to make enforcement of marijuana laws the lowest priority for the Hailey Police Department.
Not approved was an initiative to require the city to tax and regulate distribution and use of the drug.
So why a second vote?
“Cause I knew that the city would pull something like this,” said Ryan Davidson, a former Bellevue resident and the man who got the initiatives on the ballot. He is chairman of The Liberty Lobby of Idaho and is often referred to simply as “the pot guy.”
Davidson, who now lives in Garden City, was referring to the lawsuit that the mayor, the police chief and a city councilman filed against the city in Blaine County 5th District Court to have the previously approved initiatives declared illegal.
Davidson described the new vote as “kind of an insurance policy.”
“If I hadn’t put them on the ballot again, they probably would have killed them all by now,” he said. “It makes it politically less viable for them to do something if they pass twice.”
The marijuana issue has been relatively quiet as of late in Hailey, with no pro or con groups surfacing publicly to campaign.
Davidson himself has been busy with the Ron Paul presidential campaign in Boise and hasn’t had a lot of time to spend on the pot issue. He’s hopeful that at least the same three voter-approved initiatives will be approved once again.
“I’d think it’s going to be close to the same percentages as last time,” he said. “If all four are approved, that would be great.”
Last November, 1,288 voters, about 37 percent of the city’s registered electorate, showed up at the polls.
The medical marijuana and industrial hemp initiatives were approved by about 53 percent of voters. About 51 percent of the voters approved the lowest-police-priority initiative, while the regulation and taxation measure failed with only 47 percent voter approval.
Following is a brief summary of the initiatives.
The complete text can be found at Hailey City Hall or on the city’s Web site at: http://www.haileycityhall.org
* The Hailey Cannabis Regulation and Revenue Ordinance would require the city to regulate sales and use of cannabis, a scientific name for marijuana, and would allow it to tax the substance.
Davidson considers this the most important of the four initiatives. It doesn’t explicitly say that marijuana would be legal in the city, but establishes a framework to come up with the details. The framework would be created by a Community Oversight Committee, which would be allowed to deliberate for a year before finalizing legalization specifics.
This and other initiatives would require the city to lobby other levels of government for reform of marijuana laws.
* The Hailey Medical Marijuana Act would legalize medical use of marijuana. Details of legalization would be worked out by the Community Oversight Committee.
* The Hailey Lowest Police Priority Act would make investigation of adult marijuana use the city’s lowest law-enforcement priority. Davidson thinks this one has the greatest chance of approval.
* The Hailey Industrial Hemp Act would legalize industrial use of hemp, a different variety of the cannabis plant not usable by marijuana smokers since it’s low on THC, the chemical that induces a high.
Pot Vote:
The polls are open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 27. Hailey voters can cast their ballots on the marijuana initiatives in Room 903 at the Community Campus (the old high school) on Fox Acres Road.
Idaho — New election, same results. Three of four proposed marijuana reform initiatives were approved by Hailey’s electorate Tuesday.
Voters approved initiatives to legalize medical use of marijuana by a margin of 417-296, to legalize industrial use of hemp by 403-308 and to make enforcement of marijuana laws the lowest police priority in the city by a margin of 381-331.
Turned down once again was an initiative to require the city to regulate and tax distribution of the drug. It failed 386-323.
Pro-marijuana advocate Ryan Davidson, a former Bellevue man who now lives in Garden City, filed petitions to place the initiatives before the voters once again after Hailey city officials threatened to file a lawsuit to have the three previously approved initiatives declared illegal in court. That lawsuit was filed earlier this month in Blaine County 5th District Court.
Davidson, chairman of The Liberty Lobby of Idaho, said passage again of the initiatives would make it “politically less viable” for the city of Hailey to ignore the will of the electorate.
Prior to the election, neither Davidson nor city officials were willing to predict the outcome, though Davidson said, “I’d think it’s going to be close to the same percentages as last time.”
Last November, 1,288 voters, about 37 percent of the city’s registered electorate, showed up at the polls.
The medical marijuana and industrial hemp initiatives were approved in that election by about 53 percent of voters. About 51 percent of voters approved the lowest-police-priority initiative, while the regulation and taxation measure failed with only 47 percent voter approval.
Hailey Mayor Rick Davis said he had “no idea” as to the outcome of pot election No. 2.
“There’s been a lot more publicity this time about the initiatives,” he said. “I think people are a lot more educated now about the issues. But I don’t know if it will have a different outcome or not.”
Canadians against the drug war!
May 28, 2008, 3:07 pm
Filed under: Hemp&Law | Tags: canada, cannabis, cannabis law, drug war, prohibitionism
Filed under: Hemp&Law | Tags: canada, cannabis, cannabis law, drug war, prohibitionism
WHEREAS cannabis has a long history of social, religious and medicinal use in a wide variety of cultures around the world,
WHEREAS government figures estimate 3 million Canadians, or 14% of Canada’s population, are current cannabis users, and that about 45% of Canadians have used cannabis during their lifetime, and that virtually all of these people are otherwise law-abiding citizens,
WHEREAS numerous public opinion polls conducted since 2000 show that most Canadians support eliminating criminal penalties for cannabis,
WHEREAS the value of the Canadian cannabis industry is estimated at between 5 and 20 billion dollars, and that if taxed and regulated this industry would generate substantial revenues for provincial and federal governments,
WHEREAS over 20,000 Canadians are arrested each year just for cannabis possession, taking up a great deal of police and court time and resources,
WHEREAS the laws prohibiting cannabis are federal laws, yet the brunt of the costs of enforcing criminal sanctions against cannabis are borne by the provinces, in paying for the extra policing, court time and imprisonment,
WHEREAS studies into worldwide cannabis law have consistently shown that criminal prohibition of cannabis has little or no effect on the rate of use,
WHEREAS in 1971 the LeDain Commission on Non-Medical Use of Drugs, after exhaustive hearings and research, recommended allowing the cultivation and possession of cannabis for personal use,
WHEREAS the 1995 Report of the Task Force into Illicit Narcotic Overdose Deaths in British Columbia, written by BC’s Chief Coroner and commissioned by BC’s NDP government, after extensive hearings and research, recommended that the BC Attorney General pursue discussions with the federal government on legalization of cannabis possession,
WHEREAS in 2002 the Canadian Senate issued a comprehensive report on cannabis issues, after extensive research and hearings, which recommended that cannabis should be made legally available to adults and regulated by provincial governments in the same way that they operate the wine industry, plus that Canada’s 600,000 criminal records for cannabis possession should be erased, and that access to medical cannabis should be expanded,
WHEREAS in 2005 the City of Vancouver approved a plan called Preventing Harm from Psychoactive Drug Use, which recommends that the federal government end cannabis prohibition and instead create a “legal regulatory framework for cannabis,”
WHEREAS the criminal prohibition of cannabis use and personal cultivation is inconsistent with the principles of “full economic, political and religious liberty for all” and the creation of a legal system which “must not be based, as is the present one, upon vengeance and fear, but upon an understanding of human behaviour,” as enshrined in the 1933 Regina Manifesto.
WHEREAS the criminal prohibition of cannabis use is inconsistent with the creation of “a society in which the worth and dignity of every human being is recognized and respected, and in which differences of origin, of religion and of opinion will be not only tolerated but valued as desirable and necessary to the beauty and richness of the human mosaic,” as enshrined in the 1983 Statement of Principles adopted at the 12th Federal NDP Convention in Regina,
WHEREAS the policy of Canada’s federal NDP has long included a non-punitive, regulatory approach to cannabis, including a legally regulated and taxed cannabis supply, elimination of penalties for personal possession and cultivation, and amnesty for past possession convictions,
WHEREAS the policy of the Ontario NDP explicitly supports that of the federal party, and includes a non-punitive approach to cannabis, with a regulated and taxed legal cannabis supply,
WHEREAS previous leaders of some of the other Provincial NDP parties have made public statements concerning Canada’s cannabis laws which are inconsistent with the non-punitive cannabis policy of the federal party,
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT every provincial NDP party formally establish an explicit cannabis policy based upon a non-punitive, regulatory approach, including support for a legal supply of cannabis, elimination of all penalties for personal cultivation and possession, and amnesty for past cannabis possession convictions.
References: http://www.endprohibition.ca/
