Filed under: Hemp&Law | Tags: Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy, legalization, marijuana, marijuana possession, question 2 in Massachusetts, reduce penalties for small amounts of pot, Whitney Taylor
Boston, MA — The group fighting to reduce penalties for marijuana possession in Massachusetts charged yesterday that opponents are misrepresenting their ballot question as a referendum on legalizing marijuana, rather than its intent to reduce penalties for small amounts of pot.
Whitney Taylor, campaign manager of the Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy, said a radio ad this week misrepresented the referendum question.
“This ad goes beyond misstatements, spin or opinion and blatantly lies about what Question 2 would do if passed,” Taylor said. “The opponents of Question 2 are trying to dupe the voters of Massachusetts into thinking that Question 2 is something it’s not.”
Question 2, a voter referendum on the Nov. 4 ballot, would decriminalize possession of up to an ounce of marijuana, instead imposing a fine.
Vote No on Question Two, a collection of law enforcement and civic organizations, purchased the ad that said “legalizing marijuana will have a disastrous impact on thousands of families living in Massachusetts.”
William Breault, the voice in the ad and chairman of Main South Alliance for Public Safety, a Worcester public-safety advocacy organization leading the fight against the question, said he had no qualms about the ad’s language.
“If legalize helps us to get the public’s attention, we will use it,” Breault said. “We have not told (supporters of Question 2) what to do, so they shouldn’t tell us what to do.”
Breault said he felt comfortable about the language in the ad, because he believes that the pro-marijuana committee, which received $400,000 from billionaire George Soros in 2007, ultimately wants marijuana users to face no penalties.
“Soros is the sugar daddy of the legalization movement,” Breault said. “Question 2 supporters are a carefully camouflaged, highly intelligent elitist group with the goal of legalization.”
Taylor, however, said Breault’s claims are a further distortion of facts, saying Soros has never embraced legalization.
“Soros contributed money so that this issue would be discussed and debated based on facts,” Taylor said. “Unfortunately, our opponents just want to bring up red herrings rather than debate the actual issues.”
Financial support for the ad in question came from Save Our Society From Drugs, a non-profit organization against lenient drug policies based in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Calvina Fay, the group’s executive director, said that Massachusetts citizens have asked for support in fighting Question 2 and believes the ad was accurate.
“When you decriminalize drugs you are essentially legalizing them,” Fay said.
This is not the first time the pro-marijuana committee has accused their opposition of breaking the rules.
In September, Question 2 supporters filed complaints with Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office, charging that the Massachusetts District Attorney’s Association distributed false statements about the ballot question on its Web site.
Taylor’s group also filed complaints with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance charging the Coalition for Safe Streets, another opposition group, with campaign-finance violations.
The AG’s office threw out the charges made against the district attorney’s association, but no decision has been released on the campaign-finance charges.
Source: Lowell Sun (MA)
Author: Lyle Moran, Sun Correspondent
From: cannabis news
Filed under: Hemp&Law, HempTherapy, hemp in general | Tags: cannabis, ganja, hashish, hemp, hemp laws, legalization, marijuana, Massachusetts, pot, weed
Massachusetts — Though it would still be illegal, smoking marijuana in Massachusetts won’t be a crime later this year if voters approve a statewide ballot initiative in November.
The Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy began in the fall of 2007 petitioning the state Legislature to make the punishment for possession of marijuana a civil infraction.
Currently, a person caught with marijuana faces up to six months in jail and up to a $500 fine, regardless of his or her age.
If the initiative passes, offenders 18 or older possessing one ounce or less would forfeit the marijuana and face a civil penalty of $100.
For offenders 18 years and under, parents or legal guardians would be notified. Offenders would also have to complete a program developed by the Department of Youth Services including 10 hours of community service and at least four hours of group discussion about the use and abuse of marijuana. If an offender 18 years and under fails to complete these requirements within a year, the fine increases to $1,000, and the person could be subject to a delinquency hearing.
Whitney Taylor, campaign manager, started the initiative process because it seemed like a good time to move forward.
“In the past there have been 30 non-binding questions and they have passed by an average win of 65 percent,” she said. “So when the public supports it and the Legislature doesn’t, this is the time to move forward.”
The committee needed 11,099 certified and validated signatures of registered voters in Massachusetts to have the question put on the ballot.
MassCann, the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition, the Massachusetts chapter of NORML, the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws, supports the initiative.
“MassCann has taken a vote and supports the initiative,” said Bill Downing, president of the Massachusetts chapter. “Decriminalizing is a step toward rational means of regulation of adult use.”
Area legislators have some concerns.
“I’ve had quite a bit of conversation with my colleagues, and I am concerned about marijuana being a gateway drug,” said Rep. Pam Richardson, D-Framingham, who sits on the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Committee. “I’m not 100 percent convinced reducing the penalty for possession of marijuana is a good idea at this time, however, I am keeping my mind open.”
“I haven’t read the question thoroughly,” Sen. Scott Brown, R-Wrentham, said. “Conceptually, I haven’t supported it in the past, and definitely will not be supporting it in the future.”
Though regulating adult use may be gaining traction in the minds of some, Ashland Police Chief Scott Rohmer thinks marijuana usage is intolerable.
“I would oppose (the initiative),” he said. “It’s an illegal substance and that’s how it should stay.”
Rohmer went on to say that Ashland Police see how drugs affect people’s lives and that when dealing with drugs, punishments should be harsh.
However, some residents had a different point of view.
“I think it’s a good idea,” said Sara Hougaboom of Natick. “Not to sound like a hippie, but it’s an herbal thing…and alcohol is just as bad, if not worse.”
“It’s got pros and cons,” said Jerry Gallant, of Framingham, of the decriminalization idea.
While he admitted the drug can have medicinal uses, Gallant believed there needed to be strict controls, like a doctor’s prescription, on how the drug might be used.
“But if it helps people, fine,” he said. “I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
“It shouldn’t be a crime. It doesn’t do anything, and it couldn’t do any worse than alcohol,” said Bernard Ellis, 82, of Ashland.
Anne DiVittorio of Milford said she was against it, citing the gateway drug argument.
“I see too many horror stories with it. For a lot of people, not everybody, it leads to (other problems).”
The 11 Massachusetts district attorneys oppose the initiative as well.
Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone said in a statement, “The issue of decriminalizing marijuana is a slippery slope and sends the wrong message to our children. Today, marijuana is more potent than ever, with nine times the level of (Tetrahydrocannabinol) than levels found in strains of the drug three decades ago.
Compounding this is the fact that users of marijuana are 10 times more likely to be injured, or injure others, in automobile crashes. With young people using and abusing alcohol and other legal drugs at troubling rates, to add another element to this already dangerous equation would be extremely detrimental, irresponsible, and hazardous to our community as a whole.”
Others did not see the issue as so black and white.
“I’m so uncertain. I don’t think it’s necessarily a good thing to provide more ways for people to get in trouble, but I’m undecided,” said Kathy Bogue, 46, of Framingham.
“I’m honestly neither for it nor against it,” said Matt Donovan, 22, of Framingham.
Some organizations, such as Mothers Against Destructive Decisions, have not formed a formal opinion yet, but a spokesman for the Massachusetts chapter, David DeIuliis, said MADD acknowledges driving under the influence of drugs impairs a person’s ability to drive, and that in some cases, drunken driving crashes also involve some level of drug impairment.
If the initiative passes in the November election, the new laws will be in effect on Dec. 4, 2008.
Staff reporter Peter Reuell and correspondent Ashley Studley contributed to this report.
Source: Milford Daily News, The (MA)
Website: http://www.milforddailynews.com
Filed under: Hemp&Law, hemp in general | Tags: Advocates, cannabis, ganja, hashish, legalization, marijuana, Marijuana Advocates, pot, weed, Willie Nelson
Members of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws Say They Plan to Picket After They Were Denied a Booth at the Competition.
HUNTINGTON BEACH Marijuana advocates plan to protest the U.S. Open of Surfing after they said they were denied a booth at the world-renowned competition.
Officials with the Orange County chapter of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws ( NORML ) said they were refused a booth after being told by an organizer that the city and event sponsors did not support the group’s message. The group advocates the repeal of marijuana prohibition and the use of medical marijuana.
U.S. Open officials deny the accusation, stating that the refusal was purely a business decision. City officials said they have nothing to do with the granting of booths and denied having any kind of say.
“We’re still going to be there anyway,” said Kandice Hawes, president of the organization’s Orange County chapter.
About a hundred people from NORML and supporters plan to picket the event on July 26 and 27.
James Leitz, executive producer of the U.S. Open of Surfing, said the group was denied a booth this year because he said they had misrepresented themselves last year, applying under the guise of another organization.
Leitz said last year an Anaheim man handed in an application under the vendor name of “Steve’s List.” The application didn’t mention marijuana, according to Leitz and a copy of the document given to the Register.
“Then all of a sudden all of this marijuana stuff goes up in the booth,” Leitz said. “That alone right there is not how we play. I don’t care who you are… That’s a check mark against you.”
Steve Lawrence who put in the application for Steve’s List said that he spoke to an organizer last year and let her know that his Web site www.steveslist.info was dedicated to the cannibas patient community. The Web site is now defunct.
Lawrence, a member of NORML, said he filled out the application truthfully and didn’t think he had to include cannibas or marijuana on the document.
“I filled it out as well as they expected,” Lawrence said. “What I see is that they just don’t want NORML there…”
Lawrence said he allowed the NORML group members share the booth with him for a few days last year as long as they paid half of the cost. He and Hawes said none of the U.S. Open officials asked them to leave or even approached them about the issue.
“They’re just trying to make up an excuse,” Hawes said.
Instead, Hawes said a female organizer told her on several occasions that “they called Huntington Beach and that they didn’t want us there and didn’t support our kind of organization and said that the sponsors didn’t want us there anyway.”
Leitz denies the accusations, stating that he stands by the decision to exclude the group.
“I myself personally have to worry about the 8-year-old kid… I have to worry about the message we’re sending,” Leitz said. “I have to worry about the family-friendly atmosphere. I think OC NORML’s message … or what have you is vague. We just don’t’ think it’s appropriate for the family-friendly nature of the event.”
Source: Orange County Register, The (CA)
Website: http://www.ocregister.com/
Willie Nelson Advocates For The Legalization Of Marijuana
Filed under: Hemp&Law, hemp in general | Tags: cannabis, drug war, hemp, legalization, marijuana
California — Each summer, the Napa Special Investigations Bureau runs a series of grow-op busts, taking down large areas in the Napa County hills where marijuana is growing. With each pot bust, NSIB leaders estimate the street value of the now-gone cash crop in the tens of millions of dollars.
I went along last year with Sgt. John Robertson of the county Sheriff’s Department to see the remnants of a large grow-op in the hills above Bothe Napa Valley State Park, seeing the destruction of natural vegetation, diversion of water and the trashed campsites set up by the growers/workers.
A small group of what were apparently well-armed men had been brought in from out of the area to spend 24 hours a day at the site, accessible by hiking up barely existing steep paths, and tend to a rather expansive cash crop.
Irrigation paths had been set up, where water was being diverted illegally from private property owners to nourish the pot plants. Large areas were set up as makeshift drying racks for the harvested plants, and the land itself was scarred from where vegetation had been ripped out to wake way for the marijuana growing operation.
Some of the plants had reached a height of a few feet above my head. I’m only 5-foot-9, so it is not ALL that impressive, but they were tall, nonetheless.
County crews had already cleared the vast majority of the plants by the time I arrived, leaving them in waist-high stacks throughout the site. The stacks were later hauled out by using helicopters to hoist them up and fly them out to be disposed of in some place marijuana users would have gathered in droves to inhale the burning remnants and rejoiced in the free contacts high.
This was not only a massive growing effort, it was a massive effort by county law enforcement to get rid of the illegal operation. Numerous people were involved in this overnight effort to try and catch the suspects, watch over the site until the daylight hours, and then rip out the plants and haul them away to be destroyed, only to set off the very next day in search of more grow-ops in the county.
I spent a few years living north of the border, seeing how the British Columbia populace — and the Canadian populace in general — placed far less of an emphasis on eradicating marijuana and finding marijuana users than takes place in the U.S. Seeing the differences leads me to ask …
Is this how money should be allocated in Napa County, to track down and clear these illegal grow-ops, or is there something different that should be done?
Maybe the emphasis should be on stopping petty thefts and crimes like car and house break-ins, where the majority of the thieves are stealing items just to resell them so they have money to but marijuana, meth and other illegal drugs.
Perhaps the need is to legalize marijuana, eliminating the need for secret growing operations and a force dedicated to getting rid of pot plants?
Source: Napa Valley Register (CA)
Website: http://www.napavalleyregister.com
