Filed under: HempTherapy, hemp in general | Tags: cannabis, ganja, marc emery, marijuana, medical cannabis, medical marijuana, pot, seattle, weed
Seattle, WA — A proposal by state health officials to limit medical-marijuana patients to a pound and a half of pot plus a scattering of plants drew heat from both advocates and law enforcement — but for different reasons.
Advocates had argued for more than 70 ounces of harvested marijuana and a 100-square-foot growing area; law-enforcement officials pushed for a limit of three ounces of harvested pot, three mature plants and six immature plants.
The official draft rule was released Tuesday by the state Department of Health. The department was directed by the Legislature last year to use medical and scientific information to define how much marijuana patients with certain chronic, fatal or debilitating diseases can possess under Washington’s medical-marijuana law.The rule would limit patients to 24 ounces of harvested marijuana, six mature plants and 18 immature plants for the “60-day supply” allowed in the law.
An earlier Health Department recommendation called for a limit of 35 harvested ounces and a 100-square-foot growing area. But it was headed off by Gov. Christine Gregoire, who thought the amount was too large and wanted more input from law enforcement and medical providers.
Although Tuesday’s filing starts a public-comment period, the Health Department, which already has gotten an earful from angry activists and worried law-enforcement officials, is hoping this draft will be the last.
The current proposal for a pound and a half of pot plus plants mimics a 2006 amendment to Oregon’s medical-marijuana law, also passed in 1998.
That amendment raised the amount of marijuana patients could possess from three harvested ounces and seven total plants, including no more than three mature plants.
The Washington rule, like the long, difficult process used to produce it, was immediately controversial.
“Why did they spend all that time and money and energy if we were just going to do the same as Oregon?” asked Joanna McKee of Green Cross Patient Co-op, a medical-marijuana patient-advocacy group. “If we wanted to be a part of Oregon, we wouldn’t be a separate state.”
And, she added: “What happened to the science?”
Steve Sarich, director of CannaCare, which provides legal assistance and starter plants to patients, said the low plant limits would force patients to obtain marijuana on the “black market” or to grow an illegal number of plants to get enough marijuana.
“This will create more patient felons in the state of Washington, because no one will ever be able to grow their own medicine and stay within those limits,” he said.
Cowlitz County Sheriff Bill Mahoney’s response to the proposed limits was terse: “Oh my.” Asked to elaborate, he said: “Well, obviously, I think it’s way too much.” But it’s a complex compromise, he added. “From an enforcement standpoint, some number is better than no number.”
Law-enforcement officials earlier said their main concern is being able to distinguish legitimate patients from those hiding behind the law to grow and sell large amounts of pot.
Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, who sponsored the bill to set the 60-day amount, said she was concerned the proposed limits are “more restrictive than what had been previously discussed.” She noted the “values of compassion and empathy that are at the basis of this law,” and urged all stakeholders to express their views to the Health Department.
Washington’s law, passed by voters in 1998, allows patients with certain diseases to possess a 60-day supply of marijuana with a doctor’s authorization. But the amount was never spelled out, leading to confusion and conflict between law enforcement and patients.
Karen Jensen, an assistant secretary for the Department of Health, said the task was “very difficult and challenging” because there was no definitive “FDA study” spelling out dosing amounts.
The draft filed Tuesday reduced amounts earlier considered by the Health Department and revealed to Gregoire’s office in February. At that time, health officials said they planned to recommend 35 ounces of cultivated marijuana plus 100 square feet of plant-growing area.
Staffers for Gregoire, a former state attorney general who is up for re-election this fall, told Health Department officials the amount appeared to be on the high side, and that law enforcement and medical providers should be consulted.
Last month, the Health Department convened an advisory panel that included law-enforcement officials, advocates and only one doctor — a public-health HIV/AIDS expert who does not care for patients directly.
Department of Health spokesman Donn Moyer said other medical providers did not respond to requests to take part. “It wasn’t for lack of trying” to engage them, he said.
The filing of the draft rule starts a rule-making process and a public-comment period. A hearing has been scheduled for Aug. 25 in Tumwater.
Note: Patients authorized to possess or grow marijuana for medical reasons under Washington law would be limited to 24 ounces of cultivated marijuana, six mature plants and 18 immature plants, according to a proposal filed by the state Department of Health Tuesday.
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Website: http://www.seattletimes.com/
Filed under: Hemp&Law | Tags: greg williams, marc emery, michelle rainey, no extradition
Canadians Marc Emery, Michelle Rainey and Greg Williams are fighting extradition to the USA. The Canadian Government decided to not go along with the plea deal even though the USA and Marc Emery were in agreement, so the extradition hearing has been rescheduled. Emery, Rainey and Williams (collectively known as the BC3) appeared in the BC Supreme Court on April 9th and set dates for the extradition hearing. The extradition hearing is now scheduled for February 9th through 17th, 2009.
Marc Emery, Michelle Rainey, and Greg Williams are Canadian citizens who were heavily involved in Canadian and American anti-prohibition activitism for over ten years, though they remained in Canada at all times. The United States Justice Department and DEA want Canada’s government to extradite these three political activists to face 10 years up to life in US prison.Please phone (613) 957-4222 to tell the Canadian Minister of Justice it would be “cruel and unjust”, and an insult to Canada’s sovereignty, to extradite Canadians Marc Emery, Michelle Rainey and Greg Williams to the United States to face life in US prison. If Canadians have broken the law in Canada, they should be given a fair jury trial in Canada. If they won’t face any severe imprisonment in Canada for the charges laid, they should not be extradited to another country to face possible life imprisonment.
Did You Know?
- In Canada, there are two precedents for selling marijuana seeds: 1) In the year case R. v. Hunter in the year 2000, the BC Court of Appeals found that a $200 fine, not jail time, is the appropriate punishment for selling seeds. Read that decision here. 2) On March 7th, 2008, the BC Appeals Court released a decision that the punishment for selling cannabis seeds should not be more severe than one month in prison and one year of probation, the punishment handed to a marijuana seed retailer in BC who was selling to Americans. Read that story here.
- Marc Emery, Michelle Rainey and Greg Williams never went to the United States. The seed business, “Marc Emery Direct Marijuana Seeds”, was Canadian-based and run by Marc Emery. There were no US-based employees, and only regular mail was ever sent across the border from Vancouver, BC.
- According to a 2005 survey done by the Strategic Counsel & Angus Reid Polling, 58% of Canadians oppose extradition in this case. In the years since, public opposition to extradition has only grown, with national newspaper editorials, local news columnists, and even Members of Canada’s Parliament all urging the Justice Minister to refuse extradition in this case.
- Marc Emery paid Income Tax to Revenue Canada and Revenue BC on all of his income generated from his seed business. He paid more than $500,000 in taxes between 1999 to 2005, and put his occupation on the income tax declarations as “marijuana seed vendor”.
- Marc Emery’s magazine “Cannabis Culture” was sent to every Member of Parliament for over 12 years, and still is today. Every issue of Cannabis Culture up to #57 (the issue printed on the very same day as the raid, July 29th, 2005) included the entire seed catalogue in it, so Parliament knew about the business.
- Health Canada, when it first began licensing medical marijuana users, recommended to Members of Parliament and licensed users that new cannabis growers should purchase seeds online from Canadian seed sellers such as Marc Emery Direct.
- Marc Emery brought a capitalist approach to the marijuana legalization movement by starting “radical retail” outlets such as Hemp BC, and got politically involved be helping organize the Canadian Marijuana Party and creating the BC Marijuana Party, the latter which he still leads today.
- Marc Emery created his seed business with the purpose of using the profits to fund the cannabis movement worldwide. Through the sale of cannabis seeds, Marc was able to finance numerous drug law reform groups and events around the world, mostly in Canada and the United States. He funded global rally/march promotion, American and Canadian ballot initiatives, election campaigns, lobbying groups, conferences, drug rehab clinics, class action lawsuits, protests, patient bills and bail fees, and more. In total, over $4,000,000 was contributed to various activities and organizations.
Here is my answer to BrainBlogger..
Even if you’ve never heard of the Global Marijuana March (GMM), the title itself probably conjures up a few images. And if those images include teenage boys hitting fluorescent bubbling bongs and hippie girls in cotton dresses moving oddly about to “Uncle John’s Band,” then you’re not far off. But it’s also likely that this image is missing a few details — like cops watching on with implicit approval, rousing speeches about decriminalization and a 20,000-person crowd spread across our provincial parliament’s backyard. And these are precisely the details that the Toronto Freedom Festival (TFF), in conjunction with the GMM, will attempt to highlight.
So on May 3, while tokers from Osaka to Thunder Bay to Amsterdam puff, puff and pass in celebration of cannabis across 235 cities worldwide, the organizers of the TFF are hoping to keep the fun, but step up the serious.
To do so, the festival will call on a host of speakers, many of whom will use the “speak free” stage to discuss the politics of cannabis. Headlining the event is Marc Emery, a.k.a. “The Prince of Pot,” Canada’s high-profile cannabis activist and the US Drug Enforcement Agency’s “most wanted.” Emery will address his impending five-year sentence in an American jail — time he’ll be serving for countless cannabis-related transgressions such as selling marijuana seeds over the internet. Emery, among eight other speakers, will give participants and cynics alike good reason to take the Freedom Festival a little more seriously.
One of the most compelling of these speakers, Alison Myrden (“Freedom From Bad Prohibition”), is the “leading female spokeswoman” for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). The organization, composed of current and former law enforcement officials, seeks to educate the public about drug-policy failures while restoring faith and respect for officers. Myrden, who says that as a cop she “felt like quite the hypocrite,” plans to speak about legalization. And, as she puts it, bringing an immediate end to “the war on drugs.”
When we speak on the phone, Myrden describes the constant and unbearable symptoms she experiences from a disease called tic douloureux. Physicians, I later find out, refer to the neuropathic disorder, as “the most painful condition known to man.” But Myrden, who also suffers from multiple sclerosis, says that most medications she’s tried either don’t help at all, or have unsustainable side effects.
“I have a really excruciating pain in my face but I had to jump through hoops to get the only thing I could find to help,” she says, inhaling deeply. That thing? Cannabis. “As soon as I smoked a marijuana cigarette, the pain went away,” she says.
Since obtaining the prescription 13 years ago, Myrden says that her allotment (the largest in Canada) of one ounce a day has replaced over 60 per cent of her pills and thousands of milligrams of morphine. But she hasn’t forgotten how it used to be. Her struggles in attaining cannabis, the side effects of which she likens to those of coffee, are precisely what led Myrden to campaign for its legalization. Since joining LEAP, she’s written countless letters and conducted thousands of interviews advocating “to get all drugs regulated and off the street.”
And with the recent momentum of Bill C-26, there’s been plenty to write about. The bill, which would impose mandatory minimums and more severe penalties relating to drug crimes, was passed by the House of Commons on April 16 and currently awaits debate by the Justice and Human Rights Committee. And Myrden, among others, says enough is enough. She believes we need to stop getting caught up in arresting people for drugs, when drugs should be viewed as a health issue. And she’s certainly not the only one who thinks so.
Ron Marzel, the lawyer who’s been on call at the Global Marijuana March for the past four years, agrees that incarcerating marijuana users doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Marzel is a defending lawyer in the recently appealed high-profile Carasel suit. The case, which he defended before the federal courts, loosened laws surrounding the production of medical marijuana. Marzel, who’ll attend the hearing for Carasel in early September, says he’s optimistic that the federal court of appeal will uphold the original ruling.
“People should not be going to jail for possession of cannabis. It’s that simple,” Marzel says. “There are so many people engaged in smoking cannabis recreationally … and [there are] people who are really, really sick and can’t survive without the therapeutic effects that marijuana provides,” he says.
“We need to really ask ourselves: what should we be keeping criminal and what shouldn’t we be keeping criminal?” he continues.
On the speaker’s stage, Marzel will address the implications of Carasel, and other legal issues around decriminalization. The former, he says, is “heart-wrenching and dramatic in itself,” and the latter “philosophically important.”
Like Marzel, Myrden is concerned that the drug debates are taking place in the wrong part of the public sphere. “Drugs don’t belong in the legal realm,” she asserts with a natural tone of authority. But with legislation constantly changing, it’s impossible to ignore the highly political component to this weedy back and forthing. And Marzel isn’t the first to point to cross-border politics. “Our neighbour to the south of us has a lot of input and persuasiveness on the issue,” he says.
If you ask Marc Emery, he’ll say that’s a watered-down version of the story. “The US plays a dominating role in Canadian drug policy,” says the Prince of Pot from his office at Cannabis Culture in Vancouver. Emery, whose royal nickname reflects years of cannabis-related activism, is fighting extradition to the US for drug charges of selling pot seeds by mail order, a process that could see him serve time in the country he calls “Canada’s retarded younger brother.” We’ll assume that Emery means that though the US is 91 years older than Canada, it acts younger by dragging its feet on progressive drug policy. Still, Emery goes on to say he believes the US feels inferior to Canada, and is jealous and resentful that it is being forced to catch up to the modern world. And there’s plenty more where that came from. The Prince of Pot will kick off the ”speak free” festivities (“Freedom to Not be Extradited”), and says he’ll encourage the tokers below the stage to continue to come out in huge numbers.
Emery, who’s been known to blow smoke in cops’ faces at similar events, says he’ll also attempt to bring more seriousness to the party. He plans to remind the crowd that, “while we’re all smoking and having fun, there are people in jail within blocks of Queen’s Park.” (It’s a whole lot of blocks to the Don Jail, but his point is taken.) These are the people, he says, who “have made it possible for us all to break the law simultaneously.”
Although the theme of TFF may seem a bit contrived, especially in the titles of some of the speaking events (e.g. “The Freedom to Know Who You Are,” “The Freedom to Party Responsibly,” etc.), there’s a definite sense of political urgency to the content, even if it’s sometimes lost in the public perception of the event. Not that it isn’t also a celebration. “To a certain extent, it is a party,” says Marzel. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. And I hope the party grows and grows so that the political message gets bigger and bigger.”
References: http://www.themarijuanamission.com/
