Newsom, Johnson Drug Conference: Is Legalization The Answer To The War On Drugs? (POLL)

Newsom Johnson Drug Conference

The Huffington Post  
It is rare for a politician to openly advocate the legalization of drugs as the solution to the country’s drug problem. But that’s just what California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson did this week at the four-day International Drug Policy Reform Conference in downtown Los Angeles.
As the Los Angeles Times remarks, with reggae music blasting and people wearing marijuana leaf-shaped pins, the conference does not seem a likely event for a GOP presidential hopeful to attend. And yet, Republican candidate Johnson, a libertarian often compared to Ron Paul, stood in front of the conference audience and promised that if he was elected president, he would fully pardon anyone in prison for a non-violent marijuana crime.
 
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/04/newsom-johnson-drug-conference_n_1076573.html
 
 

More Proof that Supports Cannabis Use For Cancer Cure

Craig Huckerby for local2 sault ste. marie

 
You may recall a story that appeared on local2.ca a few weeks ago about a cancer survivor who credits the narcotic, Hash Oil as a cure for his cancer.
David Triplet was diagnosed with skin cancer and opted for alternative treatment instead of the regular treatment prescribed by his doctor.
Triplet, who took matters into his own hands started doing his own research when he learned about the healing powers contained in the illegal drug.
Once he discovered that cannabis cured his cancer, Triplet produced a short documentary outlining his success and why the the ” establishment ” has not pushed for more research into cannabis for cancer treatment.
Triplet contacted local2.ca about a follow up video that documents his findings along with other patients that have also tried the cannabis treatment.
“This is the story of how myself and others cured our cancer using cannabis oil. This film goes into the closing of dispensaries, politics and history of cannabis and cancer. It features several cannabis patients who’s lives have been saved through the miracle of cannabis.” said Triplet.
Triplet believes it’s time to legalize cannabis and to use hash oil as a treatment for various cancers. In the video Triplet documents other survivors from prostate , and other skin cancers. Triplet notes in the video that more and more studies about the drug as a cure for cancer are being made.
hash oil
 
See video here:
http://local2.ca/ssm/viewarticle.php?id=3320

Congressman’s Daughter Seeks Injunction Against Federal Crackdown on Medical Marijuana

By Khari Johnson
Congressman Brian Bilbray is opposed to legalized medical marijuana in California, but his daughter, who has cancer, is pushing back against a federal crackdown.

Cancer patient Briana Bilbray—the daughter of Congressman Brian Bilbray—and local medical marijuana cooperatives on Monday filed for an injunction to stop a federal crackdown on marijuana sales.
Attorney Matt Kumin, who filed for the injunction, said the goal is for the U.S. Justice Department and U.S. attorneys “to stop threatening folks who are in compliance with state law.”
The filing comes a month after the Justice Department pledged to crack down on California’s commercial marijuana cooperatives and dispensaries.
Plantiffs in the case include four medical marijuana cooperatives from across San Diego and 25-year-old Imperial Beach resident Briana Bilbray. Bilbray’s brother, Brian Patrick Bilbray, is an Imperial Beach city councilman and her father, Brian Bilbray, is a U.S. Congressman representing California’s 50th District and a former mayor of Imperial Beach. The congressman’s district includes Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Peñasquitos and 4S Ranch.
Briana Bilbray has Stage 3 melanoma cancer and opposed the city of Imperial Beach’s efforts to restrict medical marijuana cooperatives earlier this year.
“Before I had cancer I thought it was people just trying to get it legalized,” she said. “That changed pretty much once I realized that it really did work and it was a legitimate way to get nausea to go away.”
 
Read complete article here:
http://ranchobernardo.patch.com/articles/congressman-bilbray-daughter-on-opposite-sides-of-medical-marijuana-debate
 

Missouri Voters May be Asked to Legalize Marijuana in 2012

Tim Sampson, Missouri News Horizon

(Jefferson City, MO) — A Columbia-based group has won approval to begin circulating a petition to legalize marijuana in the state of Missouri.
On Monday, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan gave the group Show-Me Cannabis the go-ahead to begin circulating two ballot referendum petitions that, if successful, would make marijuana use legal for all state residents over the age of 21 and make Missouri’s cannabis laws the most relaxed in the country.
 
Read complete article here:
http://ozarksfirst.com/fulltext?nxd_id=550607

Marijuana collectives, landlords sue feds

By Christopher Cadelago
California medical marijuana patients, storefront collectives and their landlords on Monday announced a series of lawsuits seeking an immediate stop to the federal government’s statewide crackdown on medicinal cannabis.
The lawsuits were filed in three federal districts in the state — Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento — on Friday where U.S. attorneys have set various deadlines for dispensaries to shut down or risk criminal prosecution and forfeiture of their properties.
Lawyers for the coalition filed a fourth lawsuit in San Diego on Monday. One of the plaintiffs in that case is Briana Bilbray, the 25-year-old daughter of Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-San Diego, and sister of Imperial Beach City Councilman Brian Bilbray.
“Not only is the U.S. attorney infringing on my right as a California resident to obtain the medicine I need, but she is punishing me by making it more difficult to get the one thing I really need as a patient,” Briana Bilbray, a cancer survivor who has spoken out on behalf of patient cooperatives, said in a prepared statement. “It is one of the worst feelings imaginable.”
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/nov/07/medical-marijuana-collectives-landlords-sue-feds/

Health: Marijuana Goes Mainstream

By Cathy Cassinos-Carr

 
It’s been 15 years since California voters passed Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act that gives patients with a doctor’s recommendation the right to use marijuana for medical purposes. Today, a growing number of Sacramentans are exercising those rights by legally carrying a medical marijuana card, and cannabis dispensaries are spreading like you know what.
 
It’s here, folks—and in a big way. Yet mainstream medicine doesn’t seem to want to talk about it.
 
That was my experience, anyway. As a medical journalist for this magazine for seven years, I have never had trouble finding experts to interview. 
 
This time was different. 
 
After contacting media reps at the Big  Four—Sutter, Kaiser Permanente, UC Davis and CHW/Mercy—only UCD was able to summon up an interviewee. CHW/Mercy and Sutter couldn’t help. Kaiser rep Katie Minke responded via e-mail, stating that while Kaiser physicians may recommend medical marijuana to patients “if felt to be clinically appropriate and beneficial,” the few she spoke with suggested the topic did not come up often enough in their practices for them to feel “expert” discussing it with a reporter.
 
Doctor-Researchers Speak Out
Thankfully, one local doctor, UCD’s Barth Wilsey, M.D., was more than willing to talk. Trained in both anesthesiology and neurology pain management, Wilsey has been at the forefront of researching cannabis’s use for patients with neuropathic pain (nerve damage), just one of a long list of conditions (AIDS, cancer and glaucoma, to name a few) whose symptoms may be relieved by marijuana. “Neuropathic pain is somewhat harder to treat than surgical pain, and many patients don’t receive adequate treatment,” says Wilsey. Those patients, he suggests, may be candidates for cannabis, and he’s got the science to prove it. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of the effect of medicinal marijuana on patients with nerve injury pain of diverse causes, Wilsey and his research team found that cannabis provided a painkilling effect.
 
That was the predictable part. What took the researchers by surprise was this finding: Low-dose marijuana (3.5 percent delta-9-THC) was as effective as a higher dose (7 percent delta-9-THC) in alleviating nerve injury pain. (THC is the cannabinoid thought to be most potent in marijuana.)
 
 
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Maine slaps 7% tax on pot brownies sold to medical marijuana patients

After Mainers approved medical marijuana, lawmakers decided that marijuana sold for medicinal purposes would be subject to the 5 percent state sales tax. Now Maine Revenue Services has issued an opinion that prepared foods such as brownies that include medical marijuana will be taxed at the higher 7 percent rate.

John Clarke Russ
After Mainers approved medical marijuana, lawmakers decided that marijuana sold for medicinal purposes would be subject to the 5 percent state sales tax. Now Maine Revenue Services has issued an opinion that prepared foods such as brownies that include medical marijuana will be taxed at the higher 7 percent rate.
By Mal Leary, Capitol News Service

AUGUSTA, Maine — Baked or smoked? How patients use their medical marijuana determines their tax rate, according to a recent opinion from Maine Revenue Services.
After Mainers approved medical marijuana, lawmakers decided that marijuana sold for medicinal purposes would be subject to the 5 percent state sales tax. Now Maine Revenue Services has issued an opinion that prepared foods such as brownies that include medical marijuana will be taxed at the higher 7 percent rate. This has many questioning the ruling.
“It again shows how disconnected some people in the taxing department are from the general will of Maine people,” said Paul McCarrier, board member of Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine. He said medical marijuana is just what it says it is — a medicine — and should not be taxed at all.
McCarrier said for some individuals, eating foods that contain medical marijuana is the best way for them to use the medicine. He said smoking or using vaporizers does not work for everyone and patients should not have to pay an extra tax in order to use medicinal marijuana.
“Sometimes it is the best delivery method for people,” he said. “They can ingest it and it helps with their various pains and afflictions. For some people it is their only delivery means.”
In 2009, Mainers passed a referendum allowing medical marijuana dispensaries with nearly 60 percent of the vote. The bill was reworked by a task force named by then-Gov. John Baldacci and became law in 2010, with the first dispensaries being opened this year.
Peter Beaulieu, director of the Sales, Fuel and Special Tax Division at Maine Revenue, said the policy question of taxing medical marijuana was settled by legislation. A provision of the law clearly states the sales tax exemption for medicine does not apply to medical marijuana.
“It is MRS’s position that a food product containing medical marijuana is not a grocery staple because it is not ordinarily consumed for human nourishment,” Beaulieu wrote. “The food product being prepared is not for general consumption. It is primarily prepared as an alternative form of delivering the medical marijuana into the body.”
He said for prepared foods with medical marijuana to be exempted from taxes would take legislative action. He stressed Maine Revenue Services is just interpreting current law.
“I think we are going to have to take another look at this whole area,” said Rep. Meredith Strange-Burgess, R-Cumberland, co-chairwoman of the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee.
She said the fact that medical marijuana is taxed at all has concerned her. She said it was not really discussed in any depth because it was part of the bill as submitted to implement the dispensary law voters had approved at referendum.
“My personal opinion is that it should not be taxed,” said Rep. Deborah Sanderson, R-Chelsea. “If they were just making brownies as a snack, that’s one thing, but this is a way to deliver medicine. For many, this may be the only option because they can’t or do not want to smoke marijuana.”
 
Read complete article here:
http://bangordailynews.com/2011/11/03/politics/maine-slaps-7-tax-on-pot-brownies-sold-to-medical-marijuana-patients/
 

Permission to medicate in Augusta Medical marijuana users turn out for Civic Center event

By Keith Edwards kedwards@centralmaine.com

HIGH TECH MACHINE: Jake McClure, of the Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine, talks about indoor growing equipment in the Maine Hydroponics Supply booth during the Home Grown Maine trade show Saturday at the Augusta Civic Center.
Staff photo by Joe Phelan

 
AUGUSTA — Medical marijuana users shared hits off a vaporizer and compared buds of their home-grown efforts Saturday, separated by just the thin vinyl wall of a tent and several feet of Augusta Civic Center parking lot from Augusta Police Sgt. Christopher Shaw.
The marijuana use taking place inside the tent was not why Shaw was there.
Police, Civic Center staff, the District Attorney’s Office and organizers of the first Home Grown Maine — the Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine’s first ever trade show and festival — had agreed beforehand medicinal users with the proper legal documentation could use marijuana inside the tent erected in a parking lot of the city-owned Augusta Civic Center.
The event, and the designated spot on public property where marijuana could be used, in full view of passing law enforcement through the doorless entrance of the tent, and others, were firsts.
“This is the first time we’ve had permission to medicate in public, the first time,” said Chris Kenoyer, of Portland, a patients’ advocate and activist who uses marijuana for severe and chronic back pain caused by a degenerative spinal injury. “That’s a step forward for all Maine patients.”
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.kjonline.com/news/permissionto-medicate_2011-11-05.html

Dr Ben calls all dagga (cannabis) dealers to a meeting

By BONSILE MAKHUBU

Dr Ben Dlamini with his friends who came all the way from South Africa Bushy Williams (c) Dr Ben (r) and Chris Jonsson. They came to show their support for his determination to have dagga legalised in the country. (Pics: Lunga Masuku)

 
MBABANE – A two-day dagga workshop has been organised by outspoken former Registrar of the Examinations Council, Dr Ben Dlamini.
 
Dlamini is also hoping to generate an income of E10 million through engaging 125 000 farmers in the ploughing of cannabis, popularly known as dagga.
 
He stated this in a report titled ‘Economic Recovery Cannabis Strategy’ he is hoping to hand over to the police and the King’s Office very soon.
 
The workshop, according to Dr Dlamini, will be held at the Mavuso Trade Centre on Saturday November 26, 2011.
 
He said it is aimed at educating interested people on cannabis, a plant that is illegal in the country. “The workshop entails learning about cannabis and the laws surrounding its usage,” he said.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.times.co.sz/News/34229.html

WEED WARS to Premiere on Discovery Channel, 12/1

by BWW News Desk\


For the first time on television, a weekly series takes an up close and personal look at the controversial business of medicinal cannabis as WEED WARS premieres Thursday, December 1, at 10PM E/P simulcast on Discovery and Discovery Fit & Health. The entire four-week run of the series will be simulcast on both networks.
WEED WARS follows Oakland’s Harborside Health Center, the nation’s largest medicinal cannabis dispensary serving over 94,000 patients. The man behind Harborside is founder and executive director Steve Deangelo whose mission is to provide the best possible product to his diverse client base of patients while using his business to educate the rest of the country about the full regulation and taxation of medicinal cannabis.
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