3 Dispensaries have already been chosen

• Field reporting by Steve Nielsen

By Lauren Maschmedt
 

BOZEMAN, Mont. — Montana medical marijuana supporters are campaigning for a new petition drive.
This one would legalize marijuana across the board.
The petition aims to put Constitutional Initiative 110 (CI-110) on the ballot in the 2012 elections.
CI-110 calls for an amendment to the ‘adult rights’ article in the Montana Constitution.
As it stands, the article states adults have the right to purchase, consume or possess alcohol.
Supporters want the article expanded to include marijuana.
It classifies adults as over 18, but of course under federal law, no one can possess alcohol under 21.
Trained petitioner Rick Whatman said the over 21 law would apply to marijuana, rather than allowing it over 18.
“I think with all the support that we have on this initiative, that we should do very well with it” Whatman said.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.nbcmontana.com/news/30584473/detail.html

Unlike Bill Clinton, President Obama admits he inhaled!. “Frequently,” he said. “That was the point.”
People laugh when politicians talk about their drug use. The audience laughed during a 2003 CNN Democratic presidential primary debate when John Kerry, John Edwards and Howard Dean admitted smoking weed.
Yet those same politicians oversee a cruel system that now stages SWAT raids on people’s homes more than 100 times a day. People die in these raids — some weren’t even the intended targets of the police.
Neill Franklin once led such raids. The 33-year Maryland police veteran, now executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, locked up hundreds of people for drugs and felt good about it.
“We really thought that these drugs made people evil,” he told me.
But 10 years ago Franklin decided that drugs — even hard drugs — do much less harm to Americans than does the drugwar.
“Drugs can be — and are in many cases — problematic. But the policies that we have in place to prohibit their use are 10 times more problematic.”
 
Read complete article here:
http://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2012/02/29/creators_oped

With unemployment rates approaching 23 percent, according to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal, Spain has unquestionably fallen on tough economic times. However, the resourceful people of one town in Tarragona, in the Iberian country’s northeast, have come up with a solution:
Farming pot.
Rasquera, a town of with a municipal debt of 1.3 million euros, is exploring the idea of growing marijuana on government land to bring in revenue and create jobs, Spanish news agency EFE reports. A nonprofit group, called the Barcelona Association of Cannabis Self-Medication (ABCDA), has offered to pay the town hall 36,000 euros to get the project off the ground, with an annual investment of 550,000 euros for costs that would include land rental and security, according to Basque Radio Television.
The nonprofit ABCDA has around 5,000 members, according to EFE, and would lease the land to work toward its goals of therapy and relaxation.
“Cannabis for self-medication is legal,” an ABCDA member told El Periodico, translated by HuffPost. “We’re talking about staying within the law.”
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/28/rasquera-marijuana-spain_n_1307598.html?ref=world
 

By Kevin Smith
 
Marijuana activists look to carve out a spot in Academic Plaza to hold a voting booth checking the pulse of Aggie decriminalization advocates on Thursday.
The Aggie Cannabis Reform and Education Society, ACRES, is an on-campus organization that promotes the legalization of hemp and medical marijuana, and pushes for decriminalization of recreational use.
“We want to educate people about the facts of marijuana,” said Mostafa Selim, ACRES president and junior university studies major. “We know there’s a large cannabis-friendly community at Texas A&M, so we want to organize everyone into a serious formal movement.”
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.thebatt.com/cannabis-club-rolls-voting-booth-to-campus-1.2793140
 

by Aly Myles
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. — Despite the chilly temperatures and winds, dozens of Bob Crouse’s supporters lined up outside of the El Paso County courthouse Monday to rally for the 63-year-old leukemia patient.
 
Crouse is facing two felony charges for cultivation and intent to distribute after growing his own marijuana plants to treat his illness. If convicted, he could get up to 12 years in prison.
 
“Bob is brave. Bob is fighting here. This is really what it boils down to,” rally co-organizer Mark Slaugh said. “He’s the one patient who’s not afraid to stand up and say, ‘I’m not going to take your plea bargain. I’m not going to say that I’m guilty because I’m doing what I’m supposed to and growing my plants and growing my medicine to help my disease.'”
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.coloradoconnection.com/news/story.aspx?id=724439#.T0xL8IcgdZc
 

By Reuters
DENVER  – A Colorado voter initiative that would legalize possession of marijuana by adults for personal recreational use qualified on Monday for the state’s November ballot, state officials said.
Colorado already is one of 16 U.S. states, along with Washington, D.C., that have legalized marijuana for medical purposes. Moves to decriminalize marijuana at the state level in the United States face opposition from the federal government, which still classifies marijuana as an illegal narcotic.
 
Read complete article here:
http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/News/world/2012/02/27/19432741.html
 

Hemp, along with flax and cotton, was primarily used for making clothing at Monticello.
 
Read more about it here:
http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/hemp
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6pB-rrFsyc
 

By Steve Elliott
A petition is circulating in Arkansas to allow the sick and dying access to medical marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation.

http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2012/02/arkansas_group_gains_support_to_legalize_medical_m.php