https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGjC4HReFL0

by Emily Smith Intellihub.com

Mark Ciavarella Jr.
 
In the private prison industry, longer sentences earn more money from the state.
Since 2003, Ciavarella received millions of dollars in bribes for condemning minors to maximum prison sentences. In one case, Ciavarella sentenced a 10-year-old to two years in a detention facility for accidentally bottoming out his mother’s car.
According to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, over 5,000 young men and women were unjustly sentenced to prison and denied their constitutional rights. Many of them have now been released and cleared of their charges.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has overturned some 4,000 convictions issued by him between 2003 and 2008, claiming he violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles – including the right to legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea. Some of the juveniles he sentenced were as young as 10-years old.
 
Full Article:
http://intellihub.com/2013/05/22/pennsylvania-judge-sentenced-for-28-years-for-selling-kids-to-the-prison-system/

AlterNet / By Kristen Gwynne

Harmandeep Singh Boparai
 
NEW YORK — Danielle Bradford was raised in state custody because of her parent’s abuse and drug dependencies.
When she was 18 she moved out, found work at a local waffle shop and got her first apartment in Nashville, Tenn. Her estranged father helped by co-signing on the lease.
One evening she was at home with her neighbors when three police officers knocked on the door. They said they had received a report that there was a portable meth lab on her property. “I allowed them to look, and obviously they did not find anything,” she said. What the police did find was that her neighbor had some marijuana and a bowl that she had prepared for him.
Two officers cornered her inside her room as three others continued the search outside. Bradford was in tears, and a volley of questions followed.
“Where’s the drugs?”
“I know you know where the acid and ecstasy are!”
“Who makes the meth around here?” they demanded.
“At this point I was crying and very scared. I had been working almost 60 hours a week and I was trying to save up money to go to school. I had never done anything … besides smoke pot,” she said.
The officer found a few grams of marijuana in a box beside her bed. She said she was using it for pain management, along with Advil. “They both laughed in my face and proceeded to tell me I was under arrest. At this point I was in a full blown panic attack,” she said. When she went to her living room her neighbor was being arrested for simple possession and possession of paraphernalia.
 
Full Article:
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20130522/america-whats-more-harmful-pot-use-or-incarceration

 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpUGV8QC1tQ&feature=youtu.be

TRAVIS OKULSKI

 

It’s illegal to drive while high on marijuana in Michigan. It’s legal to smoke medical marijuana in Michigan. These two laws were bound to come in conflict with each other. They have, and now the Michigan Supreme Court has ruled driving after smoking pot is ok, but only for medical marijuana users. Far out man.

Full Article:

http://jalopnik.com/michigan-supreme-court-says-medical-weed-users-can-toke-509283059

 
A French farmer who can no longer perform his routine farming duties because of permanent pesticide injuries has had his day in court, literally, and the perpetrator of his injuries found guilty of chemical poisoning. The French court in Lyon ruled that Monsanto’s Lasso weedkiller formula, which contains the active ingredient alachlor, caused Paul Francois to develop lifelong neurological damage that manifests as persistent memory loss, headaches, and stuttering during speech.
Reports indicate that the 47-year-old farmer sued Monsanto back in 2004 after inhaling the Lasso product while cleaning his sprayer tank equipment. Not long after, Francois began experiencing lasting symptoms that prevented him from working, which he says were directly linked to exposure to the chemical. Since Lasso’s packaging did not bear adequate warnings about the dangers of exposure, Francois alleged at the time that Monsanto was essentially negligent in providing adequate protection for its customers.
To the surprise of many, the French court agreed with the claims and evidence presented before it, declaring earlier this year that “Monsanto is responsible for Paul Francois’ suffering after he inhaled the Lasso product … and must entirely compensate him.” The court is said to be seeking expert opinion on how to gauge Francois’ losses in order to determine precisely how much Monsanto will be required to compensate him in the case.
“It is a historic decision in so far as it is the first time that a (pesticide) maker is found guilty of such a poisoning,” said Francois Lafforgue, Paul Francois’ lawyer, to Reuters earlier in the year.
Full Article:
http://www.realfarmacy.com/monsanto-found-guilty-of-chemical-poisoning-in-landmark-case1/

By Maia Szalavitz

 
Toking up may help marijuana users to stay slim and lower their risk of developing diabetes, according to the latest study, which suggests that cannabis compounds may help in controlling blood sugar.
Although marijuana has a well-deserved reputation for increasing appetite via what stoners call “the munchies,” the new research [PDF], which was published in the American Journal of Medicine, is not the first to find that the drug has a two-faced relationship to weight. Three prior studies have shown that marijuana users are less likely to be obese, have a lower risk for diabetes and have lower body mass index (BMI) measurements. And these trends occurred despite the fact that they seemed to take in more calories.
Why? “The most important finding is that current users of marijuana appeared to have better carbohydrate metabolism than non-users,” says Murray Mittleman, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the lead author of the study. “Their fasting insulin levels were lower, and they appeared to be less resistant to the insulin produced by their body to maintain a normal blood sugar level.”
Full Article:
http://healthland.time.com/2013/05/21/marijuana-the-next-diabetes-drug/

By Steve Elliott
 
 
Anonymous Team Vendetta wasn’t about to let the marijuana arrest of Libertarian radio host and Iraq veteran Adam Kokesh go unremarked.
 

[Adam Kokesh/Facebook]
 
The hacktivist group on Tuesday temporarily took down at least two websites, the Philly Police Blog and rangerfop.com, the United States Park Ranger Lodge, in retaliation for Kokesh’s arrest.
When Kokesh was busted at a pro-marijuana rally in Philadelphia moments before 4:20 p.m. on Sunday, he had justencouraged the crowd to smoke weed and to “make it difficult for the police” to break up the rally, according to video of the incident, reports Hunter Stuart at The Huffington Post.
“I’m being assaulted by an officer of the law who is a clear criminal,” Kokesh said into his microphone at the Smoke Down Prohibition rally as officers struggled to get handcuffs onto the activist. People in the crowd started chanting, “Stop the violence!”
Kokesh was charged on Monday with assaulting and impedingNational Park Service Rangers, according to court documents, despite clear video evidence that he was the victim, not the instigator, of any assault which took place.

By William Breathes

 
When it comes to performance-enhancing drugs, the World Anti-Doping Agency has a hard line: keep it clean.
 
And like a growing surge of people across the world, they understand that marijuana is not a performance-enhancing drug and that a few recreational (or medical) puffs of ganja when not in competition aren’t going to harm anyone.

The agency – which started in 1999 – is huge, and covers the international level of just about every sport you can imagine from well known sports like hockey and soccer to oddball endeavors like korfball and pelota. They set the rules that the International Olympic Committee follows and even mixed martial arts organizations have adopted the WADA standards.
The WADA new threshold is 150 nanograms per milliliter of blood of THC carboxy, the metabolite of THC that can stay in your fatty tissue for up to a month after use.
The decision was made at at a Word Anti Doping Agency executive committee meeting May 11 and all blood samples dated then on will be subject to the new guidelines. It also advises its member sporting associations to not go after current cases that would fall under the new guidelines, “as a matter of fairness and to provide consistency.”
While not outright allowing cannabis use, the new threshold means athletes could take a few puffs of chronic weeks out from competition and fall under the allowable limit by the time of their match, game, race, fight, etc. Anyone who puffs up until their event will still be busted and likely face sanctions.
 
Full Article:
http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2013/05/international_sports_anti-doping_rules_relaxed_for_marijuana_use.php