New Jersey Medical Marijuana Program: Don’t Leave Wounded Vets Behind

 
New Jersey Medical Marijuana Program: Don’t Leave Wounded Vets Behind
 

A Marine Corps veteran called me up just before the Memorial Day weekend.  He told me he was from South Jersey and he asked how he could get into New Jersey’s Medicinal Marijuana Program (MMP).  He said he had chronic pain from a broken back as a result of a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.
I told him that New Jersey’s MMP was extremely restrictive and that chronic pain was not a qualifying condition here unless it was associated with cancer or HIV/AIDS.  No traumatic injury, no matter how serious, qualifies for marijuana therapy in this state.
“But I was on opiates for eleven years,” he said.  “It was horrible.  I was addicted.  Then nine months ago, I found marijuana.  I’ve been off all opiates entirely for nine months now.  Marijuana’s given me my life back.  I just want to use it legally.”
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Hemp: Long Demonized, Plant Poised for Comback

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Thumbnail image for DEA to release Kentucky hemp seed shipment
 
Kentucky won a lawsuit on Friday against the federal government for the right to plant a shipment of hemp seeds that had been impounded. The case underscores what appears to be a comeback for the controversial plant that, despite having much lower THC levels than marijuana, has been classified by the Drug Enforcement Agency as a Schedule 1 drug on par with heroin.
 
Full Article:
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/5/24/hemp-history-kentucky.html

Worldwide Campaign: Cannabis for Therapeutic Purposes is a Human Right

eNews Park Forest
 
An international consortium of medical cannabis organisations are demanding that humans, regardless of state or allegiance and without qualification, be able to use cannabis therapeutically.  In a joint declaration, the organisations from Europe and North America refer to Article 3 of the Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948.  The declaration is the beginning of a worldwide campaign on the use of cannabis for therapeutic purposes.
 
Full Article:
http://www.enewspf.com/latest-news/health-and-fitness/53168-worldwide-campaign-cannabis-for-therapeutic-purposes-is-a-human-right-an-international-consortium-of-medical-cannabis-organisations-are-demanding-that-humans-regardless-of-state-or-allegiance-and-without-qualification-be-able-to-use-cannabis-therapeutical.html

Symphony hosts first cannabis concert

KUSA
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The Colorado Symphony Orchestra’s hosted its first bring-your-own-cannabis fundraising concert Friday night.
About 300 people attended the concert at the Space Gallery in the Art District on Santa Fe. Guests were allowed to smoke pot inside the venue, but the event was invitation only after the city objected to the public sale of tickets.
 
Full Article:
http://www.9news.com/story/news/local/2014/05/23/denver-symphonys-pot-fundraiser-opens/9520695/
 

Scholars Scramble for the Archives of Marijuana Legalization

By Terry Franklin
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The Anti-Prohibition Movement, once a lonely struggle in the wilderness, the butt of jokes and the object of ridicule, is now attaining a new respectability.

This surprising turnabout flows from its accelerating successes in recent years. Old records are suddenly in great demand.

Full Article:

http://www.thedailychronic.net/2014/32575/scholars-scramble-for-the-archives-of-marijuana-legalization/

 
 

When Cannabis Goes Corporate

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 Marijuana plants grow under artificial sunlight in one of the many climate-controlled rooms at Tweed Marijuana in Smiths Falls, Ontario. Tweed is one of about 20 companies that are licensed to grow medical marijuana in Canada. CreditDave Chan for The New York Times

The new owner of this factory, at 1 Hershey Drive, is Tweed Marijuana. It is one of about 20 companies officially licensed to grow medical marijuana inCanada.

A court ordered the government to make marijuana available for medicinal purposes in 2000, but the first system for doing so created havoc. The government sold directly to approved consumers, but individuals were also permitted to grow for their own purposes or to turn over their growing to small operations. The free-for-all approach prompted a flood of complaints from police and local governments.

So the Canadian government decided to create an extensive, heavily regulated system for growing and selling marijuana. The new rules allow users with prescriptions to buy only from one of the approved, large-scale, profit-seeking producers like Tweed, a move intended to shut down the thousands of informal growing operations scattered across the country.

The requirements, which went into effect in April, are giving rise to what many are betting will be a lucrative new industry of legitimate producers. The government, which will collect taxes on the sales, estimates that the business could generate more than 3.1 billion Canadian dollars a year in sales within the next decade.

Full Article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/business/international/when-cannabis-goes-corporate.html?_r=0

Colorado attorney argues federal laws don’t apply to medical marijuana

By Laura Kriho

Laura Kriho
Kathleen Chippi and Andrew Reid
Boulder attorney Andrew Reid of the law firm Springer & Steinberg, on behalf of Nederland area resident Kathleen Chippi and the Patient and Caregiver Rights Litigation Project (PCRLP), has filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief to the Colorado Supreme Court containing arguments that might finally end the doctrine that that federal law overrides state medical marijuana laws. In a bold contention, Reid claims that medical marijuana is not covered by the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA), because Congress never intended it to be.
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Jury Power Gets a Courtroom Nod in Possible Boost for Nullification


Jury
 
Earlier this month, the authority of the jury received a welcome nod from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. In a case in which the defendant confessed in the courtroom to all of the charges against him, the court ruled that a directed “guilty” verdict was out of line, since the jury still had the right to make its own decision by its own criteria, no matter what the judge thought. For fans of jury nullification, here’s a new endorsement of the power of a jury to bring a “not guilty” verdict for reasons of its own.
 
Full  Article:
http://reason.com/blog/2014/05/21/jury-power-gets-a-courtroom-nod-in-possi