New Marijuana Possession Law Goes Into Effect in New Orleans


NEW ORLEANS — People charged with possession of marijuana in New Orleans will no longer be arrested and taken to jail.
A city law that went into effect at 7 a.m. Sunday now gives police the option of issuing a summons to violators.
District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro said the point of the new law is to free up local judges to handle more important cases.
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http://www.wdsu.com/r/26669241/detail.html

Bill would limit firings of medical pot users

Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau

Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press

Mark Leno’s bill would ban employers from considering a worker’s status as a registered medical marijuana patient or a positive drug test when making hiring and firing decisions.
 
Californians who use medical marijuana outside of work would be protected from job dismissal due to pot use under a bill that has been introduced by state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco. The bill, SB129, would make it illegal for an employer to consider either a worker’s status as a registered patient or a positive drug test when making hiring and firing decisions. The bill would not change existing laws that bar employees from using medical marijuana at the workplace or during work hours.
 Workers such as health care providers, school bus drivers and operators of heavy equipment – so-called “safety-sensitive positions” – would not be protected by the law.
 “The bill simply establishes a medical cannabis patient’s right to work,” Leno said. He called it “a completely reasonable piece of legislation. It astounds me that there would be any controversy around it.”
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/28/BAQV1HFPNH.DTL

Who’s Afraid of the Big Island’s Cannabis Minister?

Posted By Hokulani Cheneviere

“God, that’s great! Please show us the blessings in this situation… And hurry! We are safe. We are loved, and all is well…” Roger blesses  wedding party the day before the arrest
“What a trick this is for a plant, to produce a chemical so mysterious in its effects on human consciousness that the plant itself becomes the sacrament, deserving of humankind’s worshipful care and dissemination.” Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire
She’s called the Botanical Messiah-the Plant messenger. She’s a member of the Entheogen Ohana.   “Within GOD Creates”.   Cannabis, psilocybin, peyote and mescaline are a few of these plant Entheogens.
Through her Anandamide –  she delivers the Bliss.   Ananda, from Sanskrit, it means bliss or delight.  It’s in chocolate, too!   Kana bos and Keneh bosm is marijuana in Hebrew.  It’s the sweet fragrant cane in the Holy Anointing Oil of the Old Testament.  Listed as calamus in the  King James version, a mistranslation from the Septuagint.  ” The Living Torah” has the 411 .  Make you own conclusions if it seems a bit nebulous.
Ganja, Tai ma, dagga, chanvre, hanf, marijuana, cannabis, pakalolo.   Used for centuries in religion, as well as for medicines, textiles, fuel, and inebriant.   Solid proof that GOD gave humans special plants with multiple uses.  Evidence that our CREATOR gave us certain plants that help us to feel  joy, bliss, and delight.
Botanical Messiah, Plant Messenger.   As in God’s “friends and family network” with human beings.  To be high is to feel GOD within.  GOD aka “MOST HIGH”.   Within  GOD creates.  HOLY SMOKE.  Joy, bliss, delight, pono, peace, love, laughter, smiles…. ALOHA.
KAPU.  A’ole.  Pilikia.  Taboo.   Forbidden.  Prohibition. Devil weed. Reefer madness.
Why is everyone making so much huhu over a plant?  WTF was GOD thinking-giving us all those “botanical messiahs”?  THIS  has been such a major pain in da okole for human beings.    LONG ass jail terms for HIS frickin plants?  This is NOT funny, Dude.  What were YOU thinking?  I thought YOU loved us.   How is it, that a plant that brings Ananda can be so dangerous?   And if possessing these plants is a crime, then show me the victims.
The Chinese once called  it Tai Ma -The GREAT PLANT.  Some say it means Great Mother.  Same difference. Tai=GREAT  Ma=Mama or Plant.    Are you wordless yet?  Do you need a diaper?  How about a tissue then?   What other plant on the face of the earth can be used for food, livestock feed, medicine, fuel, fabric, paper, building material, rope, sacrament and inebriant? Sometimes I wonder if this plant didn’t come from another planet, it’s so wonderous.   Its use as medicine is astounding enough–appetite stimulant, aphrhodesiac, analgesic, sleep aid, glaucoma, cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, AIDS, Fibromyalgia, seizures, digestive aid, anti-depressant, menstrual cramps and nausea relief.  That’s just a few of them.  Used to be, that Cannabis meds were in every household, until….Bayer Aspirin came on the scene about 1910 or so.  Mother’s soothed their colicky babies with it.  For real.
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http://the-last-marijuana-trial.com/2011/01/26/whos-afraid-of-the-big-islands-cannabis-minister/

Medical 
marijuana 
advocates 
want Baudler impeached

By KYLE WILSON — CNA staff reporter kwilson@crestonnews.com
   
Iowa State Rep. Clel Baudler
 
DES MOINES — Several medical marjuana supporters called for the impeachment of State Rep. Clel Baudler, R-Greenfield, Wednesday during a House Public Safety subcommittee meeting at the state capitol.
Baudler, a former state trooper, wrote in a November newsletter to his constituents that he went to California on vacation, lied about having hemorrhoids and depression and a “doctor” wrote him a prescription for marijuana. Medical marijuana advocates say Baudler acted illegally by providing false information to a doctor.
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http://www.crestonnewsadvertiser.com/articles/2011/01/27/r_lt3rwuvwria9k8ffleuikg/index.xml

Massachusetts bill would regulate sale of pot

Legislation filed in the House calls for the state to begin regulating and taxing the sale of marijuana, as well as issuing licenses to growers and vendors.
The bill, brought forward by Rep. Ellen Story, the longtime Amherst Democrat, seeks to immediately remove all criminal and civil penalties for those over 21 who possess or cultivate marijuana for their personal use or for sharing with other adults, according to the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition.
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http://masslawyersweekly.com/the-docket-blog/2011/01/28/bill-would-regulate-sale-of-pot/

San Rafael company’s hemp speakers helping rockers create smoking-hot music

By Paul Liberatore
Marin Independent Journal
 

John Harrison stands in his office San Rafael. His company, Tone Tubby, makes speakers with cones made of  hemp instead of the usual paper. (IJ photo/Frankie Frost)

WHEN YOU THINK of marijuana and rock ‘n’ roll, chances are your head may fill with images of pot smoke in backstage dressing rooms or clouds of pungent sinsemilla rising from the crowd at a Grateful Dead concert.
But now, processed as hemp, good old grass has another new, inventive and legal use in rock music.
A San Rafael company is marketing an ingenious new speaker, called a Tone Tubby, featuring cones made of hemp — as a substitute for paper — for guitar and bass amplifiers.
The cones are the vibrating part of a speaker, and Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, Derek Trucks, Jimmy Herring, Los Lonely Boys, ZZ Top and Warren Haynes are among the rock stars who
In a testimonial, R.E.M.’s Pete Buck says they’ve given him “the coolest, most authentic early ’60s garage band tone. I’m definitely a convert.”
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http://www.marinij.com/lifestyles/ci_17219282

Obama’s questions from YouTube deal mostly with legalizing pot

By David Jackson, USA TODAY

 

Then-President-elect Barack Obama on YouTube in late 2008.
By Charles Dharapak, AP

 
The YouTube generation is speaking, and many of them want to legalize marijuana.  
Changing the nation’s drug laws is dominating the questions submitted by YouTube users in advance of President Obama’s 2:30 p.m. question-and-answer on the video website. 
UPI is reporting that “the top 10 questions all involved ending or changing the government’s war on drugs, legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana and embracing industrial hemp as a “green” initiative to help farmers.”
 
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http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/01/obamas-questions-from-youtube-deal-mostly-with-legalizing-pot/1

California Seniors Attend Medical Cannabis Conference Over Weekend

Filed under All Nursing Home News

This past weekend there was a one day Medical Cannabis Conference for Seniors which featured presentations by Dr. William Courtney and Dr. Donald Abrams, who are both well respected in the medical community. California has been on the forefront of the medical marijuana push, as they passed Proposition 215 in 1996. This allowed physicians to provide recommendations for certain qualified patients to use medical marijuana legally under state law. However federal law is not the same, and now 15 years later it is still in opposition to states like California who have passed their own medical marijuana laws. Now that the notion of medical marijuana has been around in California for a number of years, seniors are starting to warm up to the idea, and more could follow if there are other events like the Medical Cannabis Conference last weekend in Laguna Woods, Orange County.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.guidetonursinghomes.com/nursing-home-news/1114-california-seniors-attend-medical-cannabis-conference-over-weekend.html

Proposal would rewrite many Kentucky drug laws


FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A state committee appointed to find cheaper alternatives to prison is proposing reforms to Kentucky’s drug laws.
The task force met Tuesday to discuss a draft of the proposed changes, which included sentencing most people convicted of drug crimes to probation and treatment. A draft bill will be presented Wednesday to a legislative committee.
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http://www.courierpress.com/news/2011/jan/18/proposal-would-rewrite-many-kentucky-drug-laws/?partner=RSS