Legalizing Medical Pot Doesn’t Increase Teen Use

The legalization of medical marijuana in several states had no impact on high school students’ likelihood of experimenting with the drug, a new study suggests.
Researchers looked at marijuana use among youth between 1993 and 2009, a time when 13 states legalized the drug for medical use. They found no correlation between legalization of the drug and increased use among teens in a given state.
In fact, slight drops in teen use were seen in some states where marijuana was legalized.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.myhealthnewsdaily.com/2732-medical-marijuana-teenage.html

Feds Move To Silence Platshorn, Derail The Silver Tour

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~
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Robert Platshorn became the longest serving marijuana prisoner in United States history, doing almost 30 years in federal prison for importing Colombian pot in the 1970s. When he got out four years ago, Platshorn — a weed warrior through and through — didn’t take the easy way out and opt for a quiet retirement. Instead, he took up the cause of medical marijuana, launching The Silver Tour to bring the good news about cannabis to senior citizens.

Platshorn did his time, and when he got out, he started trying to make the world a better place and to help sick people. Now, even though he’s been officially released from the jurisdiction of the U.S. Parole Commission, the federal government is trying to silence him, ordering travel restrictions — which would effectively end The Silver Tour — and forbidding him to associate with fellow Silver Tour director, federal medical marijuana patient Irvin Rosenfeld.
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This toke’s for history – A counterculture icon captures the imperfection of weed’s hippie renaissance

Caitlin Donohue

 
We have to be careful about how we are documenting marijuana. If we aren’t, future generations might be forgiven for thinking that cannabis culture occurred solely in courtrooms and during federal raids. After all, when do you read an account of a really great high, or the everyday reality of scoring from a dealer (and not going to jail for it, natch) off the pages of High Times?
For that reason alone — cultural documentation — alt-legend, Merry Prankster, and co-founder of the Yippie movement Paul Krassner must be commended for compiling Pot Stories for the Soul (Soft Skull Press, 240pp, $17.95). Krassner, who will be remembered by those older than I for his work with adult satire magazine The Realist, tapped 250 of his friends for their best cannabis stories. Results range from Mark Mothersbaugh’s tale of Devo’s Virgin Records-sponsored trip to Jamaica, to Kate Coleman’s account of working as Newsweek’s resident freak advisor and dealer in the mid-1960s, to random paragraph-long stoney-baloney kneeslappers. There’s also entire chapters devoted to anecdotes regarding Ken Kesey, Disneyland, and the illustrative writings of Krassner himself.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.sfbg.com/2012/06/12/tokes-history

Seven More States May Legalize Medical Marijuana in 2012

By Ben Sherman, ThinkProgress
Medical Marijuana
 
Currently, 17 states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana. In the second half of 2012, seven more states will decide, either in the state legislature or via ballot initiatives, whether they will join them in legalizing the use of marijuana, in whole or in part.
Recent polling shows that 3/4 of Americans support the right to use state-sanctioned medical marijuana. Support for full marijuana legalization is at an all-time high of 50%.
 
Read complete article here:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/9787-seven-more-states-may-legalize-medical-marijuana-in-2012

Prof advocates legalising marijuana

Melissa Doughty
 
Director of Africana Studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Prof Onwubiko Agozino is calling for the legalisation of marijuana. He believes people who use/sell marijuana and may be arrested and sentenced to prison for it cannot be compared with one incarcerated for homicide. He also believes imprisoning someone for a marijuana offence exposes that individual to violent socialisation.
 
The right to sell marijuana, as in Netherlands or Portugal, he said, should also be decriminalised thereby allowing people to earn a living. Other illicit drugs such as cocaine, he said, should also be decriminalised, but through education, the public should be made alive to the the dangers.
 
“The war on drugs is a choice our leaders have made. Waging war on drugs is not working; what works is education. Marijuana never killed anybody. We should end the war on drugs, legalise marijuana and allow the young people here in Trinidad and Tobago to grow their little marijuana and make a decent living and pay some taxes,” he said.
 
Agozino’s comments came as he delivered the keynote address at the opening day of the 14th Biannual International Conference on Penal Abolition (ICOPA). The conference invites the opinions and expertise of activists, academics, journalists, practitioners, people currently or formerly imprisoned, survivors of State and personal harm and others from across the world working toward the abolition of imprisonment, the penal system, and the prison industrial complex.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2012-06-14/prof-advocates-legalising-marijuana

Rhode Island Governor signs pot decriminalization bill

Penalty reduced to $150 fine with no jail time

 
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee has signed legislation rolling back criminal penalties for the possession of small amounts of marijuana.
Chafee announced the signing Wednesday night after the General Assembly ended its formal session. Chafee, an independent, had been expected to sign the bill into law.
Adults caught with an ounce or less of marijuana would face a $150 civil fine. Minors would also have to complete a drug awareness program and community service.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.wpri.com/dpp/news/local_news/providence/providence-governor-lincoln-chafee-signs-pot-decriminalization-bill