Montana’s First Medical Marijuana Caregiver Dies in Prison

by Phillip Smith

The first person to register as a caregiver under Montana’s now gutted medical marijuana program has died in federal prison. Richard Flor, 68, died at a Bureau of Prisons medical facility outside Las Vegas Wednesday just a few months into a five-year federal prison sentence.

Flor, his wife, Sherry, and his son, Justin, operated a caregiver business from their home and at a Billings dispensary. Flor was also the co-owner of Montana Cannabis, one of the state’s largest medical marijuana providers until it was raided by the DEA as part of the massive raids in March 2011.
Although there were no allegations, Flor and his family were violating state laws, they could not escape the wrath of the federal government. All three were found guilty of drug-related charges and were sentenced to prison terms. Sherry Flor got two years for keeping the books and tending plants, while Justin Flor got five years for running the Billings dispensary.
US District Court Judge Charles Lovell sentenced Flor to years in federal prison despite testimony that he was suffering from a variety of illnesses, including dementia, diabetes, hepatitis C, and osteoporosis. Lovell did recommend that Flor “be designated for incarceration at a federal medical center” where his “numerous physical and mental diseases and conditions can be evaluated and treated.”
Flor died after a pair of massive heart attacks, according to his daughter.
 
Complete article here:
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2012/aug/30/montanas_first_medical_marijuana

Dana Beal pleads guilty, but med defense not up in smoke


Dana Beal at a rally for medical marijuana in New York last year.
 
BY PAUL DeRIENZO  |  Dana Beal, the patriarch of Village potheads, appeared before Judge Mary Gilibride in Saunders County, Nebraska, this week for a perfunctory bench trial — at which he pleaded guilty to possession of about 150 pounds of pot.
The Yippie activist is a longtime resident of 9 Bleecker St. and the organizer of the annual Million Marijuana March for pot legalization.
It was the second appearance before a judge in a year for Beal.
About a year ago, he was sentenced to five years in jail — with two and a half years of that under probation — after he admitted possessing another 160 pounds of pot in Wisconsin. He has about 18 months still left on that jail term.
But because Beal had been already arrested in 2009 in Nebraska, he faced bail-jumping charges as well as pot charges and was extradited to Saunders County.
Beal will be formally sentenced in Nebraska on Nov. 19. He faces one to 20 years.
In both arrests, Beal was driving low-cost pot cross-country from California, according to him, to supply medical marijuana buyers’ clubs.
Prosecutors are asking for what attorney Glenn Shapiro calls a “heavy-handed” prison sentence. Meanwhile, Shapiro, who is representing Beal in Nebraska, is asking for a sentence of time served, which would send Beal back to Wisconsin to finish his term there.
 
Complete article here:
http://www.thevillager.com/?p=7132

Drug Reform Movement Finds Home With Mexican Activists

By: Julian Aguilar, The Texas Tribune


 
AUSTIN — Maria Guadalupe Guzman Romo wasn’t concerned about legalizing pot in Texas when she marched on the state Capitol last weekend.
But there she stood anyway, just a few feet away from a giant banner that called for an end to the prohibition of marijuana and the taxing of hemp. Guzman Romo was there because of her son, a former Mexican army soldier who disappeared from Ciudad Jurez in 1993, decades before the current drug war that has claimed more than 60,000 lives.
“I tell them not to feel defeated. I have been fighting 19 years and I haven’t stopped,” she said of the advice she offers relatives of those who were recently kidnapped or murdered. “And I won’t stop until I find my son, because I handed him over alive and alive they shall return him to me.”
Guzman Romo was part of the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity, a group started by Mexican poet Javier Sicilia and whose members have been affected by drug-related violence in Mexico. Sicilia’s son was murdered in the central Mexican city of Morelos in 2011, prompting the poet to become a harsh critic of U.S. and Mexican drug policies.
 

photo by: Julin Aguilar

Maria Guadalupe Guzman Romo marches with her daughter on the grounds of the state Capitol during the Caravan for Peace’s stop in Austin.
Guzman Romo doesn’t mention the United States’ war on drugs, but her cause has been joined by Americans who have found an opportunity in the publicity surrounding the violence in Mexico to shine attention to their own agendas in the U.S. Unlike Guzman Romo, whose mission is to bring attention to her son’s disappearance, others have joined the caravan out of opposition to an initiative that they say is causing such murders and disappearances in Mexico — and destroying families in America.
The caravan’s Texas stops last week included El PasoLaredo, McAllen, San Antonio, Austin and Houston, and it plans to end its weekslong trek in Washington, D.C., next month.
“I think what is important is the binational nature of this caravan,” said Roberto Lovato, the founder of Presente.org, an online Latino advocacy organization. “The drug war has been a fantastic failure here in the United States, if you look at more than 2 million people being incarcerated, families destroyed by that incarceration, a trillion of our tax dollars utterly wasted [on the drug war]. So we have law enforcement officers who lost their brothers and their sisters in the law enforcement world, and people who have lost family members in Mexico.”
 
Complete article here:
http://myhighplains.com/fulltext?nxd_id=295552

Dormant Hemp Commission Revived

By 

Credit Jack Brammer / Lexington Herald Leader
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul voiced his support Thursday for legalizing industrial hemp. He backs Agriculture Commissioner James Comer efforts.
Agriculture Commissioner James Comer says he is restarting the long-dormant Kentucky Industrial Hemp Commission. The General Assembly created the commission ten years ago to look into hemp’s potential in the commonwealth, but it has never met. This morning, Comer announced that he is reforming the commission and, per state law, he will be the chairman.
“Kentucky has the perfect soil and climate to be the nation’s top producer of industrial hemp. Studies have shown that hemp could be at least the 3rd most profitable crop in Kentucky and our farmers could capture the lion’s share of the industry,” he says.
 
Complete article here:
http://weku.fm/post/dormant-hemp-commission-revived

Cannabis PAC is no joke

By 
Marijuana plants are shown. | AP Photo
 
Make your joke about how a pro-pot political action committee might raise and spend its cash.
But leaders of the National Cannabis Industry Association PAC, which officially formed Wednesday, say they’re stone-cold serious about navigating D.C.’s corridors of power and money by traditional means.
The PAC plans to solicit association members for start-up funding later this year then begin attending congressional fundraisers and otherwise hobnobbing with lawmakers in early 2013, Treasurer Steve Fox says.
Complete article here:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/80363.html?hp=r10
 

Marijuana Legalization: More Than 100 College Professors Express Support For Colorado’s Legal Pot Measure

Marijuana Legalization
 
Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol has released a letter today signed by more than 100 college professors — from Colorado and around the nation — that support the group’s November marijuana legalization initiative, Amendment 64, which seeks to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana for adults similar to the way alcohol is regulated.
The marijuana advocacy group is releasing the letter on the day that President Barack Obama makes a campaign stop at Colorado State University in what is expected to be a campaign speech about the issues that affect young college-age voters.
The more than 100 professors represent many different fields of study from law, health, economics and criminal justice from various universities around the nation including some professors from CSU as well as former colleagues of President Obama’s during his time as a professor at University of Chicago Law School.
 
Complete article here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/28/marijuana-legalization-mo_n_1837494.html

Pot penalties reduced in Springfield, Missouri, sort of

Marijuana
 

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. • The Springfield City Council adopted a plan to reduce penalties for marijuana possession but that doesn’t settle the issue.
The council approved the ordinance Monday. But council members said they plan to amend the bill or remove most provisions before it takes effect in 30 days.
 
Complete article here:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/pot-penalties-reduced-in-springfield-mo-sort-of/article_fd1cac0e-f106-11e1-bcd3-0019bb30f31a.html

Derek Peterson, Terra Tech Founder, Ditched Wall Street For Marijuana Business


Derek Peterson
 
As far as Derek Peterson sees it, Wall Street can’t compete with the marijuana business.
After a decade in investment banking, in late 2009, Peterson learned that a friend’s marijuana dispensary was clearing $18 million a year, dwarfing Peterson’s $300,000 to $400,000 annual salary at Morgan Stanley.
“The place was the size of a Starbucks and had about 900 patients a day,” said Peterson, now 38. “I was a finance guy, always analyzing different industries. I started looking at the products and services utilized in this industry, the economics behind it and how I could prosper from a peripheral business.”
Peterson launched GrowOp Technology in May 2010 as a side business, selling “plug and play” mobile hydroponic trailers equipped with everything necessary to grow medical marijuana.
Morgan Stanley fired him seven months later for his pot side business — unfairly, Peterson claims. He said saw many of his colleagues running side businesses.
“Morgan Stanley Smith Barney believes it treated Mr. Peterson fairly and appropriately, including in its application of its well-established policy requiring disclosure and approval of outside business activities,” a Morgan Stanley Smith Barney spokeswoman told The Huffington Post.
Rather than joining another Wall Street firm, Peterson decided to get serious about weed. Through one of GrowOp’s investors Peterson had the opportunity in February 2012 to merge with Terra Tech Corp., a publicly-traded firm that was getting out of the voice IP industry.
Besides selling hydroponic trailers for $30,000 to $80,000, his company makes hydroponic equipment, acquiring smaller retailers and creating new technology, including an iPhone app that allows growers to monitor crops remotely. Terra Tech projects 2012 revenues of more than $1 million.
HuffPost Small Business recently asked Peterson what it’s like to go from Wall Street to weed.
 
Complete article here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/20/derek-peterson-terra-tech_n_1812851.html

Moms For Marijuana To Unveil Cannabis Quilt In D.C.

By Steve Elliott
255111_2120988502225_4075171_n-1.jpeg
 
Moms For Marijuana, a grassroots network of parents and other citizens across the world who are concerned with the ignorant war being fought against the cannabis plant, is sending a Cannabis Quilt across the United States in a show of solidarity and unity, demanding the legalization of marijuana.

In just a few short years, Moms For Marijuana has grown from a MySpace page (started by founder Serra Frank) to 120 chapters in 14 different countries, with more being added literally every week. The group has had more than 20,000 “Likes” on its Facebook page in the last year alone, according to Candace Junkin, Maryland chapter leader with Moms For Marijuana.
The Cannabis Quilt, originally conceived by Moms For Marijuana member Dana Arvidson of Nashville, Tennessee, is inspired by the tremendous statement and awareness created by the AIDS Memorial Quilt, according to Junkin, who said Moms For Marijuana are working with their members and other marijuana organizations to complete the project.
Complete article here: