Marijuana arrests in Colorado and beyond a “moral catastrophe,” says study author

By Michael Roberts
 
At 10 a.m. today, just prior to a moms against Amendment 64 event sponsored by opponents of the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol act, supporters of the measure will be holding a press event of their own — this one highlighting the release of a new report showing that marijuana possession arrests in Colorado fall disproportionately on the young and people of color. We interview a co-author of the study below.
The study, on view below in its entirety, puts its grabbiest stat in its title: “210,000 Marijuana Possession Arrests in Colorado.” Here’s a graphic showing the year-by-year breakdown, which cover the span between 1986 and 2010:
marijuana possession arrests graphic.jpg
 
And here are what study authors Harry Levine, Jon Gettman and Loren Siegel characterize as their “key findings:”

• Marijuana possession arrests in Colorado increased from 4,000 in 1986 to over 10,000 in 2010, totaling 210,000 arrests over the past 25 years. 
• In the five years from 1986 to 1990, police in Colorado made 19,400 possession arrests. Twenty years later, from 2006 to 2010, police made 55,900 marijuana possession arrests, almost three times as many.
• From 2001 through 2010, Colorado police made 108,000 arrests for possessing marijuana, overwhelmingly of young people. More than two-thirds (69 percent) of those arrested were 25 or younger, 79 percent were 29 or younger, and 86 percent of those arrested were age 34 and younger.
• Whites, mainly young whites, made up 63 percent of those arrested in the last ten years. Blacks and Latinos, also mostly young, were 36 percent of the arrestees.
• Although young African Americans and Latinos use marijuana at lower rates than young whites, in the last ten years police in Colorado arrested Latinos at 1.5 times the rate of whites and arrested blacks at 3.1 times the rate of whites.
• In the last decade, blacks were 3.8 percent of Colorado’s residents, but 10.5 percent of the marijuana arrests. Latinos were 19 percent of the state’s residents, but a quarter (25 percent) of Colorado’s marijuana possession arrests.
• Marijuana possession arrests create criminal records easily found on the Internet by employers, landlords, schools, credit agencies, licensing boards and banks, erecting barriers to education, employment and housing. Marijuana possession arrests do not reduce serious crimes, and they take police from other crime-fighting work.
• Colorado is often said to be a marijuana decriminalization state, but since the 1970s, Colorado law has made possession of small amounts of marijuana a crime, a Class 2 Petty Offense. Failure to appear in court as ordered by a summons is another crime, punishable by six months in jail and a $500 fine.
• In county courts, marijuana possession carries a $100 fine. In municipal courts, however, judges can impose fines of $300 or more, change $50 per month in probation fees, require regular drug testing, and send people to jail for several days if they have used marijuana.

Levine, a professor of sociology at the City University of New York’s Queens College and co-director of the nonprofit Marijuana Arrest Research Project, speaks frankly about the report’s release date.
 
“Of course this is timed to the amendment,” he says from New York. “It helps us to get attention for what we regard as a national scandal. This is what we do: We try to call attention to what we think is a nationwide scandal about marijuana possession arrests and the collateral consequences.”
 
Complete article:
http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2012/10/marijuana_arrests_colorado_moral_catastrophe.php

Can You Make A Phone Call To Help Legalize Cannabis?

Posted by 
marijuana election 2012
 

Join Students For Sensible Drug Policy And Make Phone Calls To Help End Marijuana Prohibition

By Aaron Houston, Executive Director, Students for Sensible Drug Policy
As you may have heard, this November, Coloradans will be voting on Amendment 64, the initiative to regulate marijuana like alcohol. This historic initiative will: make the personal use, possession, and limited home-growing of marijuana legal for adults 21 years of age and older; establish a system in which marijuana is regulated and taxed similarly to alcohol; and allow for the cultivation, processing, and sale of industrial hemp.
 
Complete article:
http://www.theweedblog.com/can-you-make-a-phone-call-to-help-legalize-cannabis/

The Good Doctor: Serving Time In California For Good Medicine

By Steve Elliott
MFry_SLetts (22).jpg
 
 
Exclusive Prison Interview:
Dr. Mollie Fry

Story and Photos
by Sharon Letts
It’s been one year and five months since Dr. Marion “Mollie” Fry and her husband, Civil Attorney, Dale Schafer, surrendered to Federal prison for manufacturing and distributing Medical Cannabis in California.
More than six years of litigation and three years of appeals rendered “no defense,” insuring mandatory five year Federal prison terms, respectively.
In 2001 the Fry/Schafer family home located in the hills just north of Sacramento was raided by Federal authority under then President George W. Bush, Jr. during the failed “War on Drugs.”
Thirty-four plants were confiscated – 20 were infested with spider mites, sitting near a compost pile.
44 Plants in a Pile
According to Schafer, the couple had never grown more than 44 plants in a given year – well below the 99 plant limit set forth by the State of California for medical use – and never sold a leaf.

A little known fact, he explained, is that under Federal law more than 100 plants grown in a five-year period, accumulatively, is cause for the mandatory five year sentence, overriding any State laws.
Dr. Fry, who had gone through a radical mastectomy just three years prior, had made the decision to grow her own medicine, medicating through her illness, surgery and continued to medicate from myriad complications from chemotherapy until the arrest. She began helping patients with Cannabis after realizing its benefits.
Complete article:

Alabama House Health Committee Calls Nov. Med Marijuana Meeting

By Steve Elliott
552388_363380263749651_921178304_n.jpeg
 
Years of hard work by the Alabama Medical Marijuana Coalition (AMMJC) is starting to pay off.

House Bill 2, The Alabama Medical Marijuana Patients’ Rights Act, is scheduled for a pre-session meeting before the Alabama House Health Committee next month, with experts on medicinal cannabis invited to speak.

“Rep. McClendon is having a meeting of the Health Committee to hear proponents and opponents of Medical Marijuana, November 14, 2012 at 1:00 p.m. in the Joint Briefing Room,” Committee Clerk Mary Ruth Davis emailed bill sponsor Rep. Patricia Todd on Tuesday.
Complete article:

Legalize Louisiana Rallies Statewide For Cannabis Reform

Posted by 
Louisiana Marijuana
 
Citizens across the state will gather for cannabis policy reform Thursday, October 25, starting at 3PM. Legalize Louisiana is an unincorporated grassroots education and lobbying effort dedicated to ending the peculiar institution of cannabis prohibition in Louisiana. In New Orleans, those who recognize our inalienable rights to bona-fide medical, religious, industrial, and recreational cannabis use will convene at Lafayette Square.
Similar actions are also scheduled for Lafayette, Lake Charles, and Alexandria. Residents of Baton Rouge are encouraged to visit their employees in the Capitol on this official business.
 
Complete article:
http://www.theweedblog.com/legalize-louisiana-rallies-statewide-for-cannabis-reform/

Hemp growing in popularity as nutritious, healthy option for diets

Manitoba Harvest Organic Hemp Hearts
 
Health food stores, supermarkets, and even big-box retailers in the United States are discovering that consumers are willing to explore the nutritional side of a plant better known for its fiber content and controversy: hemp.

Food and fiber uses for industrial hemp are growing rapidly and have increased by more than 300 percent in the past few years, according to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center at Iowa State University. This is due in large part to hemp food products.
Manitoba Harvest founder Mike Fata lost more than 120 pounds after switching to a diet supplemented with hemp fat and protein. Now, he tries to spread the word about how versatile the hemp plant is and why it makes such a superior source of nutrition.
 
Complete article:
http://www.eatdrinkexplore.com/index.php/health-fitness/item/998#.UIme62_A-Ps

Medical marijuana: disabled veteran’s appeal could change US drugs policy

 in New York
medical mariijuana case
 
A disabled veteran has told an appeals court that the department of veteran affairs policy on medical marijuana has caused him pain and significant economic harm, in a development campaigners say is a positive step in the battle to push for the drug’s reclassification.
Michael Krawitz, one of five plaintiffs involved in a legal case before the court of appeal for the District of Columbia Circuit, told the Guardian that the VA denied him pain treatment after they discovered he had been prescribed medical marijuana while abroad.
He told the court in an affidavit that the withdrawal of care by the department, which has rated him 100% permanently disabled and thus eligible for all medical treatment under its auspices, has meant he now has to travel 130 miles from his home to see a doctor for pain relief.
Krawitz, 49, who is the executive director of Veterans for Medical Marijuana Access, said: “The bottom line is its unethical to take away someone’s pain treatment. This conflicts with standards of medical care.”
 
Complete article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/23/medical-marijuana-disabled-veteran-drugs?newsfeed=true

German project highlights hemp as bio material

By Charlotte Eyre
HÜRTH, GERMANY (Oct. 23, 10:45 a.m. ET) — Manufacturers of bioplastics can resolve the problem of dosing natural fibers by using hemp pellets, according to a new Germany-based project led by the Nova Institut.
The Nova Institut’s Michael Carus said the project was set up because natural fibers cannot be easily fed and dosed in the plastic process, as they stick together. The partners decided on hemp as a material because only flax and hemp are grown as fiber crops in the EU.
Professor Jörg Müssig (HS Bremen, Bionik) and his team tested the properties of the hemp fibers from German manufacturer BaFa before and after pelletization, within the granulate and in the end product, as well as checking the mechanical values of test specimens and end products.
Carus said that as well as solving dispensing problems, hemp can also improve mechanical properties when used in a biopolymer.
 
Complete article:
http://www.plasticsnews.com/headlines2.html?id=26833

Arkansas state rep. supports medical marijuana measure

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – A state legislator who co-chairs the Joint Budget Committee says she supports a ballot measure that would legalize medical marijuana in Arkansas.
Democratic Rep. Kathy Webb of Little Rock told The Associated Press on Monday that she voted for the proposal that, if approved, would make Arkansas the first southern state to legalize medical marijuana. Webb cast her ballot on the first day of early voting.
 
Complete article:
http://www.wxvt.com/story/19883412/ark-state-rep-supports-medical-marijuana-measure