By Nicole Flatow

 
A United Kingdom commission made up of leading scientists, academics, law enforcement officers and other experts is recommending decriminalization of drug possession in small quantities and of cultivation of marijuana.
The recommendations are the result of a six-year study by the UK Drug Policy Commission, whose members include the former head of the British Medical Research Council and the former chief inspector of constabulary. The commission points to the success of countries like Portugal, Switzerland and the Czech Republic in decriminalizing possession, and to evidence that the relative harms of alcohol and tobacco make different policy treatment for drugs “difficult to justify.” In addition to recommending moves toward decriminalization, the commission suggests review of the penalties for supply and distribution of drugs, and of the process for classifying drugs.
 
Complete article:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/22/1052581/uk-commission-calls-for-decriminalization-of-drug-possession-marijuana-cultivation/?mobile=nc

by Johnny Archer
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) — Supporters of medical marijuana are touring the country and their unique vehicle is creating a lot of buzz along the way.
Sunday the Canna-bus mad a stop in Louisville. It’s a school bus that has been transformed into a rolling billboard for the legalization of cannabis movement.
Stacey Theis from Arizona is the driver and she said it is all about getting the word out about the benefits of medical marijuana.
“I’m just out there to tell everybody I can about the truth because they deserve to know the truth. They deserve to know that there is something to better their lives to fight for,” Theis said.
Theis and other pro-cannabis supporters argue medical marijuana is beneficial for a variety of chronic conditions like post traumatic stress disorder, cancer and multiple sclerosis.
 
Complete article:’
http://www.whas11.com/news/local/The-Canna-bus-rolls-through-Louisville-in-support-of-medical-marijuana-175212481.html

Although it is only petitioning for the re-legalization of Cannabis in South-Africa, anyone can sign the petition under the ‘International’ section. The support would really be appreciated!
 
Sign petition here:
http://petition.daggacouple.co.za/web/

By KEVIN LANDRIGAN

Gubernatorial candidates Ovide Lamontagne and Maggie Hassan.
 
CONCORD – New Hampshire stands a much better chance of legalizing medical use of marijuana than at any time in state history.
That’s because for the first time, both major political parties have nominated a candidate – Republican Ovide Lamontagne, of Manchester, and Democrat Maggie Hassan, of Exeter – who embrace the change.
Three-time Libertarian candidate John Babiarz, of Grafton, likewise has endorsed New Hampshire becoming the 18th state to make marijuana available to chronically ill patients.
 
Complete article:
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/980309-469/states-medicinal-marijuana-prospects-boosted-by-support.html

October 29 at 4:00pm until October 30 at 3:00pm in UTC+13
Palmerston North District Court
36 YEARS OUT OF DATE! – It has been 36 years since the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 was first enacted, it needs to be overhauled and replaced; The Act has been amended on numerous occasions and is complex and difficult to understand and navigate. The Act’s framework is based on the recommendations of the 1973 report of the Blake-Palmer Committee and largely reflects the drug policies and issues of that era. There is concern that the Act is not well aligned with New Zealand’s National Drug Policy and does not provide a coherent and effective legislative framework for responding to the use of psychoactive drugs.
 
LAW COMMISSION REPORT – In 2010 The Law Commission issued its report, Controlling and Regulating Drugs – A Review of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 (NZLC R122, 2011). Among the key proposals contained in the report are:
 
•              Legalising cannabis for medicinal use.
 
•              A mandatory cautioning scheme for all personal possession and use offences that come to the attention of the police, removing minor drug offenders from the criminal justice system and providing greater opportunities for those in need of treatment to access it.
 
•              A full scale review of the current drug classification system which is used to determine restrictiveness of controls and severity of penalties, addressing existing inconsistencies and focusing solely on assessing a drug’s risk of harm, including social harm.
 
GOVERMENT FAILURE! – Our government has failed to act urgently on some of the key proposals and as a result, people who use cannabis for medicinal purposes are being arrested, charged, convicted and even sent to prison!
 
Billy Mckee is our latest victim, he is an amputee and the director for GreenCross (a support group for people who use cannabis medicinally) he is facing one charge of cultivating cannabis and four charges of selling small quantities of cannabis to an undercover policeman who entrapped him by posing as someone suffering from severe migraines.
Billy is being sentenced at 9.00am Tuesday the 30th October at Palmerston North High Court and could get up to 8 years in jail for this act of compassion, this is clearly not justice.
 
MASS PROTEST! – We are arriving at Palmerston North High Court on Monday the 29th October by 4:00 pm for a public display of non-violent civil disobedience at 4:20 pm. We will then picket the courthouse until 8pm at which time our overnight candlelight vigil will begin, devoted to Billy Mckee and in solidarity with all medical cannabis users around NZ and the world. From 9am on the 30th we will picket the courthouse and sit with him in the courtroom until he is sentenced and/or freed.
 
Billy lost a leg due to a car crash he is confined to a wheelchair and in constant pain from nerve damage to the stump as well as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The pain medications he was prescribed by doctors caused intolerable side effects where even driving was unsafe.
 
Prison terms have also been imposed on other medical cannabis users due to a law that lacks compassion. Please come along to the protest to show your disgust at our government’s lack of compassion and their failure to act upon the law commisions recommendations!

 
What’s next for medical marijuana? Hint: it doesn’t involve a match, pipe or rolling papers. Some of it doesn’t even get you high.
 
In Steve Kroft’s 60 Minutes story this week, we saw how Colorado has capitalized, literally, on its medical cannabis program. We also saw how the state has become fertile ground for a marketplace of unconventional marijuana products to flourish. And we’re not just talking about pot brownies.
 
Sodas, peanut butter sandwiches, truffles, breath sprays, skin ointments — almost anything can be infused with marijuana, and in Colorado, entrepreneurs are developing all manner of new pot-infused product lines. These products are a far cry from the dorm-room stash of weed in a plastic baggy, and some of them deliver the medical benefits of the drug without the high.
 
Complete article:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-57536817-10391709/marijuana-like-youve-never-seen-it-before/

• • Tuesday, October 30, 2012
    6:30pm until 9:30pm in EDT
    Raise the Roof on their Legal Defense Fund with Cornel West, Randy Credico, Nicole Paultre Bell, Supercute, Big Apple Playback Theater, & DJ Macnificent
     
    A party to appreciate people who are acting to STOP stop-and-frisk and police abuse.
     
    Come out to support 19 people on trial in Brooklyn & Queens for civil disobedience
    protests at precincts with the highest incidence of stop-and-frisk.
     
    “They shouldn’t be locked up…they should get a medal for protesting stop-and-frisk”
     
    St. Augustine’s Church
    290 Henry Street, Lower East Side, NYC (see map)
     
    6:30pm Doors Open
     
    7:00pm Shout-out to the New Freedom Fighters
    with Cornel West, Randy Credico,
    Nicole Paultre Bell, Supercute &
    Big Apple Playback Theater
     
    8:00pm Dance Party with DJ Macnificent
     
    Tickets for food and entertainment available on a sliding scale of $10 – $40 (pay what you can) in advance online (http://www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?showcode=NIG59) or by calling SmartTix @ 212-868-4444, and in limited quantity at the door. Cash bar.
     
    Public Transportation: Subway: F train to East Broadway, walk 4 blocks east on Henry St.
    Bus: M14AD to Grand St.–Jackson St., walk 1 block west on Henry St.
     
    Event web site: http://www.stopmassincarceration.org/oct-30-benefit.html

 
Patients with inflammatory bowel disease may benefit from cannabis-based drugs, UK scientists believe.
The Bath University team found people with the gut disorder had an abundant number of a type of cannabinoid receptors in their body.
They believe this is part of the body’s attempt to dampen down the inflammation and that giving a drug that binds to these receptors could boost this.
Their findings appear in the journal Gastroenterology.
 
Complete article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4728605.stm

By Steve Elliott

 
The Arkansas Sheriff’s Association and the Arkansas Association of Chiefs of Police held a press conference on Friday announcing their official opposition to Issue 5, the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act.

Travis Kelly
Since the days of Cain and Abel, hemp has been one of the world’s largest and most versatile crops, used to make textiles, paint, soap, rope, building materials, fuel oil, protein supplements, and medicines. An acre of hemp produces far more paper than an acre of trees — and you would have to smoke an acre of it to get high, as industrial hemp, though similar in appearance to its close cousin, marijuana (cannabis), contains almost no THC.
Today, in only one industrialized nation in the world, is the cultivation of hemp illegal. You guessed it: Ours truly. And it makes as much sense as outlawing ALL mushrooms because some of them are psychoactive or poisonous. How this travesty came about in 1937 is a lesson in the collusion of big corporations with big government and big media to pervert the free market and stymie competition.
In the early 1930s, Henry Ford’s experimental biomass plant in Michigan extracted methanol, charcoal, tar pitch, and other distillates from hemp, demonstrating that it was an alternative to fossil fuels as an energy source, as well as a competitor to other petrochemical products then being introduced by the DuPont corporation. DuPont had a powerful ally in Washington — Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon, a banker who also had a controlling interest in the Gulf Oil Corporation.
Mellon appointed his loyal nephew, Harry Anslinger, as chief of the new Federal Bureau of Narcotics in 1932. Anslinger promptly began lobbying Congress to outlaw “marihuana,” using a series of hysterical propaganda stories run by newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst — that era’s Rupert Murdoch. Hearst owned vast timber lands in the Northwest that supplied the wood pulp for most of the American newspaper industry; DuPont chemicals were used to process that pulp. The “reefer madness” scare featured lurid, racist stories of “Mexicans and Negroes” going on murderous rampages while stoned; innocent white women seduced into ruin; teenagers going instantly insane after a puff; and other fearmongering fictions.
 
Complete article:
http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20121019/COMMUNITY_NEWS/121019953/1019