San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano bravely introduced reasoned, serious legislation about confronting, revising, and ultimately turning California’s oppressive marijuana laws to our benefit. In these trying economic times, it just makes sense. Its budget meltdown has California taking a look at legalizing marijuana as a means to revive its depleted treasury. But common sense, not economic need, should persuade Americans it’s past time for a sober look at our mad “reefer madness” laws.
The Golden State legislator pushing the idea, Tom Ammiano of — plug in the appropriate joke — San Francisco, says licensing and taxing legal marijuana production and sales would earn California $1.3 billion a year. His bill would legalize marijuana possession and use for adults 21 or older, license commercial farming of it and tax it at $50 an ounce.
A big problem: California can’t do this on its own. The federal prohibition law would have to be changed for Sacramento to impose and collect the licensing fees and taxes. Given all the controversial financial and social engineering bills on its plate, Congress likely isn’t eager to take on this contentious issue. A recent CBS News/New York Times poll found only 41 percent of Americans favor legalization. That’s an improvement over the 34 percent in a 2002 CNN/Time poll, but still 52 percent are against it.
It would be best if Washington could leave this matter in the hands of states. Thirteen states have to some extent decriminalized marijuana. Massachusetts is the latest. Its voters last month eliminated criminal penalties for possession of small amounts.
In a case that could cast suspicion on lawn ornaments everywhere, authorities say they have busted a drug ring that used donkey statues to smuggle $1.5-million worth of marijuana into the Los Angeles area.
At least 15 people have been arrested in connection with the scheme to ship 1,800 pounds of pot in 200 concrete burros discovered last month in a shipping container at the Port of Long Beach. The shipment came from Mexico and was being sent to a fictitious business in Fontana.
The marijuana was found hidden inside the hollowed-out decorative lawn statues, which stand 3 feet tall and weigh 100 pounds, said Immigration Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice.
The operation involved nearly a dozen federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, which tracked the donkey statues to Fontana and Sun Valley and then arrested those connected to them on Tuesday night, Kice said.
Of 15 suspects, one had an outstanding criminal warrant while the others were being held on immigration violations.
Big Brother is here, look for a lot more of these stories coming soon. Swiss police revealed yesterday (January 27) that they discovered a large local marijuana plantation while using Google Earth.
According to The Associated Press, police revealed that they stumbled across the plantation while investigating two farmers suspected of operating a drug ring.
The plantation measured almost two acres and was hidden inside a field of corn.
The plantation’s discovery led to the arrest of 16 people. 1.2 tons of marijuana was seized as well as cash and valuables worth $780,000.
They buried this fool with almost two pounds of herb!! Oldest stash of weed every found!
Researchers say they have located the world’s oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China.
The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly “cultivated for psychoactive purposes,” rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany.
The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China.
The extremely dry conditions and alkaline soil acted as preservatives, allowing a team of scientists to carefully analyze the stash, which still looked green though it had lost its distinctive odour.
“To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent,” says the newly published paper, whose lead author was American neurologist Dr. Ethan B. Russo.
I’m obviously in the wrong business.
Clandestine cannabis growers in the Netherlands net two billion euros (2.7 billion dollars) a year — worth almost half the country’s horticultural sector — a Dutch newspaper reported on Saturday.
By comparison, according to NRC Handelsblad, country’s horticultural sector generates about 5.5 billion euros in annual income.
“There is major demand from England, Belgium, Germany, France, the Scandinavian countries and at the moment the Baltic countries,” Max Daniel, the senior police officer who heads the Dutch agency charged with combatting cannabis-growing, told the newspaper.
Police investigations suggested that about 500 tonnes of Dutch cannabis were exported each year.
On the Caribbean island of Carriacou, scientists have discovered drug paraphernalia suggesting Stone Age man used herbal mixtures to get high. Ceramic bowls and tubes dating back to at least 100 B.C. were used to huff or snort cohoba, a hallucinogen made from mimosa beans.
Quetta Kaye, of University College London, and Scott Fitzpatrick, an archeologist from North Carolina State University, made the breakthrough.
They found ceramic bowls, as well as tubes for inhaling drug fumes or powders, which appear to have originated in South America between 100BC and 400BC and were then carried 400 miles to the islands.
Paul Armentano delivered this speech at NORML’s 2008 National Conference, “It’s Not Your Parents’ Prohibition” in Berkeley, Calif.
Young people, in many cases those under 18 years of age, disproportionately bear the brunt of marijuana law enforcement.
Demographically speaking, the above statement is a “no-brainer.” Yet this is hardly a fact that we as a reform community like to admit or emphasize. Instead, you’ll hear reformers argue that the war on pot is a war on patients — and at some level, it is. Or you’ll hear advocates proclaim that marijuana enforcement disproportionately impacts African-Americans and Hispanics — and to some degree, it does. Attend enough of these conferences and you’ll inevitably hear that our movement needs better representation from women and minorities, both of whom face unique hardships because of the drug war, and that criticism is appropriate too. But, one thing you’ll most likely never hear is that our movement needs greater involvement from teenagers and young adults.
In the first of two pieces on organised crime accompanying his Radio 4 series How crime took on the world, Misha Glenny visits British Columbia in Canada where homegrown marijuana has become big business.
As we walk into John’s basement, the smell is so overwhelming it almost knocks me off my feet.
In front of me stand 120 marijuana plants whose thick bushy leaves cover the strong stems.
John explains quite nonchalantly that this is just a small growing operation, or grow-ops as they are known throughout Canada.
But he pays loving attention to the crop - adjusting temperature, light and nutrient supply - to ensure that it enjoys the best possible environment.
Every two to three months, John harvests some 8lbs (3.6kg) of his crop, worth about $20,000.
So even if he didn’t work at other jobs, that nets him a tidy salary (untaxed of course) of about $80,000 a year.
‘BC Bud’
Inspector Brian Cantera of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Vancouver believes that John’s small grow-op is one of 20,000 to be found in residential houses around the province.
That figure excludes the larger grow-ops in industrial locations, not to mention the huge dope farms that are scattered around British Columbia’s vast interior.
FedEx prides itself on reliability. But a mistaken delivery tipped off police to a 200-pound shipment of marijuana that someone tried to send from Pembroke Pines, Florida to Baltimore via the shipping company.
Police tell The (Baltimore) Sun they learned about the shipment when it was delivered Tuesday to the wrong resident.
Authorities posed as FedEx employees and arrested the shipment’s intended recipient, 30-year-old Richard Gwatidzo.
Officials say he was charged Thursday with possession of a large quantity of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute along with other drug related charges.
Police say they also seized eight other FedEx boxes with nearly 400 pounds of the drug.
Authorities are trying to determine the sender’s identity
Most marijuana users who get caught smoking a joint summarily pay a fine, but when an undercover police officer detained Richard E. Cusick and R. Keith Stroup, the two chose instead to challenge the constitutionality of Massachusetts laws banning marijuana for the first time in 30 years.
Arrested for sharing a marijuana cigarette at the annual Boston Freedom Rally in September, Cusick and Stroup turned to Harvard Law School professor Charles R. Nesson ’60 for legal counsel. Nesson and his clients acknowledged that they had used the illegal drug, and decided upon an unusual defense: they argued that the statute outlawing marijuana in Massachusetts has no “rational basis,†and that the jury has the power of jury nullification, or ruling a defendant innocent while recognizing that he or she had violated a law.
Before the trial, which began Tuesday, Nesson called the case “extraordinary,†adding that it offered the chance to address larger legal issues, such as the meaning of a crime.
“On the one hand, it’s asserted that a crime is a violation of a statute, which has a certain circular quality to it,†Nesson said. “The contrasting view is that a crime is an offense against society, a behavior that offends.â€
Juror No. 2 was caught smoking a joint during a break in the trial of a woman accused of marijuana possession, police tell the Houston Chronicle.
“I’ve had prospective jurors get lost before, but it never occurred to me that they might be getting ready for a marijuana trial by, allegedly, smoking marijuana,” Judge Sherman Ross says.
The woman was bounced from the jury pool. She now faces marijuana charges of her own.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) has made good on his promise to introduce what he called the “Make Room for the Serious Criminals Bill” on a March 21, 2008 appearance on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. Co-sponsoring the bill are Reps. Ron Paul (R-TX), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Sam Farr (D-CA).
Congressman Barney Frank today introduced bi-partisan legislation aimed at removing federal restrictions on the individual use of marijuana. One bill would remove federal penalties for the personal use of marijuana, and the other – versions of which Frank has filed in several preceding sessions of Congress – would allow the medical use of marijuana in states that have chosen to make its use for medical purposes legal with a doctor’s recommendation. Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) joined Frank as a cosponsor of the federal penalties bill. The cosponsors of the medical marijuana bill are Rep. Paul, along with Reps. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), and Sam Farr (D-CA).
Congressman Frank released the following statement explaining the legislation.
“I think it is poor law enforcement to keep on the books legislation that establishes as a crime something which in fact society does not seriously wish to prosecute. In my view, having federal law enforcement agents engaged in the prosecution of people who are personally using marijuana is a waste of scarce resources better used for serious crimes. In fact, this type of prosecution often meets with public disapproval. The most frequent recent examples have been federal prosecutions of individuals using marijuana for medical purposes in states that have voted – usually by public referenda – to allow such use. Because current federal law has been interpreted as superseding state law in this area, most states that have made medical use of marijuana legal have been unable to actually implement their laws.
Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) discusses legislation he is preparing to introduce that would remove federal penalties for possession and personal use of small amounts of cannabis.
He calls it the “Make Room for the Serious Criminals Bill.â€
