Rolling Cannabis Politics Thread

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1020-lopezcolumn-20101018,0,493202.column

a little older, but no one has posted this yet: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_d6b1aaca-edfc-527f-ad11-f1691fdc6e3b.html

John McWhorter in TNR about why we should legalize drugs: http://www.tnr.com/blog/80669/getting-darnell-the-corners-why-america-should-ride-the-anti-drug-war-wave

http://www.inqmnd.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/weeds.jpg

Seattle Times Op-Ed Says Legalize It: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorials/2014270472_edit20legal.html

Marijuana Busts Cost City $75 Million a Year (NYC)
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/03/marijuana_busts.php

Very cool piece about weed growing in Brooklyn in 1951

http://brooklynology.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/post/2011/01/28/White-Wings-and-Dream-Stuff.aspx

new jersey being new jersey
of course it would go down like this here

NJ medical pot startup companies well connected

<!--[4] end remove
, replace with following code block -->
TRENTON, N.J.
The aspirations of New Jersey's first medical marijuana businesses range from modest to potentially massive, but marijuana advocates say the state's startup dispensaries have stronger ties to traditional medicine than most -- and an unusual number of politically connected people involved in them.
Last month, the state issued licenses for its first six alternative treatment centers -- not-for-profit organizations that are allowed to grow and sell marijuana to patients with certain medical conditions. They're expected to begin sales to the public later this year, but no sooner than late summer.
"These are not people that we're used to seeing apply for licenses. They're coming from a different background. They have different skill sets," said Lauren Payne, the legal coordinator and regulations analyst for Americans for Safe Access, which works on behalf of patients who believe marijuana may help them. "Some of them may or may not have an idea of what they're getting themselves into."
The fledgling medical marijuana industry was closely watching who would get New Jersey's licenses. It has a bigger population than all the 14 other states that have legalized pot for patients, except California. And it's launching its version of the business with tighter restrictions than have been tried anywhere else in the U.S.
The state's proposed regulations are so tough -- limiting even the potency of the medical cannabis, which no other state has done -- that a number of groups that had considered applying for licenses were scared off. Some said that their prospective patients would be more likely to get marijuana illegally than buy it legally under New Jersey's system.
They complained that the state's rules would give the traditional pharmaceutical industry a serious toehold into a world heretofore populated largely with more down-home players seeking holistic treatments rather than traditional medical approaches.
Still, 21 groups applied for licenses. A number of them applied in more than one region of the state. And state Health Department officials said they were happy with the quality and variety of the applicants.
Chris Goldstein, a medical marijuana advocate who serves as the spokesman for the Coalition for Medical Marijuana of New Jersey, had concerns about the winners.
"These are the most politically connected medical marijuana operators in the country," he said.
Well-connected figures appear among the boards of trustees or advisers of several of the licensees.
David Knowlton, a onetime acting commissioner of the state Health Department whom Gov. Chris Christie appointed as chairman of his transition team's health care subcommittee in 2009, is a member of the board for Compassionate Care Foundation Inc., which received a license to run a southern New Jersey treatment center.
William Thomas, the CEO of the foundation, said Knowlton's name on the application likely didn't win any favors from the Health Department when it chose its licensees. "Dave Knowlton is sort of a gadfly to the Health Department," Thomas said. "We were almost afraid to put him on the board."
Knowlton said he didn't talk to anyone in the governor's office or health department about his application and hasn't spoken to officials formally or informally about his views on the proposed regulations.
"I recognize that I'm a former public official," he said. "I was very circumspect."
Kevin Barry, picked by Christie last year to be chairman of the board of trustees at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, is a medical adviser at another center, the similarly named Compassionate Care Centers of America Foundation, which is setting up a center in New Brunswick. Barry did not return a call.
Board members and advisers at other centers include Webster Todd Jr., the brother of former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and a chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board in the late 1970s; and Thomas Giblin, a union official who is a Democratic member of the state Assembly.
Giblin said he's not getting any financial benefit from his role as a medical adviser to the Greenleaf Compassion Center (slogan: "A higher standard of care") in Montclair. "They thought it would be helpful in terms of vouching for their integrity," he said. Giblin said his role there is no different from his position on several other local boards.
Todd did not comment, but Andrei Bogolubov, a spokesman for Compassionate Sciences Alternative Treatment Center, which is looking to open in Camden or Burlington County, said in a statement that nothing was amiss with his involvement.
"We are proud of Webster Todd's public policy experience, which will help us serve patients and their physicians with excellence in keeping New Jersey's medicinal marijuana program," Bogolubov said.
The number of establishment figures involved in the startups probably speaks to the state's model of dispensing medical marijuana.
Christie and former Health Commissioner Poonam Alaigh, who resigned abruptly last week, citing the illness of a close family member, said they wanted the state to follow a medical model.
Christie has often criticized the wide-open way the medical marijuana business works in places like California and Colorado.
New Jersey's law called for only six grower-dispensers to start. And the proposed regulations, which some lawmakers say do not meet the Legislature's intentions, make it clear that medical marijuana here will be a quiet business.
Under the regulations, the clinics would not be able to advertise their prices; their signs couldn't specify that they're selling marijuana; and patients would have to show long-term relationships with doctors who recommend the drug.
While those regulations discouraged out some medical marijuana advocates who were imagining dispensaries with the feeling of coffee shops or offering other services like acupuncture, they lured in people familiar with the business side of the medical industry.
Among the principals in groups receiving licenses are people who have run a health insurance company, a firm that sold pharmaceuticals to nursing homes, and a company that developed a system for delivering chemotherapy. One organization, the Compassionate Care Centers of America Foundation, has close ties to Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center.
Veterans of medical marijuana businesses elsewhere are also getting involved in New Jersey -- though none seem to be operating as branches of operations elsewhere. Some of the enterprises with the strongest connections to the medical business are being run by veterans of dispensaries in Montana, Colorado and California.
Thomas, of Compassionate Care Foundation Inc., says that if the rules were more lax, his group would not have formed.
He said his organization plans to make marijuana plants into lozenges, topical lotions and a form that can be taken through a vaporizer or by smoking.
"We're not a pot shop, we're not a head shop," Thomas said. "There are no bongs for sale."
Thomas said it's not clear where his group will operate, though it has looked at a place in Camden County's Bellmawr.
According to the organization's application, it's expecting to have annual revenues of nearly $68 million and a staff of more than 200 by the end of 2013.
Unlike most organizations that sell medical cannabis in the U.S., his group intends to have a major research component. It says it's applying for grants from the National Institutes of Health to research marijuana's medical effects. Knowlton said the research could help find more applications for marijuana -- and that could increase sales.
The Coalition for Medical Marijuana of New Jersey's Goldstein said he believes groups like that anticipate research as the main focus of their business -- not treating patients.
Some of the other groups asked the state to redact more details of their business plans before distributing them to the media and other interested parties. Most have declined to be interviewed or have not returned calls to The Associated Press.
But not all of them have such ambitious projections.
Breakwater Alternative Treatment Center, which plans to grow its buds on an organic farm in New Egypt and sell them in Manalapan, anticipates revenue by 2013 of under $2 million. And by then, it expects to have just 13 employees.
Morgan Fox, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, which advocates for the legalization of marijuana, said that in some states, medical pot dispensaries range from "shady little pot shops to cutting-edge pharmaceutical facilities." But in New Jersey, he said, the heavier regulations will mean that patients will be able to expect professionalism.
"The nice thing about New Jersey is that they are a very strict," he said. "They all meet a certain level of criteria."

Meanwhile in Montana...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-montana-marijuana-idUSTRE72E0O520110315

Federal agents raided state-sanctioned medical marijuana greenhouses and dispensaries in several Montana cities on Monday, prompting an outcry from legalized pot suppliers.

The raids marked the first such crackdown in Montana by the federal government since a state ballot measure legalizing cultivation and possession of marijuana for medical purposes was overwhelmingly approved by voters there in 2004.

Didn't the Obama admin say they weren't going to be doing this anymore?

http://www.boingboing.net/2011/04/11/pot-allergy-is-proba.html?dlvrit=36761

Pot allergy is probably widely underreported

"Cases of marijuana allergy are rare in the medical literature, but a [Removed Illegal Link] suggests that they're a lot more common in real life."

recent study*, link here: http://skin.gcnpublishing.com/index.php?id=372&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=54155&cHash=99cfa314cf

Didn't the Obama admin say they weren't going to be doing this anymore?

RIght after he closes down Gitmo, oh wait!

If you want to be furious about drug laws in this country listen to this episode of This American Life: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/430/very-tough-love

Backwoods (or just simply corrupt) judges basically ignoring the constitution/laws of their state is unfortunately a problem that goes beyond drug laws, but that is the worst thing I've heard all week Mordy!

So infuriating I couldn't actually finish listening to it - I got too angry. I've heard that since it broadcast some ppl have started the impeachment process against judge amanda williams.

need rolling cannabis consumption thread

lol rolling cannabis

need rolling cannabis consumption thread

^^^^

SMOKE WEED EVERYDAY

any other ilxors go to dispensaries? i've started going and they are LOL

I never took advantage when I lived in California. What's funny about them? Apart from everything, of course.

Public Support Rising
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/19/marijuana-legalization-public-support-growing_n_851238.html

good call, judge

http://www.adn.com/2011/04/24/1826162/judge-says-trooper-couldnt-have.html?story_link=email_msg

anyone really that sensitive to marijuana aroma wouldn't be able to resist smoking it

Watson drew fire in February when he said state lawmakers had their priorities right "if you are a Guatemalan gay man who likes to gamble and smokes marijuana."

http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/crime/x215603618/Rhode-Island-lawmaker-faces-drug-charges-in-Connecticut#axzz1KYswX2az

Police in East Haven, Conn., say East Greenwich Republican Robert Watson, the House Minority Leader, was stopped at a police checkpoint Friday and charged with possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia and driving under the influence.

yoooo

i know this is mostly american erb politics, but this Ontario ruling had me smiling:
Ontario court strikes down Canada’s pot laws

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/04/weed_arrests_nyc_illegal_searches.php

the original WYNC report about race/marijuana + NYC is here with audio + interactive maps: http://www.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2011/apr/26/marijuana-arrests/

Not explicitly about marijuana, but great interview with David Simon that touches on the war on drugs:

David Simon: Oh, I would decriminalize drugs in a heartbeat. I would put all the interdiction money, all the incarceration money, all the enforcement money, all of the pretrial, all the prep, all of that cash, I would hurl it as fast as I could into drug treatment and job training and jobs programs. I would rather turn these neighborhoods inward with jobs programs. Even if it was the urban equivalent of FDR’s CCC—the Civilian Conservation Corps—if it was New Deal–type logic, it would be doing less damage than creating a war syndrome. The drug war is war on the underclass now. That’s all it is. It has no other meaning.

dude is otm. http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/2530/simon_4_1_11/

more infuriating criminal news:
http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/05/fourth_marijuana_conviction_gets_louisiana_man_lif.php

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/05/pot_smokers_alb.php

Last year, 54,000 people--including 50,000 here in the city--were arrested for possession of small amounts of pot. Marijuana arrests make up 15 percent of all NYPD arrests--making it the number one type of arrest in the city. Critics have called the pot crackdown a waste of $75 million a year in taxpayer money.

Under legislation sponsored by Brooklyn democratic assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries and republican Buffalo senator Mark Grisanti, folks caught smoking a joint or in possession of a small amount of pot in public view would just be given a ticket, rather than arrested.

Police currently are "going against the intent of the law," says Tony Newman, a spokesman for the Drug Policy Alliance. "This bill tries to get back to that intent."

"With New York in serious fiscal crisis, we simply cannot afford to arrest tens of thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens for possessing small amounts of marijuana - especially when so many of these arrests are the result of illegal searches or mis-charging," Grisanti says. "Furthermore, the unwarranted racial disparities associated with these arrests are unacceptable. This legislation strikes the right balance by discouraging and punishing possession and use of marijuana while promoting smarter, more effective use of our limited fiscal resources."

The police crackdown is interesting in light of Mayor Bloomberg campaign statement that not only did he try marijuana, but he liked it.

About fucking time.

Now let's get to work on that legalization bill...

Word!!!!

worked my fuckin ass off today and wish there was an MM clinic down the street for stress tbqf

for sure!
It’s really ridicules the conveniences of the clinics in LA now. I moved away from California right before things really opened up there

err ridiculous

I got pulled over by Oklahoma state troopers about an hour after smoking a joint in my car on Monday.
I didn't freak out because I knew that I'd really done nothing wrong. I told them that I had three roaches and nothing else.
They searched my car and let me go. Oh, I've got MS, so I played the shit out of that card.
Close one.

can i just...why do people smoke in their car? this is the easiest way to get charged with possession if you want it!

lol, also: today i had the unexpected opportunity to sit in on a state police forensic chemist's talk about how their lab works. at the conclusion of her talk she suggested ways that would help the lab work more efficiently and one was "advocate for making marijuana possession a fine-only offense." it was just me and some prosecutors and one said "boo hiss!" and i said "yay!"

harbl ive been told if you have w33d in your car you're best to have it in a bag in the trunk-- y/n?

Police currently are "going against the intent of the law,"

Pardon me if I cynically believe that the intent of marijuana prohibition laws have always been to give police a pretext to hassle mostly non-whites, but also non-conforming whites, who are predominately seen as dangerous elements of society who must be subjected to frequent doses of police power to keep them in line.

"intent" idk. It seems to me like sometimes these systems fall into place for variety of reasons and if alcohol prohibition is anything to go by sometimes the shitty broken law is backed by a bunch of well meaning psychotic suffragettes and moms. Still that's def the result even if not necessarily the intent. (did cotton peeps kill hemp??? That might be the true evil intent)

harbl ive been told if you have w33d in your car you're best to have it in a bag in the trunk-- y/n?

I would say that if you are going to, that would be the place to have it. Preferably in an airtight bag, concealed in a container of coffee grounds or some other aromatic which will help shield from the K9 unit.

But that's just what I've heard.

you some type of lawyer or something? someone important or something?

ehhhh i was more talking about the extra levels of sufficient cause that are needed for a cop to justify getting inside a bag inside your trunk.

where even if they went and did it and found it, your lawyer could argue "the officer had cause to search that car, and maybe the trunk, but not the bag inside the trunk"

f. lee bailey iirc xp

pretty sure tho that the thing to do if you get busted is smoke out the cop and then listen to some tunes together, this always works in movies

got busted smoking on the sidewalk a while back--last november--but case was dismissed for some reason that was made unclear to me. am i cynical for suspecting the evidence could not be produced cuz it had been smoked?

that's from the same movie where you smoke out the cop & listen to Creedence together in his cruiser

in real life a cop hassles you just for drinking Reed's Extra Spicy Ginger Brew on the sidewalk, because of the green glass bottle