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Changes California Law to Legalize, Regulate, and Tax Marijuana. Initiative Statute.
SACRAMENTO — September 9, 2009 — Secretary of State Debra Bowen today announced that the proponents of a new initiative may begin collecting petition signatures for their measure.
Read more »»»
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The “good reason” not being that Der Gropenator was a roaring pothead back in his steroid-fueled bodybuilding days, but that it’s likely his much-wished-for slate of pointless propositions on the May 19th special election ballot (oh, you didn’t hear about that? California’s wasting millions of dollars it doesn’t have again, on another special election) are all headed for the toilet. All except one — the one that would freeze lawmakers’ pay in years California’s general fund is in deficit (which is, like, every year).
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Marijuana helps in battle against cancer: study The main chemical in marijuana appears to aid in the destruction of brain cancer cells, offering hope for future anti-cancer therapies, researchers in Spain wrote in a study released Thursday.
The authors from the Complutense University in Madrid, working with scientists from other universities, found that the active component of marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), causes cancer cells to undergo a process called autophagy — the breakdown that occurs when the cell essentially self-digests.
The research, which appears in the April edition of US-published Journal of Clinical Investigation, demonstrates that THC and related “cannabinoids” appear to be “a new family of potential antitumoral agent.” …
More at the link.
I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty wowed by this!
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DEA to halt medical
marijuana raids
Today:
DEA Raids Cannabis Clinic
in San Francisco
What is the major malfunction here, Mr. Holder?
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If you don’t know who the Terry Caster family is/are (or that they donated a staggering $693,000 to strip civil rights from gay and lesbian Californians), get a crash course from Fred Karger here, and then come back and read the rest of this post.
Ready? OK. So… I’m researching the Caster family for entry in the Proposition 8 donors database (yes, I’m still working on it, and yes, it’s very close to launch), and I stumble across the Caster family Web site. It’s a butt-ugly, horribly-designed site, but a treasure trove of information on the infamous Casters (all of which I’ll share with you when the Prop 8 database launches).
One thing I almost missed was a small, easily-overlooked link, labeled “test,” in the extreme bottom lefthand corner of the front page of Caster Family & Friends. Click it, and it leads to …/doc_locator/420doc.htm — a page with numerous un-linked banners for organizations (such as NORML) advocating access to and/or decriminalization of (medicinal and/or recreational) marijuana.
The working links on that page lead to various other pages containing information about marijuana laws — and one link leads directly to a site called 4:20 DocLocator, a directory of doctors who will (apparently) prescribe medicinal marijuana, and related organizations.
That any of the uber-conservative Casters would link to such a site is surprise enough in itself — but, wait — there’s more.
So, on a whim, I decide to look up the domain owner of 4:20 DocLocator. This is what I find…
Domain Name………. 420doclocator.com
Creation Date…….. 2008-08-03
Registration Date…. 2008-08-03
Expiry Date………. 2009-08-03
Organisation Name…. VICTORIACASTER VICTORIACASTER
Organisation Address. PO BOX 227312
Organisation Address. Los Angeles
Organisation Address. 90022
Organisation Address. CA
Organisation Address. UNITED STATES
Is it a coincidence that the domain is owned by someone with the last name of Caster? I think not.
There is a “Vicki” Caster on the Caster family Web site, married to Richard “Dick” Caster, who owns the CASTERFANDF.NET domain name. (I’m not sure what the relationship between Dick and the rest of the Casters is; he’s probably Terry’s brother.)
So, the question is: Is the radically anti-gay Caster family pro-pot?!
Mind you, I’m very much in favor of decriminalizing marijuana, completely. (In fact, I’d like to see it regulated and sold as alcohol is.) So it’s fine by me if the whole darned Caster family spends all their time lying around baked to the gills and scarfing on raw cookie dough. Not that I’m saying they do, of course (although I would encourage just such a scenario, in the knowledge that it would mellow out the whole ornery whackjob family and make them a farkin’ lot easier to deal with).
The point is: How can a radically conservative, right-wing, Christian fundaloon family, or even one member of a radically conservative, right-wing, Christian fundaloon family — which wraps the cross in the American flag and then bludgeons gays to death with it, all the while screaming about the decline of “morality” — possibly justify marijuana usage, for any reason at all?
I’m guessing (guessing, I said) that someone in the Caster family is suffering a terminal or otherwise painful illness, and has discovered the (literal) blessing of marijuana. And I’m guessing that this Caster, or maybe even all the Casters, experienced a one-eighty in thinking about the Evil Demon Weed… in much the same way Republican Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter suddenly broke with the rest of the rabidly right-wing pack and became a fierce advocate of stem cell research — embryonic stem cell research — after he found out he had brain cancer.
Or like Nancy Reagan, who took up the stem-cell gauntlet in the final days of her husband’s long, cruel, and losing battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
Not that my heart doesn’t go out to Specter, and to Mrs. Reagan — and to whoever among the Casters might have been forced by circumstance to modify his or her views on medicinal marijuana — it does. (Really, it does. My daddy died a very slow death from the most cruel form of cancer, the pain and fear-filled horror of which would probably have been somewhat ameliorated by pot. I know that the long, slow, agonizing death of my beloved 37-year-old cousin was indeed eased — at least, while she was still able to function, before her breast cancer spread to her brain — by toking up.)
I can despise the gay-haters for what they’ve done to us, but at the end of the day, when we’re talking life-and-death, everything else goes out the window. (Yeah, bad mix of metaphors there; sorry.)
But I won’t hesitate to point out hypocrisy when I see it. And if what I believe about the Casters is true (and it’s only my deeply held belief, so all you Casters reading this can tell your lawyers to stand down), I can’t imagine any greater hypocrisy than this: A family of radical-right religionists who think they have the God-given authority to eliminate our right to marry — which was legal as established by judges (the majority of whom are Republicans, appointed by Republican governors) entrusted to uphold the law of the land the Casters claim to love so much — advocate, ever so furtively, for access to a controlled substance which is currently illegal.
The hypocrisy boggles the mind.
By the way: If you intend to click on any of the links on the Caster family Web site, I suggest you do it immediately — because when the Casters find out that somebody has connected them to the pro-marijuana movement, the incriminating little “test” link (and perhaps the domain record for the 4:20 site, if not the entire site itself) will probably disappear.
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Makes my Ken Ham as White House Science Adviser joke sound a whole lot less like a joke now:
Obama Wants Journalist Gupta
for Surgeon GeneralPresident-elect Barack Obama has offered the job of surgeon general to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the neurosurgeon and correspondent for CNN and CBS, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.
Gupta has told administration officials that he wants the job, and the final vetting process is under way. He has asked for a few days to figure out the financial and logistical details of moving his family from Atlanta to Washington but is expected to accept the offer.
When reached for comment today, Gupta did not deny the account but declined to comment.
The offer followed a two-hour Chicago meeting in November with Obama, who said that Gupta could be the highest-profile surgeon general in history and would have an expanded role in providing health policy advice, the sources said. Gupta later spoke with Tom Daschle, Obama’s White House health czar and nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, and other advisers to the president-elect.
The Michigan-born son of parents who were born in India, Gupta has always been drawn to health policy. He was a White House fellow in the late 1990s, writing speeches and crafting policy for Hillary Clinton. His appointment would give the administration a prominent official of South Asian descent and a skilled television spokesman. …
“OK, Sapph,” some might ask, “what’s your problem with Sanjay Gupta?”
He smeared (libeled, actually) Michael Moore claiming Moore “fudged the facts” in the film Sicko (and, in a story within a story, again demonstrated that he doesn’t always get his “facts” right).
He’s dead-set against the use of medical marijuana because (in our opinion) he’s a shill for Big Pharma (but says he’s “amazed” so many people smoke pot, suggesting it must be a generational thing; he “was born a couple of months after Woodstock”).
With what one might call reckless irresponsibility, he pooh-poohed the very real risks (namely, fatal heart attacks) of the anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx, and hyped Gardasil (the vaccine aimed at killing HPV, Human Papillomavirus, which can lead to cervical cancer) before all the data were (or are) in, and with “facts” he appeared to pull out of thin air.
And that’s just for starters. The Daily Green’s “6 Most Idiotic Positions of Dr. Sanjay Gupta” provides even more disturbing food for thought, including a comment that points out Gupta’s “sketchy and unscientific views on developmental disabilities and mental illness,” particularly in the area of “facilitated communication” (which, in our layman’s view, is the equivalent of a religionist claiming to “translate” the gibberish uttered by another religionist “speaking in tongues“).
The commenter also leaves a link to a 2007 article by international horse-puckey de-bunker James Randi, who calls FC a “major farce,” and opines that Gupta, through his reporting on FC and autism, “has apparently abandoned any critical thinking he’d formerly had.”
“OK, Sapph,” some might ask, “who do you think should be Surgeon General?”
“Easy,” I reply: “Dr. Howard Dean.”
Now, me, I’m no longer a fan of Dean’s (he broke my heart), but fair’s fair, and I’d be remiss in pretending Dean is not the perfect choice for SG. He’s quite qualified, and has more than paid his dues to the Dems.
But it’s clear as crystal that Dean, who represents the last remnants of anything even remotely progressive about the Democratic Party, is not Obama’s cup of tea; witness Dean’s unceremonious ouster as head of the Democratic National Committee in favor of right-wing DINO Tim Kaine.
In the meantime, as long as Obama seems set on appointing celebrity talking heads to posts of grave importance, there’s been a host of excellent suggestions across the Webosphere for positions both filled and unfilled; e.g.:
• Judge Judy for the Supreme Court (actually, she’d be a lot better than Alito, Thomas, and Scalia)
• Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter” Chapman for Department of Homeland Security Border Control
• Ann Coulter for White House Press Secretary
Here are some of our ideas:
• Paul Cameron for AIDS Czar
• Britney Spears for head of Administration for Children and Families
• Caitlin Upton, Miss South Carolina Teen USA, for Secretary of Education
• Sago Mine CEO Ben Hatfield for head of OSHA
• Joseph Hazelwood for Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet
The possibilities are endless! Make up your own (and post them in the comments)!
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Ramstad’s Positions on Syringe Exchange, Medical Marijuana
And Other Issues Backwards and Harmful, Say Experts
WASHINGTON — December 3, 2008 — A growing number of organizations are expressing concern about reports in the media that President-elect Obama may be considering appointing Republican Congressman Jim Ramstad (R-MN) to be his “Drug Czar”, citing Ramstad’s positions on syringe exchange programs, medical marijuana, and other issues. In a letter to President-elect Obama released today, the National Black Police Association, the Latino Commission on AIDS, the National AIDS Fund and more than three dozen other public health, criminal justice and drug treatment organizations warn that Ramstad’s positions are backwards and at odds with science and human rights.
Rep. Ramstad is well known in the substance abuse treatment community for successfully fighting to pass legislation designed to make health insurance companies cover drug treatment and mental health services like any other medical conditions. He is notably recovering from alcohol misuse and, if appointed, would be the nation’s first Drug Czar to be in recovery from a drug problem. Still, some charge that he is too wedded to faith-based 12-Step treatment programs and not open to more evidence-based treatment programs, like methadone maintenance therapy.
In 1998 Ramstad voted in favor of making permanent the federal funding ban on syringe exchanges, despite decades of research showing that syringe exchange programs reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C without increasing drug use. He voted in 2000 to prohibit the District of Columbia from spending its own locally raised, non-federal funds on syringe exchange programs and voted last year against repealing the same D.C. ban. Rep. Ramstad has also consistently opposed congressional efforts to stop the arrest of patients suffering from HIV/AIDS, cancer and illnesses who use medical marijuana to ease their pain and suffering in states where it is legal. These positions clearly conflict with President-elect Obama’s stated positions on the issues.
With controversy around Ramstad growing, the Drug Policy Alliance recently released five criteria that President-elect Obama should use when choosing a Drug Czar. Rep. Ramstad meets none of these criteria, which include:
1. Is s/he committed to enacting and supporting evidence-based policies? ONDCP should make decisions based on science, not politics or ideology.
2. Is s/he committed to reducing the harms associated with both drugs and punitive drug laws?
3. Does s/he think drug use should be treated as a health issue not a criminal justice issue?
4. Does s/he welcome and encourage debate and research? We need a Drug Czar who is open-minded and willing to consider every alternative.
5. Is s/he committed to reducing the number of nonviolent offenders behind bars?
“Former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke once said that the Drug Czar should be more of a surgeon general than a military general or police officer,” said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance. “Ramstad is just not right for the position. His opposition to repealing the federal syringe ban is reason enough to exclude him.”
To view the sign on letter, click here (PDF).
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Remember David Benkof? If not (or just for a refresher course), read “David Benkof: The Mysterious Disappearance of the Tragic Anti-Gay Gay” before you continue reading here.
All done? OK…
So, David has a new op/ed out — and is he ever (still) pissed at the Radical Religious Righties behind California’s anti-marriage equality initiative, Proposition 8.
Has David awakened from his own anti-gay coma? Nahhhhh, no such luck. David still doesn’t believe that any gay person — including himself — deserves the same right to marriage as straight folks; he’s mad because he figured out that the Christian fundamentalists behind Prop 8 don’t think too highly of Jews, and were using him as merely a “useful idiot” in their war on LGBT equality. (David, correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s my read.)
Still, David appears to be a lot less hostile toward the LGBT community as a whole, and even grants LGBT families and transgender people some recognition as actual human beings.
I’m not about to give David Benkof an inch until he really wakes up, but there are signs that something reached him enough to cause a restless stir from deep within his coma. And that’s great — even if that something came in a roundabout way.
Following are just the bits pertinent to LGBTs; hit the link to see David lambaste the Right on guns, medical marijuana, and ethanol:
Discrimination. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, so I supported the man-woman marriage Proposition 8 in California - until I discovered the Proposition 8 campaign tolerates discrimination against Jews. ProtectMarriage.com’s legal counsel, the Alliance Defense Fund, has in effect a “No Jews Need Apply” policy for legal and even secretarial positions. They say they’re not a law firm, they’re a “ministry” and thus have a right to discriminate against Jews and other non-Christians. But even if that’s true, Proposition 8 had hundreds of law firms to choose from. The fact they chose one that refuses to hire a Jew like me is very disturbing. Interestingly, Jesus himself was a Jew, so when a group has a policy that would lead them to refuse to hire their own Messiah, you know something’s seriously wrong. …Marriage. I have long opposed same-sex marriage. In fact, there are overwhelmingly good arguments for overturning same-sex marriage - based on the welfare of children, religious freedom, and preserving the monogamous ideal, for example. But the people defending man-woman marriage in California and elsewhere tend to use really dumb and sometimes offensive arguments. For example, the ProtectMarriage.com Web site, used to refer to a same-sex “family” (their quotes). Reasonable people can differ as to whether two men can form a “marriage,” but only a jerk would claim two lesbians and their baby are not a family. And do they really have to emphasize this attitude as part of their basic argument to fair-minded undecided voters? …
Transgender. I think it’s appropriate to treat transgender people as the sex they believe themselves to be - whether or not I believe that deep down they are really still their birth sex. I completely respect that some people disagree. But are these values more important than everything? For example, transgender women are at high risk for rape (and thus contracting HIV), because they are the only women in a violent, predatory, predominantly heterosexual male environment. Recently, I wrote the Family Research Council to encourage them to endorse my proposal to stop rapes and save lives by housing transgender women in women’s prisons. Their response? “To paraphrase our Policy team, housing ‘transgender women’ (that is, men) in a women’s prison would be conceding too much.” In Judaism, saving lives is more important than nearly everything. But apparently to the Family Research Council’s religio-political system, ideology is more important than preventing rape. Sigh.
You’re not quite there yet, David, but I have hope for you. 
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Back in February, we tried to make sense of Barack Obama’s ever-changing position on decriminalizing marijuana:
In 2004, Barack was in favor of decriminalizing marijuana.In 2007, Barack was not in favor of decriminalizing marijuana.
In 2008 — just this past Thursday, in fact — Barack was in favor of decriminalizing marijuana.
His campaign, forgetting all about the debate last fall, said Barack was always in favor of decriminalizing marijuana.
But then, “before the day was over,” Barack was not in favor of decriminalizing marijuana. Again.
If you don’t feel totally baked after trying to figure that out, Jeralyn at TalkLeft discovers the supposed truth (this time around, anyway):
Now he’s clear: he opposes decriminalization of marijuana.What accounts for this latest switch? His campaign says he didn’t understand what decriminalization meant.
And Obama was a lawyer?
And the editor of the Harvard Law Review?
And a former pot smoker whose freedom rested on knowing whether or not weed had been “decriminalized”?
Gee, maybe he can use that as an excuse for his pot-smoking — he didn’t know it was illegal!
Jeralyn adds:
I think it’s a fair question to ask if he’s being disingenous now, first about raising his hand by mistake and now saying he was confused about what decriminalization means, or whether in 2004 he was engaging in a campaign ploy to attract the youth vote.
Hit the TalkLeft link for more, with some spirited (and often amusing) reader comments!
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From Americans for Safe Access:
State Bill Protects Employment Rights of Medical Marijuana PatientsAB 2279 would reverse the State Supreme Court in Ross v. Raging Wire
Sacramento, CA — Assemblymember Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and several co-authors introduced a bill yesterday that would protect the rights of hundreds of thousands of medical marijuana patients in California from employment discrimination. The bill leaves intact existing state law prohibiting medical marijuana consumption at the workplace and protects employers from liability by carving out an exception for safety-sensitive positions. The employment rights bill, which is being co-authored by Assemblymembers Patty Berg (D-Eureka), Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) and Lori Saldaña (D-San Diego), is in response to a January decision by the California Supreme Court in Ross v. RagingWire. National medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) argued the case before the court and is now a sponsor of the bill.
“The California Supreme Court decision said that an employer may fire someone solely because they use medical marijuana outside the workplace,” said Assemblymember Leno. “Long ago, the legislature prohibited patient use of medical cannabis in the workplace or during working hours,” continued Leno. “AB 2279 is merely an affirmation of the intent of the voters and the legislature that medical marijuana patents need not be unemployed to benefit from their medicine.”
On January 24, in a 5-2 decision, the California Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s ruling that denied qualified patients a remedy from employment discrimination, based either on their status as a patient or a positive test for marijuana. The plaintiff in the case, Gary Ross, is a 46-year old disabled veteran who was a systems engineer living Carmichael, California, when he was fired from his job in 2001 at RagingWire Telecommunications for testing positive for marijuana. “It’s important that we not allow wholesale employment discrimination in California,” said former plaintiff Gary Ross. “If the court is going to ignore the need for protection, then it’s up to the legislature to ensure that productive workers like me are free from discrimination.”
The decision in Ross v. RagingWire closed the door on redress through the courts, shifting the debate to the state legislature. California is not alone in its attempt to affirm employment protections for medical marijuana patients. Both Oregon and Hawaii have introduced similar legislation aimed at clarifying the intent of the state legislatures. This recent multi-state effort builds on existing legislation adopted in ten out of twelve medical marijuana states, including California, which already sought to protect patients from employment discrimination. “We welcome and strongly endorse this clarification from the legislature,” said ASA spokesperson Kris Hermes. “Despite the ill-conceived ruling by the California Supreme Court, the intent of state legislatures has been to recognize the civil rights of patients and to offer them reasonable protections.”
Before the court made its final decision, Ross enjoyed the support of ten state and national medical organizations, all of the original co-authors of the Medical Marijuana Program Act (SB 420), and disability rights groups. Since it began recording instances of employment discrimination in 2005, ASA has received hundreds of such reports from all across California. Employers that have either fired patients from their job, threatened them with termination, or denied them employment because of patient status or because of a positive test for marijuana, include Costco Wholesale, UPS, Foster Farms Dairy, DirecTV, the San Joaquin Courier, Power Auto Group, as well as several construction companies, hospitals, and various trade union employers.
Further information:
Employment rights legislation introduced yesterday:
http://safeaccessnow.org/downloads/AB2279.pdfCalifornia Supreme Court decision in Ross v. RagingWire:
http://www.safeaccessnow.org/downloads/Ross_Ruling.pdfReview legal briefs and more about the Ross v. RagingWire case here:
http://www.safeaccessnow.org/Ross# # #
With over 30,000 active members in more than 40 states, Americans for Safe Access (ASA) is the largest national member-based organization of patients, medical professionals, scientists and concerned citizens promoting safe and legal access to cannabis for therapeutic use and research. ASA works to overcome political and legal barriers by creating policies that improve access to medical cannabis for patients and researchers through legislation, education, litigation, grassroots actions, advocacy and services for patients and the caregivers.
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Steve Chapman, in today’s Chicago Tribune:
On Thursday, The Washington Times reported that in 2004, as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, Obama came out for decriminalizing marijuana use. That usually means eliminating jail sentences and arrest records for anyone caught with a small amount for personal use, treating it more like a traffic offense than a violent crime. But in a show of hands at a debate last fall, he indicated that he opposed the idea.When confronted on the issue by the Times, however, the senator defended his original ground. His campaign said he has “always” supported decriminalization. It’s a brave position, and therefore exceedingly rare among practicing politicians. Which may be why it didn’t last. Before the day was over, the Obama campaign issued a statement saying he thinks “we are sending far too many first-time non-violent drug users to prison for very long periods of time” but “does not believe that we should treat offenses involving marijuana with a simple fine or just by confiscating the drug.” Recently, he had told a New Hampshire newspaper, “I’m not in favor of decriminalization.”
Let’s get this straight:
In 2004, Barack was in favor of decriminalizing marijuana.
In 2007, Barack was not in favor of decriminalizing marijuana.
In 2008 — just this past Thursday, in fact — Barack was in favor of decriminalizing marijuana.
His campaign, forgetting all about the debate last fall, said Barack was always in favor of decriminalizing marijuana.
But then, “before the day was over,” Barack was not in favor of decriminalizing marijuana. Again.
We would comment, but we’ve probably used the word “bullshit” in conjunction with “Obama” too many times this month.
Besides, Chapman says it all:
“This episode reveals that as a candidate, Obama is more fond of bold rhetoric than bold policies.”
Well, pot smokers? You gonna trust Mr. Finger-In-the-Wind?
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Feds Shut Down Marijuana Candy Factory In OaklandOAKLAND, Calif. — Drug Enforcement Administration agents have shut down a factory that produced marijuana-laced candy and other food products in Oakland, Special Agent in Charge Javier F. Pena said Thursday.
. . .
The company distributes its candies to cannabis clubs throughout the Bay Area, Southern California, Seattle, Vancouver, and Amsterdam markets, Pena said.
Some of the marijuana-laced products seized include chocolate candy bars in multiple flavors, cookies, ice cream, peanut butter, jelly, BBQ sauce, chocolate syrup, flavored energy drinks, granola bars, moon pies, brownies, chocolate covered pretzels and “rice krispy” treats, according to DEA public information officer Casey McEnry.
. . .
The DEA operation seized hundreds of the products, approximately 460 marijuana plants, one handgun, an unknown amount of U.S. currency, and a 2005 GMC truck.
. . .
Product order forms seized from a cannabis club operating in Southern California show Tainted products were offered from $2.50 to $20.00 for each item, depending on the type and strength of marijuana product ordered, McEnry said. …
. . .
Tainted Inc. began as a small operation that originally cooked marijuana leaves in butter and made chocolate truffles, McEnry said. …
Check out the slideshow of products.
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At least one Ontario judge refuses to succumb to the U.S.’s hysterical (and long-lost) “war on drugs”:
Canada has no laws prohibiting marijuana possession, an Ontario Superior Court judge said yesterday in a ruling that will be binding on judges in the province and may soon be picked up across the country.
“For today, and for the Victoria Day weekend, it’s a very pleasant state of affairs for recreational pot smokers,” said criminal lawyer Paul Burstein, who helped argue the case successfully.
It was the second time that a Windsor teenager who was caught smoking pot while playing hooky in a park has been found not to have broken any law because, the courts ruled, there are effectively no longer any marijuana laws to break.
Mr. Justice Steven Rogin upheld yesterday a lower-court decision, based on complex arguments, that has already had far-reaching influence.
The new ruling means that proposed federal legislation to decriminalize possession of a small amount of marijuana would actually “recriminalize” it, defence lawyers said yesterday.
While the new law would impose fines for pot possession, yesterday’s ruling effectively eliminated any sanctions for simple pot possession in Ontario, they said.
The decision “has effectively erased the criminal prohibition on marijuana possession from the law books in Ontario,” said Brian McAllister, the lawyer for the accused teenager. …
The federal Department of Justice, which appealed the initial ruling, is planning another appeal.
The government still plans to introduce its marijuana-decriminalization legislation later this month.
Most Canadians are behind the idea, according to an Ipsos-Reid poll released yesterday.
It found that 55 per cent of Canadians did not believe smoking marijuana should be a criminal offence, while 42 per cent thought it should be.
More telling, 63 per cent of respondents supported Ottawa’s plans to issue tickets and fines similar to traffic violations to those caught with 15 grams or less of marijuana, the poll found.
Justice Minister Martin Cauchon has said he is seeking the changes so that people who are caught with small amounts will not clog up the court system, potentially receiving criminal records.
For the moment, however, marijuana possession remains the most frequently laid drug charge in Canada even though courts are becoming increasingly resistant to hearing those cases. …
Now don’t get on my case about how drugs are bad, and ruining the moral fabric of America, and all those other canned, knee-jerk responses I can hear on any 15-second public-service announcement. Marijuana is not heroin, and it’s positively moronic to equate all drugs. Do that, and you may as well outlaw your grandmother’s Norvasc; it’ll lower her blood pressure, but it can also drop her heart rate to a dangerously slow pace, make her too dizzy to drive responsibly, and make her ankles swell.
And you may as well outlaw alcohol while you’re at it. Frankly, I’ve never seen anybody who’s smoked too much pot die of cirrhosis of the liver, become obnoxious at a bar, or beat his wife. The most horrendous “marijuana crime” I’ve ever witnessed was that of a terminal stoner who opined that Drew Carey was actually funny.
Do you want to compare the dangers of pot to the dangers of cigarettes next?
The fact of the matter is that the only reason pot hasn’t been legalized in the U.S. is that nobody’s figured out how to regulate it yet. And frankly, I can’t understand why the federal government hasn’t re-focused its efforts on finding a way to do just that, instead of clogging the already-overstrained U.S. court system, packing prisons with small-time offenders given utterly unreasonable sentences, framing law-abiding bong-sellers like Tommy Chong, turning AIDS and cancer patients into criminals, and completely steamrolling the concept of states’ rights.
God knows the revenue from controlled licensing of marijuana would be a boon to both cash-strapped states and the foundering fed; a 1998 report by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) states: “Marijuana remains the fourth largest cash crop in America despite law enforcement spending an estimated $10 billion annually to pursue efforts to outlaw the plant. In many states, marijuana ranked as the top cash crop for farmers. United States marijuana growers harvested a minimum of 5.5 million pounds of saleable marijuana in 1997 worth $15.1 billion to growers and $25.2 billion on the retail market.”
It’s no secret that here in California — where agriculture is a massive industry, of unbelievable volume — pot has been the number-one cash crop for years, outranking everything from grapes to walnuts. (Keep your “fruits and nuts” jokes to yourselves, folks — I’ve heard ‘em all, and they were only mildly amusing the first 350 times.) I mention California naturally because I have a vested interest in the state’s welfare (which ain’t so hot these days), but mostly because, even though I hear the number every damned day, I still can’t comprehend the fact that we are facing a $38 billion budget crisis that has to be solved within the next two weeks. It won’t be solved this year — or next, I’m afraid — but do you have any idea what a dent tax revenues from the legalized sale of marijuana would put in that $38 billion? Especially in a state where both personal and business income-tax revenues keep falling by the month? (Thanks for a wrecked economy, George!)
And don’t tell me you really want to talk about the morality of decriminalizing marijuana. If you haven’t made up your own mind by now, you never will — and if you’re worried that I’m a bad influence on young minds, I suggest you take a look at the influence of your own attitudes about booze, tobacco, and even violent movies and video games before you jump all over me for refusing to demonize weed.
And having lived through the 1960s and 70s, I’ve seen it all, folks, and there’s not a thing anyone could say to change my thinking about pot, so don’t waste your time.
The bottom line is that I’m neither condoning nor condemning marijuana use by responsible adults — but neither do I condone nor condemn adult use of alcohol, cigarettes, kava, or most organized religions. (Although I will say that of the above, only wine, marijuana, and kava have been shown to offer any conclusive therapeutic benefits that outweigh the dangers).
When pressed to judge whether a thing is right or wrong, the only question I ask is: Does it hurt anybody else?
All told, too much of anything is bad for you — and that includes black-and-white thinking.
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Bad Behavior has blocked 1045 access attempts in the last 7 days.
