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Riverfish
FoxDen Hall of Famer
Registered: Dec 2006
Posts: 2913
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Massachusetts Decriminalizes Possession of Marijuana
Massachusetts Decriminalizes Possession in Historic First; Michigan Becomes 13th Medical Marijuana State
(Washington, D.C.) Defying the scare tactics of state and local officials, voters in Massachusetts and Michigan gave current marijuana policies a resounding vote of no confidence Tuesday. Massachusetts voters approved the first marijuana decriminalization initiative ever passed by voters, Michigan voters enacted the nation’s 13th medical marijuana law, and local reform measures appeared to be passing in several communities.
“Tonight’s results represent a sea change,” said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, which sponsored the Massachusetts and Michigan campaigns. “Voters have spectacularly rejected eight years of the most intense government war on marijuana since the days of ‘Reefer Madness.’”
In Michigan, White House drug czar John Walters personally campaigned against Proposal 1, calling it an “abomination.” In Massachusetts, all 11 district attorneys warned of huge increases in teen marijuana use and other dire consequences should Question 2 pass, even though studies in the 11 states with similar laws, as well as Australia and Europe, have found no such increases due to decriminalization. Under Question 2, criminal penalties for possession of an ounce or less of marijuana will be replaced by a civil fine of $100, much like a traffic ticket.
Several local reform initiatives appear on ballots around the country. For a complete list as well as their results as they become available, visit http://www.mpp.org/library/2008-ballot-initiatives.html.
“Last year an American was arrested on marijuana charges once every 36 seconds, which is more arrests for marijuana possession alone than for all violent crimes combined.” Kampia said. “Our ideologically stunted marijuana policies have been a catastrophic failure, and the voters have loudly said, ‘Enough!’ Marijuana prohibition is about to take its place next to alcohol Prohibition on the ash heap of history.”
Michigan’s vote makes that state the 13th to protect medical marijuana patients from arrest. One in four Americans now live in a state with such protections. Barack Obama has pledged an end to federal raids on patients and caregivers obeying state medical marijuana laws should he become president.
With more than 25,000 members and 100,000 e-mail subscribers nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. MPP believes that the best way to minimize the harm associated with marijuana is to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol. For more information, please visit http://MarijuanaPolicy.org.
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11-08-08 08:27 AM |
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Sherlock
FoxDen Hall of Famer
Registered: Apr 2006
Posts: 5022
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Marijauna Court Cases
I saw this article in the Commentary section of the Chicago Sun Times on Thursday, Aug. 14, 2008.
Hopefully, sanity will prevail so that this travesty of justice and all similar cases will be reviewed.
Plant Prejudice vs. the Constitution
Jacob Sullum
When Owen Beck was 17, doctors amputated his right leg to stop the spread of bone cancer. His parents, desperate to find a drug that would relieve their son's excruciating phantom limb pain, brought him to Charlie Lynch's medical marijuana dispensary in Morro Bay, Calif., carrying a recommendation from a Stanford University oncologist. The marijuana not only eased the pain but also alleviated the nausea caused by chemotherapy.
Called to testify as a character witness in Charlie Lynch's federal marijuana trial, Owen Beck did not get far. When he mentioned his cancer, U.S. District Judge George Wu cut him off and sent him packing. Wu decreed there would be no talk of the symptoms marijuana relieves, no references to California's recognition of marijuana as a medicine, no mention even of the phrase "medical marijuana" in front of the jury.
In short, there would be no explanation of how Lynch came to operate what prosecutors called a "marijuana store" in downtown Morro Bay for a year, openly serving more than 2,000 customers. Under federal law, which forbids marijuana use for any purpose, all that was irrelevant. So it's hardly surprising that Lynch was convicted last week of five marijuana-related offenses that carry penalties of five to 85 years in prison.
Nor is it surprising that so many self-described conservatives, including Republican presidential candidate John McCain, support the prosecution of people like Charlie Lynch, abandoning their avowed federalist principles because of blind hostility toward a plant they associate with draft-dodging, flag-burning hippies. It's not surprising, but it's shameful.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has raided more than 60 medical marijuana dispensaries in the last two years. Because the deck is stacked against them, dispensary operators facing federal drug charges typically plead guilty.
Lynch instead gambled on a defense known as entrapment by estoppel, which occurs when someone is arrested for actions the government assured him were legal. Before he opened Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers in 2006, Lynch called the DEA to ask about his legal exposure.
He says an agent told him he should consult with state and local authorities, which he took to mean he could avoid trouble as long as he complied with state and local law.
It's not hard to see why Lynch believed he was operating a legitimate business. He had the blessing of the Morro Bay Chamber of Commerce and the city council; local officials, including Morro Bay's mayor, posed for pictures at the dispensary's opening; and neither his neighbors nor the city police objected.
At Lynch's trial the DEA denied giving him any sort of green light, or even a yellow one. But the response he says he got from the agency is the response he should have gotten, because under the U.S. Constitution the medical use of marijuana is a local matter.
At one time John McCain seemed to acknowledge as much. In April 2007 he said, "I will let states decide that issue." But he quickly abandoned that position, and this year he said he'd continue the DEA's medical marijuana raids, declaring, "It is a national issue and not a [state] issue."
By contrast, McCain's Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, has promised to stop the raids.
McCain's medical marijuana position contradicts his professed allegiance to federalism. "The federal government was intended to have limited scope," he says on his website, vowing to appoint judges who "respect the proper role of local and state governments."
That commitment is inconsistent with reading Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce broadly enough to cover homegrown medical marijuana, as the Supreme Court did in 2005. "If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause," Justice Clarence Thomas noted in his dissent, "it can
regulate virtually anything — and the federal government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers."
By supporting the Bush administration's medical marijuana policy, McCain is renouncing such concerns. Worse, his promise to flout the Constitution probably will enhance his appeal among conservatives.
Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine, and his work appears in the new Reason anthology "Choice" (BenBella Books). To find out more about Jacob Sullum and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
Sherlock
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11-10-08 06:39 AM |
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crogue1
FoxDen Hall of Famer
Registered: Feb 2006
Posts: 1513
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Amen Brother, Preach it!!!
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11-11-08 06:22 AM |
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mikeb104
StatFox Hall of Famer
Registered: Sep 2006
Posts: 7733
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I voted No on this one. Not a good idea.
Also, these dumb voters voted against dog-racing. There are 2 places in the whole State of Massachusetts that has it, and they both have to stop now.........
"Not everything you read on the internet is accurate"- Abraham Lincoln
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11-14-08 01:26 AM |
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Sherlock
FoxDen Hall of Famer
Registered: Apr 2006
Posts: 5022
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Some Not Too Encouraging News
I opened the Chicago Sun Times on Wednesday, Nov. 12, and saw this article in the Commentary section.
Once again, this article was authored by Jacob Sullum and it kind of puts a damper on any progress that has been made recently.
Does marijuana have spot in Obama agenda?
Jacob Sullum
November 12, 2008
Last week, voters in Massachusetts approved a ballot initiative that eliminates criminal penalties for possessing up to an ounce of marijuana, replacing them with a $100 civil fine. Michigan, meanwhile, became the 13th state to allow the medical use of cannabis.
As Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project noted, the percentage of voters approving those initiatives (65 and 63, respectively) exceeded Barack Obama's share of the vote in each state. Furthermore, the results in Massachusetts and Michigan seem to reflect national opinion. For years polls have indicated that a large majority of Americans think that people should not go to jail for smoking pot and that patients who can benefit from marijuana should be able to obtain it legally.
Yet President-elect Barack Obama has retreated from his support for marijuana decriminalization, and his position on medical marijuana remains ambiguous. His reticence on these issues suggests he may disappoint those who hope the Obama administration will move drug policy in a less punitive, more tolerant direction.
One cause for that hope: Obama has been more candid about his own youthful drug use than any president in U.S. history. Although he portrays his pot smoking and cocaine snorting as behavior he regrets, it would be hard for him to justify harsh treatment of drug users when he himself escaped punishment
for the same actions and clearly is better off than he would have been had he been arrested.
Given his experiences, it's not surprising that during his 2004 Senate campaign Obama told students at Northwestern University, "I think we need to . . . decriminalize our marijuana laws." But this year he backed away from that position. His campaign claimed he really meant "we are sending far too many
first-time, nonviolent drug users to prison for very long periods of time," and "we should rethink those laws."
It's one thing to say decriminalization should be limited to simple possession of small quantities, or to say that it amounts to eliminating the possibility of arrest and jail, as opposed to repealing all penalties. It's another to say decriminalization means sending a low-level drug dealer to prison for one year instead of five.
That certainly would be an improvement, and Obama should get credit for his willingness to go that far. But it defies belief to claim this was the sort of "decriminalization" he had in mind when he addressed those college students four years ago (when he also described the war on drugs as "an utter failure").
Obama's position on medical marijuana is clearer but still fuzzy around the edges. He has promised to stop the Drug Enforcement Administration's raids on patients and the growers who supply them in states that allow medical use of marijuana. At the same time, he has said the Food and Drug Administration
should decide whether marijuana qualifies as a medicine, which may mean he's open to reclassifying the drug so it can be prescribed by doctors throughout the country.
The main danger with Obama is that his history of drug use will make him anxious to show he's tough on drugs. Something like that seems to have happened with Bill Clinton, who bragged about ever-escalating drug war budgets and threatened doctors who recommended marijuana to their patients with jail.
"We are going to continue to find ways within the administration to fight legalization and the notion of legalization," a key Clinton drug policy adviser said in defense of this unconstitutional policy, which ultimately was overturned by a federal appeals court. "We're against the message that
[California's medical marijuana initiative] sends to children."
Who was this zealous drug warrior, eager to forcibly suppress "the notion of legalization" in the name of protecting children? Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff.
Sherlock
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11-14-08 06:39 AM |
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