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Netherlands Stops Tourists Buying Marijuana in Coffee Shops
Category: News | Posted on Thu, December, 15th 2011 by THCFinder
Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Foreigners traveling to the Netherlands will be barred from buying marijuana in so-called coffee shops next year, a move that could hurt tourism to the capital, Amsterdam.
 
“There will be an end to the open-door policy,” Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten said in a letter to lawmakers today. “Stricter rules will make coffee shops smaller, better controllable and reduce the attractiveness of Dutch drug policy for foreign users.”
 
The Netherlands decriminalized the use of marijuana in 1976, stopping short of legalizing the drug because international treaties prohibited it from doing so. The country’s first coffee shop, named after Donovan’s song “Mellow Yellow,” opened its doors four years earlier.
 
While the 223 Amsterdam coffee shops are visited by about 1 million tourists annually, they’ll now only be allowed to sell to Dutch citizens and foreigners who live in the country. Every coffee shop can register as many as 2,000 members who are allowed to buy marijuana or hashish, the minister wrote.
 
“Tourists will come anyway,” Iris Reshef, a spokeswoman for the city of Amsterdam, said by telephone today. “We prefer selling it in a responsible way instead of going back to the days that street dealers in the Red Light district sold soft drugs alongside hard drugs” like cocaine and heroin.
 
Maastricht, a city near the borders with Belgium and Germany, is satisfied with the new rules, Mayor Onno Hoes told news agency ANP today. The southern Dutch city has been seeking ways to cut crime and public nuisance that accompanies marijuana sales to foreigners.
 
The government will use its embassies to inform tourists traveling to the Netherlands about the new policy. Police will act if street dealers try to fill the gap, Charlotte Menten, a ministry spokeswoman, said by telephone today.
 
“The members-only rule is meant for public nuisance at coffee shops near the border, where foreigners line up their cars to buy,” said Reshef. She said the city of Amsterdam is still in talks with the ministry, adding that the border situation can’t be compared to Amsterdam’s.
 
The government will start enforcing the new rules in May in the southern provinces and in 2013 in the rest of the country, including Amsterdam.
 

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CBS4 hints fed crackdown on MMCs near schools is coming -- but is it?
Category: News | Posted on Thu, December, 15th 2011 by THCFinder
​According to this report, CBS4 has information that points to a potential federal crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries and grow operations within 1,000 feet of schools.
But it's unclear when any federal action would happen, or what it might look like if it does.
 
In the report on view below, correspondent Rick Sallinger says "dispensaries that receive the letters will be given 45 days to shut down or move operations. If they don't comply, they will be shut down by the U.S. attorney in Colorado." The report says the dispensaries are targeted because the 1,000 feet rule is a big factor in federal drug case sentencing, greatly increasing the charges.
 
Investigative reporter Sallinger doesn't disclose the source his information. But no letters have been sent to any dispensaries as of noon today, and the spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Colorado said he did not have any information on the matter. Moreover, there's nothing on the office's website about the memos or possible federal action.
 
State law forbids dispensaries from operating within 1,000 feet of schools, treatment centers, universities, seminaries and daycare facilities. But there are several shops that were grandfathered in.
 
In addition, Colorado law does not prohibit grow facilities from being within 1,000 feet of these facilities. Since they are often hidden in plain sight, it's hard to tell just how many are in this range.
 

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Colorado to join other states asking feds to reclassify marijuana
Category: News | Posted on Thu, December, 8th 2011 by THCFinder
Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chaffee and Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire have petitioned the federal government to change the schedule of marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act, a move they claim will remove the conflict between federal and state drug laws, which will in turn allow for the establishment of medical marijuana dispensaries. Colorado will file its own request before the end of the year.
 
Shortly after filing the petition, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin signed on as well. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper apparently has no plans to sign the petition, but Colorado will file its own request to reclassify marijuana.
 
Currently, marijuana is listed as Schedule I by the Drug Enforcement Administration alongside heroin and LSD, which means that the federal government considers marijuana to have no accepted medical use.
 
“This is a good first step, in that it shows that politicians are catching up with the scientific consensus, which is that marijuana has medical value,” said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. “If it succeeds, federal law will finally acknowledge that fact. Rescheduling marijuana, however, will not change the federal penalties for possessing, cultivating, or distributing medical marijuana,” he said in a prepared statement. “That is the change we really need. These governors should be insisting that the federal government allow them to run their medical marijuana operations the ways they see fit, which should include selling medical marijuana through state-licensed dispensaries.”
 

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Cops Fired For Supporting Marijuana Legalization
Category: News | Posted on Mon, December, 5th 2011 by THCFinder
PHOENIX — Border Patrol agents pursue smugglers one moment and sit around in boredom the next. It was during one of the lulls that Bryan Gonzalez, a young agent, made some comments to a colleague that cost him his career.
 
Looking for signs of smugglers near Nogales, Ariz., alongside the fence that now marks part of the nation's border with Mexico.
 
Stationed in Deming, N.M., Mr. Gonzalez was in his green-and-white Border Patrol vehicle just a few feet from the international boundary when he pulled up next to a fellow agent to chat about the frustrations of the job. If marijuana were legalized, Mr. Gonzalez acknowledges saying, the drug-related violence across the border in Mexico would cease. He then brought up an organization called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition that favors ending the war on drugs.
 
Those remarks, along with others expressing sympathy for illegal immigrants from Mexico, were passed along to the Border Patrol headquarters in Washington. After an investigation, a termination letter arrived that said Mr. Gonzalez held “personal views that were contrary to core characteristics of Border Patrol Agents, which are patriotism, dedication and esprit de corps.”
 
After his dismissal, Mr. Gonzalez joined a group even more exclusive than the Border Patrol: law enforcement officials who have lost their jobs for questioning the war on drugs and are fighting back in the courts.
 

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Wisconsin Medical Marijuana Opponents Are Heartless Idiots
Category: News | Posted on Mon, December, 5th 2011 by THCFinder
OREGON--(ENEWSPF)--December 5, 2011.  People like Rep. Scott Krug (R-Wisconsin Rapids) need to do basic research before they talk to the media about medical marijuana policy in Wisconsin.  Avoidance tactics and anti-medical marijuana catch phrases might work for people in Wisconsin that aren’t educated on the topic of medical marijuana.  However, to those in Wisconsin that have done some research, people like Mr. Krug look like neo-con puppets that would rather perpetuate pain and suffering in Wisconsin than take a sensible approach to medical marijuana policy.
 
Admittedly, I am not from Wisconsin, and I’ve never been there before.  But, as a long time medical marijuana patient from Oregon, and someone that has fought for medical marijuana nationwide since 1998, I know first hand the need for medical marijuana in Wisconsin.  My reasoning is very simple.  Marijuana has been proven to help alleviate pain and suffering for certain medical conditions such as HIV, AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, etc.  If there are people in Wisconsin (or any state for that matter) that are suffering from these conditions, they should be allowed to SAFELY AND LEGALLY consume medical marijuana to alleviate their pain and suffering.  I’ve never been able to understand why neo-cons can’t agree with that reasoning.
 
However, Wisconsin conservatives are using their classic maneuvers to try to sideline the issue.  Let’s breakdown a quote from Rep. Krug.  In an article that was recently published in the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune, Rep. Scott Krug said, “I don’t think the science is there yet…”  This is a standard defense mechanism that has been used for decades by idiots like Rep. Krug.
 
Here is a quote from Dr. Donald Abrams, a cancer specialist at San Francisco General Hospital, taken from an article cited in the link.  “Every day I see people with nausea secondary to chemotherapy, depression, trouble sleeping, pain,” he says.   “I can recommend one drug [marijuana] for all those things, as opposed to writing five different prescriptions.”  The article goes on to quote very reputable scientific studies touting the benefits of medical marijuana.
 

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'Blunt' joke at drive-through leads to arrest of Burger King customer
Category: News | Posted on Fri, December, 2nd 2011 by THCFinder
A Deltona man may have thought he was being funny when he asked for "a blunt and some herbs" – slang for marijuana – at the drive-through lane of a restaurant, but the cashier and Volusia County deputy sheriffs got the last laugh.
 
Shawn Porter, 32, is being held in the Volusia County Branch Jail near Daytona Beach with bail set at $1,000 on a charge of felony possession of marijuana.
 
It began with a late-night visit to the Burger King at 2790 Elkcam Blvd. in Deltona, Sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson said.
 
Porter and another man were in a white Saturn that pulled into the drive-through lane just before 10:30 p.m. Thursday and when it came time to order, one of them yelled that he wanted "a blunt and some herbs," Davidson said.
 
"When they drove up to the window, the cashier said she could smell the scent of marijuana coming from the car," Davidson said.
 
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One of the store's managers could also smell marijuana. She told a 911 operator she was outside in the store's playground when the car passed by.
 
"I could smell the scent of weed – marijuana," she told the operator.
 
She then learned about the "blunt" order and said she decided to call with a description of the car and its tag number.
 
"It's not that it's a major emergency," she told the operator. "It's more of a nuisance than anything.
 
"I wanted to report their tag number because they are smoking drugs in the car," she said.
 
A responding deputy ran the tag number through his computer and learned the owner lived less than two miles from the Burger King on Sky Street in Deltona, Davidson said.
 
He drove to the area and minutes later watched as the car pulled into the driveway and two men got out carrying Burger King bags, he said.
 
"The deputy also could smell the odor of marijuana coming from the car," Davidson said. "That's when Porter admitted smoking marijuana while in the vehicle."
 
A search of the car turned up a marijuana cigarette in the ashtray and two plastic bags containing about 28 grams of the drug.
 
Porter admitted that the drugs were his and was arrested but the other man denied any knowledge of the marijuana and was released, Davidson said.
 

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