Politics

Former Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy has kicked off a national campaign to help prevent the legalization of marijuana.

 

"I cannot be silent, and I don't imagine anyone else could be silent if they knew the facts as I know the facts," Kennedy, son of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, told McClatchy Newspapers. 

 

"All I’m trying to do is get those facts to the broader public."

 

Kennedy's words come from experience. The 45-year-old ex-politician is a recovering drug addict who fell asleep behind the wheel of his car and crashed into Capitol Hill security barriers in 2006. In 2010, he announced he wouldn't run for re-election after eight terms in office representing Rhode Island.

 

Kennedy now is chairman of Project SAM — Smart Approaches to Marijuana — a nonprofit group he founded in January to promote policies that decrease marijuana use.

 

"I did try and experiment with marijuana, but I quickly migrated to other drugs and alcohol,” Kennedy told McClatchy.

 

He added that while he once approved of the use of medical marijuana, "I now stand corrected by the science."

 

Kennedy said he is not surprised that Washington and Colorado have voted to legalize marijuana.

 

Read more: http://www.newsmax.com

According to a new report from California NORML, "over 335 defendants have been charged with federal crimes related to medical marijuana in states with medical marijuana laws." Despite Barack Obama's promises of prosecutorial restraint in this area, "153 medical marijuana cases have been brought in the 4¼ years of the Obama administration, nearly as many as under the 8 years of the Bush administration (163)." In other words, Obama is averaging 36 medical marijuana prosecutions a year, compared to 20 a year under his predecessor. And although Attorney General Eric Holder has repeatedly claimed the Justice Department is not targeting suppliers who comply with state law, "the DOJ has targeted many facilities that were in full compliance with local laws and regulations."

 

California NORMLThe overwhelming majority of these cases, 259, involve California dispensaries. California NORML also counts at least 31 cases in Montana, 15 in Nevada, 12 in Michigan, 10 in Washington, six in Oregon, and two in Colorado. Nine out of 10 cases concluded so far have resulted in convictions, with 158 defendants receiving prison sentences totaling more than 480 years. About 50 are in federal prison right now, while others await sentencing or have been sentenced but have not begun serving their time yet.

 

Yesterday Americans for Safe Access released a report that puts the price tag for these prosecutions at $500 million. "Far outspending all of his predecessors," it says, "President Obama has dedicated nearly $300 million to such enforcement efforts, despite his repeated pledges to not use Justice Department funds in this way."

 

Read more: http://reason.com

Don’t look now, but nullification is about to spread to the courtroom.  NBC 7 in San Diego reported this week that the city’s mayor, Bob Filner, has called for jurors to refuse to convict the operators of licensed marijuana dispensaries who have been arrested under anti-drug laws by the federal government.  State and local laws in San Diego permit the sale and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

 

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner has injected himself into a federal criminal case against the operator of a medical marijuana dispensary, intensifying his standoff with federal prosecutors on cannabis enforcement issues.

 

Filner’s urging jurors who’ll be chosen for the trial to reject federal law in favor of state statutes under a centuries-old legal concept known as “jury nullification”– whereby jurors can refuse to convict people under laws they believe should not be applied.

 

“It’s time, like with Prohibition, to step back and say this was a stupid thing to do,” Filner said outside the courthouse. “Let’s step back, and juries ought to take the lead and say that to the federal government…and if the federal government isn’t listening to the mayor, maybe they’ll listen to the jury.”

 

Against the articulated wishes of the community, the federal government continues to raid these dispensaries and arrest the people who operate them, actions that clearly violate both the Constitution and the sovereignty of the state and local governments.  Filner in decrying this federal usurpation stated, “This is way overdoing it when local laws, state laws allow compassionate use of medical marijuana.”

 

Read more: http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com

On the Latin American street, the Organization of American States has always borne a reputation, often undeserved, as Washington’s lackey. But the OAS, based in Washington, just tossed the White House a message it would rather not hear: It’s time to seriously discuss legalizing marijuana as one means of reducing the western hemisphere’s harrowing drug violence. That conclusion, from a study presented last Friday in Bogotá, Colombia, by OAS Secretary-General José Miguel Insulza, is one that a growing number of Latin American governments — including Uruguay, which legalized marijuana last year — are urging the Obama Administration to accept. Having the motion seconded by Washington’s “lackey” makes it harder to ignore.

 

But even as Insulza and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos were hailing the OAS report last week, something else was brewing in Bogotá that could further undermine resistance to pot legalization. The Colombian capital is about to start a program that uses marijuana to wean junkies off bazuco, a cheap but fiercely addictive cocaine paste. It will mark one of the largest experiments to determine if marijuana — which legalization opponents still insist is a “gateway” to harder drugs like cocaine and heroin — is in reality an “exit” drug. If so, it will only serve to reinforce the argument, mentioned by the OAS study, that marijuana is a relatively benign drug, far more comparable to alcohol than it is, say, to crystal meth.

 

Read more: http://world.time.com

Welcome to Los Angeles, the city that can't quite get it together about medical marijuana. Voters love it, politicians shy away from acknowledging that it has redeeming qualities for patients -- well except one, thanks for being brave Councilman Bill Rosendahl and glad to hear that your medical marijuana use is helping your life.

 

Ups and downs in medical cannabis have been the norm for Los Angeles in recent years with pre-interim control ordinances, threats of bans, bans, repeals of bans, court rulings, council members dropping dimes on collectives in their areas to the DEA, closings, openings and now we have city council members ready to do something.

 

The new idea? Create a monopoly.

 

Measure D will create a limited number of medical marijuana collectives in the city - right around 138 for a city of 3,800,000 people. The 138 come from registering in 2007 and 2011 with the city.

 

In the measure's logic, somehow the first collectives to open must be the best ones. If you came a day late to providing patient access to medical marijuana, tough luck, we already have enough caring people in the city.

 

The more reasonable Measure F sets the bar higher for sensible regulation and taxation along with medicine testing, background checks and auditing of shops. Measure D does not require testing of medicine -- a critical component for those with suppressed immune systems. Measure F lets more collectives stay open than Measure D and in a city as large as Los Angeles, patients deserve access that's better than what D is offering.

 

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com

During a Wednesday House oversight hearing with Attorney General Eric Holder that overwhelmingly focused on the invasive government search of Associated Press phone logs and the IRS, one House member took the opportunity to grill Holder on another Department of Justice issue that has provoked criticism from the left. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) tore into Holder over his approach to marijuana, asking why his Justice Department is “continuing to put people in jail,” even as polling shows a majority of Americans believe the plant should not be illegal:

 

One of the greatest threats to liberty has been the government taking people’s liberty for things that people are in favor of. The Pew Research Group shows that 52 percent of people do not think marijuana should be illegal. And yet there are people in jail, and your Justice Department is continuing to put people in jail, for sale, and use, on occasion, of marijuana.

 

That’s something the American public has finally caught up with. It was a cultural lag. And it’s been an injustice for 40 years in this country to take people’s liberty for something that was similar to alcohol. You have continued what is allowing the Mexican cartels power, and the power to make money, ruin Mexico, hurt our country by having a Prohibition in the late 20th and 21st century. We saw it didn’t work in this country in the 20s. We remedied it. This is the time to remedy this Prohibition, and I would hope you would do so.

 

Read more: http://thinkprogress.org