It helped her relax for a decade, but five years after kicking the habit she suffers sleepless nights and anxiety. Is the weed coming back to haunt her? Three experts have their say
SCOOOORE!Following in the footsteps of Connecticut's Legislature, New York State lawmakers are expected to approve legislation allowing the use of marijuana for medical purposes.
Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer, in a reversal of a campaign position, said Tuesday he could support legislation legalizing the use of marijuana for certain medicinal purposes.
There is no need to smoke marijuana anymore. A vaporizer creates little or no carbon monoxide, tar or particulates while delivering a higher dose with better taste.
The active ingredient of marijuana could be considerably better at suppressing the abnormal clumping of malformed proteins that is a hallmark of Alzheimer's than any currently approved drugs prescribed for the treatment of the disease.
Video of the February 19 episode of "Lou Dobbs Tonight" concerning the issue of Marijuana Legalization. A Poll is currently being held and 80% of viewers say "yes" to legalization!
Analysis of seized samples of marijuana and hashish showed that more of the cannabis on the market is of the strongest grade, taccording to the National Institute for Drug Abuse said.
A series of educational pages dealing with marijuana myths, facts, and decriminalization. For too long we've allowed ourselves to be informed via myths and propaganda.Educate, Inform, Change, Make the Difference!
Analyzes the marijuana information presented on the Drug Free America's website and finds it to be factually, statistically, and logically flawed. The author provides sourced counter claims to disprove some of the most common fallacies concerning marijuana.
A marijuana cigarette also deposits four times as much of that tar as an equivalent tobacco one. Scientists were therefore surprised to learn that a study of more than 2,000 people found no increase in the risk of developing lung cancer for marijuana smokers.
The Republican Party has a new voter registration project in Fresno. It involves luring people to sign a LEGALIZE MARIJUANA petition and then re-registering them as Republicans.
These are the latest Marijuana Reform ads refused in Washington D.C. “Marijuana Laws Waste Billions of Taxpayer Dollars to Lock Up Non-Violent Americans.”
Many people think smoking marijuana is just as harmful as smoking tobacco, but this is not true. Those who hold that marijuana is equivalent to tobacco are misinformed. For example, most marijuana smokers smoke the bud, not the leaf, of the plant. The bud contains only 33% as much tar as tobacco. In fact, marijuana is an expectorant.
Without a doubt, some readers will think to themselves that Dr. Paul’s position is naïve. But despite our DEA's intensive, intrusive, and expensive efforts to interdict marijuana and other drugs, only a tiny fraction are seized. In economic terms, supply continues to meet demand. But unfortunately, our policies are making all the wrong people rich.
A "drugfree world," which the United Nations describes as a realistic goal, is no more attainable than an "alcoholfree world"--and no one has talked about that with a straight face since the repeal of Prohibition in the United States in 1933.
A Fair Lawn school custodian is alleging in a lawsuit that his co-workers laced his pizza with the hallucinogen LSD in an attempt to poison him at an office party in 2005. "He said he felt like his body and system were melting from the inside out, like he was living in a kaleidoscope," Mazawey told the newspaper.
Nature’s Medicinal Cooperative has been raided by federal agents twice in the last couple of months. After both federal raids, Nature’s Medicinal Cooperative re-opened. The owners said they did it because medicinal dispensaries are allowed in California, but prohibited by federal law.
Since the Marijuana Tax Act was signed by President Roosevelt 70 years ago, the debate over the drug's effects, dangers and criminalization has raged unabated. The Bush administration has made marijuana its prime target in the war on drugs, spending billions of dollars on education campaigns and law enforcement activities.
The Cool professionals, a doctor and a lawyer by trade, say they are unfairly targeted and that the pot they were growing, completely legal, was allowed under the California Compassionate Use Act. The indictment contends Fry and Schafer cultivated 100 marijuana plants at their home and "knowingly and intentionally conspired" to distribute marijuana
The Reverend Craig X Rubin, leader of the 420 Temple, argued in a court hearing that marijuana is a religious sacrament and its usage in his church is protected under federal law.
This short documentary will take you through Sarah'sconsultation with a licenced medical marijuana doctor, searching formedical marijuana in San Francisco and trying marijuana for herstomach problems.
John Walters DEA/ONDCP American Terrorists Goes After #1 Priority Marijuana Growers, Far Greater Threat then Crystal Meth Labs, Heroine, Or Cocaine. John Walters spreads more lies and propaganda to further his war against American Citizens.
RAYMONDVILLE — Mystery hovers over a damaged, abandoned automobile with links to Willacy County’s controversial district attorney, and in which sheriff’s deputies say they found traces of marijuana — which the DA says was planted.
On Friday, Peruvian police recovered more than 200 marijuana plants that were growing in the grassy median of a street in the La Victoria district of Lima. The plants were found by a work crew watering the median who had previously found a grenade nearby. The discovery was meters from an elementry school and community center.
Nearly two dozen New Mexicans have applied to use medical marijuana since the state this month began allowing people with certain debilitating conditions to use the drug for nausea.
(Dallas) Officials called the 7 acres of marijuana discovered Friday on TXU property "farmed to perfection." DEA agents say it's the largest field they've ever found in North Texas....
It's being called the largest marijuana find in Dallas history—a huge cache of pot growing in an open field near the Grand Prairie-Dallas border. The estimated price tag of the drugs is $5 million. Police say it all began with a single call to Grand Prairie officers.
One state at a time. Digg it up if you think the government has NO RIGHT to ban a plant that grows in the wild and has great medical and psychological benefits to man. Let's get this rolling!
Click on the link above to check out WeedConnection.com - The world's best medical marijuana web site!!!! marijuana, medical marijuana, dispensary, dispensaries, lawyer, docotor, california, los angeles, marijuana hollywood, chronic, weed, dank, hemp, ganja, bud, 420, thc, budda, pot, san fernando valley, malibu, santa barbara, smoke weed
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has written letters threatening landlords with jail time and property forfeitures if they rent space to medical-marijuana dispensaries, the Los Angeles Times reported July 17.
This list contains facts about Marijuana, un-altered FACTS. Rest assured that the people who love the hobby of smoking marijuana will fight till the end to dispel the curtain of shame the media has cast on us.
On Wednesday night, law enforcement investigators in Holley seized 50+ marijuana plants growing hydroponically inside an apartment at a house at 53 West Albion Street. Police said Stephen P. Hendee, Jr., 20, probably didn't live there, but just rented the place to grow pot. He's in the Orleans County jail facing a misdemeanor for growing pot, but..
Police said Adamcik groped the woman and knocked her boyfriend to the floor during a costume party. He also was charged with felony destruction of evidence after authorities said he tried to flush a marijuana cigarette down a toilet, but prosecutors reduced the charge to misdemeanor possession.
Russell Rope is a medical marijuana patient activist and digital artist. Russell Rope is the creator, founder, designer, and producer of Weed Connection.com. Russell and his team rate and review medical marijuana dispensaries as well as provide information, entertainment, and special deals and discounts for medical mariuana patients
Russell Rope controls the medical marijuana market in Los Angeles by telling patients and patients to be which doctors to visit and what dispensaries to purchase their medication from. How does he do it? Through a web site called WeedConnection.com. Rope and his team visit every dispensary and rate and review them with more information and detai
Bill OReilly yet again made an ass of himself, this time in a debate about drug education with teenage boys. When O'Reilly protested that a quote from his book (comparing students occasionally smoking marijuana to surgeons relaxing after work with a martini) was taken out of context, Lange was able to tell the viewers the page number.
WeedConnection.com is a medical marijuana resource and infotainement network. Weed Connection travels around visiting medical marijuana dispensaries and reviews them in detail on their site. Weed Connection is more than a simple directory listing, it has discussion forums, entertainment, how to videos, coupons, etiquette, and more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Larry Kristich, 64, and James Carberry did business under the name "Compassionate Caregivers," and sales of marijuana products totaled more than $95 million. Yellow House had an ATM machine and credit card readers in the store to facilitate purchases, investigators said.
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents confiscated a load of marijuana worth over $1.2 million at the Falfurrias Border Patrol Checkpoint Sunday.A tractor-trailer driver concealed the 1,508 pounds of marijuana in boxes of limes. The Border Patrol canine team was sniffing the air around the tractor trailer when the dogs detected the marijuana.
The semi-popular weed talk.com a place for smokers and stoners to go and discuss marijuana related things has somehow had their domain name hijacked. This is part advertisement for the site if it ever gets put back on the web, its a great place to go , and I hope it hasn't disappeared, click the URL of story to see what is now in its place.
Jackass king Steve-O (Real name Stephen Glover) paid a visit to The Rainbow Room on Sunset Blvd. on Tuesday night. He brought a huge bag of marijuana which he openly shared with the other guests that were sitting by the patio. No joke, what a nice guy!
Many articles discuss this same point, however, this one is based off of an actual study conducted by Harvard. It does not state that smoking weed is good for cancer, but that THC injections can help cure it.
Hillary Clinton would end federal raids on medical-marijuana patients and dispensaries if elected president in 2008. Asked by Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana if she would stop the federal raids in 12 states, the senator said she would and called the raids "terrible." Meanwhile, John McCain took a stance against marijuana.
In an attack on access to medical marijuana in the nation's second largest city, the LA DEA office has mailed notices to landlords of Prop 215 dispensaries warning them that they are liable to forfeiture and criminal penalties for allowing marijuana facilities on their property.
Authorities were very suspicious as to why Joseph Sutton was so desperate to get a ride home from them that they patted him down. While patting him down, police found marijuana on Mr. Sutton and he is now facing drug charges.
This question is asked by many different people, and for good reason. Marijuana is the drug that is more likely to stay in your system for days, weeks, or even an entire month after the last time that you smoke. Therefore, even though marijuana is one of the least harmful drugs out there, it is also the most likely to cause you to fail a drug test
EVERETT, Wash. -- Three people have been arrested for investigation in marijuana growing operations at two houses, including one where two people were shot to death, federal court documents show. Thuy Thi Ngoc Nguyen and John Hien Nguyen, who owned the house where the killings occurred, are charged in U.S. District Court in Seattle with conspiracy
The reemergence of hemp is slowly but steadily progressing within the United States. Due to the similar leaf shape, hemp is frequently confused with marijuana. Although both plants are from the species cannabis sativa, hemp contains virtually no THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) (less than .3%), the active ingredient in marijuana. Industrial hemp
This family needs the help of all pot smokers out there. Push to have marijuana legalized. This extended family wants to be sure they family can get great jobs both now and in the future. Only you can help.
While “Transformers” star Megan Fox was talking drugs and Hollywood to reporters last week, young wannabe scientists were talking frisbee and physics at Camp Thornwood in West Virginia, where the National Youth Science Camp went down. Fox said she’s been there and done that when it comes to the celebrity drug scene, and what she learned from it: sh
I wish Michael Chertoff had told us his gut feeling was about pot brownies, or something like that. then we wouldn’t have gotten all worrried about Al Qaeda, and maybe would have been prepped to support the new front in the war on terror, the marijuana fields of Northern California. From the Record Searchlight:
In a recent interview with USA Weekend, Kelly Clarkson talks about her recent album, her ex-boyfriend, RCA record chief Clive Davis and about marijuana & drugs.
SUBHEAD: "By all medical evidence, marijuana is far safer than alcohol and tobacco.BEGINS: "The recent arrest of Al Gore's son in Laguna Niguel for the possession of marijuana and various prescription pills provides the opportunity to ask an important question: Why the heck is marijuana illegal?..."
The female plant grows the smokable buds. The male plant needs to be identified and removed prior to releasing pollen. This blog is about how to grow marijuana.
“DALLAS — Drug Enforcement Administration officials discovered a large number of marijuana plants growing in a wooded area near the Trinity River in Dallas Thursday afternoon.The secret pot farm was practically right under their noses. In fact,...
The Vernonia elementary school principal caught smoking pot last week will keep his job, the superintendent told The Oregonian this morning.The Vernonia school board met Thursday night to discuss the case of Aaron Miller, 41, cited last week at Fort Stevens State Park for possession of marijuana. Oh how I love my state.
IGotMyCard serves patients, caregivers and growers on the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program. This site has forums, articles, tutorials, wiki, an arcade, a gallery, chat, and much more!
Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani rejected medical marijuana when asked about it at a campaign stop Tuesday, saying its supporters really just want to legalize the weed. The comment was not a major surprise, given the former New York City mayor's previous pronouncements on the subject.
There is an Amendment to protect state rights from the Federal Government to prevent them from going after providers and users of Medical Marijuana. Do your part and step up and write your congressment to protect State Rights and the Rights of Medical Marijuana Users and Providers.
The Republican governor of Connectictut is the latest politician to look foolish for pushing tough anti-marijuana policies in the face of scientific data that proves the arguments hollow.
Alleged medical-marijuana distributors arrested in San Francisco say police should have obtained warrant for search of cell phone; when are s/w's required to search cell phones; search of cell phones incident to arrest, or to inventory arrestee's property
Congress will vote next week on an amendment that if passed would prohibit the federal government from arresting, raiding or prosecuting patients who are abiding by state medical marijuana laws. Your action today could help protect hundreds of thousands of patients that should not have to live in fear that police will take them to jail.
Dallas police have made a pot bust near the Trinity River. Federal agents found a number of marijuana plants in the forest right behind Drug Enforcement Agency headquarters.
Tasty, attractive and highly ritualized in our culture, wine and other alcoholic beverages are approved for responsible use despite the fact that alcoholism and attendant problems are a plague, while responsible use of a weed that, at worst, makes people boring and hungry, is criminal.
About 80% of Americans think doctors should have the right to prescribe or recommend marijuana to their patients if they feel they can get some benefit from it. Medical science backs up marijuana as medicine, yet Giuliani tows the drug warrior line. He's not "Americas Mayor". Discussion from SomethingAwful D&D forum.
Antidepressants are now the most prescribed drug in the U.S. and Canada leads the industrialized world in marijuana use. Why? It seems like a lot of people just feel powerless to prevent whatever it is that’s about to happen....
Smoking marijuana causes some changes in the brain similar to those caused by long-term use of cocaine and heroin. Pot affects a user’s judgment, motor coordination, and short-term memory. Weed can cause increased heart rate and make some users extremely anxious -- Ha ha, this site is the modern day Reefer Madness!
You can now legally grow marijuana in the USA! Sound impossible? Well, you can download free software (freeware) from HighGrow and test your green thumb with a variety of different seeds.I’ve just finished downloading the software and anxious to get started. Several years ago I played with this software and found it fascinating.
ALEXANDRIA, La. (AP) - A recreational vehicle stopped for reckless driving near a state softball tournament held six children, three adults, marijuana and a bomb, the Rapides Parish Sheriff's Office says.
A trailer for the documentary HIGH, about the war on drugs, DEA, an insane drug czar, and doctors prosecuted for trying to help their patients feel better.
If marijuana were legalized, regulated and taxed at the rates applied to alcohol and tobacco, revenues would reach about $6.2 billion annually, according to an open letter signed by 500 economists who urged President Bush and other public officials to debate marijuana prohibition. Among those economists were three Nobel Prize winners.
This organisation is dedicated to the cause of Marijuana law reform whether it includes decriminalisation,medicalisation, or outright legalisation of the use of Marijuana as either a drug or Cannabis for its industrial fibre etc.
“Another great grow-op has been discovered.In Cheech & Chong’s movie “Nice Dreams,” a character named Weird Jimmy had set up a marijuana grow room inside a swimming pool. Now some Brits have been caught doing the same thing.A PRIVATE swimming pool stuffed with cannabis plants worth £800,000 was discovered by police by chance.
Transformers actress Megan Fox likes to smoke a 'lil wacky tobacky! She told Maxim magazine, "I've done drugs, and that's how I know I don't like them." "I wanted to try several things and make an informed decision, but I didn't enjoy anything other than marijuana. I don't even think of it as a drug--it should be legalized. "Cocaine is ba
ROCK musician Daniel Johns today apologised for joking on national radio that he had recently smoked marijuana with federal Labor frontbencher Peter Garrett.
Article covering how the 2007 World Drug Report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime says that 16.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 to 64 smoked marijuana or used another cannabis product in 2006. The world average is 3.8 per cent. Blame Canada.. ;)
The number of people arrested for smoking pot rose dramatically in several Canadian cities last year after the Conservatives took office and killed a bill to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana.
I started emptying the contents of my satchel on the table. An ounce of Hawaiian marijuana, nine hits of high-powered orange sunshine blotter acid, a Beretta Px4 Storm Type F 9mm Semi-automatic pistol, a pair of chain-linked nickel high security handcuffs, two Zippo lighters, a can of chemical mace, and Dennis Hopper’s American Express card.
Welcome to "Toker Nation". According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and based on a percentage of population, Canada now has the distinction of being the number one industrialized country in the world for marijuana use.
Some dude in Michigan who peddles ice cream was busted for selling something else from his irritating, musical kid-friendly truck – marijuana. After authorities got tips about the alleged pot-peddler, a deputy “heard jingling bells” and saw the ice cream truck entering a mobile home park...
A Latin songwriter said he begged for his life before his handyman shot and critically wounded him at his waterfront mansion, according to court documents.
Al Gore said Thursday he's glad his son is safe and getting treatment a day after the 24-year-old was arrested in California on suspicion of illegally possessing marijuana and prescription drugs.
How much marijuana constitutes a two-month supply? Washington state meetings are part of a serious attempt to shore up Washington's medical marijuana law, currently considered one of the weaker laws among 13 different states with medical marijuana protections.
A 3 page topic debating the issues around marijuana and whether it should be legalized or not. I am all for it being legalized in my opinion because I have seen the damage it causes. Views from both sides make this a interesting read.
New Mexico continues in their war against the Drug War. This new provision makes New Mexico one of the first states to legalize the growth of marijuana plants by those with medical needs.
A Goleta Valley Junior High School teacher is facing charges for allegedly smoking marijuana with two 14 year old students. Melissa Dunning, 31, was charged Wednesday with two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and one count of furnishing marijuana. She faces arraignment July 3.
The Macomb County Sheriff's Department says it's dismantled a wildly illegal family business -- a huge marijuana operation based in a former church building. INSIDE: See photos of what investigators...
The Florida gators have recently decided to suspend two players from the team. Ronnie Wilson was arrested for shooting an AK-47 assault weapon into the air. Brandon James was suspended for buying marijuana from a police informant. SEC Sports Report assigns writer Jay Holgate to take a closer look at why these players were not dismissed.
Sounds like a drug dealer...guy was followed from a marijuana dispensary, robbed of his pot, and was then shot and killed by the same two assailants that had reportedly robbed him two times prior. They knew he was a drug dealer. This guy was abusing the MMP, and now stories like this make the program look bad, while I couldn't stand life without it
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers working at the Bridge of the Americas commercial cargo facility in El Paso, Texas seized 365 pounds of marijuana Monday, all concealed within molded concrete patio stones.
Students are a major driving force in today's political system and SAMP is designed to bring these students together in the fight against Marijuana Prohibition. SAMP will hold debates, protest and other activities in order to get the laws changed. SAMP fights for the American that consumes Marijuana for Medical, Spiritual, and recreational use.
While sentences in Delaware associated with such convictions may not be as severe as those in other states, a study released today by the Marijuana Policy Project said the overall consequences that follow a marijuana conviction push up the state's ranking.
People convicted of minor marijuana offenses also suffer nonjudicial penalties that may persist for life, including "revocation or suspension of professional licenses, barriers to employment or promotion, loss of educational aid, driver's license suspension, and bars on adoption, voting and jury service."
Starting Sunday medical marijuana will be legal in New Mexico. But now the Department of Health has dropped a bombshell: It will allow people who qualify for medicinal pot to grow it in their own homes.
It’s a decision that has made a lot of state law enforcement officials upset.
The legislature passed the medical marijuana bill into law earlier this year after a decade of lawmakers rejecting the idea. The law allows people suffering from AIDS, cancer, glaucoma and epilepsy to use marijuana for pain relief.
Now, just days before the law takes affect, the New Mexico Department of Health announces it will allow patients to grow their own marijuana because the state still hasn’t figured out how it is supposed to grow and distribute pot.
“This is about providing access now, and we are going to work on the next step,” said Health Department spokeswoman Deborah Busemeyer.
The move has stunned law enforcement agencies statewide who say it flies in the face of what was agreed upon in the legislative session.
“It caught me off guard,” said Captain Gary Johnson of the New Mexico State Police. “I mean, I thought this was going to be very strict in the way this was going to be handled.”
“I really can not believe the state has decided to do this,” said Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano. “Personally, I do support medical marijuana with strict regulation, but the biggest problem with this new change is that it pretty much takes a lot of the regulations away.”
The state has asked the Attorney General’s Office for guidelines on how to proceed since federal law still classifies marijuana as an illegal drug.
“It may stop local law enforcement from knocking on somebody’s door who’s growing marijuana,” said Captain Johnson. “But certainly, I don’t believe it will stop the DEA or federal agents from doing the same.”
If the feds do come knocking, neither the Health Department, police or sheriff’s office say they can do anything to stop them from making arrests for marijuana possession.
Under the new rule, patients will only be allowed to have four mature marijuana plants and three seedlings. Until the Health Department comes up with its distribution plan, patients will have to buy pot on their own wherever they can find it.
Pete Guither at DrugWarRant points out another amusing irony contained in ONDCP's new report Teens, Drugs, and Violence. The report emphasizes the connection between teen drug use and violence with this statistic:
Nearly one in six teens (17%) who got into serious fights at school or work in the past year report using drugs;
Always skeptical, Pete used his research skills to put these numbers in perspective:
…if you look at the 2007 Monitoring the Future report, you see that the percentages of any teens who used drugs in the past year are: 8th grade (14.8%), 10th grade (28.7%), and 12th grade (36.5%). So to say that 17% of teens who got into serious fights report using drugs is not a particularly alarming thing. (In fact, it appears by these numbers that teens who use drugs are actually less likely to get into serious fights.)
It might be necessary to explain that Monitoring the Future is government data, frequently cited by ONDCP when it suits their agenda. Of course, we wouldn't go around issuing reports about how drug users are less violent than everybody else (even though that seems likely to be true). The point here is that ONDCP's insinuations about the relationship between drug use and youth violence reflect the precise opposite of what the data actually show. And this predictably proves to be the case virtually every time a report such as this is issued by that office.
One need only examine the sprawling media coverage they've generated this week to see why ONDCP has every incentive to continue issuing meaningless announcements like this as often as possible. Some news outlets did include a reform viewpoint, but that's insufficient since the headline does most of the damage and since the report's intellectual value is null to begin with.
A media that is dutifully skeptical of self-serving claims by government officials would quickly discover the treasure trove of nonsense and incoherence contained in every such announcement from ONDCP. Unfortunately, we don't have one of those. Therefore, journalists, I beg you, if you receive a press release that begins, "John P. Walters, Director of National Drug Control Policy, today released a new Special Report showing that..." please understand that there are almost certainly several potent ironies and contradictions contained therein, which deserve to be noted in your reporting. If necessary, I will point them out to you with or without being credited.
Otherwise, understand that if you publish a story merely passing along claims made by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the likelihood that you've authored something inaccurate, incorrect, and/or incomplete will be extraordinarily high.
DINBURG - Federal authorities were trying to find out Thursday who stored 2,000 pounds of marijuana in a warehouse that caught fire.
It took more than 35 firefighters about half an hour to extinguish Wednesday's blaze with 1,000 gallons of water and five gallons of chemical suppressant, Edinburg Fire Chief Shawn Snider said.
Snider said the firefighters were exposed to so much marijuana smoke they would not be able to pass a drug test, despite the air packs they wore to prevent them from inhaling toxic or hazardous fumes.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were called in to investigate the origin of the drugs, and the Hidalgo County fire marshal was investigating whether arson may have been the cause.
Studies conflict on how effective the treatment is.
Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell has vetoed legislation to make medical marijuana legal. She said the bill was fraught with problems and sent the wrong message to kids. Rell, a cancer survivor, said she struggled with the decision, one that many states are facing.
Medical marijuana is touted as offering relief from the nausea caused by chemotherapy and chronic pain. The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Penny Bacchiachi, said she gave her dying husband marijuana 20 years ago.
“The people who are trying to use it as medicine and want to follow a framework, they don’t want their loved ones out there buying things on the street and getting arrested … those people are affected by the lack of having this bill," she told Family News in Focus.
But Dr. Jim Small with the Christian Medical Association said there’s no need for the legislation.
“Marijuana is actually available in tablet form as a legal prescription drug," he said. "It’s called Marinol, and so there’s probably not much reason to allow it to be smoked.”
So why are some lawmakers still pushing for legalization?
"I suspect some percentage of the people who are pushing for this see it as a step toward full legalization of marijuana," Small said.
Eleven states have adopted medical marijuana laws since 1996 — most by a vote of the people.
BBSNews 2007-06-21 -- (MPP) PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND -- With the U.S. House of Representatives expected to consider a medical marijuana amendment within weeks, Rhode Island legislators have resoundingly overridden a gubernatorial veto to make that state's medical marijuana law permanent. Today's 58-11 House vote follows a 29-4 Senate vote to override on Wednesday.
Rhode Island's original medical marijuana law - also passed over a veto by Gov. Donald Carcieri (R) - had a one-year sunset clause, and was due to expire June 30.
"The fact that this override passed by an even larger margin than the original override last year says everything you need to know about how well the law has worked, and how completely uncontroversial it's been," said Ray Warren, director of state policies for the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C.
"Thanks to this law, I have safe and legal access to my medicine, and I'm relieved that it's going to be permanent," said Bobby Ebert of Warwick, who uses medical marijuana to treat symptoms of AIDS.
"Our legislature has stood with the scientific and medical community to ensure that I and hundreds of other seriously ill Rhode Islanders don't have to live in fear," said Rhonda O'Donnell, R.N., a multiple sclerosis patient who was the first to sign up for Rhode Island's program. "But the job won't be finished until every patient in every state who needs medical marijuana has complete protection. It's time for every state legislature and the U.S. Congress to change cruel and unscientific laws that criminalize the sick."
The override heartened medical marijuana supporters in Washington, D.C., where the House of Representatives will soon vote on an amendment to bar the U.S. Department of Justice from interfering with state medical marijuana laws. "This vote helps show members of Congress that medical marijuana simply is no longer controversial, and not an issue they need to fear supporting," said MPP director of government relations Aaron Houston.
PALM BEACH, Fla., June 22 (UPI) -- An Illinois man was arrested on drug charges in Florida after a police officer he asked for directions spotted a marijuana blunt behind his ear.
Maurice Stuckey, 20, of Dolton, Ill., was arrested on a charge of marijuana possession in Port St. Lucie, Fla., The Palm Beach Post said Thursday.
Police said Stuckey admitted that the blunt -- a cigar that has been hollowed out -- contained marijuana. Police also said they found five grams of marijuana in a search of Stuckey's car.
WINNIPEG — It started months ago when Kieran King's high-school class heard a presentation about the dangers of drug use.
Kieran, a 15-year-old Grade 10 student in tiny Wawota, Sask., population 600, thought the presentation lacked credibility, so he did some research on the relative health risks of alcohol, tobacco and cannabis.
When he told some of his fellow students that cannabis seemed the least hazardous of the three, he set in motion a series of events that led to a school lockdown, a threat assessment involving the RCMP, a suspension and failing grades on his exams.
"It's all a bit overwhelming," his mother, Jo Anne Euler, said. "It's just totally bizarre."
She explained that her son is a compulsive researcher who tends to go on at length about what he reads on the Internet.
One student at Wawota Parkland School didn't want to hear Kieran's thoughts about marijuana, and complained to principal Susan Wilson.
The principal then called Kieran's mother because she was concerned he was advocating drug use, Ms. Euler said.
Ms. Euler told the principal her son is an A student who doesn't go out, doesn't smoke or drink, and isn't pushing drugs on other kids.
"She said 'Well, if he talks about it again, I will be calling the police,' " Ms. Euler said. "I told Kieran that and he said 'Mom, all I'm doing is sharing the facts.' "
Kieran felt his right to free speech was being trampled, so he enlisted the help of the Saskatchewan Marijuana Party.
Together they planned a school walkout for free speech, scheduled for 11 a.m. last Tuesday, where free chocolate chip hemp seed cookies would be handed out.
But just before 11 that day, the principal announced that the school was a closed campus and that no one was allowed outside.
When several students tried to leave anyway, teachers barred the doors and ordered them back to class, Ms. Euler said. Kieran and his younger brother Lucas defied and joined a ragtag group of five protesters standing across from the school holding placards.
The principal then ordered a lockdown to ensure the safety of students. The RCMP raced to the scene, only to find a small, peaceful protest.
Kieran's mother was again called to the school and told that both her sons had been suspended for three days. Later that day, the school conducted a threat assessment on Kieran with the help of the RCMP and school division counsellors, Ms. Euler said.
"In the letter I got about the threat assessment [the principal] had documented five or six times in the last year that Kieran had talked to some kid about marijuana - not one of those times was Kieran ever talked to or was I ever talked to. Were they documented before or was it a witch hunt after the fact where they said 'Let's try to remember all the times Kieran talked about marijuana?' "
Don Rempel, director of education in the South East Cornerstone School Division, said the principal acted appropriately.
"The school had received complaints that the student was promoting the use of marijuana as an alternative to alcohol or sharing information around marijuana use," Mr. Rempel said, adding that Kieran overreacted to the principal's simple request.
Kieran is now in Shanghai where he will spend the summer learning Mandarin and working as an English tutor. He had scheduled his exams early in order to accommodate his trip, but the suspension meant he couldn't attend school to write the exams. As a result, he got a mark of zero on each paper. His marks were high enough to pass, but instead of getting 85 or 90, he'll get 55 or 60, his mother said, which could hurt his chances of a university scholarship.
She is appealing to the school board to allow Kieran to write his exams in September.
Connecticut's governor, a cancer survivor, vetoed a bill that would have allowed people with certain serious illnesses to use marijuana, saying it was fraught with problems and sent a mixed message to children.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell said Tuesday that she struggled with the decision.
"I am not unfamiliar with the incredible pain and heartbreak associated with battling cancer," the Republican said. Rell was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004, a few months after taking office, and she underwent a mastectomy.
The bill she vetoed would have allowed people older than 18 with medical conditions such as cancer, multiple sclerosis and AIDS to grow and use four marijuana plants after getting written permission from a doctor and registering with the state.
The issue pits broader patients' rights against concerns of legalized access to an illicit drug. Twelve states let some patients use marijuana despite federal laws against it. "I think this is a big step backward," said Republican state Rep. Penny Bacchiochi, a widow who risked arrest more than 20 years ago to obtain marijuana for her husband while he struggled with bone cancer.
TV talk show host Montel Williams, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999, lobbied at the state Capitol in support of the bill. He said he uses marijuana to help alleviate the pain and debilitating symptoms.
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Governor Jodi Rell vetoed legislation today that would have made it legal for some patients suffering severe, chronic pain to possess and grow small amounts of marijuana.
I spent some time in the Connecticut capitol building as this bill was debated. Pamphlets were circulating the building from whitehousedrugpolicy.gov. One pamphlet says that " [s]imply put, the smoked form of marijuana is not considered modern medicine."
I also came across a circulating letter from Representative Toni Boucher, who opposed the measure. Her letter, which I do not know where to find on the internet, states that she
"first began work on this issue after a very emotional and tearful appeal from a mother and father who had found their handsome talented, young son dead from a drug overdose at home in his bed. They and countless others warned that this measure would be devastating to our state."
This is how medical marijuana is fought. Allusions to heartbreaking stories - but there is certainly no tie-in here to marijuana.
She also cites many studies that show "the facts are not there" to suggest marijuana has any effect on reducing pain.
Could this not be determined by the chronically suffering patient? If it didn't work, are we afraid then that these people would sell their supply?
She also contends that Yale and Connecticut medical societies have found marijuana to damage the brain, heart, immune system and lungs - among other things. "It also contains cancer causing compounds."
A proponent of the bill, Penny Bacchiochi, stated in the article that "I don't see how we could pass the same bill in the same form while she is governor,". See above
I also came across a letter from Ms. Bacchiochi - short and to the point. She states in it that Massachusetts recently won a legal battle "to allow the University of Massachusetts to move forward with the cannabis research", after a proponent group sought to conduct federally funded studies. She also noted that much research has found marijuana to have palliative effects.
To visit Governor Rell's website, please go here. To see the bill text and so on, go here.
Two North Dakota farmers who want to grow hemp are filing a federal lawsuit today to challenge the Drug Enforcement Administration's ban on the plant that is the same species that produces marijuana.
Hemp can be imported from Canada, Europe and China, but growing hemp in the USA is illegal, the DEA says.
"Hemp is marijuana," DEA spokesman Garrison Courtney says. "There's no distinguishing feature between marijuana and hemp."
Lawyers for the farmers say the Controlled Substances Act, which governs illegal drugs, makes a specific exception for hemp, a non-drug version of the marijuana plant. They are seeking a court ruling that says the federal authorities cannot arrest the North Dakota farmers for growing hemp.
The federal government used to encourage farmers to grow what is known as "industrial hemp," says attorney Joseph Sandler in Washington, D.C., who is representing the farmers. Hemp plants have a low concentration of the psychoactive chemical that gives marijuana users a high, he said.
"You can smoke 17 fields of this stuff, and it's not going to do anything," Sandler says. "It doesn't make sense to say you can import all this hemp, but you can't grow it and import it from North Dakota to South Dakota."
North Dakota's Legislature began considering allowing farmers to grow hemp more than 10 years ago after disease wiped out the wheat and barley crop, says state Rep. Dave Monson, a Republican leader in the Legislature and one of the farmers filing the lawsuit.
In 1993, the disease was so bad, "we actually burned every acre of wheat and barley we produced," says Monson, who lives in Osnabrock. "I came to the realization that we needed alternative crops."
Just across the North Dakota border, farmers in Canada are growing hemp and making a profit, he says. U.S. manufacturers who use hemp to produce textiles, soaps and other materials must import the crop from countries that allow hemp farming.
A North Dakota State University study in 1997 found a good market for hemp in the USA, so the Legislature passed laws to regulate hemp farming, Monson said. The laws require background checks on the farmers and monitoring to make sure illicit marijuana crops aren't growing in the middle of the hemp field, he says.
Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson issued the first permits on Feb. 6 to Monson and Wayne Hauge, a farmer and accountant in Ray, N.D. The farmers applied Feb. 12 for a DEA license, indicating they would need a decision by April 1 in time to plant the crop.
On March 27, DEA deputy administrator Joseph Rannazzisi in a letter to Johnson said it was unrealistic to expect a decision in seven weeks. That's where the plan stalled.
"I think it's pretty apparent that they are quite clearly choosing not to exercise their authority to distinguish between hemp and marijuana," says Johnson, who met with DEA officials in February.
"It's pointless to continue dealing with them," Johnson says. "Their inaction is a pretty clear indication that they're not taking the application process seriously. It's been an issue 10 years in the making."
Monson and Hauge say the time to plant the hemp has passed. Monson planted wheat in his field on June 1.
Courtney says the DEA is still reviewing the application and is concerned that the farmers will not be able to keep their fields secure. "We have to take a balanced approach to the application," he said. "We have to look at every aspect of the application. I don't think you can put a time frame on that sort of issue. It takes time."
Now for the kicker: Cooper is a former narcotics officer once considered among the top cops in Texas, where more marijuana is seized each year than in any other state.
The formerly straight-laced lawman has become a shaggy-haired militant for the legalization of weed.
Six months ago he released "Never Get Busted Again," in which the former star of West Texas' Permian Basin Drug Task Force gives tips on hiding marijuana (dashboards are rife with nooks and crannies) and throwing off drug-sniffing dogs (coat your tires in fox urine).
"I'm not helping them to break the law. It's clear the law is already being broken," said Cooper, 38, who left law enforcement a decade ago. "I will do anything legal to frustrate law enforcement's efforts to place American citizens in jail for nonviolent drug offenses."
Law officers regard Cooper as a traitor. And some pro-pot activists say Cooper's antics actually undermine their cause.
"This is like waving red meat" in front of police, said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. "They take great professional umbrage with this. They are not our opposition, and we don't want to agitate them."
Federal drug agents said his tips won't keep them from finding your stash, and they advise drug users to save their $20 and use it to help post bail.
Richard Sanders, an agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Tyler, brushes off Cooper's DVD as a sham. "He's just out to make money," Sanders said.
Though he will not reveal how much he has made, Cooper said he has sold more than 10,000 copies of "Never Get Busted," primarily over the Internet and at a few smoke shops.
Defense attorneys have also called him as a witness to testify about unlawful tactics he says police use to make drug cases. For instance, he testified about how drug-sniffing dogs can be made to "false alert," which gives officers legal grounds to search a car or a home. Cooper said he has used that ploy himself.
Cooper has begun filming a second DVD, called "Never Get Raided." He said he is also planning a documentary in which he plans to ply 50 partygoers with beer and marijuana and film what happens next. The aim, he said, is to prove that partygoers who get high are less dangerous than those who get drunk.
Frederick Moss, a law professor at Southern Methodist University, said Cooper appears to be protected by the First Amendment and probably cannot be charged with conspiracy or aiding and abetting because he has no direct relationship with the customers he counsels in how to break the law.
Cooper claims that as a law officer, he took part in 800 drug busts, seized more than more than 50 vehicles and $500,000 in cash and assets, and made a case against a local politician's son.
"He was among the best we had," said Tom Finley, who was Cooper's supervisor on the drug task force. "I don't understand why he would turn like this."
Cooper has owned car dealerships, started a limousine service, dabbled as a cage fighting promoter and taught in a church. He lives in a pine-canopied hideaway in this East Texas town of 1,400, where his home includes a framed picture in the kitchen of Cooper holding a joint.
It is the same town where Cooper was last a police officer in 1998, when he said his frustration with small-town politics made him quit law enforcement and begin rethinking the war on drugs.
He filed for bankruptcy in 2005, blaming a tough divorce and the stock-market downturn after Sept. 11. He is also suing for $10 million over a 2005 raid of his home that Cooper alleges left bruises on his children — an incident he says convinced him police are hurting more families than they help. (Cooper says sheriff's deputies came to take his children away after his ex-wife complained he was not sending them to school or sharing custody.)
"My critics want to kill my credibility by claiming I'm doing this to make money and trying to keep any sincerity out of this," Cooper said. "The people who have seen me and know my work, they know I'm sincere."
AP Photo: Barry Cooper, an 8-year veteran of law enforcement and drug interdiction, with his web site...
Starting Sunday medical marijuana will be legal in New Mexico. But now the Department of Health has dropped a bombshell: It will allow people who qualify for medicinal pot to grow it in their own homes. 
