Minnesota Senate Judiciary Committee Passes Medical Marijuana Bill

ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA – The Minnesota Senate Judiciary Committee today approved Sen. Steve Kelley's (DFL-Hopkins) medical marijuana bill by a vote of 5-4. The bill, S.F. 1973, would eliminate criminal penalties for seriously ill individuals who use medical marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation.

The bipartisan bill, which is co-sponsored by Sens. Yvonne Prettner Solon (DFL-Duluth), Bob Kierlin (R-Winona), and John Marty (DFL- Roseville), was originally introduced in 2005, and was passed by the Senate Health and Family Security Committee by a 5-2 vote. It was then referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where it was carried over until 2006. The Senate Judiciary Committee first voted 4-4 (with one committee member absent) on the bill on March 2, after hearing testimony from three medical marijuana patients, two former legislators, and Sen. Kelley.

"Patients battling cancer, multiple sclerosis, AIDS or other painful and deadly illnesses should not have to risk arrest and jail if their doctor believes marijuana may ease their suffering," Kelley told the committee. "This legislation protects the sick, while establishing sensible controls."

The committee re-voted today, and approved the bill. It was then referred to the Senate Crime Prevention and Public Safety Committee. Rep. Tom Huntley's (DFL-Duluth) companion bill to S.F. 1973, H.F. 2151, was referred to the House Health Policy and Finance Committee last year, where it remains to be heard.

A statewide poll conducted by Zogby International in February 2005 showed that Minnesotans support medical marijuana by a 2-1 margin. The Minnesota Nurses Association, Minnesota Public Health Association, Minnesota AIDS Project, and Minnesota Senior Federation have all publicly expressed their support for the bill.

"I have tried numerous prescription medicines to alleviate pain and nausea but achieved little or no relief, not to mention unhealthy side effects. Marijuana has been the only medicine I have found to ease my pain and restore my appetite." said Don Haumant, a Minnesota resident who has been living with liver disease for more than 30 years. "When I use a small amount of medical marijuana, my body does not know my actions are not okay under Minnesota law. What is clear is that I look and feel healthier."

Earlier this year, Rhode Island was the 11th state to pass legislation that protects medical marijuana patients from arrest and incarceration. Medical marijuana legislation is currently pending in 11 states, including Minnesota. For more information, visit www.minnesotacares.org. - Source


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How War On Drugs is Destroying America

Many see the war on drugs as one of the best examples of government policy run amok, which makes it a natural target for libertarian polemic. WorldNetDaily.com columnist Miller’s vigorous denunciation approaches the issue as a problem in economics. Given insatiable demand for drugs, he says, government attempts to strangle the supply simply raise the price and make trafficking enormously profitable. Criminalization therefore generates irresistible incentives to break the law, and is itself the cause of the crime and violence for which drugs are unfairly blamed. Junkies steal and hook to get money for a fix. Drug profits fuel murderous turf battles to control the black market, which is a cash cow for the gangs, guerilla armies and terrorists who dominate it. Interdiction efforts are more than matched by the ingenuity of traffickers, Miller says, and the police themselves are often corrupted, either by involvement in the trade itself or by the increasingly intrusive, violent and militarized methods they must use to suppress a "crime" in which all parties are willing participants. Miller’s well-researched, bitingly written account paints a panorama of irrationality and abuse: well-funded, innovative drug lords who regard seized shipments as a cost of doing business; broad drug-courier "profiling" criteria that could finger virtually anybody; forfeiture laws that allow police to seize property and savings with no pretense of due process; drug raids in which law-abiding citizens are gunned down in their homes. Miller’s libertarian leanings, supported by quotes from conservative icons like Adam Smith, Barry Goldwater and Ann Coulter, occasionally carry him past drug policy into jibes against the New Deal, Social Security and all things governmental. But when he sticks to drugs he delivers a formidable challenge to the reigning prohibitionist orthodoxy. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description

The war against drugs was supposed to make America better, right? It failed. Not only does the drug war fail to keep Americans from using drugs, but its crackdown tactics also produce bigger problems than it promises to solve. In this fearlessly audacious book, Joel Miller shows that drug prohibition creates tremendous amounts of crime and corruption, helps finance anti-American terrorists, makes a joke out of U.S. border security, chips away at constitutional liberties, militarizes law enforcement, and jails hundreds of thousands of Americans. And for what? A bigger, more intrusive government that cares less and less about individual rights. Told in a bold, uncompromising style, Miller's book reveals the true and terrible nature of the war on drugs and also, just as importantly, informs readers about what they can do to kick the drug-war habit.

"Miller nails it," says Larry Elder, host of ABC Radio's nationally syndicated Larry Elder Show and best-selling author. "He powerfully and persuasively articulates the folly, the harm and the unconstitutionality of our government's War against Drugs." And says Judge Andrew P. Napolitano of Fox News, "If you are interested in our freedoms or fearful of the government destroying human lives and wasting tax dollars on another American Prohibition, read this book and send a copy to every lawmaker and judge you know."

If you want to understand the drug problem in America, you first need to know how the government is making it worse. Bad Trip is the place to start.

Bad Trip : How the War Against Drugs is Destroying America

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Federal Marijuana Monopoly

Researchers Want to Grow More Plants and Find More Medicinal Uses
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer

For decades, the federal government has been the nation's only legal producer of marijuana for medical research. Working with growers at the University of Mississippi, the National Institute on Drug Abuse has controlled both the quality and distribution of the drug for the past 36 years.

But for the first time the government's monopoly on research marijuana is under serious legal challenge. The effort is being spearheaded by a group that wants to produce medicines from currently illegal psychedelic drugs and by a professor at the University of Massachusetts who has agreed to grow marijuana for the group if the government lets him.

In a hearing due to start today before an administrative law judge at the Drug Enforcement Administration, professor Lyle Craker and his supporters will argue for a DEA license to grow the research drugs. It is the climax of a decades-long effort to expand research into marijuana and controlled drugs and of Craker's almost five-year effort to become a competing marijuana grower.

Read entire article: Federal Marijuana Monopoly Challenged

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County to sue to overturn medical marijuana law

By: GIG CONAUGHTON - Staff Writer

County supervisors decided behind closed doors Tuesday to sue to try to overturn California's 9-year-old medical marijuana law ---- the "Compassionate Use" initiative in which voters statewide said it was OK for seriously ill people to use marijuana to ease their pain.

Supervisors announced last month they would sue the state because they did not want to create registries and identification cards to help medical marijuana users. But they left open the question of whether they would try to overturn Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act.

On Tuesday, the board made it official, voting 4-0, with Supervisor Ron Roberts absent, to challenge the initiative.

"It just seemed logical to us," Supervisor Bill Horn said Tuesday afternoon. "Why Mickey Mouse around about it?"

Horn and other supervisors have said repeatedly that they think Prop. 215 is a "bad law," and that supporting it would tell children that marijuana was OK, and would increase drug abuse.

But the board will officially try to overturn the initiative on the grounds that the state's proposition should be superseded by federal law ---- which considers marijuana illegal. John Sansone, the county's lead attorney, said the suits would be filed in federal court sometime this month, and that the challenge could eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

Although 11 states have passed medical marijuana laws, the federal government still categorizes marijuana as a "Schedule 1" drug ---- meaning that it has no recognized medical value, putting it in the same classification as heroin, mescaline and LSD.

Ironically, the federal Food and Drug Administration has ruled that the active ingredient in marijuana ---- tetrahydrocannabinol, or "THC" ---- has medicinal value and allows it to be sold as a prescription drug, but only if it is produced synthetically, rather than grown.

California voters, meanwhile, voted by 55 percent in 1996 to allow people with serious or chronic diseases, with a doctor's recommendation, to grow or use marijuana to ease pain and other ailments.

San Diego-area nurse practitioner Claudia Little is on the medical advisory board of Americans for Safe Access, a national organization in support of medical marijuana patients. A month ago, Little and others pleaded with the county not to challenge the state's request that it create a registry for medical marijuana users.

Tuesday night, reached at home, Little sighed heavily upon learning that the county was planning to take the state to court over the voter-approved law itself.

"It's totally political," Little said. "The population is in favor of medical marijuana. The politicians are so far behind the curve here, it's ridiculous. The politicians aren't representing the people, they are just representing a handful of outspoken opponents."

Some of those who pleaded with county supervisors to reconsider their decision to challenge the medical marijuana issue in recent weeks said they were mothers, grandmothers, military veterans and other upstanding citizens who found that marijuana helped them where popular prescription drugs failed.

Marijuana has been known to reduce eye pressure in glaucoma cases. And proponents have said it has been known to increase appetites of cancer and AIDS patients, and to ease pain in many chronic diseases.

Horn, however, said supervisors believe the federal government's stance ---- that grown marijuana has no medical value and should be illegal ---- is right.

Now, they need a court's ruling.

"We need a federal judge to tell us, 'Yes, you do this (state law),' or 'No, you don't,' " Horn said.

Staff writer Teri Figueroa contributed to this story.

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Marijuana groups sues political practices commissioner

By BOB ANEZ
Associated Press

HELENA -- A national organization advocating legalization of marijuana for medical purposes has sued the state political practices commissioner for throwing out allegations that the national drug czar's office broke Montana campaign finance laws.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday in state District Court here, the Marijuana Policy Project said Commissioner Gordon Higgins failed to investigate the group's claim that the federal agency acted illegally in not reporting money spent last year to fight a Montana ballot measure permitting medical use of marijuana.

The suit asks for a court ruling that Higgins was wrong to dismiss the complaint and for an order requiring him to conduct an investigation into the accusation against the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Higgins declined to comment on the suit.

The Marijuana Policy Project, which filed a similar suit Thursday against the Alaska Public Offices Commission, had successfully promoted the Montana initiative last fall. It passed with 62 percent of the vote.

In February, the organization complained to Higgins that Scott Burns, deputy director of the drug czar's office, had violated Montana law by campaigning in the state against Initiative 148 and not filing reports about what was spent on his visit as mandated by law.

Higgins asked the drug office to respond. An attorney for the agency said that Burns' appearances in opposition to the initiative last October were part of his official duties as spelled out in federal law, so he did not have to comply with Montana campaign finance reporting laws.

Full from source:
Marijuana groups sues political practices commissioner

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Why Marijuana Should Be Legal

Marijuana Myths Marijuana Facts

Marijuana hit mainstream America over 30 years ago and has been accepted by a large segment of society ever since. Despite government efforts to isolate and eliminate its use, it is more popular now than ever. Why Marijuana Should Be Legal analyzes the effects of marijuana and marijuana laws on society. The book addresses the drug’s industrial and medical applications, preserving our Constitutional rights, economic costs, health effects, and sociological aspects. New and updated information includes how state officials are acting against the legalization of marijuana and how U.S. marijuana laws are based on inaccurate and outdated information. In discussing such issues and many more, the book presents clear, documented evidence for all of its conclusions. Also included is an annotated list of organizations that lobby for change of marijuana laws.

From Publishers Weekly
Far from being a crippling addictive lure, marijuana is actually "one of the most benign substances known to man," according to this fact-filled and impassioned pro-pot manifesto originally published in 1996. The authors, marijuana-law reform activists, detail weed's many medicinal uses in the treatment of diseases like AIDS, glaucoma and cancer, examine the wonders of industrial hemp, and tout legalized marijuana as a potential economic boon and a lucrative tax-cow. The real problem, they argue, is the criminalization of marijuana, which has wasted untold billions, trampled our Constitutional liberties and thrown millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens into jail even as it has fueled crime by taking marijuana out of the legal marketplace and putting it in the hands of criminal syndicates. They blame this policy of prohibition on an unholy alliance of panicky parents, pharmaceutical and liquor companies eager to maintain their monopoly on medicinal and mind-altering substances, and the law-enforcement and prison industries that thrive on the war against pot. The authors amass a wealth of statistics and carefully reasoned arguments to support their controversial view and conclude with a helpful list of marijuana-law reform organizations and a quixotic exhortation to tokers to take vigorous action on behalf of legalization. This book is a compelling challenge to the prohibitionist orthodoxy. © 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Why Marijuana Should Be Legal

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Police seize over 9,000 marijuana plants

BROCK TOWNSHIP -- A police helicopter on regular patrol has uncovered a large outdoor marijuana grow operation.

More than 9,000 pot plants have been found in Brock Township, near Beaverton.

Officers on the ground were notified and moved in to shut down the operation.

In addition to the freshly planted marijuana plants, officers also seized a tractor, grow equipment and fertilizer during the weekend bust.

There's no word on any arrests.

Source: Police seize over 9,000 marijuana plants

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Rise In Prescription Drug Abuse Among Teens

Despite the war on marijuana, teens are abusing prescription drugs more now than ever.

From 1992 to 2003, prescription drug abuse increased faster than the rates of marijuana, cocaine and heroin abuse, and increased seven times faster than the growth of the U.S. population, according to the latest report released by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.

Between these years there was, from self-reported prescription abuse, a 140.5 percent increase of opioids, a 44.5 percent increase of central nervous system depressants and 41.5 percent increase of central nervous system stimulants.

And the largest increase of prescription drug abuse was in the age group of teenagers 12 to 17, which was a 212 percent increase.

People 18 and older increased abuse by 81 percent.

"Enormous strides have been made in recent years in the development of beneficial and often life-saving pharmaceuticals," says the report. "Because controlling prescription drug diversion is costly and labor intensive, however, there are gaps in monitoring and enforcement."

Mary Geiger of University Prescriptions said that while only dentists and doctors have the ability to write prescriptions, people may get access to drugs by forging a prescription or if unscrupulous doctors prescribe for profits.

"We have been a prescription-based culture since the ‘80s," said Marty Green, addictions counselor at the Purdue Student Health Center, "the most obvious reason for (increased prescription drug abuse) is the prevalence and easy access."

"There is a nice dollar value to them," he said, and "it is easier than buying pot or alcohol."

It is easier for kids to break into their parents’ medicine cabinet, he said.

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Meth labs, abuse growing worse

More proof that America's law enforcement has better things to do than lock up a person for possession of marijuana. The government's war on marijuana has failed. It is time to end marijuana prohibition in America NOW!

Hamilton County Sheriff Doug Carter doesn't have a large-scale methamphetamine problem yet. But he believes he will.

The crippling spread of meth labs and abuse has become the leading drug problem affecting local law enforcement agencies, according to a National Association of Counties survey of 500 sheriff's departments in 45 states.

Carter said he did not participate in the survey, but he is not surprised by the findings.

"We are starting to sense the initial ripples of the methamphetamine trade. I'm of the opinion that it will probably be, eventually, of epidemic proportions," Carter said. "We're not exempt from what the other counties have experienced and the other counties are a very good telltale sign of what is coming to us."

Evidence the drug wars and methods needs to be looked at immediately.

The report said about 90 percent of the sheriffs interviewed reported increases in meth-related arrests in their counties over the last three years. More than half of those interviewed said they considered meth the most serious problems their department faces.

In Hamilton County, the sheriff's office hasn't seen the dramatic increase in arrests that have packed jails in the Midwest and elsewhere.

"I'm confident that we will," Carter said.

Jon Marvel, the sheriff of Vigo County, one of the worst-hit counties in Indiana, estimates that 80 percent of the inmates in the county jail in Terre Haute are held on meth-related charges. He also points to an operating budget that has risen from $800,000 in 1999 to about $3.4 million last year as example of the stranglehold methamphetamine has on the county's resources.


Those costs include cleaning up makeshift labs and caring for the children left behind when addicted parents are sentenced to prison time or undergo treatment, Marvel said.

Carter goes a bit farther. He said children can, and do contribute to making the drug.

"A 12-year-old can do it," he said, "using household chemicals."

Carter advocates using pro-active measures to educate the public on just how insidious the meth problem is.

"There is no boundary of the people (meth) grabs hold of, so it doesn't matter: wealthy, poor, rural, urban, white collar, blue collar, educated or none n it doesn't make any difference," he said.

While he believes the public education that is available currently has worked to make people aware of methamphetamines, more needs to be done to control how the drug is manufactured, such as limiting access to large quantities of pseudoephedrine, a main ingredient in meth.

"I applaud what the legislature did in 2005. It was not a popular thing, but it was the absolute right thing to do," Carter said.

"If we look back in time and look at other places that have similar laws, most have seen a reduction of around 80 percent in the trade because of limiting the amount of pseudoephedrine a person can buy."

Read full: Meth labs, abuse growing worse

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Marijuana Law Reform

The Alliance focuses on marijuana law reform in an effort to end marijuana prohibition in the United States and elsewhere. Based in New York, the project brings together public education efforts, strategic litigation, media outreach and federal and state legislative drafting and lobbying to reform prohibitionist marijuana policies.

Focusing on positive developments in marijuana law at home and abroad, the Alliance works with legislators and their constituents to end arrests and criminal prosecution related to marijuana. We work with allied organizations, defending -- in the courtroom, the workplace and elsewhere -- the rights of those unjustly targeted because of their marijuana use, exposing the harms of marijuana prohibition and the excesses of the federal government's war on marijuana.

Read full: Marijuana Law Reform

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NORML Meeting Pic

classroom
Originally uploaded by DemGreens.

http://www.norml.com

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stickiest of the icky
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i need weed
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Marijuana Picture

SOUR D'
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Here is a picture of marijuana.

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Feds Spend Nearly $4 Billion Annually On Failed Pot Policy

America's drug war has failed. It's time we use this money for better things instead of a failed anti-marijuana policy.

Washington, DC: Federal spending on marijuana-related activities - primarily enforcing criminal policies prohibiting the drug's use - cost taxpayers nearly $4 billion annually, but fail to influence the public's use or perception of the drug, according to an economic report released by the non-partisan Washington, DC think-tank Taxpayers for Common Sense.

"Annual federal marijuana spending is at least $3.67 billion [per year,] yet little evidence indicates this spending accomplishes the government's stated goal of reducing marijuana use," concludes the report.

Of this total cost, the federal government spends $1.43 billion enforcing marijuana prohibition, $1.11 billion for marijuana use prevention (which includes funding for anti-drug media campaigns and school-based drug testing programs), $0.37 billion for marijuana treatment (which includes federal subsidies for drug abuse treatment programs), and $0.76 billion for marijuana-related policy research (funding for activities designed to improve the efficacy of federal drug control policies.)

The report notes that the actual federal spending on marijuana-related policies is likely higher than $3.67 billion because the federal government no longer includes annual costs from federal agencies and programs that are not explicitly devoted to anti-drug activities (such as federal prison costs, salaries for federal law enforcement personnel, etc.).

State and local spending on anti-marijuana programs and activities weren't tabulated in the report. Previous estimates published by the NORML Foundation and others place these costs at between $5 and $7 billion per year.

"The ultimate measure of the drug war's worth is its impact on drug usage. By this standard, the federal marijuana program has fared poorly," said Taxpayers for Common Sense Senior Policy Analyst Erich Zimmermann.

Read full: Feds Spend Nearly $4 Billion Annually On Failed Pot Policy

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