Medical Marijuana Raid Preparedness Training In California

Americans for Safe Access is conducting an 11 day – 11 city tour up and down California this month which will end in San Diego on September 1. In light of the recent federal activity against medical cannabis communities across the country, now more than ever, we must join together to prepare our community for the next steps we will take to protect safe access in California.

Learn to protect your rights and the rights of others in the event you are targeted in a raid and participate in creating a strategy that will secure safe access.

Please join ASA Executive Director, Steph Sherer and ASA California Director, Don Duncan for these 2 Free Trainings in San Diego that are open to the community. Attached is a flier. Please feel free to share this with anyone who may be interested in attending.

Thank you and I look forward to seeing you at the training!

Eugene Davidovich
San Diego Area Liaison
Americans for Safe Access – www.safeaccessnow.org

 

ASA’s upcoming Raid Training on Friday, August 19th from 1 pm to 5 pm in Room 416 at San Francisco City Hall (on Van Ness Avenue between Grove and McAllister Streets), and the Activist training on Friday, August 26th from 7 pm to 9 pm at 847 Howard Street  (between 4th and 5th Streets) in San Francisco.  Both events are free of cost and open to the public. Please feel free to share with anyone who may be interested.

Thank you.

Raudel Wilson
Community Liaison Director
Americans For Safe Access
510-967-3572

Signature Campaign Begins To Bring Marijuana Legalization To California

The California secretary of state’s office on Monday cleared a group to begin circulating ballot petitions to bring marijuana legalization to a state wide vote in 2012.

This time they will argue that pot growers should be treated the same as vineyard owners or microbrewers, according to AP reports. Those who grow marijuana for their own use would not be taxed, but those who sell it would be regulated by the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

On Monday, the secretary of state’s office said proponents can begin gathering the 504,760 signatures they’ll need to collect by Dec. 19 to put the initiative on the June or November ballots next year. The timing depends on how quickly the signatures are submitted and verified, although Kubby said proponents plan to submit revisions that would likely push the measure to the November general election.

Proposition 19, which fell 6 percentage points short of the majority vote it needed last November, would have potentially created a patchwork of marijuana policies by letting local governments permit and tax commercial cultivation and sales.

Kubby’s proposal would require statewide regulation.

It also directs the state and local governments to avoid assisting the federal government in prosecuting marijuana crimes and seeks to remove marijuana from the federal government’s list of controlled substances.

Kubby is joined by retired Orange County Superior Court Judge James P. Gray as chief proponent. The third listed proponent is William R. McPike, the Fresno-area attorney who represented Kubby as he fought drug charges.

Kubby, the 1998 Libertarian candidate for governor, helped write the state’s medical marijuana law, approved by voters in 1996.

 

Text of the proposal:

This Act shall be known as “The Marijuana Regulation and Tax Act of 2012.”

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, recognizing that it is time to tax marijuana and to regulate its use, hereby repeal all California state laws that prohibit marijuana possession, sales, transportation, production, processing, and cultivation by people 21 years of age and older, and thereby remove marijuana from any other statutes pertaining to the prohibition, regulation and scheduling of controlled substances, whether now existing or enacted in the future, except those related to driving a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana; using or being under the influence of marijuana in public or in the workplace; smoking marijuana in the presence of, or providing, transferring or selling marijuana to, a person under the age of 21; the use, possession, cultivation, sales, transporting, or storing on premises of marijuana by people under the age of 21; and medical marijuana statutes as set forth in California Proposition 215 and its progeny.  This act adopts the definition of marijuana as it is presently set forth in Health and Safety Code section 11018.

The People further direct and order the California state legislature to enact reasonable regulations and establish reasonable taxes for the establishment of the farming, industry, distribution, and sales of marijuana with a THC level of 0.3 percent or higher, using the grape winery industry as a model, as long as the results support these intentions, purposes and goals; and to provide for the farming, industry, distribution, and sales of industrial hemp, which is hereby defined as marijuana with a THC level of below 0.3 percent, using the cotton and paper products industries as a model.  However, the effect of this act and its direction is to be liberally construed to favor individuals, and business entities regarding the following:

(a) No taxes, fees, laws, rules, regulations, or local city and county zoning requirements can be adopted or enacted to defeat these commercial, agricultural and industrial purposes or those individual civil rights set forth in Civil Code section 54, Food and Agricultural Code sections 54033 through 54035, inclusive, and Civil Code 52.1, and all medical conditions as stated in Health and Safety Code section 11362.5. Any individual, association, or collective group not producing more than 99 plants or 50 pounds of marijuana per year shall be exempt from any winery model regulations, fees and taxes, except for income taxes and state sales taxes, if they apply, and

(b) No regulations, taxes or fees shall be enacted or imposed which are more severe or restrictive than those for comparable and reasonable usage in the commercial wine grape farming and winery industry model, including for farming, planting, cultivating, irrigating, harvesting, processing, brokering, selling, distributing, and establishing of cooperatives or collective associations.

The People further direct and order all state and local government elected, appointed and hired employees, officers and officials to refuse to cooperate with federal officials, or operate under U.S. contract or arrangement, to defeat this act directly or indirectly, or to follow or abide by any federal laws or regulations that are in conflict with this act. Further, no such person acting alone, or with any other person or legislative body, may contract or agree to cooperate with federal officials, employees, agencies or departments to obtain any money, property, gain or advantage by the arrest, prosecution, conviction or deprivation of property of anyone acting within the provisions of this act.  Any such governmental or public person who knowingly and intentionally violates these provisions shall forfeit their government employment and office.

The People further direct and order that within 30 days of passage, both the state Attorney General and the Department of Health Services shall inform the United States Department of Human and Health Services, Attorney General, Congress, and Food and Drug Administration that in 1996 California recognized that using marijuana can have some positive medical effects, and for that reason demand that marijuana no longer be listed as a Schedule 1 drug.

The People further direct and order the Attorney General of California to protect the provisions of this act from any and all attacks, whether from individuals, cities, counties, or the state or federal governments.

This Act expressly enjoins the arrest and imposition of any criminal or civil penalties for people 21 years of age and older who are acting within the provisions of this act, including all California penal and nuisance marijuana laws, penalties, and zoning regulations, except for those affecting medical marijuana at Health & Safety Code sections 11362.5, and 11362.7 et seq.

This Act expressly enjoins any and all commercial advertising of the sales, distribution and use of marijuana, except for medical marijuana and products made from industrial hemp, as defined herein, and this injunction shall be enforced by penalties as shall hereafter be set forth by the legislature.

This Act expressly does not repeal, modify or change any present laws or regulations prohibiting the driving of a motor vehicle while impaired by marijuana; the use or being under the influence of marijuana in the workplace; the providing, transferring or selling marijuana to, a person under the age of 21; the use, possession, cultivation, sales, transporting, or storing on premises of marijuana by people under the age of 21; or medical marijuana statutes as set forth in California Proposition 215 and its progeny.

The legislature shall not modify, change, add to or subtract from, or amend any part of this Act, and if any part of this Act is found by any court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or void, that finding shall not affect any of the remaining provisions.

-Link-

Support Marijuana Legalization And Get Ypur Name On A Virtual Brick

Two weeks ago, we launched our new organization, the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform (CCPR), to bring citizens together to work toward legalizing marijuana in2012.

Already, thousands of people like you have stood up and pledged their support for going back to the ballot next year.

With that kind of support, I am confident that we can win. Together, we’re going to build this organization, brick by brick, and lay the foundation for an even stronger grassroots movement — but we need your help to do it.

That’s why, today, we are launching our Founding Members program. With a contribution of $25 or more, we’ll place your name on your own personalized virtual brick on our website’s Founders Wall, publicly recognizing you as a Founding Member of the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform.

Contribute $25 to our Founding Member drive today — and have a brick added in your name to our virtual wall!

To recognize friends like you, we’re building a virtual brick wall, symbolizing the support we have for cannabis policy reform.

Each brick represents a supporter of the cause, with his or her name engraved on the front, along with a personalized comment. Our virtual wall will let the world know everyone who is a part of this new effort from the very start.

Every contribution counts. If we build our virtual wall with just 1,000 bricks, we’ll have already raised $25,000 for our cause.

Will you buy your own personalized brick right now — so we can add your name to our Founding Member wall?

Show your support for building the grassroots movement that will tax and legalize cannabis in California: Contribute $25 and get your own personalized brick added to our Founding Member wall!

Your contribution to CCPR will help us build the movement we need to end cannabis prohibition in California. Together, we can lead the nation to a more sensible drug policy — brick by brick.

We are extremely grateful for your support.

Dale Jones
Chair
Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform

P.S. Want to check out how the Founding Member wall is already shaping up? Click here to check it out — and then click here to buy your own personalized virtual brick.

Drug Warriors Won’t Play Cannabis Reformers In Softball

Photo: Anastacia Cosner

The One Hitters are already kicking the Drug War’s ass — now they want to beat the drug warriors in a softball game

Once again, the softball team representing the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has backed out of playing a softball game against the One Hitters, a team consisting of members of several drug policy reform organizations and others who want to end the “War On Drugs.”

A game between the two teams had been scheduled for May 25, but the ONDCP Czardinals chickened out shortly after scheduling the game, with ONDCP public liaison coordinator Quinn Staudt claiming an “accidental double-booking.”

This is not the first time the Czardinals have refused to play the One Hitters.

Photo: Anastacia Cosner

The One Hitters dominate the Congressional Softball League

​ In six years, the team of drug warriors has managed to find one lame reason or another to avoid taking the field against the One Hitters, made up of individuals dedicated to reforming the out-of-date and ineffectual policies promoted by the ONDCP.

This behavior is being mimicked on the national stage by the ONDCP as well, according to the reformers.

While Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske claimed he would no longer use the rhetoric of a “War On Drugs” and President Obama said he wants to treat drug abuse more as a health problem than a criminal justice issue, little has been seen in the way of action in that direction.

The President has also said he does not support the legalization of any drug — even marijuana — despite the inarguable damage marijuana prohibition does to society, individual users, medical patients that benefit from cannabis treatments, governmental budgets, and respect for the rule of law.

“It is really disappointing that the ONDCP not only refuses to have an honest debate with drug policy reformers about the absolute failure of drug prohibition, but also keeps ducking out of softball games with us,” said One Hitters team captain Jacob Berg.

“We think it would be a great opportunity to advance the discussion between drug law reformers and the people ostensibly in charge of drug policy in this country,” Berg said. “I wonder if they are afraid to have that conversation.”

“The drug czar said ‘legalization’ isn’t in his vocabulary, but it’s just a friendly softball game!” Berg said.

The One Hitters still hope that Czardinals will put aside ideological differences and accept their invitation to play a softball game this summer on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Photo: Anastacia Cosner

The mighty One Hitters strike fear into the hearts of the ONDCP Czardinals and drug warriors everywhere.

Stoner Photo of the Day: Hot Girl Rolling/Smoking Blunt

Come by Cafe Vale Tudo
24601 Raymond Way, Suite 9B
Lake Forest, CA 92630
(949) 454-9227
Open 10 am to 10 pm every day!

Stoner Photo of the Day: When Your Parents Find Out You Smoke

That sucks. Maybe she just wanted to know where you buy your marijuana? Haha.

Marijuana Advocates Sue Government Over Rescheduling Delay

Photo: MyMedicineTheBook.com

The federal government refuses to reclassify marijuana as medicine — despite the fact that it has sent Irv Rosenfeld and a handful of other patients hundreds of joints a month for close to 30 years.

A coalition of medical marijuana advocacy groups and patients filed suit Monday in D.C. Circuit Court to compel the Obama Administration to answer a nine-year-old petition to reclassify medical marijuana.

The Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis (CRC) has never received an answer to its 2002 petition, despite a formal recommendation in 2006 from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which is unfortunately the final arbiter in the rescheduling process.

As recently as July 2010, the DEA issued a 54-page “Position on Marijuana,” but failed to even mention the pending CRC petition.

Plaintiffs in the case include the CRC, Americans for Safe Access (ASA), Patients Out of Time, as well as individually named patients, one of whom is listed on the CRC petition but died in 2005.

“The federal government’s strategy has been delay, delay, delay,” said Joe Elford, chief counsel of ASA and lead counsel on the writ. “It is far past time for the government to answer our rescheduling petition, but unfortunately we’ve been forced to go to court in order to get resolution.”

Photo: ASA

Joe Elford, ASA: “The federal government’s strategy has been delay, delay, delay. It is far past time for the government to answer our rescheduling petition”

​The writ of mandamus filed on Monday accuses the government of unreasonable delay in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act. A previous cannabis (marijuana) rescheduling petition filed in 1972 were unanswered for 22 years before being denied.

The writ argues that cannabis is not a dangerous drug and that ample evidence of its therapeutic value based on scientific studies in the United States and around the world.

“Despite numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies establishing the marijuana is effective” in treating numerous medical conditions, the government “continues to deprive seriously ill persons of this needed, and often life-saving therapy by maintaining marijuana as a Schedcule I substance,” according to the writ.

The writ calls out the government for unlawfully failing to answer the petition despite an Inter-Agency Advisory issued by the Food and Drug Administration in 2006 and “almost five years after receiving a 41-page memorandum from HHS stating its scientific evaluation and recommendations.”

The federal government maintains its Schedule I classification of marijuana even as it gives out hundreds of federal joints every month to a handful of patients — which it has done since 1976, when it created the Investigational New Drug Compassionate Access Program.

Every month, the federal government still sends tins of 300 joints each to the four surviving patients of the original program, which suspended accepting new patients after President George H.W. Bush realized in the early 1990s that a wave of HIV/AIDS patients was on the way.

Photo: ASA

Steph Sherer, ASA: “Adhering to an outdated public policy that ignores science has created a war zone for doctors and their patients who are seeking to use cannabis therapeutics”

​ The two largest physician groups in the country — the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians — have both called on the federal government to review marijuana’s status as a Schedule I substance with “no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

The National Cancer Institute, a part of the National Institutes for Health, added cannabis to its website earlier this year as a Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM) and recognized that “Cannabis has been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years prior to its current status as an illegal substance.”

Medical marijuana has now been legalized in 16 states and the District of Columbia, and has an overwhelming 80 percent approval rating among Americans, according to several polls.

In an 1988 ruling on a prior rescheduling petition, the DEA’s own Administrative Law Judge Francis Young recommended in favor of reclassification, saying “Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.”

A formal rejection of the CRC petition would enable the group to challenge in court the government’s assertion that marijuana has no medical value.

“Adhering to outdated public policy that ignores science has created a war zone for doctors and their patients who are seeking to use cannabis therapeutics,” said Steph Sherer, executive director of ASA and a plaintiff in the writ.

“The Obama Administration’s refusal to act on this petition is an irresponsible stalling tactic,” added Jon Gettman, who filed the rescheduling petition on behalf of the CRC.

A synthetic form of THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in the cannabis plant, is currently classified as a Schedule III substance for its use in a prescribed pill trademarked as Marinol®. The pill goes off-patent this year and companies vying to sell generic versions are petitioning the government to also reclassify the more economical, naturally derived THC (from the plant itself) to Schedule III as well.

The rescheduling process involves federal agencies such as the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), HHS, and DEA. On average, it takes six months from HHS review to final action, but it’s been almost five years since HHS issued its recommendation on the CRC petition — more than twice as long as any other rescheduling petition reviewed since 2002.

More Information

Writ filed today [PDF]

ASA backgrounder on rescheduling [PDF]

CRC rescheduling petition [PDF]

2006 HHS recommendation [PDF]

2010 DEA “Position on Marijuana” [PDF]

Stoner Photo of The Day: Sativa Sampler Pack

While visiting friendly Dockside Cooperative in the Seattle suburb of Fremont (“the Center of the Universe”), I noticed one welcome innovation that budtender Aaron told me is very helpful in allowing patients to find the strains that work best for them: sampler packs.

Dockside has sampler packs of both sativa strains and indicas, as well as 50/50 packs with four strains of each. Seen in the photo above is a Sativa Sampler Pack I got at Dockside today.

Dude, I haven’t been this excited since my mom would bring home Variety Packs of cereal.

Sampler packs are available for $85 each, which is a bargain considering you get a gram each of eight strains; four of the eight strains go for $15 a gram and the other four go for $12 a gram — that’s $108 worth of medicine for just $85.

Additionally, they have the best selection of edibles I’ve ever seen in Seattle: not just the regular sweets like Rice Krispie treats, cupcakes and brownies, but also savory snacks like lasagna, soups, burritos and even beef jerky.

Two kinds of tinctures, in both glycerin- and alcohol-based formulas, are available, as are numerous topicals, including salve, muscle rubs, bath salts, and foot balm. It’s worthy of note that The Cure tinctures are made with Rick Simpson oil and are quite potent indeed, at $30 a bottle.

Concentrates include honey oil, bubble hash and kief. Kief pills (containing kief in a base of coconut oil) are available at $5 apiece, three for $10.

http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/05/stoner_photo_of_the_day_sativa_sampler_pack.php#more