It is a very special Friday stash today. This weekend you get the chance to stand up and be counted. The cannabis community parties and celebrates on 420, but the first weekend of May is always reserved for some peaceful protest. Please join your cannabis community in our Global Million Marijuana March as thousands of us will get together across the globe. I couldn’t think of a better song than “New Revolution” from the FREEDOM PEOPLE to put you in the right frame of mind. The musical duo of Brad Stanfield & Periel Marr are equal parts hippie and Rock and Roll. Today’s track speaks to the great truth that freedom isn’t free. It takes you and me and our whole cannabis community standing together to uphold our rights. This is the most important thing that you can do to help us legalize recreational cannabis, provide medicine to those that are sick and help our planet by utilizing the amazing power of hemp. Visit the Freedom People’s website to learn more about the Brad and Periel, and I’ll see you at the march.
It’s Friday, May 2nd and it’s 4:20 somewhere in the world! I’m your host, “Radical” Russ Belville and this is your NORML Daily Audio Stash.
Tomorrow is the Global Marijuana March, taking place in over 200 cities worldwide. Check out GlobalMarijuanaMarch.org for more details on the march in your area. Take to the streets and demand respect. We are not criminals, we are cannabis consumers. We are no more criminals for smoking pot in private than citizens who take a drink in private. We can end adult marijuana prohibition, but the world needs to see us standing up for our rights! It starts with you – take the time to get involved.
Friday is Cannabis Community day on the Stash, and coming up after the news, we’re speaking with our regular guest Steve Bloom, the webmaster at CelebStoner.com. Steve’s got the details for New York City’s Marijuana March, along with a New York native’s look at how the Big Apple became the marijuana arrest capital of the world. We also break down the role of weed in the NFL draft and great box-office weekends for Harold & Kumar and CelebStoner Amy Poehler’s movie, Baby Mama.
Next, Cannabis Karri brings back Freedom People with a perfect song for a protest weekend, “New (R)evolution”. Let’s all start a new revolution and get hemp re-legalized in this country.
Then we wrap things up with Tim Smith, a criminal defense attorney in Cincinnati, Ohio. Tim’s here to tell us about the Marijuana March event this weekend in Cincy and the threats by law enforcement to shut them down by threatening the venue owner’s liquor license.
Finally, don’t forget that every Saturday we’re now posting the NORML Weekend Music Stash, where you can get all of the last ten songs from our daily musical breaks in one podcast, suitable for your weekend party pleasure. If you have a band that would like to be featured on our podcast, please send us an email at stash ‘at’ norml.org.
So sit back and relax with your favorite strain and enjoy your NORML Daily Audio Stash…
Finally today, a personal note. This year’s Global Marijuana March marks the third year of my involvement with NORML through my local chapter, Oregon NORML.
We want to invite everyone in the Portland / Vancouver area to enjoy the huge festivities we have planned. We have Pioneer Courthouse Square reserved in the heart of Downtown Portland for the entire day. Vendors and bands will begin at 10am.
Then we leave for the march at High Noon, led by Ma, our Cannabis Dragon – a forty-foot-long hemp-cloth dragon like you might see at a Chinese New Year, with a four-foot head made completely from cannabis stalks.
We return to the Square for more of the festival, with special guest speakers, including myself, educating the public about marijuana in-between band sets.
We’re kicking off our PR campaign for OCTA 2010, the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, an initiative for 2010 that will legalize, tax, and regulate the sales of cannabis in Oregon through state-run liquor stores.
The outdoor festival ends at 5pm, but then we’re off to the Mt. Tabor Legacy Theater at SE 39th & Hawthorne at 8pm to enjoy the Marijuana March After Party, a concert featuring The Martyrs and Marquee, with special guest Chief Greenbud and our headliners, Las Vegas hemp-hop superstars, Los Marijuanos.
Then the after after party is at my place, I suppose, since the DJ, his girlfriend, a visiting Sacramento NORML board member, and two vendors are crashing there for the weekend. Ah, you know what? I have the greatest job in the world.
The death of Timothy Garon, 56, at Bailey-Boushay House, an intensive care nursing center was confirmed to The Associated Press by his lawyer, Douglas Hiatt, and Alisha Mark, a spokeswoman for Virginia Mason Medical Center, which operates Bailey-Boushay.
Dr. Brad Roter, the physician who authorized Garon to smoke pot to alleviate for nausea and abdominal pain and to stimulate his appetite, said he did not know it would be such a hurdle if Garon were to need a transplant.
The case has highlighted a new ethical consideration for those allocating organs for transplant, especially in the dozen states that have medical marijuana laws: When dying patients need a transplant, should it be held against them if they’ve used pot with a doctor’s blessing?
Garon died a week after his doctor told him a University of Washington Medical Center committee had again denied him a spot on the liver transplant list because of his use of marijuana, although it was authorized under Washington state law.
“He said I’m going to die with such conviction,” Garon told an AP reporter at the time. “I’m not angry, I’m not mad, I’m just confused.”
Garon believes he contracted hepatitis C by sharing needles with “speed freaks” as a teenager. In recent years, he said, pot has been the only drug he’s used. In December, he was arrested for growing marijuana.
He had been in the hospice for two months and previously was rejected for a transplant at Swedish Medical Center for the same reason he later got from the university hospital.
Swedish said he would be considered if he avoided pot for six months and the university hospital offered to reconsider if he enrolled in a 60-day drug treatment program, but doctors said his liver disease was too advanced for him to last that long. The university hospital committee agreed to reconsider anyway, then denied him again.
The idea of keeping drug addicts off of transplant lists is not necessarily a bad idea. There are precious few organs to go around, and one should not be given to a person who is just likely to destroy the new organ because of their addictions. But this is clearly not the case with medical marijuana patients.
The grim irony here is that Garon could have used other drugs to treat his hepatitis symptoms, but those pharmaceuticals are toxic to the very liver he needed to be transplanted. He used medical marijuana because of its lack of liver toxicity. Perhaps it is what kept him alive as long as he was; perhaps the other drugs would have killed him more quickly.
Doctors in charge of the transplant division at UWMC were unsure that after the transplant, Garon wouldn’t resume using medical marijuana. Most of their quotes revealed an astonishing lack of understanding about cannabis, with worries about Garon being unable to control a so-called addiction to cannabis, that, had he continued smoking cannabis, his immune system, suppressed for the transplant, would be unable to fight off any infections or molds he might pick up from smoking.
A man is dead today because of ignorance about medical marijuana, stereotypes against responsible cannabis users, and the cruel federal prohibition of the most helpful plant known to mankind.
US Leads The World In Illicit Drug Use; US Drug Enforcement Administration ‘Celebrates’ 35 Years Of Failure; Marijuana, Cocaine Have Contrasting Effects On Driving Performance, Study Says; Loretta Nall on AL judge's son's special treatment for felony drug charges.
Oral Pot Preparation Effective For Depression, Journal Reports; New Zealand: Most Pot Consumers Not Frequent Users; Cannabis Agonist Reduces Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Tumor Growth, Study Says; California: County Officials Finalize Mendocino Vote Count; Interview with Mason Tvert on proposal of cannabis smoking lounges in Denver airport to combat air rage incidents with alcohol.
Drug Czar Responds To NORML's Refutation Of 'Potent Pot' Claim; Teen Pot Use Falling In States With Medical Marijuana Laws; Medical Pot Use Not Associated With Serious Side Effects, Study Says; Interview with Teen MJ Use study co-author Dr. Mitch Earleywine.
John Wesley Hall, president-elect of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, describes the case precendent in roadside traffic stops and search and seizure.
Seattle, Washington attorney Doug Hiatt explains the latest medical use issues in Washington State, including denial of transplant organs for medmj patients.
It is a very special Friday stash today. This weekend you get the chance to stand up and be counted. The cannabis community parties and celebrates on 420, but the first weekend of May is always reserved for some peaceful protest. Please join your cannabis community in our Global Million Marijuana March as thousands of us will get together across the globe. I couldn’t think of a better song than “New Revolution” from the FREEDOM PEOPLE to put you in the right frame of mind. The musical duo of Brad Stanfield & Periel Marr are equal parts hippie and Rock and Roll. Today’s track speaks to the great truth that freedom isn’t free. It takes you and me and our whole cannabis community standing together to uphold our rights. This is the most important thing that you can do to help us legalize recreational cannabis, provide medicine to those that are sick and help our planet by utilizing the amazing power of hemp. Visit the Freedom People’s website to learn more about the Brad and Periel, and I’ll see you at the march.
