Welcome stashers! THE UNDERCOVER HIPPY brings us a danky hit with his song, “Too Stoned”. Starting out as a DJ at 16, this UK artist spent years as the MC for the “Guerrilla Collective”, a drum and bass collective based in Singapore. In 2002 he sold his turntables and bought a guitar. It seems to have been a great career move as he now plays music all over the world. This great toker tune comes from his first album, “They feed on Greed” and it is an instant cannabis classic. You can visit his website, undercoverhippy.com to learn more about this wonderful and quirky artist, hear more of his music and purchase his album.

For more information on this artist see http://music.podshow.com.

mp3 download

Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2008-05-06

It’s Tuesday, May 6th and it’s 4:20 somewhere in the world. I’m your host, “Radical” Russ Belville.

We here at NORML would like to remind you to get involved in the cannabis civil rights movement and join us here at NORML – you can learn everything you need to know at NORML.org. Make a donation, write a letter, attend a rally, march for your rights – it all starts with you. Call your Congress at 202-224-3121 – they’ll ask your zip code and put you in touch with your elected officials. Tell them to support HR5842 and HR5843 to end DEA raids in medical marijuana states and legalize personal possession of pot. It still is a government of We the People, but you have to step up and do your part.

Tuesday is Government at Work day on the podcast, and coming up after the news, we’re going to speak with D. Paul Stanford, executive director of The Hemp & Cannabis Foundation’s chain of medical marijuana clinics in six Western states. Paul has some excellent news about the defeat of a plan to repeal Oregon’s highly-successful self-funded medical marijuana program and the launch of the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act for 2010.

After that Cannabis Karri brings us the secret agent of the counterculture, the Undercover Hippy. His new album, “They Feed on Greed” features an instant cannabis classic called “Too Stoned” that we’re playing for you today.

We’ll wrap up today with another look at the Global Marijuana March this last weekend with two activists straight from the heartland. We’ve got James Getman from Iowa NORML and Steven Eisenhauer from SW Indiana NORML here to give us a review of their events and their take on the chances for cannabis reform in the Midwest.

So sit back and relax with your favorite strain – this is the Daily Audio Stash.

You know that the cannabis community is by-and-large a pretty creative group of people. None more so than a local artist whose works I’ve been lucky to get a hold of, Forest Ray. Each one of these prints is handmade with cannabis resin cleaned out from pipes, composed on all-hemp paper. (These scans are from shrink-wrapped prints, so you’ll see the reflections of the wrap. Trust me, these are amazing.)

If anyone is interested in a piece, send me an email at stash ‘at’ norml.org. The artist wants to make these prints available to the cannabis community first before putting these up on eBay.

Delta-9 Tetrahydrocannabinol	Mother Ganja	Big Rig
Lamppost	The Trees	Construction

Global Marijuana/Cannabis March Meets Heavy-Handed Opposition
In Brazil, a spokesperson for www.marchadamaconha.org, organisers of the “Marcha da Maconha Brasil 2008″ had this to say on the situation facing the South American cannabis community.

“We are facing in Brazil too much repression against the march. From 10 cities that were confirmed for the march, the Justice prohibited 6 cities from taking part. As citizens of a democracy we are very disappointed”.

It was a similar story in Moscow, with the Military and Police blocking the way to the Friendship of Nations fountain at the All-Russia Exhibition Centre. The meeting place for the 2006 Global Marijuana March in Russia, organised once again by the Cannabis Legalize League (CLL), who were hoping not to have any injuries to treat this year.

[A spokesman for CLL said,] “We published an official statement on the CLL site, so that both authorities and activists could learn that no marches would be held in Moscow in 2008. We invited our supporters to come to the “Friendship of Nations” fountain at the All-Russia Exhibition Centre. We made it quite clear there should be no banners or other means of political propaganda: only thematic clothes, excellent mood and musical instruments.”

“As soon as the statement was published we received an aggressive reaction from the Federal Service of Drug Control (Russian DEA analog). In the interview to one of the most famous Russian news agencies the head of the informational department of the FSDC Alexander Mikhailov commented our action in the following expressions”:

“Legalization of cannabis as a drug is out of the question. This theme mustn’t be discussed at all. Such actions are the grossest breach of the peace and hooliganism. This is a spring exacerbation on which the bodies of internal affairs and psychiatrists should react”.

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Congressman John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has responded to the requests of numerous citizens as well as the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco regarding the use of federal DEA resources in enforcement of marijuana laws against patients legally using medical marijuana under state law.

The Conyers letter, sent to Acting DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart, asks for the administration’s response to the complaints in advance of hearings to be held in front of the Judiciary Committee. Conyers’ questions include:

Is the use of civil asset forfeiture, which has typically been reserved for the worst drug traffickers and kingpins, an appropriate tactic to employ against individuals who suffer from severe or chronic illness and are authorized to use medical marijuana under California law?

Has the DEA conducted any analysis of the potential economic consequences of using civil asset forfeiture in an area that is experiencing some of the nation’s sharpest declines in property values?

Has the DEA considered the consequences of shutting down legally-operated public dispensaries, and whether that might drive the cannabis sales activity underground?

Given the increased level of trafficking and violence associated with international drug cartels across Mexico, South America and elsewhere, do you think the DEA’s limited resources are best utilized conducting enforcement raids on individuals and their caregivers who are conducting themselves legally under California law?

Have you considered that DEA activities against qualified individuals is negatively impacting the ability of state and local officials across California to collect tax revenue, which they are entitled to under California law?

Every month new science supporting the therapeutic value of cannabis is published. As a result, medical and scientific organizations, like the American College of Physicians and the American Psychiatric Association, are urging reform of the laws that place in legal jeopardy physicians or their individual patients who may benefit from the use of cannabis. As the Administrator, you have the discretion to decide whether to continue heightened enforcement activities in California and in other states that have authorized the use of medical cannabis by qualified individuals. Please explain what role, if any, emerging scientific data plays in your decision-making process to conduct enforcement raids on individuals authorized to use or provide medical cannabis under state law.

Would you support the creation of an intergovernmental commission comprised of law enforcement, law makers and people affected by the laws, to review policy and provide recommendations that aim to bring harmony to federal and state laws?

While Conyers awaits the response from the DEA, let me play the psychic and predict what the DEA’s answers to those questions will be: no, no, no, no, none, and no.

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here

Willamette Week | Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
Conservative ballot-measure supremo Kevin Mannix just told WWire he and his cohorts are dropping a proposed ballot initiative to kill the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program.

“That petition’s going to stop this week,” Mannix says. There was not enough time or money to gather the 82,769 valid signatures needed, he says.

“That’s the best news I’ve had all day,” says Paul Stanford, head of The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation, a Portland-based national chain of medical marijuana clinics.

Mannix says the decision to drop the petition drive had nothing to do with lack of public support, but rather lack of resources. But Stanford says he believes Mannix ran into trouble because the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, approved by voters in 1998, is still supported by a clear majority.

Stanford says it’s good news for medical-marijuana advocates that the petition has been dropped.

“We don’t have to waste our resources encouraging people not to sign that petition,” Stanford says. “We don’t have to mount a campaign against them in the fall. It just saves us a lot of time and effort.”

The so-called Oregon Crimefighting Act would have done three things:

•Given repeat “major felony” sex offenders a minimum 25-year sentence.

•Made third-strike DUII convictions a felony.

•Replaced medical marijuana with prescription THC pills.

Stanford has called the initiative a cynical effort to tear down medical marijuana by tagging it onto slam-drunk issues like opposing drunk drivers and sex predators. He says many marijuana patients oppose the change because THC pills are too expensive and not as effective.

Mannix told WWire that the ballot initiative, which he drafted, had financial support from the Florida-based nonprofit Save Our Society From Drugs. He says backers may return with another effort to gut medical marijuana in the 2010 election.

How about Save Our Society From Ignorance? This was the most shameful attempt to repeal medical marijuana in the second state to enact such protection for serious ill and disabled people. Mannix is a well-known conservative troublemaker in this state. He’s the man behind our ill-fated Measure 11, a state-level get-tough-on-crime mandatory minimum sentencing scheme that has helped overcrowd Oregon’s prisons and led us to spending more money on prisons than colleges. He’s lost a couple attempts to become governor and is now eyeing the federal Congressional seat of the retiring Representative Darlene Hooley.