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Hemp Headlines

Brought to you by Cannabis Fantastic

1. Roseanne Barr announces candidacy for Green Party presidential nomination
2. Texas Councilman says he gets his marijuana and meth from prostitutes
3. Peter Lewis bankrolls Massachusetts medical marijuana bill

Daily Toker Tunes

Irie Wednesday: Brought to you by NorCalPurps in the California Bay Area

• Katchafire – “Meant to Be”

Cannabis Science with Dr. Mitch Earleywine

• New study underscores that passing medical marijuana laws does not affect teen use of marijuana

Government at Work

• Rep. Patricia Todd working to pass medical marijuana in Alabama legislature

(LionizeMusic.com) Bands who combine Clutch-style boogie rock with reggae dub aren’t exactly a thriving subgenre in the alternative music world. In fact, we’re not even sure there’s been a genre pegged for the kind of multifaceted rock that Lionize crank out on Superczar And The Vulture, but we’re about to peg it with one. Boogie-dub. Bow-worthy, bass-drenched boogie-dub with off-kilter lyrics that would make Neil Fallon double-check his notes for potential copyright infringement while the members and ex-members of bands like Bad Brains and the Clash—and even classic rockers like Canned Heat and Savoy Brown—shake their heads and wish they’d thought of that.

SONG LINK
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Standard Podcast Feed (27.5MB 64Kbps) | High-Def Podcast Feed (82.5MB 192Kbps)
Download audio file (NORML_SHOW_LIVE_2012-02-03.mp3)

Hemp Headlines

Brought to you by Cannabis Fantastic

• Colorado Legalization Effort Comes up 2400 Valid Signatures Short
• Washington State Bill Asking Government To Reclassify Marijuana Moves Forward
• Ballot Measures Competing for Funds from Big Backers
• Firefighters Mistake Butane Hash Oil Extraction Equipment for Pipe Bomb
• “Fast and Furious” Program Sparks Lawsuit and House Hearing for the Attorney General

Daily Toker Tunes

Rockin’ Friday: Brought to you by Urb Thrasher from Urb Age Designs

• Lionize – “Superczar”

Legislative Update with NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano

• ALABAMA: The Michael Phillips Compassionate Care Act (HB 25) which seeks to enact legal protections for authorized medical marijuana patients, has been marked for reintroduction in the Alabama Legislature for the session starting on February 7th. It is currently assigned to the House Committee on Health. A separate medical cannabis bill, House Bill 66, has also been prefiled in the House and is also before to the House Committee on Health, while a third measure that seeks to reduce penalties on adult cannabis possession is anticipated to be introduced shortly. You can learn more about these efforts via NORML’s ‘Take Action Center’ here.
• INDIANA: Senate lawmakers heard testimony on Tuesday, January 24, in favor of legislation, SB 347, to decriminalize marijuana possession penalties in Indiana. Lawmakers on Senate Committee on Corrections, Criminal, and Civil Matters did not vote on the measure. Therefore, there is still time for constituents to contact their Senate members and encourage them to support marijuana law reform. You can do so via NORML’s ‘Take Action Center’ here. A separate House measure, HB 1370, that seeks to legalize the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes, is pending before the House Committee on Public Policy.
• KANSAS: House Bill 2330, which seeks to enact legal protections for authorized medical marijuana patients, was heard by the House Committee on Health and Human Services on Tuesday, January 24th. You can read media coverage of the hearing here and here. You can track the progress of this measure and contact your state elected officials regarding HB 2330here.
• NEW HAMPSHIRE: Members of the House Criminal Justice Committee heard testimony on Thursday, January 25, in favor of House Bill 1705, which seeks to allow adults age 21 or over to use marijuana legally in their home. The measure also seeks to establish a regulated cannabis market governing the wholesale production and sale of marijuana. Non-commercial transactions involving less than one ounce of cannabis would not be subject to state taxation or regulation under the measure. You can watch clips from the hearing here and you can contact your elected officials in support of the measure here.
• The House Criminal Justice Committee is also scheduled to hear testimony this Thursday in favor of separate legislation, HB 1526, which seeks reduce the penalties on minor marijuana possession offenses (up to one ounce) from a criminal misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a $2,000 fine to a nominal monetary penalty of no more than $100.00. To contact your House representative regarding HB 1526, please visit NORML’s ‘Take Action Center’ here.
• VIRGINIA: Legislation seeking to establish a joint study committee to investigate the fiscal impact of regulating the production and sale of marijuana to adults 21 and over is anticipated to be heard by the Virginia House Committee on Rules as soon as this Thursday. You can read NORML’s published op/eds in support of this measure here and here. To learn more aboutHouse Joint Resolution 140, please visit Virginia NORML or contact your state officials here.

NORML Newsmakers

• Mark Pedersen from Sensible Missouri and Show-Me Cannabis Regulation

You can trust me, I knew nothing about Fast & Furious. When have I ever betrayed your trust before?

The family of slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry has threatened to file a $25 million wrongful death suit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives, citing the government’s role in Terry’s death. Brian Terry was killed with an AK47 that was knowingly sold to drug cartels under the “Fast and Furious” gun-running probe that has been in place for several years now.

The 65 page suit was served on the government agency on Wednesday according to attorneys for the family. The complaint contends that not only was the ATF negligent in Terry’s death, but at the time, the program is in direct violation of the ATF’s own policies and procedures.

The case is a headache for Attorney General Eric Holder, who is already in hot water over the program. Lawmakers called a hearing about the program and whether Holder has been telling the truth about the program in responding to requests from the House Oversight and Government Relations Committee. Attorney General Eric Holder testified before the House today about his role in the program.  The Republicans on the committee pointed out that the Department of Justice was still withholding 93,000 documents that they now intend to subpoena if the DOJ doesn’t hand them over voluntarily for review.

“Fast and Furious” is the name that was given to the gun tracing operation where agents knowingly allowed gun purchases to Mexican drug operatives so they might be traced to the higher echelons of the Mexican Drug Cartels. They then could pin the guns to the drug cartels to build stronger cases against them if and when they got caught.

Even the ATF that ran the program admits that they lost track of hundreds of weapons and many have been linked to dozens of crimes, including the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Many of the guns have been found in crime scenes.

During the hearing on Capitol Hill this morning, political lines were drawn very quickly, with the House Republicans doing most of the grilling on Attorney General Holder, and the House Democrats using their time on the mic to point out that the Department of Justice did not begin gun tracing programs under the Obama Administration, but under George W. Bush’s term. President Bush had a similar program called “Operation Wide Receiver”, but the big difference is that the previous program was coordinated with the Mexican authorities, “Fast and Furious” is purely American.

Holder did say that Mexican authorities were aware of the program, and they he had warned them there was no effort to track the weapons once them moved across the border into Mexico. In 2006-2007, “Operation Wide Receiver”, operating out of the same Phoenix office of the ATF, allowed approximately 200 guns to “walk” into Mexico in an effort to identify higher-ups in the Mexican drug cartels. From 2009-2011, under the DOJ “Fast and Furious” program, nearly 2,000 guns were allowed to get into the hands of the Mexican drug cartels, some 1,400 of which yet remain unaccounted for.

External Links:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/02/holder-says-no-one-punished-yet-during-testimony-on-controversial-fast-and/#ixzz1lGAFetj5

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/family-border-patrol-agent-slain-fast-and-furious-scandal-sues-atf-25-million_620871.html

Butane hash oil cannot kill you... but making it can! (photo: Concept420.com)

A fire in a Northern California Apartment building left an 18-year-old in critical condition with severe burns and 10 residents homeless on Tuesday night. The apartment building was left completely charred and firefighters are blaming a BHO extraction kit that they found as the reason the fire got out of control, but say it is too early to tell if it was the cause of the fire that devastated the building, which did about $500,000 dollars in damage and will take about four to six months before residents can move back in.

Firefighters were called to the scene on Tuesday night around 7pm. At that point, the fire was coming from a second story apartment building. They immediately took an 18-year-old with serious burns covering about 60 percent of his body away by helicopter to a burn unit along with a female who suffered from inhalation burns. The unidentified 18-year-old is currently in critical condition.

But it is what they found on their initial entry to battle the blaze that caused firefighters to pull out and call for a warrant and the Humboldt County Bomb Squad. The firefighters had mis-identified a plastic pipe in the apartment with a cap on each end and holes drilled in it as a possible pipe bomb. Firefighters found the device inside a bedroom closet in the apartment where the fire originated.

The bomb squad showed up with a robot to retrieve the item.  Bomb technicians took three hours to remove the suspicious device before they deemed it posed no threat and the firefighters could go back inside the building to extinguish the last of the blaze. They had been using long hoses, and had punched some holes in the building to try and fight the fire while the bomb technicians did their job.

Over 70 percent of the fire was due to the delay of the firefighters not being able to enter the building as the fire from the apartment caught the attic on fire, then spread to other parts of the building.

Fire Chief Investigator Todd Wilcox said that the steps to get a warrant before the bomb squad had entered the apartment were necessary so that anything they found could be used as evidence in a potential prosecution.  He added that they had to tread carefully, if they had found a body in the building it would have been a homicide investigation.

Fire investigators don’t think the hashish extractor is the source of the actual fire, since the device was still intact when the bomb technician removed it. Firefighters did find butane canisters in the apartment, a possible source for ignition of the original fire, and residents reported hearing an explosion before seeing flames and smoke. One resident thinks it could have been a faulty water heater. The investigation is underway into the cause of that fire. Investigators have also forwarded that they found a possible hash making operation to the Humboldt County District Attorney for possible criminal charges.

External Links:
http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_19875639

The numbers for getting any measure on the ballot in California and others states are staggering. They need to have 504,760 valid signatures, meaning in reality they will need at least 750,000 signatures to have that many deemed valid. The Regulate Marijuana Like Wine initiative currently has only 30,000 signatures gathered. Getting that many signatures costs about $1.5 million, but if they wait a few more weeks before the April 20th deadline to get all those signatures, that month is so busy for the signature gathering firms that their prices often quadruple during those weeks, pushing the bill to gather those signatures up to as much as $5 million to get.

With this much at stake, there are a few billionaires that everyone is trying to contact. George Soros, Peter Lewis, Napster co-founder Sean Parker and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz have all given big in the past to reform efforts. Chris Roberts of the San Francisco Weekly wrote that Peter Lewis was asked by activist Mickey Martin for $1.5 million to fund a legalization measure, his emailed reply was that his research has led him to conclude that the time has not yet come for legalization. A quote from that email, “I believe that if the issue you want to pass isn’t polling well above 60% in favor before the election, there is no chance to pass it. California is not there yet.”

A recent poll showed that California might actually be there. A statewide poll done this week surveyed 800 likely voters and found that 62 percent would vote yes on the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol measure if voting today, with only 3% saying they were unsure. Only 35% said they would vote no. A full 80% of those polled agreed to this statement, “State and federal drug laws are outdated and have failed, therefore, we need to take a new approach that makes sense for today”. The surprising results of the poll have been a boost in the confidence of the groups to court more financial backers now. Those numbers are similar to the polling numbers for prop 215 from sixteen years ago, and much higher than Prop 19 was polling at this time.

External Links:

http://regulatemarijuanalikewine.com/poll-reveals-62-of-california-voters-want-marijuana-regulated-like-wine/

Earlier this week, Washington State Governor Chris Gregoire joined the chorus of governors in asking the Federal Government, namely the Drug Enforcement Administration, to change marijuana from a Schedule I substance that would define it as having no medicinal value to a Schedule II substance.  The Schedule I classification at the federal level conflicts with state medical marijuana laws, and in Washington State has caused a rift in public policies around the state.

The measure passed with unanimous approval from the Senate Committee on Health and Long Term Care and will now move on to the Rules Committee, where if passed there would be scheduled for a floor vote. In testimony before the vote, several members of the public testified to the committee on the benefits of medical cannabis in their lives and Sen. Jeane Kohl-Welles testified before the committee saying that she believes that other much more harmful drugs are able to be prescribed and regulated. She also joined 41 other legislators in signing Gregoire’s letter earlier this week, seven Republicans and thirty-five Democrats.

While many of these measures might not effectively convince the government to reclassify marijuana to lift the pressure off of the medical marijuana programs in the states that have them, together, governors, state sponsored bills and individuals have been continuing to put pressure on them to change –  may be the best tactic we have.

External Links:
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2012/01/washington_legislators_ask_rec.html

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/02/marijuana_reclassification_bil.html

Just like the initiative’s name suggests, marijuana would be taxed and regulated in a similar fashion to alcohol. The bill would also open allow cultivation, processing and sales of industrial  hemp. Last month, a random sample of those signatures that the group turned in to qualify for the ballot –  signified only about 50% of them would be valid, so they were required to do a line by line, signature by signature count according to the rules of the state.  The Campaign needed 86,105 valid signatures to make the ballot, so they turned in almost 160,000, almost assuring them a spot on the ballot, or so we thought.

Supporters of the Initiative will now have 15 days to collect the remaining 2,409 valid signatures for one last shot at qualifying for the November ballot. Mason Tvert from Sensible Colorado said that he remains confident that collecting the remaining signatures is just a very small bump in the road.

On Friday’s NORML SHOW LIVE, Tvert came on air to say that this was all part of the ballot measure process, and his group can collect that many signatures in a few days. If put on the ballot, voters in Colorado would vote to pass a regulated legalized marijuana market that would allow limited home-growing and restrict its usage to those over 21. We will let you know as this story continues to develop.

External Links:
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19885405

Click for the full lineup of The NORML Network

Next weekend we will be bringing you live coverage of the HIGH TIMES Medical Cannabis Cup in Los Angeles.  Tune in to http://live.norml.org on Saturday, Feb 11 and Sunday, Feb 12 from Noon to 7pm Pacific Time for free live coverage of the panels, the expo floor, and interviews with cannabis culture celebrities.

If you plan on attending the event, get your tickets online NOW – they sell out fast!  Use the promo code CANORML to get a special 40% discount for supporters of The NORML Network!

We will be holding our Special “4:20 Somewhere” Raffle both days at the Cannabis Cup.  Tickets are $5 at the event or five for $20 and the proceeds benefit The NORML Network.  We’ll have six raffles each day for over $2,000 worth of prizes and your ticket is good for every raffle until you win or the last raffle ends.  You need not be present to win, but you must pick up your prizes at the event; we will not ship them or hold them after 7pm Sunday.

We will announce the winning ticket numbers at :20 after on our live coverage (which you can view on our Ustream app for your iPhone or Android), through our @NORMLNet Twitter account (so follow us!), by text message to your cell (if you write your number on your tickets), and on a whiteboard at our merch desk.

These packages may change by event time… most likely, they’ll get better as we get donations from other vendors to add!

Online viewers can also get in on a piece of the action.  At every raffle, we will randomly select one of our @NORMLNet Twitter followers to win a “Schwag” prize pack.  In the last three raffles of the day, we’ll add an autographed NORML banner signed by the whole NORML SHOW LIVE crew, HIGH TIMES crew, and other cannabis celebrities.