Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 2:36 pm | By: Radical Russ
(LA Times) Two medical marijuana groups are threatening to sue the city of Los Angeles if the City Council passes an ordinance that bans the sale of medical marijuana. Two council committees are meeting today to try to finish drafting an ordinance that contains the controversial provision.
Dispensary operators have consistently said they are uncertain they could stay open with such a restriction. Most collectives, which are required to be not-for-profit, sell marijuana to their members, but they consider it a donation to reimburse their costs.
The prohibition on sales was written by the city attorney’s office. In a lengthy analysis of state law and court decisions, City Atty. Carmen Trutanich concluded that over-the-counter sales of medical marijuana are not allowed. Instead, he said, collectives are shielded from prosecution only when they are growing it.
Both medical marijuana organizations, the Union of Medical Marijuana Patients and Americans for Safe Access, take issue with Trutanich’s view, saying he has misinterpreted the law and the court decisions.
In other news, City Attorney Trutanich and the City Council have announced plans to close the barn door after the horse has bolted. Creating some regulations that clearly spelled out the rights and responsibilities of collectives in Los Angeles County is a great plan for 2006 or 2007. But it is almost 2010 and there are almost 1000 retail outlets selling marijuana in the city. What do you expect the backlash will be when tens of thousands of Los Angelenos can no longer browse and pick up their marijuana is a safe, indoor, controlled retail outlet, and instead must return to the back alleys and city parks of the black market marijuana dealer? What will happen when customers accustomed to convenience and quality have to return to waiting for a call-back from “their guy” for a bag of questionable quality and light weight?
For one thing, most of the successful dispensaries will go semi-underground and become delivery services. The rest will go back to the way things used to run, dealing in the street and through clandestine networks. The prices will increase, access will decrease, and truly sick and disabled patients will suffer needlessly.
The proliferation of dispensaries in Los Angeles and the unseemly nature of a few of them is not the fault of the entrepreneurs who want to run a legitimate and lawful business and help satisfy a community need. It is the fault of cowardly and moralistic politicians who refused to take action to implement the will of the people as expressed in Prop 215.
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 6:11 pm | By: Chris Goldstein
John Ray Wilson and Jim Miller in New Jersey
10/25/09 by Chris Goldstein
Scoop: Staffers at Americans for Safe Access met with Department of Justice officials before the memo on medical marijuana was released last week.
My role with several marijuana reform non-profits in New Jersey and Pennsylvania requires interaction with the national reform groups. One that has represented patients with great passion and success is Americans for Safe Access.
They have aggressively pursued issues related to medical marijuana laws and then the rights of patients under those laws. ASA has chapters in several states with main offices in California and Washington DC.
On Wednesday I called ASA’s DC office to check in about some literature for events. Their Director of Government Affairs is Caren Woodson. She’s an experienced beltway player who has led protests on the street and meetings on The Hill. We’ve interviewed many times for podcasts and radio and have been working together as advocates this year.
After talking business I asked her what she thought of the Department of Justice memo. Caren’s usual, very professional tone changed and there was excitement in her voice: She and Steph Sherer, ASA’s Director, had been invited for a meeting with DOJ officials the week before. This was the only known meeting of advocates with the DOJ on this issue.
That morning I had just happened to have wrapped up a telephone radio interview with an author of a book on public education. I asked Caren for an interview right away. The recording took 12 minutes and it aired that night on KSFR 101.1FM with my show Active Voice Radio.
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In the past, ASA was protesting in front of the Department of Justice: Loudly and very visibly protesting at that. Now they are invited in for meetings. There was no stronger indicator this week of this tangible shift in federal policy on medical cannabis.
The impact of the DOJ memo is already being felt locally in NJ/PA. Two major editorials were published in the immediate wake of the news. The NJ General Assembly is expected to see The New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act in a floor vote this fall.PA should have the first public legislative hearings on the issue soon.
The Obama administration’s new policy on medical marijuana should make it easier for New Jersey and Pennsylvania to legalize its use for seriously ill patients. The Justice Department has removed a major legal hurdle by issuing a memo directing federal prosecutors in states that allow medical marijuana not to target patients or their sanctioned suppliers when the drug is purchased for legitimate purposes. Read Full Editorial
New Jersey legislators, poised to vote on the issue, may be encouraged by the federal change of heart. It reflects the opinion of a majority of Americans — and 82 percent of N.J. residents — who favor dispensing marijuana to patients. With the new federal policy in place, there is no reason for New Jersey to any longer delay legalizing medical marijuana. Read Full Editorial
Thursday, June 18th, 2009 at 3:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
GARDEN GROVE – The city has paid out $139,000 in attorney’s fees to medical marijuana advocates, bringing to an end a four-year court battle in which the city fought the return of a patient’s 8 grams in spite of repeated court decisions ordering the city to give his marijuana back.
Americans for Safe Access received the check Wednesday as part of a settlement agreement in the case involving Felix Kha, whose marijuana was seized during a traffic stop. He was issued a citation.
Including this payment, the city has spent about $250,000 on this case, City Attorney Thomas Nixon said today.
Even at inflated dispensary prices eight grams of marijuana is worth less than $200. I know a quarter million dollars is just a drop in the bucket compared to the city budget, but when it looks like you’ve got a hiring freeze and the local education district is wailing about state budget cuts, blowing that much bank in an unsuccessful attempt to not give back legal medical marijuana to a legal medical marijuana patient in a state that overwhelmingly supports legal medical marijuana, why, that’s just looks bad.
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a strong proponent of changing federal law to allow use of marijuana for medical and personal use, said he and other members of Congress are working to end this dichotomy between federal and state law.
“I believe federal laws relating to marijuana especially when they are different from state laws, are counter-productive,” he said.
But to spend $250,000 to prevent an adult from consuming a small amount of marijuana for medical purposes or otherwise is nonsensical, Rohrabacher said.
“Anybody who can say with a straight face that spending that amount of money on this matter in a time when resources are tight, cannot be taken seriously,” he said.
It’s not that taxing marijuana would necessarily rescue the economy, President Obama, it’s that spending money on a proven futile attempt to stop adults from smoking pot is a luxury we can no longer afford.
I am blogging with good news from Washington, DC. Today, ASA helped to kill an amendment aimed at obstructing the effective implementation of duly enacted state medical cannabis laws!
Earlier this week, ASA’s National Office was notified that Sen. Coburn (R-OK) intended to add a medical marijuana amendment to S. 982, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. Frustrated by the Obama Administration’s continued pledge to not interfere with state medical marijuana laws, Sen. Coburn (R-OK) attempted to slip in legislation designed to undermine these programs.
The text of Sen. Coburn’s amendment is as follows:
MEDICAL MARIJUANA. The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall- (1) require that State-legalized medical marijuana shall be subject to the full regulatory requirements of the Food and Drug Administration, including a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy and all other requirements and penalties of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (21 USC 301 et seq.) regarding safe and effective reviews, approval, sale, marketing, and use of pharmaceuticals; and (2) require that any State-legalized marijuana likely to be offered to, or purchase by, consumers as marijuana intended to be consumed as a cigarette or through the oral cavity will be subject to section 900 of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (as amended by section 101).”
At present, the only way for medical marijuana to be properly evaluated by the FDA is for privately-funded sponsors to conduct FDA-approved clinical trials (like any other drug evaluation). If Senator Coburn’s intentions with regard to the medical efficacy of marijuana were genuine, he would consider first removing the monopoly imposed by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on licenses for the cultivation of medical-grade cannabis for research purposes. Currently, the DEA exclusively licenses the cultivation of medical-grade cannabis to the National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA), which primarily investigates only the negative effects of cannabis. This monopoly obstructs any investigation and research in the U.S. into the medical properties of cannabis and thwarts the normal drug approval process.
Today, in a 10-13 party-line vote, we managed to kill the amendment in Committee! Senators Dodd (D-CT) and Reed (D-RI) were key opponents to the amendment.
Prohibitionists lie, cheat, and steal to keep Marijuana illegal. Based on these recent actions by Sen Coburn (Republican from Oklahoma), I question the integrity of his office. Fortunately for us, honest people in Washington stopped his disastrous intentions.
A great job and sincere thanks go to everyone who worked to kill this amendment, specifically Senators Dodd and Reed both Democrats from Connecticut and Rhode Island respectively.
Geoff from the Idaho band Various Lazy talks to us from prison about the complications of trying to record a new album before serving a sentence as a marijuana POW.
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 11:20 am | By: Radical Russ
Americans for Safe Access filed suit in San Francisco two years ago under the Information Quality Act, a federal law that allows members of the public to “seek and obtain correction” of false or misleading government information that affects them.
The organization said its members include seriously ill people who had been discouraged from using marijuana by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ long-standing position that the drug has no medical value. The department declined to respond to the suit, saying the Drug Enforcement Administration was still considering the advocacy group’s 2002 request to reconsider the status of marijuana.
Congress created “no judicially enforceable rights” when it passed the Information Quality Act in 2000, said [Justice Department] attorney Alisa Klein. She said the law requires only that a federal agency review such requests from members of the public; otherwise, she said, courts would be flooded with demands to second-guess government decisions on countless subjects.
The government’s position would make the law meaningless, argued Alan Morrison, the lawyer for Americans for Safe Access. Although some disputes are too subjective for court intervention, he said, others can be measured objectively – for example, “two plus two is four and not five” – and the law gives judges a role in keeping the government on track.
If I’m reading Ms. Klein correctly, she’s asserting that the law that says the people have a right to challenge the accuracy and validity of scientific information produced by our government is only a suggestion. The government will produce information and will also be the sole judge of its quality – that’s what you think the Information Quality Act is all about?
She really has no other tenable position. When the government’s position for 39 years has been that the emperor is wearing a resplendent outfit of the finest silk and cotton, you can’t really endorse a law that requires the government to point out he’s naked. While the previous administration was having an eight year Fashion Week of naked royal haberdashery (there’s no global warming, those Chinese toys are safe, Saddam caused 9/11, our skies are clear, our forests are healthy, we don’t torture, a wiretap requires a court order, the market is fine, there’s no housing bubble, etc.), the emperor’s nudity was easy to miss on the catwalk. But with the current administration pledging to “put science first” and address all the previously ignored “inconvenient truths”, that naked emperor stands out like Darth Vader at a Klan rally.
Monday, April 13th, 2009 at 7:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
Americans for Safe Access
For Immediate Release: April 10, 2009
Contact: ASA Chief Counsel Joe Elford 415-573-7842 or ASA Media Liaison Kris Hermes 510-681-6361
Federal Position on Medical Marijuana Put Before Ninth Circuit Tuesday
Federal hearing is latest battle on whether policy is based on science or politics
San Francisco, CA — Medical marijuana advocates will get to argue before the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday, April 14th, the right to challenge an outdated position held by the federal government: “marijuana has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.” The national advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) filed a lawsuit in February 2007 demanding that the federal government cease issuing misinformation and correct its statements on medical marijuana. “We welcome the Obama Administration’s recently stated commitment to making policy decisions based on science, not politics,” said Joe Elford, Chief Counsel with ASA. “This case is designed to ensure that the federal government’s policy on medical marijuana is not politically motivated.”
What: Oral arguments in a case before the Ninth Circuit that challenges the government’s position on medical marijuana
When: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 at 9:30am
Where: Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Courtroom 4 at 95 Seventh Street, San Francisco, CA
In order to challenge the government’s position, advocates are using a little-known law called the Data Quality Act (DQA). The DQA requires federal agencies such as Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to rely on sound science when disseminating information to the public. One of the main issues in the case is whether citizens have a right to challenge government information believed to be inaccurate or based on faulty, unreliable data.
“The science to support medical marijuana is overwhelming,” said ASA Executive Director Steph Sherer. “It’s time for the federal government to acknowledge the efficacy of medical marijuana and stop holding science hostage to politics.” On March 9, 2009, President Obama issued a memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies stating that, “The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions,” and calling for “transparency in the preparation, identification, and use of scientific and technological information in policymaking.”
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at 8:15 pm | By: Radical Russ
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) — Federal drug agents raided a medical marijuana facility in San Francisco Wednesday night.
The raid occurred at Emmalyn’s California Cannabis Clinic at 1597 Howard Street. DEA spokeswoman Casey McEnry told CBS 5 the documents regarding the raid are sealed, so the DEA was not able to give many details.
“The documents relating to today’s enforcement operation remain under court seal. Based on our investigation we believe there are not only violations of federal law, but state law as well. As of now we are prohibited from releasing further details of the case. Items of evidentiary value were seized and no arrests have been made. The investigation is currently ongoing,” said DEA Special Agent in Charge Anthony D. Williams in a written statement.
Emmalyn’s California Cannabis Clinic had a provisional permit, according to Chris Hermes, spokesperson for Americans for Safe Access, a national advocacy group for medical marijuana issues.
Hermes said at least two people were taken into custody at the facility.
“We’re shocked that after the Attorney General has made repeated statements that raids on California medical cannibis dispensaries would be suspended that we are seeing a continuation of that policy,” said Hermes.
“We call on the Attorney General to explain these actions by the DEA,” he added.
Attorney General Holder was clear that the feds would only go after dispensaries that break state law. If the feds have the evidence to show violations of state law, perhaps this is the Obama Administration’s way of putting the pressure on dispensary owners to strictly adhere to state law. However, if the DEA, rather than California authorities, are put upon to enforce California law, this is an unfair enforcement, as defendants in federal court will be unable to use their state’s medical marijuana law as a defense.
(Who has “less than a month” in the “next DEA raid pool”, anyway? I guess you never lose too many political bets by being too cynical…)
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Americans for Safe Access teleconference on California DMV medical marijuana policy change, with personal testimonies from patients whose licenses had been suspended solely for medical status.
“It seems like it’s a lot less of a negative thing now,” said Tom Wiggins Jr., administrator for Inland Empire Cannabis Consultants of Temecula.
The trend worries a local anti-drug organization.
“Yes, we remain concerned that a pro-drug movement is afoot in the Inland Empire,” Roger Anderson, parent coalition chairman of the Inland Valley Drug Free Coalition, wrote in an e-mail.
“The pot users don’t really want a ‘medicine.’ They just want to get high,” Anderson wrote.
The videos I’ve seen of multiple sclerosis suffers, for example, say they receive immediate relief from symptoms after using cannabis. But I’m sure they really just want to get high. Why don’t you ask Montel Williams if he’s just looking for a raging buzz? I’m sure the AMA and the American MS Society are also just trying to push dope on potheads too:
A recent review of all available medications for MS concluded that “forthcoming information relating to the use of cannabinoids in MS may result in there being better evidence of the effectiveness of new treatments than of any of the currently used drugs.”
RevRayGreen: I'll post a pic of me and my son....gimme a minute
Missippi Hippy: Guess what... I'm gonna be a new... ummmmm well, my pet piggie Ganja is in labor and they ain't mine in the same sense. See what your wife [...]
RevRayGreen: days they didn't talk back..or act disrespectful..
RevRayGreen: feel so lucky my son is 18 going 19 and my daughter 16 going on 17..relish the days that can't talk back
Urb Age: Congrats Spof thats awesome. My little Clara is about to hit 20 months. Im not the activist I used to be, but its made me a better man.
Urb Age: Heck I was gonna go up there, but just not feeling well this weekend..Dang it, I hate it when that happens..
RevRayGreen: wishing I was hanging at NORML cafe...
JohnH: Just a quick comment about tokin' and sperm motility....been tokin since age 14 and have 8 kids ranging in age from 30 to 9...(what can I say, I found 2 [...]
slash5city: really ..oprah 35 yr or more in the closet toker ...outed ....o my god !!
SneakerPimp: that would be huge news just imagen the headline
RevRayGreen: maybe Oprah smokes and keeps it on the DL...
SneakerPimp: and good afternoon
mr reuben: I could do without seeing Rob K. on tv. But Bruce and Eithan get a big thumbs up from me.
SneakerPimp: waitn for NSL and congrast for spofett.
mr reuben: I don't respect her opinion bluzguy.
Missippi Hippy: Something about the last year in a contract... folks become more ballsey... and Oprah has big ones.
Adam: Oprah won't actually go off air for over a year, 2011 sometime. Maybe with here leaving the network soon, she'll be more likely to speak out about MMJ.
The Bluzguy: She promotes movies, turns books into best sellers overnight, and millions respect her opinion. Please contact her!
Missippi Hippy: I totally disregarded it Spof... My wife and I had 5 youngins
Adam: I'm rolling a fat joint, Everyones invited,Spof, Russ,MH,NORML, and MPP.
Missippi Hippy: Oprah announced her last show earlier this week
Marijuana-Related Health Costs Minimal Compared To Those Of Alcohol, Tobacco; California Medical Association Says Pot Prohibition Is A "Failed Public Health Policy"; Oregon: State NORML Affiliate Opens First 'Cannabis Café'. […]
American Medical Association Calls For Scientific Review Of Marijuana's Prohibitive Status; Dutch Marijuana Use Lower Than European Average, Study Says […]
"Truth In Trials Act" Reintroduced In Congress; Maine: Voters Approve Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Measure; Colorado: Breckenridge Voters Overwhelmingly Decide To End Pot Penalties. […]
Some of the nation’s top athletes discuss why today's pros are turning to cannabis — and away from alcohol and painkillers — off the field, and question why pro sports leagues are continuing to sanction those who do. Moderator: Steve Bloom, Author, Pot Culture; editor, celebstoner.com * Toby Grear, MMA fighter * Sean Neumann, Documentary Filmm […]
Cannabis Law Reform's Missing Link: Law Enforcement Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper; LEAP and NORML Advisory Board; Author of Breaking Rank Putting the Mexican Cartels Out of Business Mexican drug cartels now employ over 100,000 soldiers and are responsible for nearly ten thousand deaths per year. Their largest source of income is marijuana. […]
Groups threaten to sue Los Angeles if medical marijuana dispensaries are banned
waitn for NSL and congrast for spofett.
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