Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at 10:29 am | By: Radical Russ
Jack Herer holds his book, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" at Portland Hempstalk
(Salem-News) [November 1st], Jack Herer was taken by ambulance to the hospital in Eugene from the rehabilitation center where he has been receiving care. His breathing became more distressed throughout the afternoon, and finally he was rushed to the Emergency Room.
He was diagnosed with bronchitis, and given antibiotics to overcome the illness. Such prevention may not have been possible just a few days ago, when a “Do Not Transport” order was in effect. Because of a recent change in Jack’s care, they were able to get him appropriate treatment, which could literally have saved his life.
More good news, Jack has been responding well to Speech, Physical and Occupational therapy treatments administered at the care center where he’s residing in Eugene, Oregon. He is coherent. His speech is beginning to come back. He has no IV’s, no breathing tube, and though he has a feeding tube, they expect to remove it as soon as this week.
The bad news, is the breakdown within the ranks of Jack’s supporters. While Jack works to heal and rehabilitate, the world outside his room is swirling with controversy.
Much has been said as of late regarding the recent change of Jack’s care management, and the subject has seemingly taken on a life of its own. Jeannie Herer and others are unhappy with the new decision by the care center to acknowledge a Power of Attorney that moves authority of Jack’s care to Joy Graves and Chuck Jacobs.
Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 2:26 pm | By: Radical Russ
(JackHerer.com) This is Jack’s wife, Jeannie. Jack had a heart attack in Portland, Oregon on September 12. I was in California waiting for him to come home. I flew to Portland, went to the hospital and was told that a woman named Joy Graves had come to the hospital with a Medical Power of Attorney that Jack had allegedly signed, naming her and Chuck Jacobs as the people in charge of Jack’s medical care. It wasn’t complete and looks like someone forged his signature. The hospital’s legal team determined it was no good.
Jack is now in a skilled nursing facililty in Eugene. Joy Graves has taken the paper to them and they have accepted it until their legal team decides what to do. In the meantime, I am not allowed to see Jack or even get news about his condition over the phone. Jack has already been neglected in the nursing home. He fell out of bed there and hit his head shortly after being admitted. He had lumps on his head from it and bruises on his upper eyelids.
I’ve had to hire an attorney to deal with this. I don’t have much money but I’ll do what I can. I love Jack very much and can’t believe this is happening to him now, when he needs me the most.
Yes, I know when I’m in the middle of a hempfest, just about ready to go up and give a rousing speech, I make sure to sign over my medical power of attorney to somebody who is not my wife.
I’ve reached out to all my contacts in the Oregon cannabis community to see if I can get more on the story. I spoke with Paul Stanford from The Hemp & Cannabis Foundation who told me that Chuck Jacobs and “a lady with some different name” (i.e., could be Joy Graves, but using a pseudonym) brought Jack to Portland and had been traveling with him. Paul is looking up his records to find Mr. Jacobs’ phone number and I will follow up as soon as I have it.
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Daily Audio Stash EXCLUSIVE Interview with The Human Revolution (Human, Zahira, and Oliver), plus two acoustic performances, “Here in California” and “Kindness”. Check out TheHumanRevolution.org (and ZahiraMusic.com).
“The story you’re about to write is completely bullshit.” This is as good a place to start as any, with one of the first sentences spoken to me over the phone by Jerry Wade, who serves as secretary for the Stormy Ray Cardholder’s Foundation (SRCF). Wade was responding — in a kind of preemptive strike, since no specific questions had yet been asked — to a request that his organization respond to the scads of criticism leveled at SRCF by other organizations in the movement.
According to Wade, SB 388, which received a hearing in Salem April 20, focused exclusively on the needs and rights of patients who use medical marijuana. The bill, he said, sought to prevent abuses on the supply side of the issue by ensuring clear and legal access to well-regulated and well-defined marijuana producers who are growing pot solely for patients.
Now, as for the “bullshit”: Numerous individuals and organizations have claimed, in so many words, that SRCF is a puppet and a front for The Man; and that the organization, by working so closely with law enforcement and politicians, is a slave to power; and that it does not represent the collective interest of the medical marijuana movement.
Anthony Johnson of Voter Power said: “It is a shame that the Stormy Ray Cardholder’s Foundation, an organization with just a handful of members, has been propped up and used by the law enforcement lobby to pass laws that actually harm sick and disabled patients.”
The actual harm being done, Johnson claimed, is “by conning legislators that compromises are being made while patients are only going to be harmed by proposals that reduce the amount of medicine available and will lead to more resources being wasted on the arrest and jailing of patients and their providers.”
Koozer from WV-NORML said that the legalization movement in general is “appalled” that Ray has “worked her way into being the only group that law enforcement will deal with and speak with.” In general, Koozer added, it’s confusing that legislators are paying so much attention to law enforcement, which he called “addicted” to the money it makes waging the so-called War on Drugs. He warns further that it’s a dangerous thing when law enforcement is involved in the making of laws, a process typically, if not constitutionally, delegated to the legislative branch of government.
Among the travesties included in the Stormy Ray bill were provisions to limit grow sites to 24 ounces of medicine total, despite how many patients a garden serves, instead of the current situation where a grow site can have 24 ounces per patient served. Since at least 20% of grow sites serve more than one patient, this would have immediately impacted patients because the growers could still have 6 mature plants per patient, and what grower would want to take the risk of taking on multiple patients when at harvest time, he’d be way out of compliance? (And the 20% is DHS’ number; I think it is much higher because while 75% of grow sites only care for a single patient, DHS requires that patients list a grow site even if they aren’t growing. Therefore a large unknown percentage of grow sites are “paperwork only”. I’d bet at least 50% of grow sites serve more than one patient.) In a time where the #1 complaint for patients is lack of access to medicine, Stormy Ray wanted to create disincentive to serve patients and more easier busts for law enforcement.
Similarly, Stormy Ray lobbied for a new limit for hashish, 2 ounces, where current law allows for 24. They lobbied for DHS to be given the right to inspect grow sites at a moment’s notice and to forward violations found in inspections to law enforcement for immediate prosecution. They lobbied for the printing of a “medical marijuana manual” that DHS would print (at considerable cost in this economic downturn) and require patients’ signatures for, which could then be used as another way to punish patients and growers who may later be investigated by law enforcement. This is how Stormy Ray protects patients: by reducing the number of growers, the number of plants grown, the amount of medicine possessed, and empowering law enforcement’s ability to prosecute patients and growers.
See, that’s all it takes to bring together Oregon’s famously quarrelsome marijuana advocacy groups: one bad bill to fight and one bad actor to oppose.
I also got my op-ed published in that edition; the complete text follows after the break.
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Sunday, April 26th, 2009 at 12:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
OFFICE OF THE MAYOR
City of Eugene, Oregon
PROCLAMATION
Official Proclamation of Medical Marijuana Awareness Week in Eugene, Oregon
WHEREAS: In November 1998, Oregon voters passed into law the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, allowing Oregonians suffering from debilitating medical conditions to use marijuana as medicine. Currently, nearly 25,000 patients are enrolled and over 2,900 doctors have provided recommendations for patients’ utilization of medical marijuana; and
WHEREAS: Thirteen states have passed laws allowing for chronically and seriously ill patients to use cannabis with the approval of their physicians; and
WHEREAS: On September 6, 1988, Drug Enforcement Administrations (DEA) own Administrative Law Judge, Francis L. Young, ruled that “Marijuana, in it’s natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known”; and
WHEREAS: There are over are over 17,000 published scientific studies on the therapeutic values of cannabis and cannabinoids in the National Library of Medicine, and, there are over 2,600 patents filed for the medical use of cannabinoids in the United States Patent office; and
WHEREAS: Pre-Clinical and Clinical trials indicate that cannabinoids are useful in controlling Alzheimer’s Disease, Cancer, Chronic Pain, Diabetes, G I Disorders, Hepatitis C, Multiple Sclerosis, Osteoporosis, Pruritis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Sleep Apnea; and,
WHEREAS: Marijuana has a history of thousands of years of safe use without any recorded deaths attributed to its use, and, all citizens deserve to know the truth about cannabis,
NOW, THEREFORE, I, Kitty Piercy, Mayor of the City of Eugene, Oregon, do hereby proclaim the Week of April 30th, 2009 to May 6th, 2009 as “Medical Marijuana Awareness Week” in the city of Eugene, and encourage all citizens to join in this observance.
Kitty Piercy, Mayor
Dated this 22nd day of April 2009
A huge public relations win for our chapter in Eugene, Willamette Valley NORML! This is the kind of idea NORML Chapters around the country in medical marijuana states should try. When we can say, “the mayors of X, Y, Z, P, D, & Q all recognized and celebrated medical marijuana” to legislators at the state house, it helps us convince them that this is truly a mainstream issue and they needn’t fear losing their seat in the next election for supporting medical marijuana.
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You can still win tickets to see 311 + Snoop Dogg in the Washington DC area this Sunday. Click the button over on the right and enter the raffle for only $4.20. Your donation benefits NORML’s advocacy to end adult marijuana prohibition, and you could win tickets worth approximately $100. There’s a drawing every day this week and you must be 18 or older to enter.
Kelly Maddy from Sensible Joplin and Joplin NORML joins us to discuss his submission of over 6,000 signatures for an initiative to decriminalize marijuana possession by adults within city limits.
And we’ve got a great Stupid Stoner Story, even though the victim wasn’t really stupid, just a lousy dancer.
Roll up a blunt (but no tobacco, please) and sit back, it’s time for your NORML Daily Audio Stash.
Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 1:52 pm | By: Radical Russ
Now that June has arrived it is time to start looking at the Summer Festival Schedule. I’m going to open this up with a look at the summer festivals I’ll be attending in my neck of the woods in the Pacific Northwest. I’m going to depend on you marvelous Stashers to keep me informed on what’s happening in your area. Just send me an email at stash@norml.org and I’ll be glad to promote your area’s summer festival. The Northwest schedule is listed in the Full Story below:
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.
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. […]
Bonnie King reports latest updates on Jack Herer
waitn for NSL and congrast for spofett.
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