Past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, John Wesley Hall, lectures at NORML Aspen Legal Seminar

Welcome
Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director
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The NORML Amicus Curiae Committee
Leland Berger, Portland, OR
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The Ethical Considerations of Setting Fees
John Wesley Hall, Little Rock, Arkansas
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Countering the State’s Expert: Rebutting the Toxicologist and Keeping Your Client Out of Jail
Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director
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Selling Your Clients Case
Daniel-Paul Alva, Philadelphia, PA
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Ethical Considerations When Representing Medical Marijuana Growers, Wholesalers, Caregivers and Dispensaries
Matt Kumin, San Francisco, CA
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Medical Marijuana Legal Issues in CO and CA
Warren Edson, Denver, CO
Lauren Wolpin Maytin, Aspen, CO
William Panzer, Oakland, CA
Matt Kumin, San Francisco, CA
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Some quick notes from the first day of the Aspen Legal Seminar.  But first… venting!

My morning began with a hotel staff person who shall be known only as SDB.  This is my 3rd seminar so I’ve dealt with him before, but today was special.  In short, he would not allow me to run a line out from the hotel sound board to our board for the recording and live stream.  He told me last year somebody (me) ran it “too hot” and it burned out and cost him $200.  (Burned out the next weekend, I find out later, during some other groups’ presentations.)  I replied that (a) I was running an un-powered line out, which could not burn out a power amp, (b) I ran far more sophisticated sound systems professionally for two decades and know how to run them, and (c) your 20-year-old power amp burned out because it is dusty and stored in the top shelf of an unventilated closet next to similar closets for food warming.  (Kind of… that’s the gist of what I said.  I was a tad bit more emotional than that.)

I worked around SDB and used my microphone that costs more than his power amp to get recordings, which I’ll have posted here for you later tonight.  So the audio is not pristine-direct-from-mic, but is pretty good open room recording (except when the lecturers stepped away from the podium… arrgh!)

Anyway, quick notes:

Our NORML speakers are not afraid of exercising the First Amendment right to the f-bomb.

Love Warren Edson in the suit, tie, and flip-flops.

Let me get this straight: In Colorado now, you can form a collective dedicated solely to producing medicine for “infused” items, things like brownies or tinctures.  You’ll have no plant limit, so long as it all goes into “infused” items.  Oh, and also counted as “infused” items are hashish and hash oil.  Really?

Lee Berger in the tie-dyed tank top… mmm… not so much.

Bruce Margolin and LA NORML are rarin’ to go – look for much more promotion and activity in the Los Angeles area.

Ahhh… one crow-eating mea culpa accomplished, one to go.

Bill Panzer would like us all to remember that Marijuana is Still ILLEGAL.

Doug Hiatt, Bill & I will likely be jamming at Hunter’s place on Saturday.

You know you’re in Aspen when… the ATM spits out a $100 bill instead of five $20s.

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Hemp Headlines

1. Hawaii looks at bills to decriminalize marijuana and legalize medical marijuana dispensaries
2. New Hampshire cop cleared for duty, swears he will not arrest anyone using marijuana medically
3. Seattle’s new city attorney dismisses all marijuana possession cases and will not prosecute simple possession anymore

Daily Toker Tunes

Brought to you by Cannabis Fantastic

• Roots Monday: Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise – “Don’t Bogart Me”

Government at Work

• Anthony Johnson (CoalitionForPatientsRights2010.com) and Lee Berger (NORML Legal Committee) On I-28, a dispensary initiative for Oregon’s medical marijuana patients

Every Weekday 4ET/1PT

Last week we began streaming our live show on Stickam and it has been a resounding success.  The sound quality is crystal clear and we get the added advantage of a video-cam enabled chat room for all our listeners.  Our show is live every weekday at 4pm Eastern / 1pm Pacific and the archive of every live show is now podcasted at 6pm Eastern / 3pm Pacific as the NORML Daily Audio Stash if you can’t catch us live.  Check out the live page at http://live.norml.org and our blog/podcast at http://stash.norml.org.

2010 has begun with a bang!  Last week we covered live votes in New Jersey on medical marijuana, live hearings in California on legalization, and live hearings in Washington State on both decriminalization and legalization.  We are experiencing a wave of discussion around marijuana law reform like never before and NORML SHOW LIVE will be your source for the latest breaking news, interviews, and analysis.

This week we continue looking at our Government at Work.  On Monday, Anthony Johnson and Lee Berger will join us from Oregon to discuss a proposed dispensary initiative, plus we get a report from Linda Adler with US Virgin Islands NORML live from the Bordeaux Rasta Fair.  On Tuesday Alison Holcomb from the ACLU of Washington fills us in on the decriminalization and legalization bills in Washington and Matt Simon talks decriminalization in New Hampshire, with a special California Marijuana Report from Eric Brenner.

Wednesday we visit with SUNY Albany researcher Dr. Mitch Earleywine for some Cannabis Science, answering your questions about marijuana sent to 420research ‘at’ gmail.com.  Thursday we take a trip down to Southern California with our friend and Hollyweed Comedian, Tere Joyce.  And to round out your week on Friday we visit with High Times Senior Cultivation Editor Danny Danko to answer your grow questions in our Cultivator’s Corner.

We also feature a brand new Daily Toker Tune, with Roots Monday, Electric Tuesday, Irie Wednesday, Groovin’ Thursday, and Rockin’ Friday, brought to us by our NORML volunteer music editors.  You can also log into our live chat one hour before the show for more Toker Tunes while we chat live and hang out for an hour after the show for more.

It’s NORML SHOW LIVE: The Voice of the Marijuana Nation!  Join us every weekday at 4pm Eastern / 1pm Pacific.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The right of Oregonians to use marijuana for medical reasons and also to obtain concealed handgun permits is being challenged by local sheriffs who say federal law prevents those people from packing heat.

Advocates for the state’s medical marijuana law countered Wednesday in the Oregon Court of Appeals that the sheriffs simply don’t like the program and are looking for ways to undermine it.

Both sides now are looking to the courts to say definitively whether there’s anything to prevent Oregon from issuing the concealed handgun permits to users of medicinal pot.

Sheriffs from Washington and Jackson counties say, though, that they want clarification from the court on whether federal gun laws prohibiting illegal drug users from possessing handguns applies to people who have permits to use marijuana for medical reasons. Marijuana is still classified as a controlled substance under federal law, they said.

Lower courts had twice ordered the two sheriffs to give weapons permits to people who had lost them because they are medical marijuana users, and both appealed those rulings.

I hope the Oregon court takes some guidance from the California Supreme Court and US Supreme Court rulings on San Bernardino and San Diego counties’ suit over registry ID cards.  The California counties, headed up by law enforcement ideologues that hate their state’s medical marijuana law, thought they didn’t have to enforce the state law that required counties to make ID cards because the federal law says all pot is illegal.  Both the state and federal supreme courts deferred to earlier appellate judgments that state and local cops are charged with enforcing state and local law, not federal law.

By that reasoning, I’d assume county sheriffs in Oregon are bound to enforce state law, and since Oregon’s medical marijuana law says it is to be treated “like other medicines”, unless the sheriffs are pulling concealed handgun permits from Vicodin and Oxycontin users, they shouldn’t be pulling them from medical marijuana users.

Furthermore, since this state has no dispensary system, patients are forced to grow their own or store large quantities of medicine, making them prime targets for robbers and home invasions – disabled people with lots of weed in their homes are the very people the 2nd Amendment was enacted to protect!

Russ Belville interviewed by Portland NBC affiliate (KGW)

Happy 4/20 to activists everywhere!  I spent the morning Salem at the Oregon State Capitol with activists from Oregon NORML and other groups in protest of Senate Bill 388.  These are changes in the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act being sought by law enforcement in association with one medical marijuana patients organization.  Every other organization representing patients in Oregon stand united in opposition to these changes.

Most troublesome are measures designed to curb the number of patients a medical grower can provide for.   We have many patients in hospice who are served by these large cooperative grows, and SB388 would make them almost impossible.  A compassionate grower I know asked, “which one of my 26 cancer, MS, and AIDS patients do I tell I can’t help anymore?”

(Sorry to say my day is completely booked with 4/20 festivities… so no Stash for today.  The complete 4/20 round-up will be online tomorrow.  Have a great day, I know I am. — “R”R)

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I’m doing a bit of remote podcasting from here on the Central Oregon coast.  Hope you enjoy today’s show.  I’ve got an interview with Portland attorney and NORML Legal Committee member Leland Berger.  With the Supreme Court deciding today there is an individual right to keep and bear arms, it’s fitting that we talk about how a couple of sheriffs in Oregon tried to take away that right from some law-abiding medical marijuana patients.

As you can read below, we had a winner in our Pass the Stash contest.  Thanks for all the entries, and next time I won’t make the questions so tricky (worldwide box office? possession only? tricky, dude…)

Also enjoy another tune from the incredible Carolyn Wonderland.  It’s her ballad of a young woman serving time for dealing pot called “Annie’s Scarlet Letter.”

Gotta go – the ocean beckons…

Washington County (Hillsboro; just west of Portland) Oregon Judge Steven L. Price ordered Sheriff Rob Gordon to return to three Oregon Medical Marijuana patients their concealed handgun licenses. Sheriff Gordon had denied one patient’s application, one patient’s renewal, and had revoked one patient’s license based on the argument that federal law prohibiting the possession of a firearm by a controlled substances user preempted state law.  Judge Price ruled it did not, as did Washington County Judge Marco Hernandez before him.

I argued the same issue (with basically the same letter from the sheriff and the same argument from county counsel) before Jackson County (Medford, Southern Oregon) Presiding Judge Shively on Friday morning and am hopeful for a similar result.

I’ve long argued about the effect the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Parmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs has on our Constitutional rights, and the 2nd Amendment is no less a victim than the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 14th, and 15th.

My contention is that since most mandatory minimum sentences double when there are firearms present, even if the firearms are legally possessed, doesn’t this in essence serve to deprive cannabis consumers of our 2nd Amendment rights?  People think of guns and drugs and automatically assume the person must be some cold-blooded drug dealer when many are just cannabis gardeners who can’t call the cops when scary kids with weapons break in to steal very profitable crops.

But these cases take the cake.  I’ve talked with Lee about these cases, where sheriffs in Oregon’s more conservative counties will disarm medical marijuana patients who are following state laws with respect to marijuana and the handgun.  The idea that the patients are really just dope dealers is a prejudice found often in law enforcement, which is the craziest idea when those patients have filled out a form with the state and registered their address for growing into an electronic database that is instantly accessible by law enforcement to verify legality.  That’s far more registration than most law-abiding gun owners are subject to.