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Hemp Headlines

Brought to you by Cannabis Fantastic

1. 7th Annual Portland Hempstalk report
2. Chicago man dies when car crashes into his home, exposing his home marijuana grow, roommate survives but faces grow charges
3. Lansing medical marijuana provider who offered 0.5g of cannabis to register to vote faces misdemeanor voter influence charges
4. Vancouver, Washington, holding town hall meeting on the subject of dispensaries

Daily Toker Tunes

• Roots Monday: Ella Fitzgerald – When I Get Low, I Get High

Cannabis Community

• “Radical” Russ and Cannabis Karri live wrap-up of Saturday at Hempstalk 2011

Cannabis Conversations

• Jonah Raskin, author of “Marijuanaland: Dispatches from an American War”

(Full disclosure: THCF used to be a prime sponsor of this blog and podcast and this blogger’s family have worked for THCF.  THCF has also been a past sponsor of some National NORML events and Oregon NORML events during my tenure as Associate Director of the Portland Chapter.)

Paul Stanford of THCF on Cannabis Common Sense

The government tactic of going after people it doesn’t like by scrutinizing their tax records is a time-tested method of imprisoning those it can’t catch through other methods.  Al Capone was not brought down for his bootlegging activities, it was tax charges that landed him in a cell.  Willie Nelson was famously hit with a $16.7 million tax bill, leading to his album, “The IRS Tapes: Who’ll Buy My Memories?”

Whether it is through purposeful fraud, like Capone, or complicated accident, like Nelson, everyone knows that the gub’mint revenuer is nobody to mess with.  Currently, two of the biggest and best-respected dispensary operations in California, Berkeley Patients Group and Harborside Health Center, are undergoing investigation for their tax issues.

So it is with disappointment that we report on the latest tax prosecution of an activist and cannabis businessman, Paul Stanford of The Hemp & Cannabis Foundation, the broadest nationwide network of clinics specializing in medical marijuana recommendations, based here in Portland, Oregon and operating clinics in California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Washington.

(WWeek) Attorney General John Kroger today announced the arrest of the president of The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation on allegations that he failed to pay taxes for two years.

“In these tough economic times every tax dollar is crucial, and we cannot afford to let people cheat on their taxes,” said Attorney General Kroger.

Paul Stanford was arrested March 7 on an indictment charging him with two counts of Failure to File Personal Income Taxes for 2008 and 2009.

He is scheduled to be arraigned on March 21 in Marion County Circuit court. Stanford is the president of The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation (THCF), an organization started in 1999 as a charitable 501(c)(3) foundation.

The indictment and arrest followed an investigation by the Department of Justice’s Charitable Activities Section and Criminal Justice Division.

A criminal indictment is merely an allegation. Every criminal defendant is considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

In 2010, the IRS announced that it had revoked THCF’s status as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity.

THCF is also a prime sponsor of the Seattle Hempfest and Portland Hempstalk, two of the largest hemp festivals in the world, and produces through its political arm, CRRH, the cable access show Cannabis Common Sense that is seen throughout the Pacific Northwest and the rest of the country.

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.

Bonnie King is an excellent reporter I’ve had the chance to talk with many times.  She covers the medical marijuana beat for the Salem-News and I see her at every event.  Please continue to the Salem-News website for the whole report.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Plenty more videos from Hempstalk 2009, including Jack Herer’s last speech before his heart attack, available from CRRH’s Restore Hemp channel.

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Hemp Headlines

1. The Emperor of Hemp, Jack Herer, suffers heart attack backstage at Portland Hempstalk
2. Nationwide marijuana arrests down for first time since 2002, but still 2nd highest arrest total ever
3. Police seek grower sales records from Berkeley Patients Group, get nothing

Cannabis Science with Dr. Mitch Earleywine

• Did Jack Herer’s chronic cannabis use help or hurt him with regards to his heart attack?
• Study of anti-marijuana PSAs shows teens more likely to use when they see marijuana use in the ad

Cannabis Community

• Live audio excerpts from Saturday at Portland Hempstalk.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jack Herer speaks at Portland Hempstalk

The author of the seminal marijuana legalization tome The Emperor Wears No Clothes, Jack Herer, collapsed backstage at the fifth annual Portland Hempstalk, shortly after delivering a fiery speech on the Main Stage.  NORML’s Madeline  Martinez followed Jack in the speaking lineup and noted his apparent weakness, telling him he should find some shade from the high temperatures that were close to records in this usually cool Pacific Northwest climate.

A Hempstalk security volunteer named Matt and a hired park security officer were first on the scene to attend to Jack, performing CPR and trying to keep him comfortable as paramedics arrived at the Kelley Point Park.  Hempstalk musicians and speakers gathered backstage, including activists and friends who have known and worked with Jack for many years, stood in shock as the medical personnel fought to keep Jack alive using breathing tubes, IV drugs, and the defibrillator.  The decisive action by Hempstalk staff in responding to the emergency and subsequently clearing the paths for the ambulance certainly made a huge impact on Jack’s fight for life.  Madeline commented, “Matt is my hero today; he was just phenomenal.  He knew exactly what to do and immediately started CPR.  He probably saved his life.”

Jack had suffered a stroke a few years back at another hemp rally, coincidentally while posing for photographs with Madeline and others.  Ironically, at the Cannabis Common Sense show the night prior, Jack was discussing the stroke and his recovery since.  Paul Stanford had noted how much Jack’s speech has been improving even since the prior year at Hempstalk, to which Jack replied “I’m feeling better than I have in ten years.”

Initial reports of the incident occurred as I was preparing NORML SHOW LIVE.  I could see the entrance of the ambulance from my vantage point at the Hemposium, but was unaware that it had arrive for one of my heroes.  Cannabis Karri ventured out to recruit live guests at 6:20pm and that was when we got first word of the attack, with the only news at that point being “Jack Herer has collapsed, people performed CPR, paramedics said ‘he has a pulse’ as he was taken from the backstage.”

As the evening rolled on we spoke with one of the staff at Jack’s booth, situated next to Oregon NORML’s and just two booths away from the Hemposium.  She told us that Jack’s son was with him at Emanuel hospital, he’d suffered a heart attack due to arterial blockage and was on the operating table in critical condition undergoing an angioplasty [UPDATE: Initial reports I received of an angioplasty were unfounded; he had had an angiogram and the volunteer relaying the information to me confused the two terms.  I apologize for the misinformation - things were a bit chaotic].  A decidedly somber tone had fallen over the entire Hempstalk proceedings, with onstage speakers telling the crowd about the situation and calling for best wishes and prayers for Jack, his wife and family.

I have already been using Twitter, the “micro-blogging” service that allows me to send 140 characters of text and hyperlinks live from all the events I attend.  You see those “tweets” up in the cloud of smoke in the header and the last five on the lower right sidebar.  You can also follow them all at http://twitter.com/radicalruss and you can even have them delivered by text message to your cell phone if you choose.

Then came TwitPic.  This service lets me take pictures with my cell phone camera and post them on the web at http://twitpic.com/photos/radicalruss.  TwitPic delivers those pictures via a hyperlink in a tweet, so everyone who is following RadicalRuss on Twitter automatically gets those pictures, too.  (I can just hear my dad, “Twits and tweets and blog and pods, what the hell are you talking about?”)

Now comes Cinch.  This is a feature included with our new NORML SHOW LIVE BlogTalkRadio platform.  It’s like an “audio tweet”.  All I do is call the dial-in number and talk (646-200-0000 – you can dial it if you like, but warning; there is no “delete”).  Whatever I say gets posted to http://cinch.blogtalkradio.com/norml as an MP3 file.  (And if you call, it goes to cinch.blogtalkradio.com/########## where the #’s are your phone number.)  You can hear my introductory “cinch” down the right side of the sidebar.  When I have the time I’ll craft the PHP to put those in handy Flash audio players… and I hope soon they’ll integrate it with Twitter.

Starting September 5 we’ll be using BlogTalkRadio to stream NORML SHOW LIVE, which you’ll find on players here and NORML.org, or on the main show page at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/norml.  The first show will be from NORML West Coast Media HQ with my fancy-schmancy studio, but for the following four weeks, I’ll be doing live remote broadcasts from Portland Hempstalk, Boston Freedom Rally, NORML CON 2009, and Great Midwest Harvest Fest using just a laptop, a small Mackie board, and a couple of mics.

So if it is happening in the world of NORML and I’m there, you will read it, see it, and hear it here first!