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Michael C. Ruppert on the CoLLapse movie and sudden cancellation of his publishing contract with an Arkansas publisher who cites “moral reasons” because of his support of hemp legalization (one point in a 25 point pook.)
Friday, August 21st, 2009 at 2:18 pm | By: Radical Russ
ECHO PARK, Calif. (KABC) — For the third time in a week, the Los Angeles Police Department has raided a medical marijuana facility.
Police arrested three people during the raid Thursday night at the Royal Temple of Zion in Echo Park.
Authorities say the facility has not applied for a hardship permit like all the other medical marijuana dispensaries, so selling the marijuana is illegal. About two pounds of marijuana were seized.
Oh my gosh! A whole two pounds of marijuana! Here in Oregon, that’s 2/3rds the amount of medical marijuana two registered patients may possess. Even at ridiculously-inflated black-market-dictated California dispensary prices that’s less than $10,000 worth of marijuana. I wonder how much it costs the city of Los Angeles to execute and prosecute such a raid? Wanna bet it’s more than $10,000?
Those associated with the temple say it is a Rastafarian ministry, and it has the legal right to sell marijuana to the sick.
“This is a church run medical marijuana club providing medical marijuana for sick people, but we do it as a church,” said Pastor Craig Rubin.
Pastor Rubin believes police are targeting those that have been vocal about legalizing the drug.
Pastor Rubin, as you may remember, is the man who was offering patients a free eighth ounce of marijuana if they would come testify at the LA PLUM hearings two weeks ago.
“They seem to be particularly picking out people who have applied for these hardships who speak out,” said Pastor Rubin.
Members say because this is a place of worship they have not done anything illegal.
“It’s because we believe a cannabis from Revelations 22 is a plant for the healing of all nations and that people should have access to this plant. It’s not only benign, it’s benevolent,” said Pastor Rubin.
Yes, and I believe the Flying Spaghetti Monster brought forth cannabis from his noodly appendages to give to humanity so they may savor His Succulent Meatballs, so I shouldn’t be arrested for my pot smoking, either.
Sorry, I know many reading this have sincere religious beliefs and some have sincere beliefs that treat ganja as sacrament, but as an atheist I continue to be offended by the notion that because I treat all books as written works of men, not gods, I deserve to be arrested and jailed for my use of cannabis. I completely support the right of religious folks to use ganja because I completely support the inalienable right of ALL folks to use cannabis, but when religious folks think they have a special and unique right to not be arrested for cannabis because they picked the right god, they are discriminating against me for my lack of a god.
Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 12:26 pm | By: Radical Russ
(Virginia Daily Press) Local prosecutors are worried that a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court in late June could hamstring the criminal justice system — and cause some defendants to escape prosecution.
In a 5-4 ruling in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, the high court determined that prosecutors are responsible for having crime lab experts on hand for trials so that the defense can challenge their findings. That clashes with Virginia’s court practices, which placed the responsibility on the defense attorney to request the analysts’ presence.
Crime lab workers perform such analysis as DNA and fingerprint tests, gun analysis, Breathalyzer tests in DUI cases and tests of suspected drugs to see if they’re the real thing.
But requiring the analysts, including those working out of a Norfolk lab, to spend more time in court means less time performing lab work.
“If scientists had to appear at all the drug cases and DUI cases, you can imagine the chaos that would result,” said Hampton Commonwealth’s Attorney Linda D. Curtis. “If they’re required to travel all over the Peninsula and the Southside, they won’t be in the lab doing analyses. … So this could potentially create a bottleneck in the courtroom and the labs.”
One way to fix the problem, of course, is for the state to hire more crime lab workers, but that’s seen as a long shot given the state’s budget crisis.
Some lawyers speculate that many of the more minor drug offenses — such as marijuana possession — could fall by the wayside first.
The Virginia Department of Forensic Science, a state agency, has four crime labs — in Richmond, Norfolk, Roanoke and Manassas. With 160 employees, the labs performed tests for 60,000 criminal cases in 2008, or 5,000 a month. They work on tests for drugs, alcohol, fingerprints, DNA, guns, trace evidence and documents.
Gosh, golly, gee, it sure is a pain in the butt to afford citizens their constitutional rights, isn’t it? It’s just so much easier for a nameless faceless lab to declare you guilty, never mind that silly constitutional guarantee of facing your accusers.
According to the 2007 FBI Uniform Crime Report, there were 32,941 arrests for “drug abuse violations” in the state of Virginia. Since 47% of all drug arrests nationwide are for cannabis, that works out to over 15,000 marijuana arrests. I don’t know how many of those went to trial and required the use of one of those 160 “CSI” employee’s time, but if even one case requires Grissom and crew to analyze a bag of weed when they could be matching up a rapist’s DNA to a rape kit sample, a thief’s fingerprints to the FBI database, or a bullet’s ballistics to a murderer’s gun, it’s one too many.
Friday, July 3rd, 2009 at 8:20 am | By: Radical Russ
(WOWT) The Nebraska Supreme Court upheld the finding of a lower court, ruling Thursday that a secretary who worked for a warden in the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services should not have been fired for smoking marijuana.
John Ahmann by all accounts was a good worker, but when he was randomly selected for a drug test, he tested positive for having used marijuana and was fired by the state.
Ahmann and his union went to court noting that the drug use had been during off-hours, that it had not impacted Ahmann’s “spotless” work performance and that Ahmann had expressed a willingness to stop using marijuana.
The lower court agreed that while the state might discipline Ahmann in some fashion, firing was too severe and Nebraska’s high court agreed.
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 1:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
Medical marijuana patients and growers can sue police for illegally raiding their property and destroying their plants, a state appeals court ruled Wednesday.
The 2-1 decision by the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento was the first in the state to allow a patient or grower to sue claiming that their rights to cultivate and use medical marijuana have been violated. Those rights are protected by state law but banned by federal law.
Officials in Butte County, where the case arose, argued that patients and suppliers can invoke the medical marijuana law only as a defense to criminal charges, not to sue for damages. The court’s dissenting justice said no one is entitled to compensation for the destruction of a drug banned under federal law.
But the court’s majority said a marijuana patient or member of a collective has the same right as anyone else to sue officers who violate the constitutional ban on illegal searches and seizures.
Brad Stephens, a deputy county counsel, said the county would probably appeal to the state Supreme Court.
Butte County, you really want to play out this hand? Did you learn nothing from San Diego and San Bernadino? The federal law banning marijuana does not relieve state, county, and local officials from obeying the state medical marijuana law. You can take this to the California Supremes and lose and take it to the federal Supremes and be ignored, and all you’ll do in the process is waste a lot of Butte County taxpayers’ money.
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Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 11:20 am | By: Radical Russ
WASHINGTON (CNN) — A former middle-school student who was strip-searched by school officials looking for ibuprofen pain medication won a partial victory of her Supreme Court appeal Thursday in a case testing the discretion of officials to ensure classroom safety.
Redding was an eighth-grade honor student in 2003, with no history of disciplinary problems at Safford Middle School, about 127 miles from Tucson, Arizona.
During an investigation into pills found at the school, a student told the vice principal that Redding had given her prescription-strength 400-milligram ibuprofen pills.
The school had a near-zero-tolerance policy for all prescription and over-the-counter medication, including the ibuprofen, without prior written permission.
Redding was pulled from class by Vice Principal Kerry Wilson, escorted to an office and confronted with the evidence. The girl denied the accusations.
A search of Redding’s backpack found nothing. A strip search was conducted by Wilson’s assistant and a school nurse, both females.
Redding was ordered to strip to her underwear and to pull on the elastic of the underwear, so any hidden pills might fall out, according to court records. No drugs were found.
“The strip search was the most humiliating experience I have ever had,” Redding said in an affidavit. “I held my head down so that they could not see that I was about to cry.”
The decision was 8-1. Justice Clarence Thomas thought the Constitution doesn’t really cover the “preservation of order, discipline and safety in public schools”, so if you want to strip-search 13-year-old girls at school, the Founding Fathers would have been cool with that. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens thought the girl should be able to sue the school administrators who humiliated her, but the rest of the court decided that up til now it hasn’t been very clear how much protection the Constitution gives 13-year-old schoolgirls from strip searches, so the administrators couldn’t be reasonably expected to know they couldn’t just do that (if I’m reading SCOTUSblog’s analysis correctly).
So, from now on, there will be more protection for 13-year-old girls in school to not be expected to strip to their panties for school officials – not police, a freakin’ vice principal’s assistant and a school nurse! - when a teenage snitch lies about them holding drugs. But all you 13-year-old girls who were strip-searched, you have no recourse.
I don’t suppose anybody ever considered just calling the girls’ parents. ”Hello, Mrs. Redding? We have a tip your daughter may be holding prescription ibuprofen in violation of our zero-tolerance policy. Can you come down to the school, please?” No, wait, excuse me, I forgot, we’re talking about drugs; there’s no room for common sense here! What am I thinking? I just expected someone who takes seriously the phrase “zero tolerance” to show common sense.
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 1:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
Wow! I just received a fax from McGraw Hill, the people who make college textbooks, among other publishing. They happened on a piece I wrote for The Oregon Herald on 4/20/2005 (just two weeks before I met Madeline Martinez and started my career in marijuana law reform) entitled “Drug Testing Does No Good” and are asking my permission to reprint it in a college textbook entitled “Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Management” that will be published in August. Yours truly even receives a fee! For something I wrote and forgot about four years ago! (Ain’t the intertubes wonderful?)
Here it is for your reading pleasure…
Recently, an RV manufacturing plant in Goshen, Indiana, made headlines because they had drug tested all 120 of their employees and found that nearly a third of them tested positive for some illicit substance.
What caused the company to drug test all of their employees? Was there a rash of accidents? Had productivity dropped significantly? Were there increasing incidents of absenteeism and illness? Did a supervisor notice any drug use occurring at the plant, or notice an employee obviously under the influence of drugs?
No. The only reason the plant spent the time, effort, and money to test their employees was due to a police tip that there was a drug problem at the plant. In other words, there was no reason for the company to believe they had a drug problem.
You would think that running a manufacturing plant with one third of your employees working under the influence would lead to some obvious problems. You’d be right. The problem is that a positive drug test does not indicate that a person is under the influence of drugs. It only indicates that a person has done drugs in the past.
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 2:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
A Golden State Win for Pot Smokers: The U.S. Supreme Court — or should we say (cue Jeff Spicoli laugh) “High Court” — rejected appeals from two hold-out counties in Southern California that objected to the state’s 13-year-old medical marijuana law and claimed it should be struck down as violating the federal drug control act. Without comment, the court turned down the pair of appeals. The action probably will clear the way for patients in San Diego and San Bernardino counties to seek county-issued identification cards that show they are eligible to possess and use marijuana.
That’s the law blog of the Wall Street Journal, a serious old media stalwart, calling sick and disabled people “pot smokers” and teasing them with Fast Times at Ridgemont High references. Let’s see how that blurb would’ve read for other disabled people, using the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog’s respectful tone:
A Golden State Win for Retards: The US Supreme Court sided with the Special Olympics — or should we say (cue Corky) “the short bus 100-yard dash”…
How about a headline for gay marriage:
A Golden State Loss for Queers: The California Supreme Court ruled against gay marriage activists — or should we say (cue Streisand) “fairy-age”…
What about a headline for black people:
A Golden State Loss for Mulattos: The US Supreme Court ruled that a man of both African and Caucasian descent — or should we say (cue Halle Berry) “a Halfrican American”…
No offense intended to gay, black, mentally-challenged people, but I am sick and tired of the endless pot puns that make up what is supposed to be serious reporting from serious news outlets. How hard is it to write:
A Golden State Win for Medical Marijuana Patients: The US Supreme Court reject appeals…
Monday, May 18th, 2009 at 8:20 am | By: Radical Russ
(FOX News) The Supreme Court announced Monday it will not get involved in a dispute over California’s medical marijuana law.
The case presented a direct conflict to the justices of California’s Compassionate Use Act which its detractors say contravenes federal laws prohibiting drug use. A California appeals court ruled last summer that the state’s medical marijuana law does not preempt a federal drug ban.
Monday’s decision by the high court effectively affirms that ruling.Thirteen states have laws allowing for the limited use of marijuana. California’s law allows for individuals and their caregivers to “possess, cultivate and transport” marijuana as long as it used for medical purposes. Local officials in San Diego objected and filed a lawsuit saying the state law violates the federal Controlled Substances Act.
In its argument to the Court, the local officials said the California law is contrary to federal efforts to limit drug use. They argued “it is inevitable that marijuana originally grown for medicinal use will fall into the hands of recreational drug users.”
California joined a handful of pro-Marijuana groups in asking the Court to not take the case. They argued the specifics of this case made it a “poor vehicle” for the high court to use in deciding such a controversial issue.
San Diego county, San Bernadino county, guess what? You lost! Your silly little argument that you have lost at every trial and appeals court level has finally been declared over by the highest court in the land. The people of California want medical marijuana, the state has made it legal, and your little conservative enclaves have to obey the laws just like everyone else… even the laws you don’t personally like. You have to issue medical marijuana ID cards to patients that want them. You have to allow patients to grow and possess and use their natural medications. You have to be obedient counties in the state of California!
Now, will someone will press a Freedom of Information Act request to determine how much taxpayer money these two counties wasted in the continued pursuit of a dubious legal strategy that had tasted defeat at every judicial level?
RevRayGreen: MASS TWEET THIS -@ChuckGrassley Truth is Chuck you follow Nixon's CSA full of reefer sadness. btw Chuck, Marijuana is not a drug.
RevRayGreen: @ChuckGrassley http://bit.ly/55Ejsi Truth is Chuck you follow Nixon's CSA full of reefer madness. btw Chuck, Marijuana is not a drug.
SneakerPimp: one last thing Puff puff pass to any one who wants it
SneakerPimp: i wanna here about the imminent MiniSpof sounds like time for some
SneakerPimp: im estatic and excited for NSL today.
SneakerPimp: mountain time wake n bake
SneakerPimp: oh yea also wake n bake
SneakerPimp: its central im high as a kite everybody
SneakerPimp: ill grab that WUD
WakeUpDead: @Russ, I dont think that wireless is going to work out for the show, it was choppy and studdered just like last week. Hardline may be the only way. Puff [...]
WakeUpDead: A MINI Spof, Lock up your Weed, in 18 years that is. Really Man congrats! Greatest days of my life when my kids were born, hell yeh, great news [...]
BenJaMin: Late night Stash!!!
SneakerPimp: heres a bong rip for spof
RevRayGreen: errr test over....
RevRayGreen: on hold..
RevRayGreen: @RR I'll try and lob a call to you.....
SneakerPimp: where is the first field of cannabis gonna be?
SneakerPimp: !
Radical Russ: Breaking News: MrSpof's wife's water just broke! A MiniSpof is imminent!
SneakerPimp: oh russ its not my fault that i dont understand choppy word:stoned:
SneakerPimp: @Mrspof congratulations tell us all about it tommrow
Radical Russ: OK, test over. Sorry. Only needed a half hour. Be back tomorrow afternoon.
slash5city: don't forget to watch CCS live on u-stream 8 pm west
thaistik: Local Crime Stoppers notice.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Pot shop burglars sought
Crime Stoppers is looking for information on the suspects who police say burglarized a medical marijuana dispensary and stole cash, drugs [...]
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. […]
Stash for Fri, Oct 23, 2009
sounds like time for some 
mountain time wake n bake 
don't forget to watch CCS live on u-stream 8 pm west 
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