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Hemp Headlines

1. Who Are You II: Industrious & Smart – More SAMHDA Stats on Adult Marijuana Users
2. On appeal, Idaho judge guts twice-passed Hailey marijuana initiatives
3. Oakland takes step toward medical marijuana tax
4. The Antidrug Campaign Tries a New Message

Pot and Politics

• Tom Daubert from Montana Patients and Families United wraps up the 2009 Montana legislative session on marijuana law reform.

Daily Toker Tunes by Marijuana Music Awards

• Message Monday – ‘Freedom Fighters’ by Ruffstar Family

Chapter of the Week – Georgia NORML at University of Georgia

• Executive Director Wojciech Kaczkowski

Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2009-02-17

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2009-02-17.mp3)

How about a Stash Pot Quiz?

Today’s Stash features our Government at Work, which for state governments right now consists of figuring out how to make do with huge budget deficits.  In every conversation you have about marijuana legalization these days, you must tie it to the costs of law enforcement, the lost jobs, the unearned taxes, and keep hammering away at the fact that we can’t afford the luxury of warehousing people for their unpopular drug choices anymore.

In our first segment, former Minnesota state representative Chris DeLaForest joins us to talk about Senate File 97 which seeks to implement medical marijuana in the Gopher State.  Chris also has interesting perspective on fighting for marijuana legislation as a conservative Republican.  Check out MinnesotaCares.org for more information.

In our second segment, Tom Daubert from Montana Patients and Families United is here to run down the good news about legislation in Big Sky Country – good bills that are moving forward and bad bills that have been stopped.

Oh, and our musical break today is phhhatt!

This just in from Montana Patients and Families United‘s Tom Daubert:

HOUSE BILL NO. 473

INTRODUCED BY T. BERRY

A BILL FOR AN ACT ENTITLED: “AN ACT REVISING THE MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAWS; PROVIDING FOR THE DENIAL OF A REGISTRY IDENTIFICATION CARD TO A QUALIFYING PATIENT OR CAREGIVER WHO HAS BEEN CONVICTED OF A FELONY DRUG OFFENSE; CLARIFYING THAT POSSESSION OF EXCESS MARIJUANA IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE AND THAT REGISTRY IDENTIFICATION CARDS ARE REVOKED UPON CONVICTION; PROVIDING THAT THE PROTECTION OF A PHYSICIAN DOES NOT APPLY IN CASES OF NEGLIGENCE OR COLLUSION; PROVIDING THAT A REGISTRY IDENTIFICATION CARD ISSUED BY ANOTHER JURISDICTION SUBJECTS THE HOLDER TO THE TERMS, CONDITIONS, AND RESTRICTIONS OF MONTANA LAW

A qualifying patient and that qualifying patient’s caregiver may not possess more than six marijuana plants and 1 ounce of usable marijuana each. If a qualifying patient or a qualifying patient’s caregiver possesses more than six marijuana plants and 1 ounce of usable marijuana each, the offending party may be arrested, prosecuted, and penalized as provided in Titles 44 through 46. In addition, the offending party’s registry information card is immediately revoked and has no further legal force or effect.

Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2009-01-19

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2009-01-19.mp3)

Today’s Stash celebrates the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, the end of the Bush Administration, and the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama.  Despite some misgivings over Change.gov and cabinet appointments, I am so excited to see the new day dawning in America.  Yes, there are dark clouds hovering over us and worse storms ahead, but I can’t help but see the silver lining – that we just can no longer afford to arrest and lock up taxpayers for their cannabis use anymore, and we can no longer overlook an untaxed ecofriendly fuel-producing billion dollar crop anymore.  As Obama has said, this wasn’t about him, it was about us.  As Change.gov and Change.org have shown, we are ready to talk about legalization of marijuana!

It’s as if enough people who think the war on drugs is stupid have realized that enough people think the war on drugs is stupid.  We’ve realized that it’s OK to ask “Why are we arresting potheads?” and “How come we don’t just sell and tax pot?” without everyone thinking we, too, are potheads and even if we are, realizing that nobody gives a damn if you are so long as you do your job, pay your taxes, and be civilized.  Enough people have either smoked it, do smoke it, or know someone who smokes it to know the government is peddling nothing but lies to prop up a failed bureaucracy.  People know that one slacker stoner, but they also know ten more who are just regular working folks who toke.  People also know alcoholics and know they’d rather hang out with the slacker stoner, given a choice, and figure if we can tolerate alcohol, we can tolerate weed.

My guest today is Tom Daubert from Montana Patients and Families United (check ‘em out at http://mtpfu.org*) who is here to warn Big Sky listeners and rally Montanans to contact their state legislator to protest Senate Bill 212, which would strip medical marijuana patient protections for life if convicted of new cannabis DUI standards so strict no patient could ever pass.  In short: choose your drivers license or your marijuana license.

Then my full reading (with music and everything!) of my Cannabis Civil Rights essay posted below, if I may indulge, and in doing so, thank George Rohrbacher for inspiring me…

*That URL always cracks me up because the show Meet the Press is often abbreviated “MTP” on progressive lefty blogs I inhabit.

This man is the sponsor of the bill in Montana, SB 212, which would permanently revoke a patient’s medical marijuana card for a DUI, and sets the blood THC limit for DUI so low that even patients who medicated days before could fail the test.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Today’s Stash will focus on this bill, with Tom Daubert in Montana giving us news about a hearing on this bill and Paul Armentano giving us the science about cannabis and driving.

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2008-11-10.mp3)

Whoa!  No, you’re not in a time warp, this is yesterday’s Daily Audio Stash.  I got it all recorded and edited and I set it to upload.  It was uploading when I left to take a call.  I come back today, it’s not uploaded.  My internets got the hiccups or something.  So now I’m posting it today.

This Stash features Tom Daubert from Montana Patients and Families United with great news about a state supreme court decision that allows people on probation or parole to continue using their cannabis medicine.

Then I’m breaking out more exclusive audio from NORML CON.  Today you’ll hear Jenny Kern from the Drug Policy Alliance discussing random student drug testing during the Legal Marijuana Generation panel.

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2008-09-11.mp3)

A dozen years ago a kind stranger took this photo of me standing on an incredible building called “2 WTC” – or World Trade Center Tower 2 in Manhattan, New York.  The skies were incredibly clear and from my vantage point 110 floors up – almost a quarter-mile! – I could see into three states and just marvel at the sheer mass of humanity and concrete stretching out in all directions.

Seven years ago, this kind of photo became impossible to take.

As we reflect on the events of September 11, 2001, let’s take a minute to step away from the War on Drugs and understand that the control over humanity, limitation of freedoms, and intolerance of others’ views are the real underlying issues that tie it all together, from the Drug War to the PATRIOT ACT.

We don’t fight against the Drug War because we like to get high.  Certainly, liking to get high does give you a special focus on ending the Drug War.  But self-interest isn’t the overriding factor; in fact, self-preservation would dictate keeping quiet about the Drug War.

No, we fight against the Drug War because we know it is a war of tyranny over people’s bodies, minds, health, and spirit!  We know, to paraphrase the words of the famous Pastor Neimöller poem, first they come for the “stoners”, but eventually they’ll find a way to come for you.  We know that the Drug War has killed more people just this year than died during September 11th.  We know that long before the War on Terror was used as an excuse to shred the Bill of Rights, the War on Drugs had left it a tattered and torn.

The Drug War and September 11th are two American tragedies, but they are as different as smoking cigarettes is to a gunshot to the head.  If someone shoots you in the head, the effect is sudden and shocking, like September 11th.  But smoking cigarettes, like the Drug War, is year after year of slow, self-inflicted harm.   Both have been used by tough-talking politicians as political props, and nothing much has been done to address the damage from either.

Seven years later there is still a big hole in Manhattan and Osama bin Laden is running free.  In that time we’ve spent $12.7 billion on the Drug War and arrested over 3.6 million pot smokers for nothing more than simple personal possession.  We declared a War on Drugs; there are more cheaper, purer, available drugs than ever.  We declared a War on Terror; there have been more documented incidents of terrorism than ever.

On a sadder note, we speak in our second interview with Tom Daubert of Montana Patients and Families United about the tragic death of Scott Day, a severely disabled Montana man who needed $40,000 worth of medical care per month just to live, yet faced prosecution from a county DA for growing medical marijuana to help ease his pain.  The case goes on against Scott’s widow, and Tom needs your help to pressure the DA to drop charges.

Scott Day Spent His Final Few Months of Life in Fear and Anxiety Thanks to the Drug War – Please Help Spare His Wife from Prosecution | I Love Bonnie.net

Reeling from the news that Scott Day, a beloved member of its statewide family of patients, died unexpectedly yesterday, Montana’s medical marijuana public education and patient support group today blamed prosecutors and the local drug task force for contributing to his death – and called on Beaverhead County to drop the charges it has brought against Scott Day and his wife, Summer.

“Those of us who knew and loved him are well aware that Scott Day’s health has plummeted steadily ever since Beaverhead County began prosecuting him. His final six months of life were plagued with constant fear and anxiety thanks to the government’s unwillingness to show compassion and to comprehend the nuances of Montana’s medical marijuana law,” said Tom Daubert, founder and director of Patients & Families United.

“Scott Day suffered egregiously at the hands of his health condition, and the last thing he needed was the added, stressful burden of being a defendant facing the possible loss of his vitally needed healthcare insurance coverage. But this functional death sentence is precisely the draconian outcome that Beaverhead County prosecutors actually sought, using taxpayer dollars every step of the way on a witch hunt right out of the Dark Ages,” Daubert said.

“There is no question but that this totally unwarranted prosecution contributed mightily to Scott Day’s untimely death,” he emphasized. “Now that Scott has died, we call on the county attorney to drop his charges against Summer Day and recognize that all ongoing persecution of medical marijuana patients must cease in this state,” he said.

Join us on today’s NORML Daily Audio Stash – I’m interviewing Tom Daubert from Montana Patients and Families United, a local medical marijuana group that is calling for the county prosecuting attorney to now drop the charges filed against Scott Day’s widow, Summer.  The attorney’s name is Jed Fitch and you can politely email him at jfitch@co.beaverhead.mt.us, and ask him why he continued a line of prosecution against a medical marijuana patient so obviously gravely ill when he would’ve succeeded with an affirmative defense, and why he continues the prosecution against the man’s widow?

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2008-06-25.mp3)

Today’s Audio Stash features an interview with Tom Daubert, Founder and Director of Montana Patients and Families United.  Tom tells us about the interesting wording of Montana’s medical marijuana law and how it protects the rights of patients on probation or parole.

For our Cannabis Science we speak with Dr. Mitch Earleywine from SUNY Albany.  The good doctor exposes the frauds behind the latest report from the Centers on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) that claim the “Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed!” is driving the teenagers insane!!!

And me, I’m heading to the Central Oregon Coast!  I love living close to the ocean.  I’m visiting with all my extended relatives at our biennial family reunion.  I just can’t wait to answer the question, “So what do you do?”

“Well, Great Aunt Millie, I read, write, and talk about marijuana…”