Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 6:03 pm | By: Radical Russ
I’m happy to announce the formation of three new college chapters of NORML at the University of Virginia, Arizona State University, and Minnesota State University. Contact information for the three new chapters will be online at http://norml.org/chapters tomorrow morning if you wish to contact them.
If you would like to form a new college chapter or community chapter of NORML, just send me an email at stash@norml.org. You just need five members to form your board and we’ll send you the instructions from there.
And if you are unable to contact one of the existing chapters on the NORML website, please let me know. I am working to cull the inactive chapters from the listings and your help will make that task easier.
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 3:43 pm | By: Radical Russ
(Huffington Post) A group of civilly-disobedient hemp farmers and business leaders were arrested Tuesday morning while digging up the lawn to plant industrial hemp seeds at the headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
David Bronner, the president of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, a more than 60-year-old company that does tens of millions of dollars of business annually, was among those arrested.
Bronner buys the hemp used in his soaps from Canadian farmers. He was arrested outside the DEA museum, which shares space with the headquarters.
“Our kids are going to come to this museum and say, ‘My God. Your generation was crazy. What the hell is wrong with you people?’” he said as Arlington County Police handcuffed him and walked him to a waiting car.
Wayne Hauge and Will Allen, farmers from North Dakota and Vermont respectively, brought shovels and seeds to the protest, where they were joined by representatives of Vote Hemp, which advocates for federal legislation that would allow states to craft their own hemp policies.
Currently [eight nine] states — Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, [Oregon,] Vermont, and West Virginia — allow industrial hemp production or research, but federal law, which requires nearly-impossible-to-obtain-permits to grow hemp, trumps those state laws. A bill introduced by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) would allow states to craft their own policies.
Of all the insanities in the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs, the ban on industrial hemp is the looniest. We have the Drug Enforcement Administration enforcing a ban on something that is not a drug! They’ll tell you that by strict interpretation of the law, hemp does contain THC, so it has to be banned, even though the THC contained in hemp is so minute that you could literally burn a field of the stuff and not catch the slightest of buzzes.
They’ll tell you that if hemp were legal, growers of illicit high-THC pot would hide their crops in-between the rows of hemp. Any farmer can tell you that what you’d get is cross-pollination; the hemp would ruin the high of the pot and the pot would ruin the strength of the hemp.
Then they’ll tell you that if hemp were legal, law enforcement would be burdened trying to determine which fields were hemp and which were pot. This doesn’t seem to be a problem for the police in China, Australia, Canada, or most of Europe, however, as they seem to be able to tell the difference between a tall, reedy hemp plant and a short bushy pot plant without much difficulty. Maybe our American cops are just too stupid to handle basic botany.
The ban on hemp remains for two reasons. One is to protect the entrenched business interests that would stand to lose market share to legal hemp crops. Hemp can produce anything you can make from a tree or a barrel of oil, and do it cheaper, make it better, and cause less environmental damage along the way. Hemp paper resists oxidation far better than wood paper. Hemp pressboards are as strong as steel and save our forests. Hemp seed oil has the highest energy value of any seed oil crop – all current diesel engines can run on hempseed oil with no modifications required. Hemp seed is one of nature’s highest protein foods and a source of important anti-oxidants. Hemp cloth is impervious to mildew, repels water, and holds heat better, and requires no pesticides. Can you begin to imagine all the companies that would lose money if forced to compete fairly with hemp?
And the second reason is psychological. If hemp is legal, cannabis is just a plant. It’s a subtle thing, but under the current framework, the government can tell us cannabis is an evil drug. But if hemp is legal, then sometimes cannabis is an evil drug and sometimes it is just a plant. Once cannabis is sometimes just a plant, it is harder to scare people into thinking it can be evil.
We are approaching the 400th anniversary of the first colonial hemp plantations in North America. Hemp is our American heritage – this country exists because of hemp and our entire history is infused with its cultivation and use. The forces that combined to ban hemp in the 20th Century have stolen our very birthright and declared nature itself to be illegal.
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 at 1:06 pm | By: Radical Russ
(MSNBC / Washington Post) WASHINGTON – Andre Hayes’s phone rang one October afternoon, and a mysterious woman was on the line. She had called the wrong number, she told him. But she didn’t hang up. They bantered a bit. They flirted. She said he sounded nice.
Over the next week, they spoke or texted by cellphone more than 100 times. As he drove to meet her on Halloween night, they chatted for 29 straight minutes. And then, as he awaited their rendezvous in a dark suburban driveway, Hayes was shot dead.
Hayes, a slick dresser with a sharp wit, was described as a fun-loving guy who doted on his relatives and three daughters. But close friends said he also had a weakness: women.
Hayes, who lived in Clinton, sold drugs and held odd jobs. During the past 15 years, he had been arrested a few times on charges ranging from assault to drug possession. In January 2007, he was arrested on federal cocaine distribution charges in Virginia.
Soon, he was working out a deal with the Drug Enforcement Administration: He would help them arrest other dealers if they would recommend a lighter sentence for him. By September, he was telling DEA Agent Kendrah Johnson that he knew a guy named “Weldon” who sold marijuana, crack and heroin, according to notes taken by the agent and filed in court.
During the next 11 months, Hayes bought more than 150 grams of crack from “Weldon,” later identified as Weldon Gordon, in three deals — one in Maryland and two in the District, according to court papers filed by the DEA and federal prosecutors.
The woman, Tiffany Reaves, 30, of Upper Marlboro, has been indicted on a federal charge of conspiring to obstruct justice by killing a witness. The charge carries a potential sentence of death. Reaves’s boyfriend, Weldon Gordon, 31, has been indicted on federal drug charges tied to undercover purchases made by Hayes on behalf of federal investigators.
In other news, millions of Americans today will buy and sell alcohol, from 3.2% to 75.5% potency. Nobody will be arrested for these transactions. Nobody will be making deals with prosecutors to help arrest others for these transactions. Nobody will compel their girlfriend to seduce those who help prosecutors. And nobody will be murdered over these transactions or for helping prosecutors.
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, June 12th, 2009 at 7:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
(Rolling Stone) Political pressure to end the War on Drugs is building in surprising quarters. In recent months, three distinct rationales have converged to convince a growing number of politicians – including many on the center-right – to seriously consider the benefits of legalizing marijuana.
For Webb, a Democrat from Virginia who served as secretary of the Navy under President Reagan, it’s a crisis of incarceration. “Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1,200 percent since 1980,” the senator says. “Yet the illegal-drug industry and the flow of drugs have remained undiminished.” For Schwarzenegger, who says it is “time for a debate” about legalization, it’s a crisis of cost: A bill in the California legislature to legalize and tax cannabis – the state’s largest cash crop – would provide more than $1Â billion annually to balance the state’s busted budget. And for Terry Goddard, the attorney general of Arizona, it’s a crisis of violence: With Baghdad levels of bloodshed raging in Tijuana and other border towns, legalization would deprive Mexican cartels of as much as 65 percent of their illegal income. “Much of the carnage in Mexico is financed because of profits from marijuana,” Goddard told reporters in April. Last month, a Zogby poll that presented all three rationales found, for the first time ever, that a majority of Americans – 52 percent – say they support decriminalizing marijuana.
Legalization is also backed by a growing number of veteran drug warriors. “The War on Drugs is a constantly expanding and self-perpetuating policy disaster,” says Jack Cole, a former undercover narcotics agent who now serves as president of a group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which includes hundreds of former drug agents, police officers and judges. “If all drugs were legal and regulated we could have exactly the same demand for drugs in the U.S., but there wouldn’t be any killings. Mexico’s 7,500 deaths since the beginning of last year – all those murders just wouldn’t exist.”
Friday, May 22nd, 2009 at 3:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
Police found 118 marijuana plants in a home in the 4900 block of Mandan Road earlier this month, according to a police spokesman.
An unusually high electricity bill alerted police to a possible marijuana-growing operation, the warrant said.
According to the warrant, police conducted surveillance at the home and checked its electricity bill, which at times exceeded those of similarly sized homes in the neighborhood by about $400. Police also found growing equipment, scales, ledgers, packing materials and smoking devices, said Officer Adam Bernstein, a police spokesman.
Eric Wayne Haxter, 33, was charged with manufacturing marijuana, according to court records. His preliminary trial hearing is scheduled for June 11.
Does it bother anyone else that merely using an above average amount of electricity in your home is probable cause to believe you’re a criminal? Yes, this guy was growing, but how do we know beforehand that he just doesn’t have an indoor hot tub, some old-school video game arcade consoles, a lighted disco floor, and baseboard heating?
I know, it’s a stretch. I also know that in these cases, police often get other clues, like sifting through curbside garbage for stems and seeds*. My point is how much of our personal and home privacy must we surrender to the government to prevent a few people from indoor gardening?
There are also unintended consequences to this electricity bill snooping, like people dangerously hijacking power from the electrical grid illegally and using diesel burning generators that pollute the air and ground.
*Note to my stoney friends: you are burning your stems and seeds in the fireplace or flushing them down the toilet, aren’t you? Cops don’t need a warrant to look through your trash once you put it out for pickup.
Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 2:20 pm | By: Dudemaster
Ladies and Gentleman, Friends and Neighbors, and those of you with Medical Marijuana Cards from any of the 13 states that have Medical Marijuana laws, “Your medical marijuana card is only for use in the state from which it was issued”. [Not entirely. Montana, Michigan, and Rhode Island will recognize the medical marijuana cards from all twelve states that issue them. Maine doesn't issue cards, or actually have a "program". Still, these facts in no way affect the context of this post. -- "R"R]
Police in Norfolk, Virginia have arrested a member of Snoop Dogg’s entourage for drug possession after receiving a tip about a suspicious package that arrived in the mail from Canada to the Norfolk Plaza Hotel, where the rapper and his crew were staying.
“Our Norfolk law enforcement sources tell us cops monitored the package that was addressed to a member of Snoop’s entourage … then swooped in and arrested the dude for misdemeanor marijuana possession,” TMZ noted.
“That’s when Mr. Dogg showed up in the lobby and told cops the weed was for him, and then flashed his medical marijuana card.”
At press time, police were continuing to investigate the matter.
I used to live in Virginia and I will say from experience, Snoop needs a really good attorney.
Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 3:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
Maybe somebody can help me understand the American concept of “justice”. In this first story, a mother is convicted of not preventing an act of child abuse against her seven-year-old:
NBC NEWS – Prosecutors in Caddo County say this video shot last year shows a woman blowing marijuana smoke into the mouth of a 7-year-old boy, who has Downs syndrome.
Investigators say the mother, Caroline Beavers, sat watching nearby.
Workers at an electronics store notified police last April after finding this video on a computer that had been repossessed.
Beavers was arrested and charged with one felony count of enabling child abuse.
(The Express-Star) District Judge Richard Van Dyck has sentenced a Caddo County woman to 10 years after she entered a blind plea to allowing a co-defendant to blow marijuana smoke into the mouth of her seven-year-old handicapped son.
Van Dyck ordered that Caroline Marie Beavers of Anadarko be incarcerated for three years, followed by seven years probation.
So, in summary: parent lets another person blow pot smoke in kid’s face and video tapes it, which is accidentally discovered by a repairman = three years incarceration.
Now, in our second story out of Virginia, a father is convicted of actual child abuse in failing to prevent his wife from unlawfully wounding and abusing their child:
(Fredricksburg.com) Brandi L. Blanken Wallace, 28, was given a total of 7 1/2 years in prison after being convicted of child abuse and unlawful wounding.
Joshua Scott Wallace, 33, was convicted of child abuse and got a recommended sentence of two years and six months.
The minimum sentence for child abuse is two years. Judge Charles Sharp will formally sentence both Wallaces on July 27.
The child, also named Joshua Wallace, was 10 weeks old on Dec. 30, 2005, when he was flown to MCV Medical Center in Richmond with skull fractures, a broken clavicle and severe retinal hemorrhaging.
The child nearly died and has permanent brain damage, according to the evidence presented during the three-day trial. He eats through a feeding tube and cannot walk.
The parents claimed that Brandi Wallace dropped the baby onto the floor during an epileptic seizure.
Two doctors testified in detail that the extensive injuries suffered by the child could not have occurred during such a fall.
Prosecutor Eric Olsen argued to the jurors that Brandi Wallace hurt the child and her husband tried to cover it up. He called the parents’ explanation for the injuries “ridiculous.”
Joshua Wallace was the only defendant to testify. He said that as far as he knew, the baby was fine until he was dropped.
So, in summary, a parent lets another person fracture a baby’s skull and clavicle, threaten its eyesight, enable permanent brain damage and inability to walk, and require a feeding tube for life, and then tries to cover it up = 2.5 years of incarceration.
I’m not trying to defend the blowing of pot smoke into a kid’s face at a pot party. It’s certainly not good parenting – every parent should prevent their children from being exposed to smoke blown in their face. But what is the rationale for such harsh punishment when failing to prevent a child from suffering extensive permanent physical damage gets you six months fewer in prison? Would the mother in the first story get three years prison and seven years probation if her friend blew tobacco smoke in the kid’s face, which is demonstrably more harmful than cannabis smoke? All I’m asking is, with a child of child abuse, don’t you have to at least prove some harm befell the child?
Week after week I peruse stories like this where parents are given draconian sentences when their kids come in contact with marijuana. Each week there are also stories I read where physical and sexual abuse of kids gets a lesser punishment. We have truly gone Reefer Mad when parents get punished more for exposing kids to pot plants than a punch in the face or a pedophile.
Zero Tolerance isn’t a slogan, it’s a pledge to do whatever it takes to make you quit, jail you, or kill you. This time the penalties added up to an overwhelming burden for Josh Anderson, who had the unfortunate luck to be caught in possession twice in two years.
“I really have been working hard on this,” Josh wrote to the hearing officers. “I can’t believe I’m putting my parents through this now. I can’t believe how selfish and stupid I’ve been. . . . I’m honestly going to try my hardest to fix this.”
The Andersons were told that Josh would be barred from any regular Fairfax high school and might be tossed out of the system entirely. His parents were looking into private schools or moving. But there would be no hearing, no new school, no more visits from college football coaches asking about Josh’s talents. Without a word to his girlfriend, parents, psychologist, coach or teachers, Josh Anderson, 17, had killed himself.
He left a note, just two lines. “Why does it have to be like this?” And, to his girlfriend, “I love you.”
“No one can ever answer whether Fairfax County was responsible for what Josh did,” says Tim Anderson. “But they pushed him closer to the edge than he needed to be.” The parents know their son’s often-silent manner masked emotional troubles, but he had been in counseling, both through the school system and privately, and no one saw this coming. The trauma of facing expulsion, the Andersons believe, was just too much for their son.
In Fairfax, possession of marijuana on school grounds means automatic suspension and a recommendation of expulsion. “There’s no discretion at the school level,” says Paul Regnier, spokesman for the system. “Virginia law requires that if there’s possession of marijuana on school grounds, the student must be expelled unless there are special circumstances.”
Despite what you may think, Josh is a victim of the drug war. Zero Tolerance laws were envisioned as both a deterrent to use (with no effect) and a review-free way to remove meddlesome kids (works every time). Wonder why your local High School has a 40% dropout rate? These laws damage our society by under educating our soon to be fellow citizens. I recall being told once that future prison populations utilize high school drop out rates in their calculations. So with the expulsion, Virginia was planning the future for Josh and he decided that he wanted no part of it.
“Why does it have to be like this?”
I’m asking you for Josh, because he couldn’t make it here to ask you himself.
bullbog: Hawkeyes you had a good run...this toke is for you.
Track Snack: Mornin Stashers! Tokin on the Mean Green Martian for breakfast.
MrSpof: Maybe Dr Mitch could comment on the efficacy of reasonable amount of weed like that consumed (smoked) quickly mitigating migraine effects. I know the lowering of blood pressure would be [...]
MrSpof: Had the onset of a migraine yesterday. Immediately took 8 , moist cool washcloth on eyes, heating pad on neck and upper back, turned off lights. Migraine gone in [...]
MrSpof: As you personal non-accredited doctor, I advise the rest of you to smoke/vape/eat heavily
slash5city: frickazee'd.... Mr. Spof, thank you very much
MrSpof: Risen and roasted How the hell are you?
RevRayGreen: always Fidget......always.
Adam: Maybe in WA, judges are starting to think about the true cost of a Drug charge...
Adam: Tim Lincecum, pitcher for the San Francisco Giants will pea to a paraphernalia charge/ Possession charges DROPPED
Adam: Add some cottage cheese to your pancake batter, replace the maple with a fruit syrup! f-ing killer, YES I was stoned...
Fidget Truittelli: Good morning from beautiful Arizona! I hope you all have a happy, fun day. Remember to 'pay-it' forward. Do something nice for someone.
BenJaMin: Go NORML!!!
BenJaMin: Russ Is Tha BEst! :smokin:
SneakerPimp: oh there it is thanx russ
SneakerPimp: so whats up with today stash?
RevRayGreen: Barney Frank Present When Partner Arrested for pot-- http://bit.ly/1XpM2R
RevRayGreen: KMK 11/17/09 VAL AIR ballroom DSM
bullbog: that's crazy. I had a NORML black t-shirt on. It was hell of a show
RevRayGreen: dude I was probably 4-5 seats from you then
bullbog: 4th row center. I wish I was closer.
RevRayGreen: were in in the orchestra pit 4th row? or 4th row center, that's where I was bu slightly to the right
RevRayGreen: our show ______v'''''''
RevRayGreen: catch our chow tomorrow online Carl'sCannabis Corner
www.macswordlive.com 12-2 PM you can go there now and find archived shows
"Truth In Trials Act" Reintroduced In Congress; Maine: Voters Approve Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Measure; Colorado: Breckenridge Voters Overwhelmingly Decide To End Pot Penalties. […]
Maine: Voters To Decide Next Week On Medical Marijuana Expansion Measure; Colorado: Breckenridge Voters To Decide Next Week On Eliminating Pot Penalties; California: Lawmakers Hold Historic Hearing On Marijuana Legalization; New Hampshire: Senate Fails To Override Medical Marijuana Veto. […]
Gallup: Majority Of West Coast Voters Back Marijuana Legalization; Pot Arrests Responsible For Majority Of Marijuana Treatment Referrals; DOJ To Federal Prosecutors: Do Not Focus Resources On Medical Marijuana. […]
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. […]
New NORML Chapters at U. Virginia, Arizona State, and Minnesota State
frickazee'd.... Mr. Spof, thank you very much
and roasted 
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