Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 6:11 pm | By: Chris Goldstein
John Ray Wilson and Jim Miller in New Jersey
10/25/09 by Chris Goldstein
Scoop: Staffers at Americans for Safe Access met with Department of Justice officials before the memo on medical marijuana was released last week.
My role with several marijuana reform non-profits in New Jersey and Pennsylvania requires interaction with the national reform groups. One that has represented patients with great passion and success is Americans for Safe Access.
They have aggressively pursued issues related to medical marijuana laws and then the rights of patients under those laws. ASA has chapters in several states with main offices in California and Washington DC.
On Wednesday I called ASA’s DC office to check in about some literature for events. Their Director of Government Affairs is Caren Woodson. She’s an experienced beltway player who has led protests on the street and meetings on The Hill. We’ve interviewed many times for podcasts and radio and have been working together as advocates this year.
After talking business I asked her what she thought of the Department of Justice memo. Caren’s usual, very professional tone changed and there was excitement in her voice: She and Steph Sherer, ASA’s Director, had been invited for a meeting with DOJ officials the week before. This was the only known meeting of advocates with the DOJ on this issue.
That morning I had just happened to have wrapped up a telephone radio interview with an author of a book on public education. I asked Caren for an interview right away. The recording took 12 minutes and it aired that night on KSFR 101.1FM with my show Active Voice Radio.
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In the past, ASA was protesting in front of the Department of Justice: Loudly and very visibly protesting at that. Now they are invited in for meetings. There was no stronger indicator this week of this tangible shift in federal policy on medical cannabis.
The impact of the DOJ memo is already being felt locally in NJ/PA. Two major editorials were published in the immediate wake of the news. The NJ General Assembly is expected to see The New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act in a floor vote this fall.PA should have the first public legislative hearings on the issue soon.
The Obama administration’s new policy on medical marijuana should make it easier for New Jersey and Pennsylvania to legalize its use for seriously ill patients. The Justice Department has removed a major legal hurdle by issuing a memo directing federal prosecutors in states that allow medical marijuana not to target patients or their sanctioned suppliers when the drug is purchased for legitimate purposes. Read Full Editorial
New Jersey legislators, poised to vote on the issue, may be encouraged by the federal change of heart. It reflects the opinion of a majority of Americans — and 82 percent of N.J. residents — who favor dispensing marijuana to patients. With the new federal policy in place, there is no reason for New Jersey to any longer delay legalizing medical marijuana. Read Full Editorial
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 at 8:10 am | By: Radical Russ
Any budding activists (pun intended) who would like to meet up to discuss forming NORML Chapters around N. Virginia, Washington DC, Maryland, and Delaware can meet with me tonight in the business center at the Best Western Dulles Airport at 8pm. It is located at 45440 Holiday Drive, Sterling, VA 20166-9411. Sorry about the late notice and the strange location, but it is the only time and place I can possibly meet people before flying out to San Francisco.
If you’ll RSVP me either by comments here or a tweet to @RadicalRuss or a txt to 888-7RADICAL before 4pm Eastern, I’ll grab you a retro NORML t-shirt just for showing up (yes… it’s a bribe! ) – just tell me your size.
Sunday, September 20th, 2009 at 3:41 pm | By: Radical Russ
"The Death of Dr. Thompson" - To Keith: The Wicked Accuse, The Godly Defend
There’s a certain surreal part of this job. I’m typing this post from Keith Stroup’s place in Virginia, watching the San Diego Chargers play the Baltimore Ravens. Ten feet away he’s catching up on email and I’m snapping pics of his framed pictures on the wall. One is a signed personal pic photo of Hunter S. Thompson firing a shotgun at a photo of Ronald Reagan in cowboy gear. Another is a shot of Keith and Willie from long ago. Another is a drawing of Keith from a piece in the New Yorker. “Sometimes I feel old,” I tell Keith, “especially when you’re around these young people at these rallies. Then I think of the great people and great music I missed by being as young as I am. Growing up in the Eighties sucked.”
Keith had picked me up from the CVS at 7th & Pennsylvania in DC. I’m lugging my two overstuffed carry-ons full of studio gear (which TSA loves to make me completely unpack and repack at every security checkpoint, so ixnay on our secret stoner plan to bring down Babylon by disguising soundboards and wireless keyboards as explosives to bring down the Boston-DC shuttle) and my literally bursting at the seams hanging bag that the baggage handlers have been abusing for the modest fee of $15. And I’m wearing my Packers t-shirt, because it’s game day, and it is horribly old and tattered, and my Concordia University sweats, because I don’t wear anything metal while flying.
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.
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The House began debating a bill (The Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Bill) Thursday that dances on almost every nerve in the social conservative body politic, touching on everything from abortion to needle exchange, gay and lesbian rights, charter schools and medical marijuana.
“We strongly oppose these changes,” declares the Republican committee report. “We do not believe increasing the availability of abortions or medical marijuana will improve the District of Columbia.”
Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the non-voting delegate from the District, took GOP members of Congress to task in their presumption to assert authority over D.C. home rule.
“Your lip service to local control, the time for that has run out,” she said. “We have profound disagreements on some issues, from abortion to vouchers. Go home and deal with them there. Allow us to deal with these issues in our own way as a local jurisdiction. I appreciate that the Rules Committee has indeed respected our citizenship and I demand that other members of Congress do so as well.” – The Huffington Post
So, is medical marijuana coming to the District? Stay tuned ..
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 12:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
(Washington City Paper) A measure to once again ban D.C. from implementing a 1998 medical marijuana initiative failed in a House appropriations committee vote this evening.
The D.C. budget made it out of its appropriations subcommittee without the so-called Barr amendment—a rider, first introduced by Georgia Republican Bob Barr, which has graced the District budget since 1998. But this evening Missouri Republican Jo Ann Emerson attempted to put it back on.
After a short debate, with Jim Moran (D-Va.) standing up to defend District home rule, the Emerson measure failed by a voice vote. The bill still has to survive the House floor, Senate consideration, and conference committee.
This really isn’t so much about medical marijuana as it is about letting the citizens of the district determine their own laws. For too long, the people in our nation’s capital have been taxed but not represented in the House, and too often Congress pulls funding stunts like the Barr Amendment to squelch their democratic urges. These so-called “riders” have also been used to prevent the District from using funds for abortion and to curb firearm rights as well.
Shouldn’t the people living in the capital of the world’s leading democracy have the right to vote for their own laws?
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Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 2:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
Update: I’ve modified the headline from “Congress lifts…” to better reflect the story — “R”R
A House appropriations subcommittee has lifted a long-standing budget rider banning the District government from spending any money to decriminalize marijuana.
The Financial Services panel, which has oversight of D.C., has removed from the 2010 budget 11-year-old language outlawing the District’s use of federal or local funds to legalize marijuana or reduce penalties for its possession or distribution.
Rep. Jose Serrano, the subcommittee chairman, said … the budget bill “allows the District to conduct and implement a referendum on use of marijuana for medical purposes as has been done in various states.”
The District voted on medical marijuana once before, in 1998, but the votes were declared invalid. Former Rep. Bob Barr raced to have his anti-legalization language added to the budget two weeks before the initiative vote was held. When the ballots were unofficially tallied nearly a year after they were cast, it was learned that 69 percent of voters backed legalization.
It has always struck me as ironic that in the Land of the Free, our capitol was built by slaves, and that in a country born from a revolution because of “taxation without representation”, the citizens in the capital are taxed but get no vote in the House or Senate. Add to that irony that the people in the seat of democracy were unable to exercise self rule on the matter of marijuana because the Congress wouldn’t allow them to count their votes.
Also ironic: that former Rep. Bob Barr, who introduced these democracy-killing amendments against marijuana, is now a paid lobbyist for the Marijuana Policy Project. The author of these anti-marijuana bills came around faster than the Congress has!
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 10:28 am | By: Radical Russ
President Obama will name Seattle Police Chief R. Gil Kerlikowske as the nation’s drug czar today, ending a long search that was slowed as details of drug arrests involving Kerlikowske’s son came to light.
The administration will remove the job’s Cabinet designation — reversing an elevation of the office under President George W. Bush — although one senior official said that Kerlikowske would have “full access and a direct line to the president and the vice president.” The source also noted that Vice President Biden was instrumental in the creation of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and would continue to be an outspoken advocate on the issue.
Kerlikowske has long been speculated to be the front-runner to serve as the drug czar. But revelations concerning the arrests of his son, Jeffrey, on drug-related charges complicated the process.
The White House acknowledged Jeffrey Kerlikowske’s past drug use but offered no specifics or comment.
In his remarks today accepting the nomination, Kerlikowske is expected to reference his family struggles with drug abuse. “Our nation’s drug problem is one of human suffering,” according to his prepared remarks. “As a police officer, but also in my own family, I have experienced first-hand the devastating effects that drugs can have on our youth, our families and our communities.”
It’s nice to see the Drug Czar’s office demoted to a non-Cabinet post again. It’s even nicer that a police chief with experience in one of America’s most cannabis-friendly cities, home to a peaceful annual gathering of 300,000 stoners, and some personal experience with drug problems in his own family is going to be in charge of our drug policy. I look forward to these confirmation hearings.
Now if we could just change those words “Drug Control” to “Drug Harm Reduction” or “Drug Regulation”…
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 [...]
Radical Russ: Testing, testing, 347-994-1810, chat with "Radical" Russ at the Cannabis Café, private invite for Stashers only!
RevRayGreen: I was like 14/15 back then..old fuckng school sht
RevRayGreen: @MH.....white x's, yellow jackts,BB's.then it became just caffeine pills
SneakerPimp: im diggen yesterdays stash daily toker tunes segment awesome
WakeUpDead: Just got done with yesterdays stash and now the new one is up, very cool.
SneakerPimp: ah fresh stashieness
SneakerPimp: nice pic there mr ruben
Missippi Hippy: black beauties - got 'em by the pharm sealed 1000 in the 80s
Adam: Kieth Stroup told me that he has new book coming out, it will cover the time periods after High in America was published.
Adam: I recommend that you all read High in America: The True Story Behind NORML and the Politics of Marijuana.
Read it FREE online HERE
http://tinyurl.com/cxzc3h
slash5city: ah the mid 80's spof ..the summers of 3d weed.... head down to the smoking area at school buy a 2$ pin joint or two from the one dealer then [...]
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. […]
Behind the DOJ Medical Marijuana Memo
) – just tell me your size.
don't forget to watch CCS live on u-stream 8 pm west 
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