Showing posts with label medical marijuana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label medical marijuana. Show all posts

How Weed Will Eventually Become Legal In The U.S.

by Josh Voorhees. A trio of high-profile senators this week unveiled a package of drug reforms that would effectively end the federal war on medical marijuana once and for all. The bill, from Republican Rand Paul and Democrats Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, wouldn’t legalize medical weed across the country, but it would remove ... MORE

DEA Warns Of Stoned Rabbits If Utah Approves Medical Pot

The new face of marijuana addiction.     Utah is considering a bill that would allow patients with certain debilitating conditions to be treated with edible forms of marijuana. If the bill passes, the state's wildlife may "cultivate a taste" for the plant, lose their fear of humans, and basically be high all the time. That's according to testimony    ... MORE

Congressman Blasts San Francisco Medical Pot Prosecutions

by David Downs.  Calling out the feds. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher blasted San Francisco’s local U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag Sunday, saying she was “breaking the law” in her attempts to seize major Bay Area dispensaries Harborside Health Center and Berkeley Patients Group. The libertarian-leaning Republican from Huntington Beach has      ... MORE

Bill Bennett's Confusing Defense of Pot Prohibition

by Jacob Sullum.   An old statist looks to defend the status quo. “With marijuana,” declare William J. Bennett and Robert A. White in Going to Pot, their new prohibitionist screed, “we have inexplicably suspended all the normal rules of reasoning and knowledge.” You can’t say they didn’t warn us. The challenge for Bennett, a former drug czar and    ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Jurors Can't Know Pot Growers Are Patients

Federal prosecutors determined to hide the truth.     Imagine you are a juror in the federal trial of five people charged with growing and distributing marijuana in northeastern Washington. The prosecution cannot present any direct evidence that the defendants sold marijuana to anyone, and the defendants say they were growing all 74 plants ... MORE

Kim Bellware: Despite Medical Marijuana Having Been Legal In Illinois For Over A Year, No Patients Have Benefited

Government obstruction at its best.  Medical marijuana has been legal in Illinois for more than 365 days, but the number of patients that have actually been able to get relief from the drug remains a big fat zero. While 600 local patients have already been approved for a medical marijuana card, there's no place to actually buy the stuff. And   ... MORE

Is Obama the Drug Warrior Becoming Obama the Reformer?

by Jacob Sullum.    In a 2011 Reason cover story, I explained why drug policy reformers had been bitterly disappointed by President Obama's performance during his first few years in office. With the notable exception of his support for shorter crack sentences, which Congress approved almost unanimously in 2010, Obama had done very    ... MORE

Congress Just Says No To Funding War On Medical Pot

by Ryan Burns.     People pulling politicians by the ear again. When the U.S. government loses a war it does so quietly, with an utter dearth of fanfare. True to form, in the latest spending bill to pass the U.S. House of Representatives there appears to be a tiny, inconspicuous white flag signaling the end of the Justice Department's war on medical    ... MORE

VIDEO: IRS Rules Burn Marijuana Policy

Jacob Sullum: Cannabis and Capitalism - The Horror?

The people's initiatives. Three marijuana legalization initiatives were on the ballot last week, and all three won.  That's a better outcome than I was expecting. I was surprised when voters in Colorado and Washington approved legalization two years ago, and I was surprised again when voters in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington, D.C.,     ... MORE

IRS Rules Make Federal Government Primary Pot Profiteers

by Katie Kuntz. A 70% Tax? Voters in Oregon, Alaska, and Washington, D.C., will decide Tuesday whether to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana. But any new pot shops that voters approve may not be able to survive a drug war-era tax code that already threatens many businesses in Colorado and Washington state. Under this tax code the federal  ... MORE

Federal Court: Doctors Testify War On Pot Defies Science

by David Downs.      Separating propaganda from science. Three medical experts testified in federal court in California Friday and Monday that modern science renders the war on marijuana unconstitutional. Decades of medical research show the drug is not the danger the government has made it out to be, they told a federal judge.    ... MORE

Doctors Go To Court To Fight Government's Marijuana Lies

by David Downs.      The U.S. government claims marijuana is a dangerous, addictive drug with no medical benefits. But that claim will be up for debate Monday in California when a federal judge is scheduled to hear testimony from doctors that conclude the opposite. Doctors Carl Hart, Associate Professor of Psychology at Columbia University   ... MORE

DC, 3 States And A Territory Vote On Marijuana This Year

by German Lopez. People to lead politicians away from drug war. This year, several more states will vote on whether marijuana should be legal for recreational and medical purposes. Given that more Americans favor legalization than ever, these ballot initiatives have a real chance of passing. Here are the statewide initiatives that will appear on    ... MORE

Why Illinois Medical Marijuana Patients Still Have No Meds

by Zenon Evans.    Good Intentions made a big splash last year when it opened its doors as the first medical marijuana clinic in not just Chicago but the entire state of Illinois. The business launched just days after Gov. Pat Quinn signed the Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Pilot Program Act. One problem: There was no medical marijuana.    ... MORE

Mark Strauss: How To Reduce Painkiller Overdoses

Just ask states with legalized medical marijuana.      As the number of patients who receive opioid prescriptions to treat non-cancer pain has increased in the past decade, so too have the number of overdoses. A new study, however, finds that states that legalized medical marijuana between 1999 and 2010 had 25% fewer annual       ... MORE

Costs Of Overzealous Pot Policing Vary From State To State

A Washington Post editorial.   Skyrocketing incarceration rates for nonviolent drug offenders have come to symbolize the futility of the national “war on drugs.”    Even the most ardent drug legalization opponents are beginning to view drug use through the lens of public health, rather than criminal justice. This shift in focus is      ... MORE

Medical Marijuana Research Hits Wall of U.S. Law

by Serge F. Kovaleski.     More evidence the government is not us. Nearly four years ago, Dr. Sue Sisley, a psychiatrist at the University of Arizona, sought federal approval to study marijuana’s effectiveness in treating military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. She had no idea how difficult it would be. The proposal, which has the   ... MORE

Jury Nullification Is Interfering With Marijuana Convictions

by Lily Dane.         Proactive justice is occurring. Courts around the country are having more trouble prosecuting marijuana cases because of increasing awareness of a constitutional doctrine called jury nullification. Under the Bill of Rights, jurors have the power to find a defendant not guilty if they find the law in question is flawed – even if    ... MORE