Showing posts with label pot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pot. Show all posts

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

Washington State Growers Struggle To Sell Legal Marijuana

High taxes are driving many to black market. Washington's legal marijuana market opened last summer to a dearth of weed. Some stores periodically closed because they didn't have pot to sell. Prices were through the roof. Six months later, the equation has flipped, bringing serious growing pains to the new industry. A big harvest of   ... MORE

Radley Balko: A Drug Informant Lies, An Innocent Man Dies

When home invaders are from the government.   Back in July, we looked at the case of Jason Wescott, a Florida man shot and killed by a police SWAT team during a drug raid over an alleged sale of $200 worth of pot to a police informant. The tragedy was exacerbated by the fact that according to friends and relatives, Wescott had been       ... MORE

Brian Doherty: Making Colorado Safe For Guns And Pot

Marijuana smokers and the right to carry guns.  Two Colorado firearms instructors are planning a ballot initiative in their state to help smash a huge violation of citizens' rights: that marijuana smokers, according to the federal government, are not allowed to own guns. The 1968 Gun Control Act declared in section 922(g) that unlawful    ... MORE

Teen Marijuana Use Down Since Colorado Legalization?

by Michael Minkoff.           In a non-intuitive twist, it seems that pot legalization in marijuana has not contributed to a sharp increase in teen marijuana use. In fact, legalization might be contribuing to a drop in teen use: Since the passage of HB10-1284, Colorado’s historical medical marijuana regulation legislation, current marijuana use among   ... MORE

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

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

Should NFL Players Be Allowed To Treat Pain With Pot?

Moralists clash with medicine. While Colorado is the first state to fully legalize marijuana, Denver Broncos players are banned from using the drug. However, as CBS News correspondent Barry Petersen reports, a former NFL player said the hits he took on the field made him, and others like him, turn to pot. "Pain is constant when you play       ... MORE

Do People Really Hand Out Pot-Laced Halloween Candy?

by Jacob Sullum.     The urban legend continues. Last week the DPD posted a video in which Patrick Johnson, proprietor of Denver's Urban Dispensary, warns that "there's really no way to tell the difference between candy that's infused and candy that's not infused" once the products have been removed from their original packages.      ... MORE

Another Jury Nullification Success Story

from Tenth Amendment Center: The curious case of Doug Darrell shows the immense amount of power that is possessed by We the People, when we have the courage to use it. Doug Darrell is a resident of New Hampshire who cultivated marijuana for religious and medical purposes. After a National Guard helicopter spotted his plants, he was   ... MORE

Lisa Leff: Marijuana Legalization Effort Begins In California

One less victimless crime in Golden State?   A national marijuana advocacy group took steps Wednesday to begin raising money for a campaign to legalize recreational pot use in California in 2016, a move with potential to add a dose of extra excitement to the presidential election year. The Marijuana Policy Project filed paperwork      ... MORE

Wash D.C. Voters Strongly Support Marijuana Legalization

by Matt Ferner.      Washington, D.C., voters appear to be ready to legalize marijuana, according to a new poll that puts support at 65 percent.  The NBC4/Washington Post/Marist poll's finding that district voters support legalization by almost a 2-1 margin “is the highest support ever for a marijuana legalization ballot initiative,” Adam       ... MORE

Jury Nullification Works In New Hampshire Marijuana Case

When a jury finds punishment is unjust.   Jury nullification is a weapon that most American citizens don’t know they have. During a jury trial, a jury can find the defendant guilty, not guilty, or they can nullify the entire trial if they think the punishment is unfair. This is exactly what happened recently in New Hampshire, where a Rastafarian man   ... 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

Matthew DesOrmeaux: Legalize Pot, Don't Socialize It

What if a state just legalized it?    The campaign to end the War on Drugs has gained momentum in recent years with state ballot initiatives legalizing recreational marijuana use in Colorado and Washington, and a similar referendum coming to Washington, DC on this year’s general election ballot. Along with the push to reform sentencing laws,   ... MORE

Colorado Teenagers Stubbornly Refuse to Smoke More Pot

Despite legalization.      New survey data from Colorado indicate that marijuana legalization so far has not led to an increase in pot smoking by teenagers, as prohibitionists warned it would. In the 2013 Healthy Kids Colorado survey, 37 percent of high school students reported that they had ever tried marijuana, down from 39 percent in 2011. The ... MORE

Jonah Goldberg: Liberals Come Late To The Pot Party

40 years behind Friedman, Sowell and Buckley.       With the usual fanfare and self-regard we have come to expect from the New York Times editorial board, the prestigious paper has changed its mind about pot. It now believes that the federal ban on the substance should be lifted and that the whole issue should be sent back to the    ... MORE

6 Months of Legal Pot In Colorado: More Money, Less Crime

by Laura Pegram.     Bad news for drug warriors. With the passage of Amendment 64 in November 2012, Colorado made history and became one of the first two states to approve legal regulation of the cultivation, manufacture and sale of marijuana for adults 21 and over. Colorado has become a proving ground to demonstrate the positive impacts  ... MORE