Make Marijuana Matter // Current

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3 days ago

Mexican Government Officials Urge For Legalization of Marijuana

The United States and Mexico should both legalize marijuana in an attempt to break the power of the Mexican drug cartels and end... more

samantha420
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Bloodbath in Mexico: Drug Prohibition Is to Blame for 1,000's of Mexican and Now American Deaths

There is war in our backyard that can match the violence anywhere in the world, and that is the Drug War in Mexico.

samantha420
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Man gets 10 yrs for growing marijuana, discovers loud sex enough for cops to search your home

For Brian McGacken of Farmingdale, New Jersey, an evening of loud sex resulted in a 10-year prison sentence for growing marijuana.

On Feb. 17, 2007, New Jersey state troopers arrived at McGacken's home, responding to an anonymous 911 call complaining of screams coming from McGacken's home. McGacken explained the noise was a bout of loud sex; his girlfriend appeared at the front door and corroborated his claim.

But officers searched his home anyway, and found enough marijuana -- including potted plants -- to put him away for 10 years on charges of producing a controlled substance.

Appealing the conviction, McGacken argued that, once police knew the noise was consensual sex, they no longer had reason to search his home.

But the appellate panel at the Superior Court of New Jersey disagreed. On Monday, they dismissed McGacken's appeal, stating that "the potential for harm was too severe for the police to accept an explanation for loud screaming that could have been a cover-up of its true source."

The ruling stated in part:

The police are not required to accept the explanation that a person answering the door gives for a distress call. While loud sex may have been a plausible source of screaming, that explanation was not so reliable that the police acted unreasonably in investigating further....

Moreover, by first questioning defendant and his girlfriend, the troopers discounted the possibility that someone may have made a false report of screaming. Defendant did not deny that screaming had occurred in his residence. His admission made it unnecessary for the police to seek corroboration to establish the reliability of the anonymous 911 call.

"The screaming, confirmed by the police to have occurred, gave [the police] an objectively reasonable basis to believe that a limited investigation was necessary to determine whether anyone else was in the home and in need of aid," explains the NJ Family Issues blog. "While loud sex may have been a plausible source of screaming, that explanation was not so reliable that the police acted unreasonably in investigating further." (con't)For Brian McGacken of Farmingdale, New Jersey, an evening of loud sex resulted in a 10-year prison sentence for growing marijuana.... more

samantha420
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46 comments

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3 days ago

SXSW Review: “Mr. Nice”

Imagine if George Jung went to Oxford…and sorta got away with it in the end. Meet Howard Marks, the Welsh drug smuggler who... more

manicexpression
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1 comment

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3 days ago

Marijuana and right-wing politics get together: Mason Tvert and Jon Caldara

At first blush (and second) (and third), marijuana advocate Mason Tvert and Jon Caldara, frontman for the conservative... more

JackHerer
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4 comments

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3 days ago

Medical Marijuana User Sues After Being Fired

A Great Falls man who says he was wrongly fired from his job for using medical marijuana has filed a $500,000 lawsuit against his... more

JackHerer
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32 comments

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4 days ago

Marijuana legalization #1 at Change.Org

To the surprise of virtually no one who has been following public opinion polls for the past 18 months, the call to “legalize the medicinal and recreational use of marijuana” placed #1 in the 2010 Change.org online vote for the “Top 10 Ideas for Change in America.”

Open voting at the Change.org website took place for six weeks — during which time citizens voted nearly 210,000 times on over 2,500 different ideas. This morning the website released the top 10 results here.

Legalization’s first place victory was expected. After all, the issue topped a similar Change.org poll last year. Legalizing marijuana also finished #1 in the White House’s first ever Change.gov poll; it finished #1 in Barack Obama’s first-ever online Town Hall vote; and it finished #1 in the White House’s 2009 ‘Citizens Briefing Book.’

Yet despite these consistent first-place finishes, the administration and the mainstream media remain dismissive. President Obama has twice publicly retreated from the issue — the second time chuckling that such a question would even be asked of him. His press secretary discounted the issue’s true public support, claiming that groups like NORML had somehow stuffed the online ballot box. As if! Meanwhile, mainstream media outlets brushed off the results as the work of “Internet trolls.”

Trolls, huh? How do ‘trolls’ explain the consistent victories racked up by marijuana law reformers at the polls year after year? And how do trolls explain the rising public opinion poll numbers that now show that over 80 percent of the public supports legalizing medical marijuana, and a solid majority also backs legalization for all adults.

Will today’s latest poll results finally be the time that President Obama, his press secretary, stuttering Robert Gibbs, Drug Czar Gil ‘legalization isn’t in my vocabulary‘ Kerlikowske, and the members of the mainstream press start to heed the public’s message that marijuana legalization is not a political liability, but rather it is a political opportunity?

Probably not. But that doesn’t mean that we’re not going to stop telling them that it is.To the surprise of virtually no one who has been following public opinion polls for the past 18 months, the call to... more

samantha420
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13 comments

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4 days ago

Legal grower killed by marijuana thief

A 38-year-old Orting man died over the weekend while trying to protect his medical marijuana plants.

dariusvons
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1 comment

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4 days ago

Woman with medical marijuana pleads guilty in Idaho

A California woman with a prescription for medical marijuana in her home state has pleaded guilty in Idaho to one count of drug... more

dariusvons
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0 comments

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8 days ago

Outlawing Nature is UNnatural - Marc & Jodie Emery interview

I spoke with Marc and Jodie Emery in Vancouver. 2.18.10

chrismorrow
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0 comments

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6 days ago

WalMart Fires Man for Legally Using Medical Marijuana Off the Job

Medical marijuana is legal in Michigan but WalMart claims it has the right to fire anyone who uses it anyway. When a routine drug... more

JonRaymond
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126 comments

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6 days ago

FED's raid Hawaiian Cannabis Ministry

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20100312/BREAKING01/100312021?source=rss_breaking Story from Honolulu Advertiser

changeforbalance
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5 comments

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6 days ago

Nationwide Boycott! WalMart Fired Cancer Patient For Medical Marijuana

WalMart pulled a major bonehead move this week when it sacked a cancer patient -- a former Associate of the Year -- for following... more

samantha420
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23 comments

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5 days ago

Could Colorado Initiative To Legalize Weed Hit 2010 Ballot?

Californians are voting on it later this year. Why wouldn't Colorad'ans do the same thing?... more

Frossty_MMJohn22
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2 comments

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5 days ago

Why is the US Government so opposed to marijuana re-legalization?

Harvard Professor, Lester Grinspoon, M.D., has studied Marijuana for more than thirty years and offers three possible reasons why the government is opposed to it’s re-legalization:

1. Governments don’t readily acknowledge mistakes. The government has been exaggerating the dangers of recreational marihuana for almost 70 years. It has spent many million of dollars in efforts to demonstrate some harm that would justify prohibition. Since 1967 more than 10 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges, and many of them have had to serve long prison sentences. Careers have been ruined and families bankrupted or destroyed. The damage is beyond estimation. It is difficult for the government to turn around now and say, “Sorry, we made a mistake.”

2. There are now considerable vested interests in maintaining prohibition. The Drug War has created a vast enforcement and “educational” bureaucracy, a drug abuse industrial complex that parallels the military-industrial complex produced by the Cold War and is just as difficult to unseat. Forfeitures of drug dealers’ property fill the coffers of the drug control system, supplemented by the illegal seizures of corrupt drug agents. The Drug War juggernaut also sustains a growing industry devoted to examining the hair and urine of citizens for traces of marijuana and other drugs. The pharmaceutical companies and drug-testing laboratories that profit from this practice do not want to see it ended. . . . All in all, a large and growing investment of capital and human resources in involved.

3. Finally, Marihuana has become a symbol charged with cultural tensions. Along with psychedelic drugs, it was seen as a catalyst of the antiestablishment movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Many regarded the free speech, civil rights, and anti-Vietnam War movements as socially healthy and exciting expressions of a vibrant democracy. But other saw these movements as symptoms of a society out of control . . . The establishment plays to this fear by exaggerating the harmful potential of the drug and especially by presenting its users as deviant. Successful middle-class marijuana users passively cooperate with their campaign when they keep their use secret and allow the television camera’s lens to focus on latter-day hippies.

(con't)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t1GlgVPhR4&feature=relatedHarvard Professor, Lester Grinspoon, M.D., has studied Marijuana for more than thirty years and offers three possible reasons why... more

samantha420
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1 comment

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5 days ago

Marijuana & divergent thinking

In response to my post on the effects of mood on cognition, which also referenced the possibilities of self-medicating ourselves... more

samantha420
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6 comments

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7 days ago

Real Time with Bill Maher - Marijuana Legalization

Bill Maher and Gary Johnson, now of Marijuana Policy Project, speak on marijuana legalization - Real Time with Bill Maher 3.12.10

samantha420
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7 comments

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8 days ago

Marijuana Moms & Dads - Legal use jeopardizes child custody

It's medicine.

samantha420
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8 comments

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7 days ago

Vote Online for Legalization of Marijuana in Canada

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has decided to ask the Internet what issue is most pressing to Canadians. An online poll... more

copperdragon
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0 comments

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7 days ago

Puffing is the best medicine, says Harvard professor

"I have yet to see a patient who preferred Marinol to smoked marijuana... It is not unreasonable to believe that drug companies have an interest in sustaining the prohibition against the herb."

Lester Grinspoon, MD - There is very little evidence that smoking marijuana as a means of taking it represents a significant health risk. Although cannabis has been smoked widely in Western countries for more than four decades, there have been no reported cases of lung cancer or emphysema attributed to marijuana. I suspect that a day’s breathing in any city with poor air quality poses more of a threat than inhaling a day’s dose — which for many ailments is just a portion of a joint — of marijuana.

Further, those who are concerned about the toxic effects of smoking can now use a vaporizer, which frees the cannabinoid molecules from the plant material without burning it and producing smoke.

As for getting high, I am not convinced that the therapeutic benefits of cannabis can always be separated from its psychoactive effects. For example, many patients with multiple sclerosis who use marijuana speak of “feeling better” as well as of the relief from muscle spasms and other symptoms. If cannabis contributes to this mood elevation, should patients be deprived of it?

(rest of article at link)

Here is the DEA's position, fyi:

The DEA Position On Marijuana

The campaign to legitimize what is called "medical" marijuana is based on two propositions: that science views marijuana as medicine, and that DEA targets sick and dying people using the drug. Neither proposition is true. Smoked marijuana has not withstood the rigors of science – it is not medicine and it is not safe. DEA targets criminals engaged in cultivation and trafficking, not the sick and dying. No state has legalized the trafficking of marijuana, including the twelve states that have decriminalized certain marijuana use.1

SMOKED MARIJUANA IS NOT MEDICINE

There is no consensus of medical evidence that smoking marijuana helps patients. Congress enacted laws against marijuana in 1970 based in part on its conclusion that marijuana has no scientifically proven medical value. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the federal agency responsible for approving drugs as safe and effective medicine based on valid scientific data. FDA has not approved smoked marijuana for any condition or disease. The FDA noted that "there is currently sound evidence that smoked marijuana is harmful," and "that no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use.""I have yet to see a patient who preferred Marinol to smoked marijuana... It is not unreasonable to believe that drug... more

samantha420
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Make Marijuana Matter 911 items | updated Mar 19 2010

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All Rights Reserved