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Gap Closes for Arizona Medical Marijuana Measure

Arizona's measure to legalize medical marijuana is still trailing but the gap is closing. The measure was about 3,100 votes below the 50 percent plus one needed for passage after more votes were counted on Thursday afternoon -- by Thursday night when more totals were posted, the measure was losing by less than 1,500 votes. Elections officials say about 14,000 early ballots and 45,000 provisional ballots are left to be processed and counted from the Nov. 2 election.
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Drug Prohibition War Forces Flight from Mexican Town

Around 300 people have abandoned the town of Ciudad Mier, fleeing drug prohibition violence from traffickers who were threatening residents. The town, one of numerous cities on borderlands believed to be in dispute by two rival organizations, is a stone's throw from the border of Texas. More than 60 people have been killed in the town of about 6,000 people this year.
Chronicle
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LA City Council Pushes for Medical Marijuana Tax on March Ballot

The Los Angeles City Council pushed for a ballot measure to begin taxing medical marijuana. There are cities in California that tax medical marijuana, such as San Jose, La Puente, Oakland, Richmond, Sacramento, and Berkeley. With a vote of 9-3 the Los Angeles City Council has informed city attorney’s to draft a ballot measure for the March 8 election in favor of taxing marijuana.
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'Cannabiz: The Explosive Rise of the Medical Marijuana Industry' — Author Interview

Veteran Bay Area investigative reporter John Geluardi released his first book, Cannabiz: The Explosive Rise of the Medical Marijuana Industry this October. A former staff writer for the SF Weekly, Geluardi saw so much momentum building behind medical pot, he researched and reported a 200-page non-fiction paperback. Geluardi talks about investing in pot, economies of scale, and new fissures in the field in this two-part Q&A edited for length and clarity.
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Venezuela Anti-Drug Czar Denies Arrested Kingpin's Corruption Allegations

The head of Venezuela’s narcotics agency, Nestor Reverol, denied allegations made by one of the world’s top drug traffickers that he had stolen his money and used some of it to buy a $2 million home. Walid Makled, arrested in Colombia in August, alleged in two TV interviews that Reverol took over his businesses worth as much as $70 million annually after he fled Venezuela, where he is wanted on charges of drug trafficking and murder. Makled said that before fleeing Venezuela he had retrieved videos, receipts and other evidence to back up his allegations.
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Drug Trafficking Organization Interferes with Boulder Rescue Squad

Life-saving equipment, including a special extraction device, is now sitting on the floor inside the Boulder Emergency Squad because delivery to Mexico faces setbacks due to drug traffickers. The items were supposed to be delivered to Mante, Mexico, one of Boulder’s sister cities where the need for the gear is great. Delivery is impossible at the moment as the squad is being told that the traffickers have taken over many of the roads between the border and the city.
Latest News

Mexico Drug Prohibition Violence Costs $350K Daily in Natgas Losses

Prohibition-caused threats and violence by drug trafficking organizations are preventing some government oil workers from reaching installations in northern Mexico and costing state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos about $350,000 every day in lost production. That amounts to about $10.5 million per month, or about 2.3 percent of Mexico's $450 million per month average in monthly natural gas revenues.
Latest News

Judge to Hear Medical Marijuana Case Against Wal-Mart


A federal judge on will hear arguments in the lawsuit on behalf of Joseph Casias, a 30-year-old cancer patient who lost his job after a routine drug screen found he had used medical marijuana. Casias was registered in Michigan to use it to treat pain.
Blog
Steve Cooley, California's greatest threat to medical marijuana
Steve Cooley, California's greatest threat to medical marijuana

These "Stoners Against Legalization" Fools Should Have Opposed Steve Cooley, Not Prop 19

On November 2nd, I was walking through Oaksterdam with Steve Silverman, when we happened across a group of misguided young pot-grower types clad in "No on 19" t-shirts flyering the neighborhood with anti-legalization propaganda. "Are you seriously out here defending marijuana prohibition?" Steve asked, to which their spokesman replied, "I like things the way they are now." I suggested that if he really cares about medical marijuana, maybe he should stop worrying about Prop 19 and put his time and energy into defeating Steve Cooley. His response was classic: "Who the hell is Steve Cooley?"

Latest News

Mexico Finds Killing Drug Kingpins Can Add to Mayhem

Last week's killing of the top drug lord in the Gulf Cartel marked the second takedown of a major capo in Mexico in a little over two months. Experts in Mexico and the United States say the strategy has a real downside.
Latest News

London Exhibit Examines Centuries of Drug History

"High Society," an exhibition opening today at London's Wellcome Collection museum, examines the history of opium, from pre-biblical practices to today's entire prohibitionist drug market, which is worth an estimated $320 billion per year, according to the United Nations. One of the aims of the exhibit is to de-stigmatize today's illegal drugs and show there is more to the subject than visitors may have thought. After all, substances that many people ingest freely today — alcohol, caffeine and tobacco — have all been criminalized in years past or are still illegal in some parts of the world.
In The Trenches

New Campaign! 26 States by 2012!

Donate Header 26 by 2012 Adjusted

 

 

Dear friends,

To have a shot at removing the federal government's prohibition on medical marijuana, we need at least 26 states to legalize medical marijuana. This will give us a clear path to victory in Congress and/or the federal courts.

As of today, medical marijuana is legal in 14 states and the District of Columbia.

To get to 26 states, we need to run ballot initiatives in some tough states in November 2012 – Arkansas, Idaho, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota. And to get on these five ballots in November 2012, we need to start the signature drives soon, with the first being in Arkansas.

Please help MPP succeed with a new experiment: I want to see if we can fund the entire signature drive in Arkansas through monthly credit card donations from you and others on this e-mail list. Please start donating $10 or more on your credit card today.

As soon as we get up to $10,000 in monthly donations, we'll start funding the signature drive in Arkansas. Public opinion polling shows that 58% of Arkansans would vote for a medical marijuana initiative there, so the key is to put such a question on the ballot for them to approve.

Assuming a typical validity rate of 60% for signatures collected, we'll need to collect 110,000 gross signatures in order to end up with the required 65,000 valid signatures. It costs about $1.50 to collect and verify each signature, so here's the cost of the campaign:

110,000 gross signature x $1.50

$165,000

legal fees, printing, travel

$15,000

TOTAL COST

$180,000

 

 

 

 

The signature drive will take about 18 months to complete, so as soon as you and other allies begin monthly credit card donations totaling $10,000, we'll start the signature drive, and then you can sit back and watch us win in Arkansas, and hopefully other states, too.

In a couple weeks, I'll update you on how much money we're receiving in new monthly donations for the Arkansas campaign.

Please help me show that this experiment can work — that fewer than 1,000 people across the entire country can join together to help the first state in the deep south to legalize medical marijuana. We need to do this if we want to get to 26 states.

Please donate $10 or more on your credit card today so that we can start the signature drive in Arkansas.Thank you.

Sincerely,

Rob's signature

Rob Kampia thumbnail (master)Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.


Help us meet our mission

Raised in ’10:$2,721,628
Goal in ’10: $3,400,000

MPP will be able to tackle all of the projects in our 2010 strategic plan if you help us meet this challenge.


To contact MPP, please click here or reply to this e-mail. Our mailing address is Marijuana Policy Project, 236 Massachusetts Ave. NE, Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20002. Any donations you make to MPP may be used for political purposes, such as supporting or opposing candidates for federal office.


 
Event

PA Medical Marijuana Bio-Ethics Panel at St. Joseph's University

St. Joseph’s University is hosting the discussion “Should it be legalized?” on medical marijuana by the Catholic Bio-Ethics Institute. The panel is open to the public.

Speakers include:

Representative Mark B. Cohen (PA) (Has proposed a bill to legalize Marijuana for Medical use in PA)
For seven years Mark Cohen served as chairman of the Pennsylvania House Labor Relations Committee.

Sr. Patricia Talone, RSM, Ph.D., Vice President, Mission Services, Catholic Health Association
Patricia Talone, RSM, PhD Sr. Patricia Talone is a Sister of Mercy of the Mid-Atlantic Community. She holds a BA from Gwynedd-Mercy College, an MA from St. Charles Seminary, Philadelphia and a PhD in theological ethics from Marquette University, Milwaukee

Dr. Marie Hasson, Chair,  Department of Psychiatry, AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center
Marie Elena has been Chairman of Atlantic Regional Medical Center for 2 years, as well as a Fellow in the APA.  Marie Elena is also the Medical Director, Atlantic Behavioral Health since 2008.

Advocate for Medical Marijuana – Chris Goldstein from PhillyNorml
Chris Goldstein is a writer and marijuana reform advocate based in New Jersey. He works on state legislation, municipal issues and national reform though local non-profits including PhillyNORML and PA4MMJ. He serves as a media spokesperson for marijuana related issues and publishes a popular blog at Examiner.com.

CONTACT: Chris Goldstein [email protected] or Theresa O’Doherty  [email protected]

Latest News

Oakland to Regulate Medical Marijuana Farms

Oakland is pushing ahead with plans for taking the industry out of the black market. The City Council ratified an application process for large-scale marijuana farms that would be the first in the nation to be government-sanctioned. Council members also approved a separate measure doubling the number of allowable medical marijuana dispensaries in Oakland, to eight.
Latest News

Obamacare and the War on Drugs

Some conservatives outraged by Obamacare’s individual mandate had helped pave the way for it through drug prohibition policies. The Justice Department is defending Obamacare by asserting that a 2005 Supreme Court case about medical marijuana, Gonzales v. Raich, permits such a broad reading of the Commerce Clause that the federal government can tell individual citizens that they have to buy health insurance.
Blog
this is not a drug (photo courtesy AJU_photography via flickr.com and change.org)
this is not a drug (photo courtesy AJU_photography via flickr.com and change.org)

Mother Tests Positive for Poppy Seeds, Cops Take Her Newborn Baby

With all the recent discussion of marijuana legalization, it's easy to forget how many other ways the drug war is ruining innocent lives. This disturbing story from Pennsylvania is another example of how inaccurate and irresponsible drug testing practices are creating nightmares for innocent families.

Chronicle
As the polls closed, Oaksterdam waited.
As the polls closed, Oaksterdam waited.

Prop 19: What Went Right, What Went Wrong [FEATURE]

Everybody's got an opinion on why Prop 19 lost. The Chronicle examines what a range of movement leaders and other thinkers think it means -- and what the discussion of why Prop 19 lost itself means.
Latest News

Drug Prohibition War Prompts Text Message Alert System at UT-Brownsville

The University of Texas-Brownsville/Texas Southmost College is planning an emergency text messaging system as part of its strategy to alert students and faculty to dangers amid the drug prohibition war raging across the Rio Grande. One recent intelligence alert had campus police knocking on dorm doors in the middle of the night to warn students to stay indoors.
Chronicle