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Press Release: MPP of Nevada Announces Formation of Ballot Advocacy Group â Nevadans for Sensible Marijuana Laws
MEDIA RELEASEÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
DECEMBER 9, 2009
MPP of Nevada Announces Formation of Ballot Advocacy Group â Nevadans for Sensible Marijuana Laws
Following unsuccessful ballot initiatives to tax and regulate marijuana in 2002 and 2006, group prepares for victory in November 2012
CONTACT: Dave Schwartz, MPP-NV Managerâ¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦702-727-1081
LAS VEGAS â Today, Dave Schwartz, manager of the Marijuana Policy Project of Nevada (MPP-NV), announced that he has filed documents with the Nevada Secretary of State establishing a Ballot Advocacy Group to support a ballot initiative to create a legal, regulated market for marijuana for persons 21 years of age or older. The name of the committee is Nevadans for Sensible Marijuana Laws, and it has been organized with the goal of conducting a successful signature drive in 2010 that will place an initiative on the ballot in November 2012. The committee plans to file the language of the initiative with the state in January.
        âAs a long-time resident of Nevada, I am excited to be a part of this campaign,â said Schwartz, who will serve as chairman of Nevadans for Sensible Marijuana Laws. âOver the next three years, we will be meeting with and talking to voters all across the state about the harms caused by our current marijuana laws. We will talk about lost revenues, wasted law enforcement resources, and the fact that keeping marijuana illegal actually steers kids into an illicit market where they are exposed to far more dangerous drugs. Most of all, we will ask Nevadans to think about how we are actually steering adults toward a far more harmful substance â alcohol â by threatening to punish them if they choose to use marijuana instead. In so many ways, our current laws simply donât make sense. We need sensible marijuana laws, and that is what our initiative will produce.â
        MPP of Nevada is a non-profit organization dedicated to educating Nevadans about the true nature of marijuana and about the harms caused by marijuana prohibition in the state. For more information about MPP of Nevada, please visit http://www.mppnv.org.Â
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Former Presidents and Noted Experts Debate New Directions in Drug Policy
Press Release: Congress Close to Ending Ban on Medical Marijuana in Washington, D.C.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
DECEMBER 9, 2009
Congress Close to Ending Ban on Medical Marijuana in Washington, D.C.
CONTACT: Bruce Mirken, MPP director of communications â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦ 415-585-6404 or 202-215-4205
WASHINGTON, D.C. â In a historic move, Congress is now poised to end the decade long ban on Washington, D.C. implementing the medical marijuana law District voters passed in 1998 with a 69 percent majority. Known as the Barr amendment, the provision â a rider attached to appropriations for the District -- has forbidden D.C. from extending legal protection to qualified medical marijuana patients and has been derided by advocates for years as an unconscionable intrusion by the federal government into the District's affairs.
           The omnibus spending bill that Democratic leaders will shortly be bringing to a vote in the House later this week removes this onerous provision. Once both chambers approve this final language and the president signs it, the Barr amendment will no longer block medical marijuana in D.C.
        "The end of the Barr amendment is now in sight,â said Aaron Houston, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington. âThis represents a huge victory not just for medical marijuana patients, but for all city residents who have every right to set their own policies in their own District without congressional meddling. D.C. residents overwhelmingly made the sensible, compassionate decision to pass a medical marijuana law, and now, more than 10 years later, suffering Washingtonians may finally be allowed to focus on treating their pain without fearing arrest."
           Advocates noted that the welcome repeal will come too late to help Jonathan Magbie, a D.C. quadriplegic man who died in prison in 2004 from lack of medical care after being convicted for using marijuana to treat his pain.
        "Jonathan Magbie would be alive today if the District been able to implement its medical marijuana law when it passed in 1998,â Houston said. "Perhaps now nobody in the District will ever have to suffer as he and his family did simply for using the medicine that works best for them."      Â
        Recently, the American Medical Association called on the federal government to reconsider marijuanaâs classification as a Schedule I drug, which bars medical use.
        With more than 29,000 members and 100,000 e-mail subscribers nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. MPP believes that the best way to minimize the harm associated with marijuana is to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol. For more information, please visit http://MarijuanaPolicy.org.
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10 Rules for Dealing With Police (Film Preview)
If you've ever wondered why I only blog at night, it's because I've been spending the daylight hours at Flex Your Rights helping write and produce what I believe will be the best know your rights resource ever made. Here's a peak at the new film 10 Rules for Dealing with Police, which we're releasing on January 25:
I have a cameo in the film where I get chased and tackled by a massive plainclothes narcotics officer. Mark your calendars.
Deputy Drug Czar: "I hate this job"
The New York Times has a rather strange visit with Deputy Drug Czar Tom McClellan in which he says he only took the job because his son had recently died from a drug overdose and now admits that he hates working there:
In a recent interview in his office here — still sparsely decorated except for a photocopied picture of his family, including his surviving son and two young grandsons (or "grand felons," as he called them) — Dr. McLellan put his feet up on the coffee table and declared, "I hate this job."
"This is a job that needs scientific background," he went on. "But if you come to it with the kind of desires to turn everything into a scientific experiment, you will have your poor little heart broken."
I don't understand. Did Tom McClellan think they cared about science at the Office of National Drug Control Policy? Maybe if someone had shown him Stoners in the Mist, he could have figured out what he was getting himself into before it was too late.
Regardless, it's just weird to find the new deputy drug czar already hating on his own job in The New York Times. It strikes me as yet another indication of what a sickly and irrelevant institution the ONDCP has become. Sometimes, I feel like it's just a matter of time before the whole thing collapses in a poignant public spectacle:
Dr. McClellan might be our best candidate yet for bringing that beautiful sight to life.
Feedback: Do You Read Drug War Chronicle?
Medical Marijuana: LA City Council Votes to Cap Medical Marijuana Dispensaries at 70
Europe: Czech Government Decriminalizes Up To Five Pot Plants, 15 Grams
Latin America: Top Honduran Anti-Drug Official Assassinated
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