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This Week in History
Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
You can grow up to five of these in Holland, no matter the yield, the Dutch high court has held. (image courtesy the author)
Dutch Can Grow Five Marijuana Plants, No Problem
Although Dutch policy only allows you to possess five grams of marijuana, the high court has ruled that you can still grow five plants, no matter the yield.
The busts keep on coming, but so do the drugs. (Image via Wikimedia.org)
Mexico Drug War Update
More mass graves have been found, and the gruesome killings continue.
Medical Marijuana Bill Re-Introduced in Pennsylvania (Press Release)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 4/27/2011
CONTACT: Chris Goldstein at 267-702-3731 or [email protected]
Medical Marijuana Bill Re-Introduced in Pennsylvania
A bill to legalize the use of medical marijuana for qualifying patients and to create a statewide system of “Compassion Centers” has been introduced in the Keystone State. Senator Daylin Leach brought SB 1003 forward on April 25th with Senators Larry Farnese, James Ferlo and Wayne Fontana as the initial co-sponsors. The legislation has been referred to the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee. READ SB 1003
The language is essentially a re-introduction of a bill that was active in 2009-10 in both houses of the General Assembly. The bill includes provisions for home cultivation and collects the state sales tax on medical cannabis. Last year the issue saw impressive public hearings in Harrisburg and Pittsburgh before the House Health and Human Services Committee.
Dr. Harry Swidler, an Emergency Medicine physician, said at the hearings: “Marijuana is non-addicting. There is no physical dependence or physical withdrawal associated with its use. It is, from a practical standpoint, non-toxic. Marijuana is safer by some measures than any other drug. There is simply no known quantity of marijuana capable of killing a person.”
Renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht testified before the HHS Committee in August 2010: "I have personally performed 17,000 autopsies and reviewed 36,000 other postmortem protocols signed out by pathologists throughout the United States. I have never attributed a death to marijuana overdose, nor have I ever seen such a death certificate issued by any coroner or medical examiner."
WATCH VIDEO OF TESTIMONY HERE: http://www.youtube.com/pa4mmj
Advocates at Pennsylvanians for Medical Marijuana PA4MMJ are pushing for several changes to the bill when it gets to committee this session. These include re-naming the bill to The Governor Raymond P. Shafer Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act.
Just after stepping down as governor of Pennsylvania in 1970 Shafer, a Republican, chaired a blue-ribbon commission for President Nixon that recommended two main points: 1) Marijuana should not be placed in Schedule I of the federal Controlled Substances Act 2) Marijuana possession should be decriminalized at the federal level.
Nixon ignored those suggestions and ever since the federal government has aggressively enforced the Schedule I classification that describes cannabis as having “…no currently accepted medical use in treatment …” This is the reason that 15 states and the District of Columbia have independently legalized marijuana for medical uses.
Derek Rosenzweig at PA4MMJ in Philadelphia made this statement today, “The best person to help a patient decide what medicine works best is their physician. Marijuana should be available as an option for the thousands of residents in PA dealing with terrible medical conditions that we know cannabis can help treat.”
Patrick Nightengale of PA4MMJ in Pittsburgh added this statement; “ We have spoken with older citizens undergoing chemotherapy to our young warriors returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, who have all implored us to get a medical marijuana law passed in PA. Routinely prescribed pain medications cause abuse, addiction and deaths everyday. We should not criminalize the possession of a plant that has never resulted in a single lethal overdose.”
Polling conducted by Franklin&Marshall in 2010 showed that a striking 80 percent of residents support passing a medical marijuana law in Pennsylvania.
More information on the statewide effort in support of safe access to cannabis at www.pa4mmj.org
To speak with advocates, medical experts or cannabis patients in Pennsylvania please contact Chris Goldstein, media coordinator at PA4MMJ, at [email protected] or 267-702-3731.
Additional contacts: Derek Rosenzweig at [email protected] and Patrick Nightengale at [email protected].
Hearing Set for Bill Legalizing Marijuana in Maine
At 1 p.m. Tuesday, May 10, supporters of legalized marijuana in Maine will crowd into a hearing room in Augusta to support a Portland legislator's bill to decriminalize pot. Rep. Diane Russell, D-Portland, sponsor of LD 1453, "An Act To Legalize and Tax Marijuana," said she was thrilled to learn about the hearing that has been scheduled before the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.
Mexicoâs Congress Considers Changing Security Law In Attempt to Control Drug Prohibition Violence
With the current session of Mexicoâs Congress scheduled to expire Friday, members of Mexicoâs House of Deputies have less than a week to deliberate over extremely controversial changes to the countryâs National Security Law that would give the President the power to deploy Mexicoâs Armed Forces against broadly defined internal threats to Mexican national security. PT and Convergencia parties say that the 83-page initiative to change the law constitutes a threat to individual liberties and could create a state of exception in Mexico that would effectively put the country under military control. They remain deeply skeptical of proposed changes to the law, which advocate, among other things, the monitoring and recording of private communication for intelligence-gathering purposes. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch have drawn attention to frequent abuses by the Mexican military and contend that there is a widespread systemic failure to prosecute human rights violations in Mexican military courts.
RI State Rep. Watson Presents His Version of Marijuana Related Arrest in CT
In a televised speech on the House floor about his arrest in Connecticut last Friday on driving-under-the-influence and marijuana-possession charges, House Minority Leader Robert A. Watson admitted to using marijuana to treat flare-ups of the pancreatitis that landed him in the hospital last November. Watson, R-East Greenwich, said he took a small amount of the drug with him when he went to Connecticut that day to help a friend move because he had had a pancreatic attack the day before, and wanted the drug handy if he had another severe one.
Medical Marijuana Bill on Montana Legislature's Agenda
Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer says he hopes the Legislature gets the medical marijuana reform bill to him with enough time for him to make changes and send it back for their approval. He says when the bill gets to his desk, he's going to make sure legitimate patients still have the option to use cannabis.
Mexico's Narco Blog: Drug Prohibition Deaths in Real Time
While much of Mexico's mainstream media, especially television stations and local newspapers, has shied away from covering killings and naming the drug trafficking organizations involved, a blog and its anonymous curator publish graphic details of spiraling prohibition violence. At Mexico's "blog del Narco" the images are gruesome and unedited: a dead man in a sports jersey with his face covered in dried red blood and grey sand; a woman hanging from a rope above a busy urban over-pass and naked bodies lined up on the ground displaying clear, uncensored, signs of torture. Some recent headlines from the site include: "Entire town taken hostage by Gunmen in Chihuahua"; "Eleven year old arrested in Acapulco with AK 47"; "Sinaloa cartel welcomes new police chief with tortured body"; and "Mass narco grave, 60 bodies found, total 148 corpses".
Students Pursue Good Samaritan Drug Policy Shift
A new student group is campaigning for a Good Samaritan policy at Virginia Tech. Hokies for a Good Samaritan Policy wants to change the policy to protect people who call 911 when they or a friend are illegally using drugs or alcohol from disciplinary sanctions. "In these situations the clock is ticking," Mark Goldstein, an accounting and information systems major and president of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, said. "Every second you donât call for help the person is closer to dying."