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Poland: Unconsititutional and Costly Drugs Laws Infringe on Human Rights (Opinion)

"Criminalisation of drug possession does not help to decrease illicit drug consumption. Instead, it distracts the attention and energy of the police from the real originators of the problem: mass producers and major and minor drug dealers" – write the signatories of a letter of support for liberalizing drug policy in Poland. Among them are former President of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski and a world-famous sociologist, Zygmunt Bauman. Other signatories include writers, artists and respected public figures.

High Fees Hobble California Medical Marijuana ID Card Program

California, by some estimates, has as many as 350,000 medical marijuana patients -- yet only a tiny fraction has signed on to a state ID card program meant to protect them from arrest or seizure of their medicine. That doesn't appear likely to change, say marijuana advocates, patients and some county health officials who administer the program locally, as the cost of the cards can't compete with privately issued cards or even doctors' recommendations. When the state created the program in 2003 and launched it two years later, officials figured 100,000 patients would sign on for the optional cards, but the state issued just 12,659 to patients and caregivers last fiscal year.

America's Third War: U.S. Secretly Trains Guatemalan Forces to Battle Drug Traffickers

In a sign that Mexico's prohibitionist war on drugs continues to fail and spread havoc in the region: About 150 miles north of Guatemala City, deep in the jungle, is a military base where Guatemalan Special Forces are being trained secretly by U.S. Green Berets. The U.S. officers say the Guatemalan troops are committed to the task of defeating the Mexican drug trafficking organizations. Guatemala’s murder rate is now twice that of Mexico where more than 11,000 people have been killed just this year.

Inquirer Editorial: Sell Drugs Or Go Jobless (Opinion)

The Philadelphia Inquirer's editorial board opines that many government officials are finally admitting the prohibitionist war on drugs is a costly failure, and that the United States has spent at least $1 trillion on the war on drugs, but the streets of Kensington prove it hasn't worked.

MarijuanaDoctors.com Announces Innovative New Features for the Medical Marijuana Industry (Press Release)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 14, 2010

CONTACT: 1-888-392-9772

MarijuanaDoctors.com Announces Innovative New Features for the Medical Marijuana Industry

Nation’s largest network of marijuana doctors rolls out new features and functionality to help patients get safe and legal access to medical cannabis in all legal states

MarijuanaDoctors.com -- the medical marijuana industry’s first online search and booking platform for medical marijuana evaluations—today announced the addition of innovative new features to its website. MarijuanaDoctors.com connects patients with the highest quality network of medical marijuana doctors in the industry, and now also offers new services that streamline and secure the process of gaining legal access to medical cannabis and help physicians expand their practices to serve this growing medical need.

Key New features of MarijuanaDoctors.com’s Latest Release:

    *     Patient Pre-Qualification System: MarijuanaDoctors.com prequalifies patients based on the specific guidelines of each state prior to their marijuana evaluation appointments, ensuring that the doctors in its network only see patients that are qualified to become medical marijuana patients in that state.
    *     24-Hour Patient Verification: MarijuanaDoctors.com now offers verification services round the clock to verify patients’ status as a qualified and legal medical marijuana patient. This service is essential for patients and saves time and money for physicians by eliminating the need to hire their own staff to handle verifications of their patients’ recommendations.
    *     See Your Own Doctor: MarijuanaDoctors.com now offers “do it yourself” packages that empower patients with the information and resources needed to obtain medical marijuana recommendations from their primary care physicians. These packages include the patient’s prequalification data from the site’s prequalification system, state-specific legal information for the physicians, a pre-filled stat-specific recommendation letter, and more.
    *     Recommendation Letter Generator: MarijaunaDoctors.com provides state-compliant, pre-filled recommendation letters for physicians to easily print and sign for each of their patients. This system is available in all twelve states where recommendation letter guidelines exist.

“Our goal has always been to legitimize the medical marijuana industry, and these new features and functionalities will help streamline the process for patients to get safe, legal access to the medicine they need,” said Jason Draizin, CEO of MarijuanaDoctors.com. “Each medical marijuana state has set up a system for patients to qualify for cannabis, and we have developed services to simplify that process for physicians, which ultimately helps the patients and helps add a new revenue stream for professionals in the ever-diminishing medical industry.”

MarijuanaDoctors.com offers monthly subscriptions to physicians that are looking to expand their practices into the promising medical marijuana industry. Thousands of patients in every medical marijuana state turn to MarijuanaDoctors.com every month for quality physicians who recommend medical cannabis to their patients. The company holds high standards for the doctors allowed to join the site, and individually verifies each medical marijuana clinic and physician in its network.

About MarijuanaDoctors.com

MarijuanaDoctors.com was founded to act as the trusted gateway for patients searching for medical marijuana treatment in all legal medical marijuana states. MarijuanaDoctors.com supplies patients with the latest medical marijuana information and provides detailed physician profile and schedule information—giving patients full visibility into the process of obtaining medical marijuana. Patients can browse, rate and review medical marijuana doctors, or learn how to obtain a medical marijuana card.

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Mexico Marijuana Growers Learn New Tricks from U.S.

Farmers growing marijuana in remote Mexican mountains are adopting techniques pioneered in the United States to produce more potent pot and boost profits. Even as hundreds of troops fan out across Sinaloa ripping up marijuana fields by hand, drug trafficking organizations are one step ahead of the government’s efforts, helping to stifle President Felipe Calderon’s army-led prohibitionist battle against the drug traffickers.

Teen Marijuana Use Continues to Rise: Report Consistently Shows Prohibition’s Failure to Curb Teen Access to Marijuana; More Teens Say Marijuana is Easy To Get (Press Release)

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                                                                 

DECEMBER 14, 2010

Teen Marijuana Use Continues to Rise

Annual Report Consistently Shows Prohibition’s Failure to Curb Teen Access to Marijuana; More Teens Say Marijuana is Easy To Get

CONTACT: Mike Meno, MPP director of communications: 202-905-2030, 443-927-6400 or [email protected]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Marijuana use by 8th, 10th and 12th grade students increased in 2010, with more American teenagers now using marijuana than cigarettes for the second year in a row, according to numbers released today by the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the University of Michigan as part of the annual Monitoring the Future survey. In 2010, 21.4 percent of high school seniors used marijuana in the last 30 days, while 19.2 had used cigarettes.

         “It’s really no surprise that more American teenagers are using marijuana and continue to say it’s easy to get. Our government has spent decades refusing to regulate marijuana in order to keep it out of the hands of drug dealers who aren’t required to check customer ID and have no qualms about selling marijuana to young people,” said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. “The continued decline in teen tobacco use is proof that sensible regulations, coupled with honest, and science-based public education can be effective in keeping substances away from young people. It’s time we acknowledge that our current marijuana laws have utterly failed to accomplish one of their primary objectives – to keep marijuana away from young people – and do the right thing by regulating marijuana, bringing its sale under the rule of law, and working to reduce the unfettered access to marijuana our broken laws have given teenagers.”  

         Since the survey’s inception, overwhelmingly numbers of American teenagers have said marijuana was easy for them to obtain. According to the 2010 numbers, the use of alcohol – which is also regulated and sold by licensed merchants required to check customer ID – continued to decline among high school seniors.

         With more than 124,000 members and supporters 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 www.mpp.org.

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Anti-Drug Chief Warns About Deterioration in Central Asia

Warning about the worsening drug prohibition situation in Kyrgyzstan and an actual war between drug trafficking organizations in Tajikistan, Russia’s Federal Anti-Drug Service's Viktor Ivanov has called for a special meeting of the UN Security Council on Afghan drug trafficking.

WikiLeaks Cables: Ghanaian Police 'Helped Drug Smugglers Evade Security'

A £1m taxpayer-funded anti-trafficking campaign to stem the flow of cocaine into the UK through Ghana's busiest airport is beset by corruption, with drugs police sabotaging expensive British-bought scanning equipment and tipping off smugglers, leaked US embassy cables reveal. Ghana president John Atta Mills even worried that his own entourage could be smuggling drugs through his presidential lounge at Accra's Kotoka airport and asked a senior UK customs official last November for help to screen them "in the privacy of his suite to avoid any surprises if they are caught carrying drugs", according to the US embassy in Accra (cable 234015).
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