From Stop The Drug War.org :

“After thwarting the will of District voters for more than a decade, Congress is no longer standing in the way of effective relief for DC residents who struggle with chronic ailments,” said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. “This moment is a long overdue victory for both DC home rule and the well-being of District residents whose doctors believe medical marijuana can help ease their pain.”“DC Councilmembers and members of Congress should be commended for providing relief to cancer, HIV/AIDS and other patients who need medical marijuana,” said Bill Piper, director of national affairs of the Drug Policy Alliance. “Now we need to make sure that everyone who needs the medicine gets it and that federal law enforcement doesn’t undermine the process. Providing marijuana to sick patients in DC is a major step forward, but this law has some faults that will have to be fixed over time,” said Piper. “By not allowing patients to grow their own medicine, the DC law leaves patients at the mercy of medical marijuana dispensaries and the US Justice Department — who could shut down those dispensaries.”

 http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/07/20/oakland_passes_marijuana_cultivation_ordinance

Oakland has made history yet again. The first city to tax and regulate medical marijuana is now about to become the first city to permit, tax, and regulate industrial-scale marijuana production.

The city of Oakland is about to take medical marijuana production to a new level. It just passed an ordinance that will allow for four city-permitted industrial-scale cultivation operations.

If you’d like to see Virginia STOP putting people in jail for 
marijuana, then you need to send an email or two, and you need to do 
it TUESDAY!
Delegate Harvey Morgan, a Republican pharmaciust from Gloucester, 
has introduced HB1134 and HB1136. HB1134 will decriminalize 
possession, and reform penalties for other marijuana 
offenses. HB1136 will improve Virginia’s medical-marijuana law,
The decrim bill, HB1134, will be heard about 1pm on Wednesday the 
27th by the Criminal Laws subcommittee of the House Coiurts of 
Justice Committee. After these nine people vote on it, it will be 
heard again by the full Courts committee, which generally follows the 
recommendations of the subcommittee. Boiled down, this means that 
five people on the subcommittee can effectively KILL the bill, and 
they’ll be voting on Wednesday afternoon.
If you’d like to see the bill pass, you need to go to 
<http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?101+sub+H08001>, and 
send a short email to each person listed under “Membership” (Click on 
each name to see data and a mailto link). The email needs to arrive 
before noon on. Wednesday!
The message doesn’t need to be long, or elegant . . . it just needs 
to GET THERE. As a subjectline, I suggest “Support HB1134″. For 
details on the bill, go to 
<http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?ses=101&typ=bil&val=hb1134>.

From stopthedrugwar.org :

 As 2009 prepares to become history, we look back at the past year’s domestic drug policy developments. With the arrival of a highly popular (at least at first) new president, Barack Obama, and Democratic Party control of the levers of power in Congress, the drug reform gridlock that characterized the Bush years is giving way to real change in Washington, albeit not nearly quickly enough. A number of this year’s Top 10 domestic drug stories have to do with the new atmospherics in Washington, where they have led, and where they might lead.

But not all of them. Drug reform isn’t made just in Washington. Under our federal system, the 50 states and the District of Columbia have at least some ability to set their own courses on drug policy reforms. In some areas, actions in the state legislatures have reflected trends — for better or worse — broad enough to earn Top 10 status.And Washington and the various statehouses notwithstanding, movement on drug reform is not limited to the political class. Legions of activists now in at least their second decade of serious reform work, a mass media that seems to have awakened from its dogmatic slumber about marijuana, a crumbling economy, and a bloody drug war within earshot of the southwestern border have all impacted the national conversation about drug reform and are all pushing politicians from city councilmen to state legislators to US senators to rethink drug prohibition.

For drug reformers, these are interesting times, indeed. Herewith, the Top 10 domestic drug policy stories of 2009…

Click here for full article.

From TruthOut.org :

 Why women have signed onto marijuana reform — and why they could be the movement’s game-changers.

In September, ladymagMarieclaire ruffled some feathers when it published a piece about women who smoke weed. But its most interesting effect was not the “marijuana moms” chatter it unleashed, and instead the fact that it brought to the mainstream media a more open discussion of the fact that women can be avid tokers, too.

Public acceptance of pot is at an all-time high, and the fact that women have drastically changed their attitudes may be what is most fascinating about the sea change in public opinion — and policy — regarding marijuana. In 2005, only 32 percent of polled women told Gallup they approved legalizing pot, but this year 44 percent of them were for it, compared to 45 percent of men. In effect, women have narrowed what had been a 12-point gender gap.

Article continues…click here.

I hope the Libertarians and even the Republican ‘libertarians’ are hearing this.

Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) — Higher-income Americans should be taxed to pay for more troops sent to Afghanistan and NATOshould provide half of the new soldiers, saidCarl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.An “additional income tax to the upper brackets, folks earning more than $200,000 or $250,000” a year, could fund more troops, Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said in an interview for Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt,” airing this weekend.White House Budget Director Peter Orszag has estimated that each additional soldier in Afghanistan could cost $1 million, for a total that could reach $40 billion if 40,000 more troops are added.That cost, Levin said, should be paid by wealthier taxpayers. “They have done incredibly well, and I think that it’s important that we pay for it if we possibly can” instead of increasing the federal debt load, the senator said.Other countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should bear responsibility for delivering half the additional troops needed to secure the conflict zone and train Afghan forces, Levin said. He didn’t predict how many troops President Barack Obama would add.

(Distributed by the Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org)Georgia Green Party http://www.greens.org/georgiaFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEThursday, November 19, 2009For further information, contact:Bruce Dixon, Press Secretary770-592-7295 * bdixon@georgiagreenparty.orgDenice Traina, Former CoChair706-364-7810 * denice.traina@georgiagreenparty.orgThis weekend, Greens from Georgia and far beyond will again gather with nearly 25,000 justice-loving individuals of all persuausions for an annual vigil at the gates of Ft. Benning. Led by School of the Americas Watch (http://www.soaw.org), the yearly ritual has become a centerpiece of the mass movement to close a terrorist training camp operated on Georgia soil that has led countries throughout the Americas to withdraw their students from its program.”Regardless of which corporate Party wins the election, it seems US foreign policy continues to serve investment interests over those of the American peaople,” said Denice Traina, former Co-Chair of the Georgia Green Party, a physical therapist from Augusta who has travelled with her kids to the annual vigil 13 of the last 14 years.The recent ouster of Manuel Zelaya as the legitimately elected leader of Honduras has been tied to the leadership of graduates of the Georgia terrorist training camp. The military backed regime has suspended civil liberties, authorizing arrests without warrants in blatent violation of the Central American government’s constitution.”U.S. fingerprints are all over President Zelaya’s ouster, despite the Obama Administration’s attempt to maintain plausible deniability for the coup,” said Michael Canney, a Florida Green who recently represented the U.S. Green Party in annual meeting of the Federation of Green Parties of the Americas in Santiago, Chile.”Throughout the Americas, there is growing concern that the Obama Administration is continuing the discredited policies of the Bush Administration,” added Canney, citing as examples the escalating military presence in Colombia and the military buildup represented by the US Fourth Fleet, recommissioned in 2008 to patrol the Carribean, Central and South American coasts.Noting that the Fourth Fleet’s flagship will be a new nuclear aircraft carrier, which will be based at a $500 million docking facility, soon to be built at the Mayport naval base in Jacksonville, Florida, Canney said. “Obama’s failure to break with the ‘gunboat diplomacy’ of the last century is viewed with alarm by folks across this hemisphere. They feel betrayed and disappointed, and they aren’t buying the ‘war on drugs’ and the ‘war on terrorism’ as pretexts for US military expansion in the region.”Prior to the coup, the Zelaya administration was planning to convert a major Honduran military air base into a civilian airport, with funding from ALBA, a banking and trade alliance for Latin America and the Caribbean initiated by Venezuela and Cuba in 2004 as an alternative to the FTAA. Current members of the alliance include Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador. Honduras joined ALBA in October 2008. The Soto Cano air base (aka Palmerola) was built up by the US in the 1980’s as part of the contra war against Nicaragua, and is home to “Joint Task Force Bravo”.The Obama administration has declined to name the change of leadership in the sovereign nation of Honduras as the “coup-d’etat” the world recognizes it as. When all other countries recalled their ambassadors, the U.S. Government maintained its embassy and the recognition of the illegitimate coup leaders as speaking for the people of Honduras.”Once you are aware, you just can’t ignore the truth,” said Traina, whose service in the Peace Corps took her to Paraguay where she met her husband and the father of her two sons. “One is compelled to be vigilant about the injustices perpetrated in our names and with our tax dollars. Closing this school is no longer enough. We must spread the truth to others so these crimes are never conducted in our country’s name again.”– 30 –Georgia Green Party http://www.greens.org/georgia/Background sources:http://soaw.org/http://www.jtfb.southcom.mil/http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/soto-cano.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivarian_Alliance_for_the_Americas

The last post from stothedrugwar.com got a lot of interest, so I figure I would add some scintillating commentary from UrbanSurvival.com:

Interesting decision out of Colorado that “Medical marijuana dispensaries subject to sales tax, retail license laws.“  Even leaving aside that the AG’s office would potentially benefit from the additional revenue into the state’s coffers as a conflict, there’s a more pertinent question here:  How are people popping Big Pharma backed pills treated:  Do they pay sales taxes on meds in Colorado?

 

The answer is the AG is trying to treat medical marijuana differently that other prescriptions which are tax exempt in Colorado.  Wonder if the pharmaceutical outfits made campaign contributions?

 

Speaking of Drugs

“Failed anti-depressant drug could be ‘women’s Viagra’ ” says a report out Tuesday.  No, it’s not ecstasy - that names already been taken…

From stopthedrugwar.org :

In an historic shift, the country’s largest physician group, the American Medical Association (AMA), has reversed its long-held position that marijuana has no medical value. The group instead adopted a new policy position on medical marijuana, calling for a review of marijuana’s status as a Schedule I drug with no accepted medical use under the federal Controlled Substances Act. The AMA had previously recommended that marijuana be retained in Schedule I.The AMA adopted a report drafted by the AMA Council on Science and Public Health (CSAPH) entitled, “Use of Cannabis for Medicinal Purposes,” which affirmed the therapeutic benefits of marijuana and called for further research. “Short term controlled trials indicate that smoked cannabis reduces neuropathic pain, improves appetite and caloric intake especially in patients with reduced muscle mass, and may relieve spasticity and pain in patients with multiple sclerosis,” the CSAPH report found.“Our AMA urges that marijuana’s status as a federal Schedule I controlled substance be reviewed with the goal of facilitating the conduct of clinical research and development of cannabinoid-based medicines, and alternate delivery methods,” the new policy says.But the AMA goes on to say that it is not endorsing existing state medical marijuana programs.Laying the groundwork for the AMA’s shift in position was the adoption in June 2008 by the group’s Medical Student Section of a resolution supporting reclassification of marijuana. Leading that effort was University of Washington medical student Sunil Aggarwal, who also played a role as a reviewer of the CSAPH report.“It’s been 72 years since the AMA has officially recognized that marijuana has both already-demonstrated and future-promising medical utility,” said Aggarwal. “The AMA has written an extensive, well-documented, evidence-based report that they are seeking to publish in a peer-reviewed journal that will help to educate the medical community about the scientific basis of botanical cannabis-based medicines.”“This shift, coming from what has historically been America’s most cautious and conservative major medical organization, is historic,” said Aaron Houston, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project, who attended the AMA meeting. “Marijuana’s Schedule I status is not just scientifically untenable, given the wealth of recent data showing it to be both safe and effective for chronic pain and other conditions, but it’s been a major obstacle to needed research.”The AMA lagged behind one of its competitors. In February 2008, a the American College of Physicians (ACP), the country’s second largest physician group and the largest organization of doctors of internal medicine, adopted a resolution calling for an “evidence-based review of marijuana’s status as a Schedule I controlled substance to determine whether it should be reclassified to a different schedule.”“The two largest physician groups in the US have established medical marijuana as a health care issue that must be addressed,” said ASA Government Affairs Director Caren Woodson. “Both organizations have underscored the need for change by placing patients above politics.”

And so the pressure mounts.

From StopTheDrugWar.org :

Long-time StoptheDrugWar supporters know that since 1999 we have campaigned forrepeal of a law that delays or denies financial aid for college to students because of drug convictions. In part because of our efforts, the law was scaled back in 2006 — by the Republican-controlled Congress, to be limited to drug offenses committed while one is in college and receiving federal aid.Earlier this year, the House Education and Labor Committee included language in its student loan package that would restrict the law further to just apply to drug sales convictions. The law’s original author, arch-drug warrior Mark Souder, tried to have the language stripped from the bill on the House floor earlier this fall, but withdrew the amendment, admitting that it was likely to fail. That means the good language has passed the House of Representatives – which means it will be taken up in conference committee whether the Senate passes similar language or not. There was some talk of it getting changed to apply just to felonies, instead of applying just to drug sales, as a compromise. But either way it will help a lot of people. Our long-term strategy of mobilizing large numbers of mainstream organizations is paying off — we are winning. Stay tuned.