California Medical Marijuana News

The following was submitted by my new friend in California, he's quite the activist and has the patient's in mind all the time...

THANKS DC!!!

THE SOFT UNDERBELLY OF THE BEAST

Dcgreenhouse (Dustin Costa, founder, WEEDSTOCK NATIONS ©)



There remains a very serious public Policy problem with respect to medical Cannabis, Civil Rights and Law enforcement. While SB420 attempts to mandate public acceptance of Medical Cannabis, it falls short and lacks the clarity that was hoped it would bring. There remains an intractable, pervasive intolerance of the medical Cannabis community by law enforcement and many local Governments throughout the State.



According to Canorml, there are more than 100,000 medical Cannabis patients in California. We have no way of knowing an exact number, but know this, there are thousands of Medical Cannabis patients in California who have been harassed in one form or another by law enforcement, causing inconvenience at a minimum, and devastating lives, families, savings, and even in some cases resulting in Prison time. Who are these tormentors, and why are they being such jerks? What is being done to fix it? For five thousand years of recorded history, Cannabis has found medicinal and spiritual application across many cultures and countries, including the USA.



Suddenly, with little warning and no testing, Cannabis (as well as Hemp) was pronounced illegal, and was proclaimed by the Government to have no medical value whatsoever. The year was 1937, for 67 years since, and despite a growing Mountain of evidence to support its’ medicinal value, the Government Mantra has not changed, the DEA still claims Pot to have no Medical value. In the end, their motivation may be as simple as keeping a fat Government Bureaucracy in place, and local law enforcement agencies well supplied with cash.



The Justification for these wasted tax dollars is public belief that the War on Drugs is essential to a healthy America. An incredible piece of Bullshit called “Drug Education” ginned up to justify big law enforcement budgets with no civilian oversight resulting in (surprise, surprise) a chronic abuse of power by those we have given too much power. Of course, now they don’t want to give it back. Give someone a Badge, a Gun, the power of Propaganda combined with confused Humanitarian purpose and poor vision, and you get things like Civil rights in the 60s, Viet-Nam, Iraq, Palestine, or even a Stalin or a Hitler or a Pol Pot or a Mao Tse Tung. And a modern American Gulag, fueled by the War on Drugs.



This is what the Medical Cannabis patient and/or Caregiver sees. Ignorant Government, Ignorant Cops, Ignorant Business Leaders, Ignorant Teachers, Ignorant Social Service and Child Protective Services, Ignorance even from family, friends and neighbors, and worst of all, ignorance from Public Defenders and even, from time to time, our best legal “Eagles”. A Medical Cannabis patient is faced with an array of ignorance and attitudes from every corner of their social and cultural web. It threatens our lives daily, this ignorance. It baffles us.



How is it that a drug like Cannabis that has killed no one, as opposed to Modern American medicine, which kills approximately 500,000 innocent, trusting patients each year, or tobacco, which kills approximately 300,000 persons a year, and even secondhand smoke from tobacco is known to kill, or alcohol, which kills nearly 100,000 per year, or prescription drugs, or even aspirin, which kills 30 people per year.



Cannabis is known to be an effective medication or remedy for more than two hundred serious health problems. It has improved the lives of millions, and taken the lives of none. Those are the irrefutable, undeniable, and embarrassing facts that need to shown, taught and understood to and by the ignorant among us. Information, education, reformation. Where to start?



Treat ignorance like a disease, with information and education being the cure. Truth will triumph only after we wipe out the propaganda machine, and replace “official lies” with actual truth. The truth is light, and a light shining in the dark will send the demons of ignorance scurrying for cover. The Truth is the soft underbelly of the Beast. We must shout the truth from every forum, and to all who would listen.



The true believers on the side of ignorance are few, but they are powerful. They will continue to use every cheap lie to continue the current Gulag, because there is no benefit to their job or career to do otherwise. In other words, in the end, we will find the cause of our current dilemma to be a fabricated cause.



Truth is the soft underbelly of this Beast. It protects its’ belly with propaganda and law enforcement. As our medical Cannabis heroes continue to fight and win in courts and political forums throughout the State, and as more and more patients gain confidence to speak out, we will pull the teeth of the Beast, one by one, with or without Novocain, at its’ pleasure. As this occurs, opportunities to inform, educate and reform will and in fact already have, presented themselves. In essence, we have to lay the Beast out to get to the Belly. It will take all of us to do it. They still have guns, and some have no reservation about using them. Remember, the

DEA has a $25,000 DEAD OR ALIVE Bounty Hunter reward, and the subject only has to be AN ALLEGED DRUG TRAFFICER. The DEA is mortal enemy to medical Cannabis.



One way to speed things along, perhaps, is to file suit against any Government Agency or Contractor that continues to teach there is no medical aspect to Cannabis. A proponent of this approach is Journalist Patrick McCartney, who is writing a book about law enforcement/215 abuses.He suggests suing the California Narcotics Officers Association for continuing to teach new law enforcement officers that there is no Medical use of Cannabis. A great idea, if we can find an attorney with the cajones and resources to do it. Other ways to get it done include speaking out at City Council and Boards of Supervisors meetings.



In sum, the war presently is being fought at the legal and activist level. We will know we have won when the message changes. Information, education and reformation. Once we change the message, the War will be over. It is that simple. Get active, do your part to help change the message. E-mail me at dcgreenhouse@sbcglobal,net; or call 209-357-2154.

Dcgreenhouse.

Latest News from San Diego

Latest News from San Diego

From the Union-Tribune in San Diego on June 29, 2004

Changes perplex officials and users
By Jeff McDonald
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
June 28, 2004

Every week or two, sometimes more often than that, Damon Mosler is contacted by a street cop or police official trying to wade through the increasingly confusing world of medical marijuana.

Automatically, the San Diego County prosecutor runs through his checklist.

How many plants are involved? Is there any evidence of sales? Does the suspect have a doctor's recommendation or otherwise appear to meet guidelines set by San Diego or the state?

Mosler asks these questions to weigh whether a person is ill and eligible to grow and smoke marijuana, or whether that person is using California's Compassionate Use Act of 1996 to justify getting high or selling pot.

Many police departments and elected leaders still refuse to recognize any medical use for marijuana, the prosecutor said. In those cases, Mosler finds himself having to explain the law to law enforcement officials.

"For some in law enforcement, there's a reluctance to fully understand the law," said Mosler, the district attorney's narcotics chief who decides whether to charge people with growing pot or to let them go. "I have a couple agencies that don't fully understand: It's the law and they've got to follow it."

If beat cops and police chiefs have trouble keeping up with the rapidly changing allowances under the law, then the 3,000 or more San Diego County patients who are thought to rely on marijuana to ease their pain may be even more befuddled.

Over the past nine months, a series of federal court rulings have reshaped medical marijuana laws, which opponents say are simply a ruse to legalize a dangerous drug. More appellate decisions are expected.

In some parts of the state, those with AIDS, cancer and other diseases can pick up legally a supply of marijuana as easily as they can a cold medicine. Elsewhere, drug agents still raid pot gardens and lock up growers who appear to be operating within state law.

Such sporadic enforcement of the rules has prompted a group of activists to host legal seminars throughout the state outlining patients' rights to medical marijuana and recent changes in the laws.

Tomorrow, Americans for Safe Access brings its roving discussions to San Diego, where a new police chief and recently adopted city standards on medical marijuana have helped patients figure out the rules.

The seminar will be at 7:30 p.m. in the second floor meeting room at the Central Library, 820 E Street. It follows a private meeting between the Americans for Safe Access staff attorney and local defense lawyers, who will be given a primer on tactics and trends in medical marijuana cases.

Although San Diego officials and county prosecutors are allowing for the legal medical use of marijuana, there is still plenty to talk about.

Just this spring, a San Diego couple were arrested and their plants confiscated, even though they were trying to comply with the law. They never were charged and later worked out a deal allowing them to keep 48 plants.

And months after then-Gov. Gray Davis signed legislation requiring counties to issue identification cards to certified patients, San Diego County health officials have done next to nothing to meet the state law.

"This law is very confusing and patients are having to figure it out on their own," said Steph Sherer, executive director of the Berkeley-based activist group. "There's no clear message from law enforcement or city officials."


'Constant anxiety'
California voters approved the cultivation and use of marijuana for chronically ill patients in 1996. But the loosely worded initiative failed to spell out terms for its production or distribution, or to specify the number of plants patients could grow.
That left police and sheriff's departments responsible for implementing the pesky details.

With little direction from the state, and a federal policy that marijuana has no medicinal value and is illegal under any circumstance, most cities ignored the measure until pot clubs began cropping up and forced the issue.

In May 2001, continuing pressure from a small core of medical marijuana activists finally got the city of San Diego to form a task force to recommend guidelines patients could follow under Proposition 215, the landmark ballot initiative that became the Compassionate Use Act.

Two and a half years later, the City Council voted 6-3 to allow patients to grow as many as 24 plants and possess up to one pound of smokable marijuana. Those limits were doubled for designated caregivers, who cultivate the drug for people too sick to grow their own.

About the same time, Davis signed a law that for the first time set statewide standards on the number of plants patients can cultivate. But those guidelines limit patients to six plants each, a stipulation that patients say prevents them from growing enough marijuana to sustain them through a full year.

Paul, a 48-year-old from Escondido with a disability, who declined to provide his last name for fear of being targeted by police, said he simply can't comply with the state limit.

"The fear hangs over my head all the time," said Paul, adding that he broke numerous bones in a 1992 accident. "You've got to grow enough to last all year, but as soon as you do that (the law says) you're growing too much."

Paul hasn't been arrested for illegal cultivation. But he said police and federal drug agents regularly fly over his home, monitoring his pot garden and taking pictures.

"It's intimidating," he said. "I live in constant anxiety."

Earlier this year, a federal judge granted an injunction ordering the government to stop pursuing Valerie Corral of Santa Cruz County, who grows marijuana for herself and a coalition of terminally ill patients.

Corral is the only person in the nation legally allowed by every level of government to cultivate marijuana. Her supporters hope her case will set the standard for other patients around the state and country.


Waiting on appeal
Steve McWilliams, a chronically ill Normal Heights man who spent years very publicly advocating his right to grow and smoke pot, also didn't escape the notice of law enforcement.
McWilliams has been arrested four times in San Diego County in the past five years, the latest in October 2002 by federal drug agents. Facing up to 40 years in prison, McWilliams pleaded guilty to illegal cultivation in exchange for six months in jail – a sentence both sides appealed immediately. He argued the appeal early this year and is awaiting a ruling.

As he waits at home, McWilliams said local governments should stop avoiding the law and set to work following the will of California voters.

"We don't believe that the patients and physicians need to fight over how to implement this 8-year-old law," he said. "It's up to the cities and the counties to make sure this law is followed. We're tired of fighting."

San Diego physician Robert Sterner only recently began advertising his willingness to supply patients with recommendations to use medical marijuana.

Prior to October, when the U.S. Supreme Court denied a government request to punish doctors who support marijuana use for medical purposes, Sterner feared the government would go after his medical license.

"That really took a huge load off my shoulders," he said.

A few days before the Supreme Court upheld doctors' right to discuss marijuana with their patients, Davis signed the bill that for the first time enacted statewide standards for growing medical marijuana.

Although the state law capped the number of mature plants at six, cities and counties may adopt less stringent rules. The law also requires county health departments to issue identification cards to qualified patients.

San Diego County health officials said they are awaiting details from Sacramento and money to pay for the ID cards. State officials said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget includes $973,000 to fund the program.

Medical marijuana supporters say the government bureaucracy is dragging its feet at every turn, deliberately delaying implementation of the popular law.

"It's the ultimate Catch-22," Sterner said. "Patients have an opportunity to avail themselves of the medication, but they're not allowed safe access. It's terribly frustrating."



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Jeff McDonald: (619) 542-4585; jeff.mcdonald@uniontrib.com

Thank You for posting this info.....I say shame on the govt for hurting sick folks. Hopefully Cali. med laws are adopted in all 50 states. This won't stop fed laws thou what a shame I thought we the people had the right to vote on what's right and what's wrong.

Contact your Representative Now

Contact your Representative Now

Check this out!

The Ashcroft Justice Department continues to spend millions of dollars
arresting cancer, AIDS, and MS patients who use medical marijuana - even
in states where it is legal. Next week, Congress will vote on an amendment
that would stop Ashcroft's war on medical marijuana patients. We need you
to contact your U.S. Representative today and urge them to support the
amendment.

ACTIONS TO TAKE

1) Contact your representative in Congress now, fax, mail or by email.
2) Forward this alert to your friends and family.


MORE INFO
Responding to growing conflict between the states and the federal
government over the issue of medical marijuana, Rep. Hinchey (D-NY) and
Rep. Rohrabacher (R-CA) will again offer an amendment to the
Commerce-Jusitce-State spending bill that would prevent the U.S. Justice
Department from undermining state efforts to provide terminally ill and
chronic pain patients access to doctor-recommended medical marijuana. The
amendment would prohibit the Justice Department from spending any money on
arresting or prosecuting medical marijuana patients in states where
medical marijuana is legal. 152 members of Congress voted for a similar
amendment last year.

Since 1996, 11 states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii,
Maine, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington) have adopted
medical marijuana laws. The U.S. Justice Department, however, continues to
spend millions of dollars arresting medical marijuana patients and their
caregivers - even in states where medical marijuana is legal. At a time
when violent drug cartels remain at large and threats of terrorism
continue to emerge, it is irresponsible for the Justice Department to
jeopardize public safety by wasting scarce law enforcement resources
conducting raids on hospice centers and medical marijuana patients.

The Hinchey-Rohrabacher medical marijuana amendment would not prevent the
Justice Department from arresting people using, growing, or selling
marijuana for recreational use. Nor would it prevent the Justice
Department from arresting medical marijuana patients in the states that
have not approved the drug for this use. It simply prevents the federal
government from arresting cancer, AIDS and MS patients that use marijuana
for medical reasons in states that have adopted medical marijuana laws.

Substantial majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents support
medical marijuana. A 2001 Pew Research Center poll found that 73% of
Americans support medical marijuana. A 2002 Time/CNN poll found that 80%
of Americans support it. The Institute of Medicine has determined that
nausea, appetite loss, pain and anxiety "all can be mitigated by
marijuana." Allowing cancer, AIDS, and MS patients legal access to medical
marijuana is supported by the American Nurses Association, American Public
Health Association, American Bar Association, the Whitman-Walker Clinic,
and Kaiser Permanente, among other groups.

Info courtesy NORML....

Media Awareness Project (www.mapinc.org) links

Media Awareness Project (www.mapinc.org) links

Part 1 - The Debate:
Hinchey/Rohrabacher Medical Marijuana Amendment

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1110/a09.html?397


Part 2- The Debate: Hinchey/Rohrabacher....
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1111/a01.html



E-mail your U.S. representative
http://www.mpp.org/DD/action.html

More Links to Info

More Links to Info

Thanks for the links, I appreciate all the information.

Peace,
Payaso/Chris

A little news from Cali.

Sierra Pot Farm Leaves Neighbors Smokin' Mad
Farm Owner Says Marijuana Used For Medicinal Purposes

POSTED: 4:15 pm PDT July 30, 2004
UPDATED: 4:35 pm PDT July 30, 2004
PLACER COUNTY, Calif. -- Neighbors near a pot farm in the Sierra foothills have complained to authorities, but law enforcement officials say there is nothing they can do.

When California voters passed Proposition 215 legalizing the use of marijuana for medical reasons, the authors of the ballot initiative left some gray areas when it comes to growing the drug.

The plants are growing on a farm in Placer County. Ben and Gloria Padilla live next door and are seeing red over the green plants.

"We're not talking about plums or peaches. We're talking about a class-one drug," Gloria Padilla said.

The crop belongs to Richard Marino, who is owner of Capitol Compassionate Care -- Roseville's medicinal marijuana co-op. The store has been open for six months. It already has almost 3,000 registered clients whose doctors write them pot prescriptions for ailments ranging from arthritis to eating disorders.

"Somebody in my position, with a center, who is entitled, can grow six plants -- under California state law -- per patient. It's not just a bunch of dope-smoking hippies doing their thing," Marino said.

And Senate Bill 420, which took effect this year, allows six mature plants per patient, 12 immature plants and 8 ounces of dried cannabis. Patients and caregivers must have ID cards from the county health department to prove they're legit.

State law says it's legal, but federal law does not. So where does that leave law enforcement?

"It's so vague. Our hands are kind of tied," said Placer County Sheriff's Department spokesman Lt. George Malim. "In the old days, prior to Proposition 215, if someone had a garden growing, we'd be in there right now. But under California law, we just don't do that anymore."

Marino grows some of his store supply himself and buys the remainder from others in the medicinal marijuana business.

Some neighbors worry his crop will attract thieves.

"We're defenseless, as far as closeness of neighbors is concerned, in case of an incident," said neighbor Richard Montgomery.

"They can get access through our properties, coming in the back way. It's frightening. It is frightening," said neighbor Gloria Padilla.

Marino says he's planning to step up security.

"There'll be security guards there 24 hours a day. It's all fenced in," Marino said.

And he says he hopes to maintain neighborly relations.

"I'd like to say not to worry. Everything's legal, and everything's being taken care of in a professional manner," Marino said.

Local governments are allowed to adjust the state regulations on how many marijuana plants can be legally grown.