We are witnessing a lot of change that many thought would be impossible to see in our life time- if they thought it could happen at all! Every week I hear more and more about this subject and the positive implications. Please read and share what you head lines interest you the most. This is a very exciting period in history.
1. California: Governor Says It's Time To Debate Legalizing Marijuana
2. Mexican Congress Passes Drug Decriminalization Measure
3. Maine: Lawmakers Expand Marijuana Decriminalization Law
4. PA: Bill In State House Would Make Marijuana Legal For Medical Use
5. NH House creates team to work out pot bill
6. Conservative Poll Shows 52% of Americans Say Legalize Marijuana
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1. California: Governor Says It's Time To Debate Legalizing Marijuana
Sacramento, CA: Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced this week that he believes that California legislators ought to publicly debate the merits of taxing and regulating the production and sale of cannabis for adults.
"I think it's time for a debate (regarding taxing and regulating the sale of cannabis for adults)," Schwarzenegger said. (*Note: his comments come at the very end of the video.) "I think all of those ideas of creating extra revenues, I'm always for an open debate on it. And I think we ought to study very carefully what other countries are doing that have legalized marijuana and other drugs, what effect did it have on those countries? ... It could very well be that everyone is happy with that decision and then we could look at that."
The Governor's remarks came less than one week after a Field Research Corporation poll of 901 registered voters reported that 56 percent of Californians agree with the statement: "Legalize marijuana for recreational use and tax its proceeds."
A separate Zogby poll of approximately 4,000 voters released this week indicates that just over half of Americans nationally support legalizing marijuana.
Current estimates indicate that California's budget deficit will grow to $28 billion by the end of the 2009/2010 state budget year.
In February, California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano introduced legislation — Assembly Bill 390: The Marijuana Control, Regulation and Education Act — to tax the commercial production and retail sale of cannabis.
A fiscal analysis of this proposal by the State Board of Equalization estimates that AB 390 could raise more than $1.3 billion yearly in tax revenue for the state of California.
Last week Oakland City Council members approved a 1.8 percent tax on medicinal marijuana sold by the city's four licensed dispensaries. Lawmakers believe that the tax could generate between $400,000 and $1 million annually for the city.
The citywide measure will be decided upon by voters on July 21, 2009.
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Deputy Director, at (202) 483-5500 or Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director, at: http://us.mc01g.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=paul@norml.org. ________________________________________________________
2. Mexican Congress Passes Drug Decriminalization Measure
Mexico City, Mexico: Mexican lawmakers enacted legislation last week to decriminalize the possession of small quantities of controlled substances. The measure now goes to Mexican President Felipe Calderon for his approval.
As passed, the proposal would eliminate criminal penalties for the personal possession of up to five grams of marijuana, as well as minor quantities of other drugs.
The legislation also authorizes state and local police to enforce drug trafficking laws. Under current law, only federal police (about five percent of Mexico's law enforcement personnel) may arrest individuals suspected of selling drugs.
In 2006, Mexico's Congress passed a virtually identical measure, only to have it vetoed by former President Vincente Fox, who stated, "Congress ... [needs] ... to make it absolutely clear in our country [that] the possession of drugs and their consumption [is], and will continue to be, a criminal offense." Fox's veto came after political pressure from members of the US State Department who warned that enacting such a law could promote so-called "drug tourism."
Last month, Mexico's ambassador to the United States Arturo Sarukhan told CBS's Face the Nation that legalizing marijuana could potentially quell ongoing border violence. "This (legalization) is a debate that needs to be taken seriously – that we have to engage in on both sides of the border," he said.
However after meeting with Calderon days later, United States government officials said that the option of the US liberalizing its pot laws is "not on the table." The White House instead proposed increased efforts to curb domestic drug demand, and also called for expanding the use of 'drug courts' and coerced drug treatment.
According to the Associated Press, Mexican drug cartels now derive an estimated 60 percent of their income from illicit pot sales.
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director, at (202) 483-5500.
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3. Maine: Lawmakers Expand Marijuana Decriminalization Law
Augusta, ME: Democrat Gov. John Baldacci signed legislation on Friday expanding the state's longstanding marijuana 'decriminalization' law.
Under current law, possession of up to 1.25 ounces of marijuana is treated as an infraction, punishable by a fine of no more than $600. Defendants who possess greater amounts are presumed to be engaging in the sale of cannabis and face criminal penalties and potential jail time.
The newly approved legislation (LD 250) states that the possession of over 1.25 ounces but less than 2.5 ounces of marijuana will also be defined as a civil offense, punishable by a fine of $700 to $1,000 dollars. (Civil fines for the possession of less than 1.25 ounces of marijuana will remain the same.) The new law also removes the inference that the possession of quantities of marijuana above 1.25 ounces but less than 2.5 ounces is presumed to be for sale.
"Maine's new law will save prosecutorial resources and it makes common sense," NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre said. "It is expensive and illogical to presume that minor marijuana offenders are criminal traffickers. Kudos to the Maine legislature and to the Governor for supporting this effort to revise the state's longstanding cannabis decriminalization law."
The new law takes effect 90 days following adjournment of the state legislature.
To date, 13 states – including Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, and Ohio – have enacted versions of marijuana decriminalization, replacing criminal penalties and jail time for the personal possession of cannabis with the imposition of nominal fines. Only one state, Ohio, treats the possession of more than 2.5 ounces of cannabis as a fine-only (no jail) offense.
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director, at, (202) 483-5500.
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4. PA: Bill In State House Would Make Marijuana Legal For Medical Use
Bill Waschko reached to the shelf of vintage medicine bottles at his family’s century-old drug store in Hazleton and pulled down one labeled “Cannabis.”
The powdered extract of marijuana was bottled by Eli Lilly and Co., but although the bottle is empty and the label has no date, marijuana was a legal drug around the country until 1937.
A bill in the state House of Representatives would make marijuana legal again for medical uses, emulating action already taken in 13 states and also proposed in New York and New Jersey.
The Pennsylvania bill, sponsored by Reps. Phyllis Mundy, D-Kingston, and Mark Cohen, D-Philadelphia, would set up compassion centers for growing and distributing marijuana to patients who had registered identification cards. Physicians would give written statements to patients whom they believe would benefit medically from using marijuana, but they would not write prescriptions, which could subject them to federal prosecution.
They would have a (marijuana) clinic like a methadone clinic,” suggested George Waschko, Bill’s brother and the pharmacist at Waschko’s Pharmacy.
George Waschko said the possible medical uses of marijuana include treating glaucoma and nausea caused by chemotherapy given to cancer patients.
The bill also lists marijuana as a treatment for wasting due to AIDS and for chronic pain, seizures and Crohn’s disease.
Tom Dougherty, a pharmacist at Valley Pharmacy in Sugarloaf, remembers marijuana was in the dispensary at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia while he was a student.
“It sat there. We had to count it every month. We never used it,” Dougherty said.
Dougherty wonders whether there is a great medical need for marijuana or whether it would be “an orphan drug where you have six patients who need it in Pennsylvania.”
The Medical Board of California, which in 1996 became the first state to re-legalize marijuana, issued a statement in 2004 calling medical marijuana an emerging treatment.
Ed Pane, director of Serento Gardens Alcoholism and Drug Services in Hazleton, supports the use of marijuana for medical purposes only and said numerous patients might benefit from it.
He said marijuana can reduce vomiting in chemotherapy patients, and treat migraines and the spasms of multiple sclerosis, “which can be extremely painful.”
Three hundred thousand Americans have multiple sclerosis, and 1.25 million people are diagnosed yearly with cancer, Pane wrote in a paper this fall for a class he is taking while earning a master’s degree.
Marijuana “helps individuals to put on weight and handle food and cuts down on the need for pain medication by enhancing what the person is taking. It doesn’t make the medication stronger to the point of overdose, but makes it more effective,” Pane said in an interview Friday.
While 32,000 people die yearly from prescription medicines, including overdoses and allergic reactions, no one ever has died from an overdose of marijuana, he said.
States can make money by taxing medical marijuana and save the expenses of prosecuting patients who use marijuana, but Pane still wants Pennsylvania to prohibit abuse of the drug.
“Street dealing under any guise needs to be illegal,” he said. “From my standpoint, it breaks my heart when I see kids using it. They’re not going to grow up emotionally. It becomes a means of handling problems. www.citizensvoice.com
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5. NH House creates team to work out pot bill
CONCORD – House supporters of legalizing medical marijuana for chronic or terminally ill patients slowed their campaign Wednesday after fearing Gov. John Lynch would veto the bill (HB 648) as the state Senate had passed it.
The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to create a team of legislative negotiators to try and work out differences between the two branches.
State Rep. Cindy Rosenwald, D-Nashua, said there's broad agreement among House and Senate supporters.
The goal of the working group, she said, would be to try and address eight specific problems Lynch and his staff identified during private meetings with House supporters earlier this week.
Full story and Bill No. HB 648 at a glance here:
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090507/NEWS02/305079899/-1/XML15
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6. Conservative Poll Shows 52% of Americans Say Legalize Marijuana
WASHINGTON D.C. - A new Zogby poll commissioned by the conservative-leaning O'Leary Report has found 52 percent voter support for treating marijuana as a legal, taxed, regulated substance. The survey, published as a full-page ad in today's issue of the political newspaper The Hill, polled a sample of 3,937 voters weighted to match the 2008 presidential outcome -- 54 percent Obama voters and 46 percent McCain supporters.
"This new survey continues the recent trend of strong and growing support for taxing and regulating marijuana and ending the disastrously failed policy of prohibition," said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C.
Voters were asked: "Scarce law enforcement and prison resources, a desire to neutralize drug cartels and the need for new sources of revenue have resurrected the topic of legalizing marijuana. Proponents say it makes sense to tax and regulate the drug while opponents say that legalization would lead marijuana users to use other illegal drugs. Would you favor or oppose the government's effort to legalize marijuana?"
The results showed a decisive majority of 52 percent in favor with 37 percent opposed and 11 percent not sure -- slightly higher than the 46 percent support reported in an ABC News/Washington Post poll released at the end of April.
In California, the respected Field poll recently found 56 percent support for making marijuana a taxed, regulated product that is legal for adults.
"Voters are coming to realize that marijuana prohibition gives us the worst of all possible worlds -- a drug that's widely available but totally unregulated, whose producers and sellers pay no taxes but whose profits often support murderous drug cartels," Kampia said.
"The public is way ahead of the politicians on this."
With more than 27,000 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.
http://www.salem-news.com/
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