NORML’s letter to the editor of New York Times, April 15, 2008:

The April 15, 2008 article ‘Marijuana Smokers Were Poisoned With Lead In Leipzig’ is informative and perfectly underscores the need to legally control cannabis via regulation and taxation, rather than failed prohibition policies.

Seeking even higher profits in the already lucrative, prohibition-fueled business of cannabis distribution, untaxed and unregulated cannabis sellers in Leipzig Germany apparently added lead particles to their bags of cannabis to increase the product’s weight and value. This is hardly a surprise to observers of prohibition economics.

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Join Jackie ‘the Joke Man’ Martling (from Howard Stern’s Show) for a special screening of The Wackness (starring Sir Ben Kingsley) at the Roosevelt Field Mall theater in Garden City, April 24 at 8:00PM.

RSVP mandatory: SidneyFalco@falcoink.com

Enjoy!

Ron Fisher
NORML Outreach Coordinator
Washington, DC
ron@norml.org

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With all the bleak talk in America about the economy, including record fuel and medicine prices, one would think that elected policy makers and mainstream media would gravitate towards an obvious storyline on this day, April 15—America’s dreaded Tax Day—and that is the tens of millions of Americans who’d happily trade in the government-imposed label of ‘criminal’ for ‘sales taxpayer’.

Who am I referring too? Cannabis consumers like me, and maybe you as well. In fact, tens of millions of American cannabis consumers!

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Below is this week’s summary of pending state legislation and tips to help you become involved in changing the laws in your state.

New Hampshire: House Bill 1623, which would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of cannabis, was passed by the House on March 18. The Senate Judiciary Committee will now hold an important hearing on this bill at 3:00 PM on April 22. All supporters are encouraged to attend. Additionally, our allies at NH Common Sense are now encouraging supporters to contact Governor John Lynch directly and urge him to rethink his assertion that he will veto HB 1623 if it reaches his desk. New Hampshire supporters are strongly encouraged to urge their Representatives and the Governor to support these bills via NORML’s online advocacy system.

Minnesota: Minnesota’s House Ways and Means Committee has approved Senate File 345, along with its companion bill, House File 655. From Ways and Means, it now goes to a House floor vote, and if passed there, the Governor’s desk. This legislation would ensure that medical marijuana patients in Minnesota would no longer have to fear arrest or prosecution from state law enforcement. However, Governor Pawlenty has indicated that he is inclined to veto this bill if it gets to his desk. Minnesotans are strongly encouraged to urge their Representatives and the Governor to support these bills via NORML’s online advocacy system.

California: In an important victory for medical marijuana patients, the California Assembly Judiciary committee approved Assembly Bill 2279, sponsored by Assemblyman Mark Leno. This bill would protect Prop 215 patients from employment discrimination, most notably via urine testing. (The bill does not protect workers in safety-sensitive jobs, including law enforcement). The measure was approved on a party-line vote with 6 Democrats in favor, 3 Republicans opposed, and one Democrat abstaining. NORML will continue to update you on the progress of this important bill.

Rhode Island: The Rhode Island Senate Committee on Health and Human Services unanimously approved Senate Bill 2623 on Wednesday, April 9. SB 2693 would set up a dispensary system for Rhode Island’s state-qualified medical cannabis patients, and will now go before the Senate floor. Rhode Islanders are strongly encouraged to write their Senate and House members in support of this measure and its companion bill, House Bill 7888, through NORML’s online advocacy system.

The arrest and prosecution of a professional, baby boom couple in Pennsylvania helps underscore the genuine waste of taxpayer dollars and overall ineffectiveness of government to stop adult citizens who want to use cannabis, as well as highlight a well known, but underreported fact among millions of victims of cannabis prohibition laws: Punishment in the modern criminal justice system does not necessarily equate with incarceration so much as it does a series of expensive civil fines, taxpayer-funded probation and drug testing services, loss of student loans and employment (and, consequentially therein, income taxes to city and state coffers) and access to health care services (because of an arrest, cannabis offenders typically will go from paying for private health insurance to relying upon taxpayer-funded services or charities).

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By George Rohrbacher, NORML Board member

When Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, first strode onto the public stage in 1832 and stepped into American History, he was wearing a pair of hemp pants.

From many points of view, Abraham Lincoln was America’s greatest President. Besides guiding America though the Civil War, the most troubled passage since our nation’s founding, he possessed the keenest intellect of anyone to have ever lived in the White House. He also possessed the greatest understanding of the life lived by the common man of anyone who had been or will ever be elected President. Abraham Lincoln came from the dirt, the death, the toil, and struggle of the American frontier.

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In mid-March the Reason Foundation published a report entitled ‘Illegally Green: Environmental Costs of Hemp Prohibition’. The report updates the precarious hemp industry in the United States and its continued struggles under absurdly strict federal laws that are meant to control the psychoactive strain of the plant, usually described as ‘marijuana’.

Hemp is legal for farmers to grow in virtually all countries where marijuana is still illegal (i.e, Canada, France, Great Britain, Switzerland, China, Romania, etc…), and to help highlight the non-sensible government policy Native Americans on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota will soon build a home constructed of hemp in conjunction with the 2008 Hemp Hoe Down.

“There are numerous environmental advantages to hemp,” said Skaidra Smith-Heisters, a policy analyst at Reason Foundation and author of the report. “Hemp often requires less energy to manufacture into products. It is less toxic to process. And it is easier to recycle and more biodegradable than most competing crops and products. Unfortunately, we won’t realize the full economic and environmental benefits of hemp until the crop is legal in the United States.”

More than a whiff of pro-pot comedy will be in the air on April 20 at The Arlington Draft House as Rob Cantrell brings his ‘420 Comedy Hollidaze’ to NoVA.

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If you live in Tennessee please consider attending the first ever ‘Nashville Marijuana Movie Festival’, being held at the beautiful ol’ Belcourt Theatre. This is a benefit event to support NORML’s nationwide cannabis law reform advocacy efforts–including support for pending medical marijuana legislation in Tennessee.

Purchase tickets via the Belcourt Theatre

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On Monday, March 31, in the case of Commonwealth v. Cusick and Stroup, the defense team filed a Motion to Reconsider, along with three new expert witness affidavits.

The defendants had previously filed a Motion to Dismiss, along with an extensive supportive affidavit from Lester Grinspoon, M.D., requesting a full evidentiary hearing where we would proffer testimony that would support our position that there is no longer a rational basis for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to criminalize the personal use of marijuana by adults. It has been 29 years since the Massachusetts courts last made a comprehensive constitutional review of their marijuana laws, and a lot of new scientific evidence is now know about marijuana, and it is important for the courts to take another look at this matter. More than 7,300 marijuana smokers were arrested in the last year in Massachusetts, causing significant harm to the lives and careers of those individuals. More after the jump…

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