Prop 19: Support Legalizing Marijuana In California

If you haven’t heard, California’s Control & Tax Cannabis campaign just got assigned the proposition number 19.

That’s why, today, we’re asking all NORML members and supporters to step up and chip in $19 to the Yes on 19 campaign. Help California become the first state to legalize marijuana today!

In the last few days the NAACP of California and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson (R) have endorsed the Yes on 19 Campaign.

Celebrate the Fourth of July’s independence and patriotism early by donating $19 to the Control & Tax Cannabis Campaign!!

New Jersey Patients Will Have To Wait — Lawmakers Delay Implementation Of Medical Marijuana Law

State lawmakers voted yesterday in favor of legislation to delay the implementation of the New Jersey Compassionate Medical Marijuana Act, which was slated to go into effect later this week.

As amended, the measure will not become law until October 2010. The act, which authorizes the state Department of Health to establish regulations for the licensed production and distribution of medical cannabis to authorized patients, is not anticipated to be up and running until some time in 2011.

According to the Associated Press report, “The delay allows health officials to write regulations. It also may give politicians time to consider a different model for the program.” Republican Gov. Chris Christie requested lawmakers postpone implementing the law, which was signed in January by his predecessor, Democrat Gov. Jon Corzine.

Governor Christie has also suggested that lawmakers consider amending the law by limiting the production of medical cannabis to a single supply source, Rutgers University, and by restricting the drug’s distribution to authorized hospitals.

NORML and other allied patient groups strongly oppose these amendments, which if enacted, would make New Jersey’s law totally unworkable for patients.

If you reside in the Garden State, please consider visiting NORML’s ‘Take Action’ page here to contact your state lawmakers and urge them to reject any further amendments or delays to the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act.

For more information please visit NORML NJ or the Coalition for Medical Marijuana New Jersey.

NAACP Announces Its “Unconditional Support” For California’s Marijuana Legalization Measure

The California NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) today expressed its “unconditional support” for The Regulate, Control & Tax Cannabis Initiative 2010, which will appear on the November statewide ballot.

The measure, also known as Proposition 19, would allow adults 21 years or older to possess and cultivate marijuana for personal use. It would also permit local governments the option to authorize the retail sale and commercial cultivation of cannabis to adults. Personal marijuana cultivation or not-for-profit sales of marijuana would not be taxed under the measure.

The California NAACP announced its endorsement of the measure at a news conference in Sacramento this morning. The press conference coincided with the release of a report finding that African Americans are arrested for marijuana possession offenses in California’s 25 largest counties at more than twice the rates of Caucasians.

“Young blacks use marijuana at lower rates than young whites. Yet from 2004 through 2008, in every one of the 25 largest counties in California, blacks were arrested for marijuana possession at higher rates than whites, typically at double, triple or even quadruple the rate of whites,” the report concluded. “[B]acks were arrested for simple marijuana possession far out of proportion to their percentage in the total population of the counties. In the 25 largest counties as a whole, blacks are 7% of the population but 20% of the people arrested for possessing marijuana.”

Statewide, authors reported that in 2008 African Americans and Latinos combined comprised less than 44% of the state’s population, but together constituted 56% of the people arrested in California for possessing marijuana. An estimated 80 percent of those arrested were age 29 or younger.

Since 1990, annual marijuana possession arrests of youth of color in California have risen from 3,100 to over 16,000 — an increase that is about three times greater than the group’s population growth.

Alice Huffman, President of the California State Conference of the NAACP stated: “We have empirical proof that the application of the marijuana laws has been unfairly applied to young people of color. … We are joining a growing number of medical professionals, labor organizations, law enforcement authorities, local municipalities, and approximately 56% of the public, in saying that it is time to (depenalize) the [adult] use of marijuana.”

In 2008, police in California made over 61,000 arrests for marijuana possession offenses, a criminal misdemeanor. Law enforcement made over 17,000 additional arrests for marijuana felony violations – a category that includes personal cultivation of even a single plant.

California: In The Shadow Of Legalization, Lawmakers Moving Forward With Decriminalization

While most Californians and the media in recent months have understandably remained focused on The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 — which seeks to eliminate criminal penalties for the adult personal possession and cultivation of marijuana — state lawmakers in Sacramento have quietly been moving forward on a cannabis liberalization bill of their own.

Senate Bill 1449, which seeks to reduce personal, non-medical marijuana possession penalties from a criminal misdemeanor to an infraction, is now only one vote away from heading to Gov. Schwarzenegger’s desk.

On Wednesday, members of the California Assembly Committee on Public Safety voted 4 to 1 to send the measure to the Assembly floor. (Senate lawmakers had previously voted 21 to 13 in favor of the bill.) Once the full Assembly acts, the measure will go before the Governor for his signature.

Under current law, marijuana possession has a unique status in California law as the only misdemeanor that is not punishable by arrest or jail time. However, offenders must still appear in court, pay a fine ($100), and pay court costs (approximately $200). In addition, defendants who wish to avoid a criminal record must attend a court-ordered diversion program. Defendants who do not attend such a program are saddled with a criminal record for at least two years following their conviction.

By making possession an infraction, Senate Bill 1449 would spare possession offenders time in court or the risk of a criminal record. Instead, they would simply pay a fine.

More information about S.B. 1449 is available from California NORML, and from NORML’s ‘Take Action Center’ here.

United Kingdom Approves Marijuana Spray As Medicine

[Editor's note: This post is excerpted from this today's forthcoming NORML weekly media advisory. To have NORML's media advisories delivered straight to your in-box, sign up for NORML's free e-zine here.]

British health regulators have approved the sale and marketing of Sativex, an oral spray consisting of natural cannabis extracts (primarily the plant cannabinoids THC and cannabidiol aka CBD) as a treatment for symptoms of multiple sclerosis. (MS)

The spray, which has been legally available to patients in Canada since 2005, went on sale in Britain on Monday. The drug will be marketed in the United Kingdom by the Bayer Corporation which estimates that Sativex will cost the country’s state-run National Health Service roughly £11, or about $16, a day for each patient.

Commenting on the drug’s regulatory approval, NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano said: “The approval of Sativex in the UK is newsworthy though hardly surprising, as the scientific evidence in support of marijuana’s medical safety and utility has been available for decades. However, the bigger question still remains. That is: ‘How can the US government continue to promote a policy that calls for the arrest and prosecution of patients who use a substance that fourteen states and much of the rest of the western world now acknowledges as a safe and legitimate medicine?’”

In clinical trials, Sativex has been demonstrated to reduce MS-associated spasticity, pain, and incontinence. Long-term investigational trials indicate that consistent use of the cannabis-based medicine may also slow the progression of the disease.

Surveys from the UK and elsewhere indicate that MS patients often report using cannabis therapeutically, with one study reporting that some four out of ten patients with the disease find relief from marijuana.

GW Pharmaceuticals, makers of the Sativex, is expected later this year to seek separate regulatory approval for the spray in Spain, France, Germany, and Italy.

In 2006, the US Food and Drug Administration authorized recruitment for the first-ever North American clinical trial of Sativex for cancer pain treatment. A Phase III trial is anticipated to begin the US later this year.

Washington State Marijuana Legalization Effort Coming Down To The Wire

With a Herculean effort of volunteers, the best of intentions, no financial resources to draw upon, regionalism (i.e., citizens in western WA support cannabis law reform more than the eastern part of the state currently does) and terrible spring weather, well over 100,000 signatures have been gathered to place a ‘legalization’ ballot initiative before the voters this November.

Best-selling Travel Author, TV Host and NORML Advisory Board Member Rick Steves Addresses Over 100,000 Cannabis Law Reform Supporters At The 2008 Seattle Hempfest

The serious challenge in the next 5-7 days: Gather and verify 100,000 more signatures before the looming deadline at month’s end.

Reformers in Washington State are seeking to join California with a legalization ballot this fall; medical cannabis-related ballot initiatives are happening in states such as Arizona, South Dakota and very possibly Oregon.

While the challenge here is great to be sure, I’m heartened to learn that in a last minute push for signatures, the organizers at Sensible Washington have partnered with a popular alternative weekly, The Stranger, to distribute 80,000 signature forms in this week’s run of papers.

Please, if you live in Washington, get a copy of The Stranger ASAP or download the necessary signature forms here, follow the basic instructions, get 5-10 or more of your like-minded friends, family and co-workers to sign the forms, and rush the forms back to the organizers for verification and submission before the deadline.

The organizers are imploring supporters to get the forms back to them no later than June 28 if possible to avoid a crush before the July 1^st filing date.

If you live outside of Washington State, 1) please contact friends and loved ones and encourage them to do a little something for personal freedom and liberty before the end of the weekend and 2) make a financial donation in support of a genuinely grassroots efforts in Washington State to place it among the 3-4 other states this fall with pro-reform measures being placed directly before citizens for ‘up or down’ votes.

Thanks for caring and sharing!

Cannabem liberemus,

Allen St. Pierre, Executive Director                                                                                NORML                                                                                                                          Washington, D.C.

One Week Left, We Can Get This Done

Written by Philip Dawdy,

We’ve got one left in I-1068’s signature gathering campaign. In 1999, the all-volunteer I-695 campaign got 250,000 signatures in the campaign’s final two weeks. The people of this state were angry at high car taxes and an initiative that offered to replace onerous taxes with a flat $30 car tab was so appealing that in that campaign’s final weeks thousands of volunteers hit the streets to make sure the initiative got on the ballot. How’d they do that?

“It’s not rocket science,” Tim Eyman once told me about making I-695’s final weeks successful.

We just need to get as many people as possible in front of as many of their fellow citizens as possible. That’s all.

With I-1068, I’m pretty sure we’ve got an issue that rings the public’s bells as hard as car taxes did in 1999. I-1068 offers marijuana legalization and subsequent re-regulation by the State Legislature instead of the continuance of onerous and wasteful criminal penalties for adult use, possession and cultivation. There’s plenty of polling at this point to suggest that the public embraces the concept. We’ve just got to get the signatures.

Right now, we need to get about two-thirds of the 250,000 signatures I-695 got in 1999 to make sure I-1068 gets on the ballot. If they could do it in 1999, we can do it in 2010. We just have to stay on the job.

And to do that we need you to continue collecting signatures and to help us find new volunteers. You should also take a look at this instant volunteer kit created by one of our Bellingham coordinators Matthew Scott.

If you need copies of the initiative, you can contact your area coordinator. A list of coordinators statewide is here. We’ve got many thousands of copies of I-1068 available statewide. And you can always fill out our volunteer form right here.

Please only have it reproduced on 11×17 paper, double-sided, black and white. You’ll need to go to a professional print shop to do it–sorry, but the rules in this state are so archaic–but you can handle most of that exchange via email with most shops. Or you can upload it to a website such as Fedex Office allows and place your order electronically and pick it soon after at one of their local outlets.

You can keep on top of events we’re covering by keeping in touch with us on Facebook.

So let’s get out there and get this done. We need every signed petition in the state sent our way each ASAP, no later than June 28 if possible. Our mailing address is on the petition.

* * *

80,000 Copies Of I-1068 Will Be In The Stranger June 23

You read that right. Sensible Washington–thanks to our many supporters’ contributions–is paying to have I-1068 inserted into each copy of The Stranger’s 80,000 print run this Wednesday June 23rd. We’ll also have a full page ad explaining to people how they can sign the initiative, get their friends and family to sign it, and send it on into us by the end of June 28th.

We’re doing this because the weather has been awful all spring (June is already at 200+ percent of normal precipitation for the month) and it’s been very difficult to intersect with the voting public in the Seattle Metro area to get their signatures on I-1068. So tell all your friends and neighbors to get a copy of this week’s Stranger and to get us a bunch of signatures and mail them in by the end of June 28th to the address on the petition.

Memo To New Jersey Politicians: No More Delays — It’s Time To Implement The State’s Medical Marijuana Law!

This past January, after years of debate, outgoing Democrat Governor Jon Corzine signed legislation making New Jersey the fourteenth state in the nation to allow for the state-authorized use of medical cannabis by qualified patients. The measure, known as The New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act, authorizes patients with a physician’s recommendation to possess and obtain medical cannabis from state-authorized “alternative treatment centers” (aka dispensaries). As signed, the measure was to take effect next month.

But that won’t happen if Republican Gov. Chris Christie has his way. Christie is seeking, and legislation has been introduced, to delay implementation of New Jersey’s long-awaited medical cannabis law by at least 90 days. Gov. Christie has also called on legislators to amend the law — which, as written, is already the most restrictive in the nation — so that patients would only be eligible to obtain medical cannabis in state hospitals. The Governor has also proposed limiting the cultivation of marijuana so that it could only legally be grown at Rutgers University. NORML opposes these amendments, which if enacted, would make New Jersey’s law totally unworkable for patients.

How so? Consider this: For over nine years the University of Massachusetts has sought — unsuccessfully — to cultivate marijuana for medical research purposes. The University even went so far as to file a legal challenge with the DEA — which it won — to gain permission to grow pot. Yet in 2009 the DEA’s acting director overruled the determination of the agency’s own administrative law judge in order to prohibit UMass from growing even a single marijuana plant. It is unlikely that a similar plan at Rutgers University would be met with any greater success.

Further, it is burdensome and unnecessary to limit patients use of medical marijuana solely to hospitals. As stated in 1988 by the United State’s Drug Enforcement Administration’s own administrative law judge, “Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.” The plant’s compounds are virtually non-toxic to healthy cells and organs, do not depress the central nervous system, and are incapable of causing a fatal overdose.

In fact, according to a 2008 study published by the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association, patients who used cannabis-based medicines reported virtually no “serious adverse effects” from the drug over a 30-year period. By contrast, even small doses of the over-the counter drug Tylenol (acetaminophen) has been conclusively shown to cause liver damage and death. It is arbitrary and unnecessary for the Governor to propose impose restrictions regarding the use of medical marijuana that are more stringent than the regulations already in place governing the distribution and use of other doctor recommended medications.

Seriously ill patients in New Jersey have waited long enough for legislative relief. It is time to implement the will of the people and the will of lawmakers.

If you reside in the Garden State, please consider visiting NORML’s ‘Take Action’ page here to contact your state lawmakers and urge them to move expeditiously in favor of implementing medicl marijuana law reform in New Jersey.

For more information please visit NORML NJ or the Coalition for Medical Marijuana New Jersey.

Help Oregon Qualify An Important Medical Marijuana Initiative

In another affirmation of cannabis law reform’s political momentum in America, the organizers at VoterPower of Oregon have very likely qualified for the ballot what will be ‘Initiative-28’ this November.

Enough signatures have been gathered, but, in an effort to make sure that enough signatures legally qualify the measure for the ballot it is necessary and politically prudent to turn in the maximum number of signatures to survive scrutiny from the Secretary of State’s office or opponents of cannabis law reform.

Oregon, by all measurement, is one of the best states in the country on cannabis!

The state was the first to decriminalize possession in 1973, the state has had numerous voter initiatives to reform cannabis laws—including the 1998 initiative votes to keep cannabis possession decriminalized (blessedly, an eye-popping 68% of Oregon voters rejected an effort to re-criminalize the possession of cannabis) and Oregon became the ^4th state to pass a voter initiative that allows for the medical use of cannabis by qualifying patients who possess a physician’s recommendation.

Now, in 2010, Initiative-28 seeks to create a state-sanctioned medical cannabis dispensary system where patients can have retail access to cannabis products.

Below is a recent alert from VoterPower director (and former NORML board member) John Sajo letting all concerned cannabis consumers—from Oregon and beyond—know about the politically important opportunity to help get another pro-cannabis law voter state initiative on this fall’s ballot.

If we can all help Oregon get over the top to qualify for the ballot, the state will join Arizona and South Dakota on medical cannabis-related initiatives, as well as California regarding an outright legalization initiative.**

Please contact VoterPower and lend them your help and financial support to make sure that the citizens of Oregon once again have the chance to lead the way on substantive cannabis law reform measures.

Thanks and kind regards,

Allen St. Pierre, Executive Director

NORML / NORML Foundation, Washington, DC, norml.org

**BTW, Washington State may also qualify a legalization ballot initiative for this year as well. They too are up against tight deadlines and financial restrictions, but might become the fifth state this election cycle to have a major pro-cannabis law reform measure placed directly in front of the voters. To help the effort in Washington State click here.

Friends

We need your help to push Initiative 28 over the top.  This initiative will create a dispensary system where qualified patients can obtain high quality medical marijuana. Patients will have more choices and much better access.

We have already collected over 110,000 signatures, but this isn’t quite enough.  We are waiting to hear from the Secretary of State, who checks to see how many of the signatures are valid registered voters.  We may need another 10,000 signatures.

We have street crews out petitioning who we expect to collect about half of what we need.

We need volunteers like you to help by getting a petition and filling up a sheet or two: One sheet is just ten signatures!

You can collect signatures from your Oregon friends and family or just by asking a few people out in public.

I-28 is going to be an important improvement to the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act and it will help make better marijuana laws more likely in the future.  Qualifying for and winning this election are within our grasp.  Please help at this critical time.

If you need a petition we will mail you one, just email me at johns@voterpower.org or stop by our offices in Portland, Medford, or Eugene.

Or, call us at 503-224-3051 or 541-245-6634.

Thank you for helping!!

John Sajo Director, Voter Power

P.S. Contact me to find out other ways you can help the campaign!

NORML SHOW LIVE coverage of HIGH TIMES 1st Medical Cannabis Cup in San Francisco

If you’re unable to make it to the first ever HIGH TIMES Medical Cannabis Cup in San Francisco, you can still catch NORML SHOW LIVE’s coverage of Saturday and Sunday’s events live streaming on the web.

Just visit http://live.norml.org between Noon and 10pm Pacific this weekend. We’ll have coverage grow seminars by Nico Escondido, Danny Danko, and Jorge Cervantes plus all of the speakers and performers. At 2:30pm both days we’ll be bringing you a condensed version of NORML SHOW LIVE, with federal medical marijuana patient Irv Rosenfeld as our guest Saturday and medical marijuana pioneer Dr. Frank Lucido as our guest on Sunday.

NORML Founder Keith Stroup and NORML Outreach Coordinator Russ Belville will be there tabling for NORML as well. Stop by our live stream, create yourself a Stickam account, and ask your questions of our host and guests. It’s the next best thing to being there!

DC police kill grandmother’s dog while serving drug warrant

Please take a moment to sign the petition at http://CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com/animals to protest the cruelty of the unnecessary killing of pet dogs by police during encounters with citizens.

Today’s story of police canicide comes to us by way of the Associated Press (click to watch the video). A 62-year-old grandmother in Washington, DC tells AP that police came to her home serving a drug warrant for her 28-year-old grandson. The grandma asks to put her dog in the back yard or the bathroom. The cops tell her the bathroom would be fine. Later, the cops open the bathroom door, claim this 13-year-old dog named “Wrinkles” attacked them, and they shoot it multiple times. By the way, the grandson hasn’t lived in the home for a dozen years and the only drugs cops found were what they claimed was “drug residue” on some baggies, which the grandma contends is the residue of fortune cookies.

There was another heartbreaking dog killing by police in Lagrange, Missouri, caught on video that you can view on our NORML Stash Blog. This incident did not involve a drug warrant, however. Instead it was a report of an aggressive dog, who on video appeared to be quite calm and friendly, shot to death by an officer after the officer had it fully restrained by chain, noose, and pole.

If we can get the signatures on the signatures on the LEAP petition over 1,000, supermodel Joanna Krupa has agreed to deliver the petition to both PETA and the Humane Society to increase the exposure of this all-too-common police procedure of killing family pets unnecessarily. (For more coverage of police dog killings in drug raids, check our Dog Shooting category at the NORML Stash Blog.)