The drugs were then handed to the police forensic department that tested the drugs and weighed them.

Police found that the drugs he was carrying were 730.80 grams of ‘Cannabis buds’.

Police concluded investigation into the case and sent it to Prosecutor General on November 2010.

The media reported that two customs officials today told the court the Bangladeshi man arrived on a Qatar Airwaya flight and customs officials searched his luggage on his arrival in his presence and discovered illegal narcotics.

When Customs Officials questioned him about the discovered items, he said it belonged to him, local newspapers reported.

Another Maldivian man was also sentenced to life in prison after the court found him guilty of possessing illegal drugs for the purpose of dealing.

The person was identified in the local media as Mohamed Rasheed Abdul Bagir.

In addition to the sentence for possessing drugs for dealing, he received 10 years imprisonment for possessing an illegal drug without doctor’s prescription.

According to media reports, the man was arrested inside a restaurant on 12 March 2011 and the drugs were found inside a packet in his pocket.

News Hawk: Jim Behr: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: Minivan News
Author: Ahmed Nazeer
Copyright: Minivan News
Contact: Minivan News
Website: Bangladeshi man sentenced to life for attempting to smuggle cannabis

The advantages of marijuana legalization extend far beyond an opportunity to make a dent in our federal deficit. The criminalization of marijuana is one of the many fights in the War on Drugs that has failed miserably. And while it’s tempting to associate only the harder, “scarier” drugs with this botched crusade, the fact remains that marijuana prohibition is very much a part of the battle. The federal government has even classified marijuana as a Schedule 1 substance (its most serious category of substances), placing it in a more dangerous category than cocaine. More than 800,000 people are arrested for marijuana use and possession each year, and 46 percent of all drug prosecutions across the country are for marijuana possession. Yet this costly and time-consuming targeting of marijuana users by law enforcement and lawmakers has done little to quell use of the drug.

The criminalization of marijuana has not only resulted in a startlingly high number of arrests, it also reflects the devastating disparate racial impact of the War on Drugs. Despite ample evidence that marijuana is used more frequently by white people, Blacks and Latinos account for a grossly disproportionate percentage of the 800,000 people arrested annually for marijuana use and possession. These convictions hinder one’s ability to find or keep employment, vote or gain access to affordable housing. The fact that these hard-to-shake consequences – bad enough as they are — are suffered more frequently by a demographic that uses marijuana less makes our current policies toward marijuana all the more unfair, unwise and unacceptable.

News Hawk: Jim Behr: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: Democratic Underground
Author: Ezekiel Edwards, Criminal Law Reform Project & Rebecca McCray, Criminal Law Reform
Copyright: Democratic Underground, LLC.
Contact: Contact Us – Democratic Underground
Website: Hundreds of Economists: Marijuana Prohibition Costs Billions, Legalization Would Earn Billions

Several thousand paid students attended this and other core classes. They each left with a far greater understanding of the cannabis plant than when they entered.

That was the point of the Oaksterdam University institution. Its purpose was to provide those who enrolled with scientific and legal information regarding how to be compliant with the medicinal marijuana laws of their state, as well to provide quality training for those considering becoming involved in the nascent medical cannabis industry — an industry that is becoming increasingly accepted in various states.

Nonetheless, on the morning of April 2, a small army of federal agents — including representatives from the U.S. Marshals, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Internal Revenue Service — descended upon Oaksterdam’s brick-and-mortar facility.

They seized instructors’ curricula and student records, among other items. Federal authorities also froze Oaksterdam’s bank accounts, resulting in immediate layoffs to the facility’s 40-plus full-time and part-time staff members. Why? As of yet, no one in a position to know is talking.

Speaking at a news conference April 18, Jason Overman, communications director for Oakland Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan, stated, “We thank (Oaksterdam University founder) Richard Lee for his invaluable contributions to the Oakland community.”

Indeed, many credit Oaksterdam and Lee’s other businesses with helping to revitalize the economy of downtown Oakland. Former state Sen. John Vasconcellos also offered critical comments regarding the federal government’s questionable actions.

Those responsible for the raid of Oaksterdam and other legally compliant cannabis-centric establishments “ought to be in therapy, not in office,” he said.

His outrage is understandable.

To be clear: Oaksterdam University was not a facility that dispensed cannabis to the public; it dispensed the truth about cannabis. Oaksterdam University engaged in First Amendment-protected civil discourse that spoke truth to power.

Conversely, the federal government engages in intimidation and the use of force to impose their morally bankrupt prohibition policy — a policy that is now opposed by a plurality of the American public.

And they do so under the veil of secrecy — by executing raids and seizing assets via sealed warrants, signed by unnamed judges, ordered by U.S. attorneys and overseen by an attorney general, all of whom have “no comment.”

Will Oaksterdam University be able to continue? That remains to be seen. No doubt it intends to, albeit with a skeleton staff of unpaid volunteers.

But whether it can thrive under such federal tyranny and demagoguery is another matter, and it is one that should concern all of us.

News Hawk: Jim Behr: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: contracostatimes.com
Author: Paul Armentano
Copyright: Bay Area News Group
Contact: Contact Us – ContraCostaTimes.com
Website: http://www.420magazine.com/gallery/data/500/oak.jpgOaksterdam was educational institution not a dispensary

The raid earlier this month on Oaksterdam University, which offers courses on the growing and dispensing of marijuana, turned the Oakland-based school into the latest flashpoint between federal law enforcement and medical cannabis advocates in states where pot has been decriminalized for medicinal purposes.

School assets were seized in the raid, making it impossible to pay teachers or the landlord for now, according to the school’s founder, Richard Lee, a prominent marijuana advocate who gave more than $1.3 million to fund a failed 2010 California ballot initiative seeking to legalize pot for recreational use.

As a result, 25 employees have been let go, along with 20 other employees at businesses that had been related to the school. The school will operate without actual marijuana plants in the building, executive chancellor Dale Sky Jones said.

“They have not knocked us out, just down,” she said. “The only way we can survive is to dissociate ourselves from the plant and become a First Amendment (freedom of speech) organization.”

Although marijuana remains classified as an illegal narcotic under federal law, 16 states and the District of Columbia have enacted some sort of legalized medical cannabis statutes, according to the Drug Policy Alliance.

In those states, including California, the U.S. government has sought in recent months to shut down storefront dispensaries and greenhouses deemed by federal investigators to be drug-trafficking fronts, as well as those located close to schools and parks.

The federal government considers marijuana an unlawful narcotic liable to be abused, while medical pot activists accuse U.S. authorities in Northern California of targeting establishments already overseen by local officials and legal under state law.

In a sign of some of the local support 5-year-old Oaksterdam enjoys, representatives of San Francisco Bay-area elected officials and union leaders for medical cannabis workers attended a news conference at the school on Wednesday.

Drug Enforcement Administration spokeswoman Casey Rettig said her agency would not comment on Oaksterdam’s plans or explain the reasons for the April 2 raid on a school that bills itself as the first cannabis college in the United States.

“The documents are under court seal and we can’t provide any further details,” she said.

Lee, who is paralyzed and uses a wheelchair, owned a medical marijuana dispensary called Blue Sky that was near the school. But since the raid, the university has separated itself from Lee and the dispensary, Jones said.

The Obama administration has said it would not single out individual patients who possess or grow their own marijuana in states with medical pot statutes.

News Hawk – 420 Warrior 420 MAGAZINE
Location: Oakland, CA
Source: Chicago TribuneAuthor: Laird Harrison

Steve DeAngelo is an inspired leader, with close to four decades of activism and advocacy in the cannabis reform movement. His vision and leadership have been featured by news teams from around the globe, including major news outlets in the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom. The media has featured Steve DeAngelo’s landmark Harborside Health Center in their coverage in the emerging cannabis industry in California and nationwide for a reason; Harborside Health Center has established a unique, nonprofit model of legitimacy and professionalism. It is a place where safe access, compassionate and responsible use, and high-quality, lab-tested medicine is offered to patients in great need of relief from a wide range of medical conditions. Patients come first at Harborside.

Steve has been featured by The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, the Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, the BBC, Fortune Magazine and literally every major network news source in the country. His creation of a model medical cannabis dispensary and lifelong cannabis activism, coupled with his extensive knowledge in this arena, has made him one of the most respected speakers in the cannabis and hemp industries.His activist education started early.

Stephen DeAngelo was born in Philadelphia in 1958 and raised in Washington, D.C., where his father worked for the Kennedy administration. Steve was heavily influenced by his parents’ involvement in the Civil Rights movement, and his time spent in India when his dad worked for the Peace Corps (1967-1969). When the family returned to the United States, the Vietnam War and its atrocities were prominent in the news. Feeling the turbulent signs of the times, young Steve began skipping school to attend antiwar demonstrations. In 7th grade he organized a sit-in at his school, in solidarity with an antiwar demonstration. By the time he was a young teenager, incidents such as the Kent State massacre made him aware that political dissent could very well result in going to jail or being shot. Nonetheless, that didn’t stop Steve. At 16 years old he dropped out of school to join the Yippies, and was the key organizer of the annual Fourth of July White House (cannabis) Smoke-Ins in front of the Capitol buildings.

Steve spent several years as a street activist, learning valuable skills in event planning, stage management, and promotion. As he matured from a teenager into a young man, Steve took his skills into the entrepreneurial arena, putting them to work in the music industry. He became an independent concert promoter, nightclub manager and record producer. He soon renovated two movie theaters and converted them to live music venues – a new model developed way before its time. He played a key role in the rehabilitation of the Adams Morgan neighborhood, with the opening of the Beat Club and renovation of Ontario Theater from movies to live performances. To this day, movie theaters are being renovated and made into music venues across the country. From the very beginning of his career, Steve has been ahead of the times, and set a new course for the future. So is the way with visionary leaders.In 1984, Steve decided to complete his interrupted education at the University of Maryland, graduating summa cum laude in just two-and-a-half years. After graduation he opened the legendary Nuthouse, which High Times magazine called a “D.C. version” of the famous Family Dog in San Francisco. During the first Bush administration, this proved to be a refuge for Washington, D.C., cannabis activists and notables, including Kunstler, Wavy Gravy and Jack Herer.

In 1986, cannabis activist Jack Herer showed up at the Nuthouse, waving a tattered tabloid manuscript of his soon-to-be-famous book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes. Jack’s book outlined the hidden history of the link between industrial hemp and cannabis, and the conspiracy to make both of them illegal. The Emperor deepened Steve’s realization that cannabis was a good plant, not an evil plant. After reading it, he decided to focus his efforts on promoting the book’s message far and wide. After helping Jack edit and publish the manuscript, Steve became a prime organizer of the first ever Hemp Museum and Hemp Tour, which brought the news about hemp to hundreds of universities nationwide.

Displayed in that tour were balls of twine made from hemp, which college students found to be an excellent material for macramé jewelry, and began purchasing in ever-growing quantities. Before long, Steve had completely exhausted the available supply of twine in the United States, so he traveled to Eastern Europe in search of a reliable supplier. That trip led to the 1990 founding of Ecolution, a pioneering company that manufactured hemp clothing and accessories, and exported them to retail stores in all 50 states and 21 foreign countries. This company again enabled Steve to cross-pollinate his extraordinary leadership and activism skills – and established Ecolution as the most professional and mainstream U.S. hemp company.

Steve sees hemp and cannabis as one issue, not two. He believes that the 1937 legislation that made cannabis illegal was passed due to influence from corporate interests like the Hearst and DuPont Corporations, which saw hemp as a threat to their investments in timber and plastics.

In 1998, two years after California passed its landmark medical cannabis initiative, Steve played a key leadership role in the passage of Washington, D.C.’s medical cannabis legislation, Initiative 59. Despite winning with 69% of the vote, and in every single precinct in the city, the US Congress used its power to veto implementation of I-59. Shocked and disillusioned by this violation of majority rule, Steve decided to move to California where, unlike D.C., medical cannabis legislation was not subject to a congressional veto.

Steve arrived in California in 2000, and immersed himself in the local medical cannabis milieu. He was one of the original founding members of Americans for Safe Access, the premier advocacy group for medical cannabis patients. He wrote and produced For Medical Use Only, a short documentary film; helped organize several legal cannabis gardens, and invented a new form of cannabis concentrate. All the while, he laid plans for a new type of medical cannabis dispensary. Steve got the chance to put his plans in action October of 2006, when he won a highly competitive RFP process, and was issued a medical cannabis dispensary license by the city of Oakland. Steve launched Harborside Health Center (HHC) to bring a new model of professionalism and integrity to the industry. Harborside quickly gained recognition for its free holistic care clinic, laboratory-tested medicine, low-income care package program, cannabis-friendly substance misuse program, and wide array of other patient services. This innovative approach generated widespread acceptance and acclaim from the community, city council, and law enforcement officials in Northern California and beyond.

As media coverage spread the word of his exemplary not-for-profit business model and straightforward commitment, Steve became inundated with requests to share his vision and business acumen. In response, he created “CannBe,” a management and consulting firm which brought an A-team of medical cannabis professionals under one roof, and put them at the service of existing and prospective dispensary operators. The CannBe model emphasized local ownership and control, with a focus on legal integrity and positive community relations.

“Out of the Shadows and Into the Light” epitomizes Steve’s mission. His work to expose the myths created about cannabis, and to promote the positive science that has emerged about it, aims to enlighten the public on the many benefits of the cannabis plant.

This is an important time in history to empower the country to change its image and perception of cannabis. Steve DeAngelo and Harborside Health Center are leading the way and on the edge of the ladder in discovering and demonstrating the many benefits of this amazing plant.

Barack Obama should pay attention. In 2008, young voters were enthused and turned out for him by the millions.

But now? The campus/youth enthusiasm factor has declined sharply. The deficiency seriously imperils Obama’s re-election effort.

There’s one issue, though, that might reignite youthful enthusiasm. That issue is marijuana – partly its medical use, but especially Americans’ right to recreational use free of potential arrest and possible prison time.

Today’s grim reality is that police continue to arrest youth for marijuana possession by the hundreds of thousands. But each arrest is a red flag of danger, threatening life prospects for a young man or woman suddenly saddled with a permanent “drug arrest” record that’s easily located by employers, landlords, schools, credit agencies and banks.

Small wonder then that 62 percent of young Americans ( ages 18 to 29 ) now favor legalizing marijuana, as a Gallup poll reported.

And it’s not just youth these days. Gallup this year found 50 percent nationwide support for legalizing marijuana use – the most ever, up from a measly 12 percent in 1969 to 30 percent in 2000 and 40 percent in 2009.

A ballot measure to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana received 46.5 percent of the vote in California last year. Parallel measures are likely to be on the 2012 ballots in Colorado and Washington. Odd political bedfellows – Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Ron Paul, R-Texas – recently introduced a legalization bill and now have 19 co-sponsors. Paul even gets applause advocating legalization in Republican presidential debates.

But what about President Obama? In 2004 he endorsed marijuana decriminalization. He was candid about his early pot use and in 2006 told a group of magazine editors: “When I was a kid, I inhaled, frequently.” By his run for president in 2008, he was slipping away from decriminalization but at least talked of a “public health” approach, emphasizing drug treatment instead of prison, giving drug-reform advocates hope for a new day in national policy.

But Obama as president has been a clear disappointment to reform forces. In White House-initiated electronic town halls, respondents – heavily weighted to original Obama supporters – have repeatedly put marijuana at the top of their issue lists. But the White House has either laughed off or provided dismissive retorts.

Obama’s Drug Policy Office claims the drug war is over, replaced by a focus on shrinking demand, “innovative, compassionate and evidence-based drug policies.” But Obama has not once singled out marijuana – a substance arguably far less harmful to the human body than alcohol – for special consideration. Nor has he spoken to the harm to youth caused by 800,000 yearly arrests. Or moved to stem the billions of dollars a year spent on marijuana-related arrests.

This is clearly not the “change” Obama’s enthusiastic supporters of 2008 expected. And it’s deeply ironic. Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance notes that if local police departments had been enforcing marijuana laws as harshly in the early 1980s as many do today, “there’s a good chance a young Columbia student named Barack Obama could have been picked up – and not be in the White House today.”

Nadelmann suggests that both the White House Drug Policy Office and the Justice Department enforcement divisions have been “co-opted” by holdover appointees deeply invested in anti-marijuana rhetoric and “let’s just bust them” drug enforcement.

Facing the 2012 election, Obama is not likely to advocate, suddenly, marijuana decriminalization. But he could announce that it’s time for a serious national dialogue on the issue, and that it will be a hallmark of his second term. He could express his dismay that 800,000 people, mostly young ( and heavily black and Hispanic ), are being arrested each year for marijuana possession – even as 50 percent of Americans favor legalization. He could focus on the massive costs of enforcement, the deep social costs of imprisonment. Let all America, youth included, join in the debate, he could urge.

A new openness to marijuana reform could help to reignite, on campuses and among high numbers of young people, the hope for “change” that really means something. Perhaps even prospects for the president’s own re-election.

“By selling the amount of cannabis that I’ve sold, I am now eligible for more than three federal death penalties.” So says Steve DeAngelo, protagonist of the Discovery Channel miniseries “Weed Wars,” at the beginning of each episode, immediately alerting viewers that this is not standard reality TV.

As founder and executive director of Oakland-based Harborside Health Center, a medical-marijuana collective that DeAngelo claims is “the largest cannabis dispensary on the entire planet” — he won’t be voted off the island or lose the singing competition in the final round. Instead, DeAngelo faces severe legal consequences for the activities documented in “Weed Wars,” which airs its first season finale Thursday.

“Weed Wars” offers unprecedented access into the medicinal-cannabis universe, from entrepreneur-activists like DeAngelo to growers, sellers and patients, all operating on the edge of legality.

“It’s the first real chance that [medical cannabis] providers have had to get their own story out there,” notes Aaron Lachant, associate at Los Angeles-based Fenton Nelson, who runs the healthcare-focused law firm’s medical-marijuana litigation practice. “Previously, the narrative around medical marijuana has always been dominated by state and federal government, city councils and the Drug Enforcement Administration. This show helps make it a national debate, and not just a California issue.”

Though groundbreaking, “Weed Wars” may be just an opening salvo in what is shaping up to be a growing reality sub-genre devoted to illicit substances. The show has scored well with key demos, averaging just under a million viewers a week. Meanwhile, Discovery’s Dec. 6 premiere of “Moonshiners” — a series focused on the exploits of illegal alcohol distillers in the Appalachian backwoods — earned the network close to 3 million viewers, its highest ratings for a series debut.

“The topic is in the zeitgeist right now,” says Nancy Daniels, executive vice president of production and development for the Discovery Channel. “Both shows present an inherent level of drama and stakes that works for any show, with characters operating on the edge of the law that really pop on TV. We’re not taking a side — we’re just showing what’s happening with a hot-button issue.”

National Geographic Channel, meanwhile, is bringing back its investigative documentary series “Drugs Inc.” for a second season, with new episodes set to broadcast Jan. 1. And later this spring, National Geographic will present new series “American Weed”: where “Drugs Inc.” exhaustively explores numerous aspects of the multi-billion-dollar illegal-drug trade throughout the world, “American Weed” focuses specifically on the marijuana-legalization movement of Colorado.

“The incredible disconnect between local authorities’ approval and federal law is playing out with a lot of drama in many communities,” says Michael Cascio, National Geographic Channel’s executive vice president of production, “and we follow a group of people dealing with the new reality.”

According to Shirley Halperin, co-author of “Pot Culture: The A-Z Guide to Stoner Language and Life,” the wave of pot-based programming jump-started with the surprise success of CNBC’s 2009 documentary special “Marijuana Inc.: Inside America’s Pot Industry.” “The ratings are there, advertisers are there,” she says. “Weed’s place in pop culture is at critical mass.”

Indeed, “Weed Wars” executive producer Chuck Braverman (whose diverse résumé includes directing episodes of “Beverly Hills 90210″ and Oscar-nominated documentaries) says it’s taken a while for TV to catch up. “The irony is, two years ago, I had a marijuana-related project, and every network passed on it.”

News Hawk – 420 Warrior 420 MAGAZINE
Source: Los Angeles Times
Author: Matt Diehl
Contact: www.latimes.com-contact us
Copyright: Copyright 2011 Los Angeles Times
Website: articles.latimes.com

My perspective has changed over the past year. Yes, there are profiteers and people who just want to get high among the medical marijuana fold, but I believe the vast majority of people working in the field are sincere. Even if their ultimate goal is legalization, they see that at least protecting people who are sick and need the medicine is a sincere and effective step.

Even further, I now believe that ending marijuana prohibition has the potential to make so many positive changes in the United States that legalization can’t wait. Here’s why:

The War on Drugs is lost

The War on Drugs is an utter and farcical failure. It was doomed from the start because it was developed counter to the scientific evidence available at the time and was conceived of as a political tool against President Richard Nixon’s enemies. Since it kicked off in 1972, the country has spent $1 trillion on this failed policy, 37 million people have been arrested for drugs ( 10 million for marijuana ) yet more people use drugs than ever before, illegal drugs are readily available in practically every community, most of the violence associated with drugs is due to their illegality, and foreign drug cartels routinely bring illegal drugs across our national borders in amounts that police are incapable of slowing down. When it comes to the War on Drugs we’re flushing money down the toilet.

Marijuana is safe medicine

And if you doubt that people are sick and need medication, look at the $300 billion a year ( according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism ) we spend on pharmaceutical drugs. The pharmaceutical industry is among the nation’s most profitable. On the way to those profits in 2010, according to statistics from the Food and Drug Administration, there were 82,774 deaths and 471,291 serious outcomes ( i.e. death, hospitalization, life-threatening, disability, congenital anomaly ) were attributed to prescription drug mistakes. In comparison, there has never been a reported marijuana overdose death. Not only is it safe, but the most common side effect is you get a bit of euphoria. OK, you can get dry throat too, but that beats the long list of negative side effects listed for most medications on TV commercials.

Harm to ethnic communities

The original criminalization of marijuana in the 1930s was in part a move to send Mexicans back to Mexico during the Great Depression. The 1972 declaration of the War on Drugs was aimed at blacks and hippies. The consequences of the war have been devastating on those communities while not stopping drug use. Police have fought the drug war more vigorously in black and Hispanic communities than in affluent white neighborhoods. And even when middle-class whites get arrested, due to being able to afford more competent defense and disparities in sentencing, they don’t go to jail in nearly the numbers as others.

When an urban person of color gets arrested for a nonviolent drug offense, their life takes a downswing they may never recover from. They go to jail and their families are ripped apart. They meet other criminals in jail who teach them how to conduct a life of crime. When they get out of jail, they’ve been out of circulation for a number of years, any education they were getting is over; they’re ineligible for federal education funding because they have a felony record. Without education or job skills, there’s little chance for employment. Pretty much all they have to fall back on are the criminals they met while in jail. The community loses a possible productive citizen, the family loses a potential breadwinner and the user is probably going back to jail at a cost to taxpayers

Police are addicted to drug money

Police know the War on Drugs is lost, but it is so profitable they won’t tell the truth. Police get federal money, foundation money and forfeiture money for pursuing the failed drug war. It behooves them to pump up the statistics on their anti-drug efforts because they get paid. Recently, in Bay City, a lawyer complained that the city should save the cost of participating in the Bay Area Narcotics Enforcement Team. The ensuing discussion revealed that the federal government gave Bay City police a $60,000 grant to participate in the drug enforcement team. In Detroit, Mayor Dave Bing recently announced that police could use more than $2 million in drug forfeiture money to purchase crime-fighting technology that the city could not otherwise afford.

In an atmosphere where education dollars are hard to come by, where budget cuts threaten the existence of social services, where health care costs have nearly paralyzed the nation, anti-drug money still flows without impediment into dark coffers across the nation.

There’s money to be made

I believe a lot of the talk among political entities about being able to control dosage and purity of the drug is partly cover for deciding just who is going to make the profits from a plant that has been used by indigenous peoples since the dawn of history. In a Dec. 5 press release, California’s Union of Medical Marijuana Patients revealed that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is “about to award an exclusive license to Kannalife Sciences, Inc. of New York to develop medical therapeutics based on the chemistry of cannabis.”

There’s big money to be made, and the folks who handle big money want to keep it for themselves. In 2005, Milton Friedman and 500 economists supported a Harvard study showing that legal taxed and regulated marijuana would produce annual savings and tax revenues of $10-$14 billion for the United States. California pot sales alone already are an estimated billion-dollar industry. It’s not like we couldn’t use that kind of money in Michigan.

Science supports medical marijuana

There is no factual basis for marijuana prohibition. There are at least a couple of thousand peer-reviewed scientific articles out there that support the medical use of marijuana for treating diseases such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, AIDS and numerous other ailments including chronic pain. The only science contradicting these favorable findings comes from scientists working for anti-drug organizations – and they have the credibility of the scientists who claim that global warming does not exist.

There are a lot more things that I learned about marijuana over the past year. I’ve learned about how the active ingredients in marijuana work, and that it’s not all about THC. I’ve learned that whole plant medications can be more effective than synthesizing one “active” component. I’ve learned that polls show the vast majority of Americans support medical marijuana and a slim majority supports out-and-out legalization. I’ve learned enough about marijuana that I believe that changing our laws and attitude toward the weed could indeed change our nation.

News Hawk – 420 Warrior 420 MAGAZINE
Source: Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Author: Larry Gabriel
Contact: letters@metrotimes.com
Copyright: 2011 C.E.G.W./Times-Shamrock
Website: Detroit Metro Times

According to the court, penalizing the personal use of drugs violates the “free development of personality.”

The court found that Legislative Act No.2, 2009, which banned the personal use of drugs, “implies the nullification of fundamental rights, and it represses and sanctions with the severest punishments (imprisonment) the personal decision to abandon one’s personal health, a choice that corresponds to their own decision and does not infringe on the rights of other members of society.”

According to newspaper El Tiempo, the Supreme Court set the “personal amount” of drugs at 20 grams of marijuana.

Colombia’s highest court based its ruling on the case of a minor who had nearly 80 grams of marijuana in his possession. While the court decided the amount exceeded personal use, they took the opportunity to overturn the general ban on personal consumption.

The landmark ruling overturns legislation passed by Colombia’s Congress in 2009 that penalized the carrying of all amounts of illegal drugs. The passing of the bill was considered a success for Uribe, who for years had been trying to ban drugs, claiming the decriminalized dosage was undermining efforts to combat micro-trafficking of drugs in the cities.

NewsHawk: Jim Behr: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: colombiareports.com
Author: Travis Mannon
Copyright: Colombia news | Colombia Reports
Contact: Colombia news | Colombia Reports
Website: Colombia Supreme Court decriminalizes drugs for personal use