Today is the deadline for countries to submit objections to Bolivia’s proposed amendment to remove the ban on coca leaf chewing in the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. As far as we know, six countries have formally notified the UN that they reject Bolivia’s amendment: the United States (January 19), Sweden (Jan 20), the United Kingdom (Jan 21), Canada (Jan 26), Denmark (Jan 28) and Germany (Jan 28). Some other European countries may add their objections today.
I know a lot of you are deeply disappointed that Obama didn’t suddenly shed all his skin, emerge from a cocoon as some new kind of species and suddenly proclaim, after devouring his press secretary, that the U.S. government should pursue legalization of all drugs.
Well it wasn’t going to happen. However, what did happen had some real value.
Seeing this headline at CBS Political Hotsheet ain’t bad:
Obama: Drugs Should be Treated as a Public Health Problem
However, acknowledging that the “war on drugs” has not been effective, Mr. Obama said he thinks of drugs as “more of a public health problem.”
Today, in response to a video question from a former deputy sheriff about whether it is time to discuss legalizing and regulating drugs in light of the failure of the "war on drugs," President Barack Obama said that it is "an entirely legitimate topic for debate" but that he is not in favor of legalization.
The President then went on to say that he sees drug abuse as a public health issue and that a shifting of resources is required, away from the traditional approach of incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders.
To quote The King’s Speech, “It’s positively medieval.”
The U.S. National Guard spotted would-be drug smugglers on video Jan. 21 near the Naco Border Patrol station along the Mexico-Arizona border setting up a catapult, which was probably intended to be used to launch marijuana over the border.
“This is definitely an unusual find,” U.S. Border Patrol agent Jason Rheinfrank told the Star on Thursday. “It’s definitely something new.”
The border agency released a clip of a video that shows the suspects setting up the catapult and testing it without putting anything in the catapult.
In February, 2009, the US Department of Justice announced that it would no longer raid medical marijuana dispensaries that abided by state laws, sparking a boom in quasi-legal cannabis investments that I detail today in "Joint Ventures" (my feature from the January/February print magazine that's now online). Even so, the fast-growing grey-market in ganja could be about to get pruned. The Internal Revenue Service is reportedly auditing some of California's largest and most reputable medical pot dispensaries, examining their compliance with an obscure section of tax law aimed at drug dealers. Dispensary owners say that the provision, if strictly applied, could effectively snuff out the nation's burgeoning medical marijuana industry.
How strange is the emerging world of medical-marijuana entrepreneurship?
Consider Clay Butler, who may soon be marketing a food product that he's never tasted, and that he would never buy. The product is called Canna Cola, and it's a soft drink that contains THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, aimed at medical marijuana dispensaries.
"I don't do drugs," said the Soquel-based commercial artist. "Never have. I never drank, never smoked. I'm a clean-living guy. I've had two beers in my whole life, and I remember them both too. No marijuana, I've never smoked a cigarette. I take an aspirin when I get a headache. That's it."
Everyone's talking about this DEA report from the summer that failed to make the rounds until now, probably because they didn't exactly send us our own autographed copies. It's called DEA Position on Marijuana, and as you'd guess from the title, it's as heavy a dose of hysterical anti-pot propaganda as anyone could ever cram into 50 pages.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration's "Position on Marijuana 2010" is a hot document. Dated to July, it didn't really start circulating until this January when activist Ed Rosenthal found his name in it. Since then, the DEA link to the paper is gone, but a Google site search yields the file. Yesterday, the Marijuana Policy Project told supporters that the DEA's position paper labels the drug law reform group Enemy #1. But that's just a little bit of the 54-page collection of anecdotal Reefer Madness. Thin on actual research, the little science the DEA cites is biased. The paper almost never discloses the number of patients in a study group, and can't cite much US research — ironically, because the DEA plays a role in ensuring such studies never get approved. But the paper does relate some sad drug war stories, like the following: Read more »
This week’s cover story [see link below] about the business of marijuana included a source who has five years’ experience growing weed for the black market.
The man we called Dan Beaumont recently stopped growing, harvesting his last crop out of his Northeast Portland home in October. As noted in the story, Beaumont is starting a family and says he is set to graduate from Portland State University this spring.
But there’s one other factor Beaumont cites in his decision to exit the weed business. And it’s one that has repercussions far beyond Beaumont’s situation.
In the weeks after a bill to legalize medical marijuana in Maryland failed last spring, the state senator who championed the legislation, Jamie B. Raskin of Montgomery County, found himself in a doctor's office with a new perspective on the issue.
The doctor told him that he had a "worrisome" mass the size of a golf ball in his colon. Raskin would learn four days later that he had cancer.
Now a disease that Raskin, 48, largely kept under the radar during his successful reelection campaign in the fall becomes very public when he returns to Annapolis for the General Assembly session that begins Wednesday.
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Today is the deadline for countries to submit objections to Bolivia’s proposed amendment to remove the ban on coca leaf chewing in the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. As far as we know, six countries have formally notified the UN that they reject Bolivia’s amendment: the United States (January 19), Sweden (Jan 20), the United Kingdom (Jan 21), Canada (Jan 26), Denmark (Jan 28) and Germany (Jan 28). Some other European countries may add their objections today.
I know a lot of you are deeply disappointed that Obama didn’t suddenly shed all his skin, emerge from a cocoon as some new kind of species and suddenly proclaim, after devouring his press secretary, that the U.S. government should pursue legalization of all drugs.
Today, in response to a video question from a former deputy sheriff about whether it is time to discuss legalizing and regulating drugs in light of the failure of the "war on drugs," President Barack Obama said that it is "an entirely legitimate topic for debate" but that he is not in favor of legalization.
To quote The King’s Speech, “It’s positively medieval.”
In February, 2009, the US Department of Justice announced that it would no longer raid medical marijuana dispensaries that abided by state laws, sparking a boom in quasi-legal cannabis investments that I detail today in "Joint Ventures" (my feature from the January/February print magazine that's now online). Even so, the fast-growing grey-market in ganja could be about to get pruned. The Internal Revenue Service is reportedly auditing some of California's largest and most reputable medical pot dispensaries, examining their compliance with an obscure section of tax law aimed at drug dealers. Dispensary owners say that the provision, if strictly applied, could effectively snuff out the nation's burgeoning medical marijuana industry.
How strange is the emerging world of medical-marijuana entrepreneurship?
Everyone's talking about this DEA report from the summer that failed to make the rounds until now, probably because they didn't exactly send us our own autographed copies. It's called DEA Position on Marijuana, and as you'd guess from the title, it's as heavy a dose of hysterical anti-pot propaganda as anyone could ever cram into 50 pages.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration's "Position on Marijuana 2010" is a hot document. Dated to July, it didn't really start circulating until this January when activist Ed Rosenthal found his name in it. Since then, the DEA link to the paper is gone, but a Google site search yields the file. Yesterday, the Marijuana Policy Project told supporters that the DEA's position paper labels the drug law reform group Enemy #1. But that's just a little bit of the 54-page collection of anecdotal Reefer Madness. Thin on actual research, the little science the DEA cites is biased. The paper almost never discloses the number of patients in a study group, and can't cite much US research — ironically, because the DEA plays a role in ensuring such studies never get approved. But the paper does relate some sad drug war stories, like the following: 
This week’s cover story [see link below] about the business of marijuana included a source who has five years’ experience growing weed for the black market.
In the weeks after a bill to legalize medical marijuana in Maryland failed last spring, the state senator who championed the legislation, Jamie B. Raskin of Montgomery County, found himself in a doctor's office with a new perspective on the issue.
