DEA

Top Drug Cop in California Busted for Selling Confiscated Narcotics

By Robert Salonga and Malaika Fraley |  Published in Contra Costa Times Public defenders…

Roger Christie, Hawaii's Medical Marijuana Political Prisoner

Seven months have now gone by, and still Roger sits in the Federal Detention Center.  No contact with anyone except his public defender.  He has access to the Corrlinks email system, but no internet.  His girlfriend is NOT his wife so she cannot visit him.  And even if they were married, she could ill afford the $200 plus roundtrip airfare to Oahu.  He relies on the Cannabis Charity Foundation to send him $600 month so he can make 5 minute phone calls, use Corrlinks, buy postage for snail mail and a few nickels for the prison commissary.

Appeals Court Rules Medical Pot Use OK While on Probation

In a 22-page ruling Friday, the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento said Vernon Emile Smith Jr., 23, of Sacramento, had a right to use the drug with a doctor’s prescription under the Compassionate Use Act.

It’s Time To End America’s Failed Cannabis Prohibition

The end of cannabis prohibition is near.

How can one tell? When the beneficiaries of the  status quo—both prohibitionists and  contrabandists—join together to actively oppose long  sought alternatives to America’s  expensive, unsuccessful, anti-free market and Constitution-  warping cannabis prohibition,  then it is clear that change is upon us

The close loss might have turned out to be a narrow victory had the Prop. 19 campaign not received more than 50 percent of the public donations in the last four weeks of the campaign, which did not allow them to have any physical presence in Los Angeles County or the three major cannabis cultivation counties in the north (Mendocino, Humboldt and Sonoma), where, if only a small percentage more of voters had instead favored Prop. 19, then the headline on election night would have been all together different.

Marinol: The Little Synthetic That Couldn't

Wasting syndrome, or anorexia-cachexia, afflicts 70 to 90 percent of AIDS patients, robbing them of their appetite. The resulting malnutrition can be more deadly than the virus itself. But there is only one drug that is commonly prescribed for the treatment of wasting syndrome: Marinol, the synthetic form of THC, the most psychoactive component of marijuana.

Patients Deserve Medical Marijuana

As an advocate of the full legalization of marijuana, I find it interesting that the arguments chosen by Chelsey Johnson in her Nov. 11 letter to the editor — “Rethinking medical marijuana” — are so bureaucratic.

Do we really care whether people buy regular or extra-strength Tylenol? The fact that drug-related crime in California and Colorado has gone down seems to have flown by her. And the fact that thousands of cancer and AIDS patients are seeing significant quality of life benefits apparently doesn’t matter either.

The Human Solution Helped to Keep One Family Together: The Naulls Support Story

Ronnie Naulls was a friendly local businessman, he had a wife and four kids. He only wanted to make it in the world and help as many people as he could along the way. He and his family were fortunate to have The Human Solution when they needed something like it the most. Only eighteen months after opening their doors for business, Ronnie’s compassionate and professionally run dispensary, Healing Nations Collective, and Ronnie’s home, were both violently raided.

About a year later The Human Solution went into action. Members from The Human Solution and others, came together and not only supported Ronnie with their physical presence in court, but as each member filled in the courtroom in support of the Naulls family, so did the Solidarity Ribbons. The judge could hardly miss us and our proudly displayed Ribbons, our badges of courage and honor. Nor could Judge Virginia Phillips ignore the huge support that these badges, and all the peaceful people, provided.

US Govt's Patent on Pot, and an End to the War on Drugs

The Dept. of Health and Human Services filed for and was awarded a patent on the medical benefits of cannabinoids derived from cannabis, based on studies done at the National Institute of Health. The patent (#6,630,507) awarded in 2003, states unequivocally that cannabinoids are neuroprotectants and anti-inflammitory, and as such are useful in the prevention and treatment of a wide variety of diseases including stroke, trauma, auto-immune disorders, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and HIV dementia. That’s prevention and treatment…

Medical Marijuana Coalition Presses DEA for Response to Rescheduling Petition as Senate Holds Confirmation Hearings on Administrator Michele Leonhart

Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearings begin this week for Leonhart as Obama’s nominee for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Leonhart has lead the DEA on hundreds of para-militiary style raids against medical cannabis patients and providers.

An Open Letter to the Stoners Against Legalization: Don’t Let Paranoia Get the Best of You!

I understand paranoia. After working for a dispensary that was under the watchful eye of the DEA, having called out undercovers that were at a dispensary operator meeting getting them to leave, and years of training medical marijuana patients how to handle police encounters to prevent being arrested and stay out of jail, I get how the imagination of the unknown can play tricks on a person, especially when they’re involved with a questionably legal activity.

Non-Psychoactive Medical Marijuana Seized in Recent Raids

Mahmoud Elsohly, PhD, is best known for supervising the only federally-sanctioned cannabis grow site in the U.S., a one-acre plot on the University of Mississippi campus. ElSohly also has a lucrative contract with the National Institute on Drug Abuse to analyze cannabis samples seized by law enforcement in raids. “Potency Trends of D9-THC and Other Cannabinoids in Confiscated Cannabis Preparations from 1993 to 2008,” an article in the September issue of <em>Forensic Sciences </em>co-authored by ElSohly, confirms that levels of psychoactive THC have risen over the years, especially in sinsemilla, while levels of non-psychoactive Cannabidiol (CBD) have dwindled.

Right-Wing Think Tank's Marijuana Policy Paper Takes Absurdity to New Heights

The Heritage Foundation’s Charles Stimson has released a completely bonkers prohibitionist screed on marijuana. Will the think tank retract it? If you want to read one of the most absurd “policy” articles about marijuana in history, go quickly to the website of the Heritage Foundation to read “Legalizing Marijuana: Why Citizens Should Just Say No.” I say quickly because it is truly so absurd, I believe it will be taken down from the site soon.

Dissection of a DEA Raid

by Greggory Moore The year is 2008, before Obama, before U.S. Attorney General Eric…

Opening Statements in Jackson Second Medical Marijuana Trial to Begin Monday

Opening Statements in Jackson Second Medical Marijuana Trial to Begin Monday Defense denied, supporters…

Campaign For Cannabis Research Begins With You

At last weeks Medical Cannabis Summit in San Francisco, all heads came together to discuss many topics surrounding clinical cannabis. One of the most important topics discussed was how to proceed with clinical cannabis and cannabinoid research, and one of the ways you can help is to encourage our leaders to grant more licensing for clinical cannabis cultivation for federally-approved research.

Below is a sample from our friends at Students For Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) to help guide you should this be a new experience for you.

First Community-Based Medical Cannabis Summit Huge Success

Last week, those fortunate enough to attend this event in San Francisco (or via…