cannabisnews.com: Little Consensus On Consequences of Court Ruling Little Consensus On Consequences of Court Ruling Posted by FoM on May 18, 2001 at 13:56:13 PT By Alex Gronke, Staff Writer Source: Contra Costa Times Medical marijuana cooperatives, city officials, and anti-drug activists in Berkeley are looking at where they stand in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling which decided there was no medical exemption for marijuana in federal drug law. Depending on where one asks, the unanimous decision is good news, bad news, or no news at all for medical marijuana patients. Jim Squatter, co director of Cannabis Buyers Cooperative of Berkeley, said the decision came as no surprise and leaves him feeling safer. "It (the Supreme Court ruling) sets us up in a better position -- the state is backing off, and the Feds are taking over," said Squatter. "And the political climate tells me they are not going to get convictions."Lt. Russell Lopes of the Berkeley police department said the ruling in Washington, D.C. will have no bearing on how the police go about their business."Our policy concerning marijuana in general is that it is an extremely low priority," said Lopes. "Nothing is going to change regardless of what the court says." While the police aren't planning a restructuring of their marijuana policy, other parts of the city government have been obliged to pay closer attention to the decision."We have all along been monitoring the legal landscape," said city attorney Manuela Albuquerque. "As soon as we make one set of assumptions, the law changes on us."Albuquerque said the decision has forced her to reassess the City Council's directive to develop a permitting process for medical marijuana cooperatives.The city manager arranged for a meeting between city officials and at least two of the medical marijuana cooperatives."I've been asking for a meeting with the city manager for a couple of years," said Squatter.In contrast to Squatter's belief that medical marijuana cooperatives are in a better position after Monday's ruling, anti-drug activists are energized by the decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas.Kevin Sabet, director of Citizens for a Drug Free Berkeley, said the city is obligated to enforce federal law."It's a simple thing in my mind," said Sabet. "This is the third branch of government to say there is no medical use for marijuana."I only hope that the City of Berkeley and others desiring to smoke weed for so-called medical purposes' will now follow the law. If they don't, we will see them in court," said Sabet in a press release.Sabet, a soon-to-be graduate of UC Berkeley, said litigation will not be his first method of coercion."We're going to call Manuela Albuquerque, the city manager, and the rest of the city government," he said.But if the medical marijuana cooperatives remain open, Sabet said he will resort to the courts."If it has to come down to a court challenge," said Sabet. "It's an open and shut case. The hardest thing about this case is putting up the filing fee and driving down to the Alameda County Superior Court."Albuquerque said she believes the city is not vulnerable to a lawsuit.Complete Title: Little Consensus On Consequences of Court Marijuana Ruling Source: Contra Costa Times (CA)Author: Alex Gronke, Staff WriterPublished: Friday, May 18, 2001Copyright: 2001 Contra Costa Newspapers Inc.Website: http://www.contracostatimes.com/Contact: http://contracostatimes.com/contact_us/letters.htmRelated Articles:Berkeley Ponders Marijuana Ruleshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9655.shtmlProtest Demand Increase of Marijuana Plant Limithttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9651.shtmlBerkeley Marijuana Ordinance Jeered http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9225.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #6 posted by lookinside on May 19, 2001 at 11:58:14 PT: sabet... my daughter goes to school at UCBerkeley...my wife and i goto oakland and berkeley frequently to get her(my wife's)medicine...(members of OCBC)i would love to meet mr. sabetpicketing or blocking an entrance...i'll bet i would get outof jail before he got out of the hospital...these jokersREALLY piss me off... [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by nl5x on May 18, 2001 at 17:28:51 PT Kevin Sabet “And I must say, going back to what Mr. Gray said about alcohol prohibition, that analogy is really a false one and a deceiving one. First of all, during alcohol prohibition it was not really prohibited; it was decriminalized, meaning you couldn't sell it but you could possess it. Second, and most importantly, alcohol has a long history of widespread accepted use in our culture, dating back to the Old Testament in ancient Greece. Drugs do not, and we've got to make sure that they don't. We've got to make sure illegal drugs stay out of society, and don't become a norm, don't become a cultural norm, or else you'll have the disaster of what you see in the Netherlands.”“The correlation between hepatitis, AIDS and the other -- racism and the other things that he's saying I don't believe are correlated with the drug war.”==================================================BATTISTA: Kevin Sabet, do you feel like alcohol, cigarettes, everything, should be wiped out.SABET: “Of course not. No one is advocating for the prohibition, again, of alcohol and tobacco, or at least most people, because, like I said, you have to look at the other element, which is the cultural element; and like I said, most people who get involved in alcohol don't get in trouble; most people who get involved with illicit drugs do get in trouble, and I think that's a problem.”====================================================Source:CNN Talkback live transcriptsold email? try itksabet uclink4.berkeley.edu [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by mayan on May 18, 2001 at 16:48:49 PT war on hemp I totally agree Tom. In fact, I just wrote a letter to the Springfield,Il.- State Journal-Register that said pretty much the same thing. It might show up on http://www.mapinc.org within a couple of weeks. Their board of editors is very sympathetic to the industrial hemp cause. Hemp could help us in so many ways. It just makes too much sense for the "powers that be" to comprehend. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by FoM on May 18, 2001 at 15:15:59 PT Picture of Henry Ford's Hemp Car Hello Tom, I bookmarked a picture of the Hemp Car.http://www.electricemperor.com/eecdrom/HTML/EMP/09/ECH09_15.HTM#car Hemp Links [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by Morgan on May 18, 2001 at 15:07:03 PT Vent away It needs to be said Tom, over and over again, until everybody hears it.________________________________________________ [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by tom on May 18, 2001 at 14:55:43 PT off-topic rant Maybe it's just stoner paranoia:) but i feel that democracy in general in the US is an illusion carefully manipulated by corporate power brokers. I think that all this denunciation of marijuana is really a smoke screen. The government and the wealthy individuals, families and corporations it serves, could care less about many other psychedelic plants with much stronger and more dangerous effects than pot (morning glory seeds, jimsonweed, datura, mushrooms, etc.) Mushrooms are technically illegal, but are rarely mentioned in the news and dont carry the symbolic weight pot carries in the popular consciousness. I think that aside from the obvious benefits to the ruling American elite of the current drug war (repressed population, excuses for military intervention abroad, etc.), that the real motive behind the drug war is to prevent research into industrial hemp. the elite knows that if hemp were exploited to its full potential with modern technology, it would obviate the need for 95% of the petrochemical industry. And Bush, oilman that he is, is never ever going to let that happen. It's maddening that we can literally grow all the fuel we'll ever need with a plant that does not add any new CO2 to the atmosphere. Hemp is literally too useful and too cheap - it would remove too many of the reasons for a strong centralized government for the people who run this country to allow, and too many of the big corporations would lose money on it. Meanwhile, the ozone hole gets bigger (it just recently touched the tip of south america in the southern hemisphere) and poor people starve in the supposedly richest nation on the planet. This isn't hippy idealism and it's not even new technology - Henry Ford had a hemp powered car a hundred years ago (!). And it was built from pressed hemp! I know all of this has been said before - just had to vent. Tom [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: