cannabisnews.com: NORML's Weekly News Bulletin -- July 08, 2004





NORML's Weekly News Bulletin -- July 08, 2004
Posted by CN Staff on July 08, 2004 at 15:46:59 PT
Weekly Press Release
Source: NORML
Congress Refuses To Halt Federal Raids On Medi-Pot PatientsJuly 8, 2004 - Washington, DC, USAWashington, DC: Patients and their caregivers who use or possess medicinal cannabis in compliance with state law will continue to be subject to federal arrest and prosecution, after the House of Representatives yesterday voted down a proposed amendment that sought to bar Justice Department officials from interfering with the implementation of state medi-pot laws. The House voted 268 to 148 against the bi-partisan measure, sponsored by Reps. Sam Farr (D-CA), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), and Ron Paul (R-TX).
The House rejected a similar amendment last year by a vote of 273 to 152. Of those who voted in support of this year's proposal, 19 were Republicans and 128 were Democrats. The House's only Independent Congressman, Vermont Representative Bernard Sanders, also voted in favor of the amendment.The measure's proponents noted that the upcoming November election, as well as an intense lobbying campaign against the bill by the Department of Justice, the Fraternal Order of Police, as well as several anti-drug groups, likely played a roll in backers' failure to build upon last year's vote.Speaking in favor of the amendment on the House floor were Reps. Farr, Paul, Rohrabacher, and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), who stated that she had previously furnished her mother with medicinal cannabis."I rise in support of this amendment because my mother had glaucoma and we bought her marijuana because it was a relief, and that was before this bill (Proposition 215) was passed in the state of California," Woolsey said."When it comes to health care policy or palliative care, the care of alleviating pain, nine states of the United States have determined that it is appropriate public policy to allow the use of marijuana as a prescribed treatment," Farr said. "If Congress respects states' rights in so many other areas, why does it not respect it with regard to medical marijuana?"Representatives Michael Burgess (R-TX), Max Burns (D-GA), Doug Ose (D-CA), Mark Souder (R-IN), and Frank Wolf (R-VA) spoke out against the amendment, alleging that medicinal cannabis is a "facade," and is without "any medical qualities whatsoever."For more information, please contact Keith Stroup, NORML Executive Director, at (202) 483-5500. A breakdown of the House vote is available online at: http://clerk.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.asp?year=2004&rollnumber=334DL: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6147Lawmakers Say No To Medical Marijuanahttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19152.shtmlHouse Opposes Effort by States To Allow MMJhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19149.shtmlCongress To Vote on Medical Marijuana Raids http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19144.shtmlFeds' Wayward Path on Pot http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19142.shtml Three Municipal Marijuana Reform Initiatives Certified For November BallotJuly 8, 2004 - Oakland, CA, USAOakland, CA: Local marijuana reform initiatives in Oakland, California and Columbia, Missouri have been certified for the November ballot.The Oakland proposal, sponsored by the Oakland Civil Liberties Alliance, directs the Oakland Police Department to "make the investigation, citation, and arrest for private adult cannabis offenses the lowest enforcement priority." Seattle voters passed a similar initiative in 2003.If passed, the initiative will also request Oakland city officials to "establish a system to license, tax and regulate cannabis for adult use as soon as possible under California law."In a January 2004 poll, 70 percent of Oakland voters responded that they backed the regulation of marijuana for adults, and 75 percent said they believed that the enforcement of laws prohibiting the private use of cannabis by adults should be the lowest priority for police.Columbia voters will also have the opportunity to vote this fall on a pair of initiatives to liberalize the city's marijuana laws. The first would exempt qualified patients who possess medicinal cannabis under their doctor's supervision from arrest and/or prosecution.The second measure, known as the Missouri Smart Sentencing Initiative, would reduce sanctions on the possession of up to 35 grams of marijuana for recreational purposes from a maximum penalty of one year in jail and/or a $1,000 fine to a fine-only offense of $250. In addition, the measure mandates that all misdemeanor marijuana possession offenses go before city court, not state court.Similar local decriminalization laws have been enacted in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Madison, Wisconsin, among other cities.For more information, please contact either Keith Stroup, NORML Executive Director, at (202) 483-5500 or California NORML Coordinator Dale Gieringer at (415) 563-5858. For more information on Missouri's initiatives, please contact Missouri NORML President Dan Viets at (573) 819-2669.DL: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6148Ann Arbor Debates New Pot Law http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19141.shtmlThe Next Front In The Marijuana Battle http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19116.shtmlCasual-Pot-Smoking Measure is Certified http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19109.shtmlInitiatives To Reform Marijuana Laws Filed http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19108.shtmlMinorities Tested For Drugs, Alcohol More Often Than Whites, Hospital Admissions Study Says July 8, 2004 - Sacramento, CA, USASacramento, CA: Racial and ethnic minority patients admitted to US hospitals are more likely than Caucasians to be drug tested, according to a soon-to-be published study in the August issue of the journal Health Policy.Among adult US trauma patients, "Black and Hispanic males in all injury severity groups were tested for alcohol more frequently than Caucasian males," authors at the University of California at Davis determined."Hispanic males in the moderate injury group were also tested for drugs more frequently than Caucasian males."Authors based their findings on an evaluation of more than 79,000 adults admitted to 58 institutions participating in the US National Trauma Data Bank.According to survey data published by the US Department of Health and Human Services, Caucasians consume alcohol and use illicit drugs in greater numbers than African-Americans or Hispanics."Racial and ethnic minority trauma patients in the US are tested for alcohol and drugs at higher rates after adjusting for potential cofounders," authors concluded. "Because having a positive alcohol or drug test can adversely affect a patient's medical care, differential testing that is racially or ethnically biased may place minority patients at risk of receiving disparate care."For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, Executive Director of the NORML Foundation, at (202) 483-5500.DL: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6149CannabisNews Drug Testing Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/drug_testing.shtmlSource: NORML Foundation (DC)Published: July 08, 2004Copyright: 2004 NORML Contact: norml norml.org Website: http://www.norml.org/NORML's Weekly News Bulletin -- July 01, 2004http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19115.shtmlNORML's Weekly News Bulletin -- June 24, 2004http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19060.shtml
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Comment #16 posted by E_Johnson on July 09, 2004 at 09:02:57 PT
Time to start yanking licenses
"Because having a positive alcohol or drug test can adversely affect a patient's medical care"That's what the state medical board is for, right?
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Comment #15 posted by Dankhank on July 09, 2004 at 07:44:23 PT
O T but must see ...
Subject: A must see ... hope this works .... got it from a DemoOkie site ...The backstory is as follows: earlier this year, the web site for the
Bush-Cheney campaign - the real one, paid for by MBNA America and
Richard
Scaife - featured a "create your own banner" tool, where you could enter
your own slogan and print out your own poster, with the Bush-Cheney
logo,
and a note at the bottom "paid for by Bush-Cheney'04, Inc."
Democrats, of course, couldn't get enough of this. The original
sloganator
accepted everything, then it started censoring profanity and words like
"Hitler" "dictator," and "evil".
Nevertheless, many clever
folks exploited the sloganator to their own ends
before its sad demise only
a
couple of weeks after its birth, and its mourners assembled some of the
best
for the slide show.The link below is best enjoyed with the sound on:
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~meo232/sloganator/
Resist
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Comment #14 posted by b4daylight on July 09, 2004 at 01:07:47 PT
Seen it before
This is a circus!
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Comment #13 posted by BGreen on July 08, 2004 at 22:00:39 PT
No Wonder She Spews The Drug Czar's Lies
$100,000 buys complete obedience from the lap dogs.The Reverend Bud Green**********************************************************JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ANNOUNCES NEARLY $15 MILLION TO BOLSTER LOCAL ANTI-DRUG EFFORTSWASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Justice Department today announced that local efforts to prevent substance abuse by young people will be enhanced through nearly $15 million in federal grants. The new grants will go to 157 sites across the country through the Drug-Free Communities Support Program. The program, now in its fourth year of funding, is overseen by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) in partnership with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention(OJJDP), the Justice Department agency that administers the grants. OJJDP is a component of the Department’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP).CASanta AnaDrug Use Is Life Abuse$100,000Marilyn MacDougall714-647-4593
I Will Lie For $100,000
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Comment #12 posted by BGreen on July 08, 2004 at 21:45:36 PT
Yep!
Can you imagine how stupid she looked at this forum with Judge James P. Gray? I wish I had a videotape of it.The Reverend Bud Green*********************************************************The UCI Foundation invites you to attend a free public forum on "Drug
Abuse: How Effective is Orange County's War on Drugs?" to be held
from 7:30-9 p.m. Wednesday, March 10, at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.
The forum will provide a wide range of perspectives on the nature of
the drug abuse problem in Orange County and how it is being addressed. Admission is free, but tickets are required. They can be reserved at
(949) 824-2751 or uciforums uci.edu. The event is part of a series,
"Getting Smart on the Issues," co-sponsored by the UCI Foundation and
Times Orange County to examine timely issues of concern to Orange
County residentsThe keynote speaker will be Dr. Joseph Pursch, a leading expert on
alcohol and drug addiction. He will be joined by the following
panelists: Larry Stein, professor and chair of pharmacology, UCI
College of Medicine; Judge James P. Gray, Orange County Superior
Court; Marilyn MacDougall, executive director, Drug Use Is Life Abuse,
 and Steve Staveley, director, Division of Law Enforcement, California
Department of Justice. The moderator will be Stephen Burgard, editor
of the Times Orange County Editorial Page.
Free Public Forum on Drug Abuse
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Comment #11 posted by FoM on July 08, 2004 at 21:39:38 PT
BGreen
Do you mean that lady that was on the show? 
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Comment #10 posted by BGreen on July 08, 2004 at 21:04:44 PT
The Silly Woman Is For Real (a real joke)
Marilyn MacDougall, executive director, Drug Use Is Life Abusehttp://www.google.com/search?q=Marilyn+MacDougall,+executive+director,+Drug+Use+
Marilyn MacDougall, executive director, Drug Use Is Life Abuse
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #9 posted by BGreen on July 08, 2004 at 20:39:52 PT
She's listened to walters, et al. re: Crossballs
Lies are lies, and idiots believe the lies.The Reverend Bud Green
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Comment #8 posted by FoM on July 08, 2004 at 20:37:22 PT
mamawillie
We're watching the whole show now. It is really funny!
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Comment #7 posted by elfman_420 on July 08, 2004 at 18:32:37 PT
They blame the election?
"The measure's proponents noted that the upcoming November election"So, the 75% of people who vote "yes" on mmj bills across the country would vote against a politician who votes the same way?I'll quote moore here..."It just didn't make sense.."
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Comment #6 posted by mamawillie on July 08, 2004 at 18:16:59 PT
Crossball repeated tonight
Seriously, don't miss it. It was hilarious. 10:30 p.m. CST on Comedy Central, right after the Daily Show. Think of Joyce when you watch it.
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Comment #5 posted by mayan on July 08, 2004 at 18:09:17 PT
unrelated...
House Leaves Patriot Act Unchanged:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=5624722Down with the Patriot Act!
http://www.bordc.org/
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Comment #4 posted by mayan on July 08, 2004 at 18:01:56 PT
The "New Third-Rail"
Those who would not only deny a sick person the only medicine that helps them...but would have them thrown in JAIL have touched the "new third-rail". Their political careers are over. Remember them!!!By the way, the measure that would have weakened the Patriot Act has failed by way of a 210-210 tie. It only needed a simple majority if I'm not mistaken.The way out is the way in...Fahrenheit 9/11: A bittersweet movie review
http://www.oilempire.us/michaelmoore.html#bittersweetMissing the Point: Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and the Moveon.org Movement:
http://polythrall.blogspot.com/FRAMING ARABS:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/framingarabs.html9/11 Prior Knowledge/Government Involvement Archive:
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/archiveprior_knowledge.html
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on July 08, 2004 at 16:51:07 PT
mamawillie
Thanks! We were watching Harball and we changed the channel. It is funny!
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Comment #2 posted by cloud7 on July 08, 2004 at 16:46:46 PT
Good news article
http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/04/07/53958239.shtml?Element_ID=53958239"Travelers caught with illegal drugs at Nashville International Airport are allowed to go free without arrest about half the time, recent statistics show."Looks like they're concentrating on bombs and not bongs! Good job!
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Comment #1 posted by mamawillie on July 08, 2004 at 16:44:46 PT
Comedy Central
I'm watching the funniest show right now on Comedy Central called "Crossballs", where they have a fake talk show (hardball style) with fake experts *except* one real expert.Right now they are debating legalizing marijuana with a woman who reminds me of Joyce.She looks like such a fool. You have to watch it to see what I mean! I hope they have a rerun tonight.
[ Post Comment ]


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