cannabisnews.com: Vote Yes on Proposal 1 for Medical Marijuana










  Vote Yes on Proposal 1 for Medical Marijuana

Posted by CN Staff on October 03, 2008 at 08:13:22 PT
Editorial 
Source: Detroit Free Press 

Michigan -- Marijuana has proven benefits in limiting pain and reducing the side effects of other medicines used to treat certain illnesses. Proposal 1 would allow the use of marijuana for these limited medical purposes. Voters should say yes to Proposal 1.Proposal 1 would legalize doctor-prescribed marijuana. The Detroit News has reported that upwards of 500,000 Michiganians with "debilitating medical conditions" -- HIV/AIDS, cancer, Hepatitis C, Crohn's disease, Alzheimers, multiple sclerosis and the like -- will qualify. It can be useful, for example, in controlling nausea during chemotherapy in cancer treatments.
Anyone found to be lying about their medical condition or distributing marijuana to friends would be barred from future participation.The proposal contains other safeguards. If voters accept Proposal 1, the Michigan Department of Community Health would create a state medical marijuana registry, and each user will be given an identification card. Anyone without such a card, debilitating illness or not, is still subject to state law. And Michigan law is harsh on marijuana. The penalty for possession is up to one year of imprisonment and up to $2,000 in fines. Dealers risk $10 million in fines and imprisonment for up to 15 years -- and these are for first offenses. None of that would change with Proposal 1.Proposal 1 would also protect the over-21 primary caregivers who handle marijuana for and administer marijuana to sick family or friends. Users are protected from the threat of prosecution and the possibility of losing custody of their children due to smoking medical herbs.The law would no longer view primary caregivers administering marijuana as drug dealers. And compassionate doctors will no longer have to risk their medical licenses and livelihoods every time they prescribe marijuana to ailing patients.There are also standards for registered users. All the normal laws apply to smoking in public. No one will be permitted to smoke in public places or near schools or prisons, and "drugged driving" will still be illegal.Employers won't be forced to allow use of medical marijuana in the workplace. Insurance providers can decide for themselves whether to cover it.Twelve states allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes. The record is that it can be properly administered as one more part of the mix of medicines available to physicians.Proposal 1 seems to have been written to anticipate and address concerns that it is a backdoor route to full-blown legalization. The standard for obtaining a registry card is high and the penalty for misuse is steep.Proposal 1 won't make pot any more publicly visible or available than it already is; all it will do is allow doctors, primary caregivers, and most importantly patients another option in managing serious and painful illnesses. Vote yes on Proposal 1.Source: Detroit Free Press (MI)Published: Friday, October 3, 2008Copyright: 2008 Detroit Free PressWebsite: http://www.freep.com/Contact: letters freepress.comRelated Articles & Web Site:Stop Arresting Patientshttp://www.stoparrestingpatients.org/ Fight Against Medical Marijuana is Onhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread24203.shtmlYes on Prop 1: Allow Relief Marijuana May Offerhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread24201.shtml

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Comment #14 posted by Hope on October 06, 2008 at 08:13:54 PT
It's truly insane and evil, that people are
"...losing custody of their children due to smoking medical herbs."
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Comment #13 posted by Vincent on October 05, 2008 at 23:16:57 PT:
Amendment 1...Interesting, but--
   How about all the other healthy people that just want to get high and enjoy themselves. What about them? You know, if I were a Michigan resident, I would vote yes on this measure. However, this thing does nothing to help all the people that want to smoke for recreation. Why not just change the law already? I truly don't believe that, after Woodstock happened, we are still so Conservative a country. 
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Comment #12 posted by museman on October 05, 2008 at 12:59:28 PT
protection?
"Users are protected from the threat of prosecution and the possibility of losing custody of their children due to smoking medical herbs."Imagine, an american state passing a 'law' to protect them from the (fed) LAW.Doesn't that seem a little wierd and out of balance?You know, 'God' gave us a set of 'laws.' (The '10' commandments, being the root and precedent of all western, and most eastern law) What He didn't give us was a group of ne-er-do-wells to sit in judgement and rule. He didn't give us 'enforcers.' He didn't give us 'lawyers' to interpret His simple guidelines, and He didn't threaten us with all manner of punishment and condemnation for 'falling short' of His Divine Suggestions.The laws of men were made to protect the wicked from the laws of God. Interpretation of law is one compromise after another to insure the 'right' of posession, the 'right' of power over, the 'right' of dominion, -to name a few-Liberty, and freedom are birthrights given by God, and forcibly taken away by a select group of men. Those things, those 'inalienable rights' are 'endowed' upon us by our Creator, not legislated, regulated, and defined by high-paid (over-rated) interpreters called lawyers, and their clubhouse; the 'court.'The inseperable feature of access to natural resources such as cannabis, other herbs, food, water, and some semblance of a dignity in life -THAT WE ARE ALL BORN WITH- is not a commodity to be determined by principalities, but a fact already in progress, at the moment of the first breath.The fact that there are those few who conspire to control the features of Creation to their own ends and profit -in power, power that is erroneously given to them through propagated fear, and perpetuated ignorance taught in the pricipality-run institutions such as schools and religions, does not change the original intention or state of our freedom and liberty. The only thing that makes any part of this 'reality' REAL, is the amount of belief that is invested in it, true or otherwise. If that were not the case, why have a discussion or argument about anything? We communicate and share idea, but we are always looking for agreement to validate and confirm our perspectives. Creating basis for common belief.Why thump the bibles, if not to try to convince others of that way of doing and looking at things?When those 'commandments' were etched into the stone on the mountain, why didn't God continue and just write all the interpretations -volumes and volumes- on the stone as well? Because there wasn't enough room on the mountain?Personally I think we've been dealing with Moses' spiritually immature anger for long enough -as evidenced by the current islamic extremists ideas of 'justice.'"If a son asks his father for a piece of bread, does the father give him a stone?"If people would only 'ask God' themselves, instead of taking the word of inferior consciousness -just because they appear to be 'in control' maybe the falseness of all this BS would crumble even faster than it is.People, a lot of xtians, think that if they 'obey the law' then they are somehow 'doing Gods will.' Like George Bush, the "chosen one." The fact that the laws are designed to serve the rich and spiritually putrid, and to 'serve and protect' the doings of the corrupt just somehow seems to go past the awareness of these people.The physics of this reality are mutable. Quantum Mechanics has 'proven' this. Some people, myself included have seen the plasticidity of our 'commonly agreed reality.' Things like 'miracles' and High Spiritual Magic (not 'witchcraft' or sorcery) happen all the time. Funny thing how the cameras never seem to capture it, but the eye still sees.A bullet usually does damage as it passes through our physical reality, but the potential and possiblity that it will phase out into a different, less damaging 'reality' (disappear, pass right through...) is just as real. Fear establishes all the negative aspects of our 'reality' faith establishes the positive. Fear and faith are both rooted in belief.Our time here is not entirely a chance encounter with fate, though infinite possibility (on both sides) exists within the experience. I do not 'know' with certainty that a bullet would not do damage to my flesh, so I do not stupidly and deliberately put my flesh in the line of fire. However, in my dialogue and conversation with The Spirit (yes thats right, I 'talk to God.' so obviously I'm full of it) -in my conversations with Spirit, it has been made known to me that there is great validity in the concept and belief of 'it was not my time.'I had my life saved by a set of circumstances that left-brained 'consiousness' (that may be an oxymoron) would have a hard time recognizing, yet here I am.I've been up against the prohibition wall more times than most and still walking free- and I can still vote.These laws and ordinances are all 'short of the mark.' They do not serve the intention and purpose of creation, and they only protect the real criminals that have been getting away with mayhem and murder for so long people grow up believing that that is 'reality.' It isn't.When I want 'protection' I ask God, not a cop, not a lawyer or a politician, because I have learned that true protection comes from there, and nowhere else. And all the armies of cops and mercenarie agents in the world cannot negate that protection if God chooses it to be. And inversely, all those armies cannot stave off the inevitabiltiy of my fate, whatever it isWhen John Lennon was assasinated, I prayed for 3 days, fasted and went into communion with both God and John, because I could not understand why God would have allowed this thing to be done to John and us.John himself told me that 'everything was going to plan' and the reasons (I won't go into it because I realize it is a stretch for many people to believe such things as possible) for the tragedy.So 'protect yourself' by sourcing out the real deal instead of the propped up fake called 'law and government.'FREE WHITE WIDOW FOR EVERYONE
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Comment #11 posted by FoM on October 05, 2008 at 11:39:28 PT
Saturday Night Live: VP Debate Open: Palin / Biden
I thought the skit was really funny. Here it is for those who missed it.http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/vp-debate-open-palin-biden/727421/
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Comment #10 posted by FoM on October 05, 2008 at 10:12:28 PT
runruff
You said: I say, dear god we need Mr. Obama now!Check out the polls! I think we really might win this time!http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/latestpolls/index.html
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Comment #9 posted by Hope on October 05, 2008 at 07:52:53 PT
For the children?
"And Michigan law is harsh on marijuana. The penalty for possession is up to one year of imprisonment and up to $2,000 in fines. Dealers risk $10 million in fines and imprisonment for up to 15 years -- and these are for first offenses. None of that would change with Proposal 1."
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Comment #8 posted by Hope on October 05, 2008 at 07:41:31 PT
Detroit Free Press
Whoa!Was I ever wrong about the Detroit Free Press being a little giveaway, counter-culture, free paper! Shame on me.It's big. Really, really big.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Free_PressWhy didn't someone tell me?
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Comment #7 posted by runruff on October 05, 2008 at 06:33:46 PT
Hardscabble days for prisoners in the BoP.
I've been out now one year come Oct. 10. When I first went in 2/6/06 things were getting tight in prison due to the Iraq war and Bush's humongus spending. By the time I had left things were getting real bad. They cut hot food for breakfast, shut down all drink dispensers,art and craft supplies. They were recycling cloths[made in China] and it was harder to see a doctor when you were ill. They are now offering to help applicants get their GED so they can become become prison guards. They have been doing this for a few years now and the quality of personal has really gone down. I've heard it is worse and getting worser. Rather than treat nonviolent prisoners right and give them outside supervision They keep cutting back budgets and overloading the prisons. Bush will do nothing and the BoP has been told to "make do". It is as pathedic as all other Bush policies and orginizations starve the little guy but reward the fat cats.I say, dear god we need Mr. Obama now!
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on October 04, 2008 at 15:15:03 PT

HempWorld
I didn't know that. I heard Palin call Biden O'Biden and I thought that was funny. I believe if we vote in the Republicans we are doomed. When I think of anyone supporting McCain I scratch my head and just don't get it. It is so far removed from what I believe it is almost down right scary. 
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Comment #5 posted by HempWorld on October 04, 2008 at 15:08:26 PT

Dear FoM, I love you!
About your question: that is my nickname for McCain because a lot of his campaign (campain) contributions come from ...Free Ganja for everyone!
Legalize It!
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Comment #4 posted by FoM on October 04, 2008 at 15:00:49 PT

 HempWorld 
I didn't read the whole article. I looked for cocaine in the article but I didn't see it. Am I missing something. 
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Comment #3 posted by HempWorld on October 04, 2008 at 14:47:09 PT

When Cocaine wins, get ready ...
From Hufpo:Please understand what you are looking at when you look at Sarah "Evita" Palin. You are looking at the designated muse of the coming American police state.You have to understand how things work in a closing society in order to understand "Palin Power." A gang or cabal seizes power, usually with an affable, weak figurehead at the fore. Then they will hold elections -- but they will make sure that the election will be corrupted and that the next affable, weak figurehead is entirely in their control. Remember, Russia has Presidents; Russia holds elections. Dictators and gangs of thugs all over the world hold elections. It means nothing. When a cabal has seized power you can have elections and even presidents, but you don't have freedom.I realized early on with horror what I was seeing in Governor Palin: the continuation of the Rove-Cheney cabal, but this time without restraints. I heard her echo Bush 2000 soundbites ("the heart of America is on display") and realized Bush's speechwriters were writing her -- not McCain's -- speeches. I heard her tell George Bush's lies -- not McCain's -- to the American people, linking 9/11 to Iraq. I heard her make fun of Barack Obama for wanting to prevent the torture of prisoners -- this is Rove-Cheney's enthusiastic S and M, not McCain's, who, though he shamefully colluded in the 2006 Military Tribunals Act, is also a former prisoner of war and wrote an eloquent Newsweek piece in 2005 opposing torture. I saw that she was even styled by the same skillful stylist (neutral lipstick, matte makeup, dark colors) who turned Katharine Harris from a mall rat into a stateswoman and who styles all the women in the Bush orbit --but who does not bother to style Cindy McCain.Then I saw and heard more. Palin is embracing lawlessness in defying Alaskan Legislature subpoenas --this is what Rove-Cheney, and not McCain, believe in doing. She uses mafia tactics against critics, like the police commissioner who was railroaded for opposing handguns in Alaskan battered women's shelters -- Rove's style, not McCain's. I realized what I was seeing. Reports confirmed my suspicions: Palin, not McCain, is the FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney cabal. The strategy became clear. Time magazine reported that Rove is "dialed in" to the McCain campaign. Rove's protégé Steve Schmidt is now campaign manager. And Politico reported that Rove was heavily involved in McCain's vice presidential selection. Finally a new report shows that there are dozens of Bush and Rove operatives surrounding Sarah Palin and orchestrating her every move.What's the plan? It is this. McCain doesn't matter. Reputable dermatologists are discussing the fact that in simply actuarial terms, John McCain has a virulent and life-threatening form of skin cancer. It is the elephant in the room, but we must discuss the health of the candidates: doctors put survival rates for someone his age at two to four years. I believe the Rove-Cheney cabal is using Sarah Palin as a stalking horse, an Evita figure, to put a popular, populist face on the coming police state and be the talk show hostess for the end of elections as we know them. If McCain-Palin get in, this will be the last true American election. She will be working for Halliburton, KBR, Rove and Cheney into the foreseeable future -- for a decade perhaps -- a puppet "president" for the same people who have plundered our treasure, are now holding the US economy hostage and who murdered four thousand brave young men and women in a way of choice and lies.How, you may ask, can I assert this? How can I argue, as I now do, that there is actually a war being ramped up against US citizens and our democracy and that Sarah Palin is the figurehead and muse for that war?Look at the RNC. This is supposed to be McCain's America. But you see the unmistakable theatre of Rove's S and M imagery -- and you see stages eight, nine and ten of the steps to a dictatorship as I outlined them in The End of America. Preemptive arrest? Abusive arrest? "Newly released footage, which was buried to avoid confiscation, shows riot cops arresting and abusing a giant group of people for nothing."Journalists were arrested -- for reporting. Amy Goodman and ABC producers were arrested. Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake and others were forced to lie face down as armed agents tied their hands behind their backs. The riot police wore the black S&M gear of the Rovian fantasy life and carried the four foot batons cops carry in North Korea. All this is not John McCain's imagery or strategy: it is Karl Rove's.In McCain-Palin's America, citizens who are protesting are being charged as terrorists. This means that a violent war had been declared on American citizens. A well known reporter leaked to me on background that St Paul police had dressed as protesters and, dressed in Black -- shades of the Blackshirts of 1920 -- infiltrated protest groups. There were also phalanxes of men in black wearing balaclavas, linking arms and behaving menacingly -- alleged "anarchists." Let me tell you, I have been on the left for thirty years and you can't get three lefties to wear the same t-shirt to a rally, let alone link arms and wear identical face masks: these are not our guys. Agent Provocateurs framing protesters and calling protest "terrorism" constitutes step ten of a police state: "In what appears to be the first use of criminal charges under the 2002 Minnesota version of the Federal Patriot Act, Ramsey County Prosecutors have formally charged 8 alleged leaders of the RNC Welcoming Committee with Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism... [they] 7 1/2 years in prison under the terrorism enhancement charge which allows for a 50% increase in the maximum penalty." "Paid, confidential informants... infiltrated the RNCWC on behalf of law enforcement. They allege that members of the group sought to kidnap delegates to the RNC, assault police officers with firebombs and explosives, and sabotage airports in St. Paul. Evidence released to date does not corroborate these allegations with physical evidence or provide any other evidence for these allegations than the claims of the informants. Based on past abuses of such informants by law enforcement, the National Lawyers Guild is concerned that such police informants have incentives to lie and exaggerate threats of violence and to also act as provocateurs in raising and urging support for acts of violence."Under the Palin-Rove police state, you will see escalating infringements on your access to a free internet:"Sarah Palin was baptized at Wasilla Assembly of God...Last Sunday our research team released a video, a ten-minute mini-documentary, focusing on the Wasilla Assemblies of God and the video seemed on the verge of a massive "viral" breakthrough when YouTube pulled it down, citing 'inappropriate content'. At the point the video was censored by YouTube it had been viewed by almost 160,000 people. The short of it is that YouTube has censored a video documentary that appeared to be close to having an effect on a hard fought and contentious American presidential election..."Under the coming Palin-Rove police state, you will witness the plans now underway to bring Iraqi troops to patrol the streets of our nation. This is not McCain's fantasy: it is Rove's and Cheney's.Under the Palin-Rove police state, there will be no further true elections. Mark Crispin Miller has done sensational and under-reported investigating t o establish that -- as I warned -- indeed the GOP staffers on the US Senate Judiciary Committee have been .The evidence is also buried on the Website of the Majority House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.WASHINGTON -- Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe. >From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications witho ut a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics. -- "Senate panel's GOP staff spied on Democrats" By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | January 22, 2004Do you think that spying like this will ever end under a Palin-Rove regime? Dream on. If she and McCain are elected, then every single strategy memo and speech and debate prep note from every opposition candidate from now and on into forever will be read by the regime in power while it is still in the computers of the challengers.Under the Palin-Rove police state, citizens will be targeted with state cyberterrorism. Bruce Fein of the American Freedom Agenda, a former Reagan official, warned me three years ago that the Bush team went after a Republican who had crossed them through cyberstalking: they messed with his email, messed with his phones and I believe messed with his bank account -- he became a cyber-pariah, unemployable and haunted. With modern technology, there really is less place to hide from the state than there was in East Germany in the Cold War era. I remember feeling a chill: of course. That is the wave of the future once we breach the protections around citizens of FISA and the fourth amendment. That way lies the abyss for us all.Am I trying to scare you? I am. I am trying to scare you to death and ask you to scare your Republican and independent friends most of all. How do you know when it is war on citizens? When there are mass arrests, journalists are jailed, the opposition is infiltrated, rights are stripped and leaders start to ignore the rule of law. Almost everyone I work with on projects related to this campaign for liberty has been experiencing computer harassment: emails are stripped, messages disappear. That's not all: people's bank accounts are being tampered with: wire transfers to banks vanish in midair. I personally keep opening bank accounts that are quickly corrupted by fraud. Money vanishes. Coworkers of mine have to keep opening new email accounts as old ones become infected. And most disturbingly to me personally is the mail tampering I have both heard of and experienced firsthand. My tax returns vanished from my mailbox. All my larger envelopes arrive ripped straight open apparently by hand. When I show the postman, he says "That's impossible." Horrifyingly to me is the impact on my family. My childrens' report cards are returned again and again though perfectly addressed; their invitations are turned back; and my daughters many letters from camp? Vanished. All of them. Not one arrived. Try explaining that to a smart thirteen year old. Try explaining it in a way that still makes her feel secure and comfortable. I am not telling you this because it's about my life. I am telling you this because it is about your life -- whoever you are, Conservative or Liberal, independent or evangelical. Your politics will not protect you in a police state. History shows that nothing portects you in a police state. This is not about my fear and anxiety: it is about what awaits you and everyone you love unless you see this for what it is:Scharansky divided nations into "fear societies" and "free societies." Make no mistake: Sarah "Evita" Palin is Rove and Cheney's cosmetic rebranding of their fascist push: she will help to establish a true and irreversible "fear society" in this once free once proud nation. For God's sake, do not let her; do not let them.
HuffingtonPost
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Comment #2 posted by paul armentano on October 03, 2008 at 13:28:22 PT

OT: Palin Courts "Joe Six Pack.."
VP Candidate Courts “Joe Six Pack,” But Says “Joe Doobie” Should Be In JailFri, 03 Oct 2008 20:11:26 By: Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director
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Last night’s Vice Presidential debate featured nary a word about drug policy, but did show — inadvertently — how American culture promotes booze while simultaneously stigmatizing cannabis.In what was no doubt a deliberate effort to appeal to so-called “Middle-America, working-class voters,” Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin affectionately invoked the term “Joe Six Pack” — a phrase that despite its literal connotation (The typical American is an alcoholic) is nevertheless championed in the American lexicon.Now just imagine for a moment that instead of proactively reaching out to “Joe Six Pack,” Governor Palin instead invoked the phrase “Joe Doobie” in a similarly veiled attempt to court those millions of Americans who use cannabis responsibly (a voting block that arguably dwarfs the number of Americans who put away a six pack of beer each evening).Of course, I don’t have to tell you what would have happened. We already know. Ms. Palin’s political aspirations would have been torpedoed faster than you can say “Anheuser-Busch.” Yet there’s not a political commentator, lawmaker, drug educator, DARE officer, or MADD spokesperson out there who has any objection to the implication that America’s working class are a bunch of simple-minded boozers.The hypocrisy is enough to drive me to drink.
http://www.norml.org
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Comment #1 posted by HempWorld on October 03, 2008 at 08:59:14 PT

"imprisonment for up to 15 years -- and these are 
for first offenses"You have got to be kidding? In the next coming year we will see many municipalities and states go broke, because, among other things, they've outspent themselves on 'correctional services.'
On a mission from God!
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