cannabisnews.com: Marijuana Workers in California Join Union Local
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Marijuana Workers in California Join Union Local
Posted by CN Staff on May 28, 2010 at 18:49:52 PT
By Jesse McKinley
Source: New York Times
Oakland, CA -- Jimmy Hoffa would be stoked. In what cannabis fans were calling a high-water mark for their movement to legitimize the drug, about 100 employees of medical marijuana businesses in Oakland were welcomed to the ranks of unionized workers on Friday after voting to join the United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 5.The move — which union officials said was the first time medical marijuana employees had been so represented — was hailed by the local’s leadership, who called their new members “great workers.”
“This is a natural for us,” said Ron Lind, the president of Local 5, whose 26,000 other members work primarily in groceries and meat markets. “Our union’s primary jurisdiction is retail.”The move was also welcomed by Richard Lee, the founder of Oaksterdam University, the medical marijuana trade school whose Oakland campus employs some 60 newly unionized members in its dispensary, gift shop and nursery. (For plants, not children.) Mr. Lee that said his employees were already offered health benefits and paid vacation, but that the union imprimatur was an important milestone in the battle to bring marijuana more into the mainstream.“It’s one more step towards ending federal restrictions,” said Mr. Lee, a leading proponent of a November ballot measure that would legalize, regulate and tax the drug in California. Marijuana, legal for medical use in California and more than a dozen other states, is still prohibited by federal law.Officials in Oakland, which has an unemployment rate of more than 17 percent, also cheered the move — and the movement — as a potential boon for the city.For the workers themselves, however, their new status as union members was something of a personal triumph.“Now I can go home to my parents and they can see it’s a good thing and a normal thing,” said Cassie Leone, a tattooed 24-year-old who works at a local marijuana dispensary. It made her feel like a “hardworking human being,” she said. “Which is what I am.”A version of this article appeared in print on May 29, 2010, on page A17 of the New York edition.Source: New York Times (NY)Author: Jesse McKinleyPublished: May 28, 2010Copyright: 2010 The New York Times CompanyContact: letters nytimes.comWebsite: http://www.nytimes.com/URL: http://nytimes.com/2010/05/29/us/29pot.htmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
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Comment #18 posted by Paint with light on May 31, 2010 at 20:37:25 PT
rchandar
"What are you talking about? Who's praising the cops on this board? I don't get it. And who anyways has the money to travel these days, with the kind of recession we're going through?"I'm not sure of your reference to praising cops.The traveling pertains to traveling of any kind.Any time you drive, or you walk, you are traveling.Knowing what the cops are looking for, and what areas they are most worried about messing up, gives you the chance to use those particulars to your advantage.For instance.......Never submit voluntarily to a search and never sign anything that states you do.Constantly ask if you are being detained and if you are free to go. They can only hold you for so long.You can get more from the piece but you have to read between the lines sometimes.I like that Obama has stopped most of the raids on med pot patients.He hasn't yet come out with a new war on cannabis or anything close to it.I am most disappointed that Obama hasn't recognized the strength of our movement, or the science, or sincerity of it.I see and hear of a lot of people that are upset with Obama but I am glad we are not killing nearly as many innocent women and children in Iraq as we were.Our government in our name killed many innocents with our shock and awe and all the other misguided war adventures.I am still mostly satisfied with Obama.It could be better......but it could be John McCain and Sarah Palin.If we are to see real change we have to get more mobilized and visible."Change has to come from the bottom up." O.We have to stop any silly turf wars or conflicts between the three factions of cannabis reform.We all need it rescheduled and legal.Cannabis for farmers!Cannabis for patients!Cannabis for a safer alternative to alcohol!Keep fighting the good fight rchandar.Legal like alcohol.
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Comment #17 posted by rchandar on May 31, 2010 at 08:18:07 PT:
Paint With Light, Canis 420
and there's not any point to trying to post--like you're saying, probably a "members only"--as in, only prohibs post here.they're not really very kind on those "privileged" message boards. If you try to say something against the thread they make fun of you. And there's no point--almost like, look! there, he, he smokes pot! Let's pretend we're psychoanalyzing him and give him the electric chair!
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Comment #16 posted by rchandar on May 31, 2010 at 08:08:51 PT:
Paint With Light
What are you talking about? Who's praising the cops on this board? I don't get it. And who anyways has the money to travel these days, with the kind of recession we're going through?The link is probably good; I'm sure runruff would love it. What is it, that we're remembering someone who fought with the establishment? Are we mere serfs not permitted to do that anymore? OH, I SEE WHAT YOU'RE REFERRING TO!!! SORRY ABOUT THAT, IT SOUNDS GOOD!!!paint, we live in a polarized world and there's an enormous amount of fallout on either side from Obama's relative liberalization of some MJ laws, and the growth of venues and outlets in some places. One master move Barack has accomplished is that the WoD isn't a political issue, when it easily could be more important--to prohibs who want to reinstate the more draconian model.Your post made me think of Sammy Hagar's "I Can't Drive 55." I'll look at your link later. Peace!
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Comment #15 posted by Paint with light on May 30, 2010 at 21:20:59 PT
Canis420
I think you have to be an official police officer to post.I check in there every once in awhile just to see what is going on in their world.I know the articles that have the handcuffs symbol are locked for outsiders.Legal like alcohol......and police.
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Comment #14 posted by Canis420 on May 30, 2010 at 00:18:28 PT:
Paint with light
Didja try to join that website and post alternative comment? Im gonna try tomorrow
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Comment #13 posted by Paint with light on May 29, 2010 at 22:53:00 PT
Our "Protectors"
I think it is beneficial to see how the other side looks at things.There are some good hints in here for anyone traveling.I can't stand the last few statements.He tries to sound like ruining people's lives over a harmless herb is patriotic.I expected a sound track to start paying along as I read it.http://www.policeone.com/drug-interdiction-narcotics/articles/2054206-Be-ready-for-a-battle-in-the-courtroom/Legal like alcohol.
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Comment #12 posted by FoM on May 29, 2010 at 15:04:50 PT
rchandar
It was made in 1969. If you would rent the movie the interviews with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper are as good as the movie. I can't remember the scene you are talking about. It might have been when the three of them were parked for the night and smoked pot and tripped out a little. That was the night in the movie that they killed Jack Nicholson.
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Comment #11 posted by rchandar on May 29, 2010 at 14:34:03 PT:
One More
Correct me if I'm wrong, they aired Easy Rider on network TV at least once. Not sure if I remember the year when, it was on PBS more recently.The one part I remember was them getting stoned and dreaming of trees in a storm. I didn't understand a lot of it because I wasn't familiar with 60s culture then. It obviously sheds light on racism in the South, resistance to our ideas, dislike for what is different. Dennis was always outspoken about pot. I thought that was one of the most interesting things about him--again because I wasn't from that era and didn't know anything offstage about him. But he will be sadly missed, I almost can't picture TV without him.--rchandar
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Comment #10 posted by FoM on May 29, 2010 at 13:39:57 PT
Dennis Hopper
I love Easy Rider. He will always be a very big part of the movie to me. Actually yesterday my nephew called from Florida and I told him about Dennis being sick. He was shocked and we talked about Easy Rider. He was going to go out and buy the DVD just to see it again and see how he views it all these years later. It covered wanting to be free from the system to realizing they are becoming part of the system. It was a fun and free movie that ended very badly.
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Comment #9 posted by Hope on May 29, 2010 at 12:59:50 PT
Dennis Hopper
He was a great actor. I can't forget his character in Apocalypse Now.And he was an Easy Rider.
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Comment #8 posted by rchandar on May 29, 2010 at 12:42:20 PT:
So Shocked, I Don't Know What To Say
God Bless You, Man. I had no idea we were going to lose Dennis Hopper anytime soon. For most of us who are younger, he's part of a lot of our understanding of weed today, through the media. Then there's the pathetic role he would do for commercials and movies later on--as a psychotic criminal. He used to joke about "industrial hemp" not being weed. Kind of hard to imagine the weed side of post-hippies today without Dennis.Then there were other films like Red Rock West, which were less interesting. But he was an awesome part of the imagination and mystery of our world, and I'm sad that I'll miss him. I admit, I could cry heaps of tears for Dennis Hopper.--rchandar
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on May 29, 2010 at 11:28:52 PT
RIP: Dennis
Easy Rider - The Byrds - Wasn't Born To Follow URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWhgLjim6Rc
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Comment #6 posted by Hope on May 29, 2010 at 09:51:52 PT
Sam... comment 5
*sigh*I sure hoped enough of them would come to their senses and do the right thing.Guess not this time.
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Comment #5 posted by Sam Adams on May 29, 2010 at 09:39:11 PT
Illinois
looks like no relief for patients in IL this year, they adjourned without voting:http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2010/05/illinois-senate-unlikely-to-finish-by-deadline.html#more
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Comment #4 posted by Hope on May 29, 2010 at 09:33:20 PT
Canis420
Maybe, Mykeyb420, with that article, was trying to say "Unintended consequences", the first words of the article.It's easy to understand some of your fear, Mykeyb420 and where it's coming from. Your health these days is good enough, I hope, that a cop would still say, "You don't look sick to me", when he investigates the odor of burning cannabis emanating from your open window.
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Comment #3 posted by Canis420 on May 29, 2010 at 08:17:57 PT:
mykeyb420
That bill does not seem to have anything to do w/the nov ballot initiative? wtf
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Comment #2 posted by mykeyb420 on May 29, 2010 at 01:02:48 PT
pot bill
here is a reason to be against the upcoming pot vote in Nov.
Will State Bill Criminalize AIDS Patients' Pot Closets?
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Comment #1 posted by Zandor on May 28, 2010 at 23:06:49 PT
Well then; I wonder?
I know unions start out all warm and fuzzy at first.Just remember it's the police union, the DA's union, the prison guards union and many other unions that have been fighting us for more than 20 years too.Unions do have their evil side too. My complaint is it seams like one person is making all the decisions may others are going to have to live with throughout this state...I wonder is that a good thing???
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