Proud Sponsors of:
Mayor Bob Filner ordered a halt Thursday to the prosecution of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city, using his power as strong mayor to direct police and code compliance officers to stop targeting the pot shops.
The decision came two days after Filner spoke before the San Diego chapter of Americans for Safe Access, an advocacy group for medical marijuana. Filner criticized law enforcement
Where to begin without burying the
lede? Mayor Bob Filner’s sensational promises? His surprising disregard
for the city attorney? His over-the-top optimism?
How about with a quote?:
"When
they wrote the strong-mayor form of government, they weren’t thinking
about me," Filner told the San Diego Chapter of Americans for Safe
Access last night.
Filner
was on fire at the La Jolla Brew House, where he met with
medical-marijuana activists for the first time since taking office. He
couldn’t have been more incendiary if he’d come equipped with a
flamethrower and swished to and fro, lighting pipes and bongs while
crying out, "Toke deep, my friends, Ras Bobby is here!"
That’s
a stretched simile, sure, but not wholly hyperbolic. Filner fired out
promises more rapidly than the medical-marijuana patients could process
them.
It had been a long, dramatic afternoon and evening for the new, liberal mayor. Earlier, during the council session, he’d
engaged in a public spat with City Council President Todd Gloria over
SANDAG appointments. Then he appeared at a meeting of the Hillcrest Town
Council, where he discussed Uptowny issues. After that, he booked it
north to La Jolla, where he received a rock-star reception from a packed
house. Or at least that’s how it looked and sounded from the three
streaming cameras.
He
began by giving credit to the advocates for their work in his election;
the medical-marijuana community was among the first to get behind his
candidacy. You’d see his signs in the windows of collectives
DEA agents raided three Los Angeles medical marijuana dispensaries Wednesday afternoon, according to a preliminary report from Americans for Safe Access California director Don Duncan. More details were not forthcoming by press time.
According
to Duncan, the DEA struck LA Wonderland on West Pico Boulevard, the
Downtown Collective on South Hill St. near downtown, and the Iron Works
in Venice.
The federal government has unleashed the DEA on dispensaries under both
the Bush and the Obama administrations, although there was a respite
between 2009 and late 2011, when the Justice Department had a policy of
generally leaving them alone. But that policy shifted again in 2011, and
both the DEA and federal prosecutors have been busy going after
dispensaries since then. One Southern California dispensary operator,
Aaron Sandusky, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison just this
Monday.
The policy has not been limited to California. While hundreds of
California dispensaries have been forced out of business by raids, asset
forfeiture threats and/or prosecutions, so have dozens of dispensaries
in Colorado, and a series of statewide raids in Montana in the spring of
2011 virtually wiped out that state’s dispensary scene.
The LA DEA raids come as the city grapples over what to do about
dispensaries. An effort by the city council to shut them all down was
blocked by popular opposition. Now, the council, and perhaps city
voters, will have to consider two different municipal initiatives, one
of which would limit the number of dispensaries in the city to about
100, the other of which would allow most existing dispensaries to stay
open.
MPP is taking issue with former Congressman Patrick Kennedy’s plan to force marijuana consumers into treatment and marijuana “education” classes, which his new organization, Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), is scheduled to unveil in Denver on Thursday.
“The proposal is on par with forcing every alcohol user into treatment at their own cost or at a cost to the state,” said MPP communications director Mason Tvert. ”In fact, it would be less logical because the science is clear that marijuana is far less toxic, less addictive, and less likely to be associated with acts of violence.”
MPP is calling on Kennedy, whose family made a fortune selling alcohol, to explain why he wants to keep an objectively less harmful alternative to alcohol illegal. Specifically, MPP is asking Kennedy to address the question on SAM’s website and provide facts regarding the relative harms of marijuana and alcohol. MPP also launched an online petition this morning asking Kennedy to provide an explanation or resign as chairman of SAM, which received more than 1,500 signatures within the first hour of being posted – http://chn.ge/13e9Qjl
“Former Congressman Kennedy’s proposal is the definition of hypocrisy,” Tvert said. ”He is living in part off of the fortune his family made by selling alcohol while leading a campaign that makes it seem like marijuana – an objectively less harmful product – is the greatest threat to public health.”
“If this group truly cares about public health, it should be providing the public with facts regarding the relative harms of marijuana and discouraging the use of the more harmful product,” Tvert continued. ”Why on earth would they want keep a less harmful alternative to alcohol illegal? Former Congressman Kennedy and his organization should answer this question before calling on our government to start forcing people into treatment programs and throwing them into marijuana ‘education’ camps.”
The organization, which claims such anti-marijuana zealots as Kevin Sabet and David Frum as members, purports to represent a moderate “third way” of marijuana policy that is supposedly a compromise between legalization and prohibition. The reality is that a well-regulated and taxed system to control cultivation and sale of marijuana is the truly moderate position between total unregulated legalization and the failed policies that constitute the government’s war on marijuana.
Leave it to prohibitionists to inaccurately frame a debate!
On Nov. 6 of last year, the state of Washington made the possession and use of marijuana legal for adults. Marijuana remains illegal in Washington, D.C., the home of the Redskins. Last week, the District of Columbia ranked ninth on a list of America’s ‘25 Drunkest Cities,’ while Seattle, home of the Seahawks, didn’t even make the list.
Is it a coincidence that the Seahawks handily beat the Redskins this past Sunday?
Perhaps. (Nevertheless, it is worth noting that both the Seahawks and the Denver Broncos have yet to lose a game at home since their respective states made marijuana legal.)
But we have to wonder why the NFL continues to prohibit marijuana use by players during the off-season, even in states that have made it legal, while simultaneously promoting alcohol use at every game. Moreover, the league continues to prohibit players in those states from using marijuana for medical purposes, despite its proven ability to ease chronic pain – a condition that affects many players.
Perhaps allowing professional athletes to make the choice to use marijuana instead of painkillers could make a difference in their performances. And so could allowing them to use marijuana instead of alcohol when they are relaxing or socializing with friends. Regardless, it is bad policy to continue punishing these athletes simply for making a safer choice.
Photo by Mark Gail/MCT
Singer, poet, public speaker, and talk show host Henry Rollins has joined the growing ranks of public figures who support ending marijuana prohibition.
Rollins is not a marijuana user, either. As more and more people realize that marijuana prohibition is a harmful failure, the myth that only potheads want to make it legal is continuing to fade into the hazy realm of reefer madness.
From a column he penned for last week’s LA Weekly:
Like millions of Americans, I have no interest in smoking marijuana but can’t see any reason to keep someone of age from lighting up.
I don’t think it is a “gateway” drug any more than alcohol. The behavior one has to engage in when utilizing a controlled substance — the sneaking around, the hiding of the stash, etc. — that could be a gateway to more devious activity, fueled by the resentment of authority that is potentially engendered. ….
The president and the attorney general could turn over a new leaf in America and leave all matters mary jane to the states as they see fit.
This past year was undeniably the most productive 365-day period in the history of the marijuana policy reform movement. There were a number of significant accomplishments, but here is the Marijuana Policy Project’s list of the “Top 10 Marijuana Victories of 2012.” As with our previous annual lists, it includes neither important scientific developments nor important international developments. Rather, this list focuses on the biggest marijuana-related policy accomplishments in the U.S. in the last year.
To read the full list, please visit The Huffington Post.
The law overwhelmingly passed by Massachusetts voters in November officially went into effect on January 1, joining 17 other states and the District of Columbia in allowing the seriously ill to use marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation. Nearly a third of the U.S. population can now access medical marijuana if they have a qualifying condition!
While the people of Massachusetts are generally quite pleased about this, local governments are trying to delay implementation of the new law until the Department of Public Health can establish regulations to govern the program.
Apparently, local leaders would rather continue to arrest the seriously ill than wait four months for guidance from the state.
