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By Lanny Zwerdlow, browniemaryclub.org
The Democratic Party Club was named for "Brownie" Mary Rathbun
The California Democratic Party passed two marijuana reform resolutions at its Executive Board meeting in Costa Mesa on July 21, 2013, including a call to end raids against lawful medical marijuana providers. These are official positions of the state party set into a form that will hold sway with Democratic elected officials and candidates and they also add a new level of mainstream approval for medical use and cannabis law reform.
The first resolution calls on President Obama to respect Colorado and Washington voters and not allow any federal interference in the enactment of state marijuana legalization initiatives, to end federal raids on patients and providers in medical use states and to appoint a commission to study national marijuana law reform.
The second calls on the state legislature to enact statewide guidelines for medical marijuana
Read More: California Dems call on state to stand up, Feds to stand down
A new start for hemp?
The US House of Representatives has approved a version of the farm bill which includes hemp reform to allow for states to authorize hemp research. It does not authorize large-scale hemp farming, which is essential to making the US competitive in the global industrial hemp markets. The bill now heads to the Senate, which must approve the measure to send it to the President for approval. This is the first time since the 1950s that a hemp authorization bill has cleared Congress.
For over 75 years, federal law has banned the cultivation of every strain of cannabis, regardless of its psychoactivity, despite a long heritage of industrial hemp farming in US history. The amendment to the approved farm bill would allow universities to grow non-psychoactive hemp strains for research purposes, ending a blanket prohibition which has been in place in de-facto form since 1937
Read More: US House passes hemp reform in federal Farm Bill
A "Free Marc" Emery tee shirt hangs above a cannabis garden. Photo by Chris Conrad.
The West Coast Leaf has learned that Marc Emery, the Canadian activist and businessman who has been held in US federal prison since 2010, has received approval for transfer to a Canadian prison. More details to come as they become clear.
(From L) Andrew and Steve DeAngelo, John Davis, Henry Wykowski, Jamen Shively, Vicente Fox, Dale Gierenger, Dale Sky Jones and Nate Bradley announce a new coalition.
A former Latin American head of state, a current US state legislator, a former Microsoft executive, the founder of the largest dispensary in the US and the chancellor of the country’s premier cannabis university met with activists and businesspeople from all over the west coast to plan a new international push to end the global War on Drugs. On July 8, 2013 Jamen Shively, the Microsoft alumnus who plans to build the first American brand of high-grade cannabis, brought together members of the cannabis community from Mexico to Washington state in an all-star symposium held at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco in anticipation of a larger summit to be held in Mexico July 18-20.
Former Mexican president Vicente Fox
Read More: New international coalition to end Drug War
Study: Cannabis compound reduces cigarette consumption in tobacco smokers
By Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director
A natural plant compound found in cannabis reduces nicotine cravings. Inhaling the non-psychoactive cannabinoid CBD (cannabidiol) significantly mitigates tobacco smokers’ desire for cigarettes, according to clinical trial data published online in July 2013 in the journal Addictive Behaviors.
Investigators at University College London conducted a double blind pilot study to assess the impact of the ad-hoc consumption of organic CBD versus placebo in 24 tobacco-smoking subjects seeking to quit their habit. Participants were randomized to receive an inhaler containing CBD (n=12) or placebo (n=12) for one week. Trial investigators instructed subjects to use the inhaler when they felt the urge to smoke.
Researchers reported that, “Over the treatment week, placebo treated smokers showed no differences in number of cigarettes smoked. In contrast, those treated with CBD significantly reduced the number of cigarettes smoked by
Read More: Natural CBD from cannabis lowers nicotine cravings
By Kris Hermes
WCL News — President Barack Obama’s administration has spent 50% more tax dollars in its effort to block medical access to cannabis by patients in states that have legalized its use than Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush combined. Likewise, three out of four federal civil forfeiture cases against medical marijuana-related properties were filed by his administration.
Far from his 2008 election promise not to waste federal resources going after state-legal marijuana and his 2009 pledge to respect state law, Obama has committed nearly every federal agency to focus on medical use and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has made the war on patients its highest priority.
Medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) issued a June 14, 2013 report detailing the costs of the federal government’s years-long enforcement effort in states that have adopted medical marijuana laws. Notably, the report, which is entitled “What’s
Read More: Obama has spent over $300 million to block medical marijuana from patients
By Tom Angell, marijuanamajority.com
The United States Conference of Mayors unanimously passed a resolution June 25, 2013 criticizing the failure of marijuana prohibition and urging the federal government to respect the ability of states and cities to implement policies like marijuana legalization and medical marijuana without interference.
“Enforcing the costly and ineffective prohibition on marijuana drains limited resources that could be better spent on programs that more effectively serve the public and keep our cities safe from serious and violent crime,” notes the resolution, and “federal laws, including the Controlled Substances Act, should be amended to explicitly allow states to set their own marijuana policies without federal interference” so that localities can “set whatever marijuana policies work best to improve the public safety and health of their communities.”
“In November, voters in my city and state strongly approved a ballot measure to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana,” said Mayor Steve
Read More: US Mayors tell Feds to let localities decide on cannabis
By Phillip Smith, stopthedrugwar.org
The US Supreme Court dealt a blow to mandatory minimum sentences (MMS) on June 17, 2013 by ruling that any facts used to trigger MMS are “elements” of the crime that must be proven to a jury, not left to a judge. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the majority opinion that, “… mandatory minimums heighten the loss of liberty.”
Until the 5-4 ruling in Alleyne v. US, judges had been able to find certain facts that would trigger MMS, such as quantities of drugs involved in an offense, based on a “preponderance of evidence” in post-conviction sentencing hearings. Now, those facts will have to established by juries in the course of the trial, using the higher standard of proof “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The case is the latest in a line of cases that began with the groundbreaking 2000 Supreme Court decision, Apprendi v. New Jersey,
Read More: US Court empowers juries in sentencing issues
By Lynne Lyman, drugpolicy.org
A federal US District Court ordered California to take immediate steps June 20, 2013 to reduce its prison population to 137.5% of design capacity, or about 110,000 inmates. After 18 months of reductions, primarily through the Public Safety Realignment Act, the California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) prison population plateaued at 120,000 before trending up in the past month.
In a sharply worded brief, the panel made it clear that the state’s proposed plan did not comply with its earlier order, and it ordered additional measures, such as expanding good-time credits. If those measures are deemed insufficient by Dec. 31, the Court ordered the state to release inmates identified as low-risk (a list that the CDCR is now required to develop).
A 2012 Tulchin Research poll found that 75% of Californians favor alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent offenses such as marijuana.
People of color —
Read More: Federal court orders California to reduce prison population; DPA calls for release of nonviolent drug offenders
By Chris Conrad, westcoastleaf.com
The House of Representatives solidly rejected a last-minute lobbying bid from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) June 20, 2013 and adopted a farm bill amendment in a 225-200 vote to legalize growing hemp for research purposes. Soon thereafter, it voted down the $940 billion bill by 195-234. Most Democrats voted against the bill because it cut food stamps by more than $20 billion. Many Republicans voted no because the country is already $17 trillion in debt.
The vote is a blow to Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), who has failed to move farm policy forward for two years in a row. A new and more conservative farm bill is expected to be put forward, but even if it is not, there’s a good chance the hemp amendment will get inserted into other legislation now that the full House has approved it.
Despite the full bill being
Read More: Congress approves hemp, then votes down farm bill
By Jeremy Daw, westcoastleaf.com
The Ohio Cannabis Rights Amendment (OCRA), a 2014 ballot initiative to amend the Buckeye State’s constitution and establish a civil right to use cannabis for medicinal purposes and to grow industrial hemp, passed its first procedural milestone May 17, 2013.
State Attorney General Mike DeWine certified the Amendment’s description as “a fair and truthful statement of the proposed law or constitutional amendment” and confirmed that it was accompanied by more than 1,000 valid signatures, as required by law. The Ohio Rights Group, which drafted and promoted the proposed amendment, submitted it with a total of 2,058 signatures and 179 written petitions. Next the state Ballot Board must determine whether the proposed language covers only a single issue, after which the OCRA campaign will return to the body politic to gather the more than 385,000 valid signatures needed to put a constitutional amendment on an Ohio ballot.
Read More: Move to list cannabis as a right in Ohio
By Paul Armentano, norml.org
A naturally occurring analogue of THC — tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV) — has positive metabolic effects in animal models of obesity, according to preclinical study data published online in June in the scientific journal Nutrition & Diabetes.
British researchers assessed the effects of THCV administration on dietary-induced and genetically modified obese mice. Authors reported that although its administration did not significantly affect food intake or body weight gain in any of the models, it did produce several metabolically beneficial effects, including reduced glucose intolerance, improved glucose tolerance, improved liver triglyceride levels, and increased insulin sensitivity.
Researchers concluded: “Based on these data, it can be suggested that THCV may be useful for the treatment of the metabolic syndrome and/or type 2 diabetes (adult onset diabetes), either alone or in combination with existing treatments. Given the reported benefits of another non-THC cannabinoid, CBD in type 1 diabetes, a CBD/THCV combination
Read More: Cannabinoids may halt diabetes
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