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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
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