members of congress to introduce historic legistation on june 23

http://cannabisculture.com/v2/content/2011/08/15/Marijuana-Addictive

 

Here's Why Legalizing Marijuana Makes Sense

By Alex Newhouse, Yakima Herald-Republic - Monday, August 15 2011 Tags:

• Activism
• Headline News
• Federal Law
• legalization
• marijuana
• MEDICAL MARIJUANA
• taxation
• USA

The call to legalize cannabis continues to grow louder despite all of the other problems our country is currently facing.
Mainstream polls indicate almost 50 percent of Americans favor full-out legalization, and nearly 80 percent believe that marijuana should be available for medicinal purposes.
No one has ever died from simply using marijuana. In 1972, then-President Richard Nixon appointed the Shafer Commission to study the nation's rising drug problem. It reported the following: "Neither the marihuana [sic] user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety." The commission's findings have withstood the test of time.
The more we learn about marijuana, the more benign it becomes. Marijuana does not cause cancer. Sound scientific studies, such as those done by UCLA's Dr. Donald Tashkin, have clearly demonstrated this. We also know that marijuana is legitimate medicine. If marijuana has no medicinal benefit, why are so many terminally ill patients turning to it to improve their quality of life? Why, after countless legislative hearings and initiatives, have 16 states and our nation's capital legalized marijuana for medicinal use? And why does an expensive prescription drug called Marinol, which is a synthetic form of the active ingredient in marijuana, exist? Even the federal government owns a patent for the medicinal use of marijuana. (The patent number is 6630507.)
Marijuana is medicine to many people. The Drug Enforcement Administration's own administrative law judge, Francis L. Young, held that "marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record." Studies done by the California Center for Medical Cannabis Research and the recent breakthroughs highlighting the antibacterial properties of cannabis extracts also clearly demonstrate marijuana's potential as a natural and inexpensive medicine.

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Unlike most medicines, it is quite safe for marijuana to be used recreationally by responsible and healthy adults. According to the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, over 100 million Americans have tried or use marijuana. If this market were taxed and regulated, crime rates would go down and agriculturally based communities would profit. We easily forget how much disrespect for the law vanished when alcohol prohibition was repealed, or that well over 30,000 Mexican citizens have died since 2006 as a direct result of a drug war fueled in large part by demand for marijuana, or that the U.S. has spent approximately a trillion dollars and 100,000 lives on a drug war that could be reined in considerably with marijuana legalization.
Regulating marijuana would also protect our children. It is easier for kids today to get marijuana than it is for them to get alcohol or tobacco, which is a fact supported by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. Drug dealers simply do not ask for ID. Regulation would also lessen the burden on the criminal justice system, making it easier to keep violent criminals behind bars. Washington currently has mandatory minimum sentences for marijuana possession, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports more people are being court-ordered into treatment for marijuana than ever before under threat of incarceration. This is a huge waste of resources.
The legalization movement is not about persuading people to use marijuana, but for giving the sick and responsible the liberty to consume a relatively benign product. Proposed policies within the spirit of the movement are worthy of our consideration

 

listen to wellie nelson tell you why we need hemp for farming .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6tA3HxA9oQ&feature=related

 

Massachusetts Company Sequences Marijuana Genome

By IBTimes - Friday, August 19 2011 Tags:

• Headline News
• cannabis
• genome
• Massachusetts
• MEDICAL MARIJUANA
• scientific research
• USA

A small Massachusetts company announced it has successfully sequenced the genome of a marijuana plant, a move that may bring scientists one step closer to understanding the therapeutic benefits of cannabis, including its potential to treat cancer and inflammatory diseases.
Medicinal Genomics published the raw sequence strings on Amazon.com's EC2 cloud computing system. The findings, which have not yet undergone peer review, found that the DNA sequence of the plant has 84 other compounds that could fight pain or possibly shrink tumors.
Kevin McKernan, the founder and chief executive officer of Medicinal Genomics, told NPR that he has spent most of his career studying tumors, and became interested in marijuana's healing properties after several friends with cancer asked him about its medicinal benefits. After hearing about a drug called Sativex, a cannabis-derived medication developed by a German pharmaceutical company that treats muscle stiffness, McKernan became more committed to investigating emerging medical research on the plant.
Sativex contains tetrahydrocannabinol, commonly known as THC, and another cannabinoid called CBD, which reportedly negates some of the psychoactive effects of THC. The drug is now available in the United Kingdom, Spain and Germany and is currently in trials to see if it can successfully treat cancer pain.
However, pot smokers shouldn't rejoice just yet: McKernan, who worked on the Human Genome Project from 1996 to 2000, said CBD has shown promise in shrinking tumors in rats while suppressing THC's mind-altering affects.

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"One in three people are going to get cancer, and one in four are going to die with it or from it," he told Bloomberg News. "So any compound, as preliminary as this may be, that's nontoxic and shows hope there, we should be all over."
Research suggests that marijuana can be valuable aid in treating multiple ailments, including neuropathic pain, nauseau and glaucoma. The plant is also a known appetite stimulant, making it a valuable resource for individuals suffering from HIV and those undergoing chemotherapy.
Medicinal marijuana is currently legal in 16 states as well as Washington, D.C.
A number of U.S. health organizations, including the American Public Health Association and the Federation of American Scientists support granting patients immediate legal access to marijuana under a doctor's supervision, according to the marijuana reform group NORML.
In an interview with NPR, McKernan said providing access to marijuana's genome is particularly important since many scientists in the U.S. who would like to study it are unable to since they cannot get a license to grow it.
"A lot of people who want to contribute to this field can't, but now that this information is available, a lot of research can get done without growing any plants," he said.
- Article Originally from International Business Times.

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CHECK THIS OUT . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f6HkaQjnz4&NR=1

 

http://blog.norml.org/2011/08/22/dr...ome-people-abuse-prescription-drugs-wait-huh/

 

PLEASE IF YOU LIVE IN ARKANSAS SIGN THE PETION AND VOTE YES . don't be afraid to tell your parents family friends whoever . the thing is they make you not even want to talk about it . if you sat with you mom for 6 days and watched her die and seen how it HELPED STOP THE DEATH SHAKES . you would get mad . THEN WHEN THE CANCER GOES TO THE BRAIN THEY CAN'T TALK . IT'S LIKE THEY'RE FROM MARS . BUT CANNABIS WAS ABLE TO LET MY MOM TALK TO US. NOT MUCH BECAUSE SHE WAS SO WEAK AT THE END . IT WAS JUST 4 GUYS TRYING TO ANYTHING WE COULD TO HELP HER . SHE LIVED IN THIS STATE AND DIED THERE . THE LAST WORDS I HEARD HER SAY WAS I LOVE YOU WHEN SHE THOUGHT SHE WAS NOT GOING TO MAKE IT THE DAY BEFORE SHE DIED . I ASK 3 DOCTORS ABOUT WHY IT HELPED HER . THEY ALL TOLD ME AND THE HOSPICE NURSES TO THAT IT STIMULATES THE BRAIN SO THE CAN CONCENTRATE TO TALK . AND 2 SAID IF I DID'NT HAVE IT I WOULD HAVE LOST THOUGHS MEMENTS THAT I CAN NEVER GET BACK . MY STED DAD WENT IN THE KITCHEN TO CRY BECAUSE HE WAS SO MAD THAT THEY MADE USE AND HER FEEL LIKE CRIMINALS . I WAS'NT A CRIMINAL I WAS AND SON TRYING TO DO ANYTHING TO HELP MY MOM . IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE IT'S MEDICINE AND EVEN IF YOU DO YOU SHOULD BE MADE TO SEE HOW IT HELPS IN THE LAST DAYS OF SOMEONES LIFE . REMEMBER GOD WANT US TO BE COMPASSIONATE . SOME WANT BELIEVE WHAT I SAY ,BUT WHEN YOUR LOOKING AT YOUR PARENTS DYING AND YOU SEE THEY CAN'T TALK JUST THINK WHAT IF I HAD TRYED TO GIVE THEM SOME CANNABIS SO YOU COULD TELL THEM HOW MUCH YOU LOVED THEM AND THEY WERE THE BEST PARENTS EVER .
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2011/aug/24/arkansas_medical_marijuana_push

 

http://blog.norml.org/2011/08/25/tr...-how-big-pharma-is-planning-to-cash-in-on-it/ please watch this video . it tell why cannabis works as medicine .

 

please take you time and watch this video .

http://watch.montanapbs.org/video/1825223761

 

PLEASE DON'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT SMOKING .



New Jersey Medical Marijuana Patient Sent to Prison

By Phillip Smith, Stop the Drug War - Thursday, August 25 2011 Tags:

• Headline News
• MEDICAL MARIJUANA
• multiple sclerosis
• New York
• prison
• sentence
• USA

John Ray Wilson, a multiple sclerosis sufferer, was taken into custody immediately after an unsuccessful bail hearing.
A New Jersey man convicted of marijuana manufacture after he grew 17 plants in his backyard to use to treat his multiple sclerosis was ordered to prison to begin serving a five-year sentence Wednesday even as he appeals his conviction to the state Supreme Court.
According to a report from New Jersey-Pennsylvania marijuana reform activist Chris Goldstein's Freedom is Green blog, John Ray Wilson, 38, was taken into custody at the Somerset County Courthouse in Somerville immediately after a hearing where he sought unsuccessfully to continue to be granted bail pending the result of that appeal.
Wilson was arrested in 2008 and convicted of manufacture after he was not allowed to present evidence that he was growing the plants for his own use. He served five weeks in jail then before being granted bail and freed as he appealed to the New Jersey Appellate Division. He lost in the appeals court last month, and his attorney, William Buckman then filed a notice of petition to the Supreme Court to appeal the manufacturing conviction.
In Somerville Wednesday, Superior Court Judge Angela Borkowski ruled that any bail appeal should be made not to her court but to the Appellate Division, Goldstein reported. Buckman said he would file for bail immediately.
Deputy Attorney General Russell Curley argued during the hearing that Wilson should begin serving his sentence immediately, and Judge Borkowski agreed. He was taken into custody after the hearing.
"We think that the appellate decision is misguided," said Wilson’s attorney William Buckman, "We are hoping that the Supreme Court will set the record straight that New Jersey doesn’t want to put sick people or simple individual marijuana users into prison at the cost of $35,000 a year."
Wilson's plight has drawn the attention of activists who have championed his cause, including the Coalition for Medical Marijuana-New Jersey, whose executive director, Ken Wolski, was in the courtroom Wednesday.
"CMMNJ is still hopeful there is a chance for justice in the state Supreme Court," he told Goldstein. "But we are very disappointed that John is back in jail."
- Article

 

DEA Issues ‘Final Order’ Rejecting Private Production Of Cannabis For FDA-Approved Research

August 29th, 2011 By: Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director
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[Editor's note: This post is excerpted from this week's forthcoming NORML weekly media advisory. To have NORML's media alerts and legislative advisories delivered straight to your in-box, sign up here. To watch NORML's weekly video summary of the week's top stories, click here.]
The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has issued its final order rejecting a ruling from the agency’s own Administrative Law Judge finding that it would be ‘in the public interest’ to grant the University of Massachusetts a license to grow marijuana for federally regulated research.
The rejection preserves the monopoly held by National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) on the supply of marijuana for Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-regulated research. In 2010, a spokesperson for the agency told the New York Times, “We generally do not fund research focused on the potential beneficial medical effects of marijuana.”
In 2007, after extensive hearings, DEA Judge Mary Ellen Bittner opined in favor of allowing a researcher at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst legal permission to cultivate marijuana for use in FDA-approved clinical trials.
She determined: “I conclude that granting Respondent’s application would not be inconsistent with the Single Convention, that there would be minimal risk of diversion of marijuana resulting from Respondent’s registration, that there is currently an inadequate supply of marijuana available for research purposes, that competition in the provision of marijuana for such purposes is inadequate, and that Respondent has complied with applicable laws and has never been convicted of any violation of any law pertaining to controlled substances. I therefore find that Respondent’s registration to cultivate marijuana would be in the public interest.”
DEA director Michele Leonhart initially set aside Judge Bittner’s ruling in 2009.
The agency’s ruling may be appealed in the First Circuit US Court of Appeals.
In July, the DEA denied a nine-year-old petition seeking to initiate hearings regarding the federal classification of cannabis as a schedule I controlled substance, stating in part, “[T]here are no adequate and well-controlled studies proving efficacy.”

Tags: Bittner, DEA, Drug Ebforcement Administration, Leonhart, MAPDS, medical cannabis, medical marijuana, NIDA

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romney want answer a guy's question and is not to nice . do you want him for president ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3rsifcC0zc&feature=player_embedded

 

Ron Paul has my vote.

 

PLEASE NOW ONLY REGISTERED VOTERS IN ARKANSAS SIGN THE PETION TO LEGALIZED MEDICAL MARIJUANA .
http://www.petitiononline.com/4twenty/petition-sign.html

 

you know i wished my mom could have live without the pain to sign this petion . she would smoke after the chemo and ask me why is it illegal if it helps people like this . 3 months to late ,but it was very hard on her at the end . she always was afraid someone will come by from church and smell it . i told her they see you and if they love you they would'nt care . but she way always afraid and if she got catch smoking and thoughen in jail . they would'nt be happy at church . but she hide and did what she had to . to make her life alitte easier .

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jpYB2zvrkI&feature=player_embedded#!

 

For thoughs who don't know . There is alot of video to watch and stuff to read if the type in should cannabis be legalized . And please don't say anything about smoking . We don't want the thread closed .

 

http://www.gadaily.com/index.php/views/37-column/2873-legalize-marijuana-reduce-national-debt
PLEASE NO TALKING ABOUT SMOKING . IT'S ILLEGAL AND WE DON'T WANT THEM TO CLOSE THE THREAD .

 

Has Congress Officially Approved the Medical Use of Marijuana? Lawsuit Filed in Federal Court Seeks to Find Out

Posted by jsnsoc8 ⋅ September 4, 2011 ⋅ Leave a Comment
Filed Under Arizona, Congress, Controlled Substances Act, D.C. medical marijuana, Eric Holder, Fifth Amendment, Iowa, Montel Williams, Montgomery Sibley, Sibley v Obama et al, Vincent C. Gray, Washington D.C.

Has Congress officially legalized the medical use of marijuana? Now that Washington D.C.’s medical marijuana program is moving forward, a lawsuit against the federal government seeks to find out. In a picture of ironic contradiction, Federal IND patient Irvin Rosenfeld smokes a legal medical marijuana cigarette outside our nation's capital.


Naming Barack Obama, Eric Holder, and D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray as Defendants Sibley v Obama et al could end up being the biggest medical marijuana case since the 2005 case Gonzales v Raich. The Plaintiff in this case, glaucoma patient and D.C. dispensary applicant Montgomery Sibley, seeks a court order preventing the Department of Justice from enforcing the federal Controlled Substances Act in the District of Columbia until the legal ambiguity surrounding the District’s program is resolved.
In his argument, Sibley establishes and clarifies his attempts to be a law abiding citizen:

“Plaintiff has: (i) filed his “Letter of Intent” to operate a medical marijuana cultivation and/or dispensary operation pursuant to the D.C. Medical Marijuana Act and the Rules promulgated thereunder with the District of Columbia, (ii) entered into an agreement in January 2011 to lease certain property in the District of Columbia for the express purpose of growing and/or dispensing medical marijuana and (iii) organized with others by telephone and/or email for a license to grow medical marijuana under the D.C. Medical Marijuana Act. Finally, Plaintiff has been diagnosed as having glaucoma by an Optometrist and thus will be seeking to become a “qualifying patient” to use Medical Marijuana as authorized under the D.C. Medical Marijuana Act.” – September 1, 2011 Amended Complaint in SIBLEY v. OBAMA et al
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Having talked by phone and email about dispensing marijuana, Sibley could still be charged with a conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance at the federal level. While D.C.’s medical marijuana program offers legal protection to applicants within the District, the program does not protect applicants from federal prosecution. Not only that, the D.C. medical marijuana program specifically asks applicants to waive future defenses to federal prosecution!
If Sibley, or any other applicant, applies for the medical marijuana permit by September 16th, he or she will be required to sign a Medical Marijuana Program Cultivation Center Acknowledgment and Attestation Form as part of the application process. The last sentence of Line 11, part (c) of the form, reads:

“The District of Columbia’s law authorizing the District’s medical marijuana program will not excuse any registrant from any violation of the federal laws governing marijuana or authorize any registrant to violate federal laws.”
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Signing this form, argues Sibley, is a violation of the Fifth Amendment, as anyone who signs this form is admitting to breaking federal law while simultaneously agreeing to waive immunity from federal prosecution. Sibley argues that requiring applicants to sign this form is a violation of the fifth amendment:
Is Montel Williams, one of the potential D.C. dispensary applicants, unconstitutionally incriminating himself by following D.C.'s registration requirements?

“The rules and practices of the Defendant Mayor and Defendant DOH, both on their face and as applied, expose Plaintiff to a real and appreciable risk of self-incrimination and thus violate the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.” –September 1, 2011 Amended Complaint in SIBLEY v. OBAMA et al
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Raising a Fifth Amendment challenge to the District’s rules for medical marijuana, plus arguing for Congressional “repeal by implication” of the Controlled Substances Act, Sidney v Obama et al has huge potential for the medical marijuana movement! As the 2012 election reaches ever closer, medical marijuana lawsuits in Arizona and Iowa, and now, Washington D.C., will have some interesting rulings on the constitutionality of marijuana prohibition.
The disappointing result in Gonzales v Raich was NOT the final say, no matter how many times Drug Warriors point to that incomplete ruling. I hope other D.C. applicants are paying attention to this groundbreaking case. You can be sure I am. Follow WeedPress on Facebook for more on this case as it develops.

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take a look at all the money . damn drug war makes it look good to some people . why don't they ever catch the bosses ? DEA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clHmPwmF2bw&feature=related