Breckinridge Lights Up the Slopes

Don't know about you, but I am going skiing.

Last nite, the Colorado ski town of Breckenridge voted overwhelmingly to legalize marijuana.

Early returns Tuesday night showed the proposal winning with 72 percent of the vote. The measure would allow adults over 21 to have up to 1 ounce of marijuana.

The measure is largely symbolic because pot possession remains a state crime for people without medical clearance. But supporters said they wanted to send a message to local law enforcement to stop busting small-time pot smokers. So basically you have the population of a community telling the police to back off. Not surprising at all.

In Tallahassee, Florida, a few years ago, when students from FSU NORML initiated a successful petition drive to make pot enforcement a low priority, the city commission sued, alleging that they could not interfere with state enforcement. You can't sue to suppress a vote though, can you?

Breckinridge sent a message last nite that thousands of Americans all over this country are fed up with pot laws. It is also an indicator there is popular support for their new medical dispensaries statewide.

'Geraldo at Large' Suggests Medical Marijuana Will Become Law of the Land

http://www.counterpunch.org/kent10302009.html

updated/newer version now online

A whopping 63% of Fox News viewers have endorsed the Obama Administration’s decision to stop targeting medical dispensaries in California. The disclosure was made by Geraldo Rivera last nite on his popular show, ‘Geraldo at Large.’

Geraldo presented more than just a fair and balanced report. The news item clearly distinguished the marked differences between the casual user of marijuana for recreational or personal medical use and traffickers operating illegal Mexican drug cartels, which everyone acknowledged should be targeted for enhanced enforcement. Rivera even applauded Attorney General Eric Holder for his new and rededicated efforts to stop that illegality, inserting into his news report the AG’s announcement of a raid last week, which netted 300 suspects nationwide.

Ann Coulter, of course, came on to criticize Obama, but she is a howler monkey who stands on the end of the branch and shrieks at anything Barack and Friends do or do not do. Even she had a hard time coming down too hard on smokers, preferring to just attack President Obama. Surprise. When Geraldo then turned to conservative Mike Huckabee for a countervailing viewpoint, he tempered his criticism of the new policy by recognizing that every governor has to set its priorities. The best objection he came up with was that if the Obama administration wanted to “change the law, go ahead and change it, but don’t keep a law you are not going to enforce.” That is a far cry from stating this was bad policy, a poor change, and counter productive to our nation.

What viewers eventually saw on the piece Geraldo did was a presentation that medical marijuana will soon be the law of the land, and the 15 states which already provide for it are a precursor to a national future. You could almost sense that was the direction Geraldo was headed when he opened with a segue featuring Tommy Chong and Cheech Marin at a ‘Smoke Out’ rally in LA. It was then followed by a white-collared businessman explaining to the audience that he ran a lawful, state-compliant dispensary which was busted by the feds. Phil Smith, that gentleman, then explained how he had just spent ten months in jail with hardened criminals and murderers. That too is a far cry from the day and time when marijuana growers were presented to American audiences as hardened criminals. Geraldo even scoffed at the way we once thought of marijuana, with a scene from 'Reefer Madness' dropped onto the set in the background.

As he waded through the piece on medical and legal pot, Geraldo even postured this was an issue that crossed ideological lines; that Americans across the board do not want pot law enforced harshly against our citizens. Coming from the barrios of New York City, having grown up in the 1960’s, and spending decades with celebrities in the media, Geraldo uniquely understands how pervasive and personal marijuana is in the American psyche. In fact, as he recovers from knee replacement surgery, I would not be surprised if instead of using Percocet daily he tried out some Purple Haze. (I don't know, I'm just saying...)

The bottom line is Geraldo is one of America's best, grittiest and most seasoned journalists, who has covered stories from mistreatment in mental institutions to mass murders. He knows where 'pot' fits into the scheme of things- enough so that he could joke and poke at this story, recognizing as he does our nation has greater issues, more pressing problems. Personally, I got the opportunity to work with him 20 years ago on a story about runaway kids in Fort Lauderdale, and he is a guy willing to get his hands dirty to make his stories true.

When NORML (www.norml.com) recently held its annual convention in San Francisco, former Mayor Willie Brown opined that “we should legalize pot because as many people are using it recreationally as are using it medically.” Prop 215 author, activist Denis Peron, once stated: “all use is medical.” Last year, NORML’s founder, Keith Stroup, and Rick Cusick, the Publisher of High Times, along with 50 students from local colleges, were foolishly arrested for smoking joints at a ‘MassCann(abis)’ convention in the Boston Commons. The next thing you know Mr. Stroup was testifying before Massachusetts legislative committees to change the laws in the Bay State. Those statutes have now been amended to provide for the medicinal use of marijuana.

One of my clients, Elvy Mussika, is amongst the last of those getting marijuana from the United States government on a now abandoned program entitled the ‘Compassionate Use Protocol.’ Under the plan, the DEA grows experimental marijuana at the University of Mississippi and freeze-dries it for distribution in a prescription can to Ms. Mussika, a grandmother fighting the intraocular pressures associated with Glaucoma, which constantly cause pain in her eyes. 'Smoke 3x daily,or as needed for pain' the jar reads.There are thousands and thousands of other Americans similarly situated, who only want to use pot to relieve pain. For them, marijuana is medicine.

Then there are the Michael Phelps of the world, using bongs and water pipes and rolling papers to get high and give themselves a buzz, for fun's sake. They too should not be criminalized or denied scholarships to school, should they? Some may not win gold medals in swimming pools, but they should not be posting bail in county jails, either. They may not find themselves as guests of the Jay Leno show, but they should not find themselves as guests of the local sheriff either, should they?

It would seem that even Fox News agrees.

Medical Marijuana Vending Machine now Available in California

Live from my San Francisco home, I just want to tell you it works. Saw it last week in Los Angeles. Tested it out. Renewed my medical marijuana card. I am good to go. No more Hershey's chocolate bars for me. Now it is the real thing!

Meet Me: I Am Patient Number 380206011

Meet Me: I Am Patient Number 380206011

By Norm Kent

Today I am going to come out of the closet as a Bi-Coastal pot consumer.

I lead two lives; one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast.

In Fort Lauderdale, I own a townhouse where I have resided for over a quarter of a century. In this community, I am a lawyer and a spokesman for NORML, very active in drug law reform. But I cannot practice what I preach. That would be illegal.

In California, however, I found a small town near Berkley, east of San Francisco Bay, where I may retire. It is Walnut Creek, a hamlet, I understand, that has more open public spaces than any other village in America. There, I may eventually choose to grow my own pot. I am allowed to do so.

In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where I practice law, and get people out of trouble for growing pot, I have to defend people who do what I am entitled to do in California legally. You see, the rules are different here. Life can thus be a bit conflicted.

In early 2006, my Florida roommate, after learning he was HIV positive, decided to move back to his hometown of San Francisco. As a pot consumer, he realized he could now get a medicinal recommendation for marijuana and grow pot legally under California law. The Florida laws are not so kind or generous. Cultivation of any amount is a second degree felony.

We went to San Francisco together, to a community I have visited and loved since the early 1970’s, from my first spectacular drive up the Pacific Coast highway. We found and rented a small apartment in the Haight.

It has been thirteen years since California voters enacted Proposition 215, which allowed citizens to utilize marijuana for medical purposes if a person had a legitimate need. As a recovering cancer patient, I more than qualified for a medical marijuana recommendation.

I sought out a legitimate physician, not one running a medical marijuana mill. I came with a full set of medical records tracking my unenviable medical past, including recent spinal surgery. The doctor thoughtfully reviewed with me the medical risks associated with the use of cannabis. Not that I did not have a little experience. I mean, I am 60 years old this year. My friends’ kids go to Bonnaroo. I lived through Woodstock.

After the screening, my physician then appropriately certified me as an individual who could benefit from the medical use of cannabis. Just like that, I became patient number 380206011. I then proceeded to a medical dispensary, proudly armed with a State of California Medical Marijuana Identification Card.

As a California patient, I am empowered to acquire cannabis lawfully at medical dispensaries. Under the California Health and Safety Code, I am also entitled to grow up to six plants of my own in my little apartment on the bay. I do not have to hide them from the authorities.

I joined the Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative, and was issued a Growers Certificate. It affirms that any herbs I cultivate at home would be grown for my personal medical use. I was now at liberty to grow my own medicine. It is still called pot in Florida. We call it medicine in California.

Today, therefore, the same medicine I can consume lawfully in California I have to prevent people from going to jail for in Florida. It makes no sense. Fourteen states and scores of communities across our country have either decriminalized or ‘medicalized’ marijuana. It is not good enough. Americans still face one very large federal stumbling block.

A state may pass its own laws, but so too may the federal government pass laws which preempt those state laws. In the case of marijuana, that is what Washington has done. Our federal government claims marijuana is not medicine. As such, it criminalizes all marijuana possession, use, or cultivation, regardless of what the states do.

At first, patients were lucky. In 2003, the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal government had no right to arrest or prosecute medical marijuana patients- as long as what they possessed was for personal use. The United States Supreme Court reversed that ruling in 2005. Thus, as we sit here today, in 2009, federal law enforcement officials can prosecute medical marijuana patients, even if state authorities will not; even if they reside in a state where medical marijuana use is protected by state law.

Under our Constitution, the police power of the state is to be exercised by the state. California authorities are not disobeying federal laws by not enforcing them. They are not legally obligated to do so. Nor is Florida obligated to follow California laws. Just because you have a medical right to possess cannabis in California does not give you a legal right to grow or possess it in Florida. Though some clients of mine have tried, you can’t get stopped for smoking in Miami Beach and pull out a medical marijuana card from Santa Monica. It won’t fly. Tell it to your bondsman.

Welcome then to my conflicted life. I am permitted to grow my own medicine lawfully in my California apartment. If I were to do that in Florida, police could raid my house and the Florida Bar could seize my card. Instead of representing a grower, I would need a lawyer to represent me. Florida would not care that I am patient number 380206011 in California. What is wrong with that picture?

The cannabis I purchase in a dispensary in Berkeley I can carry in my car and consume in my living room. If I am flying back to Florida though, I cannot carry it with me. That would be a federal crime. But if I am relaxing at an airport bar in either San Francisco or Fort Lauderdale, I can order and consume Crown Royal and Coke. What I can’t get on both coasts is justice. That is far more elusive, and does not come in a bottle.

One national reform group has spent 40 years trying to stem the tide of repression and advance the rights of marijuana consumers. They say it is normal to smoke pot. Their name is NORML, the National Organization to Reform the Marijuana Laws. If there was ever a time to be part of their effort, it is now, as the new administration in Washington has said they are going to put an end to the drug war madness. They have said they will end the raids on medical dispensaries.

We need to see that deed and action follows words and promises.

We need to send a message to our legislators that the silent majority of Americans support vast and overriding changes to repressive drug laws which have incarcerated too many for too long. Join NORML in that effort.

We need to show that moral authority is on our side.
Spread the word and you will spread the seed.

.

No Oscar for Citizens Protesting Unjust Federal Marijuana Laws

No Oscar for Medical Marijuana Providers

by Norm Kent

There will be no Oscar awards for this real life ceremony coming to Los Angeles today.

Protesters will righteously and defiantly gather on the corner of Main Street and Temple St outside the federal courthouse at 12:00 PM on Monday, February 23.

They will be medical marijuana patients and advocates unified to protest strenuously the upcoming sentencing of Charles C. Lynch, who was convicted for operating a medical marijuana dispensing collective in Morro Bay in August of last year.

The organizers have no red carpet. They just want to draw public attention to Lynch's case hoping against hope that Judge Wu will use his discretion to impose a lenient sentence on the 46-year old Lynch, who could face decades in federal prison. That would be Change we can believe in.

"People need to know that Charles Lynch is going to federal prison even though he was obeying state and local law," event organizer Cheryl Aichele told the online paper, Salem.News.com, "It is not fair that he should be caught in the crossfire between state and federal law." But he is and if we do not do something about it, he will be gunned down.

California is one of thirteen states in which medical marijuana is legal, but federal law prohibits its use under any circumstances. That means that though Mr. Lynch obeyed local and state laws, he becomes a national and federal prisoner. That means he is a victim of American injustice at its worst.

Mr. Obama became President on January 20. Of course, he wanted time to catch up and assume the role. But you do become president on Day 1, and you have to assume the role from the moment you take the oath, flubbed or not. There is no time for Mr. Lynch. His sentencing is in less than a month.

Yes, I read that on February 4, a White House Spokesman named Nick Shapiro said that President Obama did not want to waste federal law enforcement resources circumventing state medical marijuana laws. Then have the guts to do something about it now. Then please let's find a reporter in the White House pool to ask these questions before Mr. Lynch is sentenced.

Mr. Shapiro opined that he expected the President's new appointees to consider this when setting policy for their agencies. How about having one of them show up at the sentencing for Mr. Lynch? How about directing the US Attorney to stand down? I am available if they want to send me.

Just as Ed Rosenthal in San Francisco was not permitted to present evidence his growhouse was for medical consumers, the prohibitive Federal Rules of Evidence denied Mr. Lynch from presenting any testimony whatsoever about medical marijuana, Mr. Lynch's city business license, or California state law. A jury thus only heard that some man was selling marijuana to line his pockets. Thus, Mr. Lynch was convicted on all counts.

Drew Carey's account of Mr. Lynch's struggle with the federal government on Reason.tv helped the case to receive national media attention. Ed Rosenthal was sentenced to a day in jail. Will our government ask that Mr. Lynch serve any more?

Today, a quiet Monday in L.A., thousands of people will be talking about the Oscars, and as the Hollywood types watch the news this evening, one will see this rag tag band of protestors rallying around the federal courthouse. Somewhere someone will say 'This will make a good film.'

While gay people were being beaten mindlessly in alleys for decades, someone may have said the same for Harvey Milk. Maybe in 20 years some actor will play the role of a Tommy Chong, busted senselessly, incarcerated unjustly, and released to make a difference.

But for Mr. Lynch and his family, there is no time today for a movie tomorrow. This is real life. Unless our President and his administration does something, he is going to jail for years.

Protesters will gather on the corner of Main Street and Temple St outside the federal courthouse at 12:00 PM on Monday, February 23. The street address for the federal courthouse is 312 North Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles. If you are in LA, grab a joint, cop a sign, and be there. It will not get you into the Academies, but it will make you a star.

Here are some related links, courtesy of Americans for Safe Access:
White House Statement on Medical Cannabis: safeaccessnow.org/article.php?id=5665
Picture of Lynch at Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting ceremony for his dispensary: safeaccessnow.org/img/original/Lynch_Photo.jpg
Drew Carey/Reason TV documentary short on Lynch: reason.tv/video/show/413.html
Recent Los Angeles Times story on the trial: latimes.com/news/local/la-me-weed26-2008jul26,0,6418930.story
Friends of Charles C. Lynch website: friendsofccl.com