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By Jeremy Daw, WestCoastLeaf.com
WCL News — The UN policy on cannabis has been rattled by events in South America. A bill to legalize small cannabis collectives, allow pharmacies to sell medical marijuana and direct the national government of Uruguay to become one of the world’s largest cannabis distributors passed its most difficult political hurdle when the small South American country’s House of Representatives approved it July 31, 2013 by a vote of 50 to 46. The measure, which has been enthusiastically endorsed by President Jose Mujica, is expected to pass easily in the Senate.
If the legalization bill becomes law, Uruguayan citizens 21 and older would have the right to form small collectives of up to six people to distribute the herb amongst themselves. Pharmacies would become the premiere destination for medical marijuana, exacting strict testing and labeling standards. Most significantly, the government itself would become directly involved in
Read More: Uruguay poised to legalize cannabis before end of year 2013
Rev. Roger Christie is fighting for his religious belief in sacramental cannabis use and the right to share with his congregants. Photos courtesy of Share Christie.
By Chris Conrad, WestCoastLeaf.com
WCL News — The THC Ministry church became the second non-Rastafarian church recognized by a US court to use cannabis as a sacrament on Aug. 5, 2013, when a federal judge in Hawai’i held that its founder was entitled to a defense in federal court under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The RFRA was adopted by Congress in the 1990s, then partially struck down as being unconstitutionally restrictive on state authorities. However, it remains in effect regarding federal prosecutors.
Rev. Roger Christie, 64, has been held without bail in the Honolulu Federal Detention Center since July 8, 2010, fighting for his First Amendment religious freedom defense, ever
Read More: Federal court recognizes sacramental use of cannabis
Salerno, left, with attorney Levinsohn
By Ron Mullins, The Human Solution
WCL News — A Yuba County CA jury acquitted medical marijuana patient Eric Salerno Aug. 9, 2013, who had been arrested in a Marysville fast food restaurant parking lot April 22, 2011 with $3500, a scale, several pounds of marijuana and another valid patient. Both patients showed their physician recommendations to the police, however, when the other patient cut a deal in exchange for testifying against him, the prosecution moved forward.
Salerno and his wife, Desiree, raise their two young sons Lorenzo and Andreas in the Yuba County foothills. The first judge in his case, Judge James F. Dawson, denied Salerno his medical marijuana defense. Allison Margolin’s law office filed a writ of mandamus to the third district appellate court, which issued a stay of the proceedings and allowed Salerno’s medical defense to be reinstated.
The trial courtroom
Read More: Patient beats marijuana sales charge in Marysville
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.
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 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
Licensed and permitted cannabis dispensaries are legal in California — but local governments can also ban dispensaries — after the state Supreme Court handed down a double-edged ruling May 6, 2013. The City of Riverside v. Inland Empire Patients Health and Wellness Center, Inc. ruling, S198638, held that state law “implicitly permits local regulation of medical marijuana facilities.”
Whereas hundreds of local dispensaries are in compliance with the state’s Medical Marijuana Program (commonly known as SB420), the ruling now gives a green light to the more than 80 municipal governments seeking to use land-use ordinances to block cannabis storefronts from operating.
The case revolved around the decision by the Southern California city of Riverside to ban dispensaries as a prohibited land use and demand that the IEPHWC close its doors. The center fought the injunction in court, where both the trial and appellate judges ruled against
Read More: California dispensaries get mixed news from high court
By Paul Armentano, www.norml.org
Michigan’s state-authorized cannabis patients have legal protection from criminal prosecution for having THC in their systems while driving, the state Supreme Court ruled on May 21, 2013. In its unanimous opinion, People v Koon, the Court held that patients who comply with the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act (MMMA) may not be criminally convicted of being ‘under the influence’ (DUI) absent evidence of behavioral impairment.
Michigan’s zero tolerance traffic laws classify the operation of a vehicle with any amount of THC in one’s system to be a criminal offense — whether or not one is impaired. Under these types of traffic safety laws, motorists are guilty per se (in fact) of a criminal traffic safety violation if they engage in the act of driving while detectable levels of certain controlled substances, or, in some cases, if their inert metabolites (byproducts) are present in the defendants’ blood or
Read More: Michigan Court upholds patients’ driving rights
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