Drug War Chronicle / By Phillip Smith

The US Supreme Court Tuesday ruled that a drug dog’s sniff of a residence’s front door is search under the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and that police must therefore obtain a search warrant before unleashing the hounds. The case was  Florida v. Jardines.
While the high court has previously ruled that drug dog sniffs of vehicles stopped on the highway, packages at shipping centers, or luggage at airports do not constitute a search under the Fourth, it sets a higher standard for people’s homes. When it comes to the Fourth Amendment, “the home is first among equals,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the 5-4 majority.
 
Full Article:
http://www.alternet.org/scotus-cops-cant-send-drug-dogs-sniffing-around-your-home

By Michael Roberts

 
Doonesbury hasn’t had a print home in Denver since June 2011, when the Denver Post yanked it. But it can be accessed online, and it’s still good. Creator Garry Trudeau remains sharp and engaged; he’s not doing the equivalent of repeating Garfield-eating-lasagna jokes.
Case in point: Today’s strip, part of a new storyline, in which longtime fave Zonker — no doubt inspired by our recent cover story, “Green Acres” — announces he’s coming to Colorado to farm hemp under an appropriate new name. Check it out below.
 
Full Article:
http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2013/03/doonesbury_zonker_hemp_farmer_colorado.php

The Greeley Tribune  |  By Eric Brown
 
LOVELAND — Mark Daly drove from Wyoming to Loveland and back Thursday with hopes of resurrecting a business he lost about 12 years ago.
Like Daly, many of the 120 others at the Industrial Hemp Workshop were optimistic and enthusiastic — eager to bring back to U.S. farms a crop that has thousands of uses, they said, requires limited irrigation, has rapidly growing markets, but has “mistakenly” been lumped into marijuana talks and outlawed by the federal government since the 1950s.
Thursday’s workshop brought together entrepreneurs, lawmakers and crops growers — some in their 60s, clad in overalls and baseball caps, and others in their 20s, wearing hooded sweatshirts and trendy, think-framed glasses — to discuss hemp’s past, present and future.
Perhaps the event, sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, is the start of a new chapter for U.S. ag — a general cheer that came from many in attendance, including by Sen. Gail Schwartz, D-Snowmass, who’s leading efforts to draft legislation that would structure how Colorado farmers could grow hemp.
 
Full Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/24/workshop-attendees-eager-_n_2940565.html

Sandra Emerson and Wes Woods II, Staff Writers

Jack Herer
 
A group of Bay Area and Los Angeles cannabis activists are working to fulfill the dream of late activist Jack Herer with a proposed ballot initiative that would legalize the cannabis hemp plant in its entirety. The California Cannabis Hemp Initiative 2014 is still in the beginning stages, but the group behind the initiative is hoping to drum up enough support to get it on the November 2014 ballot.
“This initiative’s goal is to end the prohibition of cannabis similar to how we did with alcohol and wine,” said Santa Cruz-based activist Michael Jolson, a proponent of the initiative.
“If our initiative were to be successful in 2015, we would begin the proliferation of the hemp industry of growing hemp for all its uses.”
The initiative would legalize the cultivation and distribution of cannabis hemp for industrial and medicinal uses as well as personal use for people at least 21 years old.
The real thrust of the initiative, Jolson said, is the legalization of industrial hemp farming to allow the plant to be used for fuels, medicine, food, paper and textiles, paints, plastics and building materials.
“There are over 10,000 varieties of the plant and 50,000 products. In California, that means just on that, now we will be allowed to start growing a plant that has all these uses, so then we feel here if we can get this initiative going that eventually it can generate a trillion dollars.”
The initiative was originally drafted by Herer, an author who died in 2010.
“Part of Jack’s message is that we need to legalize the plant completely, but keep the government at bay and keep them from overly regulating and over taxing,” Jolson said.
The initiative would require the Legislature to establish guidelines for the cultivation, use and sale of cannabis – similar to the model used for beer and wine.
It also limits the fees and taxes the state can charge commercial producers.
Half of all tax revenues generated from the commercial sales of cannabis would be used for research and development for medical cannabis and hemp.
The initiative would also require the review and possible release of prisoners convicted of nonviolent cannabis-related crimes.
 
Full Article:
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_22843108/cannabis-activists-raising-awareness-new-legalization-initiative-2014

By Thomas H. Clarke

 
HONOLULU, HI — A bill that would establish a two-year hemp pilot program in Hawaii passed a second reading with amendments on the floor of the Senate last week, and has been referred to the Ways and Means Committee.   The bill passed unanimously on the floor of the House earlier this month, .
If given favorable approval by the Ways and Means Committee, the bill will be refereed back to the full Senate for a third, and final, reading and vote on the bill. Because the bill has been amended in both the Senate and House, the two chambers will need to agree on the final language of the bill before being sent to the Governor’s desk.
 
Full Article:
http://www.thedailychronic.net/2013/16532/hemp-bill-passes-second-reading-in-hawaii-senate/

Former public servants, from DEA chiefs to cops, are using their clout to lobby for drug policies that enrich themselves—before it’s too late.

Green days Photo via

By ALYSON KRUEGER

 
For Cher Neufer, a 65-year-old retired teacher, socializing with friends (all in their 60s) means using marijuana. Once a week they get together to play Texas Hold ’Em poker “and pass around a doobie,” Ms. Neufer said.

By Cy Ryan (contact)
 
CARSON CITY — The American Civil Liberties Union says Nevada’s medical marijuana law is unconstitutional because it restricts people from filling a legal prescription.
In a brief filed Friday with the Nevada Supreme Court, the ACLU says the law makes criminals of people “who make reasonable efforts” to obtain medical marijuana. While medical marijuana is legal in Nevada, it cannot legally be purchased.
Sen. Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas, introduced a bill Monday to set up a system of nonprofit dispensaries to distribute the drug to those with legitimate prescriptions. Six Nevada lawmakers are in Arizona today examining how that state regulates the distribution of marijuana.
The ACLU brief supports the decision of Clark County District Court Judge Donald Mosley, who ruled the Nevada law invalid in the case of two men indicted in connection with the operation of a nonprofit co-op to dispense the drug.
Full Article:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013/mar/22/aclu-says-nevada-law-restricting-sale-medical-mari/
 

John Payne

 
On March 4, I hired Gary Wiegert, who is also a sergeant with the St. Louis Police Department, to lobby for Show-Me Cannabis Regulation, which advocates the reform of Missouri’s marijuana laws. Gary is no stranger to politics. He has long lobbied for the St. Louis Tea Party and was one of the leading opponents of Prop A (a.k.a. local control) this past fall.
However, on March 8, the police department called and told him to meet with superiors before taking any further interviews on the subject. The department must be unfamiliar with the first rule of holes — when you are in one, stop digging — because at that meeting, the brass told Gary that they were rescinding his previously approved application for secondary employment because he does not possess a business license to lobby.
I find the department’s outrage surprising, as I hired Gary mostly to lobby for a bill that would reduce the penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana to a fine without the possibility of arrest or jail time — which is very similar to a proposed ordinance in St. Louis that the department endorsed. Nevertheless, the department is clearly grasping at straws and violating Gary’s First Amendment rights in the process. Gary has since responded by seeking a federal injunction against the department.
Regardless of whether Gary ultimately prevails, the message to his fellow officers and citizens is crystal clear: Do not talk about reforming cannabis laws. And that makes sense. A law as clearly and irreparably flawed as the prohibition of cannabis can only be preserved by burying any discussion of it.
 
Full Article:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/what-we-ve-got-here-is-a-failure-to-communicate/article_30984eae-e5cb-5412-87f4-1e21b2a2285a.html

By Pamela Dickman Reporter-Herald Staff Writer
 
LOVELAND — Shaun Crew’s company is the biggest processor of industrial hemp in Canada, and his leading product is protein powder.
Hemp Oil Canada also supplies hemp oil, seeds and more for cereal, salad dressings, cooking products, baked goods, soaps and lotions.
“Milk,” salad dressings, paint, cloth, rope, packaging supplies, chewing tobacco alternative and yarn lengthen the list of products that boost the $500 million hemp industry — a venture Colorado is on the verge of joining.
“When I see hemp, I see an alternative crop,” said Kent Peppler, Mead farmer and president of the Rocky Mountain Farmer’s Union, at an industrial hemp symposium Thursday at The Ranch in Loveland.
“I see a crop that doesn’t use fertilizer. I see a crop that doesn’t need a great deal of water. I see a crop that has multiple uses.”
All those factors make hemp a potential cash crop and alternative for Colorado farmers as state voters just legalized the production with Amendment 64.
 
Full Article:
http://www.reporterherald.com/news/loveland-local-news/ci_22845027/hemp-market-ripe-picking