ALEKS DEVIC

Robin Room, director of the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research, says marijuana should be legalised under strict controls because the social harm associated with it was significantly less than from drinking.
“It makes sense to legalise marijuana in a controlled market,” he told the Herald Sun yesterday. “We are in a situation where we need to look ahead. I think we need to have the discussion and it makes a lot of sense in terms of, among others, cutting down government costs to have a fairly highly controlled legal (cannabis) market and, while we are at it, tighten up the legal market of alcohol in the same way we tightened up the market of tobacco.”
Prof Room, a leading academic at Melbourne University, is funded by the Department of Human Services.
In an ideal world, Prof Room said teens would not smoke marijuana or drink alcohol to excess.
But if an 18-year-old was going to use substances, he said they would likely land themselves in less trouble after using cannabis rather than bingeing on alcohol.
Teens were “better off” on a mixture of booze and marijuana rather than just pure alcohol in social settings, he added. Alcohol was more dangerous than cannabis because it had a closer association with aggression and violence, loss of co-ordination and impacts on work and family life, he said.
 
Full Article:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/health-fitness/expert-calls-for-marijuana-to-be-legalised-to-reduce-harm-of-binge-drinking-in-teens/story-fni0diac-1226676714223

By Matthew Auerbach

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox with Michelle Aldrich.
 
On Monday, former Mexican President Vicente Fox met with marijuana advocates in San Francisco for what he hopes will be a galvanizing step in accomplishing his ultimate goal of decriminalizing the sale and recreational use of cannabis in both his country and the United States, reports the New York Times.
Among those meeting with Fox were Steve DeAngelo, the Oakland-based executive director of California’s largest marijuana dispensary, and former Microsoft executive Jamen Shively, who hopes to create a Seattle-based pot brand to be distributed and sold in the U.S. and Mexico.
Fox believes legalizing marijuana will end the violence perpetrated by Mexican drug cartels and America’s war on drugs.
“The cost of the war is becoming unbearable – too high for Mexico, for Latin America and for the rest of the world,” Fox said after the meeting.
According to Fox, 40 young people are killed in drug-related violence every day.
Full Article:
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/vincente-fox-pot-marijuana/2013/07/08/id/513943

By Chris Roberts
 
First it was a cough. Then it was bronchitis. Then it was time to say goodbye to Michelle Aldrich.
The year 2011 was supposed to be a good one for the 66-year-old. That June, she and her husband, Michael, were feted with a lifetime achievement award by High Times magazine for their four decades of work on marijuana legalization. Yet something was off. She was smoking a lot, maybe more than ever.
And she couldn’t get high.
In the fall of that year — a bad time for the local marijuana movement, as the federal Justice Department began shutting down hundreds of California medical cannabis dispensaries — Aldrich went in to see a series of doctors for what she thought was a flu that just refused to go away.
After six weeks of progressively worse diagnoses — flu became bronchitis, which became pneumonia — a CT scan revealed the cause behind the “heat” she felt in the middle of her chest. A tumor, “poorly-differentiated non-small cell adenocarcinoma.” In other words, stage 3 lung cancer.
Lung cancer is a killer, with nearly 70 percent of new cases resulting in deaths, according to statistics published by the National Cancer Institute. “I thought I was going to die,” Aldrich says from her Marina District apartment. But she didn’t. And now, she is busy telling anyone who will listen that, along with diet and chemotherapy, a concoction of highly concentrated cannabis oil eliminated her cancer in less than four months.
 
Full Article:
http://www.sfweekly.com/2013-04-24/news/key-words-cannabis-oil-cure-cancer-constance-finley/

By Malia Zimmerman

JAILED: Hawaii Island Minister Roger Christie, who has been held for three years in Honolulu’s Federal Detention Center, without bail and, as of yet, without a trial.
 
An Hawaii Island minister in jail for three years on drug charges is treated more like a terrorist than a free-spirited minister whose religious beliefs include the cultivation and use of marijuana, some lawmakers and civil rights advocates say.
The minister, Roger Christie, is being held in Honolulu’s Federal Detention Center, without bail and, as of yet, without a trial.
 
Full Article:
http://watchdog.org/94244/incarceration-of-hi-marijuana-minister-at-odds-with-sixth-amendment-his-supporters-say/

Terrence Dopp

 
July 8 (Bloomberg) — Vivian Wilson, who’s 2 years old, could use some pot. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, 50, isn’t sure she should get it.
Christie, a Republican often mentioned as a 2016 presidential contender, is considering whether to sign a law easing access to medical marijuana for toddlers and teenagers. It would put New Jersey among the dozen states that make it easier for youngsters to be treated with the drug.
While New Jersey is one of at least 18 states to authorize medical marijuana use, its rules make it almost impossible for Vivian’s mother, Meghan Wilson, 34, of Scotch Plains, to get the type of cannabis medicine that may help her daughter’s epilepsy.
“It’s beyond frustrating,” Wilson, a consultant who runs clinical trials for drugmakers, said by telephone. Vivian gets seizures from a form of epilepsy called Dravet syndrome, she said. In Colorado and California, where it’s easier to treat youngsters with pot, afflicted children have improved after receiving cannabis, and some are almost symptom-free, she said.
 
Full Article:
http://www.sfgate.com/business/bloomberg/article/Christie-Given-Election-Year-Pot-for-Tots-Bill-by-4652180.php

By Kathryn Petrides

 
My breast cancer diagnosis at age 26 was an unwelcome and at times harrowing experience. What allowed me to endure the darkest days was the hope that my rigorous treatment — chemotherapy, surgeries and radiotherapy among them — would allow me to once again live a full and healthy life. It’s what propelled me to walk back into the hospital for more treatments.
But then came A/C: The “A” stands for Adriamycin, a drug neon red in color and injected via large syringes by oncology nurses; its apt nicknames are “red devil” and “red death.” That probably should have been the red flag that I wasn’t going to escape without being slightly worse for wear.
After each of my four biweekly infusions, I lay bedridden for four days, debilitated by severe nausea, heartburn and overall discomfort. I also suffered deep bone pain, a consequence of the Neulasta shot given to keep my white blood cell counts up. I acutely felt all of these side effects, despite being given an intravenous anti-nausea medication, taking anti-nausea tablets every few hours and heartburn medicine and a low-dose prescription narcotic for the bone pain. None of this provided me with the relief for which I longed.
Eventually, though, I was lucky enough to take a medicine that did alleviate my suffering. Not so fortunate was the fact that it came in the form of a drug illegal under federal law: cannabis.
 
Full Article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/for-patients-like-me-marijuana-is-a-necessity/2013/07/08/a87bfc5e-daa8-11e2-9df4-895344c13c30_story.html

Vote here:
http://politix.topix.com/homepage/3260-would-you-support-legalizing-marijuana-in-your-state

by Mary Noble

Growing marijuana plant with bud • lostcoastoutpost.com
 
Every month, medical marijuana growers are sent to federal prison despite having complied with state marijuana laws. And although in 2008 Obama promised to stop raids on medical marijuana growers, his Department of Justice has stepped them up.
“Obama is averaging 36 medical marijuana prosecutions a year, compared to 20 a year” under Bush,according to Reason.com, who base those numbers on a report published by pro-marijuana group NORML in June. “153 medical marijuana cases have been brought in the 4 ¼ years of the Obama administration, nearly as many as under the 8 years of the Bush administration (163),” according toNORML’s report.
Some of those sentenced suffered from serious medical conditions for which they were themselves using the drug. Montanan grower Richard Flor died in August 2012 while serving a 5-year prison sentence in federal prison, after suffering two heart attacks and renal and kidney failure, according toMontana’s Billings Gazette. Flor was using medical marijuana to treat conditions including depression, diabetes, and osteoporosis. He was a co-founder of Montana Cannabis, which provided marijuana for about 300 people with medical prescriptions for the drug. His attorneys argued that he had complied with all state laws.
 
Full Article:
http://politix.topix.com/homepage/6883-obama-imprisons-80-more-medical-marijuana-growers-than-bush

By Associated Press

 
Medical marijuana dispensaries are a signature away from being legal in Oregon.
The state House of Representatives approved a bill Saturday to establish a licensing system for medical marijuana outlets. The bill, which passed 32-27, now goes to Gov. John Kitzhaber to sign.
 
Full Article:
http://www.katu.com/politics/Ore-House-approves-medical-marijuana-dispensaries-bill-214495771.html

By SHAWNE K. WICKHAM
 
Ted Wright’s wife was wasting away before his eyes.
Ravaged by constant nausea and vomiting – the side effects from a clinical trial drug that was keeping her cancer at bay – Cindy Wright had rapidly lost more than 30 pounds.
“She couldn’t eat,” her husband recalled. “And they said, ‘You’ve got to stop losing weight; we’re taking you off the trial.'”
A nurse at their Boston hospital had told them other patients were getting through their treatments by using cannabis – marijuana. Desperate, the Wrights decided to try it.
“Within five minutes, she was eating the biggest meal I’d seen her eat in a year,” Ted Wright said. “As soon as she felt the effects of the drug, she felt well enough to eat.”
“It was just amazing. And she put the weight back on within a month and stabilized,” he said. It’s been two years, and “she’s been stable ever since.”
“That flipped a switch for me,” said Wright, a Tuftonboro Republican who was elected to the House last November. “It became a crusade for me.”
 
Full Article:
http://www.newhampshire.com/article/20130706/NEWS12/130709517/-1/newhampshire