By Marijuana Policy Project

 
A medical marijuana grower in Ellsworth, Maine received a pleasant surprise on Saturday: a marijuana delivery from the police. Thomas Davis, a state-licensed medical marijuana caregiver and grower, lost 17 marijuana plants from his greenhouse in a burglary on Wednesday night.
The thief, 32-year-old Aaron Pert, was arrested soon afterward and charged with offenses including marijuana possession, burglary, and theft. He confessed to breaking into the greenhouse and stealing the plants and led the police to the location where he had hidden the majority of the stash.
However, the police delayed returning the marijuana to Davis for two days, concerned that they might be violating federal law, which makes all marijuana possession, cultivation, and distribution criminal offenses.
According to Ellsworth police lieutenant Harold Page, this was the first case in the state in which marijuana had been stolen from a licensed medical marijuana provider, so the police department consulted with the Maine DEA as well as the state’s attorney general as to whether they should return the plants. Ellsworth Police Chief John DeLeo stated on Monday that as far as he was concerned, returning the plants was legal.
 
Complete article:
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/drug-law/maine-police-support-state-law-return-patient-s-medicine

By Steve Elliott

 
‘Zac is willing to go down if he must, but it is going to be after a fight.’

By Chris Roberts

 
Keeping marijuana under the government’s list of most controlled, most dangerous substances is easy for the Drug Enforcement Administration — all the federal drug warriors have to do is deny researchers access to the plant, then claim that there’s insufficient research to determine that cannabis has benefits.
That “circular game of gotcha” continued Tuesday morning, but at least advocates of marijuana’s medical benefits enjoyed a change of venue — and a significant one. An appeal seeking to reschedule marijuana from the panoply of the world’s most dangerous drugs is now in federal judges’ hands, following oral arguments in Americans for Safe Access’s lawsuit against the DEA in Washington, DC, Tuesday.

Win or lose, the rescheduling lawsuit is a milestone in the marijuana movement. Still, there’s a few points to consider: The lawsuit won’t make cannabis legal, but rather lessillegal. And, perhaps unfairly, the deck’s stacked against ASA, since the federal government doesn’t have to prove that cannabis is harmful. Instead, ASA has to prove that it is NOT harmful.
 
Complete article:
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2012/10/marijuana_scheduling_lawsuit_f.php

Posted by Johnny Green
 

It’s A Big Day For Marijuana Science

By Amanda Reiman, Drug Policy Alliance
Today the federal government has an opportunity to agree to review the scientific evidence related to the use of marijuana as a medicine. A lawsuit brought by Americans for Safe Access and other marijuana reform organizations is challenging the government’s classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug — one for which there are no acceptable medical uses. One of the individual plaintiffs, Michael Krawitz, is a veteran of the Air Force, and uses medical marijuana to combat pain and PTSD. Krawitz’s claims concerning the medical benefits of marijuana have been echoed by physicians such as Donald Abrams from University of California, San Francisco, and Igor Grant from the University of California, San Diego. Both doctors have conducted research into the medical value of marijuana and have concluded that it does in fact exist.

By Sanford Pass
There are two basic kinds of cannabis: marijuana and hemp.  Marijuana is what gives the high and cures disease, and is illegal to grow or use in most of the country.
Hemp is what is used for paper, fuel, food, fiber and literally thousands of other industrial and commercial applications, and is also illegal to grow in most of the country.
This article deals with industrial hemp.
In the February 1938 issue of Popular Mechanics, which you can find at www.hempfarm.org/BillionDollarCrop, there was a feature article entitled “The New Billion Dollar Crop,” referring to hemp.
It was common knowledge that the plant was extremely useful and versatile.
Hemp makes the best cloth because it is the longest and strongest fiber on earth and hemp webbing is what held parachutes together before DuPont became allies with Hearst to demonize the plant that was in the way of their personal fortunes; to hell with the environment, their actions screamed.
Hemp also makes the best paper and is made faster, cheaper and four times as much as what is produced per acre from trees.
It is also made without the use of dioxin and other heavy poisons that end up in our rivers.
Rope, twine and all other grades of cordage work best when made of hemp, again because of its long fiber and strong structure.
The USS Constitution, ‘Old Ironsides’, carried on board more than 60 tons of hemp in the form of rope, including the anchor rope, sails, Bibles, maps, uniforms, flags and pennant.
Just about everything on board, except the wooden ship and the metal cannons and cannonballs, was made of hemp in one form or another.
In the Middle Ages in Europe, most people survived on something known as gruel. Gruel was boiled hemp seeds, with some milk or fruit, if one was lucky.
Hemp seeds could end world hunger in as much time as it would take to get a handful of hemp seeds and some water to every starving human being, for there is enough nutrition in hemp seeds to sustain life, with a little water.
Hemp seeds are an original food, specified by God in Genesis 1:29-30:  “God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the land, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food.
“To every animal of the land and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the land, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food.’ And it was so.”
 
http://www.asuherald.com/opinion/industrial-hemp-has-many-uses-1.2778704#.UH24um_A-Pu

Sasha Bronner

 
Seated in a big leather armchair with popcorn and a Stella Artois beer on a Friday night in Los Angeles, Brad Pitt was ready to talk about drugs.
Minutes before, in a small theater downstairs, Pitt introduced director Eugene Jarecki’s documentary “The House I Live In” about the war on drugs with this confession:

My drug days are long since passed but it’s certainly true that I could probably land in any city in any state and get you whatever you wanted. I could find anything you were looking for. Give me 24 hours or so. And yet we still support this charade called the drug war. We have spent a trillion dollars. It’s lasted for over 40 years. A lot of people have lost their lives for it. And yet we still talk about it like it’s this success.

Complete article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/13/brad-pitt-the-house-i-live-in-director-eugene-jarecki-drugs_n_1963247.html

BY BILL MAH, EDMONTON JOURNAL

A hemp field in Leduc County.

Photograph by: Supplied/Rachel Peterson , Edmonton Journal

 
Alberta’s hemp farmers toil in relative obscurity compared to their better-known grain and oilseed colleagues, but new technology being developed near Edmonton could change that.
The Hart Fibre Trade Company, a hemp-fibre processor based in Leduc County, is introducing the first Canadian scutched hemp processing system — a way of straightening the plant’s fibres so it can be used to make textiles. Hemp is considered an alternative to cotton.
The company accepted funding of $938,000 on Wednesday to speed development. The money comes from the Canadian Agricultural Adaptation Program (CAAP), a five-year $163-million program to boost agriculture’s competitiveness and adaptability.
“There is high demand for value-added hemp textiles in overseas markets, and this innovative process will help farmers capture more value from their crop while opening the doors to potential new markets,” said Edmonton-Leduc MP James Rajotte, who announced the funding.
Acreage for hemp production in Canada has nearly doubled over the past year, with a projected target of 100,000 acres by 2015, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
 
Complete article:
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/opinion/blogs/Alberta+processor+could+make+material+difference+hemp+farmers/7370095/story.html

BY ARNOLD HAMILTON
 
Thirty or so years ago, cancer claimed the life of one of my favorite aunts.

By Kristina Nelson KVAL News

 
EUGENE, Ore. – Elvy Musikka relies on medical marijuana to get through her day.
The 73-year-old Eugene grandmother joined Oregon’s medical marijuana program in 2005 to treat her glaucoma.
Musikka also receives medical marijuana from the federal government as part of a now discontinued research program created in 1978.
But she said that medicine is so old it’s no good.
“In other words, it probably would have been very nice as hemp for wearing but it obviously was no medicine for glaucoma,” she said. “I cannot work with 11-year old garbage.”
Fresher marijuana under Oregon’s program filled the gap.
“I was getting 3 pounds from the State of Oregon and what I was doing was mixing it up,” said Musikka from her home in South Eugene.
Last October, the state imposed new fees on medical marijuana card holders. The new fees doubled the annual cost of getting a medical marijuana card to $200. It also imposed grower fees of $50 and, if patients switch growers or change the address where it’s grown, the state charges an additional $100.
 
Complete article:
http://www.kpic.com/news/health/I-find-that-very-criminal-Eugene-woman-opposes-high-cost-of-Oregon-medical-marijuana-program-173346171.html?tab=video&c=y

By Natural News

 
It is well known that omega-3 and 6 fatty acids are essential for human health. The common advice is to get a good supply in your diet, you need to eat oily fish or take fish oil supplements on a regular basis. Unfortunately, the majority of fish oil supplements are slowly killing our society and our environment. Plant-based sources of the omega-3 and 6 fatty acids are a much healthier alternative, and one of the best sources available is hemp seed oil.
 
Complete article:
http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/392047/20121008/stop-taking-questionable-fish-oil-supplements-use.htm#.UH2z72_A-Pt