By Elizabeth Flock

LEAP’s pro-legalization police car in Chicago in September.
 
Less than 50 days before Election Day, a group of current and former police officers are ramping up their efforts to push for the legalization of marijuana in the United States.
On Thursday, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which is based in Medford, Mass., announced it would support get-out-the-vote efforts for Amendment 64, a Colorado ballot initiative to essentially legalize marijuana.
Tony Ryan, who spent 36 years on Denver’s police force and now serves on LEAP’s board, is pushing for Amendment 64. “I’d been thinking about this much of my career,” Ryan tells Whispers. “I saw that marijuana wasn’t the cause of disturbances, crimes, or homicides—something like alcohol was.”
Ryan says he often noticed police officers spending several hours processing a person found with only a small amount of marijuana. “That perturbed me,” he says. “It detracts from the police officer’s job in my mind.”
 
Complete article here:
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/09/21/current-former-cops-make-push-to-legalize-marijuana-ahead-of-election

By Larry Gabriel

Irvin Rosenfeld signs copies of his book with one of his U.S. cannabis supply cans nearby.
 
Irvin Rosenfeld is one of the four surviving federal medical marijuana patients. There were once 13 of them, and Rosenfeld has been receiving his allotment longer than any of the other survivors. He gets a canister with about 300 rolled marijuana cigarettes from the government every 25 days. Instructions printed on the can instruct the patient to smoke 12 of them each day.
 
Complete article here:
http://metrotimes.com/mmj/a-pioneer-speaks-out-1.1374920

Robin Wilkey

 
A pair of scientists at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco has found that a compound derived from marijuana could stop metastasis in many kinds of aggressive cancer, potentially altering the fatality of the disease forever.
“It took us about 20 years of research to figure this out, but we are very excited,” said Pierre Desprez, one of the scientists behind the discovery, to The Huffington Post. “We want to get started with trials as soon as possible.”
The Daily Beast first reported on the finding, which has already undergone both laboratory and animal testing, and is awaiting permission for clinical trials in humans.
Desprez, a molecular biologist, spent decades studying ID-1, the gene that causes cancer to spread. Meanwhile, fellow researcher Sean McAllister was studying the effects of Cannabidiol, or CBD, a non-toxic, non-psychoactive chemical compound found in the cannabis plant. Finally, the pair collaborated, combining CBD and cells containing high levels of ID-1 in a petri dish.
“What we found was that his Cannabidiol could essentially ‘turn off’ the ID-1,” Desprez told HuffPost. The cells stopped spreading and returned to normal.
 
Complete article here:
http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Pot-compound-seen-as-tool-against-cancer-3875562.php

By Lee Romney, Los Angeles Times

A U.S. crackdown on pot shops threatens a father’s search for cannabidiol in hopes of halting his son’s seizures from Dravet syndrome.

 
MODESTO —Topamax. Depakote. Phenobarbital. The list goes on. Before Jayden David turned 5, he had tried a dozen powerful medications to tame a rare form of epilepsy. The side effects were devastating.
There were grand mal seizures that lasted more than an hour. Hundreds of times a day, muscle twitches contorted his impish face.
“If he wasn’t sleeping, he was seizing,” said Jayden’s father, Jason David.
Feeling helpless, David said, he contemplated suicide. He prayed. Then one day he heard about a teenager who was expelled from school for using marijuana to help control seizures.
So began the pair’s journey into California’s medical cannabis culture.
In the 14 months since, the little boy has been swallowing droppers full of a solution made mostly of cannabidiol, or CBD, the second most prominent of marijuana’s 100 or so cannabinoids. Unlike the dominant THC, cannabidiol is not psychoactive, so the sweet-tasting infusion Jayden takes four times a day doesn’t make him high.
Down from 22 prescription pills per day to four, he now eats solid food, responds to his father’s incessant requests for kisses and dances in his Modesto living room to the “Yo Gabba Gabba!” theme song. The frequency and intensity of his seizures have been greatly reduced.
 
Complete article here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-customized-marijuana-20120914,0,1853600,full.story

Valerie Hauch

Danny Auger has a licence to use marijuana for pain relief after his arm was reattached, but is fighting to have workers’ compensation pay for it, as it would for a number of painkillers that can be addictive.         
ANDREW FRANCIS WALLACE/TORONTO STAR
 
It would be easier on Danny Auger’s already thin wallet if he just took a prescribed painkiller to deal with the chronic pain he suffers from nerve damage, due to a horrific 2009 construction accident that almost completely severed one arm.
He is able to get medically prescribed drugs — no matter how addictive — paid for by the Workplace Safety & Insurance Board (formerly Worker’s Compensation Board).
But the 47-year-old Orillia man knows and fears the addictive aspects of painkillers and prefers to use marijuana (mostly through ingestion, occasionally smoking) to deal with his pain. For about two years he’s had a licence from Health Canada, supported by documentation from a medical doctor, that allows him to legally use it after obtaining it from a designated grower.
 
Complete article here:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1258095–workers-comp-claim-seeks-medical-marijuana

By Bryan Labby, CBC News

 
Many Alberta farmers have taken to hemp to round out their crops and some say they’re making a tidy profit.
According to a recent study done by Alberta Agriculture, farmers in the province seeded the most hemp in all of Canada at 6,434 hectares last year.
The preliminary estimate for this year is 8,000 hectares.
“As long as we keep making money we’ll keep growing it,” says Will Van Roessel.
 
Complete article here:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/story/2012/09/16/calgary-hemp-farms.html

 
More than 100 million people in this country have tried marijuana at some point. More than 28 million will do so this year. It will not make them dangerous or more interesting. It should not make them criminals.
Marijuana’s critics cite proven negative effects of heavy use: loss of concentration and short-term memory, poor educational performance, decreased drive and ambition (the “amotivational syndrome”), impaired motor skills, damage to the lungs and circulatory system, increased anxiety and paranoia, and, in extreme cases, psychosis. Defenders acknowledge these problems but note that the overwhelming majority of users are not heavy users. Most people who smoke marijuana do so as most drinkers drink alcohol — on an infrequent or quite moderate basis.
The greatest harms associated with cannabis are not the effects of the drug but of our drug policies, which vary widely from state to state. In Alaska, possession of up to four ounces of the drug (more than enough for a hundred joints) in one’s residence is legal, as is possession of fewer than 25 plants. In Texas, possession of less than two ounces is a Class B misdemeanor, which can mean as many as 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine. In practice, it usually draws probation, but it’s not “just a ticket.” A kid can be tossed out of school or lose a college loan or scholarship. A parent can lose custody of a child or be barred from subsidized housing. And conviction for a drug offense, even a misdemeanor, can make it extremely difficult to land a job — forever.
 
Complete article here: 
http://blog.chron.com/bakerblog/2012/09/marijuana-a-case-for-legalization/

Jacob Sullum

 
A few months ago, New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch signed a bill declaring that “in all criminal proceedings the court shall permit the defense to inform the jury of its right to judge the facts and the application of the law in relation to the facts in controversy.” Although the new law does not take effect until next January, a case decided yesterday in Belknap County illustrates the importance of the nullification power it recognizes. A jury unanimously acquitted Doug Darrell, a 59-year-old Rastafarian charged with marijuana cultivation, after his lawyer, Mark Sisti, argued that a conviction would be unjust in light of the fact that Darrell was growing cannabis for his own religious and medicinal use. More remarkably, Judge James O’Neill instructed the jury that “even if you find that the State has proven each and every element of the offense charged beyond a reasonable doubt, you may still find the defendant not guilty if you have a conscientious feeling that a not guilty verdict would be a fair result in this case.”
 
Complete article here:
http://reason.com/blog/2012/09/14/new-hampshire-jury-acquits-pot-growing-r