By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~

Got tech aplenty, but still no mad rolling skills? A new Android app aims to help novice marijuana users learn how to roll a joint.

By GWEN FLORIO Missoulian helenair.com

MISSOULA — Call it the Pot Shot Heard ‘Round the World.
Oh, wait. Somebody already did that.
The Examiner online news site — one of many news organizations that picked up on the story of a Missoula jury pool that dug in its heels last month at the prospect of trying a case involving “a couple of buds” of marijuana — put a variation of that headline on its story.
Others likewise had fun with it. “The Great Montana Marijuana Mutiny,” the Wall Street Journal’s legal blog termed it.
“Where There’s Smoke, There’s Change,” pronounced the Toronto Star.
And Huffington Post declared in a possible first that “Sanity Broke Out in Missoula, Montana, Today.”
Headline hijinks aside, the jury pool’s action — and the reaction to it — has serious ramifications for continued prosecution of low-level nonviolent drug crimes, not just in Missoula County but around the country.
“It was almost like a slap in the face to the system,” said John Zeimet, of the moment on Dec. 16 when he watched his fellow prospective jurors, one after another, tell Missoula County District Judge Dusty Deschamps that not only were they disinclined to convict, but wondered aloud why taxpayer money was being wasted on the case.
“The people stood up and spoke out.”
Read complete article here:
http://helenair.com/news/article_2c062266-1701-11e0-8563-001cc4c002e0.html

Racheal Tamagni at home with her dogs before the raid

 By KAREN VELIE 
Medical marijuana advocates plan to protest against what they claim were aggressive and uncalled for raids on local cannabis delivery services at a rally planned for Tuesday, Jan. 11 at 7:30 a.m., in front of the San Luis Obispo County Courthouse. 
During the December 27 arrests, one man suffered a heart attack, guns were held to the heads of children as they were drug from their beds, family pets were kicked, grandparents were handcuffed and forced to lie on the floor and children were removed from their parents’ custody, multiple sources said.
Read complete article here:
http://calcoastnews.com/2011/01/aggressive-marijuana-busts-prompt-protests/

Anna Webb – Idaho Statesman

The Willie Nelson Pot Party Global Public Smoke Out is at 4 p.m., Saturday at the corner of Front and 8th Streets in Downtown Boise. The public is invited.

Read complete article here:

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2011/01/01/1473074/idaho-moms-for-marijuana-will.html

Incoming District Attorney C. David Eyster plans to weed out the weed cases clogging the court system, among other changes he has in mind for his four-year term.
Eyster won the race against incumbent Meredith Lintott with 53 percent of the county’s vote in November, and will be sworn in as Mendocino County District Attorney at 11:30 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 3, in Room E of the Mendocino County Superior Courthouse.
Eyster calls the District Attorney’s job “the gatekeeper for the criminal justice system,” and as a first order of business, he plans to review all open cases and dismiss any he thinks should not be in the court system.
“I believe there are cases in the (district attorney’s) office that shouldn’t be there,” he said. “It makes no sense to allow cases to go through the system that should never have passed the gate to begin with.”
Currently, the District Attorney’s Office pushes too many cases into the court system that are later dismissed, he says, especially marijuana cases.
He said there are marijuana farmers who are trying to comply with the law, some who don’t know how to comply.
In cases where growers appear to be trying to comply, according to Eyster, a better practice than the one currently used is to give the growers a deadline by which to “get legal” and refer them to the Sheriff’s Office, which sells zip ties and issues permits for gardens that meet the state’s and the county’s guidelines.
“I’m compassionate and tolerant of people who are trying to comply with the law,” said Eyster, who is currently a Ukiah defense attorney.
Read complete article here:
http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/ci_16958419

by Phillip Smith

Bruce Grant–Newly unemployed drug war bureaucrat seeks position. (Image courtesy Florida governor’s office)

The Florida Office of Drug Control is going out of business. The four-man fiefdom in the Sunshine State’s drug war bureaucracy has fallen afoul of incoming Republican Governor-elect Rick Scott’s war on state spending and was notified last Friday that it would be out of business come January.
The office was established by Gov. Jeb Bush (R) and its FY 2010-2011 budget is $551,300. Its charge was reducing substance abuse in Florida and helping set state drug policy. The office put out an annual report, as well as other reports, compiled statistics, lobbied for tighter restrictions on the state’s burgeoning pain medicine clinics, and sought funds for prescription monitoring when the state legislature failed to allocate them.

Read complete article here:

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/dec/27/florida_drug_czar_office_falls_b

By Karen McCowan

Graphic by Steve Perez

Potential criminals, take note: Marijuana growers may seem like soft targets, but hard time awaits those who rob them in Lane County.
This month alone, Lane County Circuit Court judges have sentenced six men to a collective 58 years in prison for armed robberies of area medical marijuana growers.
Read complete article here:
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/updates/25663983-55/marijuana-growers-medical-county-criminals.csp

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Beginning January 1, some changes are coming to the penalty for possessing marijuana in California.  
Marijuana possession will be treated by law enforcement the same as a speeding ticket. Carrying up to an ounce of marijuana will be reduced from a misdemeanor to an infraction.  
Anyone charged with possession will not be arrested, will not face jail time, and will not have a criminal record. As part of the new law, those caught with up to an ounce of marijuana will not even have to appear in court.
http://www.krcrtv.com/news/26295908/detail.html

BY CHRIS PIPPOS

GREEN MACHINE: Burnie commercial industrial hemp farmer for the past decade, Ian Chamley, said changes must be made so that Australia did not remain one of the few western countries to prohibit the food consumption of industrial hemp products. Picture: Grant Wells.

 
TRIALS of growing industrial hemp varieties have been hailed a success and the North-West is ideally suited to growing the crop, according to the state’s peak farming body which is lobbying the State Government over the matter.
Some of the hemp, part of six Tasmanian farm trials including properties in Burnie and Deloraine and involving a range of varieties, has been harvested and might be exported to process products such as oils and clothing.
Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association chief executive Jan Davis said state MPs seemed receptive to calls to relax legislation to encourage an industrial hemp industry in Tasmania, adding it had the potential to become “a major export product”.
http://www.theadvocate.com.au/news/local/news/general/tfga-has-high-hopes-for-hemp/2036016.aspx

 
  By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~

Photo: Hampden-Sydney College

Delegate Harvey Morgan: “Making simple possession a civil rather than a criminal offense makes sense”

Virginia lawmakers will have a chance to end criminal penalties for simple marijuana possession when the Assembly convenes in January — and the fight to decriminalize pot is being led by an 80-year-old Republican.
GOP Delegate Harvey Morgan, an assistant clinical professor of pharmacy at Virginia Commonwealth University, is sponsoring House Bill 1443, which would replace the criminal fine for pot possession with a civil penalty and eliminate the 30-day jail sentence and criminal record following conviction.

Read complete article here:

http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2010/12/80-year-old_republican_leads_fight_to_decrim_pot_i.php