Cannabis > Cannabis News Archives > March 2009
30/03/2009 | New Zealand
Twelve arrested, 1800 cannabis plants seized
By Unknown - TVNZ.com
Twelve people have been arrested and charged with drug-related offences and more than 1800 cannabis plants seized in a crackdown in the Central Districts police region.
The Manawatu Standard reported that in a two-day raid this month police in conjunction with the air force using Iroquois helicopters, police seized 1834 plants across the Manawatu, Horowhenua and Tararua regions.
27/03/2009 | USA
Cannabis inhibits sperm function: Do they forget where they're going?
By Rachel Hillier Pratt - Albuquerque Health News Examiner
During the recent internet town hall meeting, President Obama answered questions about the economy. When the President addressed the question of marijuana legalization (asked by 3.5 million people), the audience seemed to think it was a joke. Yet what is funny about suggesting legalization could promote green jobs, solve health care issues, and provide a new tax that could help pay off the national debt?
Even though millions of "potheads" set aside the lemon-drops long enough to participate in the political system, President Obama still claimed legalizing marijuana would not solve our economic crisis.
Even so, the good news about medical uses for marijuana might be trumped by the bad news.
26/03/2009 | USA
Hemp Is Not Pot: It's the Economic Stimulus & Green Jobs Solution We Need
By Dara Colwell - AlterNet
While Uncle Sam's scramble for new revenue sources has recently kicked up the marijuana debate -- to legalize and tax, or not? -- hemp's feasibility as a stimulus plan has received less airtime.
But with a North American market that exceeds $300 million in annual retail sales and continued rising demand, industrial hemp could generate thousands of sustainable new jobs, helping America to get back on track.
26/03/2009 | USA
Drug Agents Raid SF Medical Marijuana Clinic
By Joe Vazquez - cbs5.com
One week after President Barack Obama's top law enforcement official seemed to indicate the feds would no longer raid pot clubs, DEA agents busted a medical marijuana facility in San Francisco Wednesday night.
As agents carried large plastic containers of marijuana plants out of Emmalyn's California Cannabis Clinic at 1597 Howard Street, a small crowd of protesters formed a gauntlet outside the door, booing the agents and chanting, "our medicine is marijuana … listen to Obama!"
DEA spokeswoman Casey McEnry told CBS 5 the documents regarding the raid are sealed, so the DEA was not able to give any details.
25/03/2009 | USA
Hearing Set For Illinois Medical Marijuana Bill
By Unknown - cbs2chicago.com
The debate over whether to legalize medical marijuana in Illinois will heat up Wednesday in Springfield.
A special legislative subcommittee will hold a hearing Wednesday on Senate Bill 1381, a proposal that would legalize marijuana for those suffering from debilitating medical conditions, including some cancers. The 3 p.m. hearing will be followed by a debate by the Senate Public Health Committee.
The bill "permits the person or the person's primary caregiver to legally possess no more than 7 dried cannabis plants and 2 ounces of dried usable cannabis." It is sponsored by State Sens. William R. Haine (D-Alton), Iris Martinez (D-Chicago), and Jeffrey Schoenberg (D-Evanston).
23/03/2009 | Canada
Cannabis Culture magazine to go online only
By P.m. Jaworski - Western Standard
According to Marc Emery's facebook status, Cannabis Culture, the pre-eminent libertarian marijuana-focused magazine, will follow the Western Standard and shut off its printing presses in favour of an online-only publication.
Here is his status, as well as his comments on the status thread:
"Marc Scott Emery has decided to no longer publish Cannabis Culture Magazine on paper because each issues loses about $40,000 and advertising & circulation is falling off."
19/03/2009 | Japan
Drug suspect, caught at Narita, had 273 packs of cannabis in stomach
By Unknown - Japan Today
A 41-year-old man was arrested in February for importing cannabis from India. He had swallowed 273 small packs of the drug when he arrived at Narita airport, police said Thursday.
Nobutaka Sato was arrested on Feb 22 for allegedly importing cannabis, weighing 551 grams and worth 4.4 million yen. A customs officer suspected Sato after he was unable to explain his one-month travel in India and Nepal. He was inspected by an X-ray machine which detected the packs in his stomach.
18/03/2009 | USA
Smoking your meds
By Joshua McCracken - Metro Spirit
In September, Elizabeth Wilsey of South Augusta became one the nation’s most unusual casualties in the government’s war against marijuana and medical marijuana users.
According to news reports, 80-year-old Wilsey, a white-haired grandmother, was a medical patient who used marijuana for relief of severe migraine headaches. When Richmond County narcotics officers raided her home, they found approximately one-half pound of marijuana.
They charged her with possession with intent to distribute. She admitted selling it. Sources close to the case say the reason she had so much on hand was because her dealer was moving out of the city, so she stocked up, not knowing when she’d get more.
18/03/2009 | Australia
Cannabis laws cause harm: Aussie expert
By Valkerie Mangnall - The Sydney Morning Herald
Many harms associated with cannabis use result from prohibition rather than the drug itself, an Australian academic has told a United Nations review of drug policy.
Professor Robin Room, a sociologist at the University of Melbourne's School of Population Health has spent much of the past week telling meetings in Vienna that international conventions on cannabis are out of touch and do little to influence the number of users.
Prof Room said while penalties were generally low for cannabis use and possession globally, young people and minorities were more likely than other groups to become caught up in the legal system.
Arrests caused significant suffering, such as personal and family humiliation, as did convictions, which often excluded people from certain jobs and activities.
17/03/2009 | USA
Medical Marijuana Has Come of Age
By Paul Armentano - ReasonOnline.com
Ten years ago today, the use of medical marijuana went from fringe to mainstream.
March 17, 2009 marks the 10-year-anniversary of the publication of the Institute for Medicine's landmark study on medical cannabis: Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base. At the time this report was commissioned, in response to the passage of California's Compassionate Use Act of 1996, many in the public and the mainstream media were skeptical about pot's potential therapeutic value.
The publication of the Institute for Medicine's findings—which concluded that marijuana possessed medicinal properties to treat and control pain and to stimulate appetite—provided the issue with long-overdue credibility, and began in earnest a political discourse that continues today.
15/03/2009 | USA
Marijuana activist gets her supply from unusual source: Uncle Sam
By Nat Levy - The Register Guard
In 2007, more than 775,000 people were arrested in the United States for possession of marijuana. In that same year, four people received their supply of the very same drug from the U.S. government. Elvy Musikka was one of them. Musikka, a 66-year-old Eugene resident by way of Florida, each year receives several tins, each containing 300 marijuana cigarettes grown by the federal government at the University of Mississippi.
She was the third person, and the first woman, to qualify to receive the government-grown product. She did so following an arrest for growing marijuana, and a subsequent court case where her doctors testified that, unless Musikka was allowed access to marijuana, she would go blind.
“I wanted to go to court because I really don’t believe there is any government that has the right to demand blindness and suffering from their patients,” Musikka said. “That’s who they’re supposed to protect.”
14/03/2009 | USA
Feds to Sentence Man for Complying with State Med. Marijuana Law
By Americans for Safe Access - OpposingViews.com
On March 23, convicted Morro Bay collective operator Charles C. Lynch will be sentenced in federal court for obeying California law. If you follow medical cannabis politics in California, Charles’ story is already familiar. He opened Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers (CCCC) in Morro Bay in 2006, with the blessing of the City Council and support of the community.
San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Pat Hedges objected to his facility, however, and called in the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to bust Charles in 2007. He was convicted in 2008, after the judge disallowed any testimony about medical cannabis or state law. Now, he faces up to 100 years in federal prison – despite the fact that all of his conduct was legal under state law!
This story has become all too common for medical cannabis patients and providers in California. Charles is one of approximately one hundred people waiting for trial, sentencing, or serving time for medical cannabis “crimes.”
10/03/2009 | USA
Putting pot under the microscope
By Unknown - Los Angeles Times
The attorney general should heed calls to end the DEA's obstruction of serious research into the medicinal value of marijuana.
At the heart of the debate about marijuana's medicinal value is a dearth of academic research into its therapeutic properties. For 40 years, the federal government has frustrated such study by restricting cultivation of marijuana for research to a single source, the University of Mississippi. Most recently, the Bush administration denied the application of a well-regarded botanist at the University of Massachusetts to establish another cultivation facility, despite a ruling by an administrative law judge determining that it should go forward.
For eight years, professor Lyle Craker has struggled to obtain a license from the Drug Enforcement Administration to grow research-grade cannabis. His proposal is to supply marijuana to DEA-approved researchers who have undergone a rigorous review and approval process by the U.S. Public Health Service, and whose protocols have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The DEA, however, has behaved as if this serious scientist wants to start a backyard plot for campus parties.
08/03/2009 | Nigeria
NDLEA destroys 82,253kg of cannabis in Edo
By Fidelis Soriwei - PunchNG.com
The National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency on Saturday burnt 82,253 kilogrammes of Cannabis Sativa popularly known as Igbo in Benin, the Edo State capital.
The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the NDLEA, Mr. Ahmadu Giade, who supervised the destruction of the hard drug seized by the state command led by Mr. Okey Ihebom, said the destruction of the item was the second conducted by the agency this year.
07/03/2009 | Australia
Police seize $4m cannabis crop near Mudgee
By Cowra Community News-
STATE Crime Command Drug Squad detectives have raided a property near Mudgee, arresting four men and dismantling a $4-million cannabis plantation.
Just before 8am yesterday (Friday), more than two dozen police from Strike Force Bokhara, comprising officers from the Drug Squad, Dog Squad and Mudgee and Hunter Valley Local Area Commands, executed a search warrant on the isolated 600-acre farm in Cliffdale Rd at Turill, 80km north of Mudgee.
Four men – aged 31, 36, 44 and 61 – were arrested at the scene, which was under covert surveillance for several days.
06/03/2009 | Australia
New police chief open to legalising heroin
By Rick Wallace - AdelaideNow.com.au
NEW Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland says he would support decriminalising a range of drugs if the benefits outweighed the risks. In an interview with The Weekend Australian, he said he was "cautiously agnostic" about decriminalising drugs. He said police could not win the war on drugs.
But while he supported harm minimisation approaches for users, dealers should face the full force of the law. "For the people who are making lots of money out of it, I am absolutely in favour of throwing everything at them and locking them away," Mr Overland said.
06/03/2009 | Australia
Cannabis plan seemed like good idea
By Ross Irby - The Northern Star
A 'GRANDIOSE' idea by a Northern Rivers farmer to grow cannabis and then use the funds to restock his acreage with native trees and buy chickens backfired when police discovered his secret stash with a street value of $556,000.
Peter Stear Jackson, a grandfather from Koonorigan, was sentenced to 18 months of weekend detention after pleading guilty in Lismore District Court to growing and commercial supply charges, involving 134 cannabis plants, 25.9kg of cannabis leaf and head, 1.067kg of cannabis resin, and 577 cannabis seeds.
When police discovered the drugs on May 1, 2008, Jackson told the officers he only smoked cannabis 'once a year' at the annual Nimbin Mardi Grass festival.
06/03/2009 | USA
Cattle hide cannabis
By Unknown - WeeklyTimesNow.com.au
WHAT better way could there be to smuggle drugs? No one would think of searching for cannabis in the bottom of a fully-loaded smelly old cattle truck. And who would want to?
Smugglers stashed more than 771kg of high-grade marijuana into the floor of the truck before loading it up with cattle to make the trip from Canada to the US.
But there is no fooling US customs officers and no search they find too odious.
05/03/2009 | USA
Marijuana found behind false wall at a Chicago restaurant
By Associated Press - WQAD.com
CHICAGO (AP) — Police have seized more than 300 pounds of marijuana found behind a false wall in the basement of a Chicago restaurant.
According to authorities, Chicago police and members of the Illiana Regional Gang Task Force executed a search warrant at the Taste of Mexico on the city's South Side.
Chicago police Comdr. Eric Carter says task force members received information that marijuana was being kept in "multiple rooms" at the store. He says 300 pounds of marijuana was seized.
05/03/2009 | Australia
Cannabis bust up in smoke
By Amy Remeikis - Sunshine Coast Daily
It is not the most common household plant although it can make a fetching foliage screen. But given the additional costs, including jail time, you are usually better off just buying a hedge plant. One which isn't illegal.
But police were allegedly greeted with 32 mature cannabis sativa plants, as well as a large quantity of cannabis seeds, when they carried out a search warrant on a Palmview property on Tuesday.
Police from the Sunshine Coast District Tactical Crime Squad first attended a Meridan Plains home with a search warrant and allegedly discovered numerous drug items, including marijuana.
04/03/2009 | Australia
Raids net $2.3m in cannabis
By Unknown - Manning River Times
Cannabis plants with a street value of more than $2.3 million have been taken out of circulation in a series of police raids on properties in the Taree area.
Three people have been charged with various drug offences including cultivating prohibited plants and supplying prohibited drugs. Police said yesterday more arrests are likely as they continue their investigations.
04/03/2009 | UK
Cannabis grower's boast on YouTube
By John Coles - The Sun
A DRUG user was caught growing cannabis after he posted a video of his factory on YouTube — under his real name. Dopey Shane Burfield, 25, also put his date of birth and home town beside the footage.
Cops got a tip-off and quickly traced him. They raided his home in two riot vans and found a £500 cannabis plant and hydroponics equipment in a “grow tent” in a bedroom.
02/03/2009 | USA
No Better Time to End Cannabis Prohibition
By Patrick Goggin - FogCityJournal.com
After staring down the barrel at California’s $43 billion budget deficit for the past several months, rookie San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano last week introduced legislation to legalize and tax marijuana. A self-described “martini guy,” Ammiano rightfully identifies California and the nation’s number-one cash crop as a great revenue generator during a time when: “We’re all jonesing now for money.” The time appears near for legalizing and regulating cannabis in all its forms and uses.
Seventy-two years ago during the nation’s last great economic crisis, Harry Anslinger, as Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, led the charge to replace alcohol prohibition with cannabis when FDR signed into law the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. Tragically, this Act also led to the demise of the highly versatile industrial cannabis crop , aka hemp, with the last known legal US hemp crop farmed in Wisconsin in 1957.
Today, science has increasingly shown the incredible value of the species Cannabis Sativa L. which can be used as a medicine, in food, in textiles, building materials, and as an energy source. But, for years,we mostly heard it stigmatized as a “gateway drug.” Yet cannabis is no more of a gateway drug than alcohol, tobacco, or sugar—and studies have shown it is far less harmful than these when used recreationally. Indeed, the time has come for a more sensible drug policy and Ammiano’s legalization bill is a great first step.
NEWS HEADLINES
MARCH 2009
- Twelve arrested, 1800 cannabis plants seized
- Cannabis inhibits sperm function: Do they forget where they're going?
- Hemp Is Not Pot: It's the Economic Stimulus & Green Jobs Solution We Need
- Drug Agents Raid SF Medical Marijuana Clinic
- Hearing Set For Illinois Medical Marijuana Bill
- Cannabis Culture magazine to go online only
- Drug suspect, caught at Narita, had 273 packs of cannabis in stomach
- Smoking your meds
- Cannabis laws cause harm: Aussie expert
- Medical Marijuana Has Come of Age
- Marijuana activist gets her supply from unusual source: Uncle Sam
- Feds to Sentence Man for Complying with State Med. Marijuana Law
- Putting pot under the microscope
- NDLEA destroys 82,253kg of cannabis in Edo
- Police seize $4m cannabis crop near Mudgee
- New police chief open to legalising heroin
- Cannabis plan seemed like good idea
- Cattle hide cannabis
- Marijuana found behind false wall at a Chicago restaurant
- Cannabis bust up in smoke
- Raids net $2.3m in cannabis
- Cannabis grower's boast on YouTube
- No Better Time to End Cannabis Prohibition
