Posts filed under: ‘we make it simple for you‘
US paper seeks
pot correspondent
A US newspaper says it has received well over 100 applicants for the post of marijuana critic – many of whom have offered to work for free.
The alternative Denver newspaper, Westword, is seeking a writer for its weekly review of Colorado’s booming medical marijuana dispensaries.
But there is a catch – candidates must have a medical ailment allowing them to enter a dispensary and use marijuana.
Fourteen US states now allow the sale of some sort of medical cannabis.
‘Stoned’
 |
 Compensation will be meagre – and no, we can’t expense your purchases 
|
“Keep in mind this isn’t about assessing the quality of the medicine on site; it’s about evaluating the quality of the establishment,” says the Westword job posting.
“After all, we can’t have our reviewer be stoned all the time.”
States like Colorado and California, where medical use is legal, have seen an explosion in the number of pot shops – ranging from upmarket clinics to dingy drugs dens.
The dispensaries sell more than a dozen varieties, from White Widow to the less expensive Afghan Gold Seal. Some cost up to $360 (£219) an ounce.
But the writer of Westword’s Mile Highs and Lows column is expected to focus on the dispensaries, not the drugs.
“Compensation will be meagre,” says the posting. It says the paper can’t pay for marijuana purchases, “although that would be pretty cool.”
compliance brings privilege
Add a comment 01/11/2009
Posted on October 22, 2009 by
Lex
The Obama administration threw a bone to the lunatic, fringe left a few days ago. The memo to federal prosecutors in medical marijuana states has garnered hearty applause from Greenwald and the Marijuana Policy Project.
When elected, Obama said that federal raids on state-law legal marijuana cultivation and distribution would end. The didn’t, not by a long shot, and the reasoning was that the feds would continue to prosecute people who violated state and federal laws. That boils down to everyone, no matter their standing under state law. The latest memo simply tells prosecutors that it’s not a good use of their time to bring charges against those abiding by their State’s law.
So hold your applause. This memo amounts to nothing, which is precisely what’s it’s meant to amount to while simultaneously making Obama look like a good guy.
The Department of Justice is committed to the enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act in all States. Congress has determined that marijuana is a dangerous drug, and the illegal distribution and sale of marijuana is a serious crime and provides a significant source of revenue to large-scale criminal enterprises, gangs, and cartels. One timely example underscores the importance of our efforts to prosecute significant marijuana traffickers: marijuana distribution in the United States remains the single largest source of revenue for the Mexican cartels.
Note the Department’s commitment, “in all States”. I have to wonder what credentials Congress possess that enables it to determine how dangerous any drug is, as if that august body was known for its deep, careful thinkers and scientists. Furthermore, according to everything i’ve ever read, drug scheduling is under the purview of several departments that are all within the executive branch. That’s how Congress established the system when it determined which drugs were dangerous and which drugs weren’t. So the President could order the DEA, HHS and the FDA to review the scheduling of a drug and force Congress to be along for the ride.
Yes, marijuana trafficking is the single largest source of revenue for Mexican drug cartels. That’s because it’s illegal. I thought supply and demand was like the American catechism. Restricting supply only pushes prices, and hence profits, up. This idea that further restricting supply will somehow diminish cartel profits flies in the face of everything Ronald Reagan and common sense taught me…not that the two necessarily intersect.
As a general matter, pursuit of these priorities [catching druggies] should not focus federal resources in your States on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana. …prosecution of commercial enterprises that unlawfully market and sell marijuana for profit continues to be an enforcement priority of the Department. To be sure, claims of compliance with state or local law may mask operations inconsistent with the terms, conditions, or purposes of those laws, and federal law enforcement should not be deterred by such assertions when otherwise pursuing the Department’s core enforcement priorities.
So according to the Obama administration, if you’ve got cancer or aids and your supplier is giving you marijuana for free that’s ok. But just because someone is in full compliance with his State’s law is no protection. In other words, “Hey, don’t make us look like assholes by arresting someone who’s got six months to live.”
The administration produces a list of characteristics that should suggest prosecution. Some of them make sense, but there’s always a catch. “Evidence of money laundering activity” makes the list. As any monetary gain from the sale of marijuana is criminal under federal law, just about any use of marijuana proceeds could be considered money laundering. And if you don’t think that the DEA won’t see that argument, you’re high.
This guidance regarding resource allocation does not “legalize” marijuana or provide a legal defense to a violation of federal law, nor is it intended to create any privileges, benefits, or rights, substantive or procedural, enforceable by any individual, party or witness in any administrative, civil, or criminal matter. Nor does clear and unambiguous compliance with state law or the absence of one or all of the above factors create a legal defense to a violation of the Controlled Substances Act.
Get the picture?
Nor does this guidance preclude investigation or prosecution, even when there is clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state law, in particular circumstances where investigation or prosecution otherwise serves important federal interests.
It should be clear by now that there’s nothing in this memo worthy of applauding. Sure it’s a step in the right direction, but that only deserves the response, “It’s about damned time.”
The administration has the power to start the ball rolling on significant drug reform. Rescheduling would end the entire “debate”. Judging by election in results in states where a marijuana referendum was on the ballot in 2008, dope is a lot more popular than hope. There’s no political risk to Obama at the voter level. The voters who would be angered by the move won’t be voting Democratic before the second coming in any case. There are a at least few million who would probably vote for the politician who reforms marijuana laws regardless of anything else the politician does. The youth vote would basically deify such a politician.
Big time donors like the pharmaceutical industry wouldn’t like it, which might indicate who’s side the President is on, but see above and ask yourself if it would even matter for the one more election he can win.
But there almost certainly won’t be any movement on a relatively simple problem with a pretty straight-forward solution that would have positive benefits in other areas of concern like health care and the economy. With the ability to legally cultivate marijuana there are probably a lot of unemployed American facing foreclosure who might attempt an entrepreneurial response to the death of the American Dream. Places like Southeastern Kentucky would have a valuable cash crop, and they probably wouldn’t need so much tax-funded aid. Hell, folks in those places might even start thinking that Obama ain’t so bad after all.
Never mind the taxation question. Enforcing taxation will be even more difficult than enforcing criminalization. Let the money flow through the real economy and accept that it will trickle up. Smart states will establish retail distribution licensing similar to the existing structure for alcohol. It will raise local and state revenues; keep control over the retail sector; and be subject to sales tax. We’ll just have to take our chances on person-to-person transactions being claimed as miscellaneous income. Regardless, that money will be spent and serve the greater economy.
Plenty of savings can be found by not wasting tax dollars on prosecution and incarceration of marijuana cases. And i’ll bet that law enforcement will still have plenty to do.
The answer is simple and frankly, the question is stupid. So you’ll have to forgive me if i hold my applause until the end…though i might not be able to hold them if some intrepid journalist asks the President if he thinks it would have been better for the nation if he’d been convicted of his youthful indiscretions and never gotten to be President. Clearly you can smoke pot and grow up to be President, you just can’t get caught doing it.
Add a comment 27/10/2009
From Obama,
sanity on marijuana policy
Steve ChapmanOctober 22, 2009
In 1973, Robert Randall was going blind from glaucoma when he discovered that smoking marijuana seemed to help his condition. That didn’t matter to police when they found the Washington, D.C., resident growing cannabis and arrested him. Preferring to keep his sight, Randall sued the federal government, arguing that he was entitled to smoke pot as a “medical necessity.”
It was a far-fetched argument — but it worked. In 1976, a court ruled in Randall’s favor. Before long, the federal government found itself in the strange position of supplying marijuana to him and a handful of other patients under a “compassionate use” program.
The compassion didn’t go very far. President George H.W. Bush stopped the acceptance of new patients into the program in 1992 rather than admit all those annoying AIDS victims, insisting that it sent a dangerous message to young people.
The real danger, of course, was the message that government policy on cannabis was ignorant and irrational. But since then, one president and one drug czar after another has furiously resisted efforts to allow therapeutic use of the drug no matter how helpful it may be to the sick and dying.
Until now. This week, the Justice Department kept a promise made by candidate Barack Obama when it announced that henceforth, “it will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana.”
The change is not only historic but humane and intelligent, two adjectives rarely applied to federal drug policy. Science has established that cannabis has useful properties for the treatment of various diseases, countless physicians have endorsed it, and 14 states have allowed sick people access to marijuana. But for three decades, the people in charge of drug policy in the federal government didn’t give a rat’s bottom.
In 1996, after California voters approved a medical marijuana law, President Bill Clinton‘s administration fought it every step of the way — filing lawsuits to close cannabis buyers clubs, threatening to strip the licenses of doctors who recommended marijuana to patients and denouncing the entire program as “a Cheech and Chong show.”
President George W. Bush‘s administration stuck to the same course. It raided California dispensaries and went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in a successful effort to crush the notion — the conservative notion, come to think of it — that states should have the power to set their own policy on pot.
But before long, the idea had caught on not just in hippy-dippy California but in less fashionable places like Alaska, Maine, Michigan and Montana. Some 75 percent of Americans think doctors should be permitted to prescribe cannabis. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws reports that in 33 state referendums since 1992, voters have embraced liberalization 30 times.
Most of the time, the two major parties are about as different as Coke and Pepsi. But last year, they presented a stark contrast on this issue. Republicans denounced the use of marijuana as medicine, while Democrats lined up to criticize the prevailing federal policy. Obama took a clear position, declaring it “entirely appropriate” for physicians to prescribe cannabis and pledging, “What I’m not going to be doing is using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue.”
But as opponents of the Iraq war, “don’t ask don’t tell” and Guantanamo know, a promise made by Obama is not exactly money in the bank. This time, though, he deserves full credit for doing what he said he would do, repudiating a bipartisan legacy of pigheaded stupidity.
What’s more, Obama may not stop there. Some reformers expect the administration to agree to let a scientist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst grow cannabis for research on its medical potential — something the Bush administration opposed, lest the research contradict its ideology.
During the campaign, Obama also indicated he favors scrapping a 21-year-old policy that forbids cities from using federal money to finance needle-exchange programs to block the spread of AIDS, and the House voted last summer to lift the ban. The White House drug czar has even solicited advice from critics of the drug war, whom previous drug czars saw as deranged.
Robert Randall, who died in 2001, might have been surprised to hear the federal government admit the possibility that it was wrong about marijuana. He probably wouldn’t have been surprised that it took 33 years.
Steve Chapman is a member of the Tribune’s editorial board and blogs at chicagotribune.com/chapman
schapman@tribune.com
compliance brings privilege
Add a comment 27/10/2009
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/medical-marijuana-longer-federally-prosecuted-states-legal-obama/story?id=8912772
—————————–
certified dealer education
STEPHANOPOULOS: Another trigger, that’s exactly right. But before we go,
another decision I think did not get as much play as maybe it should have
this week, the Attorney General Eric Holder announcing that the federal
government would no longer prosecute marijuana cases in states that have
approved medical marijuana laws.
ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: We will not use our limited resources in the
fight against the marijuana trade against those people who are using it
consistent with state law and to fight serious illnesses, such as cancer or
other diseases.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Right now, 14 states have medical marijuana laws. A lot of
others considering it. So this is a significant announcement.
WILL: What he’s saying is we will not pre-empt state laws with federal
poweras we could. What that means is where medical marijuana laws are enforced,
doctors will advertise, as they’re doing in California, that they will give
a prescription for medical use.
Now medical use can be marijuana to cure anxiety, to cure insomnia, all the
rest. And you will have what you now have in California, where marijuana is
essentially legalized. We have legalized gambling in this country over two
generations. It used to be considered a sin and a crime. With no national
debate, and no decision moment, we just did it. We legalized prostitution as
anyone who opens a telephone book and looks under “escort” can tell
you. And we may be doing, probably in the process now of legalizing marijuana.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Good idea?
PODESTA: Well, I think that overstates the case. I think that what Eric
Holder did was to say look, we have scarce resources. We’re not going to go
after people with glaucoma or cancer or whatever on medical marijuana.
They’re still going with a vengeance really against the Mexican drug
cartels. So I think there’s — this is kind of a mixed bag. I think we
won’tsee a full legalization of marijuana until somebody figures out that if you
tax it, maybe you can pay for health care.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That might be what drives it.
WILL: Eighty percent of the revenue of the Mexican cartels is marijuana. If
you really want to go after the Mexican cartels and I’m not saying that is
the only criterion for public policy, you’d legalize marijuana.
STEPHANOPOULOS: We are seeing gradually the public more open to the idea of
legalization. It was in the 20 percent throughout the 1990s, hit 30 percent
around 2000. Now it’s well above 40.
INGRAHAM: Yes, I think all of us have either gone through cancer or family
members and it’s a terribly painful disease. I think you have a lot of
sympathy. There’s a lot of public sympathy for medical marijuana use.
I think George hit on it, though. It’s being prescribed for a whole
range of issues. Like if you have pain from Botox injection, you can get medical
marijuana. That means a lot of people in California must be toking up, OK?
No, I’m just teasing. Look, I just have one question, does this mean
brownies are going to be for sale at the CVS and Walgreens? Because that’s
always been a product that’s been missing.
STEPHANOPOULOS: In Los Angeles, I think it may be, that’s right.
HUNT: Well now that I no longer have a teenager, I have a little bit
different view, a bit more permissive. I don’t think it’s a great
utilization of scarce federal resources to be prosecuting pot. I am not sure
if it’s going to lead to what George suggests. I’m not sure that would
be a bad idea. But I was at the University of Mississippi a couple of years ago
and it’s interesting, they grow marijuana on the campus. So, times are
A-changing.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The times are changing. I was just thinking back, could you
imagine Janet Reno in 1995, announcing that I’m not going to prosecute
this,there would have been a massive uproar.
INGRAHAM: We had jobs.
WILL: There was one problem and that is we talked to the federal drug czar
which I have done, marijuana is getting much better. They’re growing and
making it better in the sense that the active ingredient is much stronger
than it used to be.
TUCKER: Well, I wished that I believed that this was going to lead to some
broader federal look at the whole futile war on drugs. But as John just
mentioned, Eric Holder followed that announcement with massive raids on drug
cartels, which isn’t a bad idea. I just don’t think that this is a
relook at the futility on the war on drugs. I really think instead of just acting in a
small way to say, marijuana isn’t such a bad thing. Let’s relook at
all ofour drug laws, the way we fight the so-called war on drugs, because it
isn’t working.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I think John may be right. What’s going to drive that in
the long run are budget issues. That’s all we have time for today. You guys
continue this in the green room. You all can catch it on ABCNews.com and get
political updates all week long from our daily newsletter which is also on
ABCNews.com.
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003230573
********************
Sincerely,
Degé Coutee
Education & Advocacy Director
Patient Advocacy Network
www.CannabisSavesLives.com
Add a comment 26/10/2009
we provide a comprehensive
online compassionate care tutorial
unlike anything currently available
for medical marijuana compliance
we will make it simple for you
given the current state of green flag rules affairs
the growth of opportunity following the
obama states rights decision
the uncertainty of which
rules and guidelines to follow
the need for a certified pot dealer school
is more critical than ever
is $ 420. tuition too high
if it helps you get it right??
compliance brings privilege
Add a comment 26/10/2009
privilege & responsibility
the rule of law and the world of regulation
depends on education, sometimes mandatory,
to gain code compliance and maintain
the delicate balance of
privilege & responsibility
Privilege
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A privilege—etymologically “private law” or law relating to a specific individual—is a special entitlement or immunity granted by a government or other authority to a restricted group, either by birth or on a conditional basis. A privilege can be revoked in some cases. In modern democracies, a privilege is conditional and granted only after birth. By contrast, a right is an inherent, irrevocable entitlement held by all citizens or all human beings from birth. Miscellaneous privileges, e.g. the old common law privilege to title deeds, may still exist, though of little relevance today.[1]
In a broader sense, ‘privilege’ can refer to special powers or ‘de facto’ immunities held as a consequence of political power or wealth. Privilege of this sort may be transmitted by birth into a privileged class or achieved through individual actions. Compare elite.
One of the objectives of the French Revolution was the abolition of privilege. This meant the removal of separate laws for different social classes (nobility, clergy and ordinary people), instead subjecting everyone to the same common law. Privileges were abolished by the National Constituent Assembly on August 4, 1789.
Notes
- ^ Suzanna McNichol, The Law of Privilege (1st ed, 1992)
responsibility
Main Entry: re·spon·si·bil·i·ty
Pronunciation: \ri-ˌspän(t)-sə-ˈbi-lə-tē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural re·spon·si·bil·i·ties
Date: 1737
1 : the quality or state of being responsible: as a : moral, legal, or mental accountability b : reliability, trustworthiness
2 : something for which one is responsible : burden <has neglected his responsibilities>
green flags rules will bring green flag compliance
Add a comment 26/10/2009
gotweed.org +++ we make it simple for you to obtain green flag compliance
privilege & responsibility
the law and the world of regulation
green flags rules will bring green flag compliance
depends on education to gain compliance
green flag rules enable legal access to medical marijuana
if you decide to accept the privilege
you must accept the responsibility
our pot dealer school is about understanding
the green flag compliance obligations
howtobecomeapotdealer.com
&
gotweed.org
our blog to get answers and updates
is $ 420. tuition too high
if it helps you get it right??
invest in your green flag future
should each state REQUIRE mandatory green flag compliance??
or do we need the green flag rules??
federal u s attorney general guidelines for medical marijuana
until then
our how to become a pot dealer online tutorial class
with help you bridge the green flag information gap
clear, concise complete information
and a place to ask questions
and a list of green flag vendors & resources
will make it simple for you
green flag pot dealer school
good luck
gina
got420school@gmail.com
Add a comment 25/10/2009
hello, introducing
gina our automated mom
for green flag rules compliance
we make it simple for you
our blog assists you to gain complete legal standing
for any position within the compassionate care field
comprehensive compassionate care training
from experienced online instructors
we make it simple for you
please visit our green flag training websites:
howtobecomeapotdealer.com
420professor.com
grow420.net
Add a comment 22/10/2009
