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Missouri Veteran Says He Should Be Allowed to Grow Medical Marijuana Instead of Becoming a Morphine Addict

A wounded Missouri veteran is gearing up for a courtroom battle he says he shouldn’t have to fight. Prosecutors have slapped Ken Unger with a felony charge of growing medical marijuana in his home. Unger says it's strictly for medicinal use to ease chronic pain cause by an accident he had in 1983 while on a tour of duty. "Yes I was growing marijuana, and I was growing it for my own personal consumption," he said. Unger was prescribed morphine to control his pain, which he says he's tired of. "I feel like I’m totally trapped," Unger said. "I’m not allowed to do anything for pain relief other than be a morphine addict, and I don’t want to be a morphine addict."
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Arizona Conducts Last Medical Marijuana Forum

The Arizona Department of Health Services has conducted three forums around the state this week to discuss rules for establishing medical marijuana dispensaries. The final rules should be released by the end of March.
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Drug Trafficking Organizations Also Involved in Sex Trade, Expert Says

The head of a company that provides security for American citizens traveling in Mexico says powerful drug trafficking organizations are branching out into the $40-billion-a-year sex trafficking industry. They kidnap children and young people, demand ransom, but in many cases never return the victims, according to Brad Barker with Halo Security. He said a family might pay $100,000 ransom, but the kidnap victim can be worth much more in the sex market. "This person can be held in captivity, they can be filmed doing sex acts, they can be sold on the Internet throughout the world and make 10 times that amount of money. So why would they return the person to their family?"
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Predicting Demand for Medical Marijuana in Rhode Island

Early next month, the state Health Department is poised to select from one to three proposals for dispensaries that will sell medical marijuana and related products to patients in the growing medical marijuana program. JoAnne Leppanen, executive director of the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition, and others seeking to open the centers have varying views on whether it’s financially feasible for the state to have three dispensaries. On Tuesday, there were 3,239 patients and 2,039 licensed caregivers, or medical marijuana growers, in the program. Many of the patients also have caregiver licenses, meaning that they grow their own medical cannabis to deal with chronic pain, nausea and other medical ailments. But just about everyone in the industry predicts that the establishment of one, two or three dispensaries will lead to an immediate surge in the number of patients, who must get approval from the Health Department to use medical marijuana for.
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Mexico's Refugees: A Hidden Cost of the Prohibitionist War on Drugs

President Felipe Calderon's four-year-old army-led campaign against drug trafficking organizations created by prohibition has shaken up the balance of power in Mexico's criminal underworld and sparked a wave of turf wars, sometimes trapping civilians in their midst. With more than 34,000 drug prohibition killings in the past four years, Calderon is coming under increasing pressure to help states burdened by drug war refugees.
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Legislation Filed to Legalize Medical Marijuana in Kansas

Legislation has been filed to legalize medical marijuana for people with debilitating conditions, such as cancer. House Bill 2330 would provide for the registration and operations of not-for-profit compassion centers, which would have the authority to possess, cultivate, manufacture and dispense medical marijuana. Patients would have to have a doctor’s recommendation and a license from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. The license would permit them to possess up to six ounces of medical marijuana.
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Drug War Autopilot and Co-Autopilot: ONDCP Director Gil Kerlikowske with President Obama
Drug War Autopilot and Co-Autopilot: ONDCP Director Gil Kerlikowske with President Obama

The 2012 Federal Drug Budget: More of the Same [FEATURE]

The Obama administration has submitted its 2012 federal drug control budget proposal. There's not much new there, and little evidence the administration is putting its money where its mouth is.
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Did You Know? Marijuana and Drug Arrests, on DrugWarFacts.org

DrugWarFacts.org is an in-depth compilation of key facts, stats and quotes on the full range of drug policy issues, excerpted from expert publications. This is the final installment in a six-week serious of info items excerpted from the web site.
In The Trenches

Marijuana Reform in 2012? It's Your Call...

 

Legalization in 2012: What do YOU think?

Supporters of marijuana policy reform are coming together to produce a statewide ballot initiative that would end cannabis prohibition in Colorado in 2012.  No single organization or individual is heading the effort; rather, there is a wide variety of activists, organizations, businesses, professionals, and other stakeholders working together to create and pass the best law possible. 

Sensible Colorado, along with SAFER and other allies and organizations, are working to engage everyone possible in the process.  We are soliciting input and feedback from the community, which we will bring to the table as an initiative is drafted by some of the most qualified attorneys and advocates from across Colorado and around the nation.

 

If you would like to take part in the process of putting together the best possible legalization initiative for 2012, please send an e-mail to HERE.   Let us know what you do or do not want to see in the initiative, or just let us know if you have any ideas or thoughts on the process.  As you can imagine, we probably won’t be able to respond to every e-mail, but we assure you they will all be read and taken into consideration.  Submissions must be received on or before February 25, 2011.

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This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

Cops can't find their missing dope in Georgia and Massachusetts, another jail guard goes down, a North Carolina narc pays for getting greedy, and so does a South Carolina magistrate.
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This Week in History

Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
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Big Changes to Kentucky Drug Laws Advance in Legislature

Kentucky's House Judiciary Committee approved the most sweeping changes to the state's penal code in a generation in an effort to reduce prison and jail crowding. The committee voted unanimously to send House Bill 463 to the full House, where a floor vote is expected tomorrow. The result of much negotiation and compromise, the bill would steer many drug addicts into treatment and community supervision rather than prison. It drew praise from prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges and local leaders. The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce endorsed it, warning that the state's incarceration costs are draining resources that could better be spent on education.
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Crime Lab Errors Prompt Review of Thousands of Drug Cases

An independent agency will review an estimated 4,000 drug cases in New York after officials from a medical examiner's office uncovered errors at a police crime lab. The possibility does exist, defense lawyers contended, that innocent people have been jailed in drug cases based on faulty evidence from the lab. Already, 16 defense motions seeking judicial reviews or reopening of drug cases have been filed, according to the DA. More are likely. "The credibility of the entire lab has been undermined," said Marc Gann, president of the Nassau County Bar Association.
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Why ER Docs Test for Illegal Drugs Without Consent

Dr. Zachary F. Meisel, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation clinical scholar and an emergency physician at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses issues related to emergency room doctors running tests for illicit drugs on patients without gaining their permission.

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Mexico Risks Losing Large Areas to Prohibition's Drug Trafficking Organizations

Mexico is struggling to avert a collapse of law and order along its northern border in a region that generates a quarter of its economic output, with two states already facing the threat of criminal anarchy. Even after four years of dramatic military sweeps, drug trafficking organizations in Chihuahua and Tamaulipas are extending their control over large areas and the state governments seem powerless to stop them. Mass jail breaks, abandoned police stations, relentless killings and gangs openly running criminal rackets such as gasoline stolen from pipelines are the new reality in regions once at the forefront of Mexico's efforts to modernize and prosper under the North American Free Trade Agreement.
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Most Michiganders in Favor of Medical Marijuana Use, Poll Finds

Michigan voters support the state's medical marijuana law by nearly the same margin by which it was adopted in the 2008 election. The poll, conducted by Marketing Resource Group of Lansing, found that 61% of voters said they would vote yes again. Proposal 1 of 2008, legalizing the possession and use of marijuana for medical reasons, won with 62.6% of the vote. A spokeswoman for the Marijuana Policy Project said the poll "proves that a strong majority of Michigan voters stand firmly behind the compassionate medical marijuana law they enacted two years ago."
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