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Two Lawsuits Challenge Los Angeles' Lottery Plan for Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

Los Angeles' latest plan â to hold a lottery to allow 100 medical marijuana dispensaries to operate â is facing resistance from shop owners who say they've followed all the rules yet still face closure. Lawsuits filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court follow scores of other suits that stymied the city's fitful attempts to crack down on an unknown number of renegade dispensaries. The new ones could launch another series of judicial hearings and thwart the city's bid to enforce its ordinance.

President Obama, We Are Sick and Tired (Action Alert)

Patients, Friends and Activists –

Obama’s administration has taken its gloves off. After giving the medical cannabis community a false sense of security, Obama’s administration continues to ignore state laws, intimidate state officials, and raid medical cannabis patients and facilities.

This month, ASA launched our new national campaign, and we are sending a clear message to President Obama from the medical cannabis community: We are sick and tired. We are suffering from chronic and debilitating conditions, and we are weary of false promises that do nothing to protect our rights as patients.

ASA’s Sick and Tired Campaign involves approaching the federal government from several angles, and we need your help to reach every corner of Obama’s administration.

Today, ASA released the Obama Report Card. This details federal interference in medical cannabis laws under the Obama administration, and Obama fails. Even though he promised to not use federal resources to interfere with states’ medical cannabis laws, Obama’s administration has continued raiding legal patients and facilities. Additionally, the administration has launched new tactics and constructed new roadblocks for patients, including issues related to patient privacy, access, banking, taxation, and threats of filing suite against state employees who participate in upholding state law.

Join us in calling on Obama to keep his promise. Sign ASA's petition urging Obama to end federal interference in existing medical cannabis programs, and legitimize medical cannabis for the sick and dying across the country.

But we’re not stopping there. ASA is hosting a National Day of Action on May 2, centered on Dale Schafer and Mollie Fry’s surrender date in Sacramento, CA. Mollie and Dale are legal patients and were arrested and convicted without a defense under President Bush. They appealed their sentence, which was vigorously fought by the Obama administration in the Ninth Circuit. Mollie and Dale's sentences were upheld in November. Additionally, a clemency petition was filed this week in an effort to shorten Mollie's sentence. Please mark your calendar to join ASA on May 2 and keep an eye out for Information about a rally near you.

ASA’s Sick and Tired Campaign will bring new accountability to Obama’s administration. Please help ASA hold Obama to his word and protect patients across the nation.

We are sick and tired, but we won’t give up until there’s safe access.

Sincerely,
Steph Sherer

FL Supreme Court Justices Throw Out Evidence Found by Drug Dog

The Florida Supreme Court has cited a lack of state standards for drug-sniffing dogs in throwing out evidence one of the canines detected in a Panhandle case. The 5-1 ruling says training certificates and records aren't enough to establish a canine's reliability.

Marijuana and Racial Inequality: A "Cannabis Day" Look at How Marijuana Arrests Discriminate Against Young Black People

April 20 (4/20) -- the date unofficially recognized nationwide as marijuana day -- is probably as good a time as any to explore how marijuana arrests in the Unites States exemplify racially skewed policing tactics.

N.J. Medical Marijuana Supporters Suspect Legal Review Is a Stall Tactic

As state Attorney General Paula Dow awaited guidance from top federal law enforcement officials on whether New Jersey's planned medical marijuana program is legal, supporters questioned whether the state was looking for a reason to delay the program's launch this summer. Roseanne Scotti, New Jersey State Director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said there is "nothing new" about the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's position on properly run state medical marijuana programs. "The legislature worked on this bill for almost five years and it was thoroughly vetted legally."