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Marijuana, Opioids, and Alcohol: It Is Time to Change the Paradigm

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By Egberto Willies / Daily Kos

America needs a paradigm shift when it comes to how it deals with products that affect our moods, psyche, and our overall well-being. We must do so based on data instead of ideology, and deprogramming many will be difficult. But marijuana must be completely decriminalized.

Houston cannabis activist Ashley Miller appeared on Politics Done Right to bring awareness to many issues about marijuana, aka weed, aka cannabis. Her first goal was to dispel the notion that there are any valid reasons why marijuana is illegal. Second, she hoped to activate Americans both locally and throughout the country. As one listens to all the arguments and discourse about marijuana, there can only be one conclusion: the product should not be illegal.

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Ex-SDPD Chief Zimmerman’s Fake News on Marijuana Takes on a Life of Its Own

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By Jessica Sutherland / Daily Kos

Ever since the term “Fake News” entered the popular lexicon, almost everyone knows to check their news sources closely, and roll their eyes at Trump. But what’s a responsible citizen to do when “Fake News” and “alternative facts” originate with reliable, trusted sources?

Recently retired San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman should, in theory, have been one of those reliable, trusted sources, assuming you trust law enforcement. Unfortunately, a recent investigation by Voice of San Diego’s Jesse Marx reveals that the former chief manufactured crime statistics in an apparent effort to block expansion of the cannabis industry within America’s Finest City. Worse, her fake facts are now being used to justify and shape cannabis attitudes and policy in other municipalities.

This is how it begins.   [Read more…]

San Diego County’s Continuing War on Marijuana

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Today in Spring Valley – an unincorporated community of San Diego County – sheriff deputies raided an unlicensed marijuana dispensary on Troy Street. This effort demonstrates that the war against pot continues in this area of California.

Twenty-two years after the voters of California legalized medical cannabis and a year and half after voters over the state voted to legalize recreational marijuana, the County of San Diego pushes on against the will of the people, cracking down on pot shops.

The current crop of County supervisors voted in March 2017 to prohibit any marijuana operations in the unincorporated areas of the County and phase out existing ones.   [Read more…]

Supernova Women — Restorative Justice, Legal Weed and the California Cannabis Enterprise | Video Worth Watching

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From the HuffPost YouTube web page:

The Oakland-based collective Supernova Women is working to inform, support, demonstrate and advocate on behalf of communities disproportionately affected by the war on drugs. Their aim is to push local government to create more opportunities for people of color and those convicted of cannabis-related offenses in the early stages of a booming industry.

  [Read more…]

Medicinal Cannabis For All – the #ReeferSanity Army Takes On Jeff Sessions! | Video Worth Watching – 4/20 Edition

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Medicinal Cannabis For All! What’s Jeff Sessions got against our veterans getting access to healthcare they need? Full Frontal’s Allana Harkin recruits the #ReeferSanity army to find out.   [Read more…]

The Science Can No Longer Be Ignored: Legal Cannabis Access Reduces Opioid Abuse and Mortality

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By Paul Armentano / Alternet

Scientific data is growing exponentially in support of the notion that legalized cannabis access can significantly mitigate opioid use and abuse.

On Monday, the esteemed Journal of the American Medical Association, Internal Medicine published a pair of persuasive new studies reinforcing this opinion.

In the first study, investigators from the University of Kentucky and Emory University assessed the relationship between medical and adult-use marijuana laws and opioid prescribing patterns among Medicaid enrollees nationwide. Enrollees included all Medicaid fee-for-service and managed care enrollees—a high-risk population for chronic pain, opioid use disorder, and opioid overdose.

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Getting an Official State of California Medical Marijuana Card, One OBcean’s Experience

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by Joaquin Antique

January was a month of medical marijuana madness for me and many others. I made my first purchase of recreational cannabis on January 4, just a few days after it became legal in our fine state. It was a glorious day.

I had been waiting for legalization for 50 years and it finally came! Although I’ve had a physician’s recommendation to use medical marijuana for several years, it was cool to experience being a recreational buyer even if it limited some of my choices of cannabis products and was a little more expensive than what a medical patient pays. I wrote about my first dispensary visit under the new laws a few weeks ago in the OB Rag.   [Read more…]

Why Jeff Sessions’ War on Weed Is a Futile Pursuit

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By Phillip Smith / Alternet

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ announcement Thursday that he is rescinding Obama-era guidance to federal prosecutors directing them to take a laissez-faire approach to state-legal marijuana except under specified circumstances (violence, out-of-state diversion, money laundering, etc.) is sending shock waves through the marijuana industry, but its impact is likely to be limited.

That’s because marijuana prohibition is a dying beast, and while the twitching of its tail in its death throes could cause some injury, neither the attorney general nor his minions are going to be able to get that beast back up and roaring again. They are too late.

At least one of them recognized as much Thursday afternoon. Colorado U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer, a Sessions appointee, said within hours that there would be no changes in his office’s enforcement priorities. He  would continue “identifying and prosecuting those who create the greatest safety threats to our communities around the state,” he said, an approach “consistent with Sessions’ guidance.”
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Weedinol – Ask Your Doctor If It’s Right for You | Video Worth Watching

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I’ve been exposed to so many medical prescription drug advertisements now that I routinely tune out all of the incredibly nasty and life-threatening side effects as they’re enumerated. “Ask your doctor” is about the only element that cuts through now, and I just can’t imagine actually doing that. Except maybe for Weedinol. The side effects for this one sound so much less hazardous …   [Read more…]

Americans For Safe Access: Advancing Legal Medical Marijuana

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Americans For Safe Access

California voters approved Proposition 64, the Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act, by a vote of 56% to 44%. Voters in Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada also approved legalization measures. Medical cannabis had a big night, too. Voters approved or expanded medical cannabis laws in Florida, North Dakota, Arkansas and Montana.

Proposition 64 legalizes the adult use, possession and cultivation of cannabis for non-medical purposes in California. It also creates a process for licensing and regulating adult use businesses, including cultivators, product manufacturers and retailers by 2018.   [Read more…]

Medical Marijuana Patient Found Not Guilty within 10 Minutes in June, District Attorney Keeps the Cash

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Americans for Safe Access – San Diego / SDASA

When medical marijuana patient Shaun Smith won his case with a ten minute not guilty verdict in June, he could not have known the District Attorney had already spent the cash they took from his medical cannabis collective and that the Sheriff’s department would take such a long time to return the motorcycle confiscated from Shaun’s home. But, both Bonnie Dumanis and Sheriff Gore have so far failed to return the property of a vindicated citizen.

In June, Shaun’s case moved through the San Diego North County courthouse very quickly and within 10 minutes a jury had reached a verdict of not guilty on the possession for sale and manufacturing charges the DA had levied after a raid on Shaun’s Oceanside home. Shaun was operating a legal collective and the group was saving for a storefront location.   [Read more…]

Prop 64 – Just Legalize Marijuana, Already

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California, Arizona, Nevada, Maine, and Massachusetts will be voting on legalizing the recreational use of marijuana this fall.

Some people, including many pro-legalization advocates, think this is about easing another legal intoxicant into society. It’s not. It’s about undoing a prohibition based on ‘scientific racism.’ It’s about a ‘war on drugs’ that served as a gateway towards militarization of law enforcement and eroded the constitutional rights of all Americans.

Legalizing pot won’t undo those things. In case you haven’t noticed, government and society rarely move backward. But legalization does provide a path moving forward that makes a lot more sense than the failed policies proceeding it.   [Read more…]

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