Medical Marijuana Vote in US House This Week

Press Release from the Drug Reform Coordination Network

Since early last month we have been alerting our readers about
an upcoming medical marijuana vote in the US House of
Representatives, the Hinchey/Rohrabacher amendment to forbid the
US Department of Justice from using its resources to interfere
with state medical marijuana laws. This amendment would be
consistent with a recent ruling by the US 9th Circuit Court
which found that DOJ interference with state medical marijuana
laws is unconstitutional.

rxcannabis writes:

"The 3rd Annual Drug War Vigil Film Festival"

Vancouver, British Columbia, September 24-25, 2004

The Drug War Vigil Memorial Group is a social justice think tank that was founded in the fall of 2000, dedicated to ending the War on Drugs.

We recognize that the militarization of this medical issue and the criminalization of the chronically sick, terminally ill and chemically dependent have resulted in the needless loss of human life, and that this is the true crime.

"Don't Get High Without It:

The Vaults of Erowid Supplies the Ultimate Trip Buddy — Information"

Erik Davis

Early last February, a 19-year-old sophomore dragged himself into the
psychiatric emergency ward at a large American university hospital,
complaining that his friends and family were plotting against him.
Though the fellow knew his thoughts were irrational, he could not shake
his bout of paranoia. He also told the receiving staff that six weeks
earlier he had swallowed an unknown amount of 2C-I, a recreational drug
that, in his case, produced bright colors and swirling patterns and a
suffocating onslaught of cosmic dread. The bad vibes had recurred with
increasing ferocity in the intervening weeks, until he finally decided to
check himself in.

The first Saturday in May, people all around the world gather to celebrate a plant and to demand freedom. The annual Million Marijuana March will take place in hundreds of cities worldwide the first Saturday of May, May 1, 2004.

Details for the New York City event appear below. Details for hundreds of cities worldwide may be found here.

Afghan Route to Prosperity: Grow Poppies

Amy Waldman, New York Times

. . . Across Afghanistan, opium cultivation is surging, defying all
efforts of the Afghan government and international officials to stop
it. Officials are predicting that land under poppy cultivation will
rise by 30 percent or more this year, possibly yielding a record
crop. Last year the country produced almost 4,000 tons —
three-fourths of the world's opium - in 28 of its 32 provinces. The
trade generated $1 billion for farmers and $1.3 billion for
traffickers, according to the United Nations, more than half of
Afghanistan's national income. . . .

"Humphrey Osmond, 86, Who Sought Medicinal
Value in Psychedelic Drugs, Dies"

Douglas Martin, New York Times, Sunday, February 22, p. 25.

Humphry Osmond, the psychiatrist who cohned the word "psychedelic"
for the drugs to which he introduced the writer and essayist Aldous Huxley,
died on Feb. 6 at his home in Appleton Wis. He was 86. The cause was
cardiac arrhythmia, said his daughter Euphemia Blackburn of Appleton, where
Dr. Osmond moved to four years ago.

"New Kinds of Drug Tests Weighed for Federal Workers

Bush Administration Considers Sampling Hair, Saliva, Sweat"

Christopher Lee, Washington Post

Federal workers who submit to drug screening soon may have their saliva,
sweat or hair tested as the Bush administration increases efforts to deter
and detect illegal drug use among 1.6 million civilian employees.

Officials have relied on urine samples alone in the federal government's
nearly two-decade-old drug-testing program, begun in 1986 when President
Ronald Reagan issued an executive order declaring that the federal
workplace be drug-free. Bush administration officials want to give
agencies the option of using the alternative tests to catch drug use that
urine tests may miss because of masking agents or because an employee took
the drugs weeks earlier.

"Denmark Enclave Tears Down Hashish Stands"

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Residents who openly bought and sold hashish at a
famous hippie enclave in Copenhagen abruptly demolished their booths on
Sunday, trying to head off a government crackdown on illegal drug sales.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"U.S. Appeals Court OKs Some Medical Pot"

David Kravets, Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO -- An appeals court ruled Tuesday that a federal law outlawing
marijuana does not apply to sick people who are allowed to smoke pot with a
doctor's recommendation.

The ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was a blow to the
federal government in its fight against medical marijuana. The Justice
Department has argued that state medical marijuana laws were trumped by
federal drug laws.

Alaska Appeals Court "Just Says No" to Pot Case

The Alaska Court of Appeals will not reconsider its August decision
allowing adults to possess as much as a quarter-pound of marijuana
in their home.

In an opinion released Friday, the court denied the Alaska attorney
general's petition to rehear the case, which invalidated a 1990
voter initiative criminalizing all amounts of marijuana by calling
the resulting ban on personal pot use in the home unconstitutional.

The court rejected all the assertions the attorney general's office
made in arguing that the decision was flawed in the case of Noy v.
State, which resulted in Attorney General Gregg Renkes instructing
all state law enforcement agencies not to arrest or cite adults for
personal marijuana use in their home.