Pages tagged "Federal"

U.S. Mayors Demand Change to Federal Policy, End to Crackdown on Medical Marijuana in Their Cities

| June 25, 2013 |

Mayors from across the United States gathered in Las Vegas this past weekend for the 81st annual U.S. Conference of Mayors. In a watershed moment, mayors voted unanimously yesterday to adopt a  resolution "in support of states setting their own...

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U.S. Supreme Makes it More Difficult for Federal Judges to Impose Mandatory Minimum Sentences

| June 20, 2013 |

Federal medical marijuana defendants and those who are particularly vulnerable to federal prosecution can now breathe a little bit easier. On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision in the case of Alleyne v. United States, which has...

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What's the Cost?

| June 13, 2013 |

Did you know that the Department of Justice has already spent nearly a half a billion dollars fighting medical cannabis? Did you know that the Obama Administration spent over half of that money on medical cannabis investigations, paramilitary-style raids, prosecutions,...

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Kal Penn of "Harold & Kumar" off-base for defending Obama attacks in medical marijuana states

| May 03, 2013 |

Last week, Kal Penn, who plays Kumar in the “stoner” film franchise Harold & Kumar, spoke to Huffington Post Live about President Obama’s marijuana policies. During the April 26th interview, Penn defended recent Justice Department attacks on dispensaries in medical...

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Off to the U.S. Supreme Court We Go

| April 25, 2013 |

Sadly, but not unexpectedly, last week the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied a petition for rehearing filed be Americans for Safe Access in ASA v. DEA. After more than a decade of legal wrangling with...

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Cannabinopathic Medicine: Lester Grinspoon, M.D.'s New Coinage

| March 14, 2013 |

I am honored and delighted to be able to publish here for the first time a new comprehensive piece written by Dr. Lester Grinspoon, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, entitled "Cannabinopathic Medicine". Dr. Grinspoon started writing this...

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If you want to break federal law, it’s better to be a banker than a medical marijuana provider

| March 04, 2013 |

      According to Matt Taibbi, in his latest Rolling Stone exposé on the banking and financial industry “Too Big to Jail,” HSBC “helped to wash hundreds of millions of dollars for drug mobs, including Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel,” and also “moved...

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Why I am Attending the National Unity Conference

| February 15, 2013 |

Americans for Safe Access (ASA) opened the eyes of this thirty-three year law enforcement veteran. Caught in the whirlpool of drug prohibition policy, prohibitionist law enforcement folks as I once was, forget the importance of maintaining an open mind. Unfortunately,...

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ASA's Year in Review 2012

| December 31, 2012 |

This is the time of year when I take some time to reflect over the past twelve months and prepare myself for the opportunities that lay ahead in the New Year.2012 was bittersweet. On one hand, we moved the fight...

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Feds Continue to Undermine Mendocino's Local Law by Violating Patient Privacy

| November 26, 2012 |

It wasn’t enough for the Justice Department to conduct aggressive raids on state-compliant cultivators in Mendocino County in 2010 and 2011, then earlier this year threaten local officials with litigation if the highly successful cultivation program continued. Now, according to...

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