US NY: Marijuana Arrests Rose In 2011, Despite Police Directive
New York Times, 01 Feb 2012 - Low-level arrests for marijuana possession in New York City increased for the seventh straight year in 2011, according to a study released Wednesday -- despite a September memorandum from the police commissioner that reminded officers to follow the letter of the law and not arrest people with the drug unless they have it in plain view. Though arrests dropped significantly after Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly's memorandum, an increase of over 6 percent during the first eight months of the year more than offset the decline, according to the analysis, conducted by a Queens College sociology professor and released by the Drug Policy Alliance, an advocacy group critical of police marijuana-arrest policies.
Baltimore Sun, 28 Dec 2011 - Should juries vote "not guilty" on low-level marijuana charges to send a message about our country's insane marijuana arrest policy? Jury nullification is a constitutional doctrine that allows juries to acquit defendants who are technically guilty but who don't deserve punishment. As Paul Butler wrote recently in The New York Times, juries have the right and power to use jury nullification to protest unjust laws.
US WA: Column: President Obama's Puzzling Silence on Marijuana
Seattle Times, 18 Dec 2011 - The Youth Vote Helped Propel Barack Obama to the Presidency, but That Enthusiasm Has Declined Sharply, Writes Neal Peirce. One Issue Might Reignite Youthful Enthusiasm: Marijuana - Partly Its Medical Use, but Especially Americans' Right to Recreational Use Free of Potential Arrest. WASHINGTON - "Dance with the One that Brought You" is the title of a well-known song. But the Urban Dictionary offers a deeper meaning: "The principle that someone should pay proper fealty to those who have gone out of their way to look after them."
New York Times, 07 Nov 2011 - MARIJUANA is now legal under state law for medical purposes in 16 states and the District of Columbia, encompassing nearly one-third of the American population. More than 1,000 dispensaries provide medical marijuana; many are well regulated by state and local law and pay substantial taxes. But though more than 70 percent of Americans support legalizing medical marijuana, any use of marijuana remains illegal under federal law. When he ran for president, Barack Obama defended the medical use of marijuana and said that he would not use Justice Department resources to override state laws on the issue. He appeared to make good on this commitment in October 2009, when the Justice Department directed federal prosecutors not to focus their efforts on "individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana."
San Diego Union Tribune, 06 Nov 2011 - Marijuana prohibition is a policy choice, not a fact of life. With a devastating economic downturn and increasing violence associated with illicit drug syndicates, that choice makes sense to fewer people than ever. Forty years after the war on drugs started, an October Gallup poll found for the first time that 50 percent of Americans support making marijuana legal. The poll indicated that only 46 percent oppose ending marijuana prohibition. No other law is enforced so harshly and pervasively yet deemed unnecessary by so many Americans. Almost half of U.S. adults admit in government surveys to having tried marijuana at least once. Politicians on the campaign trail readily admit to being members of that group. And yet over 800,000 people are arrested every year for violating marijuana laws - the vast majority for personal possession - - at a cost of billions of taxpayer dollars. In every state, people of color are disproportionately arrested for marijuana offenses.
US CA: Petition Drive Challenges Medical Marijuana Ban
New York Times, 03 Nov 2011 - BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- Kern County is not exactly the kind of place where you would expect a voter rebellion, what with its conservative rural residents, its live-off-the-land values and its almost unshakable devotion to the Republican Party. But over the last several months, Kern County -- located 60 miles north of Los Angeles and as far as it can get from San Francisco -- has become the scene of a civil war of sorts over an issue, medical marijuana, whose supporters are often of a more liberal stripe. At stake is a controversial new law -- passed unanimously in August by the county's all-Republican Board of Supervisors -- which would have effectively shut many of the three dozen or so medical marijuana dispensaries in the county.
US CA: Edu: Column: Medical Marijuana Laws Should Be the Least
Daily Forty-Niner, 12 Oct 2011 - A few days ago, four California officials from the U.S. Attorney's office announced that hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries have been ordered to close down by the federal government. Since California voters decided to legalize marijuana for medical use in 1996, the issue of medical marijuana has generally been left to the responsibility of the states. The main issue that I have a problem with is that the federal government -- specifically the Obama Administration -- is spending both time and money that we don't have on something that should by no means be at the top of their agenda. Must we remind Obama and the White House of the current financial crisis on Wall Street?
US NM: Despite Praise As Success, Some Say NM Medical Cannabis
The New Mexican, 24 Sep 2011 - Four years after New Mexico's Medical Cannabis Program was created, nearly 4,000 New Mexico residents have been approved to use the herb as medicine, and 25 nonprofit producers have been licensed to sell it to them. New Mexico's system for regulating those producers is being adopted by other states as a model for allowing medicinal use of marijuana without seeing pot dispensaries pop up on every street corner, as they have in California and Colorado.
The Stranger, 16 Aug 2011 - King County's Drug Courts Are Successful, So Why Are DC Progressives Against Them? It started earlier this year in the big-brain-filled halls of a couple of liberal think tanks in Washington, DC: a campaign against drug courts.