For those who are interested in reading a few blurbs and updates. Call it an overnight news digest for cannabis, if you will.
Kentucky makes several reforms to its sentencing laws...very good news. [via drcnet.org]
Republican pollsters for Gov Rick Scott in FL found that 57 percent of Floridians support legal MMJ. Kind of interesting given the recent backlash facing Scott after he opposed regulations on oxycontin, even in the face of raids by DEA and letters from governors of other states. [via Cannabis Culture magazine] One of those governors was Gov Beshear of KY, who signed these reforms into law.
If you haven't checked out the great series by CDH in Brooklyn on Gov Rick Scott's prescription pill mills, give it a look.
And the Great State of Maine is now entering into the medical dispensary phase of its medical cannabis program, as planned. [via NORML]
Also see this as well:
A just released special report from the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations has called on the US government to entertain serious drug reforms, including allowing states to experiment with marijuana legalization, as part of an effort to get a handle on violent Mexican drug trafficking organizations.
The report, The Drug War in Mexico: Confronting a Shared Threat, is authored by David Shirk, professor of political science and director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego. Shirk is a leading scholar on US-Mexican relations.
On Kentucky's reforms (great work done by the Democratic governor on this one):
Kentucky has become the latest state to enact sentencing reforms in a bid to rein in skyrocketing corrections costs. Gov. Steve Beshear (D) Thursday signed into law HB 463, a comprehensive corrections bill that will save the state millions of dollars a year, in part by sentencing drug possession offenders to probation instead of prison.
The new law calls for sentences of "presumptive probation" for small-time drug possession offenders, meaning they will get probation unless judges can offer a compelling reason why they should go to prison. It also calls for drug treatment to be made available for drug offenders. It reduces penalties for small-time drug dealing while increasing penalties for large-scale trafficking. And it shrinks "drug-free" zones from 1,000 yards to 1,000 feet.
The law also reduces sentences for small-time drug dealing. Sales of less than four grams of cocaine, two grams of heroin or methamphetamine, or 10 dosage units of other controlled substances will be reduced from a Class C felony to a Class D felony.
"Today, if you sell half a gram of rock cocaine, that's a Class C felony," said Van Ingram, director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy. "When the new law goes into effect in 90 days, you will have to sell more than four grams to get Class C. That means instead of a five-to-ten-year sentence, you'll be looking at one-to-five," he told the Chronicle.
The new law lowers possession of less than an ounce of marijuana from a Class A misdemeanor worth up to a year in jail to a Class B misdemeanor with a maximum sentence of 45 days in jail, if any jail sentence is imposed.
It also requires reforms of the probation and parole system. It will create "graduated sanctions" for parole violators, allowing authorities to impose short jail stays instead of sending them back to prison for technical violations. And it removes drug offenses from consideration when judges impose sentencing enhancements based on previous felony convictions.
This smarter-on-crime approach will save $460 million over the next decade for Kentucky.
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More on Maine:
If all goes as planned, the Rhode Island Department of Health will announce Tuesday who has been selected to open dispensaries that will legally sell marijuana to patients who have been certified by doctors as needing the drug to help cope with debilitating pain or disease.
But even if the groups proposing dispensaries go on a fast track to build facilities and start growing product, Rhode Island will not be the first state in New England to open such businesses.
By the end of this month, one state-regulated dispensary will open in Frenchville, Maine, on the Canadian border, according to John Thiele, program manager for Maine's Medical Use of Marijuana Program. It will be the first on the East Coast.
Two more dispensaries are expected to open, one in Biddeford and another in Ellsworth, by the end of April. A fourth, located in a shopping plaza in Auburn, plans to open in May, run by a couple, Tim and Jenna Smale.
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And Florida's medical cannabis poll:
A survey conducted by GOP pollster Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates -- the same firm that conducted polls for Florida Gov. Rick Scott's campaign -- found that 57 percent of Floridians support legalization of medicinal marijuana.
This news comes as sources say there is a serious movement afoot to bring the issue to the Florida ballot in 2012. Such a referendum would require 60 percent of voters to legalize the green stuff so long as it is prescribed by a doctor.
-snip-
Not surprisingly, Democrats were more supportive than any other political group, with a full two-thirds of Democratic respondents (67 percent) supporting the measure. Republicans gave it only 44 percent support, while Independents were 63 percent in favor.
[44 percent of Florida republicans? not too shabby, if you ask me, although 80% of americans support medical mj, so 44 could be higher. ]
--snip-
A majority of all age groups supported the notion, with the 18- to 24-year-olds most in favor with 79 percent (or 14 of the 18 respondents in that group). The least supportive were 65-plus and 35- to 44-year-olds, both at 53 percent in favor.
It's hard to fathom what dangers the elderly see in cannabis, beyond reefer madness. They do vote with regularity, however, and Florida's chances of passing something in 2012 will rest on a pretty strong youth vote, as with all other states. Taking prescription pills instead of using cannabis is still conventional treatment given social stigmas, although there's probably a number of honest doctors who aren't afraid to recommend cannabis to needy patients behind closed doors.
Updated by change the Be at Mon Mar 7, 2011, 11:05:52 PM
Did you know that the "War on Drugs" is now over? yes, that is true...according to our 'drug czar' in the ONDCP.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/...
Kind of strange witnessing the rapid evolution of federal responses to the cannabis movement.