The findings were published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Sosurce : Los Angeles Times

CMU must abide by federal law, which states the substance, whether medicinal or recreational, is illegal to use or possess.

“Federal law supersedes state law,” said Joan Schmidt, associate director of Residence Life. “No marijuana is allowed on campus.”

Campus Police Chief Bill Yeagley said the university policy forbids possession, storage and use of medical marijuana.

But he said Residence Life is willing to work with students who need marijuana for medical purposes.

“If (students) live on campus, they’re not going to say, ‘We’re kicking you out,’” Yeagley said. “If you have an issue, you need to move off campus and it’s a legit reason to move off campus.”

Schmidt said the first offense of possession or use entails a fine of $100. Second offenses are punished with a possible suspension or $300 fine. She also said police may be involved, though whether to take legal action is ultimately their decision.

However, they yield to the office of Student Rights and Responsibilities.

Maura Casey, White Lake sophomore, said marijuana practices on campus should match the state’s law.

“As long as you don’t smoke on campus, possession shouldn’t be a problem.” Casey said.

Eastern Michigan University recently banned medical marijuana on their campus, according to reports from the Eastern Echo.

The penalty on EMU’s campus for a first offense matches CMU’s.

Legal disputes

Medical marijuana has been a point of contention recently as a Mount Pleasant establishment, Compassionate Apothecary, was called to court by Isabella County Prosecutor Larry Burdick to dispute whether the dispensary is legal. No judgment has been released.

Similarly, in Dryden, the Lapeer County Sheriff seized 50 marijuana plants, scales and $3,500 from a dispensary called Compassionate Care.

James McCurtis, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Community Health, said his department does not regulate dispensaries, nor do they deal with enforcement of the law; it simply decides who is able to receive a medical marijuana card.

“Dispensaries aren’t even mentioned in the law,” McCurtis said. “That is going to need to be clarified through the legislature or court system.”

Rep. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, introduced a bill to stop consumption of marijuana on the premises of dispensaries.

Jones said the goal of this particular bill is not to make dispensaries illegal. However, he said medical marijuana should be treated like a standard pharmaceutical and given from a prescription by a doctor and brought to a pharmacy for distribution.

“I don’t want dispensaries to become places where they smoke the product and then drive away,” Jones said. “The ballot initiative was written very gray, it’s not clear.”

Source : CentralMichiganLife

A: This question has been asked several times in different forms. On Wednesday, Mayor Mike McGinn released this Q and A about Seattle and marijuana laws:

1. Is enforcing simple possession of marijuana really SPD’s lowest priority?

Yes. In the first four months of this year about 6,500 incident reports were filed with the City Attorney’s Office. In only six of those incidents was marijuana the reason for the contact. Only .09% of incident reports during this time period cite marijuana as the primary reason for a contact.

2. Do police officers ever stop someone solely because of marijuana?

Yes, but very rarely. Although it may appear that marijuana was the “sole charge” in a lot of incident reports, it often looks that way because the reason for the stop was either a traffic citation (which isn’t a criminal charge), or to execute a warrant. If someone is arrested because of an outstanding warrant, the offense for which the warrant was issued isn’t a new violation, so review of the City Attorney’s records would cause one to conclude (incorrectly) that marijuana was the only criminal violation at issue.

3. Why do officers have to report that they took my weed? Can’t they just flush it and let me go on with my day?

Police officers are expected to document every incident accurately and by the book. When an officer comes across someone with marijuana, whether during a traffic stop or execution of a felony warrant, he or she is obligated to seize it. There have been a number of incidents across the country in which an individual alleges that an officer stole his/her narcotics. Because cities have been sued and officers relieved of their duties because of these allegations, it is SPD policy that every drug seizure be properly documented in an incident report.

4. Why can’t an officer just record that he seized marijuana? Does he really have to recommend prosecution?

Police officers don’t decide or recommend whether or not to prosecute. An incident report is simply a narrative description of what happened. Each report is categorized by the “primary charge”, meaning the most serious offense outlined in the report. An Assistant City Attorney will look at every report the police send over and decide whether or not to charge. The decision to charge rests solely with the City Attorney, not SPD.

5. Why does the officer have to send a report to the prosecutor at all?

We have recently changed the way we send incident reports to the City Attorney’s Office. Formerly, incident reports were paper reports that were walked over to the City Attorney’s Office. Now, these reports are electronic and go from the patrol officer to a detective sergeant to be reviewed for accuracy, and then directly to the City Attorney’s Office. The only time a report wouldn’t go to the City Attorney or King County Prosecutor is if there’s no evidence or no suspect. The law gives our elected prosecutors the discretion to choose what to charge, but it doesn’t give the same discretion to the police.

The fact that reports are transmitted automatically may account for the increase in incident reports involving marijuana, because in the past some volume of low-priority incident reports were probably never sent to the City Attorney’s Office in the first place.

6. You said the police rarely stop people just for marijuana, and yet the City Attorney is declining all these marijuana charges. Where are these charges coming from?

Most police contacts involving marijuana occur because of an unrelated offense. For example, of the incident reports filed between January 1st and April 30th of this year (the time period covered by the Stranger’s public disclosure request), there were only eighty that cited possession of marijuana. Of these:

• 17 (21.3%) involved 911 calls for service. 7 were for narcotics complaints, meaning someone called 911 about drug-related activity and that drug turned out to be marijuana. 10 of those were dispatched calls for non-narcotics complaints like fighting, trespassing, or someone behaving erratically and blocking traffic and marijuana was discovered subsequent to the arrest. While enforcing marijuana laws is our lowest priority, responding to our community is our highest priority. 14 (17.5%) involved the serving of warrants. That is, officers encountered someone with an outstanding warrant, searched that individual, and discovered marijuana.

• 20 (25%) involved a traffic stop. Even under the most liberal legalization proposals, driving under the influence of marijuana would remain illegal, so when an officer stops a vehicle and smells pot, a search is clearly justified.
• 12 (15%) involved a High Drug Enforcement Area. These are areas of our city which see a high volume of drug trafficking, and have been targeted for heavy drug enforcement. When a cop sees a hand-to-hand sale, it’s not always obvious what drug was sold until they make the stop. Additionally, street-level dealers of heroin or cocaine often deal marijuana as well. Thus, marijuana shows up in the incident report.

• If you remove those four factors, you are left with 21 of the 80 incidents. Of the 21, all but six were incidents in which the officer stopped the suspect for a reason other than marijuana, and discovered marijuana incident to the arrest. Those six remaining incidents all involved individuals openly smoking marijuana in front of a police officer.

7. I keep hearing that marijuana is basically legal in Seattle. How serious an offense is it, really?

According to the City Attorney:

Marijuana possession remains illegal everywhere in Washington, including Seattle. Enforcement of “personal use” possession is the lowest priority for both the Seattle City Attorney’s Office and the Seattle Police Department. I don’t prosecute simple marijuana possession cases, but marijuana possession is still a crime, and people risk arrest and search incident to arrest for possession, especially people who choose to flaunt marijuana in the presence of law enforcement.

As for the “serious offense” question, under Washington law, possession of any amount of marijuana with intent to manufacture or deliver the marijuana is a felony, regardless of the amount of marijuana. Possession of more than 40 grams of marijuana is also a felony, regardless of intent. Possession of 40 or fewer grams of marijuana without intent to manufacture or deliver the marijuana is a misdemeanor. The King County Prosecuting Attorney is responsible for prosecuting felony offenses, so it is up to the county whether and how to charge felony marijuana offenses.

The answer to the first question was corrected by the mayor’s office Thursday.

Source : Seattle 911

“The medicinal marijuana program that voters authorized years ago has been hijacked by underground drug dealing criminals who are resorting to violence in order to control their piece of the action,” Baca said.

He said the criminal element has flooded the business because of the outrageous profits to be made. “There are predators armed and seeking easy dollars in sales of marijuana,” Baca said.

Baca said his detectives have found marijuana collectives buying from cartel sources and selling to people in large amounts. In the triple slaying case, two of the dead men did business with at least four dispensaries.

A man charged Wednesday with capital murder in the slayings confessed to the crime during an interview with detectives, investigators said.

Harold Yong Park, 31, told investigators he previously bought and sold marijuana from two of the men and that a dispute erupted when he came to the West Hollywood apartment Thursday evening, where the victims were shot to death.

Sheriff Lt. Pat Nelson said Pirooz Moussazadeh and Bernard Khalili had bought high-grade medical marijuana from local pot dispensaries — some in L.A. and two in West Hollywood — and then resold it. In this case, Park had stolen 4 to 5 pounds of high-grade hydroponically grown marijuana after killing the trio.

The third man killed, Shahriar Moussazadeh, was not involved in the drug deal and was a man in the wrong place at the wrong time, Nelson said.

He said Park did not bring enough money to the deal to buy the drugs he wanted. But detectives are not certain when he decided to kill the men. Nelson said Park has a prior drug conviction and worked previously for a marijuana collective.

Park is expected to appear in a Beverly Hills court Wednesday on murder, robbery and burglaries charges. He is being held without bail. He was arrested Monday in Lomita after his license plate that had been entered into a wanted car database was spotted using a sheriff’s patrol car with an automatic license plate reader.

Meanwhile, the campaign to defeat Proposition 19 announced Wednesday that Baca and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) will head up the effort to defeat the marijuana legalization measure on the November ballot.

Source : Los Angeles Times

A district judge in Ferndale said Thursday that he would allow state-approved medical marijuana defendants to keep using the drug while out on bond — a sharp contrast to a Waterford judge’s statement Tuesday that deemed marijuana use by defendants in a parallel case to be a bond violation.

Researchers from the University of New Hampshire looked at data from a random group of 1,286 children, teens and young adults who were in Miami-Dade public schools in the 1990s. Among the study participants, 26% were African American, 44% were Hispanic, and 30% were non-Hispanic white.

They were asked about their substance use and about exposure to major events and traumas that occurred before age 13. Some questions included, “Did you ever fail a grade at school?”, “Did your parents ever divorce/separate?” and “Were you regularly emotionally abused by one of your caretakers?”

Education played a role in use of other substances–those more likely to have used marijuana as teens and other drugs as young adults didn’t graduate from high school or go to college. Employment factored in as well, since those who smoked pot as teens and were out of work after high school were more apt to use other drugs.

Researchers also discovered that if young adults became involved with other substances after using marijuana as teens, that link didn’t hold once the sources of stress, such as not working, went away.

Age was yet another issue. Researchers discovered that after the age of 21, the gateway effect seemed to disappear.

The results could have implications for drug policy, the study authors argue. “Employment in young adulthood can protect people by ‘closing’ the marijuana gateway,” said lead author Karen Van Gundy, in a news release, “so over-criminalizing youth marijuana use might create more serious problems if it interferes with later employment opportunities.”

The study appears in the September issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

Source : Jeannine Stein / Los Angeles Times

Never heard of vaporizing? Not a problem! Luckily for all of you VaporStore will be represented at this event. VaporStore representatives will be educating everyone on why vaporizing is the future in medicinal consumption and we’ll show you all the newest innovations in the vaporizing industry. We’ll be showcasing not only the newest vaporizers on the market, but the most efficient and practical devices for patient and recreational use. If you’ve experienced all the benefits of vaporizing, spread the word. If you know someone who hasn’t heard about vaporizing, do them a favor and bring them by our booth at the Know Your Rights Expo August 28th—we would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

Vaporizing will save your health and your money, so why not switch today? Come check us out at Orange County’s First Medical Cannabis, Legal Marijuana & Natural Medical Expo. This one day only event is on Saturday, August 28, 2010 at the Anaheim Convention Center. However, VaporStore will be attending the after party on Sunday, August 29th as well. We’re looking forward to seeing you all there!

Over 20,000 attendees are expected!

Doors open at 10:00am | Doors close at 10:00pm

18 and up | Admission is only $15 | $10 for Seniors

Anaheim Convention Center

Center 800 West Katella Avenue, Anaheim, CA 92802

“This will last me 10 or 15 minutes,” he says, wetting the rag from a soda bottle filled with clear liquid and holding it to his mouth. “I like marijuana better … but it’s more expensive.”

Despite the tons of narcotics moving through Mexico, inhalants remain the drug of choice for many Mexicans, offering a stark lesson in the economics of addiction even as the country wages a bloody battle against drug cartels.

Marijuana and crack cocaine are simply too expensive for many poor people here, even after recent efforts by drug cartels to cultivate a market in border cities. Powdered cocaine and heroin are seen as drugs for rich Americans.

Solvents containing the powerful intoxicant toluene are cheap and legal to buy. Their use is growing, especially in the large cities of central Mexico.

The number of inhalant users rose 70% from 2002 to 2008, from 314,760 to 533,797, according to Mexico’s Health Secretariat. The number of people checking into drug treatment centers rose 80% during the same period, from 4,050 to 7,293.

The government has opened more than 300 drug treatment centers since 2007 and launched several anti-drug ad campaigns as part of President Felipe Calderón’s effort against drugs. The campaigns have devoted little attention to inhalants, says Moisés Salazar, an addiction expert at Casa Alianza, a Mexico City charity.

The chemicals damage brain cells, causing learning disabilities, speech problems and difficulty walking. They can attack the kidneys, liver and heart. Toluene is not as physically addictive as crack, heroin or methamphetamine, but for many users, it becomes a dangerous crutch, clouding their thinking and keeping them on the street, Salazar says.

“It alters their perceptions, makes them laugh, and life seems less harsh,” says Juan Ramiro Vázquez, director of a government drug treatment center in Mexico City.

Inhalants are cheap, an important factor in a country where the minimum wage is $4.50 a day and many homeless people live on less than a dollar a day.

For 15 pesos, about $1.18, a user can buy a charco, or “puddle,” of about 3 ounces of toluene — enough to stay high all day. In comparison, a few grams of marijuana (enough for one marijuana cigarette) costs 20 pesos, or $1.57, and the effects last only a few hours. A rock of crack cocaine is even more expensive at $4, and the high lasts only 15 minutes.

On Panaderos Street, a notorious drug market in central Mexico City, drug dealers sell solvent mixed with cinnamon oil or air fresheners to hide the smell of toluene.

In the Insurgentes Traffic Circle in downtown Mexico City, Sharid Guillén, 21, played cards with other inhalant users. She held the cards in her right hand and her mona in her left. In Spanish, a mona is a rag used for varnishing wood.

Nearby, empty yellow-and-red bottles of plumbing cleaner littered an abandoned food kiosk.

Guillén opened her purse to show a plastic bottle filled with the solvent.

She says, “I want to stop using it, but I can’t.”

Source : USA today

The group will be among the variety of musicians, artists, vendors and activists at the annual August festival and political rally at Myrtle Edwards Park.

Sensible Washington chairman and Seattle medical-marijuana attorney Douglas Hiatt said I-1068, the proposed bill, didn’t get enough signatures to qualify for this year’s election, but he hopes things will improve for the group next year.

The past year has been a tough one for marijuana-legalization proponents. In the last legislative session, the state House of Representatives killed a legalization bill. Then, a bill that would have reclassified marijuana as a civil infraction rather than a misdemeanor never made it to a vote.

“We’ve learned a lot from our experiences earlier this year and are coming back better organized and with many more volunteers committed to the legalization cause,” Hiatt said in a news release.

Sensible Washington representatives will speak to festival attendees about their campaign at 3:50 p.m. Saturday at McWilliams Memorial Stage and at 3:45 p.m. Sunday at Share Parker Memorial Main Stage at Hempfest.

Among the speakers will be Jodie Emery, wife of Canada’s “Prince of Pot” Marc Emery, who is expected to be sentenced in Seattle next month on one count of conspiracy to distribute marijuana.

Emery, an outspoken activist who claims to have given $4 million over the years to political and legal groups fighting to decriminalize marijuana, was originally charged with money-laundering and manufacturing (or growing) and distributing marijuana seeds. He faces up to five years in prison.

Hempfest, which began in 1991 as a 6-month-long peace vigil opposing the Persian Gulf War, is a large-scale protest rally advocating the medical, recreational and industrial use of marijuana and hemp, organizers say.

Source : The Seattle Times