MJ News for 12/23/2014

[7greeneyes]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...l-marijuana/3VbkB3oasfDpQ3q8Cwn1rO/story.html

(Massachusetts) Schools offering courses on sale of marijuana​

NATICK — Jeanne Ficcardi-Sauro was watching television this summer when she saw a story about a trade school for a fast-growing field that promised plenty of job opportunities. She couldn’t wait to enroll.

Ficcardi-Sauro, of Franklin, became one of the first students at the new Northeastern Institute of Cannabis, or NIC. It’s a two-classroom school in an office park that prepares people for positions ranging from dispensary workers to medical marijuana educators. In advance of the expected opening of the first Massachusetts dispensaries next year, the for-profit NIC has graduated about 12 students and has 64 more enrolled.


Keith Saunders, a sociology professor who oversees the curriculum at NIC, said help-wanted ads for medical marijuana workers already are appearing on the jobs website Monster.com. He figures each of the state’s 15 provisionally approved dispensaries will immediately need 35 to 40 workers, and then continue to hire.

“When [dispensaries] roll out, it will happen quickly,” he said.

The institute is not the only school of its kind in Massachusetts. The New England Grass Roots Institute in Quincy caters to medical marijuana patients, and the Cannabis Career Institute, a national company, periodically offers marijuana business training sessions in Boston.

Although it is difficult to project how many jobs medical marijuana might create statewide, it could be significant, said Amanda Reiman, manager of marijuana law and policy at the Drug Policy Alliance, a drug law reform group with headquarters in New York City.

The jobs do not just entail growing and selling marijuana, she said. Think commercial kitchens cooking marijuana-laced foods, manufacturers providing packaging, and marketing firms promoting brands.

“There’s all of these ancillary businesses that are involved in the industry,” Reiman said.

The curriculum at Northeastern Institute of Cannabis is based on discussions with dispensary operators in other states — including California, Colorado, Maine, and Rhode Island — producers of cannabis medicine, state legislators, and industry specialists, according to school officials. They have applied for state certification as an occupational trade school.

To receive a certificate, students must complete 12 four-hour courses, including medical marijuana 101, which covers the basics of marijuana as a medicine, cannabis law New England, an overview of state marijuana laws, and cannabis cultivation, about the art and science of growing marijuana. (It’s all strictly academic: The school cannot have marijuana on site).

Students also must pass a two-hour exam by scoring at least 70 percent on each of 12 sections and 75 percent overall.

The cost of the program, which typically takes four to six weeks to complete, will increase to $2,000 from $1,500 on Jan. 1.

Students range in age from their 20s to 60s and come from a variety of backgrounds. They include chefs, mechanics, and business owners.

Ficcardi-Sauro, a 56-year-old mother of two grown children, said she has had difficulty finding full-time employment, so she is giving the medical marijuana industry a try. She also is a cancer patient and smokes marijuana to manage pain and fall asleep. Her goal: to educate and counsel other patients.

“It can just help so many people in so many ways,” she said.

Another student, Meaghan Chalmers, is on track to earn an associate’s degree in business administration from North Shore Community College next spring and plans to follow that with bachelor and master’s degrees. With a certificate from NIC, Chalmers, 26, hopes to get a management job at a dispensary.

Chalmers recalled her parents’ reaction when she told them she was enrolling at NIC. “So it’s like weed school?” her father said.

But, she added, “They were happy that I started doing something that made me happy.”

The school has amenities found at other trade schools and community colleges, including a student lounge, movie nights, and a store that sells T-shirts and sweatshirts emblazoned with the NIC logo. Along with textbooks, students can buy medical marijuana cookbooks, vaporizers, and glass pipes.

Mickey Martin, a longtime advocate for reform of marijuana laws, founded the school earlier this year. He said the school plans to host its first job fair in March.

Launching the school posed several challenges, said Martin, who is from Oakland, Calif. It took months to find a location because landlords were reluctant to rent to a school specializing in marijuana, which is still illegal under federal law. The school’s insurance rates are double that of an average trade school, and the school’s bank account was canceled.

“There’s nothing illegal about what we’re doing,” Martin said. “But because we have cannabis in our name I’m forced to jump through the same hurdles as dispensary groups. It’s kind of insanity.”

Still, Martin said, he has recruited high-quality faculty and administrators. Saunders, who developed the school’s curriculum, has taught drug policy courses at Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

Bill Downing, a longtime business owner and activist for marijuana law reform, teaches classes in business management and the history of marijuana.

Uma Dhanabalan, who teaches the medical marijuana 101 course, has a medical degree, is a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, and holds a master’s in public health from Harvard University.

Dhanabalan said it was not until later in her career that she learned marijuana could help relieve chronic pain, nausea, and migraines, as well as treat diseases such as glaucoma. When she was asked to teach at the school, she said, it was easy to say yes.

“This is history in the making,” she said.

Daniel Epstein, a NIC student, said he is impressed with the quality of instructors and hopes to work in management at a dispensary.

Epstein, 33, of Hyde Park, is also an advocate for the drug. As a teenager, he used marijuana after undergoing two brain surgeries to help with his recoveries.

Epstein, who works part-time at the school enrolling students, said he never thought medical marijuana would get so far.

“It’s hard to believe,” he said. “I come in every day, waiting for the dream to fade.”

 

[7greeneyes]

http://gazette.com/proposal-seeks-gun-permits-for-colorado-marijuana-users/article/1543550

Proposal seeks gun permits for Colorado marijuana users​

DENVER — Colorado was the first state to flout federal drug law with recreational marijuana sales. Now the state's voters may consider a ballot measure to allow pot smokers to carry a concealed firearm.

The "Colorado Campaign for Equal Gun Rights" is working to put a question on the November 2016 ballot to have Colorado ignore guidelines from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives about firearms and pot.

The measure would change state law to prevent sheriffs from denying concealed carry permits because of marijuana use. It's a new frontier in the marijuana wars, and one that has divided gun-rights activists.

"It's just ridiculous," said Edgar Antillon, one of the campaign organizers, who argues that firearms aren't kept from alcohol drinkers. "Somebody can get extremely drunk — Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and all week if they want — and they can still get a concealed carry permit."

He said he and his campaign partner, Isaac Chase, who run a firearm training business called "Guns For Everyone," are reaching out to gun rights groups for support, including those involved in last year's recall of two state senators who supported stricter firearm laws. Colorado organizers need more than 86,100 signatures to send the question to voters, and it's unclear whether Antillon's campaign will get enough support to launch.

The campaign would put Colorado again in direct conflict with federal guidelines about the drug.

In 2011, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sent states a directive to keep guns away from marijuana users.

Earlier this year, Democratic Sen. John Walsh of Montana tried to change that, suggesting an amendment to bar federal prosecution of medical marijuana patients who own firearms. The amendment failed.

The matter divides gun enthusiasts. The president of the Colorado State Shooting Association said his members would oppose letting pot users carry guns.

"Federal law prohibits the possession and use of marijuana and its derivatives, and therefore its possession and use is incompatible with legal, responsible firearms ownership," said Tony Fabian, president of the Colorado State Shooting Association.

The County Sheriffs of Colorado are lining up against the idea, too.

But it's an open debate whether marijuana-using gun owners are more dangerous than others — or even how many people lose gun rights over pot.

Colorado keeps no data on the question. And the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which runs background checks for applicants and gun buyers, doesn't track how many are denied concealed carry permits because of pot. Neither does the County Sheriffs of Colorado.

People are asked, under oath, 14 questions on Colorado's concealed carry application, including whether the person has a restraining order, has been convicted of a felony, or has been treated for alcoholism within the past 10 years.

They're also asked if they're "an unlawful user of" marijuana "or any other controlled substance." The application is processed by county sheriffs.

The conflict has surfaced in other states that allow medical or recreational marijuana use, including Washington and Oregon.

In Washington state, forms for concealed weapons permits also ask if someone is an "unlawful user" of marijuana, without differentiating between state or federal law.

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from an Oregon sheriff who had been prohibited from denying a concealed handgun license to a medical marijuana user. The decision meant the woman and other medical marijuana cardholders could obtain concealed handgun licenses.

Antillon, whose company provides the firearm training required for concealed carry applicants, said several students have told him they've been denied a permit because they use marijuana, either medically or recreationally. He said it's unjust that marijuana users are being "punished and can't defend their lives."

He argues that marijuana users can also be responsible firearm owners.

"It's going to be that initial battle of educating people. The challenge is people thinking that we're allowing people who are high to possess handguns," he said.

 

[7greeneyes]

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news...navajo-nation-reservation-marijuana/20774735/

(Arizona) Tribes tread carefully into marijuana discussions​

FLAGSTAFF — The Navajo Nation had bitter debates when it was deciding whether to allow casinos on the reservation and if alcohol should be sold in them. The arguments focused on the revenue and jobs that casinos and liquor could bring to a reservation where half the workforce is unemployed and most arrests and pervasive social ills are linked to alcohol abuse.

When the federal government announced this month that it would allow American Indian tribes to grow and sell marijuana, the same divisive discussions resurfaced. The tribal president's office talked of expanding crops to include pot for medicinal but not recreational use, while a tribal lawmaker quickly declared his opposition.

"Criminal activity is just going to go up more, and drug addiction is going to go up more, and everyone is going to be affected," said Edmund Yazzie, head of the Navajo Nation Council's Law and Order Committee.

The split reaction among Navajo leaders reflects divisions on reservations around the country. While the Navajo and a number of other tribes ultimately ventured into the casino business, many say they're inclined to avoid marijuana as a potential revenue booster amid deep sensitivity over rampant alcoholism, poverty, crime and joblessness on tribal lands.

Marijuana isn't tied to tribal culture, like tobacco commonly used in religious ceremonies, and any pot-growing operation would run counter to the message that tribes have preached for decades that drugs and alcohol ruin lives, said Carl Artman, former U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs assistant secretary and member of the Oneida Tribe in Wisconsin.

"When you look at what tribes have to offer — from gaming to ecotourism to looking out over the Grand Canyon, just bringing people out on the reservation for art or culture — this is not one of the things they would normally want," Artman said. "It hearkens back to something that's archaic and stereotypical as opposed to what the modern-day Indian is about."

But it has piqued the interest of some of the country's 566 federally recognized tribes, including tribes in Washington, the Dakotas, Connecticut and Colorado, as well as the Navajo Nation, which stretches into New Mexico, Utah and Arizona.

Lance Morgan, a member of the Winnebago Tribe who manages an Indian law firm in Nebraska, said he's had about a dozen requests from tribes looking for a legal framework for getting into the marijuana business. The overall poverty rate for American Indian and Alaska Natives in 2010 was 28 percent, according to Census data, but it can be much greater in individual tribal communities.

"It's something everyone is talking about," he said.

But he said tribes are treading carefully and believes most of them will decide against getting into the marijuana business.

Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota and South Dakota, said his tribe might consider cultivating marijuana's non-intoxicating cousin, hemp, but the federal government would have to allow interstate transport for it to be a profitable venture. Hemp is used to make clothing, lotion and other products, but growing it is illegal under federal law.

"We've always thought we had the sovereign right" to grow marijuana, Archambault said. "But once you try to transport it interstate, federal law discourages it."

In Colorado and Washington state, which legalized recreational pot in 2012, some tribes got a head-start on talks about marijuana sales.

The 1,100-member Suquamish Tribe near Seattle began considering the potential business opportunities in April. But Washington's liquor board, which regulates pot sales, initially said it wouldn't grant the tribe a license until federal officials clarified their position regarding pot on reservations.

Liquor board spokesman Brian Smith said the state will revisit the issue in light of the U.S. Justice Department's new policy.

North of Seattle, the Tulalip Tribe has voted to pursue discussions on allowing medical marijuana, tribal spokeswoman Niki Cleary said. The tribe's values have been evolving, she said, noting even a vote on medical pot would have resulted in an automatic "no" in the past.

The owner of one of the country's largest resort casinos, the Mohegan Tribe in Connecticut, didn't rule it out either. Spokesman Chuck Bunnell said the tribe is looking at opportunities to expand into new markets that would not jeopardize any current investments.

While the Justice Department provided a path for tribes to grow and sell marijuana, federal officials cautioned that they won't allow all tribal members to start pot businesses. Montana U.S. Attorney Mike Cotter, who helped craft the agency's policy, said federal law enforcement would respond if a tribal pot industry became linked with organized criminal elements, firearms, sales to minors or similar abuses — the same federal conditions laid out for states that have legalized the drug.

Among the questions tribes still have regarding the industry is whether limits would be placed on how much marijuana could be grown and sold, whether it can be transported off reservations and if taxes apply.

Yazzie, of the Navajo Nation law-enforcement panel, said he would push his colleagues to say no to any marijuana sales or growth on the vast reservation.

He was among the most vocal lawmakers when the Tribal Council was deciding whether to allow alcohol at the tribe's first casino in New Mexico. He questioned his colleagues on whether money was more important than human life, considering most arrests for major incidents on the reservation involve alcohol.

The bill was decided by two votes in 2008 making casinos and a lake marina the only exceptions for alcohol sales and consumption on the otherwise dry reservation. Navajos twice voted against gambling on the reservation before approving it in 2004.

"What is going on?" Yazzie said. "We're having bad issue problems with alcohol, and now if we legalize marijuana, it's just another fight."

 

[7greeneyes]

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/New-law-could-affect-criminal-sentences-in-5974026.php

New law could affect criminal sentences in marijuana cases​

In a sharp reversal of federal drug policy, Congress has prohibited the Justice Department from interfering with laws in California and other states that allow the medical use of marijuana. And the turnabout caught the immediate attention of federal judges, who want to know its impact on some recent criminal convictions under the federal law that classifies pot as one of the most dangerous drugs.

A day after President Obama signed the new law last week as part of a government spending bill, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco asked a federal prosecutor whether the change would affect the sentencing of a Mendocino County pot grower, who pleaded guilty to charges requiring at least five years in prison.

Not at all, replied Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Barry, because defendant Matthew Graves “was not growing (his crop) for patients. ... He was growing it for money.”

But Breyer wouldn’t take Barry’s word for it, and rescheduled the sentencing for February.

When Graves was charged with illegal cultivation in 2012, the judge noted, federal law barred any evidence of medical use, but the new law might make that information relevant now. In fact, Graves’ lawyer has said some of his client’s plants were for medical patients. A day earlier, another judge in the same courthouse postponed the sentencing of a Humboldt County man who claimed his pot crop was all for medical use, in compliance with state law.
Not far away, lawyers for Harborside Health Center in Oakland, the nation’s largest medical marijuana dispensary, were preparing to invoke the abrupt change in federal law to fend off U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag’s two-year effort to shut Harborside down and forfeit its property.

The legislation should persuade Haag’s office “to lay down its arms so as to end the costly and misguided offensive on the rights of medical cannabis patients,” said Henry Wykowski, a lawyer for the dispensary.

Federal prosecutors aren’t prepared to concede anything. While the Justice Department hasn’t spoken publicly on the meaning of the new law, saying only that it’s under review, the legislation — an amendment to a government spending bill — is loosely worded and subject to varying interpretations.

Spending ban

Sponsored by two California congressmen, Republican Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach (Orange County) and Democrat Sam Farr of Carmel, the amendment prohibits the government from spending money to prevent 32 states — California and 21 others that allow the medical use of marijuana, and 10 more that legalize hemp oils — from “implementing their own state laws.”

“It’s ironic that they don’t want any money spent (on federal enforcement), because there’s going to be a lot of money spent in courts,” said Marsha Cohen, a UC Hastings law professor in San Francisco who specializes in food and drug laws.

Medical marijuana advocates have promoted such legislation for the past decade to counteract a system in which state laws that allow cultivation, distribution and use of the drug with a doctor’s approval can’t even be mentioned in federal court.

Voters approved the California law in 1996, and since then both Democratic and Republican presidential administrations have backed raids on pot growers and suppliers, prosecution and imprisonment of their leaders, and seizure of their properties, regardless of state or local licensing. The four U.S. attorneys in California announced a campaign in October 2011 to shut down marijuana dispensaries, which they likened to drug trafficking operations, and have closed several hundred.

The forfeitures have slowed since the Justice Department announced in August 2013 that dispensaries complying with state laws should not be a priority for federal enforcement. But Haag’s office and others in California contend the outlets they target are violating state law because of their inherently commercial nature — or, in Harborside’s case, its sheer size, with 108,000 customers — even if the state lets them operate.

'Political statement’

Because federal prosecutors say they’re already abiding by state laws, the new legislation is mostly “a political statement that has no significant impact” on current cases, said Oakland attorney William Taggart, a former Golden Gate University law school dean and advocate of marijuana decriminalization.
But medical marijuana advocates say Congress clearly meant to stop federal crackdowns on state-licensed operations.

Haag’s “lawsuit to forfeit property is contrary to the intent of Congress,” and so are prosecutions of medical marijuana growers and suppliers, said Cedric Chao, a lawyer for the city of Oakland, which approved Harborside’s operation.

Medical marijuana lawyer Joseph Elford said California courts have rejected the federal government’s argument that pot dispensaries violate state law.

The debate is about to begin in federal court.

Before he pronounces any sentence in the Mendocino case, Breyer said at Wednesday’s hearing, he needs to know “what does that act mean with respect to marijuana prosecutions?”

 

[7greeneyes]

http://www.9news.com.au/national/20...-cannabis-legalisation-should-australia-adopt

How far should Australia go on legalising cannabis?​

It appears to be just a matter of time before cannabis is legalised in some form within Australia, but state legislators are now faced with the choice of how far they should go.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has come forward with his desire to legalise medical cannabis in his state, while the NSW government is presiding over a medical trial in which marijuana is given to seriously ill people, including children suffering severe epilepsy.

Mr Andrews said it was time to drag marijuana laws "into the 21st century".

"Parents shouldn't have to choose between breaking the law and watching their children suffer," he said.

"Children are in pain, families are suffering, people are living in fear and outdated laws are getting in the way."

Canberra's Calvary Hospital emergency department head David Caldicott has backed attempts to legalise medical cannabis, but senior doctors who back full legalisation are difficult to find, with doctors warning of the dangers of street marijuana.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has also endorsed the use of medical marijuana.

The NSW and Victorian governments have said there is no plan to completely legalise marijuana, as has taken place in the US state of Colorado.

Countries around the world have taken different stances on the criminal status of the plant.

In the US, Alaska, Oregon and Washington have completely legalised marijuana, following Colorado's lead.

Cannabis is also used for medical purposes in 18 US states.

The Netherlands, particularly its capital city Amsterdam, is famed the world over for a lenient stance on cannabis, but the drug is actually illegal in the country.

However, possession of small amounts is not prosecuted and marijauna is available for purchase in special coffee shops.

In Canada, medical marijuana is available to approved patients, who are also allowed to grow the plant.

Portugal in the early 2000s decriminalised cannabis, making possession and limited use a medical rather than a criminal matter.

People found with marijuana in the country can be forced to attend a clinic, rather than be prosecuted.

 

[7greeneyes]

http://marijuana.com/news/2014/12/d...rt-rules-cannabis-concentrates-are-medicinal/

Dabs Win: California Court Rules Cannabis Concentrates are Medicinal​

Along with edibles, dabs have become a controversial form of marijuana. Often (erroneously) referred to by the mainstream media as “the crack cocaine of weed”, dab madness has replaced reefer madness over the last year.

Fortunately, a California appellate court has put that discussion to rest by ruling that “concentrated cannabis qualifies as marijuana for purposes of medical use.” While the ruling won’t stop the national debate on dabs, it should ease extract artists’ and dabbers minds throughout California.

The ruling stems from a bizarre case, as a 22-year-old medical marijuana patient was found in possession of .05 grams of extract and 3.3 grams of marijuana (under an 1/8) in 2013. The defendant, Sean Patrick Mulcrevy, was said to have violated probation by possessing the concentrated cannabis, which was a misdemeanor at the time.

But not so fast, said the California court last Friday. The 3rd District Court Appeal reviewed Judge James Wagoner’s previous ruling on the case, and then quickly reversed course and overturned Wagoner’s folly.

The original ruling by Judge Wagoner contended that dabs were not defended by the states Compassionate Use Act, and therefore, Wagoner was committing some kind of crime by possessing them.

But Mulcrevy was and is a marijuana patient who legally purchased the .05 worth of dabs from a medical marijuana facility and therefore, the 3rd District ruled, was actually in complete compliance with California’s Compassionate Use Act (CUS):

In an opinion issued Wednesday, the justices concluded that Wagoner violated Mulcrevy’s right to defend himself when the judge prevented Mulcrevy from presenting a defense based on the CUA.

Concentrated cannabis “is covered by the CUA, and there is insufficient evidence (Mulcrevy) violated his probation in light of that conclusion,” the justices stated in their unpublished opinion. “Therefore, we also conclude the court’s error was not harmless and we reverse the trial court’s judgment.”

Even better, the ruling could have far wider implications in California and hopefully, beyond. The court recognizes that cannabis concentrates fall under the state’s law and as part of the marijuana plant, is totally kosher for medical use:

“‘when the CUA was approved by voters 18 years ago. Marijuana was defined as “all parts of the plant Cannabis sativa L.,whether growing or not; the seeds thereof; the resin extracted from any part of the plant; and every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of the plant, its seeds or resin.’”

The dab haters just got torched.