The Stoner Army

OROVILLE -- In a surprise move, federal prosecutors Tuesday took
over a Chico pot cultivation case, effectively depriving the suspect
of a medical marijuana defense in court, his attorney objected.

At the request of the U.S Attorney in Sacramento, the Butte County
District Attorney's Office moved in court Tuesday to dismiss local
charges against Robert Gordon Rasmussen, 23.

Federal prosecutors intend to seek an indictment on new marijuana
cultivation charges, which could carry up to 20 years in prison.

The Chico man is accused of growing about 210 marijuana plants at

Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse (MAMA) will give a presentation,
"America and Drugs - Still Crazy After All These Years," at noon
Monday at the Cannery Cafe, No. 1 Sixth St. This event is part of a
statewide tour to celebrate MAMA's 25 years dedicated to reducing the
harm from drug use.

MAMA Executive Director Sandee Burbank will discuss how America's
approach to drugs can be improved to better protect people. MAMA's
program is based on personal responsibility and informed
decision-making, with respect for human dignity.

As a Christian, I wish Kelly Maddy and the Joplin chapter of the
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws success, but
for re-legalizing, not just decriminalizing, cannabis.

Another reason to stop caging humans for using the God-given plant
cannabis that doesn't get mentioned is because it is biblically
correct. Christ God Our Father indicates he created all the
seed-bearing plants, saying they are all good, on literally the very
first page. The only biblical restriction placed on cannabis is that
it is to be accepted with thankfulness (see 1 Timothy 4:1-5).

Medical Marijuana Users Want Visalia Dispensary Open

Visalia Compassionate Caregivers have suspended their long-standing
practice of quietly dispensing marijuana to patients as a result of
the city's nuisance-ticket ordinance.

"We were going to be charged $100 for the first offense, then $200,
then $500," said Jeff Nunes, who manages the Caregivers office and
its Visalia-based support organization, Medicinal Marijuana Awareness
and Defense. "And $500 again and again. We can't afford that."

So to "keep from going bankrupt," as Nunes put it, he shut down the

Collegian staff writer Kyle Klavetter has laid a heavy dollop of
righteous ambiguity on all our heads with his pretentious and off-key
screed, "Pot lacks purpose."

Cannabis is one of humanity's oldest agricultural commodities with a
proud and prominent place in both global and U.S. history. Its
prohibition is but seven decades old and a prohibition that began
with a rotten and corrupt foundation, based on the xenophobic lies
and perjured testimony before the US Congress by lifelong bureaucrat
Harry Anslinger. Those corrupt beginnings are enough in themselves

According to a study by Harvard professor Jeffrey Miron, the
government will spend approximately $8.61 billion in 2007 on
marijuana prohibition enforcement. Despite such robust government
spending, current strategies have failed to curb marijuana
consumption. In 2005, 16.9 percent of Americans surveyed in National
Household Surveys on Drug Use and Health admitted to using marijuana
in the last year compared with 13.2 percent in 2000. Data from drug
treatment facilities indicate that marijuana abuse is also increasing.

What would cops do without weed? For one thing, they'd sure spend a lot less time arresting and processing petty pot violators. How much time? For starters, however long it took to bust the estimated 739,000 Americans arrested for minor pot possession in 2006.

Re "Medical pot dispensary raided by DEA agents," Sept. 27: This is a sad time here in California.

More than 10 years ago, we the voters approved Proposition 215.

But the federal government does not see it that way.

It still treats marijuana as a hard drug. There are so many other things the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration could be doing instead of stealing the medicine of patients here in our state.

I would like to know why the DEA is not finding better ways to spend its money on other things like busting meth labs.

GISBORNE might be the first city to see the light, but for many Gisborne families that light is greatly dimmed by excessive use of cannabis.

Demotivated and depressed, many long-term cannabis users have markedly reduced potential for creating the full and active life they might otherwise have, says Kaiti Medical Centre GP Johan Peters.

Two years ago, stay-at-home mom Janie Fulghum was clueless about crystal meth and assumed her kids were, too.

Now, she knows the drug's street names --- ice, crank, go fast, devil, speed.

A neighbor's cry for help opened Fulghum's eyes to the drug underworld lurking outside her Loganville home. The woman, practically a stranger to Fulghum, needed help finding her 17-year-old methamphetamine-addicted daughter who had run away.

Fulghum's kids helped to educate their mother about the drug during the search. The rest she learned on the Internet.

The legalization of marijuana would greatly impact the U.S. economy.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA, website,
marijuana is "America's most valuable crop."

Marijuana crops in the United States are worth about 35.8 billion
dollars per year, which is 12.5 billion more dollars per year than
corn, the second most profitable crop. If taxed like alcohol and
tobacco, marijuana could bring in even more money.

Marijuana sales could generate an estimated 6.2 billion dollars per
year in taxes, according to Harvard professor Jeffrey Miron.

The Justice Minister, Jack Straw, became the most senior Labour
minister last night to speak out against the decriminalisation of cannabis.

He told Channel Four News that he was against downgrading it to a
class C drug.

"I was always against it, let me say, I can disclose this now,
reducing the categorisation of cannabis from B to C, I thought that
was an error," he said.

"I'm glad to know that we are now looking again at that. I don't think
decriminalisation would work.

"I'm happy to have a debate about that, but I'm absolutely clear -

Films About Marijuana Are Challenging Viewers' Thoughts About the
Politics Behind the Drug

VANCOUVER -- Nick Wilson was 26, developing a documentary - his first
- about online infidelity, when he had a conversation with his
68-year-old aunt that sent him in a new direction. Aunt Wendy had
seen a news story on TV about the Vancouver marijuana activist Marc
Emery and she was incensed. Why were U.S. authorities after him? And
why would Canada even consider extraditing a Canadian to face up to
life in prison, simply for selling marijuana seeds?

Carl Casey is convinced marijuana saved his sight. Kathy Jones says
cannabis provides more relief for her muscle-related disease than
the 27 pills she used to take for it.

The two Inland residents are among thousands of Californians who
have doctors' permission to smoke marijuana to help them cope with
medical conditions.

As medical-marijuana dispensaries in the Inland area close or
authorities shut them down, local patients are traveling to Los
Angeles County dispensaries or combing Inland streets to search for
what they view as medicine, not a recreational drug.

Regarding Gloria Baraquio's Sept. 19 column: If health outcomes
determined drug laws, instead of cultural norms, marijuana would be
legal. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an
overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of
tobacco. Marijuana can be harmful if abused, but jail cells are
inappropriate as health interventions and ineffective as deterrents.

The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican
immigration during the early 1900s, despite opposition from the
American Medical Association. Dire warnings that marijuana inspires

We're back from the war. We can't sleep. We're getting divorced. If
marijuana is good for post-traumatic stress, who are we to deny its
medicinal properties?

Can medical marijuana help returning soldiers from the Iraq and Afghanistan
war deal with post-traumatic stress disorder?

This question -- that it might, that it might not, or that it might even
make it worse -- hadn't even occurred to me until recently, when I was on
the phone with the receptionist at a local medical-marijuana clinic trying
to line up an appointment with a doctor in high hopes of obtaining a

Hundreds of young children illegally trafficked into the UK are the new victims of Britain's booming cannabis trade.

Figures obtained by the Independent on Sunday reveal that, as organised criminals push cannabis production to record levels, at least one child a week is being found by police raiding cannabis factories.

Experts warn that children as young as 13 are being smuggled from Southeast Asia to work as "slaves" for gangs in dangerous conditions, being kept captive in towns and suburbs across Britain.

Damages Sought Against DEA Agents, Petaluma Officer In Mistaken ID Case

A North Bay couple whose home was raided by drug agents has filed a federal lawsuit against the officers, claiming they violated their civil and constitutional rights in a slipshod investigation that ended with the case being dismissed for lack of evidence.

Petaluma Police Officer Paul Acconero and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Agents Seth McMullen and John Silva are named as defendants in the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages.

They marched by the thousands Thursday in Jena, La., to protest a terrible injustice against six teenagers there, and rightfully so. As the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said in his famous April 16, 1963, Letter from the Birmingham Jail, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Hispanics, too, sent to prison more than whites, study finds

African-Americans and Hispanics convicted of drug trafficking in Wisconsin are more likely to wind up in prison than white drug dealers, according to a report on race and sentencing by the state Sentencing Commission.

Compared with whites, Hispanics are 2 1/2 times as likely to be imprisoned, while blacks are nearly twice as likely to end up behind bars for dealing drugs, according to the report issued last month.