3/28 - North Coast Journal weighs in twice, with a cover story by Kym Kemp and an editorial by Hank Sims, titled, simply "Legalize." (His last was "Enough.") And don't miss the "Welcome to Pot City" slide show (click on the gold cup). Emerald Triangle NORML
a California NORML chapter
POB 1203, Redway CA 95560
emerald@canorml.org
8/20 - Letter to Clif Clendenen with chart of Estimated Humboldt County Tax Income with Legalization
Draft 4d of Ordinance (slight change: Decorte study did not mention outdoor so took it out of the first paragraph.)
8/12 - Draft 4c of Proposed Humboldt County Ordinance
Unfortunately, this draft was not fully presented at the July 24 event, although many copies were handed out. HuMMAP is now working on its own revision.
7/12 - CaNORML Introduces Proposed Humboldt County Legalization Ordinance at 707 College Event in Redway
HuMMAP has posted the ordinance for comments.
It will also be presented at the Bayside Grange event on July 24.
An activist center is being created on the patio of the Hemp Connection in Garberville, it will be up and running in a few weeks' time.
Look for Charlie Custer's fine, folksy piece in the upcoming Arcata Eye.
5/2 - BC Bud Imperiled by CA Legalization?
"We've got to protect our pre-eminent position by legalizing now," said Marc Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture and "BC`s prince of pot."
Christine Seronello: Marijuana in Trinity County: the untold story
4/27 - Mendo Meeting a Success
The "Life After Legalization" meeting in Ukiah on Saturday drew 250 people, including out-of-town press (LA Times, Denver Post and others). The Press Democrat was there, and the Ukiah Daily Journal, along with KCBS5 of San Francisco and the New York Times blog
Peter Hecht, who writes the "Weed Wars" blog for the Sacramento Bee, attended the meeting and spent time in Laytonville at Area 101 and with Matt Cohen, filing this report.
Alexander Cockburn weighs in with a pessimistic, long view and The Describer muses on FROM THE MARLBORO MAN TO HUMBOLDT COUNTY
And in other news,
Humboldt County Supervisors accept marijuana eradication funding,
Sacramento consultant leads campaign against pot legalization and
Widely publicized 4/20 poll actually shows majority support for drug reforms
4/13 - Humboldt on the Radar
Woods writes that the SF Chronicle blog has a piece about KMUD's CLMP reports, comments being taken.
Today's Redwood Times carries an editorial by Roger Morgan of the Coalition for a Drug-Free California. Morgan is Co-Founder of Californians for Drug-Free Schools, and a member of the National Coalition for Random Student Drug Testing.
CADFY's law-enforcement sponsors include the California Police Officers Association, the state's largest lobbyist. CCPOA has contributed $250,000 to the Cal Democratic party just in 2009/10; somewhat less to Republicans. Additional contributions included $1950 to Chesbro for Assembly. (Chesbro also got $2000 from the California Beer & Beverage Distributors fund.)
See CADFY's sponsors, one of them The Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America. The feds fund CADCA to the tune of $18 million yearly nationwide, granting up to $125,000 yearly per program. In 2008, GAO issued a report critical of the Drug-Free Comunities Support Program. 2009 grant info (746 grants) Overall, the Federal government spends $1.5 billion yearly in its war on drugs, $100 million for its anti-drug commercials.
A Congressional hearing on the US's drug war will be held tomorrow morning, starting at 7 AM PST. FYI. The hearing starts tomorrow (wed) at 10am EST. View it live. (there's a small button that says "connect to the live broadcast".) If for some reason the link above stops working, then go to www.house.gov, then click on "Oversight and Government Reform" in the "committee" pull down menu, then click on the 14th on the big calendar, then click on the link that references ONDCP. Read more.
4/4 - Rolling Stone's April 1 issue (Hendrix cover) has an article called MarijuanAmerica, by a reporter who attended the Emerald Cup last year. He makes sweeping statements about local farmers carrying guns (on the strength of a single trimmer's comment), and thinks psychedelic art is a reason not to legalize, but otherwise it's a thought-provoking article.
The Assembly Health Committee, the same one that refused to hear AB390 last year, has refused to implement a 5-cent tax on beer as a budget saving measure. The committee will rehear the measure on April 6. The Marin Institute has done an interesting study of beer taxes nationwide.
The Redwood Times got a few things wrong in their article about the 3/23 forum. I don't think I ever said that AB2254 was "dormant," in fact, it could see hearings this month in Sacramento. And the Tax Cannabis 2010 initiative will be on the November 2 ballot, not June's.
On April 24, MMMAB and Cannabis Law Institute are holding an event called Life After Legalization: Marijuana Enters the Mainstream at the Saturday Afternoon Club in Ukiah. Richard Lee, Omar Figueroa, Edie Lerman, Tim Blake, Anna Hamilton and me (Ellen Komp) are on the program.
3/28 - North Coast Journal weighs in twice, with a cover story by Kym Kemp and an editorial by Hank Sims, titled, simply "Legalize." (His last was "Enough.") And don't miss the "Welcome to Pot City" slide show (click on the gold cup).
3/27 - Today's Times-Standard stories:
The road to marijuana legalization: Community pot meeting spurs hope for legitimate industry
Marijuana meeting surveys reflect diverse groups
Download survey results in Excel document (thanks to Liz for compiling these.)
3/26 - The New York Times story on TC2010 Initiative is illustrated with "Plants in Humboldt County, Calif., grown for medical use."
More discussion about the forum, both on Ed Denson's monthly show and the two-hour special afterwards, on KMUD radio last night (Thursday 3/25). KMUD will organize their audio archive to put all the specials on this topic on a single page, and make the full forum available as well. Cynthia Elkins did a nice wrap-up on the KMUD news on Wednesday, featuring the public officials who participated.
3/25 - Study: Small Scale Cultivation Best Way to "Expel Criminal Elements"
An extensive literature review of recent Dutch-language research on cannabis cultivation has concluded that small-scale cultivation is the most effective means to remove crime from the marijuana trade.
The paper, titled "The case for small-scale domestic cannabis cultivation," is authored by Tom Decorte of the Institute for social Drug Research, Ghent University, Belgium, who also concludes that high-THC strains may be a health problem, and there is a market for organically grown marijuana.
"This reads to me--if the Dutch findings are translatable to the U.S., and it seems many are--then it's imperative for public safety and public health, as well as the quality and purity of medical marijuana, that Humboldt, the Emerald Triangle, and other regions grow cannabis on small farms to take the marijuana market back from criminal elements,” said Ellen Komp, Deputy Director of California NORML. “This study should be read in light of the two legalization proposals currently being debated in California (TaxCannabis 2010 and AB2254).” Read more.
The Humboldt forum went national, with AP (thus San Jose, Contra Costa, the LA Times and the SF Chronicle) picking up Donna Tam's Times-Standard story on Monday's front page, and even the New York Times blog picking it up (but initially calling it the Times-Sentinel.) Humboldt was also mentioned in a Santa Cruz Sentinel editorial.
The NPR blog also carried it; first two comments on that story were:
malcolm KYLE (MALCOLMKYLE) wrote:
Many of us have now finally wised up to the fact that the best avenue towards realistically dealing with drug use and addiction is through proper regulation, which is what we already do with alcohol & tobacco --two of our most dangerous mood altering substances. But for those of you whose ignorant minds traverse a fantasy plane of existence, you will no doubt remain sorely upset with any type of solution that does not seem to lead to the absurd and unattainable utopia of a drug free society.
Steve Weiss (jove4015) wrote:
Hello! ::waves in his own general New Yorkerly direction:: Send it over here boys!
Hear Ellen Komp's interview on Marketplace
AP sent a reporter to the forum, and he filed this report. Times-Standard is doing more follow-up; here's the report Tam filed during the forum:
Southern Humboldt marijuana legalization discussion ends with ideas of branding, business models and regulation
Donna Tam/The Times-Standard
3/22- Marv Levin from the Mendocino Farmer's Collective guested on Anna Banana's show Thursday night on KMUD. He mentioned the Clean Green Certification program. The second-hour guests were Kathy Moxon, Community Development Coordinator for the Humboldt Area Foundation and David Cobb of Democracy Unlimited.
The Climate-Killers Inside
Measuring the astoundingly high environmental costs of grow houses
By Peter Lehman and Peter Johnstone
North Coast Journal, March 11
March 12 - Dion from the Redwood Coast Geotourism Project was interviewed on KMUD news tonight. Cynthia Elkins asked him if he thought cannabis tourism could be a part of his organizations' push, which is heavily focused on wine. He replied to the effect that he thought cannabis enthusiasm was passe, and hidden. I guess he's never heard of Oaksterdam. Their National Geographic-affiliated site is www.visitredwoodcoast.com.
Mendocino's proposed medical marijuana cultivation ordinance, mentioned on last night's KMUD show, was updated today, the new version is here. Eureka's proposed medical marijuana ordinance is here.
March 9 - Organized by KMUD's Anna Banana, meetings of stakeholders in Humboldt County's post-legalization economy have begun at Calico's in Garberville every Monday at 3 PM. The last meeting (March 8) was well attended and quite productive.
KMUD will air 2-hour shows on the topic on the next three Thursdays (March 11, March 18 and March 25). A community meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 23 at the Mateel Community Center from 6-10 PM.
Visit www.canorml.org for the latest news on AB2254, the Ammiano-sponsored legalization bill in the California legislature, and TC2010.org, the ballot initiative to be voted on in November.
Contact your California legislatures to have the following language inserted into AB2254:
25406. The department shall make every effort in the issuing of licenses to encourage a competitive market that includes small businesses for marijuana production and distribution.
Write in with your input about what should be included in the bill. (See more below)
Ellen Komp
CaNORML
ellen@canorml.org
Another bill worth looking at is the Massachusetts State/House legalization bill.
This would license farmer/producer/retailers (something AB2254 doesn't do) and regulate the quality and purity of cannabis products.
Here's a quick take on rewriting some Alcoholic Beverages Codes to include Cannabis
NEWS STORIES
Report: Californians consume 16 million ounces of pot a year
Peter Hecht, Sacramento Bee
March 9, 2010
Slowly, states are lessening limits on marijuana
USAToday
March 8, 2010
NEWS STORIES 2009
Enough
By Hank Sims, North Coast Journal
5/14/2009
HSU's Thursday Night Talk
Topic: Legalization
5/14/2009
Protect the Humboldt brand
Richard Salzman/For the Times-Standard
5/15/2009
Humboldt Supes Vote for DEA Grant; Pitino Asks for AB390 Support
IMPORTANT MEDICAL CANNABIS CASE TESTS STATE LAW ON COLLECTIVES
North Coast Journal: When Weed is Legal
April 2, 2009
Mendocino Capital of Marijuana Cultivation Moves to Regulate Medical Cannabis Production
April 1, 2009
Kevin Hoover: Cannabis craziness is ending
Arcata Eye --
March 4, 2009
AB390 INTRODUCED IN CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE
Assembly Bill 390 ( Ammiano), which would legalize marijuana for those 21 and over, is now on a two-year track and will see its first hearings in 2010. This gives us a full year to hash out language and build support.
I know there is concern locally about the economic effects of marijuana legalization, but I appeal to this community, which prides itself on championing human rights, not to let the War on Drugs be a price-support system for its cottage industry. Nearly 75,000 Californians were arrested on marijuana charges in 2007. They lose jobs, college loans, parental rights, and more to what increasing numbers of Americans see as an unjust and costly prohibition.
Polls show that a majority of Americans are or soon will be in favor of marijuana legalization. It will happen in our lifetimes, and it's time for the small-time grower to come to the table with proposals that will preserve the way of life we all know and love in the Emerald Triangle. Take a look at the proposed changes below, and the bill, and write in with your thoughts and ideas. You can also write to
NorCal NORML
POB 1203
Redway, CA 95560
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