Cannabis Hemp News

Good news from italy...not too much but better tha nothing http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/awnplus/en..._114319935.html (ANSA) - Rome, January 14 - Italy's top court caused a flap on Wednesday when it said it was OK to grow marijuana as long as people didn't let it get big enough to have any of the drug in it yet. Overturning the conviction of a Marche man caught with 23 small plants in 2003, the Cassation Court said police should only step in when there was a concrete threat. Politicians pounced on the verdict, with Isabella Bertolini of the ruling People of Freedom (PdL) party saying: ''The Cassation judges really seem to be living on another planet. The next t…

THE Kings Cross safe injecting centre made no difference at all to overdose death rates in its local area in its first five years of operation. Statistics show death rates from drug overdose in the area around the injecting room are no less than in other areas across NSW. The findings into the $2.5 million-a-year facility are contained in an unreported independent evaluation that studied autopsy rates. The report assessed overdose deaths from heroin, morphine and other opioids in those postcodes - 2010 and 2011 - near the injecting centre and concluded that deaths rates fell at the same rate they did elsewhere in NSW. The most likely conclusion is that the falls w…

Cannabis Protest London: Date set 12 January 2009 PR Cannazine http://pr.cannazine.co.uk/content/view/807/27/ Jim (Pinky) Starr is the founder of www.protestlondon.co.uk , and someone who is a self-confessed medicinal user of cannabis. But try as he may, Jim Starr has failed to find out why he and other cannabis users deserve 5 years in prison for smoking cannabis and can face up to 14 years in prison now, just for sharing a spliff! Pinky is unable to sit back and relax after already calling protests against the government in 2008 to give medicinal and recreation users the right to use cannabis without the fear of prosecution. If the mountain won't come to Moha…

Cannabis users will escape with £80 fixed penalty fine Mathew Hickley 14 January 2009 Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11...nalty-fine.html Drug users caught with cannabis will be given £80 on-the-spot fines and will not get a criminal record or have to appear in court under government plans. The use of controversial fixed penalty fines - originally created to deal with minor 'nuisance' offences - is being expanded to take in 21 new crimes. These include stealing petrol from a filling station, making threats to destroy property and drunken and yobbish behaviour on trains. Magistrates attacked the plans at a crisis meeting with Justice Secretar…

One More Chance for Religious Marijuana Jacob Sullum 13 January 2009 Reason Magazine http://reason.com/blog/show/131044.html Last week the Arizona Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal by a man who argues that his conviction on marijuana charges violated a state law protecting religious freedom. Daniel Hardesty, a member of the cannabis-centered Church of Cognizance, was arrested in 2005. His religious freedom argument was rejected at trial and by the Arizona Court of Appeal, but now he will get one more chance. Arizona's Free Exercise of Religion Act allows the state to impose a substantial burden on the exercise of religion only if it is "the least restrictive means"…

Man banned from leaving home at night 13/01/2009 The Press and Journal http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.a...990651?UserKey= AN ELGIN drug dealer will have to stay in his house overnight for the next 10 weeks after being convicted of supplying almost 10oz of cannabis resin. Michael Stanford, 25, of 4 School Brae Place, appeared at Elgin Sheriff Court for sentence after pleading guilty during a court appearance last month. He had been charged with being concerned in the supply of cannabis resin and possession of the drug at his address between August 1 and November 25 last year. Fiscal depute Shona Duncan had previously told the court that police were acting…

Pain relief dope crop costs paraplegic 12 January 2009 http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4816320a12855.html A man who became a paraplegic after a logging accident 10 years ago turned to cannabis for pain relief because he did not like the effects of his prescribed medication. But that has landed 48-year-old Graham Coote in Tauranga District Court on a charge of cultivating the class C drug and cost him a $600 fine. "Regrettably the law does not allow that," Judge Christopher Harding told the wheelchair-bound man who had to sit alongside the dock. "Any sympathy I might have has to be put aside." However, Coote was entitled to be dealt with as a first time drug offende…

Building materials going to pot 13 January 2009 The Australian http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...0-12377,00.html CANNABIS could soon be going up in buildings rather than going up in smoke. The hemp plant is one of six identified by Department of Primary Industries (DPI) scientists in Queensland as a source of natural resin to reduce the building industry's reliance on resins produced from fossil fuels. DPI project officer Dr Andries Potgieter said generating resins from renewable sources such as plant oils could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and result in a smaller carbon footprint. Currently most resins and adhesives used in aerospace structures a…

Jury Duty as Gigantic Waste of Time David Warner 8 January 2009 http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/the941/20...-waste-of-time/ I love jury duty. I really do. Civic pride, the American way, whodunnits, sitting in judgment — what’s not to like? But I didn’t love jury duty today. Because today, at the Pinellas County Criminal Justice Center, I had to witness the gigantic waste of time, money, labor, energy and brains that is expended on taking a single individual to trial for the alleged crime of “trafficking in cannabis.” I never got to find out how the case turned out. Maybe that’s because, when the prosecuting attorney asked if any of the prospective jurors would have…

Man banned from park for two years over drug dealing offences 9 Janaury 2009 Islington News http://www.thecnj.co.uk/islington/2009/010...s010909_18.html A MAN has been banned from a park for two years after he was caught carrying eight bags of cannabis. Highbury Corner Magistrates imposed a two-year anti-social behaviour order on Shumon Ahmed, 20, from Inglebert Street, Finsbury, after he was last week convicted of possessing the drugs at Grimaldi Park, off Pentonville Road, in October last year. He was also sentenced to 70 hours of community service. Mr Ahmed has been banned from the park and the roads around Priory Green estate until December 2010. Islington Police …

ENCOD Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Vienna 6 December 2008 Dear Mr. Costa, On 6 December 2007 at the Drug Policy Alliance Conference in New Orleans I asked you the following question: “Why, after more than 30 years of regulated availability to adults over 18 years, is cannabis use in the Netherlands lower than in most European countries and the USA - and not higher, as would be expected if the prohibition of illicit drugs really was effective?” I am still waiting for your answer to this question. Although you made some comments about related matters, you did not answer my simple question. The basic assumption of drug pr…

Radical alternatives proposed for cannabis controls Andy Coghlan 30 December 2008 New Scientist http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2012....html?full=true WHAT should we do to minimise the harm cannabis can cause to the health and welfare of users and to society at large? The answer, according to a report by a group of prominent academics and government advisers, is to change the law to allow the state to prepare and distribute the drug for recreational use. This controversial proposal comes from a commission assembled by the Beckley Foundation, a British charity dedicated to exploring the science of psychoactive substances. "The damage done by prohibition is worse…

11th Annual Medical Marijuana Benefit Concert at Tobacco Road 6 January 2009 James Echols examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/x-1010-Miami-Night...acco-Road-12409 On Saturday, January 24, 2009 Ploppy Palace Productions and Tobacco Road will be hosting the 11th Annual Medical Marijuana Benefit Concert to raise funds for FL NORML’s (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) medical marijuana campaign and the protection of patients’ rights. As part of this four stage extravaganza, some of South Florida's top bands, spoken word artists and community activists will join together for patients’ and physicians’ right to use medical cannabis. As a testament to …

Police manage to stop only 20 percent of hashish entering Spain 8 January 2009 http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publi...cle_19543.shtml National Police and Guardia Civil cannot cope with the volume of drugs being smuggled from Morocco into Andalucía. The National Police and the Guardia Civil have admitted with their latest statistics that they are losing the battle against the hashish traffickers. Despite achieving an average of two large successes a week against the traffickers, it is estimated that only 20% of the drug which enters the country is caught by the authorities. Most of the drug is brought into Spain from Morocco with the main port of entry being…

Children taken from parents with no evidence of risk, judge says By Kim Arlington December 26, 2008 Daily Telegraph http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/stor...5005941,00.html Kids taken from parents by child welfare Judge says no evidence they were at risk Says it was a gross abuse of power A JUDGE says it was a "gross abuse of power" for child welfare staff to forcibly remove two babies from their parents' care when there was no evidence they were at risk of harm. Ordering that the children be returned to their parents immediately, Supreme Court Justice George Palmer said the New South Wales Department of Community Services officers' actions had "gravely impe…