Thursday, July 1, 2010
Daily Roundup: Northridge Dispensary Employee Shot in Face; Wal-Mart Sued For Firing Medical Cannabis Patient
Law Enforcement & Crime David Downs — Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 11:16 AM
1. In what's fast becoming a problem for drug law reformers and ammo for conservatives, Los Angeles police are investigating a third shooting at a medical marijuana dispensary this week. The LA Times reports robbers shot a Northridge dispensary employee in the face and took $11,000 in cash. The crime follows a stabbing at a Hollywood dispensary and a shooting in an Echo Park location earlier this week. Los Angeles is cracking down on its 400 marijuana dispensaries — driving business to a select few with enticingly high amounts of cash. More headlines after the jump.
2. The Tax Cannabis initiative to legalize marijuana in California will appear on the ballot as Proposition 19, which is the same ballot number for the original California Marijuana Initiative in 1972, the first ballot initiative ever to call for marijuana decriminalization, California NORML notes. That measure failed.
3. Meanwhile California Attorney General candidate Steve Cooley — who's made his campaign prosecuting the case against pot — body-slammed Prop 19 at a Friday press conference sponsored by its opponents. “We're going to send a message, and make it resoundingly clear, that these sort of foolish and dangerous initiatives that endanger our society and diminish it are going to be rejected.” John Redman, executive director of Californians for Drug Free Youth, said, “How can kids say no when the adults around them are saying yes?,” while L.A. Sheriff Leroy Baca added (hysterically), “We're looking at the degeneration of our future society by exposing our children to a foolish law that will lead to further self-destruction and the ultimate limitation of the future of a great nation and the future of humanity.”
4. The Boston Review publishes a first-person account of the City of Juarez's recent history, and how economics and politics played a role in its descent into utter lawlessness called 'The War for Drugs - How Juárez' became the world’s deadliest city'. Author Sarah Hill points the finger at American prohibition, followed by globalization plus weak political institutions.
5. The ACLU is representing a Michigan man they say was illegally fired from Wal-Mart after testing positive for cannabis. Joseph Casias, 30, has an inoperable brain tumor and is in remission for sinus cancer. He said he uses marijuana at night to alleviate pain. "It's very unfair that I was fired," Casias told the Detroit Free Press. "I hope that this doesn't happen to other medical marijuana patients across the state." According to the suit, the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act "protects employees from being disciplined for their use of medical marijuana" in accordance with the law. For the record, California law does not.
Comments (2)
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To Steve Cooley, John Redman, and Leroy Baca...
Cannabis is illegal now and has been for quite some time. Despite that, kids have NOT been saying no to it. Many adults who say yes to it (despite its illegality) do so responsibly. And you want to continue to categorically make them criminals. Understand this: if someone commits an act of violence upon another, it's a crime. If someone chooses to peacefully enjoy an entheogenic substance, it can actually be a morally-compelled act of seeking a different awareness of the world.
When you disregard that possibility, instead choosing to always identify drug use with violence in your thinking, you are actually committing a crime against the truth. Most marijuana smokers are inherently peaceful, though they will continue to be upset and angry as long as you lump them in with criminals.
The dysfunctional attitude of "drug war" that you carry to this debate ("Marijuana is the great destroyer of the nation"), coupled with all the non-violent people put in jail, does more harm than cannabis could ever do.
Will you realize this? Or does your means of livelihood require you to turn a blind eye?
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