Signature Drive News December 8, 2011

Hello all,

It’s been a busy month for everyone locally in the movement as we’ve been trying to gather signatures and train new canvassers. Things are beginning to really get ironed out and we have over 100 volunteers trained and collecting signatures out there so far! If you’re in the Columbia area and would like to be trained, we are holding a training session beginning at 6:00 p.m this Monday, December 12 in Middlebush 132 on Mizzou’s campus. For those who aren’t familiar with campus, Middlebush is on the corner of 9th and University. Please encourage your friends to come out and volunteer with Show-Me Cannabis Regulation! We’ll need all the signature gathering help we can get! Also, if you know of any business that would be willing to be a permanent signing location here in Columbia, encourage them to have their staff attend the training this monday or email us and we can schedule a training for them at another date.

If you’re in the Jeff City area, don’t worry about making it up to Columbia on Monday because we’ll be coming to you Wednesday! SMCR will be hosting a training starting at 2:00 p.m. Wednesday, December 14 in McClung Park in Jefferson City. After the training we will launch a signature gathering drive at that location until 6 p.m., so if you simply want to sign the initiative without volunteering to canvas for signatures yourself, show up around 4:00.

Lastly, I had the wonderful opportunity to write a guest editorial for the Maneater this week about our signature drive and our efforts to regulate cannabis like alcohol. You can read that column in full on the Maneater’s website.

Hope to see you all next week!

It’s Official: Carnahan Approves Petition for Circulation November 12, 2011

Show-Me Cannabis Regulation, a Columbia-based coalition of drug law reform groups, has gained approval from Secretary of State Robin Carnahan to begin circulating a petition to legalize cannabis in the state of Missouri. The official proposal can be seen here. If successful, the proposal, which lists the change of statutes, would make cannabis usage legal for all state residents over the age of 21. The law also allows for persons under the age of 21 to use cannabis for medical purposes under the supervision of a licensed physician and with the consent of a guardian.  Missouri’s General Assembly would be capable of taxing up to $100 per pound of dried cannabis. On top of this, anyone currently imprisoned or on probation for non-violent, cannabis-related offenses would be released upon its passage.

The law explicitly acknowledges that its passage would not protect anyone who has been operating a vehicle impaired or selling cannabis to minors, nor would it protect workers who are fired for impairment while on the job.  It does, however, allow for personal not-for-resale cultivation in a 10×10 area, distributing and selling from a licensed cannabis establishment, and leasing property to any adult lawfully possessing or using cannabis.  The Department of Health and Senior Services would be given a deadline of February 1, 2013 to set up a license and fee system for cannabis establishments and would be barred  from requiring any personal information from customers other than a photo I.D. for age verification.

The initiative would amend the Missouri Constitution to reflect these changes if passed. Signatures must be obtained from 8 percent of registered voters who participated in the 2008 gubernatorial election in six of the nine Missouri congressional districts. The deadline for collecting signatures is May 1, 2012. If these signatures can be attained, the issue will appear on the ballot for November 2012.

To qualify for the 2012 ballot, the petition must collect enough signatures in six of Missouri's nine congressional districts.

The constitutional amendment's signature requirement is equal to 8% of registered voters who participated in the last gubernatorial election. This number must be reached in two-thirds of Missouri's congressional districts.

If anyone in the Columbia area is interested in helping gather signatures for this petition, MU NORML will be holding a training session for signature gathering at 7 p.m. Wednesday, November 16 in Middlebush 133 on Mizzou’s campus. It’s important to note that you must be certified and have an official petition form when gathering signatures. If you cannot make it to the meeting but would like to know more about how to help out, please register as a volunteer with Show Me Cannabis Reform.

Illegal Drugs “Will Not be Tolerated” in Oklahoma October 18, 2011

In Oklahoma, a person can face life without parole along with up to $50,000 in fines for a first time non-violent drug offense, thanks to the passing of House Bill 1798, which enables this sentencing for anyone convicted of manufacturing hashish, cultivating marijuana, or selling. The Senate voted on the bill, 44-2, and the House approved it, 75 to 18, allowing the Legislature to pass it, back in April 2011. Under this House Bill, anyone facing a second offense will have doubled sentences and will be unable to receive a suspended sentence or probation.

Mark Woodward, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Board of Narcotics, stated that the bill is meant to “send a message” that illegal drugs “will not be tolerated” in Oklahoma, but don’t you think life in prison is a little extreme for selling weed? Convicts are given shorter sentences for causing bodily harms to people – meanwhile, non-violent offenders are facing life in prison. Not only is this unfair to the sentenced person and their families, but each day in an Oklahoma prison costs $56 per person, which will then cost about $20,000 a year.

Many of you may have heard about Patricia M. Spottedcrow, the 25-year-old Oklahoma mother of four who was given a ten-year sentence for selling $31 worth of marijuana to an undercover cop back in February. Two years were added onto her sentence when police found marijuana in her jacket pocket as she was being picked up to go to prison. Her sentence has since been reduced to eight years. Her fifty-year-old mother,  Delita Starr, who was present at the time of the undercover cop’s purchase, is facing a 30-year suspended sentence with no incarceration, but with five years of drug and alcohol testing.

Patricia Spottedcrow, mother of 4, was sentenced to ten years in prison for the sale of marijuana to an undercover police officer.

“The punishment does not fit the crime,” said Josh Welch to Tulsa World, an Oklahoma City attorney who represents Spottedcrow. “We are pleased Judge Davis recognized her sentence needed to be modified, but we are simply not pleased with the amount of time that was modified,” Welch said. “I don’t walk away from this feeling good even with four years knocked down, and I’m not going to give up until she is released.”

Spottedcrow and Starr were both offered plea deals of two years in prison, because this was their first offense, but they took their chances and entered a guilt plea to the judge, without a prior sentence agreement. If you are ever faced with a similar situation, never enter a “blind guilty plea” like this.

This court case led to an uprising across the nation, with the creation of online petitions and donations to her children. A rally was held in Oklahoma City, featuring @waynecoyne of the The Flaming Lips.

State Senator Constance N. Johnson introduced Senate Bill 986, which would end life sentences without parole for nonviolent drug offenses and require the state Pardon and Parole Board to review all existing life without parole sentences for those offenses. The measure also addresses punishment enhancements for felony offenses. However, and as we all could have suspected, this bill has been completely disregarded by the state legislature.

Johnson continues fighting to reduce the sentencing for non-violent offenders facing life in prison, as she made an appearance at the parole board hearing for Larry Yarbrough, a 61-year-old who is seventeen years into his life sentence for possession of an ounce of cocaine and three marijuana cigarettes after having previous felony convictions, including distribution of marijuana and distribution of LSD in the 1980s.  There are currently 48 prisoners facing life in prisonin Oklahoma for non-violent, drug-related offenses.

Oklahoma State Senator Constance N. Johnson is fighting to reform the laws on drugs within the state.

“We have murderers, rapists and child molesters getting paroled, but here is a husband, father, grandfather, business owner and community servant who could spend half his life in prison costing the state millions of dollars,” said Johnson.  “We have people serving less time for greater amounts of drugs than what Mr. Yarbrough was convicted of—an ounce of cocaine and three marijuana cigarettes. Surely 17 years is a long enough punishment for his crime.  In the name of justice and common sense, I urge Governor Fallin to accept the board’s recommendations,” she added.

Although Oklahoma currently has some of the harshest drug laws in the nation, Johnson believes that there is hope for reform, especially after the passage of House Bill 2131, a sentencing reform bill sponsored by the Republican legislative leadership, which removes the governor from the parole process for nonviolent offenses, expands community sentencing eligibility, and provides for GPS monitoring of nonviolent offenders.

Johnson stated, “Fortunately, other state and local officials are beginning to see that the current system has filled our prisons to near capacity, cost the state millions in tax dollars, and still isn’t working…We took a step in the right direction in the legislature this past session passing major reforms for our state’s correction system under House Bill 2131, which will save our state millions of dollars, and still protect the public from the state’s most dangerous, violent offenders. These were great first steps but we have even more to do this coming session and beyond.  We need to ensure that offenders’ sentences fairly match their crimes, both as a matter of human decency and fiscal responsibility.”

The #Occupy Movement: What Could it Mean for Drug Reform? October 14, 2011

Unless you’ve been literally hiding out under a rock with no outside social contact for the last month, you’re sure to by now have heard at least something about the #OccupyWallStreet protest and the subsequent #Occupy gatherings that have been cropping up in cities around the nation and world. So now that the media and political elites have shown they are finally ready to acknowledge the protests, we get to hear everyone’s new opinions on “What these protests mean for [fill in anything here].” The unique thing about these protests as opposed to some other recent grassroots political movements is that they have such a wide potential and an extremely diverse base. Where the media were able to immediately paint a picture of the Tea Party as a bunch of wacko white right-wing Christian racists who couldn’t spell and didn’t understand simple political terms like ‘socialism,’ ‘communism’ or ‘Czar,’ the #Occupy protesters seem to be made up of people from all over the racial, religious and even political spectrums, and even mainstream media outlets like the New York Times are having a tough time putting the movement in a box.

This to me seems to be the strongest and most vital aspect of the #Occupy movement. Because all of our societal structures are in immediate need of broad, sweeping reform, We the People simply do not have enough time left to focus on just two or three hot-button issues. We want change, REAL change, in broad and sweeping ways, and we want it YESTERDAY. We want an end to the War on Drugs. We want an end to burning fossil fuels that are destroying our environment, destroying our economies, and allowing our resources to be hoarded by a greedy few. We want an end to a Federal Banking racket that gambles away OUR money to make themselves richer. We want an end to this system that encourages people to ascend to richness and wealth while relying on keeping the poor in an endless cycle of imprisonment and debt. We want these things and a long laundry list of more, and most of it boils down to trimming the government back to what we started from in the first place: our constitution.

So back to my original question: what does this mean for us, the drug reform community? It means we have a huge, active base that is paying attention. We have a group of people who are willing to wear many hats, carry batons for many causes, and change the world for good for the sake of our very futures. There are people all over the country who are finally not only paying attention, but they’re volunteering. They’re protesting. They’re reading a lot. They’re tweeting, taking pictures and videos of police encounters and sharing articles with their friends, family and loved ones. They’re voting; they’re getting their peers registered to vote. They’re writing letters to the editor and making signs and voting in polls and making damn sure that their voice rings out loud and clear at all of the precious few opportunities they get to air it.

What does the #Occupy movement mean? It means, my friends, that we are no longer alone, and we would do well to find the others.

Drones fighting the drug war?!? March 23, 2011

U.S. military drones are policing international skies… to find pot.

I wish that was a typo.

Apparently, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, the U.S. started secretly using “unarmed drones” about a month ago to combat the drug war in Mexico. It’s no surprise that extra enforcement was chosen as the solution; Mexican presidents have a long history of crackdown-enforcement solutions that do nothing but puff up the death toll. So now we have flying robots spying on people (only spying, we’re assured) in foreign countries. No wonder they kept it secret. It’s sort of illegal, since Mexican laws restrict foreign military intervention. Not to mention all the national sovereignty issues implicated (as if Uncle Sam gives a fuck about your weak little country’s supposed ‘sovereignty!’). Relax! We’re the good guys here, situation’s under control now. Our control.

But make no mistake; this is just the beginning. It won’t take too long for the government to sneak some weapons aboard these drones, especially with the buddy-buddy relationship that appears to be forming between drug warriors of the U.S. and Mexico. With a drug-war justification, an already desensitized public will have little air left in their lungs to yell about the injustice of it. When will our government realize that even if we weren’t broke and in record-setting nail-biting mountains of debt, we’d never have enough money to eradicate the cannabis plant from the globe? It’s too hearty a plant, and it’s kept alive by an even heartier and ever-growing culture. Press on, keep reading and for the love of pot keep your eyes trained on Mexico.

Missouri NORML State Conference March 21, 2011

In case you missed it, this past weekend was the Spring State Conference for all NORML Chapters in the state of Missouri. We had folks representing Kansas City, St. Louis, Joplin, Columbia and even Chillicothe! We had an excellent lineup of speakers that included MU Law Professor David Mitchell, a Patients Panel moderated by Cannabis Patients’ Network founder Mark Pedersen, talks from ACLU lobbyists John Coffman and Josh Campbell, a history of cannabis prohibition presentation by NORML’s Outreach Coordinator and host of the NORML Show LIVE “Radical” Russ Belville, and historical cannabis artifacts shown to us by Michael Krawitz, Executive Director of Veterans for Medical Marijuana Access. It was a very informative conference and we are excited for the future of our movement! Scroll down for the conference recap by KC NORML, as well as links to local media coverage of the event!

KC NORML Blog article

Columbia Missourian: ‘MU hosts NORML state conference to discuss marijuana’

Columbia Missourian: ‘MU professor advocates for marijuana law examination at NORML conference’

GAME TIME! March 21, 2011

Hello internetz!

Welcome to the new MU NORML blog! We aim to be a source of news and info on the drug war on all scales, from national headlines to local activism here on Mizzou’s campus or around the City of Columbia. If you’re a student who’d like to contribute to the blog, send an email to freethedrugs@gmail.com from the email address associated with your WordPress account and we can add you as a contributor! (Note: you must be a student of the University of Missouri to be a contributor.)

If you would like more info on MU NORML, join our Facebook group here. You can also follow our twitter account @MUNORML or visit us in person at our offices in the Center for Student Involvement in the new Student Center. We are hanging out every weekday from 3-5 p.m. and we always love visitors!

Oakland County Sheriff's Office robs dispensary at gunpoint January 13, 2011

Michigan Medical Marijuana Magazine's offices and partner businesses were raided Wednesday by the Oakland County Sheriff's Department.

 

Yes, I’m afraid you did read that headline correctly. Yesterday eight Oakland County Sheriff’s Deputies served a search warrant on the offices of Michigan Medical Marijuana Magazine, Big Daddy’s Compassion Club and Big Daddy’s Hydro shop in Oak Park, MI. No arrests were made. However, the gun-toting cowboys did take something with them when they left: $20,000 in cash. This cash was seized from receipts, registers and even the wallets of the employees on site. Let me repeat that last one: THE COPS TOOK THE MONEY FROM EVERYONE’S WALLETS. This is a plain old-fashioned stick-up. Witnesses say that one of the officers was even wearing a mask! So what happens to this money? If no one was arrested, why do they get to take cash?

The answer of course is civil asset forfeiture. If you’ve never heard the term before, here’s a catch-up post from earlier, but basically if the government suspects your property was involved in a crime or your money came from a crime, they can seize it. The burden of proof then lies on your shoulders because property doesn’t have the same rights as a person. Nevermind that it’s ridiculous to charge property with a crime. So we end up with cases like “The United States v. 1999 Ford Taurus” and such silliness.

Now about the money. In all states it’s different depending on state laws where the money goes, but almost everywhere cops can use a federal loophole to keep most of the spoils. In our case from Michigan yesterday, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office gets to keep 80% of the assets seized and the other 20% will go to the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office. Consider it a “robbery legitimization fee.”

So basically Oakland County’s government has taken to wild west tactics to fund their law enforcement branch. Their $20,000 haul means $16,000 for the Sheriff and $4,000 for the prosecutor. Not bad for a Wednesday.

Citizens Police Review Board almost reviews Lowest Priority ordinance January 13, 2011

Looking at the agenda for tonight’s Citizens Police Review Board meeting, I knew that this issue was not going to be addressed in any relevant way. Under “Panel Discussion Marijuana Ordinance Issues” [sic] we see the invited guests: City Prosecutor Stephen Richey, Assistant County Prosecutor Ryan Haigh, and Columbia Police Chief Ken Burton. You can imagine what their opinion boiled down to: They thought the ordinance was being enforced just fine. “We aren’t getting search warrants to pursue misdemeanor marijuana cases.” Well I have two problems with that response.

First of all, our problem with the ordinance isn’t that police shouldn’t be pursuing misdemeanor marijuana charges. It’s that they shouldn’t be going out of their way to chase down ANY marijuana case, from 12 grams to 12 pounds. The ballot language passed by 61% of voters in Columbia in 2004 read: “The limited resources of law enforcement should be directed primarily toward crimes of violence or property loss.  The enforcement of laws against marijuana shall be the lowest law enforcement priority.” The current ordinance reads almost exactly the same (Sec. 16-255.2., subsection f; you’ll have to scroll way down): “The limited resources of law enforcement should be directed primarily toward crimes of violence or property loss. The enforcement of laws against marijuana shall be among the lower priorities of law enforcement.” No part of the subsection mentions misdemeanor amounts of marijuana. When the ordinance passed, 61% of Columbia voters were saying they wanted enforcement of ALL marijuana crimes to be THE LOWEST law enforcement priority. Which means no search warrants for pot, no overtime pay for SWAT officers to try to find pot, and no pot-only cases while there are still plenty of unsolved serious crimes in the area.

Second point: The simple fact remains that CPD HAS obtained search warrants and executed SWAT raids on offenders who were later charged with simple misdemeanor possession. Anyone remember the Kinloch Court incident? Misdemeanor possession. Of course, they were going for more pot than what they found, but the fact that faulty intelligence can and does happen means maybe we should rethink pursuing marijuana cases with these violent tactics.

Well, after the two prosecutors and Chief Burton had their say, Dan Viets requested that the board continue discussion on the lower priority ordinance at their next monthly meeting when more students are in town to weigh in with their opinions. This was quickly shot down, and the board moved on. The discussion of how to better enforce the lowest priority ordinance was over without even having happened.

At the end of the CPRB meetings they allow time for general public comment. I stood and expressed my disappointment that the board for not even allowing a variety of opinions to be heard. “If you think that you can get a full range of opinions by inviting two prosecutors and the Police Chief here tonight, then you have no understanding of this issue,” I told them. I urged that they take the issue up again in the future when a fair discussion might be had. After I had spoken, Chairwoman Ellen LoCurto-Martinez seemed to understand my point and realize they had not looked at the picture quite as fully. In a compromise, she moved to table time at next month’s meeting to discuss whether it is wise police policy to serve search warrants in connection with non-violent crimes.

Here’s where you all come in. The next CPRB meeting is on February 9 at 7:00 p.m. at City Hall. Come and let the Citizens Police Review Board know your opinion: Should police be serving search warrants, which are inherently violent, to investigate crimes where no violence was committed and no property was damaged or stolen? If you’re interested in speaking to the Board please drop me an email at freethedrugs@gmail.com by February 1 so I can guarantee you some time to address the board at that meeting. I hope to see many students and citizens there!

Breaking Hiatus January 12, 2011

Hello friends. I’m sorry for such a long lull in posts; I’ve fallen out of most of my good habits over these past few months but I’m trying to get back on track now.  A lot has happened since my last post. While I was in Portland at the National NORML Conference, Canadian activist Marc Emery was sentenced to five years in U.S. Federal Prison for selling seeds across the U.S./Canada border. I encourage you to read Marc’s blog for a look inside the Federal Prison system and the discrimination he faces as a Canadian citizen in U.S. Federal Prison. In October, Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 1449 into law, making adult possession of up to an ounce of cannabis a criminal infraction, punishable by a $100 ticket that requires no court appearance. Last November, California Prop 19 barely failed, but received an encouraging 46.5% of the vote, meaning that over 4.6 million Californians voted in favor of legalization! And in a surprising victory, Arizona became the 15th state to legalize medical marijuana! The measure barely squeaked by with 50.13% of voters approving Prop 203.

We made some pretty big strides in 2010, and I’m confident that as we win more victories in the next few years, public support will grow as we continue to spread the truth about cannabis and adopt policies that protect our citizens, not exploit them.