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huffingtonpost.com

Produced by HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Unit.

PAUL ELIAS

SAN FRANCISCO — A unanimous California Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a law that sought to impose limits on the amount of marijuana a medical patient can legally possess.

The California Supreme Court ruled that state lawmakers were wrong to change provisions of the voter-approved Proposition 215. The 1996 measure allowed for patients with a doctor's recommendation to possess an unspecified amount of marijuana.

The Legislature, seeking to give law enforcement guidance on when to make marijuana possession arrests, mandated in 2003 that each patient could have a maximum of 8 ounces of dried marijuana.

online.wsj.com

By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS

Charlene DeGidio never smoked marijuana in the 1960s, or afterward. But a year ago, after medications failed to relieve the pain in her legs and feet, a doctor suggested that the Adna, Wash., retiree try the drug.

Ms. DeGidio, 69 years old, bought candy with marijuana mixed in. It worked in easing her neuropathic pain, for which doctors haven't been able to pinpoint a cause, she says. Now, Ms. DeGidio, who had previously tried without success other drugs including Neurontin and lidocaine patches, nibbles marijuana-laced peppermint bars before sleep, and keeps a bag in her refrigerator that she's warned her grandchildren to avoid.

"It's not like you're out smoking pot for enjoyment or to get high," says the former social worker, who won't take the drug during the day because she doesn't want to feel disoriented. "It's a medicine."

palmbeachpost.com

Smaller type

hempfest.org

Canadian cannabis activist, business owner and philanthropist, Marc Emery, is being prosecuted by the United States Government for selling seeds across the United States border via mail order. Marc Emery is being extradited from Canada to Seattle, Washington, to attend a sentencing hearing. Emery is expected to get a 5 year sentence in a federal prison, as he has nobly accepted a plea bargain in order to have the charges dropped on his two former co-defendants.

As Americans, we need to oppose the political persecution of our Canadian brother, Marc Emery, and let our government and the Canadian government know that nobody should go to prison for pot.

It had been confiscated from a motorist whose attorney convinced a judge that California's medical marijuana law allowed its transport.

latimes.com

By Gerrick Kennedy

With the debate on medical marijuana still at a full boil in Los Angeles, a judge Friday ordered the return of 60 pounds of pot to a man after his attorneys successfully argued that a state law gave him the right to transport it.

Saguro Doven, 33, was initially charged with possession of marijuana for sale and transportation of the drug, a violation of the state's health and safety code.

nbcbayarea.com

Updated 4:30 PM PST

In a sign of medical marijuana's growing acceptance, the Board of Supervisors voted Thursday to solicit advice on the issue from a new task force.

The new environment was on display at Hope Net, a cannabis dispensary in San Francisco's Civic Center neighborhood.

There, precisely at noon, a black iron security door flung open. A steady stream of men filed past the trays of glass smoking pipes, and headed toward a back room. Before a glass counter they browsed plastic bins of pungent marijuana buds, cookies and brownies. A sign on the wall advertises a raffle.

sanmarcosmercury.com

Submitted by Lamar Hankins on Monday, 4 January 2010

Two years ago, when my mother was 88, her health began deteriorating rapidly. She was hospitalized twice before she came home for the last time under the care of hospice. One of her first, and lingering, symptoms was unexplained nausea, which was unabated for about two months. After hospice care began, the hospice nurse, working with advice and supervision from the hospice doctor, began trying to find some drug or combination of drugs to overcome Mother’s nausea. After experimenting with several drugs and combinations to no effect, the nurse finally hit on a successful combination: an anti-nausea drug combined with Marinol.

guardian.co.uk

Ed Pilkington in New York

Some people cancel holidays abroad, others stage yard sales or start shopping at low-cost supermarkets. To that list must now be added a new way to get through economic hard times: grow cannabis.

Law enforcers on the west coast of the US and in the middle states straddled by the foothills of the Appalachian mountains are reporting a common trend. It is boom time for marijuana cultivation, and much of the incentive they say is to beat the recession.

www.normal.org

December 30th, 2009 By: Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director

#1 Obama Administration: Don’t Focus On Medical Marijuana Prosecutions
United States Deputy Attorney General David Ogden issued a memorandum to federal prosecutors in October directing them to not “focus federal resources … on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.” The directive upheld a campaign promise by President Barack Obama, who had previously pledged that he was “not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue.” Read the full story here.

#2 Public Support For Legalizing Pot Hits All-Time High