District of Columbia Medical Marijuana News
Feb 6, 2012
New York Daily News, 06 Feb 2012 - Washington: Re "Google's smoke and mirrors" (Op-Ed, Jan. 20): Not only has President Obama dodged marijuana legalization questions that rise to the top of every electronic town hall, but he has reneged on a campaign commitment to respect state medical marijuana laws. Mexican drug cartels are no doubt thrilled with the federal crackdown on voter-approved medical marijuana dispensaries. If Obama succeeds in destroying the domestic medical marijuana industry, international drug cartels will move in to meet demand and reap the profits. This is basic economics. As long as there is a demand for marijuana, there will be a supply.
Jan 30, 2012
Roll Call, 30 Jan 2012 - When President Barack Obama tonight takes voters' questions submitted via YouTube, the marijuana lobby could be his toughest audience. Many of the top-ranked questions -- as voted on by the public -- for Obama's post-State of the Union "conversation" titled "Your Interview with the President" have come from people who urge pot legalization.
Jan 25, 2012
Washington Times, 25 Jan 2012 - Shortages Feared at Cultivation Sites The District's medical marijuana program is still months away from sprouting, but some advocates already worry that there won't be enough cannabis to go around.
Jan 23, 2012
Washington Post, 23 Jan 2012 - Regarding Al Kamen's Jan. 18 column " 'Reefer Madness' for the YouTube Generation": This article is consistent with my hypothesis that the rules of professional conduct of journalists or some style manual require that articles about drug policy include a joke about chips, brownies or junk food. Can reporters and editors be so humor-deprived that they always have to joke about laws and policies that every year put hundreds of thousands of cannabis users in handcuffs, give them a criminal record and cost hundreds of millions of dollars on pointless police overtime. Ha, ha, ha, "pass the chips"; I'm dying with laughter.
Jan 20, 2012
The Washington Afro American, 20 Jan 2012 - The D.C. Council has approved emergency legislation that would limit the number of medical marijuana cultivation centers to six to be located in any of the city's eight wards, The Washington Post reported Jan. 17. The council had been under pressure from residents in Ward 5, in the city's northeast quadrant, amid concerns that the ward would be overwhelmed by large, indoor pot-growing operations.
Jan 17, 2012
Washington Times, 17 Jan 2012 - The headlines streaming from the recent Journal of the American Medical Association study on marijuana use and pulmonary function all suggest that marijuana is safe ("Marijuana doesn't harm lung function," Web, Jan. 10). Omitted from the calculation is the large number of marijuana users who believed that they would always be occasional users but progressed to heavy use. If the researchers included chronic, heavy marijuana users as part of the cost of occasional marijuana use, the risks of occasional marijuana use would have been more complete and served as compelling evidence for not using marijuana. Consider the estimated 9 percent of marijuana users who become addicted. That number goes up to 17 percent for users who start at young ages.
Jan 9, 2012
Washington Times, 09 Jan 2012 - Neighbors Concerned Without Voice on Council Before he resigned and admitted to stealing $350,000 from the District, former D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. expressed concern that much of the city's medical marijuana cultivation would take place in a small slice of his Northeast ward.
Dec 26, 2011
Washington Times, 26 Dec 2011 - Panel Winnowing Field of Applicants The District of Columbia's health department is expected within the next few days to give its first indication of who qualifies to grow medical marijuana in the nation's capital, a significant step in a program aimed at comforting the sick and dying that is more than a dozen years in the making.
Nov 25, 2011
Washington Post, 25 Nov 2011 - Last Friday night, a married couple entering their home in the town of Hatillo, Puerto Rico, was startled by two armed burglars. The husband was fatally shot, becoming the 1,000th murder victim of 2011. This was Puerto Rico's highest annual homicide toll - until the record was surpassed the next day. On average, someone is murdered every 7 1/2 hours in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory populated by 3.7 million American citizens. At least half of these murders involve drug trafficking organizations, whose growing presence has bred a culture of violence that emboldens criminals and threatens the lives of innocent people. The homicide and unemployment rates in Puerto Rico are higher than those of any U.S. state.
Oct 29, 2011
Washington Post, 29 Oct 2011 - The Oct. 24 front-page article "Acreage of drugs soars in Mexico" showed once again that the United States' decades-long policy on drugs will never work. Eradication of drug crops and interdiction of drugs entering the United States raise the price of drugs. Raising the price of drugs prompts people to participate in either growing or distributing drugs. It is a never-ending cycle. How many more years must our society suffer before we finally realize that our drug culture is a health problem, not a criminal one? If drugs became available through a health provider, the profit motive would disappear, along with the concomitant crime it spawns.
Next Page »
