via digg.com

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and others want to talk about what they call the failed war on drugs, as President Obama tries to focus on economic ties.

CARTAGENA, Colombia April 14, 2012 — President Obama sought Saturday to emphasize the robust economic relationship between the United States and Latin America, and he flatly ruled out legalizing drugs as a way to combat the illegal trafficking that has ravaged the region.

Facing calls at a regional summit to consider decriminalization, Obama said he is open to a debate about drug policy, but he believes that legalization could lead to greater problems in countries hardest hit by drug-fueled violence.

“Legalization is not the answer,” Obama told other hemispheric leaders at the two-day Summit of the Americas.

“The capacity of a large-scale drug trade to dominate certain countries if they were allowed to operate legally without any constraint could be just as corrupting, if not more corrupting, than the status quo,” he said.

Obama told Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, host of the summit, that he is willing to discuss whether American drug laws are “doing more harm than good in certain places.”

[NOTE* from Leftish: Funny, how Senator McConnell has NO PROBLEM with the legality of either Alcohol OR Cigarettes, which are KNOWN killers…both of those commodities are A-OK to be legal — just not marijuana.  Hmmm…I wonder why that is.]

WASHINGTON — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told a constituent in favor of legalizing marijuana that he doesn’t support the idea because drugs like pot lead to death.

In a Feb. 14 letter to his constituent, McConnell said he has “serious concerns” about legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes, a topic that the constituent had written to him about. He pointed out that the main ingredient in marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol, is already available in pill form for the treatment of certain illnesses.

He is also “troubled” by the fact that many legalization proposals would make marijuana available to the public “without following the scientific processes” of the Food and Drug Administration, McConnell said.

McConnell then cites a medical marijuana bill introduced by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and raises concerns about what could happen if it became law — death.

“Because of the harm that substances like marijuana and other narcotics pose to our society, I have concerns about this legislation. The detrimental effects of drugs have been well documented: short-term memory loss, loss of core motor functions, heightened risk of lung disease, and even death,” McConnell wrote.

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via Alternet

Broken promises are nothing new in Washington, DC. Yet even by the Beltway’s jaded standards, President Obama’s role reversal from one time medicinal cannabis sympathizer to White House weed-whacker is remarkable.

Indeed, the man who once pledged on the campaign trail that he was “not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue,” has – since taking the Presidential oaths of office – done virtually everything in his administration’s power to do precisely that. Yet he’s taken these steps at the very time that a record number of Americans, including 57 percent of democrats and a whopping 69 percent of self-described liberals, endorse doing just the opposite. Nonetheless, in recent months, the Obama administration – via a virtual alphabet soup of federal agencies – has launched an unprecedented series of attacks against medical cannabis patients, providers, and in some cases even their advocates.

“Separate but equal” was a legal doctrine once widely used by the courts to justify segregation. And while the courts have largely turned away this doctrine over the past 60 years, several state supreme courts in recent years have begun applying this principle to arbitrarily discriminate against state-authorized medical cannabis patients in the workplace.

Case in point: earlier this month the Washington Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 that an employer may terminate an employee for off-the-job marijuana use, even if the employee is authorized under state law to use cannabis medicinally.

Read entire article…

via The Washington Independent

The state’s highest court has agreed to hear two cases in which people have been charged with crimes for their medicinal use of marijuana.

This will be the first time the court weighs in on the 2008 state law that legalized the drug for medical use. Mlive reports:

In a case from Shiawassee County, a man had a medical marijuana card but was charged with drug crimes when police found pot growing outside in a dog kennel.

In a second case, from Oakland County, the issues include whether someone using marijuana must have consulted a doctor after the law was passed, not before.

In both, drug charges were dismissed by trial judges but restored by the Michigan Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court agreed to hear appeals in brief orders released Thursday.

In a 2008 ballot measure voters made it legal for people to use marijuana to treat certain conditions with doctor approval. Qualifying patients receive a card from the state Dept. of Community Health that allows them to possess 2.5 ounces of ready-to-use marijuana and up to 12 plants. Designated caregivers may also grow up to 12 plants for as many as five registered patients.

Marijuana remains illegal under federal law and several municipalities have passed ordinances to regulate medical marijuana use and dispensaries. Many have argued that the state’s law should more explicitly address how marijuana can be made available to patients.

Members of the criminal law section of the State Bar of Michigan recommend that Michigan allow commercial grow operations and regulate the industry.

“You’ve got all these people planting little gardens all over. Who knows what people are getting?” attorney Ken Malkin told the Detroit Free Press. “There is no quality control. It creates a black market.”