Source: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1350444443194

For Immediate Release:

The Office of the Secretary of State received a certified ballot title from the Attorney General on February 2, 2010, for initiative #73, proposing a statutory amendment, for the General Election of November 2, 2010.

In addition, Secretary of State Kate Brown determined that the proposed initiative petition was in compliance with the procedural requirements established in the Oregon Constitution for initiative petitions.

The certified ballot title is as follows:

Permits personal marijuana, hemp cultivation/use without license; commission to regulate commercial marijuana cultivation/sale

Result of "Yes" Vote: "Yes" vote permits state-licensed marijuana (cannabis) cultivation/sale to adults through state stores; permits unlicensed adult personal cultivation/use; prohibits restrictions on hemp (defined).

Result of a "No" Vote: "No" vote retains existing civil and criminal laws prohibiting cultivation, possession and delivery of marijuana; retains current statues that permit regulated use of medical marijuana .

By Anna Song, KATU News and KATU.com Staff

If you just listen to just one side of the debate to legalize marijuana, you'd think it was a wonder plant.

A common argument is that marijuana is safer than the legal drug alcohol. But do facts back up that assertion?

“Marijuana is safer than alcohol,” Madeleine Martinez of Oregon’s pro-legalization organization NORML said, “no one's ever died of a lethal dose of marijuana.”

Mark Herer, owner of the The Third Eye Shoppe, a classic “head shop” located on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard in Portland, said he’s “met a lot of screwed up people in my day, I've met a lot of potheads in my day… most of the potheads I know are not screwed up people.”

Washington state lawmaker Mary Lou Dickerson, 63, is pushing for legalization and equates current marijuana laws to alcohol prohibition in the 1920’s.

“We're treating marijuana like we treated alcohol during prohibition, and it doesn't make sense,” she said.

By Anna Song KATU News and KATU.com Staff

PORTLAND, Ore. - While state budgets in Oregon and Washington face gaping holes, advocates of legalizing marijuana say taxing pot can help fill those holes.

Madeline Martinez, Oregon’s executive director for NORML, the national organization that’s pushing to reform marijuana laws, says she sees a golden opportunity to convince people that legalizing marijuana could be a good thing after all.

“Why don’t we capture the revenue that’s just being lost to the criminal market in many regards and bring it to the people. We’re the ones who deserve it,” she says.

Her group estimates the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, if passed by voters, would generate $140 million a year in revenue, 90 percent of which would go to the state’s general fund. The rest would go primarily to drug abuse treatment programs, Martinez says.

She calls it “Cannicare” because “we would be using cannabis money to pay for health care,” she says.

BY Darren Snyder, Staff Writer
Photograph By Steven Siewert

Rylstone couple Richard and Wendy Friar are creating an Australian first by videoing an education program to explain the benefits of growing hemp.

The Sydney Morning Herald revealed on Tuesday morning that the pair have become the first Australians to own and grow a licensed industrial hemp crop but they will also be the first to record the experience in order to teach others about the versatile plant.

But do not be alarmed. The pair are not potheads and nor are they growing anything illegal.

In a campaign to champion the idea that hemp is a plant with great utility, the couple have been given permission by the Department of Primary Industries to grow a pilot education project on a property in the northern beaches.

Mr Friar said he is trying to remove the stigma surrounding growing hemp.

“In the 1990s it was estimated hemp was used in about 25,000 products and I now believe it has reached 35,000 today,” he said.

The uses for hemp vary greatly, from oils to building fibres and medicinal uses, and Mr Friar said the potential of the plant must be made clear.

“The fibres taken from hemp are used in the building industry and are as strong as steel,” Mr Friar said.

“It is more efficient to grow than cotton.

“It is also challenging Petra-chemicals.”

The 66-year-old also said the couple had applied to Food Standards to sell the hemp seeds for human consumption.

By E. Huff, Natural News, Staff Writer

As the price for crude oil continues to rise over time, the cost of producing petroleum-based plastic products continues to rise with it. Alternatives such as bio-plastics, which currently cost more to produce than existing plastics, may someday become more cost effective than petroleum-based plastics.

Frederic Scheer, owner of a company called Cereplast that makes sustainable bio-plastic material from vegetable and grain starches, believes that petroleum prices will eventually exceed the costs of producing his own product. By 2013, he believes that industry giants like DuPont and BASF will pursue his technology as a replacement for their soon-to-be outdated petroleum plastics.

Scheer's company has developed a method of converting starch from corn, wheat, tapioca, and potatoes into biodegradable plastic resins. Because they effectively biodegrade in a mere 90 days, they are an excellent alternative to traditional plastic cups, containers and packaging materials.

Cereplast also produces a hybrid resin composed of 50 percent renewable bio-plastic which cuts waste and conserves energy. This blend is useful in things like cars and children's toys. By cutting the amount of polypropylene plastic used in products, the kind most typically used in consumer products, Scheer hopes his company will help to reduce the negative environmental impact caused by plastic products.

By Electric UK, Editor

The UK’s Building Research Establishment Centre for Innovative Construction Materials at the University of Bath had just inaugurated a £740,000 venture, financed by construction businesses and the UK government, to develop and study the use of hemp as alternative building construction material. The new study was based from the findings of a French archaeologist who discovered a sixth-century-old stone bridge that had used hemp as mortar.

Cultivated for thousands of years, the durable fibre is mostly used to make ropes and textiles. Currently, hemp is processed for use in constructions.

Hemp is classified as the world’s second fastest growing agricultural produce after bamboo. Hemp requires no pesticide to grow and it matures in just four months. Farmers can then plant other crops on the remaining two-thirds of the year and can take advantage of the nutrients left behind in the soil earlier used from hemp. Mixed with a lime binder, industrial hemp can also be used to make house bricks.

by Gary Storck

MADISON: For nearly 20 years, dating back to the middle years of Tommy Thompson's 14 years as governor, medical cannabis supporters began holding vigil outside the Governor's State of the State Address (SOTS) to the Legislature and other state officials. On January 26, 2010, they were outside the Assembly Chambers once again, with their leader Jacki Rickert.

Supporters spoke with lawmakers heading in to watch Gov. Doyle with several stopping to warmly greet Jacki, including bill sponsors Rep. Mark Pocan, (D-Madison), and Sen. Jon Erpenbach, (D-Waunakee) as well as Rep. Penny Bernard Schaber (D-Appleton) and Rep. Jeff Smith (D-Eau Claire).

Medical cannabis supporters called out to Gov. Doyle as he ascended the stairs leading to the Assembly Chamber. He looked over at supporters with signs and a "Medical Marijuana is Healthcare" banner held by patients.

Most JRMMA supporters held vigil while others watched the SOTS from the gallery. JRMMA Media was also on hand, taking photos, filming video and doing interviews. Once the Address was over, supporters fanned out, speaking with individual lawmakers. We spoke to Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison), after the speech, and he remains hopeful that the JRMMA can move this session. One supporter even managed to talk to medical cannabis arch-opponent Rep. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa).

Source: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1344511694879

Human from The Human Revolution and Tim Pate & Friends Scheduled to Perform

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By Hempstalk Staff

By WRN Contributor / John Colbert-WIBA

A legislative panel is moving toward allowing farmers to grow industrial hemp, a crop that used to be big in Wisconsin before the War on Drugs. Louie Molepske Jr. (D-Stevens Point) is behind the effort which was approved by the Assembly Agriculture Committee Thursday.

Hemp is a resilient plant that can be used for fiber, oil, and in food. Molepske adds Wisconsin was once the number one hemp growing state, this bill “sets in motion” a path back to that level of productivity.

The Stevens Point Democrat says there’s no worry about getting “high” by smoking the crop, as Marijuana contains around 15 percent THC, industrial hemp has only a fraction of one percent.


Source: http://www.wrn.com/2010/01/hemp-bill-clears-panel/

By WFP Staff Writer

WINNIPEG — Ottawa and the province teamed up Tuesday to help build a new hemp oil processing plant in southwest Manitoba.

The Manitoba government is contributing $75,000 and Ottawa, through its Community Adjustment Fund, is providing $4,895. The announcement was made Tuesday in Brandon.

The money is to go towards the building of the processing plant in Waskada by Farm Genesis Group Marketing Inc. The oil from hemp seeds is used in natural food and cosmetic products.

Farm Genesis Group Marketing is made up of 32 local farmers. The project's goal is to keep family farms in the area viable with different crops.

Canadian hemp seed exports have increased by 300 per cent and hemp oil exports by 85 per cent over the past few years as Ottawa and the province work with producers to build the hemp industry in Canada. Hemp growing has been legal in Canada only since 1998. Other products from hemp fibre include clothing and things like automotive components and construction materials.

Related Stories: Group Welcomes Provincial Money
http://www.portageonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1...

Source: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Hemp-oil-plant-gets-fundin...

Larry Thomas, Furniture Today

HICKORY, N.C. — Veteran furniture executive Ken Fonville has launched a company based here that produces made-to-order, environmentally friendly leather and fabric upholstery.

The new company, EcoSelect Furniture, is selling its products exclusively online and will ship custom orders in four to six weeks, Fonville said.

"We can provide eco-friendly living room sofas and leather living room chairs at no premium cost to the consumer who wants to live good, while living well," said Fonville. "There is a need for a dedicated and committed furniture supplier to this consumer."

The EcoSelect line currently includes 12 seating groups, which are available in six leather colors and six correlating hemp fabric colors.

The company gets its leather from an ISO 14001 certified supplier who uses, among other things, recycled leather tanning materials. The fabric created from hemp uses significantly less herbicides, pesticides and water than cotton, Fonville said, while the factory uses recycled steel for springs, soy-based foam cushioning and certified lumber for frames.

Information is available on the company's Web site at www.EcoSelectfurniture.com

Fonville has more than 30 years experience in the furniture industry, most recently as vice president of merchandising at Fairmont Designs. He also was president of Pennsylvania House from 1996 to 2002.

By Journal Staff

An organization promoting the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes in South Dakota plans to turn in more than 29,000 signatures this week to bring the issue to a public vote.

Emmett Reistroffer of Sioux Falls, director of communications for the South Dakota Coalition for Compassion, said the organization will turn in the petitions Wednesday to the secretary of state’s office in Pierre.

The group is months ahead of the filing deadline. And, provided that most of the names on the petitions are valid, it will be well above the 16,776 signatures needed to put the issue on the 2010 general election ballot.

Reistroffer said the organization was “extra careful” in the way it gathered the petition signatures, after the problems that opponents of an expanded smoking ban encountered last year with invalid signatures in their petition drive.

Related: South Dakota Coalition for Compassion
http://www.sdcompassion.org/


Source: http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_4e1304f4-046b-11df-9c47-001...

By WNYC Newsroom

New Jersey has become the 14th state - and the first in the region - to allow medical marijuana.

A law granting chronically ill patients legal access to marijuana was one of over 50 bills Governor Corzine signed on his last full day in office. Governor-elect Chris Christie will be sworn in at noon today.

The legislation allows for dispensaries to be set up around the state where patients with prescriptions can access the drug. Growing marijuana at home will remain illegal, as will driving while high.

Assembly sponsor Reed Gusciora says New Jersey's medical marijuana law is the strictest in the country and will serve as a model for other states.

Related: N.J. Lawmakers Pass Medical Marijuana Bill
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/11/politics/main6085182.shtml

New Jersey Legislature Approves Medical Marijuana Bill
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/11/new-jersey-legislature-approv...


Source: http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/148472

Green is their signature color. Medicinal marijuana gardeners throughout the state of Oregon enjoyed a plentiful harvest last fall, and look to 2010 as a year of growth, and change.

By Bonnie King, Salem-News

(SALEM, Ore.) - “After living through arrests in the past for growing marijuana, to be able to do it legally, it’s almost entirely stress-free compared to when it was illegal. So to be able to help the people that need this - it warms our hearts,” said Paul Stanford, Executive Director of The Hemp & Cannabis Foundation. The fear of breaking the law has stopped most people for seven decades from considering marijuana, or cannabis, to treat their ailments. That is no longer the rule of the day, as this medical marijuana garden clearly proves.

By Wisconsin Ag Connection Staff

A group of rural Wisconsin lawmakers are looking into the possibility of setting up an independent committee to study the uses of industrial hemp. According to supporters, the measure would require the panel to review literature related to hemp, and evaluate the economic opportunities for state growers and distributors. That group would then report to the state legislature with its recommendations within one year.

Specifically, the committee would conduct a review of scientific and business findings of industrial hemp as an alternative fuel and motor oil, as well as other uses like seed and industrial hemp oil in snack foods, body care products, and food supplements.

The committee would be made up of two appointees selected by the governor, and another four chosen by the presidents of the state senate and assembly. The chairs of the senate and assembly ag committees would also serve, along with a representative of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau.

The issue of growing hemp as an agricultural cash crop has been controversial in other states because parts of the plant are considered controlled substances. Just last month, a federal appeals court ruled that a group of North Dakota farmers would not be allowed to grow the crop despite the fact that they were issued a license to do so.

By Tristan Scott of the Missoulian

Jim Swansiger took a road trip to Missoula on Monday. When he returned home to Great Falls, the 60-year-old retired construction worker was a legitimate medical marijuana patient.

“My paperwork’s all in order,” Swansiger said. “I’m just going to stop by the Capitol on my way home and drop it off.”

He’ll have to wait a few weeks before the state Department of Health and Human Services sends him an identification card in the mail, but he’s covered under the Montana medical marijuana law until then. That means he can legally grow six marijuana plants and possess up to an ounce of pot, which he intends to start using for pain relief in lieu of a prescription drug called oxycodone.

Swansiger suffers from peripheral neuropathy, a disorder he says causes pain and numbness in his legs and feet – “It’s like someone is jamming pins in the tops of my feet,” he says – and his preferred course of treatment is marijuana.

And so he drove to Missoula, where a nonprofit organization called The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation was offering an all-day clinic to help patients obtain their permits.

With medical records in hand, Swansiger and dozens of other patients sat in a conference room at the Grant Creek Inn. They paid a consultation fee, which is adjusted based on income, and waited to meet with Dr. Eric Eisenbud, an ophthalmologist from Boulder, Colo.

By Steve Elliot, Toke of the Town

A bill which would legalize marijuana for medical purposes in Alabama is coming back before the Legislature in 2010.

State Rep. Patricia Todd (D-Birmingham) in mid-February is introducing an as-yet unnumbered 13-page bill that outlines ways cannabis could be used for medical purposes in the state, according to spokesperson Loretta Nall of Alabamians for Compassionate Care.

The bill distinguishes between medical and non-medical uses of marijuana, according to Todd.

It lists debilitating medical conditions under which marijuana could be used. These include cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, chronic arthritis, cachexia, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, migraine, AIDS, anorexia, seizures, severe nausea and other symptoms that substantially limit the ability of a person to conduct major life activities.

By David Kocieniewski, The New York Times
Photo by Damon Winter, The New York Times

TRENTON — The New Jersey Legislature approved a measure on Monday that would make the state the 14th in the nation, but one of the few on the East Coast, to legalize the use of marijuana to help patients with chronic illnesses.

The measure — which would allow patients diagnosed with severe illnesses like cancer, AIDS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, muscular dystrophy and multiple sclerosis to have access to marijuana grown and distributed through state-monitored dispensaries — was passed by the General Assembly and State Senate on the final day of the legislative session.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine has said he would sign it into law before leaving office next Tuesday. Supporters said that within nine months, patients with a prescription for marijuana from their doctors should be able to obtain it at one of six locations.

By Stave Elliot, Toke of the Town

Washington State lawmakers on Wednesday heard, for the first time ever, testimony in support of legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana for adults.

Members of the House Committee on Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness, in a heavily attended, two-hour hearing, heard arguments in favor of House Bill 2401.

HB 2401 would "remove all existing criminal and civil penalties for adults 21 years of age or older who cultivate, possess, transport, sell, or use marijuana."

By GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

SEATTLE (AP) - Five activists filed a ballot initiative Monday that would legalize all adult marijuana possession, manufacturing and sales under Washington state law - one of the most sweeping efforts at marijuana reform playing out around the country this year.

Its sponsors include two Seattle lawyers and the director of Seattle's annual Hempfest. They call themselves Sensible Washington, and say that in a time of dire budget woes, the state's government should stop spending money on police, court and jail costs for people who use or produce marijuana.

Douglas Hiatt, a lawyer who represents medical marijuana patients, told The Associated Press the proposal would remove all state criminal penalties for adults who possess, grow and distribute pot - no matter how much. Criminal penalties for juveniles who possess marijuana and for those who provide the drug to juveniles would remain in place.

Driving under the influence of the drug also would still be against the law. And marijuana would remain illegal under federal law.

"It basically tells the federal government, 'Hey it's your prohibition - if you want it, you pay for it,'" Hiatt said. "We're tired of screwing around and wasting all this dough."

Volunteers are lining up to collect the more than 241,000 signatures required to place the initiative on the November ballot, Hiatt said.

By David Ing for Hemp News

An ambitious sustainable social housing scheme, designed to meet Level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes through the use of renewable materials, has achieved planning approval. The development is being delivered by Crossover C-Zero LLP in partnership with Flagship Housing, one of the largest providers of social housing in East Anglia and will be built using Tradical® Hemcrete® thermal walling system from Lime Technology.

Based at Denmark Lane, Diss, the scheme will see the construction of 114 housing units and will be the first major affordable homes project proposed to seek Level 4 rating of the Code for Sustainable Homes. To aid its completion, the development has managed to obtain £3 million in funding from the Housing and Communities Agency (HCA) and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), who earlier this year offered financial aid for the delivery of social housing schemes that used renewable materials.

False facts offered to Americans in the first half of the 20th Century were accepted by an otherwise ignorant public, and guided by an industrial desire to rid the United States of the strongest natural fiber known to man.

Commentary by Tim King, Salem-News.com

(SALEM, Ore.) - We left messages with John Kitzhaber's campaign for Governor, to ask what his position on medical marijuana is, especially now that the state has passed laws in support of it. The answer? No answer, no reply. It seems the Kitz might see this issue as a hot potato, though it seems a bit late for that.

Former Gov. Kitzhaber will face longtime Secretary of State Bill Bradbury in the next Oregon Democratic Gubernatorial primary, and this equally familiar face in Oregon politics didn't flinch when asked about his position on both Oregon industrial hemp, and medical marijuana.

Changing Laws