Untitled

DEA Steals $16K From Innocent Man, Leaves Him Without a Way Home

(HighTimes) According to The Albuquerque Journal, agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration accosted Rivers at an Amtrak station during a short layover in New Mexico. It was here that agents began giving him and several other passengers the third degree in hopes of establishing evidence to suggest that someone, anyone, might be using the great American rail system to traffic illegal narcotics.

Witnesses say the shakedown began as a series of typical law enforcement-type questions: “Where are you going… and why?” However, Rivers, the only black man at the scene, was reportedly singled out by an agent and asked for consent to a search of his bag. Hoping to avoid any further hassle, Rivers complied with the DEA’s request.

During the search, agents found an envelope from a Michigan bank containing River’s life savings—$16,000 in cash. Although there was nothing in the bag to suggest involvement with the illegal drug trade, agents decided to seize all of the cash based on possibility that Rivers earned it slinging dope.

Rivers attempted to explain the origin of the cash to agents. He even connected them on the phone with his mother, who clarified that he had been able to save the money throughout the course of the past several years with the help of the family.

In the end, the DEA refused to return the cash because… Well… The law says they do not have to.

Illinois Medical Marijuana Advisory Board Wants To Significantly Expand Program

(WeedBlog) Illinois’ medical marijuana program has been slow to get off the ground. When the Illinois Legislature passed the medical marijuana bill that created the pilot program, it was one of the most strict programs in the country. The list of qualifying conditions did not include many ailments that other states allow. Below is the list of qualifying conditions that were approved when the pilot program started (and they are still the current ones as of this blog post), per the Illinois Department of Public Health:

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) • Agitation of Alzheimer’s disease • Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) • Arnold-Chiari malformation and Syringomelia • Cachexia/wasting syndrome • Cancer • Causalgia • Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy • Crohn’s disease • CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndromes Type II) • Dystonia • Fibromyalgia (severe) • Fibrous dysplasia • Glaucoma • Hepatitis C • Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) • Hydrocephalus • Interstitial Cystitis • Lupus • Multiple Sclerosis • Muscular dystrophy • Myasthenia Gravis • Myoclonus • Nail-patella syndrome • Neurofibromatosis • Parkinson’s disease • Post-concussion syndrome • RSD (Complex Regional Pain Syndromes Type I) • Residual limb pain • Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) • Seizures, including those characteristic of epilepsy (Starting January 1, 2015) • Sjogren’s syndrome • Spinal cord disease, including, but not limited to, arachnoiditis, Tarlov cysts, hydromyelia, syringomyelia • Spinal cord injury • Spinocerebellar Ataxia (SCA) • Tourette’s syndrome • Traumatic brain injury (TBI)

Paris protesters call on France to legalize recreational marijuana use

(RawStory) Sporting T-shirts and caps printed with marijuana leaves and with joints hanging from their lips, hundreds of people demonstrated in Paris on Saturday as part of a world march calling for the legalisation of cannabis.

Crowds of protesters, many dressed in Jamaican colours, made their way through the streets of the French capital from the Place de la Republique to Bastille calling for the legalisation of recreational marijuana use.

“What do we want? Legalisation,” chanted the crowd, wreathed in clouds of hashish smoke and gathered behind a banner reading “Another drug policy is possible” and placards calling for “Ganga for all”.

Some, like 16-year-old Julien, came because they wanted to “smoke in peace”.

“Legalisation would mean less trafficking, better products and perhaps less crime,” he explained, between puffs.

But for others, the Global Marijuana March — which also held events in Brazil, Greece, Costa Rica, the US, Germany and South Africa among others this month — was about calling for a better life for the terminally ill.

Beatrice, 52, has AIDS and a disorder of the nervous system that confined her to a wheelchair 20 years ago. “But since I started smoking marijuana, I have felt better,” she said. “I am walking again, it helps my therapy and it helps me to eat.”

For 15 years she has consumed between 0.8 and one gram of cannabis per day and, encouraged by her doctor, she now grows it in her garden. “I try to be discreet,” she said.

Cops Shakedown Kids Over Weed, Assault One and Try to Destroy Video Evidence

(HighTimes) An internal affairs investigation is underway after a video purportedly showing Virginia Beach police officers abusing kids over suspicion of marijuana has gone viral.

The officers accused of this unnecessary roughness claim to have no knowledge of the video ever being captured, but the girl who shot the footage said that they actually attempted to delete the evidence from her phone.

This tale began sometime in January when 18-year-old Courtney Griffith and a few friends were pulled over along a stretch of road due to a faulty license plate light. Understanding that the potential existed for a roadside shakedown, Griffith positioned her cell phone on the dashboard and proceeded to document her interaction with the long arm of the law.

Reports indicate that one of the cops, Officer Pittman, had harassed Griffith in the past and had even busted her once for possession of marijuana. Almost immediately after approaching the vehicle, one of the officers claimed that the passengers smelled like marijuana, which Griffith quickly suggested was not possible.

Soon, additional officers arrived on the scene, dishing out almost every harassment tactic in the book in hopes of digging up something incriminating on the kids.

In the video, Griffith asks if she is being detained, to which an officer confirms that she is. Eventually, the boys in blue order the teens to keep their hands positioned in plain sight, and at one point, all of them are asked to exit the vehicle. Griffith demanded that a sergeant be present, while her 17-year-old friend Brandon, who was in the backseat, asked numerous time for his parents to be called.

This is when the situation seemed to transition into a scene of police brutality.

An officer begins to reach into the backseat to pull Brandon out of the vehicle, and although the kid is obviously scared and asking for his parents, the cop douses his eyes with pepper spay and eventually throttles him several times with a high-powered Taser. Reports indicate that by the time the situation had escalated to this extreme, eight cops were on the scene, five of which had a hand in ripping Brandon out of the vehicle and giving him a savage beat down.

One of the officers obviously understood just how much trouble he and his buddies would be in if the footage of the attack was made public, because a cop can be seen at the end of the video shutting off the camera.

Griffith said the cops knew they had screwed the pooch because they tried to delete the video.

Hallucinogenic Plants by Richard Evans Schultes