wow, they have arrested eight people over the photo of Michael Phelps smoking cannabis through a glass “bong” or aka water pipe.

This is insane, and calls for an immediate look into the decriminalization of marijuana at the federal level.

A Columbia, S.C., television station reports that eight people have been arrested after a photograph surfaced of Olympic star Michael Phelps smoking what looks like a bong.

WIS-TV says seven people have been charged with drug possession and one person with distribution.

The television station also reports that police have confiscated the bong that Phelps allegedly used during a party at the University of South Carolina, in Columbia.

He should’ve used a vaporizer and brought up the healthy aspect of using a vaporizer over inhaling smoke!

It’s time for America to stop wasting millions of tax payer dollars arresting, prosecuting, and jailing millions of it’s own citizens who choose to use cannabis. It’s time to reschedule cannabis today!

As someone who is plagued by Migraine and the nausea surrounding them, I cannot help but get upset at this type of story.

Here is a musician, who instead of using a safe and effective medication to control nausea, was injected with a drug and had to have her arm amputated because of it.

How long will patients continue to suffer at the hands of the drug companies who want to not use natural substances to combat nausea?

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Vermont musician who lost her arm because of a botched drug injection is squaring off against a drug maker and the Bush administration in one of the most closely watched business cases of the Supreme Court’s term.

At issue is whether the federal government can limit lawsuits by consumers like Diana Levine who have been harmed by prescription medications.

The justices are hearing arguments in Levine’s case Monday, shortly after the court announces whether it will accept other cases for argument sometime next year.

The issue of limiting lawsuits arises in the heart-rending story of Levine, a guitarist and pianist who lost her right arm after an injection of the anti-nausea drug Phenergan, made by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.

A Vermont jury awarded Levine $6.7 million, agreeing that Wyeth should have been clearer in its warning label about the risks of improperly administering the drug.

Wyeth and the administration, however, are asking the court to rule that drug makers may not make changes to labels without the approval of the Food and Drug Administration and that people cannot sue under state law for harm caused by an FDA-approved drug.

In recent years, the administration and business groups have aggressively pushed limits on lawsuits through the doctrine of pre-emption — asserting the primacy of federal regulation over rules that might differ from state to state.

Obviously, if you notice, the article does not even discusss the topic I am reaching into. Instead the article talks only of limiting her capacity to actually sue the doctor who did this to her!

Imagine if you went to the doctor for a shot, and then had to have your arm cut off after it, would you want to sue them?

Well, President Bush and the hospitals, not only want you to stay away from safe medical marijuana, they want to inject you with toxic chemicals and when your body reacts to it, they don’t want you to be able to sue for compensation.

This is a terrible policy towards sick people, and until more people open their eyes it will continue.

Educate yourself about medical cannabis and how the drug makers are keeping it out of your reach.

Here is a sick woman, who has now been evicted from her home because of her medicine.

SILVER CITY, N.M. (AP) – A handicapped woman says the manager of her apartment complex told her to move in three days after discovering the woman has marijuana for medical use.

Bobbie Wooten says she got an eviction notice Tuesday after a surprise inspection by a management representative for Silver Cliffs apartments who spotted her two marijuana plants.

A spokesman for the Arizona realty company that manages the complex says the eviction is within the terms of the lease, which calls for a drug-free environment.

Wooten, who uses a wheelchair, was paralyzed from the waist down in a car crash several years ago and suffers severe spasms.

She joined the state’s medical marijuana program when it went into effect last year.

State Health Department spokeswoman Deborah Busemeyer confirmed she’s in the program.

A “drug free” environment? I am willing to bet these apartments are filled with people on prescription narcotics, chain smoking cigarettes, and no doubt consuming alcohol. Prescription meds, alcohol, nicotine, are drugs and are found in many of the homes there. Why is this crealy burdened and sick woman being targeted because of her medical marijuana? She is part of the state approved medical marijuana program and this should be a lawyer’s dream case.

Sue. Sue Sue Sue.

Could someone be kicked out of her home because of her Vicodin prescription? No. Would the apartment complex and Sheriff be sued if they evicted and elderly woman for taking blood pressure medicine? yes, they would be.

I say this woman needs to find a good lawyer and stand up for her rights. She is part of the State medical marijuana program and laws need to be enacted to protect patients in this sort of situation.

New Mexico has a legal, state approved medical marijuana program. This sounds like the beginning of legislation, or a lawsuit.

The latest from California regarding medical marijuana.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle:

The state Supreme Court turned back a challenge to California’s medical marijuana law Thursday from two counties that said they were being forced to condone federal drug-law violations by state-approved pot users.

San Diego and San Bernardino county officials had sued to overturn Proposition 215, the 1996 initiative that legalized medical marijuana, and a more recent law that required them to issue identification cards to users who had a doctor’s recommendation.

The justices unanimously denied review of an appellate decision in July that concluded California was free to decide whether to punish drug users under its own laws, despite the federal ban on marijuana.

The decision is “a momentous victory for countless seriously ill patients,” said Adam Wolf, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who defended the state law in the appeals court. He said the counties should stop wasting money “in a doomed effort to undermine the will of California voters.”

But Thomas Bunton, a deputy San Diego County counsel, said the county would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

The California law “authorizes people to engage in conduct that’s forbidden by federal law,” Bunton said.

Hurray for state’s rights. The people of California voted, and ultimately supported, compassionate use and safe access to medical marijuana. These people need to stop trying to go against the voters, and wasting tax payer’s money trying to change the state law allowing medical cannabis in California.

He said San Diego and San Bernardino counties particularly objected to the follow-up statute on identification cards that the Legislature passed in 2003. The cards, issued by the counties, protect their holders from arrest by state or local police for possessing small amounts of medical marijuana.

The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed federal authorities to rely on U.S. drug laws to prosecute medical marijuana patients and their suppliers, and to shut dispensaries in California and the 11 other states with laws similar to Prop. 215. But the court has not prevented the states from deciding which drugs to prohibit under their own laws.

In a separate case, the city of Garden Grove (Orange County) has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a California appellate ruling requiring police to return a patient’s medical marijuana after state charges were dismissed. That case also involves a potential conflict between federal and state law.

In the counties’ lawsuit, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Diego ruled July 31 that federal law doesn’t require states to impose criminal penalties for marijuana possession. The purpose of the federal law, the court said, is “to combat recreational drug use, not to regulate a state’s medical practices.”

Why are they wasting tax dollars on this?

In keeping up with the latest news on drug companies and their pain killers, here is the latest on Pfizer.

(Bloomberg) — Pfizer Inc. will pay $894 million to resolve most legal claims that its painkillers Celebrex and Bextra caused heart attacks and strokes.

Pfizer will pay $745 million to settle 90 percent of the suits claiming injuries from the products. The remainder will go to end class-action consumer fraud lawsuits and charges of inappropriate marketing by 33 states and the District of Columbia, New York-based Pfizer said today in a statement.

Pfizer, the world’s biggest drugmaker, was being sued over allegations that Celebrex and Bextra increased the risk of heart attacks or strokes after a similar pill, Merck & Co.’s Vioxx, was pulled from the market over the same side effects in 2004. Celebrex is still sold, generating $2.3 billion for Pfizer last year, while Bextra was recalled over a rare skin condition in 2005. Pfizer will book the settlement amount in its third-quarter earnings scheduled to be reported Oct. 21.

“Anytime that you have an opportunity to resolve litigation, which is inevitably something that creates uncertainty, in terms that make sense for the people and corporation, it is a good thing to do,” Amy Schulman, Pfizer’s general counsel, said in a telephone interview. “Given the stage we were at and events that have transpired, this seemed like an appropriate time to reach a resolution of the various matters.”

The reason this is important to medical marijuana patients or advocates, or caregiver, is that cannabis has often been used as a pain killer, and it does not have these types of side effects. One has every right to question the safety of these drug companies.

The article goes on to say…

Pfizer acquired Celebrex and Bextra as part of its more than $60 billion acquisition of Pharmacia Corp. in 2003. Bextra, Celebrex, and Vioxx are part of a class of medicines called non- steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which also include ibuprofen and naproxen. U.S. regulators have warned that these drugs may increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Pfizer said there is no evidence that Celebrex, when taken at lower doses, poses a risk to the heart. Patients taking the biggest Celebrex dose of 400 milligrams twice a day tripled their chance of a heart attack or stroke, compared with people taking a placebo, according to a study presented in March at the American College of Cardiology meeting.

A more definitive assessment of Celebrex risks won’t come until 2010 or 2011, when a $100 million study of 20,000 patients comparing Celebrex with the pain pills ibuprofen and naproxen is expected to be completed by the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

Pfizer said the settlements include $60 million to 33 states and Washington, D.C., over alleged illegal promotion of Bextra and $89 million for consumer fraud lawsuits.

I hope people educate themselves on the safety of the “medicine” they are taking, to find out if it may affect their own health. When we see lawsuits like this being settled, one has to wonder, what is going on?

We need to start thinking more clearly on medical marijuana, and promoting the safe medicinal use of cannabis.

It looks like the fight continues in California. Garden Grove, famous from the Sublime song of the same name, has decided to ban medical marijuana dispensaries. Not too cool, man.

GARDEN GROVE, Calif.—Medical marijuana dispensaries won’t be allowed in the northern Orange County city of Garden Grove.

The City Council voted 4-1 Tuesday night to ban the pot stores. The ordinance takes effect in 30 days.

Councilman Mark Rosen cast the lone dissenting vote, saying the ban is “mired in mid-20th-century thinking.”

He noted the Unit-D dispensary, which has a conditional-use permit, has been operating for seven months without problems.

Councilman Steve Jones says he does not want the city to become exposed to liability for poor-quality pot.

California’s Compassionate Use Act permits marijuana use for medical reasons.

This goes against every reason why patients need safe access, not make it more difficult for people to acquire the much needed medicine. With gas prices the way they are, people need to be able to drive there or have someone drive them to local dispensaries. If you make people have to drive hundreds of miles to acquire their prescribed medicine, how will that help them?

California’s Compassionate Use Act allows patients access, it’s time to stop with these types of bans on dispensaries. The taxes paid by them benefits the city, and from what we’ve seen elsewhere in California, it does not encourage any more crime in the area. In fact, it cuts down the black market drug trade in the city, people with safe access, no longer have a need to buy drugs on the street. They can drive to the local medical marijuana dispensary and pick up their prescription like any patient. Help stop the drug deals on the street by fighting for your local medical marijuana dispensary.

Well, I don’t think any of us in America expected this housing foreclosure mess, and financial crisis that is upon us. Needlesstosay, we are putting off the move to California at this time, but I will surely post about it in the future. However, since the election is coming, I guess it is my duty to address the clear question about the two candidates who are running for the President of the United States in November. Which one supports medical marijuana? Which one wants to lock up people for smoking cannabis?

Clearly, I do not need to go into John McCain‘s thoughts on the subject to make it known, he is against anything to do with ‘medical marijuana.” He does not believe it has medicinal qualities, nor does he support its decriminalization, nor the legalization, for that matter. This man supports throwing people in jail, for the crime of possession, or even smoking a marijuana joint. Really, we need to do away with this mentality and get to the real issues facing America.

Barack Obama, on the other hand. Has a clear, and long record, of supporting medical marijuana. He has also voted to stop the raids on medical marijuana patients. This is all good news, and should come into play, come election day, if you are a supporter of medical marijuana.

Barack, gets it! He understands, some patients, need safe access to marijuana, or cannabis, for medicinal use.

We encourage all voters to think for themselves, but if you support medical marijuana, the choice is abundantly clear. Vote Obama!

In the past Senator Barack Obama has promised to end the federal raids on state medical marijuana patients, as well as their caregivers. He has voted against amendments to undermine state laws regarding cannabis as medicine.

It’s time for this country to go green, and by green I don’t mean energy, although that’d be nice too. Let’s knock some sense into congress and finally get meaningful legislation regarding medicinal marijuana in the next four years!

On June 2, 2007 Obama said this about raids: “I don’t think that should be a top priority of us, raiding people who are using … medical marijuana. With all the things we’ve got to worry about, and our Justice Department should be doing, that probably shouldn’t be a high priority.”

While the economy is certainly on everyone’s mind, we need to vote in someone who fill move forward with a new plan regarding rescheduling cannabis and helping change marijuana laws in this country. Go Obama!

In today’s news, a few college presidents in America have began pushing the idea that we should lower the drinking age back to 18. This is obviously despite all evidence that points to increasing abuse of alcohol by underage teens and those aged 18 – 21. They claim “the 21 drinking age isn’t working” – to that I would like to say:

The drinking age is working fine, it is the parents and the enforcement of this law that is not working. It is no secret and no one denies that most underage drinking is done at home and often within the presence of adults in the family. It is easy to pass the blame onto something as arbitrary as “the drinking age” – but that doesn’t make it right.

The drinking age is not at fault here, the enforcement is. On college campuses across the US drinking age is rarely enforced, many students report binge drinking more than once a week, even at ages 18-20.

The easy way out is to blame the “drinking age.” But what is the drinking age without those who enforce it? There are stores who sell alcohol to minors every single day in America, will lowering the drinking age have any effect on that? Doubtful.

“Twenty-one is not working,” says the group’s statement, signed by presidents from prominent colleges such as Dartmouth, Duke and Syracuse. “A culture of dangerous, clandestine ‘binge drinking’ – often conducted off-campus – has developed.”

So how is lowering the drinking age going to fix this?

The other prominent weapon used in this debate is “Why can a person serve in the military at 18, but not drink a beer.”

One thing you never hear in this debate is, why not raise the age of serving in the military? Why does it always have to be to lower the drinking age? Why not raise the military serve age to 21. Personally, I don’t think most of those 18 year olds understand the life altering decision they are making by joining the military and waisting their time instead of pursuing a real career with real lifetime achievement goals instead of recruiting for foreign wars and spending billions on arming these 18 year olds who don’t want to kill, they want to get drunk or smoke weed.

I am tired of hearing the same old argument from alcoholics and those who wish others to live their style of life consuming alcohol daily. Notice it is never ex-drinkers pushing this agenda. It is almost ALWAYS promoted by groups and lobbyist networks working for the alcohol industry in disguise. These college campus presidents should not be trusted with the welfare and safety of students while they seek their education.

The interest of the students should be on educating them for the future, but hey – when many are just going to drop out from their drinking problem, and join the military, why should the campus president care?

Lowering the drinking age will not stop underage drinking, that problem needs to be addressed by parents taking some responsibility and not keeping so much alcohol in the house. Too many households have cases of beer in the fridge right next to the milk. These same parents want to blame someone else for how their kids get alcohol – but never stopping to think the problem actually started in their own household. Dad keeps his cases of beer cold right next to the baby formula and eggs.

You will never change society when the parents are alcoholics too. Nor will you curb this problem by thinking the drinking age is the blame. The parents are the blame, those who enforce drinking ages to begin with are to blame – if a problem persists AFTER you already have a strict law in place – perhaps it is the society itself that is at fault, not the drinking age. And since these campus presidents already believe in lowering the drinking age, perhaps this is their own admission as to why drinking laws are not enforced on their campuses and thus pushing this problem even further. These campuses are riddled with binge drinking accidents and even fatalities (1700 students die every year from alcohol related injuries) and because they cannot control it, the campus presidents take the easy way out of a bad problem and point the finger at “the drinking age.”

What a cop out, and as a tea-totaling ex-drinker I can’t help but notice the ignorance that surrounds the issue of alcohol. Alcohol causes thousands of deaths every year – marijuana is completely safe and medical – yet the government wants to keep one illegal, and lower the age to get the other.

Don’t you think the system is a little backwards, and could we not make a few changes that could benefit this entire country and not just the alcohol industry?

Although this is not a religious site, it would seem to many that the message of mercy and compassion is exactly what Jesus taught, and those who are religious would support medical marijuana.

Congressman Phil Hare, D-Rock Island, will vote in favor of legalizing medical marijuana for the second straight year.

This time, however, he has the support of seven religious leaders in the 17th district. Clergy from the Disciples of Christ and United Church of Christ are standing by Hare in the push to legalize the Schedule I drug.

“Medical marijuana is an issue of mercy and compassion,” said the Rev. William Pyatt, Carthage United Methodist Church, in a news release. “Being seriously ill is stressful enough already without living in fear of arrest for taking doctor-recommended medicine.”

An additional 55 religion leaders throughout Illinois have added their support to the legislation.

Religious leaders in support of medical marijuana legislation to help protect patients who use cannabis as a doctor-approved medication.

Hare agrees that a patient comfort should come first.

“We want to give patients the best quality of life,” Hare said. “As long as it is done within the consultation of a doctor.”

The legislation would prevent the federal government from interfering in state medical marijuana laws. Currently 12 states allow the use of medical marijuana. It is often used for patients with cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis.

Why does this member of congress support medical marijuana?

Hare noted his time spent as a hospice volunteer as an influence on his position, commenting on how he was humbled by several of the patients. One specific patient with lung cancer stands out as one of his most memorable. The patient, an older man, confided in Hare his last wishes were to sit with his cat, drink a beer and have a conversation with someone.

So Hare brought the man a six-pack of Bud Light and his cat. The two sat and talked for hours, sipping beer.

Two weeks later, after the man died, his wife approached Hare, telling him how much the gesture meant to her husband.

Hare became a hospice volunteer after the death of his mother.

The story reflects Hare’s position on medical marijuana.

If more of the people trying to stop medical marijuana were forced to spend time with actual patients who use cannabis to live, they may actually show some compassion.

Hare said medical marijuana is not given for patients to get high, but to make them comfortable.

Morphine and fentanyl are more efficient medications for pain relief McClean said. The two can also be given multiple ways — by patch, mouth or even as a suppository — making it easier for the patient. While both Schedule II medications are heavily addictive, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, McClean said patients can be weaned off them. He also said addiction is not an issue for terminally ill patients because “when they have two weeks to live, we don’t worry about addiction.”

Patients across America are given much more addicting substances as medicine. And even the religious are beginning to support medical marijuana in public and through their church.

It is important that the patient’s side of the story be presented and not just the drug war media distortions.

SEATTLE _ Martin Martinez says the small, private collective and outreach group he runs from a storefront are legal, a place for medical-marijuana patients to get help growing the medicine they need to manage their pain.

One of the earliest advocates for what became a voter-approved state medical-marijuana law 10 years ago, Martinez says he hasn’t handed out pot, nor grown any in his cramped office.

But Tuesday afternoon, Seattle police, armed with a search warrant, carted away marijuana and hundreds of private patient files, and tore down a wall in search of a marijuana patch that didn’t exist.

King County prosecutors say the raid was justified. Martinez’s neighbors have been complaining about a pervasive smell of pot, they said, so authorities need to figure out whether Martinez has been breaking the law.

But the episode has Martinez frustrated and his attorney furious. They accuse the police and prosecutors of being overzealous and refusing to honor the law that is supposed to let sick people use pot in peace. At a minimum, Martinez says, the authorities should let the whole thing blow over _ and return his stuff.

I’ve posted about this already, but feel there should be a little more emphasis put on some of the facts, and at least present more quotes from the victim and his attorney.

“We’re trying desperately to be legal, to stay alive and not have these conflicts,” Martinez said. “Science and law have to come to terms, because the doctors are recommending cannabis and the police have got to get on the same page.”

Martinez, 48, suffered severe neurological damage in a motorcycle accident in 1986. He later became one of the first people in King County to use medical necessity as a defense against prosecution for using marijuana.

In 1998, he helped promote the medical-marijuana initiative that voters approved overwhelmingly. It allows people with certain serious ailments to use marijuana if authorized by a physician.

For the past four years or so, he has operated Lifevine _ a private collective of patients who work together to grow their own medical marijuana _ and Cascadia NORML, a public-outreach organization that provides ID cards to medical-marijuana patients so they can show police that they have a legal right. He said the groups used three different locations in the U District on Northeast 55th Street and never had any problems.

I would like to thank Martinez for his effort.

“I’m just hopping mad,” said Douglas Hiatt, Martinez’s attorney, who arrived at the office during the search and called a deputy prosecutor to try to talk her out of executing the warrant. “It’s stupid and was totally preventable.”

Hiatt said Martinez is “super responsible” and makes sure he follows the letter of the law.

“I’d like for them to give him his stuff back and compensate him for anything they broke,” Hiatt said. “If they decide to go forward with this (and file charges), we’re going to have a real fight.”

Most of the time patients are not breaking any law when they have their doors kicked in, property seized, and harrassed in this manner.

But Mark Larson, the chief criminal deputy for the King County Prosecutor’s Office, said an investigation is warranted to determine whether Martinez was operating within the bounds of the state law.

“We’re certainly aware people have a right to use medical marijuana,” Larson said. “But that doesn’t include dispensing, and it doesn’t include possessing unlimited quantities.”

It has already been stated he was in fact not dispensing marijuana at the facilities, nor did he have “unlimited quantities.” He was within state law. At least the chief criminal deputy acknowledges awareness of “the right to use medical marijuana.”

State laws don’t specify legal amounts or ways medical marijuana can be dispensed to others, he said. The state Legislature last year ordered the Health Department to establish maximum amounts each patient may possess, but the department’s proposals are still being debated.

“We’d love to have these issues clarified so that people who need it get it, and people who operate outside the rules risk prosecution,” Larson said.

So again, how was he breaking laws if state law does not specify his allowance? This is exactly why I have recently begun discussing how much a patient should be allowed to grow. I have personally found that 71 ounces for 2 months is barely enough if you use it in the cooked form, which many prefer because of negative side effects of smoking.

Having 12 ounces of marijuana may last the guy 3-4 weeks depending on how often he uses?

The business owner who complained about the smell said she didn’t know until after Tuesday’s bust that Martinez’s office was being used by medical-marijuana patients.

She said she suspected someone was growing pot in the three-story building, which houses a mix of businesses and apartments.

Isn’t that convenient…

“I’m really sorry. We didn’t want to bother anyone,” he said. “We’re a very private group, which is why it doesn’t say ‘medical marijuana’ on the door.

“We’ve tried to keep to ourselves.” said Martinez

No doubt brother, keep up the good work and stand strong.

Never relent.