pot bak
main oddly? blank 919
pension plan gop sellouts
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AG ~ legal pot
https://www.alternet.org/drugs/moody-florida/
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https://www.marijuanamoment.net/former-anti-marijuana-congressman-and-top-trump-health-official-joins-cannabis-company-board-documents-show/
no lnx
POLITICS
Former Anti-Marijuana Congressman And Top Trump Health Official Joins Cannabis Company Board,Documents Show Published 2 years ago on August 9, 2021By Kyle Jaeger
A former head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is serving as a member of the board of directors for a medical marijuana business in Georgia, according to documents obtained by Marijuana Moment.
Tom Price, who served as HHS secretary under President Donald Trump for seven months before resigning following criticism over hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel expenses, is listed as a board member of Botanical Sciences, LLC, one of six cannabis businesses to win licenses last month under Georgia’s limited medical cannabis program.
A former congressman who repeatedly voted against marijuana reform, Price’s involvement in the industry is notable on its own. But it’s also the case that as health and human services secretary, he was empowered to initiate proceedings to formally recognize cannabis’s medical value and reschedule it under federal law—a move he chose not to take. Now, he’s apparently part of an industry that’s generating billions of dollars in sales every year.
To say that Price resisted reform being joining the board of a medical cannabis company may be putting it lightly. As a congressman, he voted six times against appropriations bill amendments to simply shield state medical marijuana programs from federal interference by the Department of Justice. Those protections were eventually enacted over his objection, and remain part of federal spending law today.
On three occasions, he also opposed appropriations measures to allow U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs doctors to recommend medical cannabis for their military veteran patients.
Price did, however, vote for more incremental measures to shield limited state laws allowing CBD from federal intervention and to protect state industrial hemp programs.
But advocates say they’re appalled to see someone who so consistently opposed broad patient access now standing to benefit from the increasingly legal industry.
“As a dad of medical cannabis patient, a parent that spent seven years at the Georgia Capitol lobbying to try to pass a medical cannabis program, I can only start to express my disappointment when I found out that Tom Price was on the board of directors of Botanical Sciences, one of the companies that received a class 1 license to cultivate and distribute cannabis here in Georgia,” Sebastien Cotte, co-founder and board member of Georgia’s Hope, told Marijuana Moment.
Price’s wife, Betty, is a former Georgia state representative who regularly opposed modest reforms, including legislation to create the state’s existing program that allows patients to access low-THC oils for a select number of conditions.
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“Tom Price at the federal level and his wife Betty Price at the state level have been strong opponents of cannabis for years,” Cotte said. “They did all they could to not only destroy our grassroots efforts in Georgia but they also tried to put every medical cannabis program in the country in jeopardy.”
Betty Price did, however, voice support for one resolution that called for minor federal rescheduling of marijuana—again, a move that her husband did not initiate when he had the power to do so as a member of Trump’s cabinet.
Botanical Sciences earned one of the highest scores among Georgia medical cannabis license applicants. The Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission announced its intent award licenses to the company and other successful applicants in July.
“To think that someone so anti-cannabis is now on the board of a company that received a license and that he will be able to financially benefit from medical cannabis sales In Georgia is truly sickening and a slap in the face of every parents, patients and advocates who fought so hard for the past seven years to bring a medical cannabis program in our state,” Cotte said.
Former state Rep. Allen Peake (R), who sponsored the legislation that created the Georgia medical cannabis program, slammed Price’s involvement in the industry in an interview with the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
“To have a guy who fought so diligently against everything we’ve worked so hard to accomplish here in Georgia and then receive a license, it was a tough pill to swallow,” said Peake, who applied for but did not receive a license. “It’s the height of hypocrisy.”
Activists similarly took umbrage when former House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), who opposed marijuana legalization while in office, joined the board of cannabis company Acreage Holdings.
Georgia’s medical cannabis programs allows patients with specific qualifying conditions—including cancer, epilepsy and intractable pain—to access tinctures, gel caps, topicals and oils containing no more than 5 percent THC.
Class 1 licenses, of which Botanical Sciences is set to receive one of two being awarded by officials, authorize up to 100,000 square feet of cultivation space and allow for the manufacture of low-THC cannabis medicines. Those businesses can also be issued up to five dispensary licenses.
Officials with Botanical Sciences, including founder and CEO Robin Fowler, did not respond to Marijuana Moment’s repeated requests for comment on this story.
The news about Price comes shortly after it was disclosed that President Joe Biden’s nominee for director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) worked for a major marijuana business last year.
Rahul Gupta, selected to run ONDCP, worked as a consultant to Holistic Industries, a multi-state cannabis operator, for nine months in 2020.
This adds to the novelty of this particular administration pick, who had already caught the attention of reform advocates given his record overseeing the implementation of West Virginia’s medical marijuana program as state health commissioner and chair of a key advisory board. He’s also publicly recognized both the therapeutic and economic potential of cannabis reform.
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ingram also pot --> psychosis?
strict fr vs
https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/watch-tucker-carlson-finds-a-way-to-blamewomen-and-marijuana-for-the-most-recent-mass-shooting/
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Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment & Expungement Act (MORE) conflict of interest
In December 2020, Foxx voted against the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment & Expungement Act (MORE).[52] According to financial disclosure reports, she made at least six investments inAltria,one of the world's largest tobacco companies and a leader in the burgeoning U.S. cannabis industry, since September 2020.[53] In all, records show she has purchased somewhere between $79,000 and $210,000 in Altria stock.[54] ^HUH?
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legalization it's the opposite of a wedge issue? it used to be a wedge issue [jeff sessions tires to beat ppl up on it , flout bona fides?] , demonize but decades of grassroots org?
std boogie man roger stone dirty trick is to run fake/3rd cand to split vote, sometimes pick someoe w/ same name
https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/gop-spolier-candidate/?rs=182
ablind veteran who ran for Congress in Minnesota last year under the Grassroots Legalize Cannabis Party now alleges he was tricked into running by a Republican Party operative to siphon votes from then-Democratic-Farmer-Labor Congressman Collin Peterson in Minnesota's 7th Congressional District, according to local news outlet KMSP.
Kevin Ne Se Shores, said the report, "was surprised by the unsolicited call he got in June of 2020 from a man who encouraged him to run against Congressman Collin Peterson (D-MN) as a candidate for the Grassroots Legalize Cannabis Party. Shores, who suffers from Gulf War Illness, used cannabis to get off pain killers. He told the FOX 9 Investigators he assumed he was being recruited by a member of the Grassroots Legalize Cannabis Party. 'I was under the impression he was a part of that political party,' Shores said. 'That was my assumption.' He was wrong."
"Unknown to Shores, the man who called encouraging him to run was a Republican strategist, Kip Christianson, who at the time was on the payroll of the Republican National Committee, according to the Federal Election Commission," said the report. Shores also alleges that Christianson paid his $300 candidate filing fee, telling him, "Don't worry about it."
Shores only later became aware that Christianson was an RNC employee and 2016 Donald Trump delegate for Minnesota.
Ultimately, Shores lost the nomination for the third party to Rae Hart Anderson, and the combined 24,000 votes for the Grassroots Legalize Marijuana Party and the Legal Marijuana Now Party would not have been enough to secure re-election for Peterson, who lost to former GOP lieutenant governor Michelle Fischbach by 50,000 votes.
However, in races further down the ballot, GOP covert support for the Minnesota cannabis parties may have spoiled state Senate races, and may have been decisive in helping Republicans retain control of the chamber — which ironically makes cannabis legalization far less likely in the state.
Congressional candidate says he was tricked into running by RNC strategist | FOX 9 KMSP..[vid]
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state scotus cody f
in a brutal loss for direct democracy in Mississippi, the state's supreme court struck down a ballot amendment on Friday that legalized medical marijuana in the state. But the ruling didn't stop there. Invoking a technical flaw in the law, the court invalidated the entire process for amending the state's constitution by popular vote.
"The killing of our ballot initiative process means that Mississippi is, definitively, the state with the least democracy, the most restricted ballot access, and where voters' voices matter least when it comes to the deciding our future," said Ashton Pittman, a reporter at the Mississippi Free Press....
https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/mississippi-supreme-court
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oregon just decrim all possession?! 2/21
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south Dakota voters ended marijuana prohibition — but Kristi Noem helped get it overturned by a judge
February 09, 2021
The will of the voters in South Dakota was overturned by a judge on Monday.
"A Hughes County judge has ruled that a voter-approved amendment to the South Dakota Constitution ending marijuana prohibition in the sta
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Sanders unveils bold plan to legalize marijuana — and help restore communities hit by the drug war
Sen. Bernie Sanders released an expansive plan on Thursday to as president legalize marijuana and ensure the benefits of legalization are felt across all communities, especially those affected by the…
Bernie Sanders unveils bold plan to legalize marijuana — and help restore communities hit by the drug war
Gage Skidmore
Written by Eoin Higgins / Common Dreams October 24, 2019
Sen. Bernie Sanders released an expansive plan on Thursday to as president legalize marijuana and ensure the benefits of legalization are felt across all communities, especially those affected by the war on drugs.
“We will legalize marijuana and vacate and expunge past marijuana convictions,” the Vermont senator, who is running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nominaion, said in a statement announcing the policy.
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@BernieSanders
Too many lives were ruined due to the disastrous criminalization of marijuana. Today I am releasing my plan to:
? Legalize marijuana with executive action
? Expunge past marijuana convictions
? Invest in communities most affected by the War on Drugs https://berniesanders.com/issues/legalizing-marijuana/ …
Legalizing Marijuana
We will legalize marijuana and vacate and expunge past marijuana convictions.
“Too many lives were ruined due to the disastrous criminalization of marijuana,” Sanders said.
The proposal would legalize marijuana in the first 100 days of a Sanders administration, vacate and expunge all past marijuana convictions, and “ensure that revenue from legal marijuana is reinvested in communities hit hardest by the War on Drugs, especially African-American and other communities of color.”
The plan would also aim to stop marijuana from turning into a business like tobacco by structuring the industry like a non-profit, prohibiting advertising targeting youth, and preventing “consolidation and profiteering.”
Reaction on social media was largely positive.
“Nice,” tweeted a number of users.
“Blaze it,” said Canadian journalist Rob Rousseau.
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mma
- In the latest attempt to blame anything but guns, Tucker Carlson suggested a link between mass shootings and marijuana use.
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