The nation’s longest-running marijuana legalization rally runs from noon to 2 p.m. on the University of Michigan Diag, followed by the Monroe Street Fair.
Watch the video
Below is the full lineup for the rally:
Matthew Abel, Detroit attorney and executive director of Michigan NORML
Laith Al-Saadi, Ann Arbor musician
Virg Bernero, Lansing mayor
Statement by U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer read by Mark Passerini
Sabra Briere, Ann Arbor City Council member
Adam Brook, former Hash Bash organizer
State Rep. Mike Callton, R-Nashville
Tommy Chong, comedian and activist
Scott Cecil, Students for Sensible Drug Policy outreach coordinator
Stacia Cosner, Students for Sensible Drug Policy deputy director
Alyssa Erwin, brain cancer survivor and medical marijuana patient
Dori Edwards, Women Grow
William Federspiel, Saginaw County sheriff
Charmie Gholson, Michigan Moms United
Jeffrey Hank, Michigan Comprehensive Cannabis Law Reform Initiative Committee
State Rep. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor
Brian Kardell, Students for Sensible Drug Policy at U-M
Michael Komorn, Southfield attorney
Jamie Lowell, co-founder of the 3rd Coast Compassion Center in Ypsilanti
Reid Murdoch, Law Students for Sensible Drug Policy at U-M
Mark Passerini, Ann Arbor Medical Cannabis Guild
Dave Peters, Wayne State School of Medicine doctor
Jim and Erin Powers, parents of pediatric medical cannabis patient Ryan Powers
Chuck Ream, Safer Michigan director
Robin Schneider, National Patients Rights Association legislative liaison
Steve Sharpe, MI HEMP
Dakota Serna, advocate for veterans equality
DJ Short, known as the Willy Wonka of cannabis
John Sinclair, poet and activist
Marvin Surowitz- former professor and founder of the Partie Party
2015 was a pretty amazing year for progress in the legalization of marijuana.
Four states and the District of Columbia legalized recreational marijuana, many states decriminalized it and several more states approved medical marijuana. But for all the advances made in 2015, the year was just a run up to 2016, when the presidential election is expected to be accompanied by a ramp up in legalization.
In Congress, there are expectations for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the CARERS Act (S. 683 or H.R. 1538). This bill, sponsored by Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Dean Heller and presidential candidate Rand Paul, is a comprehensive piece of legislation on medical marijuana. It would allow states to legalize medical marijuana without federal interference and reschedule marijuana to a schedule II drug. It would eliminate barriers to research and allow banks to work with marijuana companies. Chuck Grassley is the head of the committee and until he schedules a hearing, it is dead in the water. Many hope this year he will buckle under pressure and set up a hearing.
The Respect State Marijuana Laws or HR 140 is also on the hoped for hearings list. Mason Tvert, Director of Communications for the Marijuana Policy Project said, “We expect support will continue to grow for both of those bills as well as for legislation regarding veterans’ access to medical marijuana and banking for medical marijuana businesses.”
Alan Amsterdam, second from L, and Cesar Maxit, third from L, volunteers with the DC Cannabis Campaign, talk to a voter about the ballot initiative to legalize marijuana in front of a polling location in the Adams Morgan neighborhood on November 4, 2014 in Washington D.C. (Photo by Allison Shelley/Getty Images).
Other pieces of marijuana legislation include Bernie Sanders’ bills, S. 2237, the “Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2015,” and S. 2237, the “Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2015;” H.R. 667, the Veterans Equal Access Act; H.R. 262 the States Medical Marijuana Act Property Right Protection; H.R. 1013 & 1014 the Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol Act and Marijuana Tax Revenue Act of 2015; H.R. 1855 and S. 987, the Small Business Tax Equity Act; and H.R. 2076 and S. 1726, the Marijuana Business Access to Banking Act. There’s also H.R. 3124, Clean Slate for Marijuana Offenses Act of 2015; and H.R. 3518, the Stop Civil Asset Forfeiture Funding for Marijuana Suppression Act.
Many states have initiatives for November that focus on legalizing or regulating marijuana for adult use. These include Nevada, Massachusetts, Arizona, Maine and California. States trying to pull together legislation for the November ballots include Florida, Arkansas and Missouri.
Vermont’s state attorney general thinks that legalization of recreational marijuana could pass in 2016 and the house speaker is supportive. Rhode Island is also a possibility for recreational legalization next year.
When it comes to medical marijuana, Pennsylvania is likely. The Senate passed a law, but the House is slow to come around, even though the governor supports it. Nebraska and Utah could potentially pass medical marijuana laws in 2016.
Illinois and New Hampshire are likely to pass decriminalization of possession laws in the new year.
Dec 28, 2015
Debra Borchardt , Contributor (Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own).
Marijuana grower’s 20-year prison sentence prompts judge to question drug laws’ mandatory minimums.
An article in the Buffalo News may have triggered some humanity in a Judge’s mind. It goes on to read.
Joseph Tigano III is going to prison for growing marijuana – and he’s going for a long time. Too long in the eyes of the federal judge who sentenced him.
The Cattaraugus County man, convicted of operating a marijuana farm with more than 1,000 plants, found himself Monday in the middle of the national drug sentencing debate.
Sentenced to a mandatory minimum of 20 years in prison, Tigano is one of those defendants whom reform advocates point to when making the case for more lenient drug penalties.
“I feel it is much greater than necessary,” U.S. District Judge Elizabeth A. Wolford said of the mandatory 20-year sentence, “but I do not have a choice.”
Speaking from the bench, Wolford made it clear that she would have preferred sentencing Tigano to less time in prison and suggested at one point that his single firearms conviction was more worrisome than any of his four drug convictions.
The judge’s comments came at a time when members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, are weighing recommended reforms to mandatory minimum drug penalties.
Years in the making, the push for reform is coming from lawyers and judges who think that too many nonviolent drug offenders are going to prison, and for far too long. They also contend that half of the federal prison population is serving time for drug crimes.
Now 51, Tigano was found guilty by a jury in May of manufacturing and distributing marijuana, maintaining a premise for the manufacture of marijuana, conspiracy to manufacture and possess marijuana and being a previously convicted felon in possession of firearms.
Under the law, he could have faced up to life in prison.
“There’s clearly a need for you to be punished,” Wolford told Tigano. “But I do not believe you present a danger to the community, by any means.”
Arrested in 2008 at his home in the Village of Cattaraugus, Tigano and his father, Joseph Sr., now 77, were accused of running a multimillion-dollar marijuana business.
Despite the size and scope of his business, Tigano was portrayed Monday as a defendant facing an excessive amount of time behind bars.
Cheryl Meyers Buth, Tigano’s defense lawyer, praised Wolford for challenging the mandatory minimum sentences that exist in so many drug laws and suggested that her client is simply the latest defendant to face an unfair punishment.
“I think Judge Wolford quite bravely went on the record to give her opinion that although she does not have the discretion to impose a sentence under the mandatory minimum, she thought a sentence about half as severe would have been more reasonable,” Meyers Buth said.
An recent article in the Washington Post about the arrest rate for marijuana possession is alarming. It goes on to read.
Every minute, someone gets arrested for marijuana possession in the U.S.
“The nation’s law enforcement agencies are still arresting people for marijuana possession at near record-high rates, according to the latest national data released today by the FBI.”
“In 2014, at least 620,000 people were arrested for simple pot possession — that’s 1,700 people per day, or more than 1 per minute. ”
“And that number is an undercount, because a handful of states either don’t report arrest numbers to the FBI, or do so only on a limited basis.”
“Nationwide, more than 1 in 20 arrests were for simple marijuana possession. Twenty years ago, near the dawn of the drug war, fewer than 2 percent of arrests were for pot possession. But that rate rose steadily throughout the 1990s and 2000s, even as those years saw a shift toward less-restrictive marijuana laws at the state level.”
“2014 saw the first year of fully legal recreational marijuana markets in Washington state and Colorado. But even as marijuana arrests plunged in those states, they crept upward at the national level.”
“It’s unacceptable that police still put this many people in handcuffs for something that a growing majority of Americans think should be legal,” said Tom Angell of the Marijuana Majority, a pro-legalization group, in a statement. “There’s just no good reason that so much police time and taxpayer money is spent punishing people for marijuana when so many murders, rapes and robberies go unsolved.” The FBI’s figures show that over half of the nation’s violent crimes, like murder, rape and assault, went unsolved in 2014.
“At 620,000 arrests, that means that states spent nearly half a billion dollars in 2014 just to arrest people for marijuana possession.”
“These numbers refute the myth that nobody actually gets arrested for using marijuana,” Mason Tvert of the Marijuana Policy Project, a pro-legalization group, said in a statement. “It’s hard to imagine why more people were arrested for marijuana possession when fewer people than ever believe it should be a crime.”
“And the consequences of an arrest, even if it doesn’t result in charges or jail time, can be devastating. An arrest can mean missing a day of work and getting fired. It can lead to a record that prevents a person from finding work in the future. If a person is detained and unable to post bail, an arrest can mean weeks in jail waiting for trial. In extreme cases, an arrest can end in death.”
“If more states legalize and eliminate penalties for marijuana possession, the disparities in state-level marijuana enforcement may draw even more notice, given an activity that’s legal in one state can lead to life-ruining consequences for somebody just across the state line. ”
Local Attorney Michael Komorn, got the news that the marijuana case against his client was dropped and her property seized would be returned.
Ginnifer Hency and her lawyer, Michael Komorn, got the news early Wednesday morning that the marijuana case against her was dropped, and her property seized through civil forfeiture would be returned.
The Kimball Township woman’s case is one of at least five marijuana cases in St. Clair County that will be dismissed after a state Supreme Court decision last week.
“I’m elated that this part is over,” Hency said. “It’s been a long year.”
St. Clair County Prosecutor Michael Wendling said about 18 cases were on hold while prosecution and defense waited on the Supreme Court decision.
“We reevaluated the files that we had pending and at least five were no longer viable in light of the Supreme Court decision,” Wendling said.
“I think that’s an analysis that prosecutors across the state are undertaking.”
The Michigan Supreme Court ruling last week — its ninth medical marijuana ruling since voters approved the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act in 2008 — clarified when caregivers and users can use their medical marijuana certification as a defense or immunity if charged with a marijuana-related crime.
“We would have to have specific evidence on those items in order to overcome that burden now that we did not have to show before,” Wendling said.
“Several of those cases the evidence isn’t there to do that.”
Wendling said any unresolved civil forfeiture cases connected to those five dismissed cases also will be dismissed, and items seized will be returned.
The four other marijuana cases dismissed include ones against Austin Ray, Ryan Jackson, Thomas Cook and Kevin Lindke, Wendling said.
According to appeal documents from the prosecution, Hency was charged after she allegedly told a Drug Task Force member she had six ounces of marijuana in a locked bag that she intended to exchange for a different strain with another caregiver and give the marijuana to her patients.
Her case was dismissed by visiting District Judge David Nicholson in May after Nicholson found that no crime had occurred after a preliminary examination.
The prosecutor’s office appealed Nicholson’s decision in circuit court. Oral arguments on the appeal were supposed to be heard by Circuit Judge Michael West Wednesday.
“We still feel that that appeal is justified because it was on a different issue,” Wendling said. “But, at the end of the day, if we win that appeal and that case gets refiled, we still have that Supreme Court decision to deal with.”
Komorn said he, co-counsel Shyler Engel and Hency were happy with the dismissal.
“But that does not eliminate the horror of what they’ve had to deal with the last year,” Komorn said.
“It didn’t come easy. We’ve had to fight for a year.”
Komorn said Hency’s family was devastated by the July 2014 raid on their home and Hency has had trouble finding employment because of the pending narcotics charge.
“We’re interested in pursuing damages,” Komorn said.
“This shouldn’t have happened. There shouldn’t have been criminal charges and there certainly shouldn’t have been a forfeiture.”
Hency said authorities seized several items, including a Chevy Impala, two iPhones, an iPad and a ladder, when they raided her home in 2014.
Hency said she appreciated the prosecutor’s decision to dismiss the case “in the interest of justice.” But she said she feels her case isn’t completely finished.
“When I get my stuff back I will consider it over,” Hency said. “There are a whole lot of other cases in St. Clair County that I hope they revisit in light of the (Supreme Court) decision.”
If you or someone you know has been accused of a crime, DUI or Drugged Driving. Call Komorn Law and turn your defense into an offense. Call Now 248-357-2550
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