By Loretta Nall Alabamians for Compassionate Care The Alabama House Judiciary Committee made history by voting April 7 to pass HB642, the Michael Phillips Compass- ionate Care Act. This is the first time a medical marijuana bill has passed the first hurdle toward becoming state law.

Even more astounding, this is an elec- tion year in Alabama. The entire house and senate are up for re-election. To even take this bill up, much less pass it, shows that attitudes are changing in the state. It is the only Southern state to have a medical use bill in committee now, and it could be the first state in the South to have such a law. “As a former police officer I can tell you that [people driving with a high]

For the last six years Alabamians for Compassionate Care (ACC) has partnered with the Drug Policy Alliance, drugpolicy.org,

Read More: Alabama legislature looks at medical use bill

By Tom Daubert* Patients and Families United

Montana’s patient advocates celebrated in 2004, when the state’s voters legalized medical marijuana with a then-national record of 62 percent support. They celebrated again in 2008, when it first allowed people on probation to be eligible for legal patient status.

But advocates were not celebrating in April, 2010, when Montana earned the dubious distinction of being the only medical use state to experience terrorists fire- bombing a dispensary — twice in the same week. In the dead of night, two nights in a row, unknown vandals threw a crude, homemade Molotov cocktail through the front windows of two different facilities in Billings, causing minor property damage and no human injuries.

The domestic terrorists added insult and sad irony to their attack by painting “Not in Our Town” on the buildings, a slo- gan previously used in a more high-minded way by a Billings group that

Read More: Drug War terrorists firebomb MT cannabis clinics

By Michelle Graye

AZ4norml.org Arizona activists are entering the home- stretch of a yearlong campaign to put med- ical marijuana on the ballot.

A truck arrived in Phoenix April 14 with 203 boxes of petitions, bearing 252,000 signatures in favor of putting the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act (AMMA) initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot.

The initiative kicked off in May 2009, with the Marijuana Policy Project funding a small army of petitioners to gather 153,365 valid signatures and put medical use on the state ballot for the third time.

Campaign manager for the Arizona Medical Marijuana Project Andrew Myers put together a motivated group of profes- sional petition passers, volunteers and activists to get the signatures by July 1, and beat the clock by two months.

Unlike most other states in the West, Arizona is still not a recognized medical- use state, although its citizens have twice voted to pass ballot measures.

Executive Director of AZ4NORML

Read More: Arizona gets signatures to qualify third initiative

By Mason Tvert SAFER A majority of voters in Nederland approved a ballot measure April 6 that removed all local penalties for private adult cannabis possession, making the mountain town the third Colorado locality to `legalize’ marijuana in the past five years. Denver voters adopted a citizen-ini- tiative to do so in November 2005, and vot- ers in Breckenridge approved a similar measure in November 2009.

More than 54 percent of Nederland vot- ers supported the measure in what Town Clerk Christi Icenogle said was a high turn- out election. Voters also ousted incumbent Mayor Martin Cheshes, who had vocally opposed the measure and referred to it as “foolish,” replacing him with Trustee Sumaya Abu-Haidar.

Prior to the announcement of the vote, the Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett told The Daily Camera: “I’ll pay attention if it passes. Marijuana enforcement is a sensi- tive issue, and it’s important to gauge pub- lic

Read More: Third Colorado City removes all penalties for adult use

By John Masterson, MT NORML Cannabis is in the news most every day in Montana, primarily because of controversy over the state’s medical use law.

Voters passed a medical marijuana ini- tiative in Montana in 2004 with a vote of 62 percent, the highest level of public support recorded at the time. The law requires patients to register with the state and they may optionally designate a caregiver to grow cannabis on their behalf for “reason- able compensation.”

The law was implemented without much fanfare for several years, but in late 2009, with Obama’s memo on medical marijuana, the number of registered patients exploded. As of April 2010, the number of registered patients in Montana stood at over 12,081, about 1.6 percent of the adult population.

The rapid increase in patient numbers is due in part to traveling `clinics’ that reg- ister hundreds of people in a single day, leading some officials to

Read More: Montana adjusts program amid rapid changes

By Mickey Martin An effort to legalize cannabis for personal use by adults in Detroit, Michigan will either be passed by the City Council or passed on to voters to decide on Election Day in November. Medical cannabis patient and activist Tim Beck, 58, turned in 6,100 petition signatures to legalize posses- sion of up to an ounce of cannabis by adults over 21 on private property; far more than the 3,700 signatures needed.

“Some things should no longer be con- sidered a crime, like minor marijuana pos- session,” said Beck. He believes it is a good time to put the issue up, as California will be voting on legalizing cannabis for adults and there is a nationwide debate taking place on the subject. Beck believes that it is important to begin addressing the major budget issues in Detroit, and that wasting money prosecuting and jailing marijuana offenders is a major

Read More: Detroit may legalize local adult use in the city

By Mary Jane Borden Editor, Drug War Facts Everyone interested in drug policy needs to take a new look at Drug War Facts.

This long-standing project of Common Sense for Drug Policy has been a staple of drug policy research for more than 10 years. It has undergone a thorough review and renovation to not only continue its dis- play of salient facts with proper citations, but also to include a link to each fact’s source, usually a PDF file. The 1,200 direct quotes in Drug War Facts come from over 400 reports from governments, peer- reviewed journals, think tanks, and other authoritative sources at the fingertips of drug policy researchers. They cover all aspects of illicit drugs and public policies toward them in the US and the world.

Answers to many questions about cannabis can be found in its 45 chapters. For example, prohibitionists claim that use by young people is

Read More: One book, one site and just the Drug War facts