The Pot Users

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> From: VeryPDF-Email-Service <noreply@verymailer.com>
> Subject: [VeryPDF RSS to Email] RSSMix.com Mix ID 8161944 - 20151205001914
> To: moganomics@yahoo.com
> Date: Saturday, 5 December, 2015, 8:19 AM
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> SubscriptionIllinois medical pot users erroneously told to
> give up guns
> 4 December 2015, 11:51 pm
>          CHICAGO   
>     (AP) -- Nearly two years after Illinois
> decided medical marijuana users shouldn't be prohibited from
> owning guns, several patients received letters from state
> police telling them their firearms cards were being revoked.
> Although the agency insists the letters were sent to just
> four people before the mistake was corrected, some cannabis
> supporters say the error signifies an underlying ambivalence
> about medical marijuana in the 23 states where it's now
> legal. For example, a checklist for firearm owners on the
> Illinois State Police website includes this requirement: "I
> am not a medical marijuana patient registry card holder."
> That, too, was an error that a vendor is now working to
> remove from the site, ISP spokesman Matt Boerwinkle said.
> But Tyler Anthony, a Chicago attorney with the Canna Law
> Group, said he's skeptical the prohibiting language was
> added inadvertently. "The opposite is probably true,"
> Anthony said. "Even taking their word for it, they shouldn't
> be careless with citizens' constitutional rights, especially
> when their position lacks any clear legal basis." Guns and
> marijuana caused a stir two years ago when Illinois started
> its medical cannabis pilot program and, in draft rules, told
> future patients they couldn't keep their firearms. Irate gun
> owners complained and got the language removed. Joshua
> Gillan said it came as quite a shock when he received a
> letter last week from state police ordering him to surrender
> his firearm owner's ID card because he was an unlawful user
> of a controlled substance. "The very first thing I said was:
> 'From my cold, dead hands,'" said Gillan, 31, of Rockford,
> quoting a gun-rights slogan. The father of three said he
> uses the drug to relax since suffering a traumatic brain
> injury when a roadside bomb went off during an Army tour in
> Iraq. Boerwinkle said the patients' FOID cards are still
> active and that state police are "working to ensure that
> future issues associated with these card holders are
> addressed." But Gillan lost a gun in the Illinois confusion,
> he said, and until late Wednesday his status still said
> "DENIED" on an ISP website used by consumers to check FOIDs
> before private gun sales. The link is now disabled with an
> error message that says "temporarily unavailable." The
> recent confusion likely stems from a clash between state and
> federal views on the issue. Like in other states, Illinois'
> law doesn't address gun ownership among medical marijuana
> patients or their caregivers, said Karmen Hanson, medical
> marijuana policy expert for the National Conference of State
> Legislatures. But it does include a general protection of
> patients' rights, said Chris Lindsey, legislative analyst
> for the Marijuana Policy Project. "Illinois's law is clear
> that it protects medical marijuana patients from being
> denied any right or privilege, and this is certainly one of
> those areas we believe state lawmakers intended to protect,"
> Lindsey said. On the federal side, in 2011, an open letter
> from the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and
> Explosives spelled out to firearms dealers that medical
> marijuana users are prohibited by federal law from
> possessing firearms and ammunition. And, in Oregon, the
> issue landed in the courts when sheriffs in two counties
> withheld concealed handgun licenses from medical marijuana
> users. The Oregon Supreme Court ordered the sheriffs to
> allow the gun licenses. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to
> hear an appeal, a decision hailed as a victory for gun
> owners and medical marijuana users. As for Gillan, a gun
> dealer wouldn't return to him a pistol he'd left at the shop
> pending a trade because his FOID card status was in
> question, he said. "I don't believe the state can produce a
> document that supersedes the Constitution that I fought for
> with my bloody hands," Gillan said. --- Follow AP Medical
> Writer Carla K. Johnson at https://twitter.com/CarlaKJohnson . Her work can be
> found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/carla-k-johnson.
>
> Cities' policies on police shooting videos inconsistent
> 4 December 2015, 11:32 pm
>          CHICAGO   
>     (AP) -- There's often little commonality when
> it comes to U.S. cities policies' on how quickly to release
> videos of police officers shooting civilians under disputed
> circumstances, leaving many municipalities to create them on
> the fly or wait to act until political pressure or court
> rulings force the issue. As a result, contested videos can
> emerge within days, months, years - or never. A long wait
> often only invites accusations that city leaders and police
> are seeking to hide some wrongdoing or endeavoring to cover
> something up. "People will fill the void with something if
> they don't see the videos - with speculation or rumors,"
> said Michele Earl-Hubbard, a Seattle-based attorney and
> advocate of government transparency. "If police want people
> to understand, your side of the story, you gotta get the
> images out." There are some indications that message is
> starting to sink in. This week, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel
> announced that he's setting up a task force to examine,
> among other things, the city's video-release policy amid
> public and political outcry. For more than a year, the city
> actively delayed releasing police dash-cam footage of white
> Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting black teenager Laquan
> McDonald 16 times in 2014 and continuing to fire as McDonald
> crumpled to the ground. As it is, cities' policies are all
> over the map. Many don't have any clearly identifiable
> policy in writing, including Chicago, which has a reputation
> for dragging its feet. Sometimes, civilian cellphone video
> plays a role, like in South Carolina earlier this year. And
> in Seattle, nearly all police video is posted online almost
> immediately, though special software blurs the images; a
> video with clear images must be requested. All sides need to
> figure the best policies "very quickly," especially because
> dashcams and body cameras will become more ubiquitous, says
> Samuel Walker, a retired criminal justice professor at the
> University of Nebraska at Omaha. The debate over the release
> of videos typically lines up around the U.S. as such: Police
> and prosecutors argue they should be withheld until
> investigations conclude, while transparency advocates,
> journalists and activists say the public has a right to see
> the footage immediately. For years, Chicago has consistently
> fought - hard - in the courts, saying the release of videos
> would jeopardize active investigations. It used the same
> argument in the McDonald case before a judge ordered the
> video's release; Van Dyke was charged with murder the same
> day the video was made public. But public pressure in the
> McDonald case may have forced a change in the city's
> approach. Emanuel announced Thursday that a video in the
> October 2014 police shooting of 25-year-old Ronald Johnson
> will be released next week - even as state prosecutors
> investigate possible criminal charges. Many times, the
> disagreements land in court. After hearing arguments from
> city lawyers over the McDonald video, a Cook County judge
> sided with a freelance journalist who earlier this year
> filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the video.
> The judge rejected the city's contention, made before Van
> Dyke was charged, that releasing the video would lead to an
> unfair trial "in the court of public opinion." Going back to
> the 1990s, many departments across the country started
> extending the time they withheld videos. But Earl-Hubbard
> said judges have pushed back recently. "Judges are saying,
> 'If you can't prove clearly you can't investigate if the
> video's released, then you can't keep it secret," she said.
> Among the other examples of how cities have dealt with
> contested videos include: - Hummelstown, Pennsylvania: Video
> from police officer Lisa Mearkle's stun gun was released
> after she was acquitted last month of third-degree murder,
> voluntary and involuntary manslaughter after shooting an
> unarmed man twice in the back as he laid face-down in the
> snow. Officials declined to publicly release the video until
> it was shown at trial. - Fairfax, Virginia: Records in the
> March 2013 police shooting death of John Geer - including
> the officer's name- were released 17 months later in
> response to a judge's order in a civil lawsuit. The records
> include police video but not of the actual shooting. -
> Charleston, South Carolina: In April, a bystander's
> cellphone video prompted police in North Charleston, South
> Carolina, to release a dashcam video of white officer
> Michael Slager shooting Walter Scott, an unarmed black man.
> Slager has been charged with murder and is awaiting a trial
> date. - Cincinnati: Media organizations sued Hamilton
> County, Ohio, prosecutor Joseph Deters after he refused to
> release body-camera video from the fatal shooting of a black
> motorist in a traffic stop by a white University of
> Cincinnati officer in July. He released the video 10 days
> after the shooting when he announced he was indicting
> Officer Ray Tensing, who has pleaded not guilty to charges
> of murder and voluntary manslaughter. --- Associated Press
> writer Alan Scher Zagier in St. Louis, Missouri, also
> contributed to this report. Follow Michael Tarm on Twitter
> at http://www.twitter.com/mtarm and Sophia Tareen at https://www.twitter.com/sophiatareen
>
> Q&A on ammunition found at the home of California
> shooters
> 4 December 2015, 11:20 pm
> The issue of stockpiling ammunition has been raised in the
> aftermath of Wednesday's deadly mass shooting in San
> Bernardino, California. Authorities said the husband and
> wife who carried out the attack fired 75 rounds, killing 14
> people, before fleeing. They had more than 1,600 bullets
> with them when they were killed and well over 4,500 rounds
> of ammunition at their home, police said. Investigators
> haven't explained how they acquired the bullets. Here are a
> few questions and answers about regulations involving
> ammunition purchases: --- WHAT ARE THE LIMITS ON AMMUNITION
> SALES? Four states - Massachusetts, New Jersey, Illinois and
> Connecticut - require a license for ammunition purchases,
> and a background check is required to obtain a license,
> according to the San Francisco-based Law Center to Prevent
> Gun Violence. But there are no federal restrictions on the
> volumes of ammunition sales, and there is no national system
> for tracking ammunition purchases. "I don't know how the
> government would decide what amount would be appropriate,"
> said Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general
> counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Keane
> said the volume of bullets found in the San Bernardino
> shooters' possession shouldn't raise any eyebrows. "Those
> are not substantial quantities if you're a target shooter,"
> he said. "You can go through several hundred rounds on a
> weekend at a shooting range." --- HAVE THERE BEEN PREVIOUS
> EFFORTS TO REGULATE AMMUNITION SALES? Gun control advocates
> pushed for limits on ammunition sales after the 2012
> massacre at a Colorado movie theater by a gunman, James
> Holmes, who legally purchased thousands of bullets from
> online retailers. Their efforts largely fizzled. Wednesday's
> mass shooting in California could fuel a renewed campaign to
> restrict ammunition sales, but activists on opposing sides
> of the debate aren't forecasting a different outcome. U.S.
> Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-New Jersey, filed legislation
> in May that would restrict online ammunition sales. Similar
> measures filed by two other Democrats after the Colorado
> shootings went nowhere. "I don't know what it's going to
> take for us to move on some of this common-sense
> legislation," Watson Coleman said. "This is a very difficult
> Congress." --- ARE THERE ANY OTHER PENDING EFFORTS TO LIMIT
> AMMUNITION SALES? In October, a group of gun safety
> advocates led by California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom launched a
> ballot campaign that could make the state the first to
> require background checks for ammunition purchases at the
> "point of sale." "What happened in San Bernardino
> underscores the need to look closely at who is buying
> ammunition, and that is something that is addressed by the
> initiative," said Lindsay Nichols, a senior attorney for the
> Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which helped craft the
> ballot measure. After the deadly 2012 shooting at a
> Connecticut elementary school, New York enacted a law that
> called for developing a database for ammunition background
> checks. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, suspended the
> requirement in July after state police determined the
> technology needed for the database doesn't exist.
>
>
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