MADISON: The Madison Wisconsin version of a global set of cannabis freedom rallies and marches that spans hundreds of cities around the world has been rescheduled to Saturday April 30.
The Global Cannabis March will now be held on Saturday April 30, which is the same day of the Mifflin Street Block Party, the traditional end point of the cannabis march.
A Facebook page created by the event organizers, Madison NORML, says attendees should gather at the Capitol between 11am and 12am. After a rally, the march will head down State St. around 1pm. The exact gathering spot at the Capitol is TBA as of this writing.
As in the last several years, marchers will proceed down State St. and campus area streets to another Madison spring tradition, the Mifflin St. Block Party, where they will disperse after marching through the crowds.
The idea for these coordinated global marches came fromDana Beal of the New York City based Cures Not Warsmedical cannabis advocacy group. Beal will likely be in Wisconsin on April 30, but will not be attending the march as he has been sitting in the Iowa County jail for several months awaiting trial after a January 2011 traffic stop found him and a driver in a car with a quantity of what Beal says was medical cannabis intended for compassion clubs in Michigan and New York City.
Beal’s link to Wisconsin dates back to the early 1970s. As reported here last year, the first Great Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival was a protest rally for Beal, who was then in jail in Wisconsin for cannabis.
Organizers say that is why they will be marching – that cannabis prohibition is not just counterproductive and illogical, but an outdated relic that now curtails everyone’s freedom, whether they use cannabis or not.
MADISON: Recall efforts against an array of Wisconsin State Senators are now in full swing, with the 60-day clock already ticking on a number of seats. A total of eight Republicans are eligible for recalls and the subject of efforts including Senators Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) and Alberta Darling (R-River Hills).
In the 2009-2010 session, Lazich and Darling served together on the Senate Committee on Health, Health Insurance, Privacy, Property Tax Relief, and Revenue. Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Waunakee) chaired the committee. Today, Lazich and Darling are backing an extreme budget plan put forth by Republican WI Gov. Scott Walker. Sen. Erpenbach, now in the minority, is in Illinois with his now 14 Democratic Senate colleagues, the only way the 14 could stop action on the budget bill.
When a combined hearing on last session’s Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act (JRMMA) was held on Dec. 15, 2009, two of the most vocal Senate opponents were Senators Mary Lazich and Alberta Darling. Sen. Erpenbach, on the other hand, was the lead Senate sponsor.
Two other members of the “Fab 14″ Democratic senators also cosponsored the medical cannabis bill, Sen. Mark Miller (D-Monona) and Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) and have been prominent in leading the Fab 14 to stand firm against Gov. Scott Walker’s budget attacks.
Darling and Lazich, along with six other Republican state senators, are the subjects of a recall over their support of Gov. Scott Walker’s radical “budget repair” and budget bills. The signature collecting for Sen. Darling is reported to be going well. Darling narrowly prevailed over former-Rep. Sheldon Wassermann in her last election, is viewed as very vulnerable.
Another prominent state legislature medical cannabis opponent, State Sen. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa) demonized medical cannabis patients at the aforementioned combined hearing while still in the Assembly. Protesters angry over Gov. Walker’s budget and her support of it flooded a joint town hall meeting she was holding in a suburban Milwaukee area public library with Wisconsin’s anti-medical cannabis zealot in Washington, D.C., U.S. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner.Sensenbrenner angrily gaveled the meeting to a close after barely 30 minutes rather than take questions from constituents (see video).
If three Republican senators are recalled, the Senate majority would swing back to Democratic control. While Gov. Walker and Senator Vukmir cannot be recalled until they have served a year in office, these recalls could also remove key medical cannabis opponents and perhaps map a future route to passage of the JRMMA in Wisconsin.
Continue reading on Examiner.com: Senators who opposed medical marijuana target of recalls over budget – Madison norml | Examiner.com
Over the last decade there have been numerous publications demonstrating the anti-cancer effects of plant and synthetic cannabinoids. Notably, the main ingredient of Cannabis, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), has demonstrated the ability to kill multiple types of cancers in a variety of cancer research models. CBD (cannabidiol), another common plant component, has also shown the ability to kill cancer cells, recently it has been used to successfully treat breast cancer in a mouse research model of the disease.
Certain types of brain cancer appear to be vulnerable to cannabinoids such as THC and CBD. Scientific research has demonstrated that THC and other cannabinoids can kill extremely aggressive brain cancers known as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) or grade IV astrocytomas. Researchers have also experimented with combining different cananbinoids for the treatment of aggressive brain cancers. So far, the results have been extremely promising. There is a need for new treatments for GBMs, as current treatments for these cancers can extend life for up to 15 months, if you’re lucky.
Last year, the journal of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics published research demonstrating that combination’s of THC and CBD, the two most abundant cannabinoids on the plant, can lead to a greater-than-additive or synergistic inhibition of cancer growth. Now, nearly a year to the date, the journal has published another article studying the anti-cancer effects of THC and CBD. The new article takes the next steps towards getting this therapy in to the clinic by testing THC and CBD in animals along side a common brain tumor drug TMZ (temozolomide).
The study was conducted in Spain, and the experiments analyzing the effects of cannabinoids were conducted with tumors or brain cancer cells from human samples and a tumor xenograft mouse model. A tumor xenograft model is basically a cancer that is induced into an animal that has a compromised immune system. This allows researchers to give a mouse a tumor consisting of human cells, thus a promising anti-cancer treatment can be tested on a human tumor in a more natural environment, than a petri dish.
MADISON: News that Stephen Fitzgerald, a former Dodge County sheriff, is seeking to serve as the head of the State Patrol under Gov. Scott Walker, is bringing back painful memories for those who remember a fatal shooting by his deputies during a botched drug raid in April 1995.
The Associated Press, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and other media are reporting that Fitzgerald, 68, who is the father of the state’s two most powerful lawmakers, has applied to Gov. Scott Walker in hopes of snaring the position. Fitzgerald served most recently as U.S. marshal in the Western District of Wisconsin up until May 2010. He was soundly defeated in last September’s Republican primary against incumbent Dodge County Sheriff Todd Nehls, who won 68% of the vote to Fitzgerald’s 32%.
At issue is the death of Scott Bryant. Blogger Franke Schein described it like this:
On April 17, 1995, police in Dodge County, Wisconsin, forcefully entered the mobile home of Scott Bryant after finding traces of marijuana in his garbage. The officers would later say they knocked and announced before entering, but neighbors who witnessed the raid say police entered without doing either. Moments later, Detective Robert Neuman shot an unarmed Bryant in the chest, killing him. Bryant’s eight-year old son was asleep in the next room. Neuman told investigators he “can’t remember pulling the trigger. Dodge County sheriff Stephen Fitzgerald compared the shooting to a hunting accident. – Franke Schei “SWAT Raids Out Of Control”
