Welcome to Pittsburgh NORML
Working to Reform Marijuana Laws in Western Pennsylvania
movie night
Jan 15, 2012 - Executive Director Patrick Nightingale
January 26, 2012, at the Sphinx Hookah Bar on East Carson Street where we'll be screening "Busted" followed by a Q & A with criminal defense attorney and Pittsburgh NORML Executive Director Patrick Nightingale. 7 pm to meet up and flyer Carson Street, 8 pm for movie.
Pittsburgh NORML - Looking towards 2012
Jan 15, 2012 - Executive Director Patrick Nightingale
Dear Friends and Supporters of Pittsburgh NORML:
I am writing you this morning to talk briefly about the direction of your Chapter in 2012 and the state of Marijuana Prohibition Repeal in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Lets start with the bad news. The bad news is that the two medicinal marijuana bills that have been sponsored by Rep. Mark Cohen and Sen. Daylin Leach have been killed in committee. In our Commonwealth, the only mechanism by which legislation becomes law is via the PA House and PA Senate. A bill must be sponsored by a member of either body. It is then referred to the appropriate committee. It is ultimately the decision of the Committee Chair whether the bill has hearings or is brought before the Committee for a vote. Sen. Patricia Vance's Office made it painfully clear this summer/fall that the Senator had zero interest in bringing Sen. Leach's bill up for a vote before the Committee. Her office rejected our call for additional hearings. Former Governor Ed Rendell would have signed medicinal marijuana legislation but current Governor Tom Corbett has towed a "typical" law enforcement line of no compromise.
This comes against the background of medicinal marijuana enjoying widespread public support and recreational use cracking the 50% barrier for the first time ever. So what's an activist in Western PA to do? Give up?
One direction for us is to energize our "base." We plan to do this by using volunteers to table at friendly events and street team volunteers to distribute flyers. Sounds simple and time honored, but we need volunteers willing to give up a Friday or Saturday night here and there or meet up outside of a concert venue or Pens game to distribute flyers.
If you are interested in an active volunteer role with Pittsburgh NORML please email Patrick at pknlaw@mac.com or attend the upcoming movie night on January 26, 2012, at the Sphinx Hookah Bar on East Carson Street where we'll be screening "Busted" followed by a Q & A with criminal defense attorney and Pittsburgh NORML Executive Director Patrick Nightingale.
From your friends at Pittsburgh NORML
Medical marijuana ballot petition for Ohio
Jan 08, 2012 - http://ohiommjballot.org/hometop.html
The medical marijuana ballot petition for Ohio patients has been approved by Board of Election, Secretary of State and the Ohio Attorney General. The Ohio Alternative Treatment Amendment petition is ready for you to help circulate and get it signed!
Now let’s make Ohio Medical Marijuana a reality and get those thousand's of signatures so we can put it on the ballot. if you want to get involved as a petitioner please download and print the PDF file andand sign up as a volunteer using the Volunteer menu on this website. Be sure to read the first page carefully, then print as many copies as you can afford and go get signatures. You will find it a rewarding experience. Here is the link to the official petition with an instruction page.
You may want to get several clipboards to make your signature gathering quicker especially in a crowd. NORML provided some helpful hints for a clipboard to making it easier and faster to collect signatures. You can get the image so you can make your own sign for your clipboard with this link to the image.
Be sure to look over and become familiar with the official instructions (5MB file), that was provided by the Secretary of State, on how signatures are verified. The important parts are highlighted in yellow again it is a big file (5MB), so be patient if you have a slow connection and want a really good copy. A smaller legible copy (1.3MB) is also available in this link.
Please send the ballot committee an email using the Contact MMJBALLOT link so Ohio Patients can help assist and coordinate efforts.
Drug dogs false alerts over 200 times in UC Davis study
Jan 05, 2012 - "Radical" Russ Belville
One of the favorite tools of law enforcement officers looking to bust cannabis consumers is the K-9 unit (or as George Clinton once called ‘em, the “dope dog”). These dogs are highly trained to use their super sense of smell to detect narcotics and explosives. Paired with a handler, they are often called in to search suspect vehicles in traffic stops and signal, or “alert” when contraband is detected.
Researchers at UC Davis decided to put the K-9s to the test and it didn’t turn out well for the cop’s best friend. These detection dogs, whose alerts are used to justify search warrants and convict cannabis consumers, gave false alerts more than 200 times.
(SF Gate) The accuracy of drug- and explosives-sniffing dogs is affected by human handlers’ beliefs, possibly in response to subtle, unintentional cues, UC Davis researchers have found.
The study, published in the January issue of the journal Animal Cognition, found that detection-dog teams erroneously “alerted,” or identified a scent, when there was no scent present more than 200 times — particularly when the handler believed that there was scent present.
“It isn’t just about how sensitive a dog’s nose is or how well-trained a dog is,” says Lisa Lit, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Neurology and the study’s lead author. “There are cognitive factors affecting the interaction between a dog and a handler that can impact the dog’s performance.”
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/pets/detail?entry_id=82270#ixzz1D2nQC9Ir
The researchers took 18 drug dog teams to a church, where it is likely no drugs or explosives had ever been placed in the past. The cops were told there might be up to three target scents in any one of four rooms. If they saw a piece of red construction paper in the room, that indicated where a target scent was placed.
The first room was left untouched. The second room had a piece of red construction paper on a cabinet. The third room had two sausages and two tennis balls placed as decoys. The fourth room had the decoy scents and the red paper. However, none of the rooms had any drugs or explosives.
There shouldn’t have been any alerts, but, in fact, handlers indicated their dog had alerted in every room. There were more alerts in rooms with red paper (which piques the cop’s interest) and no corresponding increase in rooms with sausages and tennis balls (which would pique a dog’s interest).
In other words, at best, dogs are responding to the subtle non-verbal cues of their masters to find drugs or explosives where the human thinks there should be drugs or explosives. The cop suspects you have pot so his body language makes the dog alert. At worst, the cop is purposefully cuing his dog to alert when he wants a handy excuse to violate your 4th Amendment rights.
Three years ago in Aspen a member of the NORML Legal Committee, Dan Monnat, gave an expert presentation of the faulty use of drug dogs to convict cannabis consumers. Listen to the presentation below to get a good idea how law enforcement misuses the K-9′s testimony in court.
Handler beliefs affect scent detection dog outcomes Download the File Here
UC Davis Study on drug dog outcomes Download the File Here
