David Malmo Levine, Steve Kubby's Director of Activist Communications, "interviewed" Kubby for Culture Magazine on March 28, 2011 about the Regulate Marijuana Like Wine initiative to try to make it LOOK like it is not a Trojan Horse out of the same pharmaceutical stable as Prop. 19. Notably, in this puff-ball of an interview, David Malmo-Levine FAILS to identify himself as part of the Kubby team -- which explains why he didn't ask some very, very obvious questions.
In an e-mail to the Yahoo discussion group GlobalMarijuanaRelegalization, Mr. Malmo-Levine, who's been trying to defend Kubby's initiative from significant criticism by the pro-REAL legalization members of such group, attempted to imply that Kubby and his team had sought significant community input into the language of the initiative before finalizing it. As proof of Kubby and Judge gray's desire for real community participation in the drafting of the initiative, he cited his March 28, 2011 interview for Culture Magazine, available at http://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/content/2011/03/28/Regulate-Marijuana-Alcohol-California-Interview-Steve-Kubby
A review of this article shows that the only community "input" Kubby wanted was money. Here's how the community was invited to be involved:
"Meanwhile there are two ways CC readers can get involved. If they send us a check for $100 or more they will be official founding donors of the campaign. If you are a business and would like to become an official sponsor of the initiative, we have a program [for bigger donations, no doubt] that will allow you to piggyback on our media coverage."
Kubby's apparently relying on appearances, rather than on actual good language, to get people to vote for this new version of Prop. 19. Note how he and Malmo-Levine use name-dropping as though Jack Herer would give his blessing to a tax, regulate and control scheme by ANYONE:
"The "Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act of 2012" initiative was written by Jack Herer's longtime attorney, Bill McPike, who also helped draft the "California Cannabis Hemp & Health Initiative," with Jack Herer and Eddy Lepp. I asked Bill to draft a new initiative that featured full repeal, safeguards against the feds and was as simple and easy to understand as possible. Judge James Gray and I teamed up to work with Bill and edit his draft into something that came at the war on cannabis from several different directions.
"So there's a judge's view, a defense attorney's view and my own view as a patient and a successful defendant."
Too bad that someone besides a member of Kubby's own team didn't do the interview and ask him a few hard questions. For example, Kubby implies that only his initiative can force changes at the federal level; he says that "Everything that we have included in the new initiative is intended to remove cannabis from the state and federal Schedule 1 classification. So far, the CCHHI ignores rescheduling and the "Repeal Prohibition of Cannabis Act of 2012" only addresses state classification. Our initiative orders the California Attorney General, Congress members and Senators to get cannabis rescheduled at the federal level as their highest priority."
Hard-hitting journalism at its finest, it's not. Too bad DML didn't ask Kubby how merely rescheduling cannabis can change federal laws that make possession and cultivation of cannabis a crime regardless of marijuana's level of scheduling on the federal Controlled Substance Act.
The rescheduling issue, however, will actually help the pharmaceutical companies with whom Kubby is working to develop a "non-toxic" cannabis lozenge (translation: little or no THC) to market commercially. This provision does NOTHING to help patients cultivate or possess cannabis legally under federal law, nor does it change any laws related to people going to jail or prison.
This initiative is all about Kubby's personal agenda. Check the Internet, he's CEO of a corporation doing patenting and licensing work with pharmaceutical companies and working on a "non-toxic" (no THC) cannabis lozenge. And guess what? His initiative opens the door to mass cultivation of GMO, no-THC-producing cannabis that will, because of wind pollination, pollute California's legendary cannabis genetics
The language in the initiative is as deceptive as the stuff in its late and unlamented predecessor, Prop. 19. Tricks, deception, implicit lies and more -- all from the people you'd like to think you could trust. Don't do it.
Want your own copy of a legal analysis of the Regulate Marijuana Like Wine initiative as it read when Kubby et al. sent it to the Attorney General
for a summary and title preparation? (They have supposedly sent in an amended version since they did not like what I said about the initiative's "narc squad" provisions, but that might not be the truth.) Learn about the Kubby "Narc Squad," GMO cannabis potential, and more:
E-mail me at CPRsocal@...
Letitia Pepper, Director of legal and Legislative Analysis for Crusaders for Patients' Rights, the only 100 percent patient and collective lobbying group in Sacramento.
Crusaders for Patients Rights -- devoted to defending Californians' GOOD medical marijuana rights under Prop. 215 from the coming onslaught of the pharmaceutical industry's Trojan Horses. The best way to win a horse race? Own every single horse that's running. All the "legalize marijuana" initiatives will be Trojan Horses. Vote to decriminalize -- and then only very, very carefully, because even they can include hidden traps.
It is NOT legally possible to legalize by state law the recreational use of any federally-scheduled drug -- no matter WHAT the scheduling level -- 1, 3, or 20 -- is. Don't be fooled, these initiatives to "legalize" are ALL tricks, cons, shell games to take away your EXISTING rights.