cannabisnews.com: New Attorney Takes Case 





New Attorney Takes Case 
Posted by CN Staff on August 26, 2004 at 21:49:50 PT
By Ian C. Storey, Record-Eagle Staff Writer
Source: Record-Eagle 
Traverse City -- Well-known trial attorney Dean Robb is stepping in to defend a man with multiple sclerosis who says he uses marijuana for medical purposes.Matthew Barber, 31, was arrested in June allegedly in possession of two ounces of marijuana, equivalent to a month's supply of the drug he says is needed to alleviate his multiple sclerosis symptoms.
Robb will substitute for attorney Clarence Gomery. He said he took the case at the request of Barber and his wife, Laura.   "They asked me to help, and I do feel that the zero tolerance of the drug laws is something that we have to learn how to bend," Robb said. "Too many people are finding that pot will relieve them of the muscle spasms and terrible pain of MS."   Diagnosed in 2001, Barber, who served in the Army during the first Gulf War, said he has exhausted all acceptable - and expensive - forms of treatment for a disease that affects the central nervous system.   Barber's case was set for jury selection in district court on Aug. 17 in Grand Traverse County, but the attorney substitution will push the process back, Prosecutor Dennis LaBelle, said.   Barber could face up to a year in jail for the misdemeanor possession charge. He says if he doesn't use marijuana he has pain and spasms, the loss of leg function and sometimes even blindness.    Robb said he has been in contact with other MS patients in the area who use the drug as a way to temper the disease.   "I know there are six or seven in this community for which marijuana is the only thing they have gotten relief from certain of these symptoms," he said. "I felt this was a worthwhile cause."   Robb, a long-time Traverse City area attorney formerly from Detroit, made a name for himself downstate in the 1960s as a civil rights and personal-injury trial lawyer.   In northern Michigan, he won the acquittal in 1979 of a woman accused of fatally stabbing her husband in the back in one of the state's first spousal abuse trials.    He was the attorney for one of five Otsego County men charged in the 1986 death of an oilfield worker. The case resulted in allegations of wrongdoing by police and a 17-year legal battle that cost taxpayers millions of dollars in lawsuits and resulted the release of three men before their scheduled release from prison.   In 1987, he led a petition campaign to oust a Traverse City commissioner for making homophobic remarks about gays. The commissioner finally resigned.Note: Dean Robb will be representing Matthew Barber.Source: Traverse City Record-Eagle (MI)Author: Ian C. Storey, Record-Eagle Staff WriterPublished: August 26, 2004Copyright: 2004 The Traverse City Record-EagleContact: letters record-eagle.comWebsite: http://www.record-eagle.com/Related Article & Web Site:Medicinal Cannabis Research Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/research.htmMS Sufferer Vows To Fight Pot Laws http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19145.shtml
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Comment #18 posted by siege on August 27, 2004 at 17:48:35 PT
      Thirty-Fifth
President of the United States(1961-1963). 
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Comment #17 posted by FoM on August 27, 2004 at 16:59:50 PT
ElPatricio 
What you said makes a lot of sense to me.
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Comment #16 posted by FoM on August 27, 2004 at 15:36:14 PT
Just a Comment
I don't know if you all realize how much I enjoy reading all of the comments. My husband reads the comments in the morning because he gets up very early. I am in a serious mood because of the RNC. It worries me and I don't like feeling worried. I actually am very unhappy with how unhappy people seem to be in New York during this time leading up to the RNC. I worry for our country. I worry for young people's futures. One of the things that jumped out at me with the Bob Dylan special from 1965 was a news person asked Dylan how he was received in the U.S. This was in the UK. What is wrong with our country that people even back in 65 need to ask how he was received? It boggles my mind. Why are we so self righteous? What is wrong with us? Do we really believe we are better then other countries? Does more wealth mean we're better? I don't think so.
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Comment #15 posted by Virgil on August 27, 2004 at 15:23:29 PT
Struck by vagueness
In the previous comment it was not clear that with Firefox you can copy a link directly out of Bookmarks, which corresponds to favorites in Internet Explorer.One great thing about Firefox is that if you leave out the subject or password or otherwise find yourself on an error page, you can go back and your comment will not be gone like in Explorer.
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Comment #14 posted by Virgil on August 27, 2004 at 15:18:38 PT
Copying URLs
It is funny how people have computers and cannot copy and paste. It is a great discovery for many that will help the exchange of information we need as websites are populated by more and more informed and concerned people.I cannot express exactly how happy I am to have discovered Mozilla's Firefox as it is a great tool sharpener for those of us that use the Internet for intellectual growth and sharing of ideas.In Explorer, I used to open a new window out of my favorites or otherwise be on the page, I wanted to copy a URL. When you are on the page you just go to the address where the URL is listed and right click and when the menu pops up you chose copy. That will copy the address to the clipboard. Then you come back to the Comment screen here at CNews and right click somewhere in the comment screen to bring up the same menu you chose "copy" from. You then select paste and there you have it.I do use Firefox, and in Firefox you can right click on any saved URL and copy without opening up the website in another window. Also below the screen that you type in to make a comment you see "Link URL" with a fill in line that has an http:// in it. This is used to put a URL at the end of a comment as you will see at the end of this one. Actually, it would be better if the "http://" were not there as you have to remove it if you copy and paste a URL in that line.The line under "Link URL" says "Link Title" and this is what appears after the dot after your comment ends. I guess you could actually paste in the URL if for some reason you wanted the URL address to be readable instead of describing what you will find there.The "Link URL" will only accept so many characters and if you have a long one you need to go to http://tinyurl.com/ and get a shorter version. This really is true for those long URLs that cause the comment to be too wide to display without bringing up the slider to move the view on the screen. For example http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread19400.shtml#8 could be pasted into the fill-in box below "Enter another long URL to make tiny:" and then hit "Make TinyURL!" The result will be posted on the screen once it is processed and in Internet Explorer the long URL in the clipboard will be automatically replaced by the process. Unfortunately it does not work automatically in Firefox and you have to copy the result when it is displayed. You can see that the long URL above takes you to the same place as http://tinyurl.com/67rryIn the above paragraph with the hyperlink to CNews, you see #8 at the end. That of course is a comment number. People that read Cnews regularly are sure to go to the 'Recent Comments" when checking in during browsing. If you come from selecting a recent comment it will put the number there for you. As I have advanced in my bookmarking understanding, I have found it useful to have folders for different commenter inside the CannabisNews folder as there are often links I want to track down later or save. 
Everyone should know about "Recent Comments"
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Comment #13 posted by ElPatricio on August 27, 2004 at 14:17:33 PT:
The Angry Police States of America
I wish FoM were wrong about the anger she senses all about her, but I think it's an accurate perception.Not to beat a dead horse, but what I believe we're seeing is a traditional society that feels its values threatened, and being played like a violin by right-wing political forces.In a ground-breaking 2003 meta-study of the conservative personality published in the peer-reviewed Psychological Bulletin, professors John Jost, Arie Kruglanski, Jack Glaser and Frank Sulloway examined 88 studies conducted in 12 countries of 22,818 subjects who defined themselves as conservative or right-wing authoritarians.The authors found that those with traditional values tend to fear death, change, novelty, complexity and diversity. By contrast, self-defined conservatives defend social inequality, sometimes even though they are at the lower end of the social heirarchy.What's important here is that, according to the researchers, the studies suggest that when conservatives feel threatened, their fear motivates anger toward their perceived adversaries. I believe that's what we are seeing play out in both the international and national arenas -- a traditional American culture threatened by a shrinking world and rising multiculturalism.The fear of change, diversity and novelty helps explain why conservatives believe the national media is liberal. Simply put, journalists get to know ethnic and cultural minorities as human beings, and simply cannot maintain the same simple-minded values they may have been raised with. If they can't appreciate the working-class and ethnic subjects of their stories, chances are they won't remain in the profession. (I base this on a 16-year career with newspapers.)That's why I believe the right-wing needed to invest a billion dollars or so over the last 20 years to create its own think tanks and media. The money was well spent. Those overtly ideological institutions now shape the national media's news agenda through what some call the right-wing echo chamber. I'd recommend reading Eric Alterman's "What Liberal Media" for the details.What I find of particular interest to hempsters is the overlap between what conservatives fear -- novelty, change and diversity -- with what cannabis helps mammals cope with. The University of Colorado's Robert Melamede talks about how the "receptor deficient" are more motivated (through fear and attendant anger) to seize power and maintain it. Considering the Third-World nature of the U.S. election in 2000, I think he's on to something.We may be in for a long, bumpy ride.
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Comment #12 posted by FoM on August 27, 2004 at 13:34:44 PT
ElPatricio 
Thank you. I don't like feeling that things could go really wrong. It isn't really terrorism that worries me but people who are angry. Angry people can become dangerous people very easily. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that nothing bad happens. 
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Comment #11 posted by BGreen on August 27, 2004 at 13:30:52 PT
Insert An URL By Pasting It
Make sure you include the http:// along with the www.whatever.comhttp:// makes the url functional.http://www.Cannabisnews.comSeparate the urls by hitting "enter" twice.Just try it, go to the preview page and see if it works, and that way you don't have to have FoM delete any bad posts.Hope this helps.The Reverend Bud Green
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Comment #10 posted by ElPatricio on August 27, 2004 at 13:29:51 PT:
FoM's Vibes
I hope you're wrong, FoM. Despite my contempt for the current administration and its dishonest political campaign, I wouldn't wish harm on them. But if you're right, we read it here first.Hang in there. Don't succumb to the right-wing's fear-mongering. 
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Comment #9 posted by ElPatricio on August 27, 2004 at 13:20:39 PT:
How About ...?
Now that Ron has helped me learn the commands to introduce color in my comments, who can tell me how to insert URL's between paragraphs?Some posters insert two, three or four URL's. How is that done?Thanks!
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Comment #8 posted by ElPatricio on August 27, 2004 at 13:17:16 PT:
Word!
Thanks, Ron (and goneposthole). I think I have it figured out now how to be more colorful in my comments.You have unleashed a monster!
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Comment #7 posted by RasAric on August 27, 2004 at 12:54:50 PT
seen!!
 Thanks for posting that!!! I was wondering how people get colors in their posts. 
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on August 27, 2004 at 12:22:53 PT
Scary World
I've been looking for news to post but there really isn't anything that I've seen so far that we don't know already. I am feeling troubled though. I don't like when I feel troubled. I sense something bad and I don't like that feeling. I hope I'm wrong. It's not just people from here in the states but from all over the world that are so very angry. I really hope nothing serious happens at the RNC. I didn't feel that way about the DNC. It's a very heavy feeling.
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Comment #5 posted by Max Flowers on August 27, 2004 at 12:01:04 PT
Scary Florida
I went to the link for the ABC story and watched the TV clip... woah that's some sick stuff from the CA perspective. Florida eh? NOT a good state to grow in!
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Comment #4 posted by siege on August 27, 2004 at 10:57:50 PT
 (govt said marijuana for medical purposes.)
 said a neurologist through(( Veterans Affairs hospital)) told him that because all other treatments have failed, that marijuana may alleviate some symptom
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Comment #3 posted by ron on August 27, 2004 at 10:25:17 PT
colours   00 through   08 for ElPatricio
 00 for black 01 for dark blue 02 for light blue 03 for purple 04 for green 05 for yellow 06 for orange 07 for red 08 for greyThanks, goneposthole, for the lesson a few months ago. 
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Comment #2 posted by ElPatricio on August 27, 2004 at 09:50:11 PT:
Mayan or Virgil
I've figured out how to create space between paragraphs by leaving a line blank. Now I want to know how you highlight quotes or sections of your comment in color. Do you compose the comment in Word or another word-processing program? Or is there a way to highlight and color text in the Cannabis News comment form?Enquiring minds want to know!
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Comment #1 posted by mayan on August 27, 2004 at 03:54:58 PT
Unrelated Bust...
Police bust major pot growing operation:
http://www.abc-7.com/articles/readnews.asp?articleid=1340&z=2&p=Scroll down the article and you'll find this... - The Collier County Sheriff's Office issued the following press release:Are you living next door to a marijuana grow house?Article: Though the house next door may seem the like the average home, chances are it has been converted into a marijuana growing operation. Following are some things to look for if you suspect a home near you is involved in this type of activity: [snipped]Everyone is a suspect!
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