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FROM: Montgomery Advertiser, April 7, 2010
Committee approves medical marijuana bill BY Scott Johnson

      A legislative committee approved a bill Wednesday that would legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham, said the bill had no real chance of being approved by both the House and Senate before the end of the session.
      The bill is called the Michael Phillips Compassionate Care Act, named after a man with a brain tumor that caused frequent seizures and fought to make medical marijuana legal. Philips died in 2007 at the age of 38. Jackie Phillips, Michael Phillips’ mother, said marijuana was the only thing that made him able to function normally. Without it, she said, he had seven or eight seizures a day. “I could see the difference in him when he smoked and when he didn’t,” Phillips said.
      Under the bill, patients would be required to have an identification card to purchase and possess marijuana.The bill would allow for the licensing of clinics where patients legally could obtain marijuana.
The House Judiciary Committee made several amendments to the bill, including making the fees for ID cards high enough to cover the extra costs the bill would create.
      Several members of the committee expressed concerns with the bill.
Rep. Yusuf Salaam, D-Selma, said he worries that the bill would make it possible for people to use marijuana illegally under the pretense of using it medically. Salaam said, however, that he did not dislike the bill enough to try to kill it before it left the committee.
Alabama House committee approves bill allowing use of marijuana for medical purposes.
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By Associated Press
11:11 AM CDT, April 7, 2010

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A bill to legalize possession of small amounts of marijuana for medical purposes has been approved by an Alabama House committee.
The sponsor, Democratic Rep. Patricia Todd of Birmingham, acknowledges that with only five days remaining the bill has little chance of winning final passage this session.
The bill would allow a patient suffering serious pain because of cancer or other ailments to possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana. The patient would need permission from a doctor and could grow his or her own marijuana.
One committee member, Democratic Rep. Yusuf Salaam of Selma, expressed concern that allowing marijuana use for medical purposes might open the door to full scale legalization of the drug.
The bill now goes to the full House.

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At first glance, the town of Edwardsville, Ala., with a population of 194 people, might raise a few eyebrows with its bid to receive $375 million from the economic stimulus package being assembled by Barack Obama and lawmakers in Congress.

The tiny town, located near the Georgia border and 26 miles from the nearest "big city" of Anniston (population: 24,276), added 33 proposals—about two thirds of them related to "green" energy—to the list of "ready- to- go" projects assembled by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Total sum: $375,076,200.

That comes out to nearly $2 million per Edwardsville resident, although E. D. Phillips, the town's representative to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, says the projects would affect a wider region that comprises about 80,000 people. That number includes residents of nearby rural areas that aren't already incorporated into towns, along with the residents of Talladega Springs (population: 124), which partnered with Edwardsville and local municipal utilities on the projects.

Some of items for which Edwardsville wants the money include "a renewable energy museum, scenic railroad, and vineyards."

"This is certainly the Alabama version of the Bridge to Nowhere," stated LPA Chair Stephen Gordon. "Hopefully, Americans and Alabamians will be just as outraged over a Museum in Nowhere as they were about the Bridge to Nowhere."

Like most Americans, Libertarians oppose government bailouts and stimulus packages.

"All efforts by government to redistribute wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society," reads a portion of the Libertarian Party platform.
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Sheriff's Profiting from Inmate Food Allowance

The Libertarian Party of Alabama condemns the practice of having a county sheriff pocket money not used for feeding prisoners. The State of Alabama provides $1.75 per prisoner per day and the law provides for the sheriff to pocket any money not spent. This practice is ripe for abuse and was recently showcased with the Sheriff of Morgan County Greg Bartlett testifying that he had pocketed $212,000 over the last three years. Unfortunately, his prisoners appeared in such poor shape that U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon ordered federal marshals to arrest Bartlett after hearing a string of skinny prisoners testify. Legislation will be introduced in the upcoming session to remedy this matter.

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