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Pot Legalization Spreads Through The West And Into D.C.

Pot Legalization Spreads Through The West And Into D.C.

By Evan Halper, Tribune Washington Bureau

Joints, pot brownies, cannabis–dosed sodas, and other marijuana products will soon be sold in retail shops to any adult who wants them throughout a large chunk of the West, after voters in Oregon and Alaska approved legalization measures Tuesday.

And an initiative approved overwhelmingly by Washington, D.C., voters legalizes the use and cultivation of marijuana there, but stops short of allowing retail sales.

The states join Colorado and Washington, which legalized recreational pot sales only two years ago, in a remarkable change of fortune for legalization advocates who had been toiling for decades to lift the prohibition on the drug. Proponents this week overcame voter concerns surrounding the bumpy roll out of the taxing and regulatory plans for cannabis in the states where it was legalized in 2012 – as well as many unwelcome headlines – in a sign that voter unease with the drug is rapidly fading.

The outcome also was a clear sign that opinions on marijuana no longer fall neatly along partisan lines. The narrow passage of legalization in GOP-dominated Alaska, where 52 percent of voters cast ballots in favor, was considered a symbolic victory among cannabis advocates.

The vote in the capital also had political significance, playing out in the backyard of federal government as advocates try to persuade Congress to soften drug laws. The Washington, D.C., measure was driven in large part by racial justice concerns, in a city where African-Americans accounted for 91 percent of those arrested for drug possession, even though statistics show they are no more likely to use the drug than whites.

Organizers are now setting their sights on California for 2016, where they are confident the state’s liberal-leaning electorate will opt to legalize sales for recreational use. Such an outcome would create a bulwark for marijuana permissiveness in the West, which proponents hope to buffet by targeting other large states to the east for legalization measures in 2016 and shortly thereafter.

“This Election Day was an extraordinary one for the marijuana and criminal justice reform movements,” Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said in a statement. The alliance, a nonprofit bankrolled by billionaire George Soros, invested heavily in the Oregon measure through its political action affiliate, and it also provided advice and financial support to the Alaska initiative.

“These victories are even more notable for having happened in a year when Democrats were trounced at the polls,” Nadelmann wrote. “Reform of marijuana and criminal justice policies is no longer just a liberal cause but a conservative and bipartisan one as well. On these issues at least, the nation is at last coming to its senses.”

This election season was also notable for the opposition the marijuana movement attracted. Billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson stepped up with $5 million to help defeat a fairly routine measure in Florida to legalize marijuana for medical use only. It was done in by a Florida state law that requires 60 percent approval for constitutional measures to pass. It fell just a few percentage points short.

Still, Adelson’s involvement in the campaign marked the first time a mega-donor has gotten so deeply involved in fighting such a measure. Opponents of pot said they had never before been able to afford television time, and in Florida they had the resources to mount a sophisticated multimedia effort. Adelson’s political adviser said the billionaire will be looking for other opportunities to fight legalization.

Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a national anti-pot group, is vowing to step up its efforts.

“This was not the complete slam-dunk the legalization groups expected,” said a statement from Kevin Sabet, president of the group. “Alaska barely voted to legalize, and several cities rejected marijuana retail stores outright. We are confident the more people know the truth about marijuana and the Big Tobacco-like marijuana industry, the more opposition to marijuana legalization will continue to grow.”

AFP Photo/Frederic J. Brown

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Two Named As Candidates To Run Against Assad In Syria

Two Named As Candidates To Run Against Assad In Syria

By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times

BEIRUT — Syrian authorities on Sunday named two politicians from tolerated opposition groups as official contenders in June against an imposing incumbent: President Bashar Assad, the overwhelming favorite.

The presidential election scheduled for June 3 will be the first since Syria scrapped its previous referendum system in favor of direct voting.

The supreme constitutional court, which oversees the balloting process, whittled the official number of presidential contenders down to three, including Assad. Previously, 24 prospective candidates had registered.

Few if any doubt that Assad, who is seeking his third seven-year term, will emerge with a landslide victory. He enjoys an extraordinary power of incumbency.

Likenesses of Assad are ubiquitous in government-controlled areas of Syria, where most of the voting will be conducted. The official media have long presented Assad as the indispensable bulwark against Islamic militants and “terrorists,” the official term for anti-government rebels fighting to oust him.

While his supporters laud Assad as the nation’s savior, his critics call him a tyrant who has led the nation to ruin. It is still unclear if any voting will be held in vast stretches of Syria that are contested or under rebel control. Syrians living outside the country will be able to vote in Syrian embassies, the government says.

Opposition advocates have dismissed the elections as a sham designed to cement Assad’s rule. The government has sought to portray the balloting as a model of democratic reform and resolve in the midst of a punishing war that began more than three years ago.

United Nations and U.S. officials have said the elections will make it less likely to end the war through diplomacy, which has made little headway since talks in Geneva ended without any progress earlier this year.

The major issue in any potential diplomatic solution is Assad’s future. The Obama administration and its allies insist that he must step down. But Russia, Iran and other nations backing the Syrian government say Assad’s future is a decision for the Syrian people to make in free elections.

The two candidates who will oppose facing Assad are Maher Abdul-Hafiz Hajjar, 43, a former Communist Party activist and member of parliament who is said to be from a prominent religious family in the northern city of Aleppo; and Hassan Abdullah Nouri, 54, a Damascus native and former lawmaker who previously headed the nation’s chamber of industry. Both are linked to opposition blocs recognized by the government.

Neither was reported to be associated with anti-government protests in 2011 that were the catalyst for the armed uprising against Assad’s rule.

Syrian authorities gave no reason why the other 21 would-be candidates were disqualified. But officials said all could file appeals within three days. Among other requirements, each candidate needed the signatures of 35 parliamentarians to qualify for the ballot.

Assad was elected president in 2000 after the death of his father, Hafez Assad, who had led Syria since 1970. Assad was re-elected without opposition in 2007.

AFP Photo/Joseph Eid

Venezuelan Officials And Opposition To Meet After Weeks Of Protests

Venezuelan Officials And Opposition To Meet After Weeks Of Protests

By Mery Mogollon and Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times

CARACAS, Venezuela — The first face-to-face meeting between Venezuela’s government and the political opposition since violent protests erupted in February are scheduled to start late Thursday, with the proceedings mediated by three Latin American foreign ministers and broadcast nationwide.

Though participants for each side have not been identified, President Nicolas Maduro is expected to attend for the government and face three members of the Democratic Unity coalition of opposition parties: Ramon Guillermo Avelado, Henri Falcon and Omar Barboza.

Some high drama could be provided by the appearance of Henrique Capriles, the governor of Miranda state who narrowly lost the presidential election last year to Maduro. Capriles has said the election was “stolen” from him and that he considers Maduro an illegitimate president.

“This sounds hard and sad but either we have dialogue or we all die. That’s the truth,” Falcon, the governor of Lara state, said Wednesday.

Some opposition leaders, including expelled National Assembly member Maria Corina Machado, oppose the talks. They argue that the government should first release political prisoners and disarm vigilantes that they say have terrorized protesters over the last two months.

At least 40 people have been killed in clashes between demonstrators on one side and government security forces and vigilantes on the other, with hundreds more injured and detained. The protests started among students in western Tachira state over the lack of security on a university campus and quickly spread to other cities.

Since the demonstrations began, three opposition leaders — former Caracas borough Mayor Leopoldo Lopez and two serving mayors — have been arrested allegedly for inciting violence. The protests have focused on rising violent crime, scarcities of basic foodstuffs and a faltering economy.

In a Twitter message to followers, Lopez, who has been imprisoned in a military jail since Feb. 18, said he supported Thursday’s meeting.

The talks, which Maduro has described as a “debate” and not a negotiation, will take place in the presidential palace Miraflores. On Wednesday, Maduro invited the Vatican’s secretary of state Cardinal Piero Parolin, who is a former papal nuncio to Venezuela, to participate as a “good-faith witness.”

“I would be a traitor if I tried to negotiate the revolution, because that’s not in my power,” Maduro said Tuesday in his weekly program over state-run TV. “Dialogue has to be the way to construct our nation. We won’t convert them into socialists and they won’t turn us into capitalists.”

A preparatory meeting was held Tuesday in the Foreign Ministry building and included the three foreign ministers who will mediate the Thursday encounter: Colombia’s Maria Angela Holguin, Brazil’s Luiz Alberto Figueiredo and Ecuador’s Ricardo Patino.

In addition to the release of prisoners and the disarming of vigilantes, the Democratic Unity coalition is expected to demand the government take steps to ensure more “pluralism” in the government and perhaps form an independent “truth commission.”

Maduro is expected to propose a new economic plan to address scarcities and weak job growth.

AFP Photo/Leo Ramirez 

Tymoshenko To Run For President Of Ukraine

Tymoshenko To Run For President Of Ukraine

By Dmitry Zaks

Kiev (AFP) – Ukraine’s highly-divisive opposition leader and former premier Yulia Tymoshenko announced plans on Thursday to contest snap presidential polls set for May 25 following last month’s fall of a pro-Kremlin regime.

“I intend to run for president of Ukraine,” the 53-year-old told reporters after walking into a press room with the help of a walking stick she has been forced to use because of persistent back pain.

The dramatic announcement completes a highly improbable return to national politics that underscores the scale of changes that have shaken the former Soviet republic of 46 million in the past few weeks.

Tymoshenko — one of the most charismatic and outspoken leaders of Ukraine’s 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution — lost a close presidential poll to Yanukovych in 2010 after heading two pro-Western cabinets that became embroiled in fighting and eventually lost popular support.

Her political downfall after the 2010 vote was rapid and seemingly fatal.

Yanukovych’s government quickly launched a series of criminal probes against his political rival that led to a controversial trial over Tymoshenko’s role in agreeing a 2009 gas contract with Russia that many Ukrainians thought came at too high a cost.

Tymoshenko was convicted in October 2011 for abuse of power and sentenced to a seven-year jail term that Western nations denounced as the use of selective justice.

But she emerged triumphantly from the state hospital in which she spent most of her sentence under guard on February 22 — the day parliament ousted Yanukovych for his role in the deaths of nearly 100 protesters in Kiev earlier that month.

Tymoshenko then immediately went to the protest square in the heart of Kiev that also served as the crucible of the 2004 pro-democracy movement that propelled her political career.

Yet the crowd’s reception of the one-time opposition icon was guarded — a sign of their growing weariness of the corruption allegations that have stained Tymoshenko’s reputation in recent years.

Some analysts believe that the pro-Western movement that Tymoshenko once headed is now looking to a new generation of leaders who played a more prominent role in the latest protests and who now hold key positions in the new interim government.

Tymoshenko on Thursday attempted to paint herself as a compromise figure who could look after the interests of her old supporters as well as the Russian speaker who look toward the Kremlin for assistance and predominantly live in the southwest of Ukraine.

“I will be able to find a common language with everyone who lives in the east,” she said.

Tymoshenko also vowed to commit herself to breaking the close links between big business and government that have led to the enrichment of select tycoons through shadowy deals that have also paid off big for political insiders.

“I stand out from all the other presidential candidates because I will actually be able to do this: I will be able to break up these huge clan-like corporations.”

“None of the other politicians that intend to run for president understand the depth of the lawlessness gripping Ukraine,” she added.

An opinion poll published jointly on Wednesday by four respected Ukrainian political research firms showed Tymoshenko holding on to third place with the support of 8.2 percent of prospective voters.

Chocolate baron Petro Poroshenko ranked first with the backing of 24.8 percent of the respondents.

Former boxing champion turned opposition leader Vitali Klitschko was second with 8.9 percent of the vote.

Sergei L. Loiko/Los Angeles Times/MCT