By Quentin Fottrell
Mark Twain is said to have remarked that a gold rush is a good time to be in the pick and shovel business. Investors may be able to apply that same bit of wisdom to the growing number of U.S. states that have legalized pot.
Although federal law prohibits the sale or possession of marijuana, Massachusetts last week joined the ranks of states — 18 plus Washington, D.C. — that allow its use for people suffering from chronic illnesses like cancer, HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy. In Washington and Colorado, meanwhile, voters passed an initiative to Read more.....
by Chris Laine Daily Tribune
A Commerce Township man is accused of running a marijuana operation after the Oakland County Narcotics Enforcement Team seized 950 marijuana plants and almost 20 pounds of marijuana inside his home on Friday, according to a report Sunday.
Lionell Deshawn Hicks, 39, was arrested Friday after a Consumers Energy employee tipped police that he had seen numerous marijuana plants inside Hicks’ home. The employee stated that he looked in the windows of the home and saw numerous marijuana plants while investigating a claim that the homeowner was stealing natural gas, according to the Sheriff’s Read more.....
By David Marino-Nachison
A 53-year-old Gambrills man has been arrested on drug and gun charges after authorities found an alleged marijuana growing operation and guns and ammunition in his home.
Anne Arundel County police said that detectives executed a search warrant Friday at the home of Nicholas V. Dominick in the 500 block of Watts Avenue. They found 46 marijuana plants, 11 handguns, five shotguns, eight rifles — including an AK-47 assault rifle — and boxes of ammunition.
Police said 10 of the guns were registered; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was to investigate the Read more.....
By KIM CAROLLO (@kimcarollo) An Israeli company says it is growing medical marijuana with a special twist — it offers some of the same therapeutic benefits without the high.
According to Reuters, the company, Tikun Olam, is cultivating a type of cannabis plant that has high levels of a substance Read more.....
RICHARD K. De ATLEY
An Aug. 7 trial date has been set for six men charged with violating federal drug laws in connection with the operation and supply of G3 Holistics, a three-store chain of medical marijuana stores in the Inland area.
All defendants entered pleas of not guilty during an arraignment appearance Monday, June 18, in a downtown Los Angeles federal courtroom. Four of them are free on bond.
Brothers Aaron Sandusky, 41, of Rancho Cucamonga, and Keith Alan Sandusky, 44, of Rancho Cucamonga, remain in custody as the government challenges terms of their proposed bail. A Read more.....
Press Release: Medical Marijuana, Inc. – Fri, Jun 1, 2012 10:39 AM EDT
SAN DIEGO, June 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Medical Marijuana, Inc. (Pink Sheets: MJNA)
From excerpts of an article written by the Medical Marijuana Business Daily; (click here to download full article)
Several prominent medical marijuana companies are focusing on what they see as the wave of the future in the MMJ industry: Read more.....
by Shannon Young, Associated Press
HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut lawmakers’ approval of the use of medical marijuana includes strict regulations for the cultivation and distribution in an attempt to avoid problems other states have run into when legalizing the plant for medical use.
The Read more.....
by Cecilia Rodriguez, Forbes
It was one of those small, curious stories that make it into almost every global news outlet: To fight a national economic crisis bringing hardship and crushing debt to a tiny municipality, the government and residents of Read more.....
by Norimitsu Onishi, The New York Times
VALLEJO, Calif. — On a suburban block with six family homes, palm trees and views of the surrounding green hills, nothing at 110 Windsor Court stood out. Its occupants, who had moved into the foreclosed house a few years earlier, were quiet types.
On a street in Vallejo, a burned-out house that had been used to grow marijuana. Unsafe wiring for lights for the plants often causes such Read more.....
by Peter Hecht, The Sacramento Bee
ARCATA – The pot market is crashing in California’s legendary Emerald Triangle.
The closure of hundreds of marijuana dispensaries across California and a federal crackdown on licensing programs for medical pot cultivation are leaving growers in the North Coast redwoods with harvested stashes many can’t sell.
Some pot cultivators who sought legitimacy through the medical market are fleeing to the Read more.....
by Gia Magnoli, Noozhawk
Under forfeiture laws, property owners may face loss of properties where storefront and growing operations are located.
In their stepped-up battle against local marijuana dispensaries and growing operations that supply them, federal authorities are employing a powerful weapon: asset-forfeiture laws.
The Read more.....
by Michael Steininger, The Christian Science Monitor
For visitors to the Netherlands who enjoy the relaxing effects of marijuana, life has just become a Read more.....
by Tom Jensen, KATU News
In just Oregon and Washington there are nearly 100,000 medical marijuana patients.
Now this once fringe culture has taken another step towards the mainstream – growers and grower cooperatives can now buy insurance policies to protect their crops and marijuana inventories against losses.
Insurance agent Dan DeChynne is one of the first to sell the pot policies in Oregon and Southwest Washington.
“It Read more.....
Courtesy of the New York Times
HARTFORD (Reuters) — The Connecticut Senate passed a bill on Saturday legalizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes, with tight restrictions intended to avoid the problems that have plagued some of the other states where it is now legal.
After nearly 10 hours Read more.....
by Jeff Barnard, The Associated Press
After scraping together a mound of zucchini, broccoli, beef, pineapple and noodles on a big round Mongolian grill, Kevin Wallace measured out a shot of grapeseed oil infused with hashish and poured it over the steaming food, setting off a sizzle.
Thirteen years after Oregon became one of the first states to make medical marijuana legal, Read more.....
Six men have been charged in the first federal prosecution in Oregon of medical marijuana growers, accused of growing much more pot than patients needed and conspiring to sell the excess on the black market.
The arrests follow harvest-time raids in Southern Oregon last fall when federal agents ripped out hundreds of plants with backhoes and hauled them off in dump trucks.
The government said the haul was 4,000 pounds.
Federal authorities have complained that pot grown under the state’s medical marijuana law has been Read more.....
by Paige Lavender, The Huffington Post
While delivering his remarks at the 2012 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, comedian Jimmy Kimmel addressed the issue of marijuana legalization.
“What is with the marijuana Read more.....
Courtesy of the Huffington Post
Running for office? Gotta have it. Need to pass a ballot initiative? There, too. Regardless of the campaign, cash is king. And of all movements hoping to see green (ahem), Colorado’s Initiative to Regulate Read more.....
by Doug Oakley, Contra Costa Times
After nearly 13 years in business, a San Pablo Avenue medical marijuana dispensary in Berkeley was set to close Monday evening under pressure from the federal government for being too close to two schools.
The 9,000 member Berkeley Patients Group has not yet found a suitable new location Read more.....
Courtesy of CBS Money Watch
AMSTERDAM — Dutch coffee shops owners went to court Wednesday in a last ditch bid to block a government plan to stop foreigners from buying marijuana in the Netherlands.
Lawyers representing the coffee shops oppose what would be the most significant change in decades to the country’s famed soft drug tolerance: turning Read more.....
by Ryan Jaslow, CBS News
(CBS News) Just in time for 4/20, reports have surfaced that an increasing number of California winemakers are turning to another locally produced intoxicant. Read more.....
by Jennifer Abbey, ABC News
A California company hopes to make medical marijuana a little easier to obtain and to control.
Dispense Labs, a division of the Dispensary Group, unveiled Autospense Friday, an automated dispensary that distributes medical marijuana and looks like a vending machine.
All that is needed to tap an Autospense machine is a registration card and unique PIN number, said Read more.....
by Paul Egan, Detroit Free Press
WHITE PINE — In this hard-luck town in Michigan’s western Upper Peninsula, rumors persist of a company growing pot deep in the bowels of a former copper mine nearby.
In 2010, the rumors got so bad, the State Police Read more.....
by Susan Nielsen, The Oregonian
Something strange happened on the way to the May primary. Ellen Rosenblum became the darling of the marijuana legalization community, and Dwight Holton became the enemy.
The differences between the two candidates for Oregon attorney general aren’t nearly that stark. Yet the heat around this issue shows how sensitive it is to talk Read more.....
Probably everybody who is reading this blog has seen the Kony 2012 video that went viral, amassing 28 million hits in its first day. When we say “viral” we think of something spreading instantaneously over a wide swath of demographics. However, some things spread more like cancers. They dont necessarily infect a large swath of people but when they do they have profound effects. It is especially important for our government to consider this spread when it trys to engineer social behavior. A good example is when the government started a program Read more.....
Courtesy of Oakland North
After a federal raid in early April on Oaksterdam University, an education center located in downtown Oakland that trains students to work in the marijuana industry, founder Richard Lee has decided to step down as head of the institution. His successor will be former executive chancellor Dale Sky Jones, which will officially be announced on Wednesday Read more.....
by Patrick McGreavy, Los Angeles Times
A proposal that could make it easier to open medical marijuana shops in California was approved Tuesday by the Assembly’s Public Safety Committee despite objections from cities and law enforcement agencies that it unreasonably ties their hands.
The measure by committee Chairman Read more.....
by Amy Brittain, The Star-Ledger
Gov. Chris Christie today said the top boss of the Montclair-based medical marijuana dispensary “should stop complaining and get back to work.”
Christie’s comments were directed at Joe Stevens, the CEO of Greenleaf Compassion Center, which Monday became New Jersey’s first medical marijuana center to receive a permit to grow the crop.
By accusing Greenleaf of Read more.....
Courtesy of the Huffington Post
Your plans to celebrate 4/20 this Friday could actually make the government some money, if only such activities were legal. That’s according to a bunch of economists, and some prominent ones too.
More than 300 economists, includingthree nobel laureates, have signed a petition calling attention to Read more.....
by Mike DeBonis, The Washington Post
The District’s health departmentannounced Thursday that four applicants to run marijuana dispensaries have been advanced to the next stage Read more.....
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