Posts Tagged ‘stoned’
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: products infused with cannabidiol, or CBD.
The marijuana compound offers some of the pain-relieving benefits of THC, without the psychoactive effects. In other words, you don’t get stoned. Studies show that CBDs can help with a variety of medical conditions, including anxiety, nausea, inflammation and convulsions.
Just as importantly, hemp-based CBDs are legal in the United States, meaning patients don’t need to live in a state with MMJ laws and don’t have to worry about the government knocking on their door.
Publicly traded Medical Marijuana, Inc. last month paid $1.45 million to acquire Dixie’s intellectual property, formulas and recipes. The two companies have created a third, Red Dice Holdings, to license and market Dixie’s brand and NON-THC products in other states, focusing on hemp-based extracts.
Dixie Elixirs & Edibles is the latest firm in the medical marijuana industry to jump on the trend. The Denver-based company – which is now part of Medical Marijuana, Inc. – is preparing to roll out anew line of hemp-based CBD products including tinctures, salves and capsules. Dixie will officially launch the product line tomorrow and expects to add new CBD offerings at a rapid clip going forward, hoping to tap what it says is a $5 billion market.
The company initially will sell the products to dispensaries but then plans to make them available to the general public via mail order and an online e-commerce platform.
Other MMJ players are taking an interest in cannabidiols as well. Medical Marijuana, Inc. has taken an aggressive approach to CBD research, filing a patent last year for a process to extract cannabidiol and other cannabinoids from cannabis. It also inked a deal to distribute CBD-infused beverages. At the same time, individual dispensaries are producing high-CBD strains, and C3 Patients Associationis distributing a CBD-infused pill called Idrasil. Most of these products are only available to card-carrying patients in MMJ states however, as they contain CBDs derived from cannabis and in many cases also contain THC.
The company has plans for several additional product launches over the next few months and has nearly 600 retail stores now carrying its products.
About Medical Marijuana, Inc.
Our mission is to be the premier cannabis and hemp industry innovators, leveraging our team of professionals to source, evaluate and purchase value-added companies and products, while allowing them to keep their integrity and entrepreneurial spirit. We strive to create awareness within our industry, develop environmentally friendly, economically sustainable businesses, while increasing shareholder value.
Medical Marijuana, Inc. does not grow, sell or distribute any substances that violate United States law or the controlled substance act.
For more information, please visit the company’s website at: www.MedicalMarijuanaInc.com
FORWARD-LOOKING DISCLAIMER
This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements and information, as defined within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the Safe Harbor created by those sections. This material contains statements about expected future events and/or financial results that are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements by definition involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Medical Marijuana, Inc. to be materially different from the statements made herein.
Corporate Contact:
Medical Marijuana, Inc.
Toll Free: 888-OTC-MJNA (888-682-6562)
www.medicalmarijuanainc.com
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Investor Relations Contact:
Stuart T. Smith
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By Samuel P. Jacobs | Reuters – Sat, Jun 2, 2012
DENVER (Reuters) – Throughout his presidency, Barack Obama hasn’t exactly been a friend to marijuana users.
Sure, he has acknowledged smoking pot as a young man, but he has disappointed marijuana advocates by opposing its legalization, regulation and taxation like alcohol.
And the Justice Department’s occasional crackdown under his administration on medical marijuana dispensaries, which 17 states and the District of Columbia allow, has angered others.
So now, with Obama facing a stiff challenge from Republican Mitt Romney in the November 6 election, it’s ironic that his chances of winning the key state of Colorado could hinge on marijuana legalization, supported by a growing number of Americans.
At issue is whether Obama will get a boost from young voters expected to be among the most enthusiastic backers of a Colorado ballot initiative that would legalize possession of up to an ounce of pot for recreational use – and give the state the most liberal marijuana law in the nation.
The initiative is a reflection of Colorado’s unique blend of laid-back liberalism and anti-regulation conservatism that helped make the state the birthplace of the Libertarian Party.
It’s a state where people of different political stripes see marijuana laws as an example of government needlessly sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong.
It’s also a proving ground for advocates who see legalization as a way to ease crowding in prisons, generate much-needed tax revenues, create jobs and weaken Mexican cartels that thrive on Americans’ appetite for illegal drugs.
The Rocky Mountain State already allows the use of marijuana for medical purposes such as severe pain relief, and some communities have embraced it enthusiastically.
The prevalence of medical marijuana dispensaries in Denver has moved pot into the mainstream in Colorado’s capital city.
In Denver County, home to about 600,000 people, one in every 41 residents is a registered medical marijuana patient, leading to chuckles about the “Mile High City.” Denver is roughly a mile above sea level.
The number of places licensed to sell medical marijuana products has reached 400 here, according to the Denver Post. That means there are more dispensaries in the capital than there are Starbucks coffee shops (375) statewide.
A similar bill is on the ballot in Washington, another state that already allows use of medical marijuana. If approved, the initiatives would put the states squarely in the crosshairs of federal law, which classifies cannabis as an illegal narcotic.
PATH TO THE WHITE HOUSE
It’s unclear precisely how the U.S. Justice Department – whether led by Obama or Romney – would respond if Colorado, Washington or other states legalize marijuana for recreational use. Both politicians oppose legalizing the drug.
But in a close presidential election in which Colorado could be a tipping point – and with polls showing Obama has up to a 30-point edge over Romney among voters age 30 and under – the state’s marijuana initiative could be a factor if it inspires waves of young voters to cast ballots on November 6.
“This is an issue that is really meaningful to young people, people of color, disenfranchised communities,” groups that typically lag in registering and showing up to vote, said Brian Vicente, 35, executive director of Sensible Colorado, a group seeking less restrictive marijuana laws.
“Democrats and Obama need these groups to win,” Vicente said. “The path to the White House leads through Colorado. We feel we can motivate these groups.”
Last winter, Public Policy Polling found that 49 percent of Coloradans favored legalization, while 41 percent opposed it.
As much as some Democrats feel they have the wind at their backs, they are fighting history in Colorado. Obama won the state in 2008, but he was the first Democratic presidential contender to do so in 16 years.
And even though a majority of the delegates at the Colorado Democratic Party’s convention last month said they supported legalization, some party officials are skeptical the politically diverse movement will help Obama much this fall.
They note that Colorado voters rejected such a legalization measure in 2006, and that Californians blocked a similar initiative two years ago.
“If they get 40 percent” of voters supporting legalization, “they should throw themselves a party,” said Matt Inzeo, spokesman for Colorado’s Democratic Party.
Others see more potential in the legalization debate’s impact on the presidential race.
Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling said that if the state-by-state race for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency comes down to Colorado’s 9 electoral votes, marijuana “could be a difference maker.”
BROADENING SUPPORT
During a recent visit to Colorado, Romney seemed irritated when a local television reporter quizzed him on his views about gay marriage, immigration reform and marijuana legalization.
“Aren’t there issues of significance you’d like to talk about?” an exasperated Romney asked.
In Colorado, however, marijuana is significant. And its acceptance hasn’t been limited to more liberal areas.
Colorado Springs, home to the U.S. Air Force Academy and the evangelical Christian group Focus on the Family, is one of the most conservative cities in the United States. But the city of 400,000 about 70 miles south of Denver has nearly as many marijuana dispensaries as churches, according to city records.
Supporters of Colorado’s initiative point to a broadening coalition of those who support legalization, including local civil rights and union leaders.
Those opposing marijuana legalization often cite the drug’s impact on youths.
Roger Sherman, a strategist for the campaign against Amendment 64, said “there’s a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and a high level of concern” among those who oppose legalization. His group cites increased drug use among children and increasing cases of impaired driving.
Nationwide polling on marijuana legalization, although sparse, suggests that support now equals support for marriage equality, which just found a new backer in Obama.
In October, 50 percent of Americans said “yes” when asked by Gallup, “Do you think the use of marijuana should be made legal, or not?” When Gallup asked that in 1969, 12 percent said yes.
Last week, a Rasmussen Reports survey said 56 percent of likely U.S. voters favored legalizing and regulating marijuana.
QUESTIONING OBAMA
Supporters of legalization also argue that regulating marijuana – and capturing tax revenue from its sale – could help governments, cities and towns face increasingly tight budgets.
In 2011, taxes for medical marijuana generated $5 million for Colorado. Denver-based political strategist Rick Ridder said that depending upon the cost of an ounce, legalization would likely generate $20 million to $80 million in annual tax revenue for Colorado and local communities.
As designed, Amendment 64 would designate its first $40 million in tax revenue for rebuilding public schools. As part of a bond issue, that amount could turn into a treasure chest for public education funding in Colorado.
Legalization advocates see Obama’s crackdown on some medical marijuana outlets as hypocritical, noting that in his memoir “Dreams from My Father” he acknowledged smoking pot as a youth.
“It’s really insulting with this president. He actually smoked pot in high school and college. The only difference is he didn’t get caught. If he had gotten caught, he would not be president,” said Wanda James, 48, whose business, Simply Pure, supplies 300 Colorado dispensaries with edible marijuana.
She tells community leaders that legalization is not just about pot smokers having a good time, legally. She sees it as a way to ease prison crowding, help cash-strapped governments, provide jobs and weaken drug cartels.
Legalization, of course, would mean a larger market for James’ indica sesame brittle bars and sativa peppermint cups.
To James, legalizing marijuana boils down to what could be a good slogan for this year’s elections: “Jobs, jobs, jobs.”
(Editing by David Lindsey and Todd Eastham)
by Melanie Eversley, USA Today
A New York State Supreme Court judge out of Brooklyn is generating buzz because of his public appeal to legalize medical marijuana, as outlined in an opinion piece that he wrote forThe New York Times.
The plea from Judge Gustin Reichbach to the New York State Legislature, which is debating a medical marijuana bill, has prompted follow-up pieces in the New York Daily News, The American Bar Association Journal and Reuters, among other news organizations.
Support among New York State officials is mixed, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, has said the problems with medical marijuana outweigh the benefits, according toMetroFocus, a site produced by New York City-area public television stations.
Reichbach writes that three and one half years ago, on his 62nd birthday, doctors told him he had Stage 3 pancreatic cancer and that he had four to six months to live. His grueling treatment has included “chemotherapy, radiation hell and brutal surgery,” he writes. The cancer disappeared but returned, prompting doctors to prescribe a more aggressive course of chemotherapy.
Reichbach writes about the constant nausea and pain, about forcing down food, and about the side effects of the many drugs to treat the disease and ease the symptoms of chemotherapy, including loss of appetite, constipation, insomnia and raised glucose levels.
“Inhaled marijuana is the only medicine that gives me some relief from nausea, stimulates my appetite, and makes it easier to fall asleep,” Reichbach writes. “Rather than watch the agony of my suffering, friends have chosen, at some personal risk, to provide the substance. I find a few puffs of marijuana before dinner gives me ammunition in the battle to eat. A few more puffs at bedtime permits desperately needed sleep.”
Reichbach notes 16 states have legalized medical marijuana and that Connecticut and New York are weighing bills.
“I implore the governor and the Legislature of New York … to join the forward and humane thinking of 16 other states and pass the medical marijuana bill this year,” Reichbach writes. “Medical science has not yet found a cure, but it is barbaric to deny us (cancer patients) access to one substance that has proven to ameliorate our suffering.”
by Maia Szalavitz, Time Magazine
Among the voluminous evidence released Thursday in the shooting death of 17-year-old Florida high school student Trayvon Martin is a toxicology report showing that the teen had trace levels of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in his blood and urine.
The evidence includes abundant new information: conflicting witness statements, an autopsy report showing that Martin, who was black, died from a single gunshot wound to the chest and medical records documenting that Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who will stand trial for second-degree murder, had a broken nose the day after Martin’s death. Yet the media is focusing on the marijuana findings.
That’s a mistake that only serves to distort an already contentious case. The levels of THC detected don’t reflect Martin’s character or even his state of mind the night he was shot. For one, they are so low as to almost certainly not be connected to recent intoxication: 1.5 nanograms of THC were found as well as 7.3 nanograms of THC-COOH, a metabolite of THC that can stay in the system for weeks after cannabis has been smoked. Immediately after inhaling, THC levels typically rise to 100 to 200 nanograms per milliter of blood, although there can be a great deal of variation.
(MORE: New Evidence — Trayvon Martin Had Drugs in His System)
“THC in blood or urine tells us nothing about the level of intoxication,” says Carl Hart, associate professor of psychology at Columbia University and author of the leading college textbook on drug use and behavior. “That would be like someone going to have a beer some evening, and when he goes to work the next day, you can find alcohol metabolites in his bodily fluids. That says nothing about his functioning.” (Full disclosure: Hart and I are working on a book project together).
Moreover, even if Martin had been stoned out of his mind, it wouldn’t predispose him to violence. “I have given hundreds of doses of marijuana to people in the lab, and no one has gotten violent ever and everyone has been able to respond to the situation in an appropriate manner, when given low or large doses and single or repeated doses,” Hart says.
The night of the killing, Zimmerman began following Martin, who had gone to a 7-Eleven to get Skittles and an Arizona iced tea during a break in the NBA All-Star game. Zimmerman told a 911 operator that he was worried about Martin because he “looks like he’s up to no good, or he’s on drugs.” He was informed that the police would handle the situation and that he should not take further action. Zimmerman didn’t heed that advice; an altercation ended with Zimmerman shooting Martin in what he says was self-defense. He was charged months after the Feb. 26th killing, following widespread public outrage over the perceived lack of an appropriate criminal justice response.
(MORE: Report Details Zimmerman’s Injuries on Night of Trayvon Martin Shooting)
“If people are trying to discount the acts of Zimmerman or excuse him because [Martin may have smoked] marijuana, they need to think about their own marijuana use and think about whether they ever get violent,” Hart says. “More than half the country has used marijuana and they really need to use some common sense.” The drug that has the strongest pharmacological link to violence is the legal one, alcohol.
And despite the fact that black youth are actually equally or even less likely to use — or sell — marijuana compared to whites, they are arrested for drug crimes at a rate ten times higher. In New York City, a recent analysis found that 80% of those arrested for marijuana were black or Latino, despite whites outnumbering them by far.
(MORE: Study: Whites More Likely to Abuse Drugs Than Blacks)
As Michelle Alexander points out in her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, our drug laws have become little more than a pretext for arresting, imprisoning and disenfranchising people of color in a way that is no longer permissible to do based on race alone. Once someone is charged with a drug crime, liberty, property and voting rights can all be rescinded— in a manner that appears colorblind if you ignore the selective enforcement.
Says Hart: “If Trayvon was a white kid, we wouldn’t be here talking about drugs. George Zimmerman would have long been in jail.”
The classification of cannabis as a schedule one narcotic is among the least defensible aspects of prohibition.
Dr. Jody Corey-Bloom, director of the Multiple Sclerosis Center at UC San Diego, recently helped run a study that provided multiple sclerosis patients with either a marijuana joint or a placebo that looked, smelled, and tasted like marijuana. After smoking whichever substance they were given, patients were tested to see if it reduced their muscle spasticity — an affliction, common to MS patients, that causes painful, uncontrollable spasms of the extremities. Spasticity was unaffected among the placebo patients but dropped 30 percent on average among the patients given real marijuana. The side effects? “Smoking caused fatigue and dizziness in some users,” says Reuters, “and slowed down people’s mental skills soon after they used marijuana.”
The UC San Diego study is just the latest to suggest that marijuana has some medical benefits. Sixteen states, thousands of doctors, and tens of thousands of sick people concur in that judgment. It is dramatized by the personal testimony of sick people who are offered much more powerful drugs, but nevertheless insistthat consuming marijuana was most effective at helping them. (Don’t miss the video at the top of this post, as powerful a testimonial for medical marijuana as you’ll find.)
Marijuana is nevertheless classified under the Controlled Substances Act as a Schedule One drug. Under the law, drugs placed in that category must meet all of the following criteria (emphasis added):
- The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
- The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
- There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.
Critics of the Obama Administration’s drug policy, myself included, have focused on the president’s broken promise about federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in jurisdictions where they’re legal. But an even less defensible aspect of Obama’s drug policy is how marijuana is scheduled.
As John Walker points out, the Controlled Substances Act gives the executive branch the power to unilaterally change a drug’s classification:
Obama can instruct the relevant agencies under him to take an honest look at the research and reschedule marijuana so it qualifies as having legitimate medical uses. The Obama administration could easily and justifiably move marijuana to, say, schedule III, which happens to be the same schedule that synthetic THC is in, making medical marijuana legal under federal law.
There would be nothing unusual, extraordinary or legally suspect about Obama doing this. The executive branch has often moved certain drugs to lower or higher schedules based on new data without Congressional involvement. In fact, multiple sitting governors have petitioned the Obama administration asking him to move marijuana to a lower schedule, so he should be aware of the flexible authority he has. Obama is not some hapless victim whose actions on this issue are constrained by congressional law. The truth is pretty much the exact opposite. Under current law Obama effectively has the power to unilaterally make medical marijuana legal.
His failure to do so is frustrating and to his discredit because it’s what the language of a law duly passed by a bygone Congress and signed by a past president demands. There just are accepted medical uses of marijuana today. Pretending otherwise is every bit as much an affront to science and empiricism as the most ill-informed denial of evolution or climate change.
Yet here is how the Obama White House touts its drug policy:
Congress also bears substantial responsibility for the anti-scientific, anti-empirical aspects of American drug policy. If Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are able to define the terms of the upcoming presidential election, this issue won’t come up. But voters have consistently shown interest in the subject when permitted to directly question politicians, and Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party nominee, is eager to challenge Obama and Romney on this issue given the chance. When opportunities for these challenges arise, the classification of marijuana is one of the most vulnerable parts of the status quo to attack.12 states have pending medical marijuana legislation.
I was disappointed to hear Radical Russ Belville tell the tale of how NORML Network, which he produced, would be shut down because of lack of funding…even though they had raised their own funding. WTF? For a group dedicated to being an “informational resource” it begs to wonder why they would shut down a program that gets up to 5,000 downloads a day and which produced 13 hours of original cannabis content every week. In this day and age, it would seem that a project like the NORML network would be a natural evolution in providing cannabis education and information to the masses. Russ did a hell of a job, along with the other content creators there, to make entertaining and informative programming week after week. So what is the deal?
Here is what Russ says is the reason for shutting down the network:
We don’t have any money. There is no money at NORML. We don’t have enough to justify covering the expenses it takes to produce this network.
Russ goes on to tell about how National NORML pulled the plug after the network raised $5-6k to cover its own expenses and how they say they “just do not have it in the budget to earmark funding for any specific projects.” In the video below you can hear Russ tell the tale in his own words, and you can tell he is extremely pissed. I do not blame him, either.
Russ alludes to the real issue, which is the new Chairman of the Board, Paul Kuhn, does not see any real value in the network, and does not care for Russ being so “Radical.” He goes on to even state the jackass wants to “rechristen him Reasonable Russ.” Russ lets go a little and can be heard almost cringing as he talks about his “vision being too big” and how he “cannot have any of the money we raised.” I agree. Russ has all very valid points and has every right to be disgusted. Join the club.
National NORML is a joke at this point. I am not sure why they continue the charade and act as if they are actually accomplishing anything of value over there. On the reals, the NORML network was really the ONLY thing NORML had been doing that I saw to be of any value. Lord knows they are not organizing the community to make real impacts on policy. They are not winning the PR battle, with assholes like St. Pierre wandering around and damning the entire medical cannabis industry as evil profit-makers who are only about money. NORML has not made real and meaningful impacts to cannabis reform since the 70′s in my book….at least at the national level. Many of their local affiliates do most of the heavy lifting, while National NORML stands back and takes the credit.
I posed a challenge to Paul Kuhn the last time I mentioned the void of leadership at NORML during the WeedMaps debacle when he responded to a piece I wrote called Weedmaps Takes Over NORML. After Paul was kind enough to tell me my writing was not journalism, I challenged back that NORML was not really activism or reform, and begged him to show me a list of accomplishments for the last 40 years. I mean if you are running a policy reform group with almost a million dollar budget for 40 years, you should at least have 40 good accomplishments if you did one lousy thing a year….I responded:
So how exactly is it that you guys are “the major role players” in cannabis reform since 1995? I just do not see it. And after Keith ratted off Peter Bourne and blew any influence the organization had in National politics in the 70′s, the organization has done very little…..but you know that. I will be waiting for those accomplishments….
For the record, National NORML never responded with a list of accomplishments. Why? Because they have very little to show for the money they have gotten over the years. I hope Russ is right. I hope NORML doesn’t have any money. I hope whoever was funding that debacle took a step back and said “What the fuck are these losers doing with my cash?” 40 years of failure is not a great track record. No matter how much people like the NORML conference every year, at some point we have to realize as a community that these guys will not be taking us to the promised land.
Here was Kuhn’s bullshit defense of NORML then:
When I became active in NORML in 1971, support for legalization stood at 12%. Now it stands at 50%. I take pride knowing NORML played a major role, perhaps the major role, bringing this change about. If it wasn’t NORML, who was it? NORML and the board have faithfully (not always perfectly, but faithfully) represented the interests of marijuana consumers for four decades.
Um….no asshole. Standing around the water cooler does not count as an accomplishment….Here was my response then, which I stand by today:
As for NORML’s history of reform, and your “if not them who?” remark…I will go with Jimmy Carter and Dennis Peron….If you notice the timeline you guys are touting as your work (link below) there was a small spike in 1976; and from 1977 to 1994 we actually LOST ground. This was when NORML was in control of the entire message and was the primary resource of cannabis reform policy and operations. In 1994-95 the number began to steadily rise and most of the real progress has been seen since Dennis began to widely publicize the medical cannabis issue then and Prop 215 was passed in 1996. Going from 12% to 24% over 25 years is no great feet. I would almost bet that had NORML done NOTHING from 1969-1994 simple attrition of an older generation would have seen the same increase in support.
I also think MPP was created around 1995 as well, and then the Gallup chart really jumps on 2004 after ASA was created….. Coincidence? Hardly.
I will be waiting for that list of accomplishments and simply pointing to a 40 year Gallup poll number is not an accomplishment by any stretch of the imagination. I will say your conference is normally informative and resourceful….and also kind of like Groundhog’s Day….Maybe after another 40 years we will actually have some serious reform to brag about….
I have given NORML plenty of breaks and nobody ever said you had done nothing. I just do not recall and major accomplishments in the actual reforming of laws…..That is not being mean. That is me asking for a list of NORML accomplishments for the last 40 years that have resulted in less arrests for cannabis consumers. I do not think that is too much to ask.
My thought is that NORML IS BROKEN….not broke. I would hope they either begin to rebuild to actually be an accomplishment driven organization, or that they would simply cease to exist and that a new body of reform would emerge that is accomplishment driven and capable of leading this movement in the direction of true and meaningful reform. To continue to watch the monkey fuck the football is just painful. It is even more painful when you shut down the best thing you have going for you because Russ is too radical for your own personal taste.
NORML is stupid.
I am not writing this because I have an answer to that question. Far from it. I am writing this to try and flush an answer out of my spinning brain.
I have never understood this reality. Medical cannabis seems like a no brainer to me. I just do not get living in a world where other humans would deprive sick people of a safe and effective plant to serve some strange ideology, or to create wealth from its prohibition. When I stood in Santa Cruz in 1996 collecting signatures for Prop. 215, I never imagined over 16 years later we would still be fighting this battle. I have grown old watching patients and providers struggle to find their place in this society. The evolution of the medical cannabis movement has been astonishing at times, but more so, it has been plain weird.
I cannot wrap my head around the concept that because Nixon, the Nation’s most corrupt President, ignored reports that warned of the dangers of prohibition and decided to outlaw weed through the Controlled Substances Act, that some how we are stil trying to reverse that insane decision decades later. What is more appalling is the real lack of a conscious and meaningful conversation on the obvious failures that cannabis prohibition has resulted in.
Law enforcement, elected officials, community leaders, and every citizen should be very concerned with the incredible harm cannabis prohibition has created in our communities. Our world is far less safe as a result of the lucrative black market we have created for illegal weed. We have made criminals out of millions of our friends and neighbors in what we can only call a huge failure by any metric used. We lock up mostly poor people and use “the system” to create income for corporations who have bought our prison system, forced us to be tested regularly for drug use, and who have law enforcement in their pocket. It is an absurd police state we live in. When Nixon first outlawed weed it was the conservatives who thought he was nuts for telling people what they could and could not do to their own bodies. But as these assholes turned archaic laws into huge profits, their understanding of liberty changed and now they only believe in those freedoms for certain issues…like education, healthcare, and finances. On those issues, fuck it…you are on your own. Too much big government, ya’ know? But not for weed…for weed we have all the government you need.
So that is where we are as a society. In some fucking alternate universe where grown ass people are afraid to have an open and honest discussion about weed because we have brainwashed people for decades to think a safe, enjoyable, and helpful plant is evil. Even the rational people who know this is not true do not want to get accused of being a dope lover or, God forbid, a Liberal. We continue to dance the medical weed dance and allow for the “who is sick enough for weed” game to go on. Instead of demanding our society just stop the madness and cut the shit, we allow the squeaky wheels to get the oil, and the prohibitionists have created quite the machine to ensure that their profits from making criminals out of innocent people does not go away. It sucks.
So the “what now?” question is a difficult one to answer. I can assure you the answer is not to run and hide. I can assure you the right thing to do is not to start stuffing the mattress and heading for the hills. It is time for our community to double down on the progress we have made and ensure that the future is not one where we continue to see almost a million people a year in trouble for weed. We must put aside our internal issues to rise up and ready for battle. We continue to see support swell for cannabis freedom and we must not let the continued attacks by those who make their living off weed being illegal stop us. We are the many. We are mighty. Weed is bigger than all of us.
Understand that I, or anyone else, can not truly answer the “what now?” question. Fate is seldom wrong. We all have a responsibility and a duty to work to create the society we want to live in. I do not want to live in a society where we lock up 25% of the world’s prison population, but only have 5% of the actual population. I do not want to live in a society where we allow people to suffer and where we compromise people’s health for money. I do not want to live in a world where we authorize militarized local police forces to violate people’s right to privacy because they smell weed. My WHAT NOW has a lot to do with changing those things, and making our community one where we do not continue to oppress people for their personbal choices. I hope you will join me.
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 fires.
Until the noise from falling roof tiles alerted neighbors to a fire there one recent morning, and Stephen Snowden, who lived nearby, banged on the front door. Nobody was inside, but firefighters discovered that the house had been converted into a type of illegal business found increasingly in suburbia: a marijuana grow house.
The entire second floor of the five-bedroom, 2,251-square-foot home, as well as parts of the first floor, was used to cultivate marijuana plants.
“They just blended right in,” Mr. Snowden said of the residents. “They left early for work and came back late in the afternoon. They mowed their lawn, took out their trash and got groceries. There was never any extra foot traffic.”
Organized marijuana growers are shifting to the suburbs from rural and commercial areas, helped by a housing crisis that created a glut of affordable, spacious houses and a stream of new residents to previously more stable communities. Houses that sold for $1 million before the crisis have been turned into grow houses, equipped with the high-intensity lights, water and air-filtering systems necessary to produce potent, high-quality marijuana.
Many grow houses go unnoticed, even by next-door neighbors, until there is a fire, typically caused by unsafe electrical wiring. Local police forces, especially in California, which has permitted the limited cultivation of marijuana for medical use since 1996, have stopped seeking out grow houses.
Rusty Payne, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said crime syndicates used to concentrate production in low-income areas. But now, he said, “you’re hearing more and more in middle-class, upper-middle-class, high-end neighborhoods.”
“They either buy them or rent them,” Mr. Payne said. “They’re buying them in places like Northern California, where the real estate market’s really taken a turn for the worse.”
In Northern California, grow houses have been discovered in older suburbs hit hard byforeclosures, including Vallejo, a city 25 miles northeast of San Francisco that declared bankruptcy in 2008. They have also been found in newer communities that mushroomed during the housing boom, like Elk Grove, near Sacramento.
“They were located in suburbia, pretty much,” Officer Christopher Trim, a spokesman for the Elk Grove Police Department, said of the grow houses discovered there. “Residential streets, kids playing outside and going to soccer practice, folks going to and coming from their work.”
California accounted for more than 70 percent of all marijuana plants confiscated nationwide in 2010, the last year for which statistics are available, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The authorities seized 188,297 plants at 791 indoor grow houses, compared with 107,047 plants at 572 locations in 2005.
Vietnamese-American crime groups have specialized in running grow houses, which produce marijuana that can fetch up to twice the price of the outdoor kind, Mr. Payne said.
Law enforcement officials, especially in local forces that have been downsized during the financial crisis, say they lack the resources to go after grow houses. They also say that California laws have created an environment tolerant of marijuana cultivation in general.
“Ten years ago if there was a grow house, we’d seize all their equipment and lamps, and they would be prosecuted,” said Sgt. Jeff Bassett, a spokesman for the Vallejo Police Department. “Now the chances of being caught, or of being prosecuted if you are, are substantially less than they were 10 years ago.”
No one has been arrested in connection with the grow house at 110 Windsor Court or at another previously foreclosed house that also caught fire in Vallejo recently, the police said. Firefighters responding to that house — a one-story, 1,304-square-foot house on Evelyn Circle — quickly realized that it was a grow house.
Like other neighbors, Tim Langford, 54, said nothing aroused suspicion about the occupants, who had been spotted at the house for a couple of years. But Mr. Langford said the housing crisis had weakened the social ties on his block.
“You have a much more transient population now, so you mind your business,” he said. “It’s not the day when you take an apple pie over and say, ‘Hi, I’m your neighbor.’ ”
The housing crisis also led to the emergence of grow houses in new real estate developments, creating lasting problems for those communities.
In Pittsburg, a city about 40 miles northeast of San Francisco, marijuana growers occupied a five-bedroom house on Pilar Ridge Drive, across the street from an elementary school. The house, part of a sprawling, luxurious community that was built about a decade ago, sold for nearly $1 million in 2007 but went into foreclosure three years later.
In June 2010, acting on a tip from a neighbor, the police found that the house had been transformed into a grow house. Last fall, Stephen Tucker and his wife, Tomasita, bought the property from a bank for $363,000, Mr. Tucker said, after looking at hundreds of other places.
“My daughter came to this house, and she’s the one who said, ‘That’s the house I want,’ ” Mr. Tucker, 51, said of his daughter Veronica, 8.
Mr. Tucker said he learned after the purchase that the house had been used as a grow house. He began discovering mold and other damage under the new carpet and in the drywall.
Not all stories involving foreclosed houses and grow houses have ended unhappily, though. Mr. Snowden, who banged on the door of the house on fire, said that despite the discovery of a grow house on his block, he did not regret moving there three years ago. In 2009, he purchased his house — which had been foreclosed the year before — for roughly 60 percent of what it had sold for in 2004.
“It was cheaper than renting,” he said. “This is actually a pretty quiet, decent neighborhood.”
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 black market. So much cheap weed is getting dumped in the college town of Arcata, some local dispensaries say business is down 75 percent. Even the region’s itinerant and colorful bud trimmers are going broke.
By the scores, people have long trekked into the marijuana fields and indoor greenhouses of Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity counties. Workers used to earn as much as $200 a pound meticulously cutting leaves from marijuana buds, prepping them for display at dispensaries or for sale in a purely illicit market.
These days, a 47-year-old man called Mover, a dreadlocked migrant from Ohio who is a fixture in downtown Arcata, says the tedious work isn’t worth his trouble as the per-pound pay rate has dropped to $100 or often just a few nuggets of pot.
“I got paid in weed,” Mover, who refused to give his real name, said of his last trimming job. “It’s worthless here. You can’t give it away. And I’m not going to transport anything. I’m too old, and I don’t want to go to jail.”
The region’s pot pilgrimage had accelerated in recent years as people were drawn by local cannabis traditions and dreams of cashing in on the medical marijuana market. They planted marijuana in the backwoods and in rewired houses with high-intensity grow lights.
But the saturation of pot growers set off a price tumble by 2010, as a pound of prime Emerald weed slipped from $5,000 to the $3,000 range for marijuana grown indoors and to the $2,000 range for product grown outdoors. Lately, prices are in free-fall.
“Last I heard, a pound of marijuana is $800 for outdoor grown,” said Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman in Ukiah. “That’s plummeting. You might do better with tomatoes.”
The marijuana meltdown could have major regional effects. In Humboldt County, a recent study by a local banker estimated marijuana accounts for more than a fourth of the county’s $1.6 billion economy.
In recent years, many locals already thought the influx of pot growers exceeded demand in the state’s sanctioned medical pot market. When U.S. authorities in October announced a crackdown on medical marijuana businesses that they contended were profiteering in violation of federal and state laws, it darkened growers’ fears.
Raid heightened fears
Lelehnia Du Bois, 41, was one who thought she had found a safe niche. A former fashion model in Southern California, Du Bois started growing marijuana indoors in Eureka after rupturing her spinal cord. She supplied her unused home-grown “Sweet God” to a Eureka dispensary, earning $5,000 a year on top of her disability income, she said.
Du Bois had spent her childhood in Trinity County and remembers growers having “a big potluck” meal after the outdoor marijuana harvest. She said the weed culture changed markedly as indoor growers in Arcata and Eureka competed for access to the medical market – and many went into illegal trafficking.
As indoor pot prices dropped as low as $1,800 a pound, “People started taking risks. All of a sudden, people were not farmers. They were drug dealers,” Du Bois said.
Last year, months before federal prosecutors began targeting California dispensaries for closure, Du Bois got out of the pot business and moved out of Humboldt County. She now lives in Utah.
At Arcata’s Humboldt Patient Resource Center, a dispensary that grows its marijuana on site, cultivator Kevin Jodry said fewer people are coming to buy seedlings for this year’s outdoor marijuana crop or quarterly indoor yields.
“Many people distributing in the medical marijuana market didn’t get into it for the risk situation,” he said. “The people who were formerly in the black market were able to stay functioning. People who were not criminals can’t move their product.”
Pressures on growers intensified after federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided a marijuana farm that had been licensed by Mendocino County and was considered a model for establishing local compliance rules for medical cultivation.
The raid prompted Mendocino County supervisors in January to rescind a program that allowed the sheriff to enforce a 99-plant limit on pot farms by attaching $50 zip ties to each plant and inspecting the gardens of nearly 100 growers who provided documentation to show they were serving medical pot users.
The program, which also offered cheaper tags for smaller quantity growers, brought in $630,000 in county fees in two years.
Sheriff Allman said it allowed his department – which spends 30 percent of its $23 million budget on pot enforcement – to target major cultivators who he says are illegally growing thousands of plants, diverting water and fouling the environment.
Humboldt County had sought to put a similar program in place last summer as District Attorney Paul Gallegos called for licensing to ensure “sustainable and responsible cultivation.” After the federal government launched its crackdown, supervisors tabled work on the plan, and Eureka and Arcata placed moratoriums on new dispensaries.
Outdoor growers struggle
Among the most worried cultivators are the outdoor growers who increasingly struggle to compete with the exotic strains produced in climate-controlled indoor grow rooms.
Alison Sterling Nichols, executive director of the Emerald Growers Association, which seeks to protect the Emerald Triangle’s sun-grown pot traditions, said outdoor growers were most directly affected by the collapse of local licensing programs. The group backs legislation to regulate medical marijuana statewide as long as it would preserve growers’ ability to supply dispensaries.
“People shouldn’t have to sleep with one eye open,” Sterling Nichols said. “People should be able to move from the black market into the light. We haven’t been able to bridge that gap. We have hills of healthy outdoor product we can’t take to the market.”
Meanwhile, many worry that the Emerald Triangle will go back to being the hub of California’s illegal marijuana trade.
Last month, authorities in Pennsylvania arrested the former operator of a Humboldt dispensary for allegedly shipping more than 25 pounds of pot in heat-sealed packets to a home he was visiting. State officers in Nebraska also stopped a Mendocino County man and a companion with 62 pounds of weed stuffed in duffel bags.
On consecutive days in late February, Humboldt authorities conducted two separate raids on growers suspected of criminal distribution, seizing nearly $700,000 in cash and 7,000 plants.
In Mendocino, Allman said his officers last year eradicated 642,000 plants, some loosely tied to Mexican trafficking networks but most involving Californians or residents from other states who secretly grew on public lands and private property.
With a federal crackdown and a shrinking market, Allman said, many out-of-towners may leave and “everything is going to go underground.”
Courtesy of the Daily Mail
Smoking marijuana was ‘part of the culture’ at classic children’s TV programme Play School, according to a former presenter.
Rick Jones revealed the scale of drug use at the show, following claims by ex-presenter Johnny Ball that Jones and another presenter, Lionel Morton, were ‘stoned out of their minds’ before filming a nativity scene during the 1970s.
Jones, now 75, who went on to present children’s show Fingerbobs, told The Sun said that the drug was ‘part of the culture, definitely’, adding: ‘Marijuana was like cornflakes.
‘The BBC was really liberal. Once you were in all laws were forgotten. I had a wonderful time.’
He said around ‘half a dozen’ were doing it – and that toys on the programme, Humpty and Hamble, were even put in sexual poses on the set.
Earlier this week, Ball revealed the use of marijuana behind the scenes of the seemingly-innocent show, when he told a BBC4 documentary: ‘There was Rick Jones, Lionel Morton and myself. They got stoned on the biggest joint you’ve ever seen – in the studio.
‘We were in silhouette as the three shepherds with our crooks. They were absolutely stoned out of their minds. So when we recorded, who cocked his lines up? Me.’
Ball, 73, father of TV and radio presenter Zoe, insisted he had not used the drug on air himself as it would have left him incapable of working – a claim supported by Jones, who told the newspaper Ball was a ‘good egg, but he was too dull to do it’.
Play School ran from 1964 until 1988 and its presenters also included Brian Cant, Floella Benjamin and Derek Griffiths.
Revelations: Childrens’ television presenter Johnny Ball has told how his co hosts on Play School got stoned before one scene
Stoned: Johnny Ball said his co presenters on Play School, Rick Jones and Lionel Morton, has just smoked an enormous joint before this scene
On a high: Presenter Lionel Morton smoked a joint before filming one of the scenes from Play School
Each episode included a film about the outside world to which access was gained through one of three windows, with viewers asked to guess which it would be: round, square, or arched.
The documentary, Lights! Camera! Action! Tales of Television Centre, lays bare the liberal atmosphere at the BBC in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Presenter Joan Bakewell is also seen confessing that many of the pop groups of the time were stoned when they appeared on shows.
At times the aroma was so strong in the corridors of the BBC’s West London studios that Sir David Attenborough, who was controller of the BBC2 at the time, complained about it.
He recalls on the programme how he told staff: ‘Look, please don’t smoke that stuff openly so we can all smell it. Just be sensible.’
There are also revelations about the rampant antics of stars who used dressing rooms and green rooms for sex because ‘nobody cared if you did’.
Former Doctor Who actress Katy Manning, who played Jo Grant, says: ‘People were bonking all over the BBC. Everybody was doing it on the premises.’
Former Blue Peter and Going Live presenter Sarah Greene confesses that she enjoyed such trysts with Radio 1 DJ Mike Smith, whom she went on to marry.
The show features interviews with BBC staff and personalities including Sir Terry Wogan, Jeremy Paxman and Penelope Keith along with archive clips from hit shows such as Till Death Us Do Part, Top of the Pops and Doctor Who.
Barry Norman also gives an interview for the programme in which he reveals he was almost fired because a corporation executive thought he was wearing a wig on screen and took a dislike to it.
He said: ‘I wasn’t actually wearing a wig, I was just having a bad hair day.’ Lights! Camera! Action! Tales of Television Centre will air on BBC4 on May 17.
by Michael Steininger, The Christian Science Monitor
For visitors to the Netherlands who enjoy the relaxing effects of marijuana, life has just become a little less easy going, particularly for those Germans living just west of the border who used to just pop over for a fresh supply. New legislation is restricting the sale of cannabis to residents of the country and banning tourists from purchasing the drug at the coffee shops, famous for selling it.
The new law, drafted by the center-right government of Prime Minister Mark Rutte, officially came into effect on Jan. 1. It demands that the approximately 700 coffee shops in the country, where the sale of small amounts of soft drugs is tolerated, turn into members-only clubs, allowing only Dutch residents 18 and older and over to apply for membership.
“The ‘open door’ policy currently pursued by coffee shops will come to an end,” Mr. Rutte said in a statement. “The objective is to combat the nuisance and crime associated with coffee shops and the trade in drugs.”
The lax approach to drugs in the Netherlands has irritated its European neighbors for some time.
Officially, the possession and sale of cannabis is illegal in the Netherlands too, but under the so-called gedoogbeleid (policy of tolerance), owning a maximum amount of five grams for personal use is not prosecuted. Under that same policy, coffee shops are allowed to stash a maximum of 500 grams at any given time and sell that in amounts of up to 5 grams.
The practice led to a flourishing of coffee shops as drug outlets and a tourist industry depending on them. An estimated third of all visitors to urban centers like Amsterdam and Maastricht are believed to be looking not just for museums full of Dutch masters or a boat ride on a canal but also for pot, according to the Amsterdam City Council. In the border town of Maastricht, some 70 percent of coffee shop customers are non-residents.
Given the possible effect the new rules could have on tourism, and the likelihood of legal procedures against the discrimination against fellow Europeans, the Dutch authorities opted for a slow start – enforcement of the law began only this month in three southern provinces, next to Belgium, France and Germany. Those are the locations outside the capital where so-called drug tourism is busiest. The rest of the country is meant to follow in January 2013.
Coffee shops and the political opposition are putting up resistance.
In a last-ditch attempt to stop enforcement of the new law, 19 coffee shop owners took the government to court, arguing that the exclusion of tourists discriminated against EU rights of free movement and infringed on people’s privacy. However, the Hague court ruled last week that it could see no such discrimination and that the law aimed to reduce drug tourism and drug-related crime.
The mayor of Amsterdam, Eberhard van der Laan, said his city had no problems with drug crimes and that a compromise was needed. He is also expected to stage a legal challenge before implementation in his city.
Lea Bouwmeester, a member of parliament (MP) with the opposition Labor Party, argues that the tolerant approach to possession has worked well at keeping drugs in check. “It is the supply side that we need to control,” she says. “The growing of cannabis and the wholesale supply take place in the illegal circuit.”
The outcome of the policy change is uncertain and could be influenced, of all things, by the eurozone crisis. Last month Rutte’s minority government collapsed after it lost the support of the populist Freedom Party in a debate over a new package of austerity measures. What course on drugs a new government ( when it comes in after September elections) is still up in the air.
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 covers every kind of possible case; fire, rain, or wind, theft, even raids,” he told KATU On Your Side Investigator Thom Jensen.
We met DeChynne outside one of the new store fronts where patients buy medical marijuana insurance in Kalama, Wash.
The policy at Releaf Medical Marijuana growers cooperative covers the brick and mortar, but it also protects the pot against losses from bugs, theft, fire and yes, even raids by local or state police.
As he pushed a cart loaded with some of Releaf’s potent pain killer and sleep disorder pot called AK-47, manager Nate Hewitt told KATU the insurance protects patients more than anyone.
“It’s priceless for me because of the value it is to the patients,” he said.
Without the insurance, Hewitt said there are just too many variables that can ruin a marijuana crop or leave then vulnerable to raids and thefts. He said the insurance policies will help restore inventories more quickly after a loss so he can start delivering the medicine to patients.
The Director of the Oregon chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML as it is more commonly known, said the insurance idea is also taking off in other states.
Still, Madeline Martinez said it’s too expensive right now for many smaller growers.
“Once the insurance goes down a little bit, I think everybody will have it,” she told KATU.
Some marijuana providers question how much the insurance will actually help.
“Will it protect against the DEA? It depends on how good the attorney really is,” said the owner of a cannabis catering service in Vancouver, Wash.
He goes by names like “Dustin Ethan Andrews” or “Frank Bradley Iverson.” The initials of those names are evidence that he is primarily concerned about the two federal law enforcement agencies.
He told us the FBI and DEA are the greatest threats to his marijuana supply because they can take everything in a single raid.
He may have good reason for his concerns, even if he has an insurance policy.
The man who helped author California’s medical marijuana insurance statutes said the insurance will only protect against state or local raids, not against those conducted by federal agencies like the FBI, DEA or the U.S. Department of Revenue.
Michael Aberle of Statewide Insurance in Sacramento said his company underwrites between 3,500 to 4,000 marijuana policies right now. He said the industry cannot protect clients against federal raids because marijuana is still considered a controlled substance at the federal level.
If insurance companies reimburse growers for their losses after federal raids, Aberle said, agents and insurance companies could be charged with aiding and abetting a crime.
DeChynne said the policies begin at about $1,200 to $2,000 a year with a $5,000 deductible.
Representatives of state agencies that govern the insurance industry in Oregon, Washington and California told KATU they do not know the total number of policies sold to date.
A spokeswoman for the Oregon Insurance Division says she does not know of any policies actually called Medical Marijuana Insurance in Oregon, but she said they may be sold as a product called “surplus line insurance.”
Courtesy of the Chicago Tribune
Clemson freshman wide receiver Sammy Watkins was arrested by Clemson, S.C., police and charged with simple marijuana possession and possession of a controlled substance, the university announced Friday.
Also arrested was men’s soccer player Amadou Tidane Daniel Dia. Both men, 18, were arrested early Friday morning, according to a police report.
Police officials said Watkins’ car was pulled over after officers witnessed the vehicle scrape against a curb on campus. The officer smelled marijuana upon approaching the car and the vehicle was searched. Both athletes have been released on bond.
The controlled substance charge relates to two schedule-2 non-narcotic pills found on Watkins for which he did not have a prescription.
Last season, Watkins led the Tigers with 82 catches for 1,219 yards and 12 touchdowns.
by Rob Kampia, Special to the Washington Post
Rob Kampia is executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project.
During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama raised hopes among those who support medical marijuana by pledging to respect state laws on the issue. But his administration has reversed course and massively escalated the federal government’s attacks on medical marijuana businesses, most of which are legal under their states’ laws.
This is perplexing because medical marijuana is far more popular than Obama is. A Washington Post-ABC News poll from January 2010 found that 81 percent of Americans supported legalizing medical marijuana. A CBS News poll from October found that 77 percent of Americans support allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana for serious medical conditions. By contrast, the president’s approval rating last October hovered around 42 percent — and is currently about 47 percent.
The shift has been clear. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced in March 2009 that the Obama administration would end the Bush administration’s practice of raiding medical marijuana providers that violated federal statutes. A memo from the Justice Department later that year said the department would not prioritize prosecutions of individuals acting in compliance with state medical marijuana laws.
But last year the tide turned. Obama’s Justice Department authorized a series of letters from U.S. attorneys across the country threatening to “vigorously” prosecute individuals acting in compliance with state medical marijuana laws. In some cases the U.S. attorneys suggested that government employees who help regulate their states’ medical marijuana systems could be prosecuted for “facilitating” a crime.
There was more. The IRS cracked down on medical marijuana dispensaries, refusing to allow them to deduct such standard business expenses as rent and payroll. Last September the National Institute on Drug Abuse refused to provide federally grown marijuana to a Food and Drug Administration-approved research protocol seeking to measure the extent to which marijuana helps combat veterans with their post-traumatic stress disorder. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives outlawed gun sales to medical marijuana patients. And federal prosecutors in California announced that they would crack down on dispensaries across the state, saying that they intend to seize the property of landlords who lease space to these businesses that are legal under state law.
Last month Obama clarified his position on medical marijuana, saying on a late-night show that “we’re not going to be legalizing weed . . . anytime soon.” This after he had recently told an interviewer: “I never made a commitment that somehow we were going to give carte blanche to large-scale producers and operators of marijuana — and the reason is, because it’s against federal law. I can’t nullify congressional law.”
Simply put, Obama has become more hostile to medical marijuana patients than any president in U.S. history.
To put Obama’s implosion in perspective, consider what Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) wrote in his 2010 book “Fed Up!”: “When the federal government oversteps its authority, states should tell Washington they will not be complicit in enforcing laws with which they do not agree. Again, the best example is an issue I don’t even agree with — the partial legalization of marijuana. Californians clearly want some level of legalized marijuana, be it for medicinal use or otherwise. The federal government is telling them they cannot. But states are not bound to enforce federal law, and the federal government cannot commandeer state resources and require them to enforce it.”
Perry also wrote, “If you don’t support the death penalty and citizens packing a pistol, don’t come to Texas. If you don’t like medicinal marijuana and gay marriage, don’t move to California.”
The five presidents from Richard Nixon through George H.W. Bush allowed medical marijuana research to proceed unhindered.
The three presidents from Jimmy Carter to George H.W. Bush allowed patients to apply to the federal government for waivers to use medical marijuana legally under federal law.
Obama appears to be to the right of Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, Ronald Reagan and even George W. Bush on this issue. It’s hard to imagine how this helps Obama politically, and it’s easy to imagine how forcing patients to purchase their medicine from an illicit provider instead of a regulated business hurts people who are suffering from cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis.
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, Wallace and business partner Michael Shea think they’ve found a way to fit in the big gray area between making a living from medical marijuana and going to jail.
Marijuana is indelibly associated with food, whether it is chemotherapy patients using the drug to try to develop an appetite, or, farcically, a couple of stoners with an overpowering case of the munchies in “Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle.” Secret “herb dinners” with appetizers, entrees and desserts are reported in newspaper food sections. One restaurant chain, CHeBA HUT, is based on a marijuana theme. And patrons of the World Famous Cannabis Cafe in Portland can get a burger or lasagna packing a pot punch in between choruses of karaoke.
But restaurants where marijuana is the focus have had trouble gaining traction. The customer base is, after all, limited to medical marijuana cardholders. And any enterprise associated with medical marijuana will quickly come under scrutiny.
At the Earth Dragon Edibles Restaurant & Lounge in Ashland, Wallace and Shea are trying to bring Mongolian barbecue dosed with medical marijuana to a higher level, though they are still feeling their way through the fuzzy legalities of it all.
An Oregon medical marijuana card is required to get in the door. Inside, the place looks and operates pretty much like any other little Asian-style restaurant, with the smells of teriyaki and sounds of the grill filling the air. A wall hanging at the back depicts ganja guru Bob Marley. Diners go through a check list of vegetables, sauces, meats and tofu, and whether their bowl will be regular, large, or unlimited. One difference is the boxes to check for medicated or unmedicated. If medicated, there are three strengths. Cheesecake, candies and cookies, medicated or not, are also available.
While they wait, diners can use the hash bar, choosing from an assortment of glass pipes, a vaporizer, or a bong, hashish or bud. Marijuana donations are encouraged.
Operating under the theory that it is no crime for one patient to share medicine with another, all the marijuana — whether in the food or at the hash bar — is free. And unlike the marijuana cafes in Portland, there is no membership fee.
“I know it’s a little weird,” said Shea.
Ashland itself could be considered a little weird. Close to the California border and home to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, it is an outpost of liberalism in conservative southwestern Oregon. Think of it as a little Berkeley in the middle of Orange County. It is also within the Green Triangle, one of the nation’s best marijuana-growing climates. This corner of Oregon has the highest per capita rate of medical marijuana use in the state.
Wallace and Shea render their medical marijuana into hashish, infuse that into oil or glycerin, and eat it, believing that is healthier than smoking. With few patients able to do that, they felt they should share their skills to help others.
“That’s how Mommy raised me,” said Wallace.
by Connor Friedersforf, The Atlantic
Nominated for a Supreme Court seat in 1987, Douglas H. Ginsburg withdrew from consideration when it was revealed that he’d tried marijuana decades earlier as a student. Five years later, America elected Bill Clinton to the presidency despite his admission that he tried marijuana. The taboo against the drug was still powerful enough that he hedged his answer by claiming that he never inhaled. It was the last time we’re likely to hear an excuse so absurd, for everything started changing very quickly after that. Presidential candidates began candidly admitting marijuana use. Sixteen states enacted laws legalizing marijuana for medical use, starting with California in 1996. An additional 12 states are now considering similar legislation. And Obama took office having said that inhaling was the whole point when he was a young marijuana user, and promising that Department of Justice resources wouldn’t be used to thwart state cannabis laws.
Of course, President Obama has governed as an unreformed drug warrior, even breaking his promise about federal behavior toward states where medical marijuana is legal. Early in his presidency, he also treated questions about marijuana policy as if the subject was somehow a joke. It’s a dodge that doesn’t work anymore. Jann Wenner asked him about the issue in Rolling Stone. Reform advocates immediately seized on the misdirection in his answer. Jimmy Kimmel raised the subject again at the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday, polling the room to see how many people had used the drug and stating in a moment of seriousness, “Mr. President, I hope you don’t think I’m out of line here but marijuana is something that real people care about.”
The new reality: 70 percent of Americans favor legal medical marijuana, and half think the drug should just be legal. As Gallup notes, “Support for legalizing marijuana is directly and inversely proportional to age, ranging from 62% approval among those 18 to 29 down to 31% among those 65 and older.” Eventually, the drug warriors are going to lose, and the country is going to win.
All of which brings us to Gary Johnson.
Widely expected to emerge from this weekend’s Libertarian Party convention as its presidential nominee, the former New Mexico governor has announced that he wants Judge Jim Gray to be his running mate.
Who is Jim Gray?
Among other things, a former prosecutor turned outspoken critic of the War on Drugs. See for yourself:
The kicker: “The best thing I can do for my country is to help us repeal drug prohibition. It’s the most patriotic thing that I’m able to do.” It’s an opportune moment for a libertarian ticket to offer a serious, forceful critique of drug policy, for beyond fortuitous changes in public opinion, there’s an incumbent with broken promises and a lackluster record on the issue; and a Republican challenger who is even more of a drug warrior in his avowed positions and such a teetotaller personally that he eschews even caffeine.
Are Johnson and Gray the right team to make this critique? Whatever their shortcomings, they’re ideal in this respect: one is an extreme athlete and health nut; the other is a veteran, former prosecutor, and judge who used to be a drug warrior and switched sides based on what he saw in his own courtroom. Can they succeed in injecting the issue into the general election campaign?
Only time will tell.
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 turning up as far away as Florida. An affidavit filed with the new charges says some of the pot involved was sent north to Washington state.
The six are accused of conspiring to grow and distribute thousands of pounds of marijuana from four gardens in Jackson County.
“We would hope that this sends a message and has a deterrent effect on other would-be drug dealers who would operate under the medical marijuana law,” U.S. Attorney Amanda Marshall said.
Oregon’s law allows users of medical marijuana to designate growers who can supply them with up to 1.5 pounds a year.
A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration affidavit filed in federal court said medical marijuana growers in the Southern Oregon use drip irrigation, fertilizer, support structures and harvest techniques to grow plants ranging from 6 to 10 feet tall and, at the allowed rate of six plants per patient, yielding much more than the state law allows.
The affidavit said agents dried and processed a few plants from last fall’s raids, with yields ranging from 5 to 11 pounds each of marijuana bud.
Growers and medical marijuana advocates say the raids had an impact. State records this spring showed that the number of gardens planted to supply multiple patients will be down markedly, especially among those growing for 15 or more people.
Two of the six suspects made initial appearances Tuesday in federal court in Medford: Michael Grantski, 50, and Clifford Ruhland, 32. Two more were expected to appear Wednesday, and the final two later this week.
Arraignments for Grantski and Ruhland were scheduled for later in May. A federal public defender who represented them Tuesday did not immediately return a call for comment.
Courtesy of Tennessee News Channel 9
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — Police in Winston-Salem have cited rapper Wiz Khalifa and members of his band and staff for possession of marijuana following a concert.
Local police were patrolling the parking lot at the Joel Coliseum Annex where the rapper was performing Tuesday. An officer approached the tour bus and smelled either burnt or burning marijuana. The officer said in a search warrant that the smell got stronger when he opened the bus door,
A search warrant said an officer seized a quantity of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, but police wouldn’t say how much marijuana or paraphernalia was found.
The rapper, whose real name is Cameron Jibril Thomaz, is scheduled to appear in court in Winston-Salem on July 27.
Thomas was cited for misdemeanor marijuana possession in Nashville, Tenn., last month.
Courtesy of HealthPOP CBS
(CBS/AP) Pot use is becoming a big problem for U.S. teens, a new survey suggests. The Partnership at Drugfree.org released a new survey Wednesday that found nearly 1 in 10 teens said they smoke marijuana at least 20 or more times a month.
That amounts to a whopping 80 percent rise in past-month marijuana use among teens since the organization’s 2008 survey. The report by The Partnership at Drugfree.org and MetLife Foundation also said abuse of prescription medicine may be easing a bit among young people in grades 9 through 12, but still remains high.
Based in New York, The Partnership at Drugfree.org is formerly The Partnership for a Drug-Free America – best known for the “this is your brain on drugs” ads of the 1980s and 1990s. The nonprofit group launched a new name in 2010 to position itself as more of a resource to parents and to avoid the misperception that the group is a government organization.
For the report, researchers gave anonymous questionnaires to 3,322 teens in grades 9-12 that they filled out at school from March to June 2011.
Partnership President Steve Pasierb says the mindset among parents is that a little weed or a few pills is no big deal.
“Parents are talking about cocaine and heroin, things that scare them,” said Pasierb. “Parents are not talking about prescription drugs and marijuana. They can’t wink and nod. They need to be stressing the message that this behavior is unhealthy.”
Use of harder drugs – cocaine and methamphetamine – has stabilized in recent years, the group’s survey showed. But past-month usage of marijuana grew from 19 percent in 2008 to 27 percent last year. Also alarming, says Pasierb, is the percentage of teens smoking pot 20 or more times a month. That rate went from 5 percent in 2008 to 9 percent last year, or about 1.5 million teens toking up that frequently.
Alex, 17, in Houston, says he started smoking pot at age 13, mostly on the weekends with friends.
“I just liked being high,” said Alex, who is in a recovery program and asked that his last name not be used. “I always felt happier. Everything was funnier and my life was just brighter.”
Alex then started abusing prescription drugs at 14. He blacked out one day at school, got arrested and ended up in rehab. After being sober for two years, Alex slipped and smoked pot last month. Still, he says he hopes to work toward a more sober life.
The findings on marijuana track closely with those in a recent University of Michigan study sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health. That study also found marijuana use rising among teens the past few years, reversing a long decline in the previous decade.
“These findings are deeply disturbing as the increases we’re seeing in heavy, regular marijuana use among high school students can spell real trouble for these teens later on,” Pasierb said in a written statement, adding kids who start in teen years are more likely to have substance abuse problems later in life.
Teens who smoked 20 times or more a month were almost twice as likely as kids who smoked pot less frequently to use ecstasy, cocaine or crack, according to the report.
Other findings from the report:
- One in 10 teens report using prescription painkillers – Vicodin or OxyContin – in the past year, down from a peak of 15 percent in 2009 and 14 percent in 2010.
- Just over half of Hispanic teens report using an illicit drug, such as Ecstasy or cocaine, in the past year. That compares to 39 percent for Caucasian teens and 42 percent for African American teens.
- Past-year alcohol use and past-month drinking is holding steady from the 2008 report at 56 percent and 38 percent respectively
The Marijuana Policy Project, which advocates legalization, says making pot legal for adults might help cut teen usage.
“We definitely don’t think that minors should be using marijuana any more than they should be drinking or using tobacco, but arresting people for doing that never stops minors,” said Morgan Fox, a spokesman for the group. “If we remove marijuana from the criminal market and have the market run by responsible business people that have an incentive to check IDs and not sell to minors, then we might see those rates drop again.”
I have spent the past couple of days all over Northern California form one weedhead event to the next. What I saw was a community hungry for a cannabis reality and an end to the nightmare of cannabis prohibition. I saw people from all walks of life who love weed. That was invigorating and let me know that as tough as things seem, we are the many and they are the few.
I started 4/20 morning off in Oaksterdam for a protest and march beginning at the Oakland Federal building. It was a colorful and strong turn out of over 100 dedicated activists and concerned cannabis supporters. The group amassed at 1301 Clay Street with signs and a hunger for freedom. Many people who support Oaklsterdam and cannabis reform were in attendance, and fired up for the cause. It was cool to see. The event was organized by CANORML (I think), led by Dale Garinger. The mild mannered and refined Garinger got a permit for sound and began to speak to the crowd from what I can only call a Toys R Us megaphone. I gave them my more industrial strength megaphone, so the crowd could actually hear him…kind of. As many in attendance pointed out to me, I do not really need a megaphone any way. Dale was joined by UFCW’s Dan Rush in speaking to the crowd, and there were many cheers for Richard Lee, who spoke briefly (as usual. Richard is a man of action). Dale Sky Jones, from Oaksterdam also said a few words to the crowd. The message was positive and upbeat declaring the community’s commitment to the cause and willingness to stand up and fight. Most of it was well pointed rhetoric, but there were some shameless plugs mixed in by the usual suspects that I thought watered down the message. When we have a captive audience of 100 frenzied and excited activists I would focus more on mobilizing the troops, rather than making your speech into a commercial for your organization. But I digress. I did not organize the event, so therefore it is none of my business what folks do with their 15 minutes. I did think that we wasted opportunity in front of the Federal building by not taking to task more effectively the war criminals that brought about the raids and this unnecessary crack down on patients and providers. For my taste, it was way to tame given the destruction our community has faced, and the folks speaking might want to reel in some of the “Look at me” bullshit a little next time. You know who you are.
But anyway….After the speeches the group began marching down Clay Street and through Oscar Grant Plaza and the City Hall corridor. There was a long line of us marching with our signage and our spirits. The crowd chanted and screamed and traffic in the plaza was stopped dead as our precession came through raising awareness for the cause.
My message was one that spilled over from the previous day, when we took on the anti-pot crusaders on at the State Capital…”WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?” I see this as where we MUST begin to focus our message. “QUIT TAKING POOR KIDS TO JAIL FOR WEED!” When you can reach people with the message that “America locks up 25% of the world’s prison population, while only having 5% of the actual world population because we take poor kids to jail for weed every day,” people get it. They can understand the basic math and people know that these laws primarily target the poor and less fortunate in our society. I screamed “IT IS NOT THE RICH KIDS GOING TO JAIL FOR WEED! IT IS THE POOR KIDS!” In Oakland, that is a very REAL message. I saw many onlookers ponder the facts and nod in agreement or visibly show their support. Taking kids to jail for weed is no longer acceptable and that was the message I decided to hammer home .
The march went to Obama’s campaign headquarters in Oakland and a crowd stood outside demanding that Obama keep his promise to stop interfering in state cannabis laws. Several prominent activist, including the great Chris Conrad, spoke in defiance of tyranny and urged Obama knock off the shit. It was a great action and one that was memorable and also very fun. I guess I just really love standing on the street corner screaming about weed. Not really, but I do love knowing that we reached hundreds, if not thousands, of people with the message that cannabis prohibition is fucking crazy.
Folks convened at the Oaksterdam student union afterwards for some refreshments and camaraderie. It was good to see diverse members of our community in attendance to fight for what is right. I spoke with a reporter who asked me if I was disappointed with the turn out, given all that is happening. I reminded him that we were knee deep in an actual war, and that our opposition had made it difficult for the masses to come out of the cannabis closet because our society still stigmatizes cannabis users; and that many face loss of employment…or kids…or their freedoms, if they are filmed at a cannabis rally. It is difficult turning non-activists out to political actions, as there is unfortunately still a lot at stake in this day and age. I assured him that for everyone of us there were a million others cheering us on and standing there with us. He agreed.
Later in the day I made the journey to Hippy Hill in SF. I did not make it by 4:20, as I had planned. I was at the toll booth for 4/20; but amazingly enough there were a dozen or so cars in line with us that were all enjoying the moment as the huge clock on the Bay Bridge tool booth read 4:20 pm. It was kind of surreal. There was a puff of smoke rising up from the see of cars, and I am pretty sure it was not exhaust.
But when we got to Hippy Hill it was still packed to the max with weedheads. The entire front half (at least) of Golden Gate Park was populated by those who love cannabis. It was fucking sweet. In the meadow near hippy hill there were stoners as far as the eye could see. Kids were rolling little read wagons full of edibles around, music was bumping, and there was weed smoke EVERYWHERE. The ground was littered with blunt packages and glass bongs were being passed around by the dozen. We climbed the hill to overlook the massive crowd and to take in the vibe. It was EPIC SHIT. There was no disputing the power of a field full of cannabis lovers who do not give a fuck and are willing to be outlaws…even if just for the day. People came from all over to partake in the beautiful day and the ceremony of 4/20. I was impressed. It may not be easy to get people to pick up a sign and get to a protest but the statement made by 20,000 plus standing in a field taking massive rips and defying the shit out of the law with every weed hustle you could think of is POWERFUL in itself. It says “WE are here, and go fuck yourself.” Mad respect to all the kids who came out and made that shit off the hook.
We then caught some hella tasty grub at Memphis Minnies near the Vapor Room on lower Haight St. Delicious. The Vapor Room was packed, so we did not make a cameo there; but instead packed the van and headed out for an evening in Sacramento with SaccCannMove.org’s event at Harlow’s. It was a good event at a great venue with nice music and a lot of people who supported ending cannabis prohibition. Some of the local community came out and we had a swell time blowing fat doobies out back and discussing the current state of affairs and the happenings of the day.
I got home at about 3 am after dropping of the folks and got up early for some little league action. I almost phoned it in the next day for the Deep Green Fest in Richmond, but some good friends were there so I pulled my 3 hours of sleep having ass together and made the trip to “The Rich.” Deep Green was once again a sparsely attended event, that seemed more like a trade show than an event. In fact, I am not even going to go to “deep” into it, as it was pretty much the same as last year and you can read that article here in an article entitled ”Deep Something…” It seemed to be a little less people than last year even, regardless of how much attention it got from Weed Wars. I think it may just be hard to get people to come to Richmond. I guess the true test will be when High Times shows up in June to do the Cannabis Cup at the same venue. If it is packed, then we will know it is not Richmond’s somewhat roughneck reputation to blame for the lack of turnout to Deeper Green, the sequel. I am sure the event promoters have got to be rethinking this for next year, but we will see. I thought after last year they would have gave up on this year. What do I know anyway?
Coffee Bus
I did have a good time because, as noted in the article from last year, me and my friends love to walk around and look at the crazies that make up this industry and get a good chuckle out of everyone’s latest and greatest ordeals; and since the event was not packed there was plenty of elbow room and places to sit. They did add a love bus to the smoking yard this time which was interesting and colorful for sure.
We finished our extended cameo and bounced back to the hotel for a cool dab session with Deejay Wiid. My cannabis adventures had come to an end, and I drove back to the house right before midnight so I did not turn into a pumpkin.
What I learned over my 48 hour blitz tour of several unique and interesting cannabis events was that WEED IS AWESOME! People really enjoy it. It helps a lot of people have a better life. It is super safe. Chicks dig weed. Weed knows no age, race, or class of person. Weed is ubiquitous. People will go to great lengths because they love weed. Weed makes a difference. And there is no shortage of weed in Northern Cali for sure.
To all that I met or chilled with in my travels, thanks for the memories….I will see you next year, no doubt.
INGREDIENTS
¼ cup Hemp Seeds Soaked overnight and drained
¼ Cup Brazil Nuts Soaked overnight and drained
6 dates soaked overnight and drained
2 Tablespoons Coco Powder (Organic is best)
1 Banana
1 Avocado pitted
.5 gram of RSO style oil
¼ cup Medicated glycerin
2 cups water (Alkaline water is best here.) Or more to your liking.
DIRECTIONS
Makes 1 super strong smoothie or 2 couch locked ones.
In a clean blender place all ingredients in and blend until smooth. I like this recipe to not be strained
so you can get small Hemp seed crunches with each sip. If you wish to have a smoother version, place
all the seeds and nuts in with just the water and blend. Strain through a nut bag and follow the original
steps. Enjoy!! Eat well, Detox Regularly and Ingest Cannabis.
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 marijuana cafes into “members only” clubs open solely to Dutch residents.
Members would only be able to get into the coffee shops by registering for a “weed pass” and the shops would only be allowed a maximum of 2,000 members.
The move comes into force in the south of the country May 1 and is scheduled to roll out nationwide on Jan. 1, 2013.
Whether it will be enforced in Amsterdam, whose coffee shops are a major tourist draw card.
The city has strongly opposed the pass idea and mayor Eberhard van der Laan says he wants to negotiate a workable compromise with the country’s Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten.
Lawyers for the cafe owners told a judge at The Hague District Court that the move — aimed at reining in problems caused by foreign “drug tourists” who buy marijuana in the Netherlands and resell it in neighboring countries — is “clearly discriminatory.”
Lawyer Ilonka Kamans argued that Dutch drugs policy gives citizens “the fundamental right to the stimulant of their choosing” and should not deprive visiting foreigners of the same right.
Another of the coffee shop lawyers, Maurice Veldman, told The Associated Press outside the court that the problem of drug tourism is confined to southern provinces close to the Dutch border with Germany and Belgium and should be tackled with local measures, not nationwide legislation.
But government lawyer Eric Daalder defended the measures.
“Fighting criminality and drug tourism is a reasonable justification” for the crackdown, Daalder told the court.
He said the government wants to bring coffee shops back to what they were originally intended to be: “small local stores selling to local people.”
Marc Josemans of the Easy Going coffee shop in Maastricht said he expects the government will lose because it hasn’t thought through consequences or tried other ways of achieving its aims.
“We understand that this topic is something that’s of interest to tourists, but it’s equally important to our Dutch customers, which is most of them,” he told the AP ahead of Wednesday’s hearing.
“The limits on membership are going to lead to immediate problems in cities that don’t have enough coffee shops.”
Josemans said that if the court’s April 27 ruling goes against them, the Maastricht coffee shops plan to disregard the ruling, forcing the government to prosecute one of them in a test case.
Though the weed pass policy was designed to resolve traffic problems facing southern cities, later studies have predicted that the result of the system would be a return to street dealing and an increase in petty crime — which was the reason for the tolerance policy came into being in the 1970s in the first place.
The cities of Tilburg, Breda and Maastricht have now said they oppose the pass system, though Eindhoven plans to move ahead with it and the eastern city of Dordrecht wants to adopt it in anticipation of an influx of foreign buyers — even though it is not yet required to do so.
Marijuana cafes are a major tourist draw for Amsterdam, with some estimates saying a third of visitors try the drug, perhaps in between visiting the Van Gogh Museum and other major attractions.
Mayor Van der Laan says the Dutch capital doesn’t suffer major problems from pot smokers, and it doesn’t make sense to apply the same policy developed for the border cities here.
According to U.N. data, the use of marijuana by Dutch nationals is in the mid-range of norms for developed countries — higher than in Sweden or Japan but lower than in Britain, France or the United States.
In the face of growing evidence linking marijuana smoking with mental illness, the Dutch government has been placing new restrictions on coffee shops for a decade. It has set limits on the amount of active chemicals that can be contained in weed and hash; refused to renew licenses for shops that cause problems or are located too close to schools; and banned tobacco smoking at coffee shops in 2008.
____
Corder reported from The Hague.
Courtesy of the Associated Press
AUSTIN, Texas – Country music legend Willie Nelson helped unveil a statue honoring him in downtown Austin by singing his new song “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die” on Friday, a date long reserved to celebrate marijuana use.
The faint smell of marijuana smoke wafted through a crowd of about 2,000 people as Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell accepted on the privately funded statue as a gift from a private arts group. Organizers said they didn’t intentionally choose April 20 for the event, but once they found out, they scheduled the unveiling at 4:20 p.m. as a tongue-in-cheek reference to Nelson’s openness about his marijuana use and advocacy for its legalization.
The statute stands in front of the Moody Theater, where the Austin City Limits Studio is now located. Nelson, a 10-time Grammy Award winner who has sold more than 40 million copies of his 150 albums, appeared on the first episode of the public television show in 1974.
“He is the man who more than other made Austin the live music capital of the world,” Leffingwell said.
Nelson was born in Abbott, a tiny town about 120 miles north of Austin, but he has lived in Texas’ capital city since 1971.
Longtime friend and fellow singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson congratulated Nelson, saying he couldn’t have imagined the city honoring Nelson during the early days of what became known as the Cosmic Cowboy movement in music.
Nelson, who wore black jeans, a black T-shirt and a black cowboy hat, is notoriously shy about such honors. Before he began performing, with his sister Bobbie Nelson on piano, he thanked the organizers and joked with the crowd that had gathered to watch the ceremony.
“What time is it?” he joked as the clock approach 4:20 p.m. “I feel it’s getting close to something.”
Nelson’s career was built on not conforming to country music norms. He fused country music with jazz and rock in the early 1970s to create the “outlaw country” movement in Austin and helped give the city a reputation as a music city. His first major hit came when Patsy Cline recorded his song “Crazy” in 1961.
The monument shows Nelson in a relaxed, standing pose and holding his guitar to the side as if in conversation. Philadelphia sculptor Clete Shields said the leaning pose and heroic scale are intended to show Nelson’s openness and whimsical side while honoring his tremendous influence on music and the city.
“We wanted to get a timeless Willie, an ageless Willie,” Shields said.
Nelson was also a founder of the Farm Aid movement to help family farmers and has appeared in 37 films and television shows, ranging from a starring role in the 1982 western “Barbarosa” to making a cameo in the 1998 Dave Chappelle stoner comedy “Half Baked.”
The unveiling was fitting on April 20 – or 4/20, which is slang for smoking marijuana – a day pro-marijuana legalization forces have used for annual gatherings to demonstrate in support of the cause. Nelson is a well-known advocate of legalizing marijuana and has been arrested several times for possessing it.
The Willie Monument is the third statue put up by Capital Area Statues Inc., a group of prominent Texas writers, film producers and musicians. One of the others honors three Texas writers and is located at Barton Springs and the other honors the woman who fired a cannon to prevent the removal of the state archives from Austin. Capital Area Statues was formed to add more statues in Austin’s public places and raises money for them by selling scale models of the work.
Lawrence Wright, one of the group’s founders, said April 20 was chosen because Nelson was scheduled to perform at a tribute to Johnny Cash in Austin that night, not because of the counterculture significance.
“We didn’t know anything about it; it seems everyone else knew the story on this,” Wright said, laughing. He said he didn’t think Nelson was doing it intentionally either, but said the group decided to embrace the city’s unofficial motto of “Keep Austin Weird” by scheduling the unveiling at 4:20 p.m.
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. The Daily Beast reports several California winemakers are creating blends of marijuana-infused wines on the sly.
According to The Daily Beast, pot wine is made by placing a pound of marijuana in a cask of wine, leading to about 1.5 grams of marijuana per bottle. The fermentation process converts sugar from grapes into alcohol, and the alcohol extracts the THC from marijuana over a nine-month process.
TIME reports the process dates back to the 1980s when the drug was blended with rose. Now vintners are more likely to infuse marijuana cabernet and syrah.
The effects each of these ingredients has on health independent of one another is a mixed bag. Research has tied moderate red wine consumption to protective heart benefits, including a reduced risk for stroke and heart disease, according to the Mayo Clinic. Of course drinking too much can lead to liver problems, heart disease and even cancer. Marijuana is medicinally used for pain relief and increasing appetite for people suffering from chronic diseases such as cancer and AIDS. Long-term marijuana use has been tied to respiratory problems, memory loss and raised risk for mental illness.
Then what would marijuana wine do to a person’s health?
“This is a dangerous combination, with accentuates the effects of both substances,” Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, told HealthPop in an email.
Side effects of consuming the substances together may include nausea, vomiting, dizziness, agitation, and paranoid ideation, Glatter said.
According to Glatter, marijuana, a hallucinogen, and alcohol – a stimulant initially that is a potent depressant – may be dangerous together because the additive marijuana will likely allow people to consume more alcohol than they normally would, potentially leading to breathing difficulties and low blood pressure.
Marijuana is a schedule 1 controlled substance that has high potential for abuse and “no accepted medical value in treatment in the United States,” according to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s 2011 position paper on the drug.
Despite the drug’s illegality on a federal level, 16 states and Washington D.C. currently have medical marijuana laws on the books. California is the only state to allow doctors to recommend medical marijuana for any condition. With a prescription, patients are allowed to possess at least eight ounces of usable marijuana and able to cultivate 6 mature plants or 12 immature plants at a given time. Twelve other states have pending legislation to legalize medical marijuana, Procon.orgreported.
Regardless of state laws, the federal government warned many California dispensaries last October that they could face potential raids, HealthPop reported. Recently Oaksterdam University in Oakland, Calif., was raided by U.S. Marshals after obtaining a federal search warrant, CBS News reported.
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 Joe DeRobbio, Dispense Labs’ founder and CEO.
After swiping the card, the patient is granted access to a caged, camera- monitored room. From there, a patient swipes his or her card again and is given a menu to choose medicinal variety and quantity, DeRobbio said. Payment can be made with cash, credit or debit card. Once payment is received, the door to the machine opens, much like an ATM machine, to allow patients to remove their medicinal marijuana.
During after hours, Autospense is open only to patients who have agreed to the fingerprint option – they run their prints through a scanner and swipe a registration card, DeRobbio said.
Autospense offers a secure, “businesslike” way to distribute and obtain medical marijuana, said DeRobbio. With cameras, locks and sensors, the machines are difficult to break into.
“The facilities are secure,” DeRobbio said. “There are cameras outside and inside. There are alarm sensors around and in the machine. If there’s any type of forced entry, it sets off an alarm.”
And there are consequences for tampering with the system.
“If you’re going to go in and try to rob that machine and do something silly, your membership and access to the machine is revoked permanently,” said DeRobbio.
The machine records all transactions and inventory 24 hours a day and seven days a week while securely managing a patient’s information.
The idea for the machine came when DeRobbio noticed a lack of control regarding medical marijuana. Autospense, which is currently allowed only in dispensaries in California and Colorado, is designed to mitigate problems surrounding medical marijuana distribution, including theft and the black market, DeRobbio said.
“It’s a difficult culture,” DeRobbio said. “This provides a solution. It’s manageable, it’s controllable, and it’s transparent. Taxation comes right from the machine and every dollar is accounted for.”
Although Dispense Labs supplies the machines, it is not involved in growing the product, DeRobbio said.
“We are not associated with the industry,” he said. “We do not provide the medicine that goes in the machine.”
Medicinal marijuana has been legal in California since Proposition 215 was passed in 1996.
DeRobbio believes the Autospense system is the perfect place for medical marijuana in society.
“Medical marijuana, we believe, is here to stay,” DeRobbio said. “Here’s a way that you can control that 800-pound gorilla.”
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 contacted the owners and asked to inspect the White Pine Mine sometime in the next couple of days.
“No, right now,” SubTerra official Mark Pierpont said he told them, not wanting lingering suspicions that he had spent a day hiding a stash of marijuana.
Trooper Timothy Rajala later reported how he “entered the mine in a vehicle which we drove approximately 1 mile underground” before reaching a sealed and brightly lit chamber he could only enter after washing down his feet and putting on clean clothes.
Inside, Rajala “noted several plants that were not narcotic,” he wrote. “There was no evidence of marijuana nor any signs of suspicious activity.”
Still, Rajala’s tip had a grain of truth.
The mine’s owners want to use its underground chambers to create the state’s largest pot farm with a potential market of 131,000 Michiganders (about 1 in every 75 residents) who hold medical marijuana certificates. The company, Prairie Plant Systems (PPS), already has a contract to supply medical marijuana in Canada.
Michigan voters legalized medical marijuana in 2008, but few people think the regulatory system is working. “Chaos” is a word frequently used by editorial writers and other critics.
Officials with PPS and its Michigan subsidiary, SubTerra, which now uses the White Pine Mine for other plant-based pharmaceutical research, granted exclusive access to the mine and the company’s plans to a Free Press reporter and photographer. They say their methods would stress security, safety and science, treating pot as a pharmaceutical, rather than a street drug.
“There’s a need to bring this under the proper reins of appropriate manufacturing for patient safety and for public safety,” said Brent Zettl, president and CEO of PPS, a plant-based biopharmaceutical company based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
But Zettl acknowledges he has major state and federal hurdles to clear before he can convert the mine, which closed in 1996.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Food and Drug Administration, the Legislature and Gov. Rick Snyder would all have to sign off, and in the case of the first two agencies, reverse direction on policy. Federal agencies consider marijuana illegal. DEA agents have not cracked down on small operations to supply licensed patients but almost certainly would view SubTerra as a major bust opportunity.
The FDA supports research to capture marijuana’s benefits in tablet form, but opposes “the use of smoked marijuana for medical purposes,” spokeswoman Shelly Burgess said.
Growing marijuana hundreds of feet underground — the same way the company started its Canadian operations in 2001 — provides security, constant temperature, controlled light and humidity, and protects the plants from bugs and diseases, eliminating the need for harmful pesticides and herbicides, Zettl said. He said any medical marijuana sold in Michigan should be subject to the same regular and rigorous testing as is found in Canada.
To help get around a federal ban on the sale of controlled substances, state law relies on the legal fiction that licensed caregivers provide patients with marijuana for free and get paid for helping patients register.
Canada, with a population of 34 million, has 17,000 patients approved for medical marijuana. Michigan, with less than a third as many people, has nearly eight times more cannabis patients, and a few physicians have been accused of indiscriminately approving patients to use the drug.
An explosion in medical marijuana dispensaries caused control headaches for cities. The shutdown of most dispensaries as a result of a Michigan Court of Appeals ruling in August broke the supply chain.
But Zettl says there is a more fundamental problem in Michigan.
With no testing or standards, nobody knows what Michigan patients are smoking. In Canada, Zettl’s cannabis is tested not just for active ingredients such as THC, but for mold, fungus, pathogens — including bacteria — and metals, such as lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic.
“We’ve breached the first cardinal rule of pharmaceutical manufacturing,” Zettl said. “It doesn’t have any safety bells or whistles.”
PPS began in 1988 developing disease-free berry trees and other products aimed at farmers. It later moved into medical cannabis and plant-based pharmaceutical research. The company had to leave the leased facility where it grew its medical cannabis in Manitoba in 2008 because the owner wanted to resume mining. It now grows the plants above ground at a location kept secret at the request of the Canadian government.
Zettl, who has a farming background and a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from the University of Saskatchewan, said the company had 2011 sales of $7.6 million, about 75% of which came from medical cannabis contracts with the Canadian government. Its SubTerra subsidiary acquired the White Pine Mine in 2003.
A bill is expected to be introduced in the Legislature before summer to establish testing standards similar to Canada’s that would go into effect if and when medical marijuana is approved for sale in Michigan. SubTerra hired former House Speaker Chuck Perricone, a Republican, as its lobbyist.
“Neither the physician nor the patient have a clue what it is that is being ingested,” and high mold content and pesticide residue is common, Perricone said. “Michigan needs to protect its citizens. Proper testing will do that.”
Tim Beck of Detroit, a leader of the movement to legalize medical marijuana in Michigan, said PPS may offer “the gold standard in an ideal world,” but “until federal law changes, it’s just not viable.”
Also, “to some degree, this testing issue is overblown,” Beck said. “There is a free market, and people tend to know who the good” suppliers are.
Even if the bill is approved, SubTerra would be far from the starting gate.
Experts may differ on the therapeutic use of morphine, but they at least agree it’s a medicine. Not so with marijuana.
“We don’t give people a plant and call it medicine,” said Joel Hay, a professor in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Southern California. “You’ve got a product with thousands and thousands of compounds, some of which are unknown what their effects are,” he said.
“It’s lunacy to call this medicine. It’s like going back 100 years.”
But Dr. Lester Grinspoon, associate professor emeritus of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said in a 2006 article that marijuana “will one day be seen as a wonder drug,” as penicillin was in the 1940s. It’s “remarkably nontoxic (and) has a wide range of therapeutic applications,” he said in a column in the Los Angeles Times.
Before the FDA approves new drugs, it requires clinical trials with blind tests in which some patients receive a placebo. Because it’s smoked, finding a marijuana placebo is tougher than using a salt tablet to replace a pill.
Some complain of a Catch-22. The FDA won’t approve the drug’s use without more research, but researchers face legal obstacles and a lack of support because the drug is banned.
Dr. Mark Ware, associate medical director of the McGill University Health Centre Pain Clinic in Montreal, one of a small number of experts who has published extensive cannabis research, said many doctors don’t take medical pot seriously and physicians like him must “deal with the perception that you’re really just looking to get people stoned and high.”
But “there has to be a mechanism for patients with genuine medical needs to have access to cannabis until such time as something better comes along,” Ware said, adding that other treatments should be explored first.
Those include certain marijuana compounds that have been approved in tablet form, but have significantly different properties from smoked cannabis.
The approach used by PPS gives patients comfort because the cannabis has been standardized and “tested and been shown to be free of impurities that may be hazardous to health,” whereas Michigan patients have “no way of knowing what they’re getting,” Ware said.
But cannabis is generally safe. The extra safety standards are positive, but not essential to producing safe cannabis, he said.
PPS is the only authorized mass supplier of medical marijuana in Canada, but serves only about 2,000 of the 17,000 approved patients. Others can grow their own or get their cannabis from small growers.
Particularly in the early years, the company was dogged by complaints from patients who said they didn’t like the taste or the quality.
Zettl said a court ruling forced the Canadian government to rush medical cannabis onto the market sooner than it wanted. The company’s product had a THC content of about 14%, but the government ordered it to dilute it with leaf material to bring the THC content down to what the Canadian government believed was the norm for street marijuana: 10%.
It was that required blending, which has since been relaxed so that PPS can provide marijuana with 12.5% THC content, combined with the fact that the Canadian government would allow the company to supply only one variety of cannabis, despite a wide range of needs, that led to complaints, Zettl said.
“In 12 years, we’ve made several evolutionary changes.”
Ted Smith, founder of the Cannabis Buyers’ Club of Canada in Victoria, British Columbia, said quality concerns persist: “It doesn’t smell very good; it doesn’t look very good.”
But Adrienne Baker-Hicks, 53, of Warkworth, Ontario, said the PPS product has been “wonderful” for her because the company irradiates it to ensure it is germ-free.
“I have autoimmune deficiencies, quite a few,” said Baker-Hicks, who uses medical cannabis to help with a spinal condition, a blood disorder and tremors. “If I smoke something that isn’t clean, it can make me really sick.”
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 about pot in this state — even to acknowledge the glaring problems with existing marijuana laws.
Rosenblum and Holton are both Democrats, former federal prosecutors and on record as supporting the intent of Oregon’s voter-approved medical marijuana law. Both say they have reason to believe marijuana can have medical value for people in pain. And both think Oregon’s law could be better.
Yet Holton worked recently as acting U.S. attorney for Oregon, presiding during a period of toughening federal enforcement, including raids on so-called “monster grows” in southern Oregon and crackdowns on illegal dispensaries in the Portland area. In 2010, he sent a stern letter to Reed College about the dangers of illegal drug use, including recreational marijuana consumption, after two students died of heroin overdoses.
Because of his recent role, Holton was already viewed with suspicion among marijuana activists when he referred, during a recent debate in Eugene, to Oregon’s medical marijuana laws as a “train wreck.” Now there are several homely Web pages devoted to his defeat, including the “Not Dwight Holton for Attorney General” Facebook page with 178 “likes” and counting.
Meanwhile, Rosenblum is seen posing with a prominent marijuana activist in a photo posted on The Weed Blog — the same blog that breathlessly describes Holton as “one of the most raging anti-medical marijuana crusaders on the planet.” The former court of appeals judge further promises on her campaign site to “make marijuana enforcement a low priority.” Her full pledgeon marijuana is longer than her pledge on every other issue, including fraud and child endangerment.
Holton, by contrast, says, “I don’t think it makes sense to pander to the marijuana legalization crowd.”
So yes, the two candidates show real differences of both style and substance on marijuana. Still, I’m not convinced their approaches as attorney general would wildly diverge. Holton says he would “happily enforce and uphold the state law,” which he says voters approved for compassionate reasons. Rosenblum admits the law’s rollout has been a bumpy ride. In separate interviews late last week, both said the law could use tweaking to clear up the gray areas and improve patient access to marijuana without inviting new problems.
In true Oregon fashion, both appear more willing to join a conversation than lead a crusade. Though they dutifully trade jabs, they mostly seem eager to avoid a no-win bickerfest about pot.
I don’t blame either candidate for wanting to change the subject. Drug policy is extremely complex and ripe for misunderstandings. Marijuana laws aren’t easily discussed during election season, when most every conversation is a variation on, “Hey! Are you for it or against it?”
I can also understand why the next attorney general might prefer to take a supporting role on medical marijuana, given the divided public opinion on dispensaries and full legalization.Proposing changes to the state’s medical marijuana law is a thankless job, as many lawmakers have learned.
Still, I’d love to see the next attorney general lead the public debate on marijuana’s next phase instead of follow it. It’s tricky: Oregon’s medical marijuana law will remain a mess until Congress re-classifies marijuana as a drug that can be prescribed, like morphine, instead of a dangerous street drug like heroin. But at the least, the next AG could be more vocal about the current law’s triple role as an aid for sick people AND a form of backdoor legalization for recreational pot smokers AND a contributor to the global drug trade.
If voters want those things, fine. Oregon will deal with it. But we could all stand to drop the euphemisms and aim for a more honest approach.
The alternative is for Oregon to keep staggering along like a mini-California: reacting to the latest initiative, inviting public backlashes and breeding more cynicism about the rule of law.
Now that would be a real train wreck.
– Associate editor Susan Nielsen, The Oregonian
by Jim Spellman, CNN
Boulder, Colorado (CNN) – Steps taken to thwart a public marijuana smoking event Friday at the University of Colorado appear to have worked. Protesters who gathered at a quad on the campus for the customary 4:20 light-up time dispersed without an apparent toke.
In past years the Norlin Quad on the campus of the University of Colorado at Boulder had drawn 10,000 to 12,000 people for the event, which falls on April 20 (4/20). Marijuana smokers traditionally wait until 4:20 in the afternoon to light up as a celebration of marijuana culture and a protest against drug policy.
This year, the school closed the campus to outsiders and spread an unpleasant-smelling, fish-based fertilizer on the quad before enclosing it in yellow police tape and stationing police officers around the perimeter.
Hours before the planned event, three students who crossed police lines and went onto the field were led away in plastic handcuffs.
Several hundred students gathered around the quad as the time approached. A man began shouting into the crowd, becoming its de facto leader. When asked his name he replied, “It doesn’t matter.”
“Alright, it’s 4:20 who is ready to get weird?” he shouted.
The crowd cheered.
“Who is with me?” he called out.
Another cheer.
The crowd seemed to expect him light up a joint, but instead he dashed under the police tape and ran across the quad as police gave chase on foot.
None of his encouragers followed.
Police ultimately nabbed him and carted him off in plastic handcuffs.
Their leader gone, no one in the crowd seemed to know quite what to do. No one could be seen smoking marijuana and by the less legendary time of 4:30 the crowd had gone on their way.
The number 420 has become synonymous with all things marijuana, but exactly why is less clear.
Whatever the number’s origin, “420″ events across the country have become opportunities to advocate the legalization of marijuana. The expansion of medical marijuana in California, Colorado and other states is making efforts to legalize marijuana more mainstream and making more people comfortable coming out and smoking pot in public, according to Chris Conrad, curator of the Oaksterdam Cannabis Museum in Oakland, California.
Boulder’s is one of the biggest pro-pot rallies, and attendance had grown from year to year, according to university spokesman Bronson Hilliard.
“People fly in from around the country to participate,” Hilliard explained. “We don’t understand why they have to come to (this) campus.”
Prior to the Colorado event, university police spokesman Ryan Huff said the smoke-ins have become too dangerous.
“It’s hard to keep track of that many people high on marijuana,” he said.
Why these marijuana advocates congregate each year on April 20 is a bit of a mystery steeped in the hazy lore of the American pot culture. Some have said 420 is a local police code for someone smoking marijuana. Others have said it refers to the number of active chemicals in marijuana.
Another theory holds that 420 is a nod to Bob Dylan and his 1966 song “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35″ which contains the lyric, “Everybody must get stoned.” Multiply 12 by 35 and you get 420.
Conrad said the leading theory traces the beginning of 420 to the early 1970s when a group of students at San Rafael High School in California would meet at 4:20 each afternoon to smoke marijuana.
“It (was) the time between when classes were over and their parents came home,” he said. “The number 420 signifies that somebody is smoking marijuana right now and it becomes a clarion call for others to join.”
According to Conrad, the story goes that the San Rafael teens named themselves “the Waldos” and would meet very day at 4:20 p.m. near a statue of Louis Pasteur to smoke joints.
A website that claims to be associated with the Waldos declares them to be “The Founding Fathers of 420,” although it doesn’t appear to be current. Attempts to reach the owners of the site were unsuccessful.
No matter what the origin, the number now signifies the pro-marijuana culture: Craiglist ads for roommates, or for even so-called “casual encounters,” often note “420 Friendly.” An episode of the animated TV show Family Guy called “420″ involves a plot in which marijuana becomes legalized and 420 Magazine is devoted to marijuana culture. The 2003 California State Senate bill that became the law that established medical marijuana in the state was called SB420.
What began as a secret code word between stoners has gone mainstream.
“It’s a form of shorthand essentially. As far as being a secret code, it’s one of the least secret,” explained Conrad with a laugh.
I will admit that I am not the biggest 4-20 head on the planet. It is normally a day that comes and goes like any other for me. I have never really bought into the hype of it all. But I do enjoy seeing the community get “fired up” for cannabis and I love that we have declared this day as our own. Because I am knee deep in cannabis policy and reform 365 days a year I am often simply too exhausted or have had enough of my fellow weedheads. I generally lay pretty low on 4-20 for the most part. It is almost as if I am so inundated with cannabis that most 4-20 events generally leave a lot to be desired…and with a cannabis event of some sort almost happening every week these days it seems that another cannabis party for me is often a mundane experience. That being said, when I force myself to be social and get to an event I generally have a pretty good time. Today I am gonna have a good time, if it kills me….
So what will a lowly foot soldier in the war for cannabis freedom do on the big day? Well I am glad you asked. I am in the Bay, so I will likely stay local for the daytime and attend the big protest at the Oakland Federal Building at 11:30 am. Why? Because protesting at the Oakland Federal building is like my most favoritest thing to do. Oakland Fed building is where I had to go to court for my case and I organized several actions at the building myself during that episode. My favorite was the Christmas protest where I dressed up like Santa, made a huge Grinch card for the DEA signed by dozens of activists, made them presents of books, studies, and yes…treats (because I figured they would test them), and stood on the street corner with my fellow soldiers and fought for my freedom. So a protest at the Oakland Fed building brings back a lot of emotion for me. Not to mention, the assholes who kicked in my door work on the 6th floor, so any chance I get to stand outside and scream at those cats is a good day for me. It is therapy.
Painted the sign myself….
After the protest I will likely reconvene with my fellow activist at the OU student union and try to make sense of it all for a minute over a J or two before having to go visit a good friend and enjoying some conversation and cannabis, and reflecting on life.
What I have not figured out is where I will be at 4:20. I may run to SF for an ASA event, or I may wander over to hippy hill to see what the kids are up to. It will likely be a beautiful day, so that may be a nice scene. I could just chill East Bay style and go burn one overlooking the Bay from my favorite spot in the Mountain View cemetery. I could end up spacing on the whole 4:20 moment and could be pumping gas at a Chevron at that moment. Who knows? Like I said, I am not huge on the ritual aspect of it.
In the evening, I plan on making the trek up to Sacramento for a rip-raging event at Harlow’s with Arden Roots and the great Selekta Lou playing. CSPARC will have a booth set up and I am sure there will be plenty of cannabis being smoked out back. Some great local collective groups have tables up there, so I am gonna join some friends for a cool evening of vibes and good times. After that I will drive my tired ass back to the house….sounds action packed right? It is a lot for me. I am not the young player I once was, but I will give it my best today for sure…for the cause.
So here are some events I have seen advertised happening in Cali and beyond. Hope to see you all out and about there today getting active and getting stoned.
OAKSTERDAM EVENTS
THE RALLY WILL START AT 11:30 AM, NOT 11 (WE CAN’T GET A PERMIT FOR AMPLIFIED SOUND EXCEPT BETWEEN NOON AND ONE.)
CALIFORNIA’S BAY AREA PACKS IN 4/20 EVENTS
Galvanized rather than defeated by the recent federal actions in Oakland, California and throughout the state, activists are staging a protest and a film festival in the town known as Oaksterdam this Friday, April 20.
Supporters will gather at 11:30 AM (NEW TIME) at the Federal Building in Oakland (1301 Clay St.) to protest the federal attack on Oaksterdam and medical cannabis. At 12 PM we will go on the march to make our views known to the President’s campaign. Participants are invited to drop by the Oaksterdam Student Union, 1915 Broadway for refreshments after 1 PM.
At 3 PM, a 4/20 Film Festival will begin, with a showing of “A NORML LIfe,” a terrific film that should be widely seen by reformers and others. It’s an upbeat, well edited, educational and entertaining movie that features interviews conducted at NORML conferences and elsewhere. Ray Manzarek of The Doors as well as activists, doctors and others make a strong case for reason and for taking action.
At 4:30, “California 90420″ will hit the screen, as it will at theaters across the nation. Directed by one of the guys who produced the hit comedy “WAITING…” starring Ryan Reynolds and Justin Long, ”California 90420″ is a character-driven, informational comedy about real people, and a glimpse into the world of weed through the eyes of Cannabis College Students and Oaksterdam University’s Chancellor and Prop 19 Spokeswoman, Dale Sky Jones. “Digging deep into California’s pot culture, ‘California 90420′ is a thoughtful document of a moment in time and a growing American sub-culture,” writes The Puffington Host.
At 6 PM, “The Green Goddess” will be shown as a sneak preview. The ”almost true” story tells of four Northern California marijuana growers, who flee to Switzerland and grow six football fields of pot on an old Swiss farm. Their adventures take them across Europe: to a music festival in Germany, a medical marijuana clinic in London, and the coffeeshops of Amsterdam. And all the while, the Green Goddess - the divine feminine spirit that lives within the THC crystal - watches over them, choosing one lucky individual to meet her. This special screening of “The Green Goddess” will feature a Q&A with filmmaker Chris Iverson and other members of the cast and crew.
Tickets are $10 for the Film Festival, which benefits Oaksterdam University and California NORML.
The event will kick off the second annual Deep Green Festival on the following day in Richmond, held by the organizers of Earthdance and full of good music and speakers.
LINKS:
Tickets to The Film Festival
<https://www.wepay.com/events/oaksterdam-420-film-festival>https://www.wepay.com/events/oaksterdam-420-film-festival
SF HAPPENINGS
Hippy Hill will be popping at 4:20, I am sure….Golden Gate Park is a lovely time and it looks like it will be a lovely day….
The SF Guardian is also hosting a Stoned Soul Picnic (a benefit for Americans for Safe Access)
Please join the Guardian for a Stoned Soul Picnic [1], our contribution to Cannabis activism where all proceeds from the evening – including bar proceeds from 4-6pm, donations, and raffle ticket sales – will go directly to Americans for Safe Access. ASA is the largest national member-based organization of patients, medical professionals, scientists, and concerned citizens promoting safe and legal access to cannabis for therapeutic use and research.
The Guardian’s Stoned Soul Picnic will feature:
- DJ Carnita (Hard French) spinning stoned soul grooves as well as a special 420-themed reggae set from DJ Mr. Lucky (I&I Vibrations)
- Stand-up comedy from Travis McFarland (LA), George Chen (SF), and Jesse Fernandez (Berkeley)
- Safe Cannabis resources and outreach from dispensaries and activist organizations, including American for Safe Access, Sweetleaf Collective, Oakland 420 Evaluations, and more
- Raffle tickets with awesome prizes, including Roughneck skate brand goodie bags, museum tickets, restaurant gift certificates, stoner paraphernalia, medical marijuana evaluations, and more
- A free LiveFoto photo booth with marijuana-themed props
- Three kinds of stoner-friendly grilled cheese sandwiches made by Apothocurious for purchase
Friday, April 20 from 3:30-7pm @ El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF | FREE (donations encouraged), 21+ w/ID | Find our event on Facebook here [2].
Happening In Sacramento
Tickets have been reduced to only $10…..$12 at the door
Also…Sacramento late night film festival…
“420 Triple Feature” Presented by Apprehensive Films
Friday, April 20, 2012
For all you Sacramento/Northern California residents there is no better way to celebrate 420 than at the Crest Theatre on 4/20/12 with Apprehensive Films at the screening of the 420 Triple Feature!
Apprehensive Films will be hosting the 420 Triple Feature screening at the Crest Theatre on April 20th at 11pm, 2012. The Crest Theatre is located at 1013 K Street in Downtown Sacramento. Tickets are $10.50 each. The event will be hosted by Stand-Up Comedian Keith Lowell Jensen. This screening is proudly presented by Common Roots Medical Marijuana Collective and Trade School.
The 420 Triple Feature: 420 is an internationally recognized holiday and daily excuse for Stoners, Pot Heads and even the recreational marijuana user to light up, toke up and blaze a blunt on their way to the euphoric High-Way of mental freedom. Or is it an evil path to mental anguish, despair, desperation, crime and even death? The 420 Triple Feature takes on a trip down memory lane with some of the best, most idiotic, hilarious and downright absurd “educational” films on the subject of marijuana use. The three films to be shown are Drug Addiction (1951), Keep Off the Grass (1969) and Marijuana (1968) hosted by Sonny Bono!
420 Triple Feature Trailer: http://youtu.be/JzFY22qkZn8
Doors open at 10:15PM for 11PM show.
Tickets $10.50 on sale now tickets.com, Crest, 1-800-225-2277.
Playing in Theatre 2
www.tickets.com/venue_info.cgi?vid=26
COLORADO HAPPENINGS
Boulder, CO always has the biggest 4-20 event on the planet. Word is the Colorado University cops will be trying hard to dampen the spirits of the weedheads. Good luck with all that:
HT Cannabis Cup:
DEEP GREEN FESTIVAL in Richmond on 4/21:
by Matt Stevens, LA Times Blog
People across Southern California (and the nation)will celebrate what they consider an important holiday Friday by getting comfortable on a couch or finding a nice forest before entering a state of deep relaxation.
That might explain why the underground holiday known as “420,” aimed at celebrating the virtues of marijuana ingestion in all its forms, is not attracting any special attention from Los Angeles law enforcement: Most “Weed Day” celebrants plan to be very, very mellow.
Authorities from the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said they aren’t planning any special measures to seek out those getting high. Spokespeople for the departments said they were personally aware of the significance of April 20.
“We’re not doing anything special,” LAPD Officer Rosario Herriera said. “We always have a sufficient amount of officers out on a daily basis.”
The origins of celebrating marijuana on April 20 are hazy. Observers speculate that it started with the numbers of local penal codes related to marijuana possession or to a random date selected by weed enthusiasts.
The Wall Street Journal reports that there were 17.4 million marijuana users in 2010, up from 14.4 million in 2007, all signs that the underground pot holiday may be gaining more steam.
Some Southland residents will be celebrating 420 with music and discounted cannabis.
Outside of Coachella, the music festival where many have indulged themselves without the holiday,Festival 420 is set to hit the San Bernardino County Fairgrounds on Saturday with a musical slate chock full of bands and DJs. The festival explicitly states that no illegal drug use or possession is allowed.
A 420 Hangover Festival is also scheduled to be held at the Observatory in Santa Ana, though a day after the big holiday.
And according to local cannabis websites, some retailers are offering discounted product on Friday.Kushmart in Hollywood, for example, is advertising a “Huge 420 sale,” with 50% discounts and more.
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