Search Results: medical/ (9)

“Some people are very lucky — everything they touch works for them,” laments Steve Horwitz, owner of Ganja Gourmet. “But for whatever reason, ever since I opened this business I’ve had a black cloud around me. Pretty much nothing has worked the way it should have or could have.”

Horwitz, a seasoned salesman in his fifties with a hearty Long Island accent and a gold chain around his neck, doesn’t take no for an answer, though; he just shifts his approach and tries again. Over the past eight years — the period during which the marijuana industry exploded in Denver — he’s changed his business model four times. He opened Ganja Gourmet at 1810 South Broadway in late 2009 as a medical marijuana restaurant (and one of the first spots William Breathes reviewed), turned it into a takeout joint in 2010, transformed it into a medical dispensary in 2011, then changed it into a medical/recreational store in 2015. Now, to keep up with the times, Horwitz is gearing up to stamp his candy logo on wholesale edibles and partner with a smoke room once social consumption is allowed.

 

Brandon Marshall

 

Update, June 14, 2016: We’re back, and we hope we’ll see you again.

Since 2009, Toke of the Town has brought you the biggest marijuana news and loudest pot views from across the country — and around the world. Along the way, we’ve covered the huge progress many states have made towards legalization and wondered why others are so far behind. The country still has a long way to go, but things are looking up — and we have our fingers crossed that 2015 will be another big year for legalization.
But Toke won’t be around to see it — at least, not in its present form. This is Toke of the Town’s final day of publication.
Don’t worry: We’re not quitting the movement. We’re just returning the focus of our marijuana coverage to our local Voice Media Group papers. You can still read William Breathes’ weekly pot reviews and Ask a Stoner column at Westword.com, where they started, and you can continue to follow him on Twitter and Facebook. And you can keep following Toke on Facebook and Twitter, too, for the latest marijuana news from all our papers.
Many thanks for reading and supporting us for the past five years! We couldn’t have covered the marijuana community without such a strong one reading us.
And all our archives will remain online, because we wouldn’t want you to lose access to our serious reporting on issues of medicine and our lighthearted coverage of stoner movies.
Light one up for us, won’t you?

Flickr.com/Simon Strandgaard.td>

It was a Tuesday morning in San Diego, just over a month ago on November 7th, when SDPD received reports of broken glass at a local business, with a possible burglary having had occurred overnight. Police investigators arriving on the scene quickly determined that the business in question was a medical marijuana dispensary, and the focus of their investigation quickly shifted from aiding possible burglary victims, to persecuting law abiding citizens and shuttering a legitimate business.
You see, San Diego was home to nearly 300 storefront medical marijuana dispensaries as recently as two years ago, but an intense crackdown by joint task forces, combining the might of local and federal authorities, led to nearly every single brick and mortar storefront being closed by the end of 2011.

All Voices

Worth Repeating

By Ron Marczyk, RN
In 1964 THC, the molecule, was first discovered. What do the last 48 years of science have to say about medical marijuana stripped of DEA bias and its groupthink ideologically driven research?
The time is NOW to listen, and let the science supporting medical marijuana speak for itself! 
In a loud, clear voice the science concludes overwhelmingly: YES! Marijuana is medicine! And Schedule I is an outdated scientifically false claim! 
After 10 years of stonewalling by the DEA, medical marijuana patients will finally get their day in federal court to prove that the Drug Enforcement Administration’s marijuana claims are false!

Veterans Today

Seattle Seminar Saturday March 10th to Educate Attorneys, Accountants and Cannabis Business Owners How to Prepare Their Businesses for Possible IRS Audits under the Current 280E IRS Tax Code
The Internal Revenue Service is using tax audits to rule that state-sanctioned cannabis businesses are deemed “drug trafficking organizations” under Section 280E of the IRS code which was created decades ago. Through this definition of the tax code, the IRS is denying legitimate businesses from making normal deductions such as rent payments, payroll, insurance, and other usual business expenses incurred, and demanding large taxes and fines on the industry.

Medical Marijuana Hut

​The U.S. federal government’s Department of Health and Human Services seems about ready to award exclusive rights to apply marijuana as a medical therapeutic. You read that correctly: “exclusive rights.”

Now, I don’t think of myself as a conspiracy theorist. But when the federal government keeps taking actions that, even when considered separately but especially when viewed together, all seem to be part of a bigger plan to pave the way for the pharmaceutical industry to bulldoze the cottage medical marijuana industry, I start getting antsy.
“We find it hypocritical and incredible that on the one hand, the U.S. Department of Justice is persecuting cannabis patient associations, asserting that the federal government regards marijuana as having absolutely no medical value, despite overwhelming clinical evidence,” said Union of Medical Marijuana Patients director James Shaw. “On the other hand, the Department of Health and Human Services is planning to grant patent rights with possible worldwide application to develop medicine based on cannabis.”
“Though UMMP welcomes any potential new research that could come from KannaLife Sciences’ federal endorsement, it is highly disconcerting that the contemplated grant is an exclusive one,” the organization posted on its website.

Graphic: ASAM
Never mind what all those silly patients and physicians say. The American Society of Addiction Medicine says marijuana isn’t “medical,” and that’s apparently supposed to settle it.

​If you enjoy bullshit, you can certainly have a hell of a time with the American Society of Addiction Medicine’s white paper on medicinal cannabis. That becomes clear from the moment you see those quote marks on the cover: The Role of the Physician in “Medical” Marijuana.

Touting the supposed dangers of marijuana, the reputed lack of clinical research “on a controlled substance with a high potential for abuse,” and the physician’s oath to “first, do no harm,” ASAM on Wednesday released a white paper [PDF] prepared last fall which recommends a halt to using cannabis as medicine, even in states where it has been declared legal.

The organization — for what it’s worth, considered the nation’s leading professional society of physicians involved in addiction prevention and treatment — supported federal regulatory standards for drug approval and distribution, and discouraged what it called “state interference” in the “federal medication-approval process,” reports Yahoo! News.

Photo: Lori Horwedel/AnnArbor.com
A plethora of pot pipes: potential profits for an exhibitor at the Michigan Caregivers Cup

​Despite the forced cancellation of their medical marijuana competition and a brief mix-up over lecture admission prices, the Michigan Caregivers Cup is drawing plenty of visitors and continuing through the weekend, according to event organizers.

The contest, which would have been held Saturday, was canceled after law enforcement threatened that participants could be criminally prosecuted, reports Lee Higgins at AnnArbor.com.