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Graphic: Mirror Cracked

​Surprise, surprise. Most people who go to drug rehab programs for marijuana don’t want to be there, and were in fact forced to either attend the dreary, pointless sessions or to go to jail. 

Nearly six out of ten people — 57 percent — admitted to drug treatment programs for marijuana are “referred” there by the criminal justice system, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — meaning most people in pot rehab were forced to go there under threat of jail.
And only 15 percent of marijuana treatment admissions were self-referred, according to the study. This percentage is less than half the number of self-referrals for alcohol and cocaine, and about one-quarter the number of self-referrals reported for heroin, at 56 percent.



Photo: The Inspiration Room

​It’s something most seasoned pot smokers already know, but still it’s nice to get more scientific confirmation: Marijuana doesn’t make you wreck your car.

Subjects show almost identical driving skills just before and just after smoking marijuana, according to a study published in the March issue of the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs.

Photo: soulhonky.com
NBA Grizzlies star Zach Randolph now has four fewer vehicles than he had a few days ago.

​NBA player Zach Randolph has been linked to a man accused of selling marijuana in Indianapolis, police claimed Wednesday. A lawyer for Randolph said the star player for the Memphis Grizzlies had “no knowledge” of his friend’s alleged role in dealing pot.

“Zach Randolph is not a party to any drug conspiracy of any type,” said attorney John Tompkins on Thursday. “If somebody says he is, they are either lying or they don’t know what they heck they are talking about,” reports Vic Ryckaert at IndyStar.com.
But Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department detectives claim Randolph provided cars and a house to Arthur Boyd, who is charged with selling marijuana. Randolph himself has not been arrested or charged, and IMPD officials claim he is “not the target” of a drug investigation.
Despite that statement, police Detective Ryan Graber described Randolph as a “financier” for drug dealers in Indianapolis, according to court documents filed in Boyd’s case.
The Grizzlies released a statement on Thursday supporting Randolph.

Photo: KFOX

​A New Mexico man arrested Sunday for driving with a suspended license said he was stripped of the marijuana he possessed, despite the fact that he is legally enrolled in the state’s medical cannabis program due to his epilepsy.

Gregory Fernandez, 34, said he often has seizures, especially when stressed and not having his medical marijuana, and now he wants answers, reports Phil Anaya at KFOX News.
“I’m wanting for the state to recognize it more, more like California, you know as in they help people out because they don’t just make it where you can smoke it; they also have it in brownies and liquid form and with the pills they can give it in the detention center, I feel,” Fernandez said.

Photo: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
I don’t feel like a terrorist. Do you?

​The U.S. Department of Homeland Security apparently doesn’t have enough real terrorists to chase. Now they’re going after medical marijuana growers.

A Colorado Springs police detective has enlisted the help of Homeland Security in a local medical marijuana investigation. Homeland Security sent a plane with thermal imaging equipment and two federal Border Patrol agents to Colorado to fly over a warehouse which was a suspected pot growing site, and the spy equipment revealed the warehouse was generating a lot of heat, reports Joel Millman of the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Photo: Indy Bay
Dispensary owner Rick Morse is back in jail for the third time on the same 15-day sentence

​The owner of a Fresno medical marijuana dispensary is caught in the middle of an escalating battle between a sheriff and a judge, both of whom say they have the legal right to decide whether he stays in jail.

Fresno County Superior Court Judge Donald R. Franson on Tuesday sent Rick Morse — who has been jailed and released twice already — back to jail for a third time. This time, it came with a warning to the sheriff that Morse must stay behind bars until his 15-day sentence is served, report Paula Lloyd and Jim Guy of The Fresno Bee.
Judge Franson had earlier asserted state law gives him “the inherent power” to keep Morse in jail for his full sentence. The judge on Tuesday went even further, claiming that the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office must get the court’s permission before releasing a sentenced prisoner like Morse.


Photo: PennLive.com

​In yet another embarrassing loss for law enforcement in California, who have tried for years to ignore the fact that medicinal cannabis is legal in the state — and has been for 14 years now — San Luis Obispo County cut a $20,000 check on Monday to a patient whose medical marijuana was wrongfully destroyed.

The county paid 46-year-old Kimberly Marshall the equivalent of $3,333 per pound, the replacement value for six pounds of a specially grown outdoor strain of pot, reports Karen Velie at Cal Coast News.

Photo: Torsten Kjellstrand/The Oregonian
The Cannabis Cafe had a six-month run in a space in North Portland’s Woodlawn neighborhood. It has since closed but could open in the city’s North Mississippi area as early as next month.

​Only six months after opening with worldwide publicity as a gathering place for users of medical marijuana — one of the first of its kind in Oregon, and maybe in the United States — Portland’s Cannabis Cafe has closed its doors.

Oregon NORML, the marijuana legalization group that ran the cafe, said the closure is only temporary and that it will reopen elsewhere, perhaps as early as next month, reports Matthew Preusch of The Oregonian.
​”It’s going to be business as usual,” said Madeline Martinez, executive director of the Oregon chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (Oregon NORML).

Photo: Miguel Vasconcellos/The Orange County Register
Shelly White feeds her daughter, Malinda Traudt, peanut butter balls after Malinda started showing signs of being in pain. White is afraid officials at the city of Dana Point will close a local dispensary where she gets medical marijuana to treat her daughter’s severe osteoporosis pain and cerebral palsy.

​A September trial date has been set for a lawsuit brought by a blind woman with cerebral palsy and epilepsy who is trying to stop the city of Dana Point, California from shutting down a collective that supplies her with medical marijuana.

A Superior Court judge on Monday scheduled a trial date of September 20 for San Clemente resident Malinda Traudt, 29, according to The Associated Press.
Traudt’s attorney, Jeffrey Schwartz, argued that her lawsuit, filed last week, should be put on a “fast track” because Traudt has “serious, life-threatening health problems” and may not live long enough for it to go through the normal legal process, reports Vik Jolly at The Orange County Register.
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