Steep Hill Lab says it became the nation's first medical cannabis screening facility in collaboration with some of the industry's stakeholders, when it opened for business in Oakland four years ago.

Now, by utilizing their industry experience and developing innovative software and scientific instrumentation, Steep Hill says it has significantly improved the ease by which cannabis can be tested for medical use on site.

​By Becky Bonghits Fogarty

Michigan Correspondent

Aaron Evans, founder of The Green Brothers and Dove Ink Records, is a powerful force in the legalization of marijuana as well as a constant workhorse striving to affect positive change in our world in every way he can. As an activist and artist he stands on the front lines against the twisted laws of the government, fighting daily to end the prohibition of marijuana.

Since beginning his battle, Aaron has been featured in NUG, Skunk, High Times and countless other publications in print and online. As an author/emcee, producer, designer, photojournalist, and marijuana activist, Aaron Evans, aka Claude 9 aka Eyamme, is a unique entity within the culture, carving his own lane and blazing trails along the way.

Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Aaron is currently based in San Diego, with a fan base that spans the entire globe. With a blend of free flowing, lyrical, and musical talent Aaron's artistic styling can be described as THC-infused funk, hip hop, jazz, and soul.

You can find out more about Aaron and his eclectic talents at www.aaronevansimagination.com.

Portland-based AP reporter Nigel Duara called Stanford and The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation (THCF) "the nation's leading gateway to the drug," even going so far as to label him a "Dope King" in the headline and to refer to his supporters as "dope enthusiasts" who regard Stanford as "something of a savior."

So, how did we get back to 1970s or even 1960s style "evil weed" journalism in the blink of an eye? Wasn't yesterday supposed to be the start of a new year? Aren't we in the second decade of the 21st Century?

Apparently, only some of us are. 

​By Al Byrne

While the U.S. federal government's regulators and lawyers, drug czar and others are paid to say whatever is dated and wrong about therapeutic cannabis, medical and nursing professionals are in wonder that so many can so willingly display their ignorance of therapeutic cannabis in public.

On November 23, 2011, the associate director for public affairs of the Office of National Drug Policy (ONDCP), Rafael Lemaitre said, "The Food and Drug Administration has not found smoked marijuana to be either safe or effective medicine for any condition."

This statement made by a person of responsibility for citizen health in the U.S. is apparently in denial of a decades-long study of cannabis "smokers" by Donald P. Tashkin, M.D., medical director of the Pulmonary Function Laboratory, Professor of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles.

At the Patients Out of Time clinical cannabis conference in Pacific Grove in April 2008, Dr. Tashkin announced his study showed that no patient, of more than 2,200, who smoked only cannabis had lung cancer, COPD or other pulmonary problem other than mild bronchitis.

Ah, Christmas. It's a great time to remind those for whom we care that we think about them all the time.

According to ASA, the app will make it easier for advocates to get educated and take political action. The ASA Advocate App gives users access to all the organization's projects and programs.

With a plethora of volumes on growing, using, concentrating, and cooking with cannabis, as well as tomes related to the culture and lifestyle associated with it, the reader with an adventurous streak can stock a library or fill an e-reader.

But beyond the grow books (I recommend Rosenthal, Cervantes and West) and the basic histories of marijuana (I recommend mine), books which are more about the (counter-) culture surrounding weed rather than weed itself are harder to pigeonhole and, thus, often harder to find.

You can be sure the holidays are just around the corner when a medical cannabis dispensary builds a Christmas ginger-hash house and posts photos of it on Facebook.

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.