Search Results: east coast (89)

Portland, Maine voters this November are being asked to legalize the possession (not the purchase or sale, mind you) of up to 2.5 ounces of cannabis for adults over the age of 21 in the city. Currently, that amount is decriminalized with no jail time and a maximum $600 fine.
While the law change really won’t changemuch, news reports this week tout Portland as a test-case for future East Coast cities and states thinking about similar progressive marijuana laws. But is it?

Photo: WLBZ
The first medical marijuana dispensary on the U.S. East Coast is an unassuming looking home in Frenchville, Maine.

​It’s a historic day. The first medical marijuana dispensary on the East Coast of the U.S. has opened in Frenchville, Maine.

Safe Alternatives looks like a typical house, reports Jackie Ward at WLBZ. But there are video cameras and floodlights as required by state law; town officials said the security equipment operates 24/7.
The dispensary is less than a mile from an elementary school, but state law only requires it to be at least 500 feet away.
Predictably, some narrow-minded local residents seemed to be just looking for something to complain about.
“When I stopped by to take the picture there was nobody there, just a note on the door that said ‘Leave packages on the porch,’ whatever that means,” said Frenchville resident Cameron Price. (My highly educated guess it that “Leave packages on the porch” is secret code for “Leave packages on the porch.”)

Colorado is no longer the only player in recreational cannabis, and early potreprenuers are branching out as legalization efforts claim victories around the country.

Meg Sanders served as CEO of Mindful during the Colorado and Illinois dispensary chain’s quick expansion post-2014; after leaving her day-to-day role with the company, she set her sights on Massachusetts. Still an owner of Mindful, Sanders has been on the East Coast lately, preparing to open three cannabis storefronts under her new Canna Provisions brand.

We recently caught up with her to learn more about her journey through legal pot and what she has planned for the future.


The U.S. Coast Guard unloaded 719 kilograms of cocaine last Thursday at its station in Miami Beach. That came with an estimated street value of about $23 million.
The coke was intercepted in the Caribbean on September 8 by Coast Guard Cutter Bear.
The cutter spotted a 208-foot cargo boat in the waters northeast of Panama. The crew boarded the boat, and found several hidden parcels on board. The powder inside tested positive as cocaine, and the shipment was seized. Thirteen suspected smugglers were arrested.

The relatively calm and temperate coastal waters stretching between Tijuana, Mexico and San Diego, California have long served as an alternate route for drug smugglers hoping to avoid the heavily congested and scrutinized overland border crossing checkpoints separating the two countries.
From paddling pounds of pot over on surfboards, to cramming kilos of chronic into claustrophobic garage-built submarines, authorities on both sides of the border have pretty much seen it all when it comes to maritime marijuana smuggling on the west coast. Startling though, is what seems to be a recent uptick in interdiction involving gunfire, and whether or not that is a result of new, more aggressive tactics by the Coast Guard.

As one of the original counties formed when California was granted statehood back in 1850, Mendocino County is known for its picturesque northern Californian coastline, its majestic redwood forests, and of course, its weed production.
Home to a short-lived, county-regulated, cannabis cultivation program for nearly two years, Mendocino now finds itself stuck between the citizens who willingly signed up for the program, and the federal government who is seeking to acquire all of their personal information for reasons unknown.

Ganja Gourmet

By Bob Starrett
This is scary. “Wrapped in ‘Tootsie Roll’ style wrappers, these powerful chewables consist of the most active ingredient in marijuana — THC — and their taffystyle packaging is conspicuously attractive to kids.”
That’s Heidi Heilman, guest columnist, writing in the Milford Daily News this week. Ms. Heilman is speaking of a January incident in which a car of teenagers was pulled over for speeding. The Cheeba Chews were found inside.
Powerful chewables with THC. From California and Colorado, no less, and under “the guise of medicine.” I think that the packaging is rather conservative. But who knows what those out-of- staters are cooking up for Massachusetts? This is probably the first wave of the assault, apparently by “deep pocket outsiders to target Massachusetts to become the next ‘medical’ marijuana haven.”

I get it about invading Massachusetts, maybe they should be left alone. Several invasions are already underway or coming up including Gamers, the Undead and Asian Longhorn Beetles.

Freedom of Medicine and Diet
Dana Beal: “I’m not a run-of-the-mill drug runner. I’m a medical advocate. I had to do it.”

A Nebraska judge this week rejected an effort by one of the original Yippies from the 1960s to get marijuana delivery charges against him dropped because he says he was hauling marijuana across the country to help AIDS and cancer patients on the East Coast.

Dana Beal, 65, is looking at up to five years in the clinker after his arrest near Ashland, Neb., in 2009 in a van carrying 150 pounds of marijuana, reports Paul Hammel at the Omaha World-Herald.
Beal, a resident of New York City, said he was hauling the load of weed to a club of buyers from New York and Washington, D.C., who use cannabis for medicinal purposes. Medical marijuana is still illegal in New York, but has been legalized in D.C.; however, all cannabis sold to patients in D.C. is required to be grown within the District by licensed cultivators.
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