Search Results: americans-for-safe-access (7)

Innovation is inevitable in any industry, and the field of medical marijuana is no different. With laws already in the books in 18 states and more on the way, investors who might not know their Blue Chips from their Blue Dream are flocking to these regions to stake their claim in what they see as the next big commodity.
White-collar Wall Street-types can certainly see the budding upside to sinking money into dispensaries, growing operations, and other cannabis related retail outlets. But those potential gains are often outweighed by the prospects of inventory control, employee management, product naiveté. And of course, the grey area that exists in all current state-level medical marijuana laws that fly in the face of Federal statute. Cue MedBox.

San Francisco Medical Cannabis Competition/Facebook

Judges’ Packs are available for the sixth annual Patient’s Choice Medical Cannabis Competition in San Francisco, an event which provides Bay Area medical marijuana patients a sampling of the strains they are likely to find available at local dispensaries following the 2012 outdoor harvest season. The competition also provides cultivators, collectives and co-ops with a chance to show off their best weed to patient/judges with highly refined tastes.

Each Judges’ Pack (which costs $300 and is limited to California medical marijuana patients 18 and older) will include two tickets to the awards ceremony, one ballot, and cannabis totaling more than an ounce, made up of small samples of flowers, concentrates, and edibles.
Last year, Judges’ Packs came with 34 one-gram samples of medical cannabis, 10 quarter-gram concentrate entries, and 10 types of medibles, reports David Downs at SF Gate. Humboldt Royal Kush, an outdoor-grown indica from EarthGreenCali farms in Humboldt County, took first place, as reported here last year by Toke of the Town Northern California Correspondent Jack Rikess. It was grown in full sun with no added nutrients; the grower told attendees the plant got all its food from a “secret soil mix,” pH-balanced water, and molasses.

Cannabis Culture

Advocates argue DOJ attacks unnecessarily harm over 1 million patients and may endanger Obama’s re-election effort
Hundreds of patients will hold rallies Thursday at 5 p.m. at local “Obama for America” campaign offices and other key locations in at least 15 cities in eight states across the country in an effort to draw attention to the Obama Administration’s aggressive efforts to shut down legal medical marijuana dispensaries and obstruct the passage of laws that would regulate such activity.
In addition to a lively rally in the nation’s capitol, demonstrations organized by Americans for Safe Access (ASA) are planned in the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Montana, Missouri, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington.
In Seattle, medical marijuana advocates are holding a press conference at City Hall on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. local time, featuring City Council member Nick Licata, State Rep. Roger Goodman, and State Senator Jeanna Kohl-Welles.

Rebels With Just Cause Award

By Steph Sherer
Executive Director
Americans for Safe Access
Ten years ago today, I stood below the biggest free-standing billboard in San Francisco and watched volunteers drop a huge banner that said “Defend Medical Marijuana” right next to one of the busiest freeways in the city.
It was the beginning of a series of actions and media work in response to former Drug Czar Asa Hutchinson’s visit to the Bay Area. He was coming to town to gloat about raids at medical cannabis dispensaries and gardens, and we were determined to tell a different story. That’s how the nation’s largest medical cannabis patients’ advocacy organization got its name – Americans for Safe Access v. Asa Hutchison or “ASA v. Asa.”

Prohibition’s End

​Medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) on Thursday filed an appeal brief in the D.C. Circuit to compel the federal government to reclassify marijuana for medical use.

In July 2011, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) denied a petition filed in 2002 by the Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis (CRC), which was denied only after the coalition sued the government for unreasonable delay. The ASA brief filed on January 26 is an appeal of the CRC rescheduling denial.
“By ignoring the wealth of scientific evidence that clearly shows the therapeutic value of marijuana, the Obama Administration is playing politics at the expensive of sick and dying Americans,” said ASA Chief Counsel Joe Elford, who filed the appeal Thursday.

Safe Access YouTube Channel
Here’s the iPad version. The ASA Advocacy App is available for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Soon to come will be the Android version.

​​Medical marijuana patient advocates now have better access to tools for getting educated and taking action. Grassroots advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) on Wednesday launched a first-of-its-kind, free iPhone application that serves the medical marijuana community.

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.

Photo: Los Angeles Dispensaries

​​By Jack Rikess

Toke of the Town

Northern California Correspondent

1. No shady scenes.

We’ve all been there. A 7/11 parking lot, late at night, where every Slurpee-buying shopper looks like an undercover cop. Or you’ve just parked your buddy’s car near an apartment downtown where all the neighbors know why you’re walking towards that particular door.
Or worse, a friend of a friend who just got out of jail has some killer stuff that will make the whole crosstown drive worth it.
You name it — we all have a variety of reasons why we will go the extra mile to procure the best stuff possible, sometimes even when the risks are higher than you are.
Now, my closest dispensary is eight blocks away — a small industrial trailer where they may only have seven to 12 different varieties of medical marijuana — but I go to the old reliable, my mainstay downtown on Geary. (Funny story: I was on my way home on the bus with three clones in an odorless paper bag. There were two other dudes on the bus who were also clutching paper bags. Their all-knowing nods and smiles made me feel like we all belong to the same book club.)
Going to a dispensary is incredibly safe compared to my almost 40 years of scoring on the street.