Search Results: marijuana-usa (6)

With the looming November 2 vote on Amendment 2, which would expand medical marijuana in Florida for specific diseases and conditions, one thing is clear: Weed is a polarizing topic. As New Times reported in August, according to one of the most respected marijuana-usage surveys in America, roughly half the residents in Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties think smoking weed once a month is “harmful” and should be avoided. The other half rallied for legalization in our Facebook comments.

Although voters disagree, businesses are preparing for a yes vote on Amendment 2. Surterra Therapeutics, a hybrid company, works hand-in-hand with longtime Homestead nursery Alpha Foliage. (Disclosure: Reporter Stacey Russell is related to Surterra’s director of public relations.) Together with Alpha, Surterra cultivates, extracts, packages, markets, and dispenses medical marijuana. (Surterra cannot distribute medical cannabis without a nursery partner because of Florida law.) It’s one of just two dispensaries authorized by the state. Surterra is based in Georgia, but because of the legalization of medical marijuana in Florida, the company has set up camp in Tampa and Tallahassee. New Times toured the Tallahassee cultivation center.

Pot is everywhere in Miami. Its scent wafts from bus stops, floats through open windows, and cascades out from under lifeguard stands on the beach at night. Spend more than a week here and you will, at least once, wonder if the server delivering you overpriced cocktails is stoned out of his mind.

Which is why it’s so surprising that, according to one of the most respected marijuana-usage surveys in America, roughly half the residents in Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties think smoking weed once a month is “harmful” and should be avoided. That’s the highest rate in the nation.

Voters will have a clear choice in November.

The following is excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.

The Democratic Party Platform states “We encourage the federal government to remove marijuana from its list as a Class 1 Federal Controlled Substance, providing a reasoned pathway for future legalization.” The Washington Post describes the language as a nod to Bernie Sanders.

For its platform, the Republican Party rejected language supporting MED. It was proposed by Dale Jackson, a GOP delegate from Georgia with an autistic son. Another delegate said mass-shooters are, “young boys from divorced families, and they’re all smoking pot.”

Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) opposed reducing marijuana penalties in 2013.

The Cannabist released its 2016 election guide.

The industry-loathed “ potency amendment” will not be on the Colorado ballot. Frank McNulty (R), a former speaker of the Colorado House and supporter of the measure said the industry paid signature gathering firms to not gather signatures. “Without [signature gathering companies]we didn’t have the ability to get it to the ballot,”McNulty said.

An industry spokesman denied the accusation andThe Denver Post editorial page finds it “dubious.” “ Big marijuana trashes democratic process,” the Colorado Springs Gazette editorializes.

Campaign filings released on August 1 will clarify what happened. (An email query from WeedWeek was not returned.)

The Amendment would have banned products with higher than 16% THC, which account for 80% of cannabis products in Colorado. “Make no mistake,” the Post writes, “139 was an anti-pot measure designed to gut the industry. And it’ll be back.”

With industry support, California plans to regulate water use by growers.

Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the California Growers Association, explains his ambivalence about California’s upcoming Adult Use of Marijuana Act vote: “The initiative is decidedly more friendly to big business and will lead to rapid consolidation of the industry. This is an avoidable and undesirable outcome.” (See the initiative’s exact language here.)

Montanans will vote on a measure to expand the state’s MED program. L.A. County voters will decide on a marijuana business tax to benefit the homeless. The L.A. Times tells government officials, “Legal marijuana should not be seen as the solution to your revenue problems.”

A federal judge rejected the claim that current federal laws are “so arbitrary and irrational as to be unconstitutional.” The complaint was brought by Charles and Alexander Green, two Californian brothers accused of trafficking.

A proposed MED measure in North Dakota would be too expensive, the state health department said. The Pennsylvania legislature approved growing hemp for research.

Usain Bolt.

The race is on to see which celebrity or famous athlete can make the biggest pot-related headline, and Usain Bolt, the fastest man on the planet, has sprinted to the head of the pack.
Anti-cannabis groups are up in arms about a new ad campaign by American clothing manufacturer, The Pothead Diaries. Bolt, the reigning Olympic champion in the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m relay kicked up dust with pot critics when he posted pictures to his Instrgram account showing him flaunting the controversial duds.

Irvin Rosenfeld
Irv Rosenfeld, a 58-year-old stockbroker from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, doesn’t look like a record-setting pothead. But he’s smoked more than 120,000 U.S. government joints since 1982.

​On November 20, 1982, the United States federal government sent a Florida citizen 300 cannabis cigarettes in a shiny tin can. 
The U.S. government, known the world over as a champion of preying on the sick with a weapon they call the “War On Drugs,” continues to send that same man the same ration of joints 29 years later.
This delivery of medicine is part of a “Compassionate Investigative New Drug” Program that exists to study “new drugs”, in this case, marijuana.
Over that 29-year period the government has performed no such study.
Irvin Rosenfeld of Florida will begin his 30th year of smoking cannabis cigarettes on November 20, 2011 — and he feels great.

Robin Twomey
Irv Rosenfeld has received 300 joints a month from the U.S. federal government for 29 years.

​The federal government of the United States has been telling its citizens for years that marijuana has no medical value. And the federal government is lying — according to the federal government.

It’s enough to make your head explode, but that’s the way things are in Drug War America. A handful of seriously ill patients have received free medical marijuana from the U.S. federal government for almost 30 years, even as that same government says cannabis is a Schedule I drug with a high potential for abuse and no known medicinal applications.
The existence of Irvin Rosenfeld and the other three surviving federal medical marijuana patients in the U.S. puts the lie to the official government position. These patients are part of the Compassionate Investigative New Drug program, which unfortunately hasn’t accepted any new enrollees since the first Bush Administration, due to political pressure.
Portsmouth, Virginia native Rosenfeld, who now lives in Florida, has been smoking 10 to 12 joints of marijuana every day for more than 28 years — a grand total of more than 123,000 joints. But rather than adopting the attitude of “I got mine” and being afraid to speak out for the rights of other patients, Irv — who uses marijuana to treat severe bone disorder called multiple congenital cartilaginous exostosis — has bravely chosen the path of public advocacy.