Search Results: norton (10)

Remember Three Kings, the 1999 movie about the end of the Gulf War? Underrated flick: George Clooney, Edward Norton, Ice Cube, Mark Wahlberg and Spike Jonze all in one great cast, before any of them peaked, showing nine-year-old me just how fucked up the world is.

Discovering a strain with the name Four Kings had me wondering if a direct-to-DVD sequel to Three Kings starring Dolph Lundgren or Randy Couture was ever made. No such luck — which is a shame, because Four Kings is a great strain for zoning out with a B-grade action movie before bed. It’s also great at helping me get over shitting ma britches as a nine-year-old after seeing well-acted depictions of graphic and intense violence, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.

Legalize it.

Voters in Washington D.C. may have approved the legalization of limited amounts of pot for adults 21 and up earlier this month, but the U.S. Congress will have the final say. According to D.C. law, any new legislation Congress can either approve or reject new legislation in within 60 days.
The bill would also become law if no action is taken in that time – and that’s exactly what some lawmakers want to see happen.

USDOJ


Update – 10:00 a.m. 5/21/2014: FBI Director James Comey has pulled a 180 today, announcing that he is in no way loosening the agency policy on marijuana use. Comey has indicated that his comments were a joke (an unfunny joke that basically stereotypes all young people and computer hackers as pot users). Comey retracted his comments today at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting after being grilled by Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions.
“I am absolutely dead-set against using marijuana,” Comey said today. “I did not say that I am going to change that ban.” Original story below.

U.S. Navy.
Washington D.C.


While the elected officials of our nation’s capital have already decided that decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana is the best thing for their city, the move still has to be approved by the U.S. House as per federal law. More accurately, the bill has to be disapproved in 60 days or less, giving congress the option of ignoring the move and letting it become law by default.
But that doesn’t look like it will be the case, as a Republican-controlled House subcommittee plans to discuss the matter.

U.S. Navy images.

Washington D.C. elected officials have decriminalized up to an ounce of cannabis in our nation’s capitol, though the law still needs approval from the U.S. Congress before it is official.
Mayor Vincent Gray signed the measure last night, making the possession an ounce or less a civil offense punishable by a $25 fine at most. Smoking ganja in public remains illegal, and you can still be jailed for up to two months for lighting up a spliff anywhere other than the safety and privacy of someone’s home. Marijuana possession does remain illegal on federal property in the city, however (which is practically everywhere).

MedPage Today

Researchers Note Cannabis Impacts Cognitive Function — But So Do Other MS Drugs

Smoking marijuana cuts spasticity and pain that’s resistant to conventional treatments in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), although it does have some cognitive effects as well, a small clinical trial has unsurprisingly confirmed.

Spasticity scores on the modified Ashworth scale dropped by an average 2.74 points more with smoked cannabis than with a placebo, researchers at the University of California San Diego found, reports Crystal Phend at MedPage Today.

Aspen Daily News
Keith Stroup, who founded the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) in 1970, takes a smoke break for mental sharpness at the NORML convention in Aspen, Colorado in 2008.

​Not only does smoking marijuana not “burn you out,” but it’s downright good for your brain. Yet more scientific evidence — this time, that it actually appears to improve cognitive functioning among middle-aged men — is now available, thanks to a new medical study.

Researchers looked at a large sample of 8,992 men who “used drugs,” mostly cannabis, at age 42 and then again at age 50, reports Dennis Romero at LA Weekly. The men were tested to measure their level of brain functioning.
Surprise, surprise — the Brits who had used illegal drugs did just as well — or slightly better! — than the chaps who had never “used drugs” at all.
When current and past drug users were lumped together as one group, their scores tended to be better than those of non-users. That advantage was small, researchers said, and might be due to the fact that people who have tried drugs tend to be better educated than those who haven’t.
“A positive association was observed between ever (past or current) illicit drug use and cognitive functioning,” the study’s authors concluded in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

SCIENCE VS. STIGMA-TRAILER from Dave Wilkinson on Vimeo.


The new documentary film Science vs. Stigma does a wonderful thing: It puts a human face on some of the collateral damage from the War On Drugs. The film does this by allowing medical marijuana patients to share their struggles to safely access an unjustly demonized medicinal herb that helps them.

True stories and scientific research reveal the difficult lives of patients who require the ancient medicinal plant, cannabis, which is now legal in some states, but still so demonized that it cannot even be named in an advertisement.
The medicinal components of cannabis have been shown to be effective in treating dozens of conditions, but patients who are ill and disabled are still senseless persecuted and socially stigmatized.

Kansas Medical Cannabis Network

​Lawmakers on Monday introduced the Kansas Compassion and Care Act, which would make growing, selling, buying and smoking marijuana for medicinal purposes legal under state law.

“Legalizing medical marijuana in the state will not only allow those with debilitating conditions an alternative to pharmaceutical drugs, but will also help lower the amount of people that have to turn to the black market to obtain their medicine,” said Kyle Norton, director of Johnson County NORML.

House Bill 2330 has been referred to the House Committee on Health and Human Services for consideration and debate. Under this measure, patients with certain debilitating conditions would be able to use medical cannabis without fear of reprisal under state law, reports JoCo NORML.
The bill would also protect patients’ rights as employees, tenants, and parents. A patient registry system would be established, along with nonprofit care centers and a board to oversee the entire program.

Photo: Opposing Views

​The District of Columbia’s medical marijuana law cleared a mandatory 30-day Congressional review period Monday night, after Congress declined to take action against a D.C. Council bill that allows the District to license between five and eight medical marijuana dispensaries, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton said Tuesday.

The District joins 14 other states across the U.S. in having effective medical marijuana laws.