Search Results: whitney (11)

Celebrity Picnic
Whitney Houston, R.I.P.

​Over the weekend, as news of the tragic passing of Whitney Houston spread, speculation about the cause of death and the award-winning singer’s history of drug use caused many people to reconsider our nation’s failed war on drugs. Among them was fellow singer Tony Bennett, who called on attendees of a pre-Grammy gala to join him in the fight to end drug prohibition.
 
“First it was Michael Jackson, then Amy Winehouse, now the magnificent Whitney Houston,” he told the audience. “I’d like every person in this room to campaign to legalize drugs.”
“Let’s legalize drugs like they did in Amsterdam,” Bennett said. “No one’s hiding or sneaking around corners to get it. They go to a doctor to get it.”
 
While Holland hasn’t actually legalized drugs, its policies are focused on reducing the harms associated with drugs, rather than arresting nonviolent drug users.
Most significantly, the possession and sale of small amounts of marijuana are tolerated by the government, which has separated marijuana from the market for harder drugs. As a result of this policy and more readily available treatment options, drug use and addiction rates in the Netherlands are far lower than in the United States.
 

Whitney Glover
Whitney Glover of Alabama wrote and sings the medical marijuana anthem “Criminal (How Can It Be).”

​Our Toke of the Town Video of the Day comes from Alabama artist Whitney Glover.

Whitney’s a talented singer/songwriter who’s also a multi-instrumentalist. She told Toke of the Town she’s been playing since the age of 4, counting the guitar, banjo, piano, and drums among her many musical talents.

Whitney’s song “Criminal (How Can It Be)” is a thoughtful and poignant look at the insanity of denying safe, natural herbal medication to patients who need it.
If you’d like to see more of Whitney’s performances, you can visit her main channel on YouTube, Singing4Whitney, and her political channel, Singing4Harmony.

Why the hell is the faux marijuana known as spice so popular in pot-friendly Colorado?

This question was prompted by a 169-count indictment issued by a Jefferson County grand jury against John Swanson and Michael Whitney late last month. As noted by the First Judicial District DA’s office, the two men are accused of “manufacturing, distribution and sale of herbal cigarettes laced with synthetic cannabinoid,” defined as “a chemical that is sprayed onto a plant-based material. Its most common street name is ‘spice.'”

The question of use by women who are expecting heats up.

Excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.

A study suggests that cannabis use during pregnancy affects brain development. More Colorado newborns are testing positive for THC.

Thirty-three were hospitalized in Brooklyn, for suspected synthetic cannabis (“K2”) overdoses in the area around a subway stop.

The National Institutes of Health sent out a request for information about varieties of marijuana and their possible research value.

Check out this chart which illustrates last week’s remarkable finding that drug prescriptions are falling in MED states.

Project CBD published a CBD Users Manual. It’s one of the better ones I’ve seen.

Cannabis allergies are climbing.

The big move by Scotts Miracle-Grow into cannabis is dividing the industry.

Buzzfeed makes the case that Facebook and Google’s cannabis policy enforcement is a mess.

The U.K.’s GW Pharmaceuticals which has seen its stock soar on data from its cannabis-based drug Epidiolex, plans to raise $252 million on the Nasdaq exchange with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch shepherding the deal.

Business attorney Hilary Bricken lays out  six weed scams  for investors and others to watch out for.

Compliance at Millennium Bank, a community bank in Des Plaines, Ill. is reportedly under scrutiny from state and federal authorities for working with marijuana companies.

Whitney Hobbs, a founder of Oregon distributor Highly Distributed, has sued CEO Christopher Mallott for sexual harassment that led to her departure from the company. She says he groped and smelled her. The company declined to comment but an employee refuted Hobbs’ claims.

Cannabis sales continue to climb in Colorado and support the state’s economy. See here for more.

A glimpse of the future? A group of Colorado’s largest craft breweries, led a break-up of the Colorado Brewers Guild to form a new group called Craft Beer Colorado. The split follows an overhaul of state alcohol laws.

Analyst Alan Brochstein writes that Canada’s pot policies make more sense than America’s.

Former NORML head Allen St. Pierre joined a publicly-traded consultancy called Freedom Leaf.

Marty Caivano/Colorado Daily
A reveler lights up at the 4/20 smoke out on the CU-Boulder campus last year.

The eternal culture battle between the straights and the stoners continues to play itself out as 4/20, the international cannabis holiday, becomes a lightning rod for controversy. The latest iteration of the battle has more than 350 University of Colorado – Boulder students RSVPing to a Facebook event encouraging students to wear a suit and tie to campus and around Boulder on Friday, April 20, to protest the 4/20 smoke out.

That’s right — they want you to pledge your allegiance to a morally, ethically and financially bankrupt system that has spent untold tax dollars, for the past 75 years, arresting millions of people for no better reason than that they choose to use a harmless plant. And they want you to do that by identifying with the overarching, corrupt power structure so strongly that you validate their tottering worldview by donning a suit, the symbol of their drab mindless conformity and hen-hearted unwillingness to rock the boat.

THC Finder
Voters in the Sunshine State could get a chance to decide for themselves about medical marijuana — if the Republican-controlled Legislature will let them

​A state lawmaker in Florida filed a joint resolution this week that would allow Floridians to decide for themselves in the 2012 election whether they want to legalize medical marijuana with a constitutional amendment. At this point, the Republican-controlled Legislature is all that stands in the way.

The resolution, HJR 353, “Medical Use of Cannabis,” filed by state Rep. Jeff Clemens (D-Lake Worth), would create an article in the state constitution that would “allow medical use of cannabis by citizens and allow Legislature to implement these provisions by general law,” reports Ashley Lopez at The Florida Independent.
“That’s a compassion issue,” Clemens said, reports Whitney Ray at Capitol News Service. “It’s an issue of people in this state that are going through tough times and a lot of physical pain and if they want to use this particular drug as opposed to a more heavy prescription narcotic I don’t think there’s any reason why we shouldn’t let them.”
“With 81 percent of Americans supporting allowing medical marijuana, it’s time Florida stops jailing its most vulnerable citizens for possessing and using a relatively harmless substance recommended to them by their physicians,” the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) said in an August statement about the proposed constitutional amendment.

Graphic: uuLyrics
“Some call it tampee. Some call it weed. Some call it marijuana. Some of them call it ganja. Legalize it; don’t criticize it. Legalize it, and I will advertise it.”

​When reggae legend Peter Tosh released the song and album “Legalize It” in 1976, a new anthem for the marijuana movement was born. And that same year, as a newly licensed 16-year-old driver, Legalize It was one of the first 8-track tapes (I know, LOL) I ever bought.
Now, in 2010, the family of Peter Tosh is, for the first time, coming out and announcing its strong support of California’s Proposition 19 and the Just Say Now campaign to legalize marijuana nationwide, reports Michael Whitney at Just Say Now.
Part of that support is the launch of a new video from Peter Tosh’s son Dave, intended to help mobilize voters to vote November 2, and to organize supporters to call voters for Prop 19 this weekend.
Peter Tosh’s family released this statement:
Today, as Peter Tosh did back in 1976 with the release of Legalize It, the Peter Tosh Estate proudly speaks out for marijuana legalization. They do this in the name of Peter Tosh, his music, and their strong belief in the power of “Yes” on California’s Proposition 19. Join them in the fight for legalization by supporting the Just Say Now campaign.

Photo: KELOLAND.com
The South Dakota Highway Patrol isn’t officially allowed to interfere with elections. But they found a way around the rule.

​South Dakota’s medical marijuana initiative, Measure 13, is fending off a new foe: the state’s Highway Patrol.

The South Dakota Highway Patrol saved “news” about marijuana busts from the summer — supposedly related to “out of state medical marijuana” — to release two weeks before the election, Michael Whitney of JustSayNow.com told Toke of the Town on Wednesday.
“It certainly looks like the South Dakota Highway Patrol is interfering with the state’s medical marijuana ballot initiative,” Whitney told us Wednesday afternoon.
“Just Say Now is working with Measure 13’s campaign to fight back,” Whitney said.
Measure 13, which would legalize the medicinal use of cannabis in South Dakota for patients with a doctor’s authorization, is in a tight race going down to the wire on November 2.

Graphic: Reality Catcher

​First, there was Facebook’s censorship of marijuana leaves in legalization ads on its social network. Then came Google’s decision to accept and run nearly identical ads. Now, an announcement from social news site Reddit’s corporate owner, Conde Nast, to Just Say Now that it will not run any display advertising relating to marijuana legalization has resulted in an near-insurrection among the site’s users — and administrators, who said they were “blindsided” by the move.

That decision, unlike Facebook’s, pertains not just to images of marijuana leaves, but to any ads supporting legalization of marijuana, according to the “corporate offices” of Reddit’s parent company, Conde Nast.

Graphic: Firedoglake

​Facebook has banned the ads of anti-prohibition group Just Say Now, a campaign for marijuana legalization. Just Say Now ran ads that showed their logo, which uses a marijuana leaf. Despite the ad running more than 38 million times, Facebook has flip-flopped and starting censoring the ads, claiming they promote “tobacco products.”

“In a nutshell, they allowed us to serve our ads for 10 days (38 million impressions), then suddenly reversed their approval and told us we could no longer show the image of a marijuana leaf,” said Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake and the Just Say Now advisory board.
“They said they decided to reclassify it as similar to tobacco, but we said we weren’t trying to encourage people to smoke marijuana, we were supporting a change in U.S. drug policy,” Hamsher said, reports Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing.

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