Yearly Archives: 2011

Prison Inmate Arrested With 48 Bags of Marijuana and Scales

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on August 17, 2011 News

Golden Grove Prison on St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, where it’s not very hard to find weed.

A prison inmate in the U.S. Virgin Islands has been arrested (interesting concept, getting arrested when you’re already in prison) after police claimed they found 48 small bags of marijuana on him, along with two scales to weigh the stuff.

Police said in a Tuesday statement that they arrested Emmett Bramble, 26, after a “routine search” at Golden Grove Prison in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, reports the Associated Press. It was not clear if Bramble had an attorney, but it was damn clear he needed one.

‘Toke Signals’ Forum To Discuss Future of Marijuana in WA

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on August 17, 2011 Culture, News

Graphic: Seattle Weekly

Tomorrow night at 7, I’ll be onstage in Seattle with seven other panelists to discuss what’s next for marijuana in Washington State.

The event, sponsored by Seattle Weekly and KCTS 9, is called “Toke Signals: The Future of Marijuana in Washington State.”

And there’s still time to submit questions for the panel, reports Curtis Cartier at Seattle Weekly.

The forum will be at KCTS 9’s studio near Seattle Center and will feature:

• John McKay: Former U.S. Attorney and Seattle University Law Professor who prosecuted Marc Emery

• Rick Steves: Author, PBS travel correspondent and marijuana law reform advocate

• Steve Elliott: Seattle Weekly’s “Toke Signals” medical marijuana dispensary review columnist and Toke of the Town blog editor

Montel Wants To Own A Marijuana Dispensary In D.C.

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on August 17, 2011 Dispensaries, Growing, News

Photo: Chris Pizzello

Montel arrives at the 37th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards in Las Vegas, June 27, 2010. Williams is part of a group which seeks to operate a medical marijuana dispensary and cultivation facilities in Washington, D.C.

Celebrity Montel Williams is part of one nonprofit group trying for a license to operate a medical marijuana dispensary and cultivation facilities in the District of Columbia.

The Abatin Wellness Center has expressed “preliminary interest” in opening medical marijuana businesses in the city, according to D.C. records, reports Mike DeBonis at The Washington Post. Montel is already the public face of a dispensary by the same name which opened this year in Sacramento, California.

Growing Marijuana? Get The Secrets of the West Coast Masters

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on August 16, 2011 Growing, Products

Photo: West Coast Masters

Do you grow medical marijuana? Would you like to have more of it? Ounces are for amateurs, according to Dru West, author of The Secrets of the West Coast Masters. West wants to teach you how to yield a pound per plant — indoors.

The West Coast Masters are medical marijuana growers and patients from California, Oregon and Washington state. After researching the leading cannabis cultivation techniques from around the world, including bonsai and tomato horticulture, they developed what they call the “ultimate techniques” for growing medicinal marijuana.

“Throughout the mountains and valleys of the US West Coast resides a secret society of master growers who are producing marijuana of unbelievable yields and potency,” we’re told on the cover of this $34.99 hardback. “While most growers are content with a yield of two ounces per plant, these West Coast Masters consistently yield over a pound, and in some cases over two pounds, all while staying within the limits of their medical marijuana programs.”

N.Y. City Council Members: End Marijuana Arrest Crusade

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on August 16, 2011 Legislation, News

Graphic: New York Magazine

The Big Apple is King of the World for marijuana arrests

City Council Resolution Highlights Illegal Searches, Targeting of Youth of Color, and $75 Million Wasted

On Wednesday, August 17, at 10 a.m., a group of New York City Council members will introduce a resolution calling for an end to the racially biased, costly marijuana arrest crusade in New York City.

The resolution calls on the state Legislature to pass S.5187/A.7620, a bipartisan proposal to fix the law.

More than 50,000 marijuana possession arrests were made in New York City in 2010, according to the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), despite marijuana possession being decriminalized in the state of New York back in 1977.

Ann Arbor Sets Marijuana Dispensary Application Fee At $600

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on August 16, 2011 Dispensaries, Legislation

Photo: Ann Arbor Wellness Collective

Nebula, available at Ann Arbor Wellness Collective, 321 E. Liberty Avenue, Suite 1.

The Ann Arbor City Council voted unanimously at its August 15 meeting to establish an application fee of $600 for licenses to operate a medical marijuana dispensary in the Michigan city.

According to city officials, the application fee covers a total of about nine hours of work by staff in the city clerk’s office, police department, planning department, and the city attorney’s office, reports The Ann Arbor Chronicle.

It sounds as if prospective dispensary owners won’t be through paying money to the city even after they cough up the six Benjamins. The ordinance distinguishes between an “application fee” (which this is) and a “license fee.” License fees, according to city ordinance, are to be reviewed by a licensing board, the members of which will be appointed by Mayor John Hieftje.

MS Patient Appeals Marijuana Conviction To N.J. Supreme Court

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on August 16, 2011 Medical, News

Photo: CMMNJ

Wilson was supported throughout his trial by local cannabis advocates, who demonstrated in front of the Somerset County Courthouse.

An attorney representing multiple sclerosis patient John Ray Wilson, the man recently sentenced to five years in prison for growing marijuana to alleviate his medical condition, has filed an appeal to the New Jersey Supreme Court.

Wilson, 38, was convicted on the second-degree felony of “manufacturing” marijuana for growing 17 cannabis plants, reports Freedom Is Green. Last month an appellate court upheld Wilson’s barbaric five-year prison sentence, ruling that he could not claim the plants were for personal, medical use.

Wilson has no healthcare insurance to aid him in his battle against MS. His conviction came just as New Jersey’s compassionate use medical marijuana law was passed. Unfortunately, the Garden State’s law was the first medicinal cannabis legislation in the United States that prohibited home cultivation by patients.

Local cannabis advocates supported Wilson, demonstrating in front of the Somerset County Courthouse throughout his 2009 trial.

Cultivator’s Handbook Still Around After Almost 40 Years

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on August 15, 2011 Growing, Products

Graphic: Homegrown Goodness

Back when I first started noticing such things in 1977, Bill Drake’s International Cultivator’s Handbook was already a classic. Published in 1974, the book was one of the very first to market that went into detail on how to grow not only marijuana, but also coca and opium.

The volume, which became quite hard to find after it went out of print in the early 1980s for a few years, is now available again in a new large paperbound edition from the author.

Author William Daniel Drake Jr. is a writer, teacher and social inventor living and working on a biodynamic vegetable and flower farm located on Johnson Creek in the Texas hill country. Bill is a former professor of international management at the University of Texas at Dallas.

His counterculture books have sold more than three million copies in six languages worldwide since his first book, the Cultivator’s Handbook of Marijuana, in 1969.

Breathe Deeply: 4:20 Yoga Class Offered In California

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on August 15, 2011 Culture, Products

Graphic: Cafe Press

Classes are being offered in California and elsewhere which combine two kinds of relaxation and centering: yoga and marijuana.

The 4:20 Remedy Yoga Class at Brazilian Yoga and Pilates in Atwater puts together “two of hippy-dippy California’s favorite feel-good, vaguely medicinal pastimes,” reports Amanda Lewis at LA Weekly.

Yoga teacher Liz McDonald noticed that many of her private clients showed up high to practice yoga, so she decided to offer a class specifically catering to a cannabinated clientele.

She conceived of the class as “a gathering of creative minds, a very non-judgmental place where all are welcome,” McDonald said. “Do I really want a couple of uptight conservatives in here? Ideally, no, but … my business welcomes all types of people, especially those tight-asses that may need it most!”

New D.C. Medical Marijuana Rules Highlight Federal Prosecution

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on August 15, 2011 Dispensaries, Legislation, Medical

Photo: Cafe Vale Tudo

Applicants for the District of Columbia’s medical marijuana program are now required to state in writing that they assume the risk of federal prosecution for growing or distributing cannabis, and that they cannot hold the city liable for arrests, according to newly revised rules.

The rules for the long-awaited program, published on Friday, for the first time pointedly mention federal prosecution because a Department of Justice memo from June says the federal government still considers marijuana a controlled substance, reports Tom Howell Jr. at The Washington Times.

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