Yearly Archives: 2011
| Photo: Hemp Beach TV |
The city of Federal Way, Washington, just south of Seattle, is trying to shut down three medical marijuana dispensaries, claiming they are illegal under state law. Two of the businesses are fighting back, appealing the city’s denial of their business licenses.
Federal Way city officials claim they are trying to enforce the state’s medical marijuana law, but they may run out of time if the Legislature changes that law in the coming weeks, reports Steve Maynard at The Tacoma News Tribune.
| Colorado Medical Marijuana Doctors |
Legislators in Colorado, worried by conservative hype that “marijuana mills” are helping patients get high rather than healthy, are trying to figure out how to reduce access to cannabis. Most of a stack of competing proposals would hurt patients by making it harder to get an authorization.
One proposed regulation would require a “bona fide” relationship between doctor and patient, whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Another would ban doctors with “conditions” on their medical licenses from authorizing medical marijuana patients, reports Neil Katz at CBS News.
As usual, the biggest casualties of the confusion are patients. About 1,300 people who applied for medical marijuana cards were rejected late last year by health officials because their recommendations came with doctors with license conditions.
| Photo: CNN |
| Sarah Probasco, 29, was arrested for baking goods containing marijuana and selling them online |
A Stillwater, Oklahoma woman has been arrested after allegedly selling baked goods that included marijuana as an ingredient, and marketing them on the Internet. She now faces several felony charges.
“It’s not something we see every day,” said Captain Randy Dickerson of the Stillwater Police Department, reports Jesse Wells at KFOR.
Dickerson said investigators arrested the suspect, Sarah Probasco, 29, this week for running the illegal bakery from her home.
(See video after the fold.)
| Photo: KXLH |
| Both federal and local law enforcement took part in the raid on Montana Cannabis in Helena. |
You have to wonder about the timing. On the very same morning that a Montana Senate committee failed to endorse a bill that would have repealed the state’s medical marijuana law, federal agents, with guns drawn, hit at least 10 dispensaries across the state Monday.
“The timing is impeccable,” said Chris Lindsey, a Missoula attorney who specializes in medical marijuana cases, reports Gwen Florio of The Missoulian.
“They’re seizing everything — plants, marijuana, grow equipment, files and computers,” Lindsey said. “It’s very, very broad in its scope.” The attorney said he retains a business interest in Montana Cannabis, one of the dispensaries where federal search warrants were executed.
| Graphic: KTVQ |
A Montana Senate committee has deadlocked on a tie vote, failing to endorse a bill that would have repealed the state’s medical marijuana law.
The Senate Judiciary Committee locked up 6-6 on a motion to pass House Bill 161, by House Speaker Mike Milburn (R-Cascade), to repeal the law passed by 62 percent of voters in 2004, reports The Missoulian. The repeal bill, which removes safe access to cannabis for thousands of seriously ill patients in Montana, passed the House earlier this session.
| Photo: Henry Diltz |
Welcome to Room 420, where your instructor is Mr. Ron Marczyk and your subjects are wellness, disease prevention, self actualization, and chillin’.Worth Repeating
By Ron Marczyk, R.N.
Health Education Teacher (Retired)
Did you see the medicinal cannabis science report in The New York Times on February 16?
In summary, the report says the great sense of euphoria and calm that many people report experiencing after prolonged exercise (“the runner’s high”) is not so much governed by the endorphins as “now an emerging field of neuroscience indicates that an altogether different neurochemical system within the body and brain, the endocannabinoid system, may be responsible for that feeling” of “pure happiness, elation, a feeling of unity with one’s self and/or nature, endless peacefulness,” and “inner harmony.”
I have always been fascinated by how exercise and positive mood states go together. Having a master’s degree in exercise physiology and cardiac rehabilitation, being a runner for 45 years, and as a rock climber with a background in Zen, I feel qualified to discuss how the endocannabinoid system can be activated by exercise and/or THC ingestion.
With a recent Quinnipiac University poll showing overwhelming 79 percent support for medical marijuana, the Legislature and governor appear poised to reform cannabis laws in Connecticut.
A hearing began on Monday to discuss legalizing marijuana for people with serious medical problems and decriminalizing small amounts of it for recreational users, reports Jeff Stoecker at NBC Connecticut.
“Our state should not encourage illegal drug possession and use; however, possession of small amounts of illicit substances and related paraphernalia for personal use should not leave a person with a life-long criminal record,” said Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, a Democrat who represents New Haven and Hamden, of the decrim bill.
| Graphic: Prohibition’s End |
“Next Steps for Marijuana Reform in California,” a day-long gathering of marijuana reform advocates, will be Saturday, March 19 at the Ricardo Montalban Theatre in Hollywood.
In the wake of Proposition 19’s strong showing at the polls last year, this conference will address ongoing efforts to end failed marijuana prohibition in California, steps to reform the state’s medical marijuana laws, and priorities for marijuana reform in the coming years.
The conference is presented by California NORML, Drug Policy Alliance, Marijuana Policy Project, Americans for Safe Access, and VibeNation MultiMedia.
| Photo: San Francisco Chronicle |
| Owsley Stanley spent his life avoiding photos. This one was taken at a 1967 arraignment for LSD. |
Owsley “Bear” Stanley, a 1960s counterculture figure who became the official acid chemist for the Grateful Dead and who flooded the hippie scene with powerful LSD, died in a car crash in his adopted home country of Australia on Thursday, according to his family. He was 76.
Born Augustus Owsley Stanley III, the eccentric grandson and namesake of a former governor of Kentucky helped create the psychedelic era by producing more than a million doses of LSD at his labs in San Francisco’s Bay Area, reports Reuters.
“He made acid so pure and wonderful that people like Jimi Hendrix wrote hit songs about it and others named their band in hits honor, former rock and roll tour manager Sam Cutler wrote in his 2008 memoirs, You Can’t Always Get What You Want.