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He’s 50 and a father of seven.
Here’s your daily dose of pot news from the newsletter WeedWeek.
Bernard Noble, a Louisiana man serving 13 years for possessing two joints had his sentence reduced to eight years. He may be out in two.

In Michigan, MED patient fees fund marijuana enforcement including raid equipment.

Outgoing Vermont governor Peter Shumlin (D) offered to pardon anyone convicted for possessing up to an ounce. He supported an unsuccessful effort to legalize REC through the state legislature.

In Rolling Stone, the activist and rapper Killer Mike writes on how to bring more African-Americans into the industry. For more, see my story in California Sunday.

The NFL may be warming to MED. Switzerland too may be loosening up.

Ozy talks to a combat veteran who now grows cannabis. A dispensary in Massachusetts is giving away free seeds.

Joe Dolce’s new book “ Brave New Weed” gets a fond review by Matt Taibbi in the New York Times.

Boulder Weekly published a piece called “ Marijuana and the Thinking Teenager.

Canadian dispensary chain Cannabis Culture opened an illegal store in Montreal and gave away “ free nugs” to an approving crowd.

The L.A. Times went to the Emerald Cup in Sonoma County. It contrasts the revelers against, “a panel of entirely sober government officials [who]discussed the ramifications of marijuana legalization, California’s complex and evolving regulatory structure, and tried to answer questions about the future of the cannabis industry that seem, at this point, unanswerable.” The piece has many more great descriptions. Read the whole thing.

Some parents are upset that Amazon is sells children’s pot-leaf leggings. (I recently saw a pair, for adults, on sale in Aspen for $75.)

Now there’s CBD-infused water.

Social network MassRoots acquired online ordering platform Whaxy.

Mic put out an update on the state of cannabis investing.

An interesting finding

Here’s your daily round up of pot news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek.

The Centers for Disease Control found that more Americans are using cannabis but the abuse rate has fallen. For additional details see here.

At the L.A. Times, Robin Abcarian looks at the links between cannabis use and psychosis.

A study found that being high decreases cannabis users’ motivation, but that it returned when they were sober.

The DEA said it would add the psychotropic tropical plant kratom, which some consider to have health benefits, to its list of schedule I substances, alongside LSD, heroin, cannabis and other drugs it considers to have no medical uses.

Israeli doctors will begin a first of its kind study to test the effects of cannabis on individuals with autism. The country also plans to start exporting MED.

New York state will expand its MED program, and allow home delivery. Crain’s New York Business asks if the state will allow the industry to thrive. Oregon licensed its first two testing labs.

This month, a Manhattan gallery owner known as Mr. Grey will host an exhibit of bongs valued between $500 and $250,000. You can see pieces from his collection on his Instagram page.

The Forward has a “ Pot Shabbat” with “Jeff the 420 Chef.” The challah, matzo balls, Brussels sprouts, potatoes and cookies were all laced.

Vice meets an Englishman who legally changed his name to “ Free Cannabis.” He planted cannabis in Glastonbury’s celebrated flower displays.

A new cannabis social network caters to seniors. Jimi Hendrix is enshrined in a new line of edibles.

The great comedian Gene Wilder died. Though it did not make the connection, The Cannabist reviewed Snozzberry, an indica dominant hybrid, named for a fruit invented by Willy Wonka. Wilder also appears to smoke weed in “Blazing Saddles.”


On May 5th, Manitoba Games released a smartphone app by the name of Weed Firm. Less than three weeks later, the app had received over 5000 reviews on iTunes, with an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars, and had shot to the top of the charts on Apple’s App Store.
An indie game developer finds success in the market, iTunes receives a flood of customers downloading the wildly popular app – win/win, right? Apparently not, since just yesterday Apple pulled Weed Firm from its App Store with no explanation to its fans, or its developers.

Growing up in a rough Miami neighborhood in the 1970’s, Carl Hart was no stranger to life on the streets. One of eight kids, living in decrepit low-income housing projects, Hart watched his abusive father physically torment their mother for years.
Raised amid gunshots, domestic violence, and utter poverty, Hart was using and pushing a variety of drugs, had held someone at gunpoint, was committing robberies, and had unknowingly fathered a child – all by the age of 16. He seemed to be right on track to becoming another statistic in south Florida, another wasted youth.

Steve Elliott ~alapoet~

By Ron Marczyk, RN

“It is clear that we’re in the midst of a serious national conversation about marijuana.” ~ Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske
Let’s start that serious national conversation about marijuana! Seventy-five years late is better than never. Why now? Because marijuana legalization support is growing and is more popular by several points then any politician in the country! 
  
This new marijuana majority has the momentum, the votes and the moral high ground; if you support prohibition you are showing your age and your lack of medical science knowledge and you shouldn’t be in office making decisions that affect young people 18-34 who are the new face of America.
 
This new marijuana spring just gave birth to legalization.

Vaporizers FTW

In an innovation sure to please patients who can’t afford to, well, cough up almost $700 for a Volcano vaporizer, one San Francisco medical marijuana delivery service is now offering the top-shelf vaporizers for rental.

Volcanoes, like other vaporizers, gently heat the herbal material without burning it, so you get pure flavor and aroma without smoke. Vaporization creates a fine mist, similar to steam, with the result being what many say is better flavor, increased purity, and greater effect.
Many patients who find cannabis smoke to be irritating report effective relief through inhaling vapor.
But with the latest digital model of the Volcano retailing for $669, many patients couldn’t afford to experience the healthy luxury of German vaporizer engineering (the Volcano is manufactured by the German firm of Storz & Bickel).

The Sentence Salvo

​There are so many books relating, directly and indirectly, to the world of cannabis that it can be tough to know which ones to buy.

With a plethora of volumes on growing, using, concentrating, and cooking with cannabis, as well as tomes related to the culture and lifestyle associated with it, the reader with an adventurous streak can stock a library or fill an e-reader.
But beyond the grow books (I recommend Rosenthal, Cervantes and West) and the basic histories of marijuana (I recommend mine), books which are more about the (counter-) culture surrounding weed rather than weed itself are harder to pigeonhole and, thus, often harder to find.

Here are five of the best books on the culture of marijuana that came to our attention this year.
The Audacity of Dope by sports writer Monte Dutton is unusual in that Dutton has, until now, been well known and celebrated for his spin on NASCAR racing. Dutton’s controversial new novel features a man who becomes a hero against his own wishes.
Riley Mansfield, the lead character, isn’t a conventional hero. He writes songs for a living, smokes pot for recreation and basically just wants to live and let live. But when he foils an apparent terrorist plot he is thrust into the spotlight, which is exactly where he doesn’t want to be.
Suddenly, everyone wants a piece of the marketable new “hero,” including both major political parties. They aren’t willing to take no for an answer, partly because it’s an election year and partly because what happened on the plane may be more complicated than it appears.
Mansfield and his girl Friday, Melissa Franklin, lead the government and the Republicans on a sometimes merry, sometimes painful, sometimes lucky chase. Along the way, they stumble across some unlikely friends — a Democrat strategist, a Rolling Stone writer, a pair of sympathetic FBI agents — and also some ruthless enemies.
Theirs is a love affair of sex, drugs and country-folk set against a backdrop of political scheming, hidden agendas and an unraveling plan to keep control of the government.
The Audacity of Dope by Monte Dutton, Neverland Publishing Company LLC [2011], $16.95

Photo: Colorado Medical Marijuana Dispensary Review
Marijuana-infused edibles such as these delicious-looking cookies would be banned in Colorado under a bill being debated Tuesday in the Colorado House.

​The Colorado House is scheduled on Tuesday to debate a measure which would ban the medical marijuana edibles industry in the state. Most observers gave the bill a low chance of passage.

House Bill 1250 co-sponsor Rep. Cindy Acree (R) claimed the medibles business is bad for both children and patients, and adds that patients can still make their own cannabis edibles, reports Michael Roberts at Denver Westword. “They can use it however they want: bake with it, drink it, whatever,” she said. “And it doesn’t ban any of the base product, like the oils, the tinctures.”
“The way it’s written now preserves the integrity of the constitutional obligation to make sure patients have access to medicinal products,” Acree said. “But the bill would ban edible food and beverage products.”
And why, exactly, is a ban needed on commercially prepared marijuana edibles?
“Things like ‘pot tarts’ have been showing up on school grounds,” Acree claimed. “And they don’t have regulated doses. I think even patients are misled by some of these things.”

Photo: OurWeed
Swazi marijuana is one of the few pure Sativa strains left in the world.

​A challenge to the marijuana laws of the southern African nation Swaziland is going all the way to the High Court. Dr. Ben Diamini wants cannabis legalized, and he has also called upon the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade to grant him a 10-year exclusive license to grow “dagga,” as the herb is called locallly.

Dr. Diamini pointed out that in the past 5,000 years, no one has died of cannabis anywhere in the world. He wants to High Court to help him get an order allowing him to operate a cannabis processing factory and set up a marketing company, with all dagga growers in Swaziland as suppliers, reports Mtheto Lungu at Africa News. He said that his factory will then solicit orders from local and international pharmacies.
Diamini said he would involve international research institutions to conduct research on processed and raw cannabis.
Holding a doctorate in education and a bachelor of science degree with a major in chemistry, Diamini said cannabis is not a drug and is not addictive. He said it is neither intoxicating nor poisonous.