Search Results: year in review (351)

Medical Marijuana 411
Dr. Frank Lucido: “It’s a great privilege to be a part of someone’s life on that level, from delivering healthy babies, to holding their hand when they are dying”

This year, Dr. Frank Lucido, M.D., celebrates his 33rd year of providing family health care in Berkeley, California, He began practicing at his current location in 1979.

Dr. Lucido has been in the forefront of the medical cannabis movement since the passage of the California Compassionate Use Act of 1996, Proposition 215.
“Wow, how to summarize these 33 years,” Dr. Lucido told Toke of the Town. “Family medicine has given me a chance to see people in all stages of life, health, and illness.”

John Clanton/Tulsa World
Patricia Spottedcrow is serving eight years in an Oklahoma prison for selling $31 worth of marijuana to a police informant

A young Oklahoma mother of four who is serving an eight-year prison sentence on a first-time marijuana offense — for selling $31 worth of pot — has a chance at parole after the parole board unanimously agreed to hear her case early.

Patricia Spottedcrow, 26, is scheduled to appear on the Pardon and Parole Board’s docket between April 17 and 20 in Oklahoma City, reports Ginnie Graham at Tulsa World.

The Weed Blog

​Advocates Applaud Decision to Review Long Beach and Riverside Dispensary Regulation Cases
The California Supreme Court issued an order on Wednesday indicating it will review two controversial medical marijuana cases that have resulted in the suspension of several local dispensary ordinances across the state.
As a result of Wednesday’s order, Pack v. City of Long Beach and City of Riverside v. Inland Empire Patient’s Health and Wellness Ctr., Inc. have both been vacated in anticipation of the High Court’s ruling. The Pack decision held that some dispensary regulations may be preempted by federal law and the Riverside decision held that localities could legally ban distribution altogether.

KDKA
Brandon Rice, 14, died last month, four months after destroying his lungs by smoking Spice through a plastic PEZ candy dispenser.

​Despite the true story having been available for some time now, many mainstream media outlets continue to inaccurately report that a 14-year-old Pittsburgh boy died last month after a lung transplant made necessary due to his smoking fake pot which destroyed his lungs in June.

As tragic as the story is — and as bad an idea it is to smoke fake pot — the eighth grader’s death was not, as widely reported, due to chemical burns on his lungs from smoking fake marijuana. It was due to the fact that he smoked the ‘Spice’ out of a plastic PEZ candy dispenser, which partially melted and coated his lungs with toxic chemicals, as reported more than two weeks ago by Lucy Steigerwald at Reason.

Photo: Alaska Hemp
“Hey, I think I smell something…”

​A press release from the Alaska State Troopers proudly unveiled the results of a three-year(!) study which, not shockingly, determined that the odor of marijuana may be associated with the presence of marijuana.

Now, stop it. Maybe Alaska State Troopers (AST) don’t have much to do; I’m sure their lives could use a little more excitement. And they have all those “federally forfeited illegal drug proceeds” to spend on, well, something.
The troopers used the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) Justice Center to analyze three years’ worth of marijuana grows which they busted. The study analyzed 200 marijuana grow searches conducted by Alaska State Troopers covering 2006 to 2008.

Photo: Sharon Letts
Dr. Mollie Fry, pictured above, is about to begin a five-year federal prison term for medical marijuana. So is her husband, attorney Dale Schafer.

​By Jack Rikess

Toke of the Town

Northern California Correspondent

It’s a glaring misuse of our legal system against Dr. Marion “Mollie” Fry and her husband, civil attorney Dale Schafer. After more than half a decade of litigation and three years of appeals, the couple have been given until May 2 to turn themselves in to authorities to serve five years in a federal prison.
It started when the police raided their Sacramento home in 2001, finding 34 plants. Well below the 90-plant limit established by the local city ordinance for cardholders such as themselves, the couple thought they were on safe legal ground.
Dr. Fry, having gone through a radical mastectomy, decided to grow her own cannabis to offset the many complications she was experiencing from chemotherapy. Schafer suffers from hemophilia and a wrenched back, and is under constant care. He has also chosen to treat himself with medical marijuana.

Cannabis Defense Coalition

​​Responding to increasing outrage over a police raid on a legal, two-plant medical cannabis garden, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn on Monday announced an executive review of the city’s cannabis enforcement policies.

“It’s not the policy, or the goal, of the city to investigate, arrest and prosecute individuals who possess small amounts of marijuana,” said McGinn. The mayor organized a review panel consisting of the city attorney, police chief, county prosecutor, and a member of the city council.
Starting on Tuesday, November 2, a specific assistant police chief must approve all marijuana search warrants in the city.
Washington is one of 14 states that allow the medical use of cannabis, and Seattle voters directed police to lay off the pot enforcement with the passage of I-75, a “lowest priority” directive, in 2003.
​With a county prosecutor sympathetic to medical marijuana and a city attorney that refuses to pursue pot cases at all, Seattle is seen as a safe haven for medical marijuana patients in Washington.

Graphic: Emperor Of Hemp

​Cannabis activist Jack Herer (1939-2010) was a true American original. When we lost him on April 15, he passed into the hallowed hall of hemp history, a man who devoted his life to the cause of marijuana freedom.

Jack pledged to fight every day of his life until either cannabis was legal, he was dead, or until he turned 84. He took the pledge very seriously and never stopped fighting, giving an impassioned speech at Hempstalk 2009 and then collapsing with the heart attack that ended up taking his life a few months later.
Jack’s friends decided to honor the man and his work with a memorial tribute edition of writer/producer Jeff Meyers’ and director Jeff Jones’ 1999 documentary, Emperor Of Hemp. “We went back through all of Jack’s original interview footage and found a few never-before-seen gems, 20-plus bonus minutes of classic Jack at his fiery best,” Meyers says on the Emperor Of Hemp website.
“In the 11 years since the release of Emperor Of Hemp, our humble low-budget marijuana documentary has been seen by millions all over the world and has aired on PBS stations in major U.S. cities,” Meyers, a former L.A. Times reporter, said. “We receive email all the time from viewers who say the documentary has enlightened them to the truth behind marijuana prohibition.”

Photo: WBAL
Marijuana critic William Breathes at work

​It’s been a year now since Denver Westword rolled up, I mean rolled out its Mile Highs and Lows dispensary reviews. The process of a newspaper looking for and hiring a marijuana critic attracted lots of attention from the press last year, and rightly so, as it is yet another sign of the generational shift in attitudes toward the weed that seem to be all around us these days.

Pot critic William Breathes came to national prominence in the flurry of coverage, including reports on CNN and BBC, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. 
Cannabis connoisseurship has of course existed as long as marijuana consumers have known the difference between schwag and dank. But actually getting paid to be a pot critic is a relatively new development.

WBAL
Marijuana critic William Breathes at work

​A Denver man gets paid to smoke cannabis and write about it as one of the first professional medical marijuana critics in the country.

Denver’s Westword alternative newspaper has hired the man, who goes by the name “William Breathes,” to review marijuana dispensaries and the quality of the cannabis they sell, reports WBAL TV.
“He has his journalism degree,” said a Westword editor. “He was a good writer, and he could punctuate and he could spell, which was very different than a lot of people who applied for the job.”
Breathes said he has been smoking marijuana for 15 years to ease chronic stomach pains. Now he smokes pot to pay the mortgage.
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