Jack Daniel

Photos: Pot and comedy at Denver’s Medical Cannabis Health Fair

By Jack Daniel on February 12, 2014 Culture

Phillip Poston/Westword

Comedy can be the best medicine, especially if mixed with some medicinal cannabis. That was the idea behind the Medical Cannabis Health Fair & Comedy Fundraiser held last Friday night at the Oriental Theater.
Set up by the Cannabis Patient Network, the event featured healthcare and educational vendors, speakers and patients, who shared how cannabis has helped them. Following the educational fair, there was also comedy show.
Westword’s Phillip Poston was there to catch all the action.

Controversy revealed in Massachusetts medical marijuana licensing process

By Jack Daniel on February 12, 2014 Medical, News, Say what?

If you were arrested and/or prosecuted in Norfolk County, Massachusetts for marijuana possession, cultivation, or sales, between the years 1976 and 1996, it was local District Attorney Bill Delahunt who was ultimately responsible for your buzzkill. From 1997 until 2011, he served Massachusetts’ 10th District as a United States Congressman.

Wikimedia Commons

Bill Delahunt from Medical Marijuana of Massachusetts

Late last month, when just 20 medical marijuana dispensary licenses were granted across the entire state, it was Delahunt’s latest venture, a company called Medical Marijuana of Massachusetts, which was granted all 3 licenses that it applied for. No other group was awarded more than two.

As CT pushes ahead with pot, prohibitionists predictably pull the fear card

By Jack Daniel on February 11, 2014 Follow that story, Legalize It, Legislation

Last month, the Connecticut state Department of Consumer Protection granted the first four licenses for marijuana producers, and they plan to award up to five additional licenses for marijuana sellers by the end of next month. With cannabis already decriminalized in the state, and a heavy liberal bias in the region politically, one may wonder what is taking medical marijuana so long.

Neeta Lind/Flickr

The grow facilities will be considered “pharmaceutical manufacturers” by the state, with all medication produced being put through a mandatory testing process before it gets to the dispensaries. Once on the shelves, sellers will be subject to incredibly strict regulations aimed directly at preventing diversion of medical marijuana to the black market in the state.
Still, with some of the nation’s most strict regulations in place, the usual suspects are screaming from the rooftops that allowing any medical marijuana in Connecticut is going to pose a huge risk for…wait for it…”the kids”.

Marijuana tourism is getting mainstream hype whether state officials like it or not

By Jack Daniel on February 11, 2014 Culture, Follow that story

As we’ve noted, official tourism agencies in Colorado continue to keep marijuana at arm’s length, as it were. For instance, a VISIT DENVER list of things the city has in common with Seattle, released prior to the Super Bowl, somehow managed to skip legal pot entirely.

Not that the media has needed much prodding to promote such trips. A recent CBS feature on the subject has now been supplemented by a hefty Washington Post spread that even includes a “vocabulary lesson for pot tourists.”
Click over to Denver Westword where Michael Roberts has the rest of the story.

Colorado universities can now legally grow hemp for research — but will they?

By Jack Daniel on February 11, 2014 Follow that story, Growing, Hemp

VH Hammer

Colleges and universities in Colorado and other states where industrial hemp is legal are now allowed to grow the crop for research purposes, thanks to a provision in the Farm Bill signed into law on Friday by President Obama. The provision, which was originally introduced as an amendment by Colorado Representative Jared Polis, defines hemp as separate from marijuana — and could give the fledgling industry the scientific boost it needs to get off the ground.
So will Colorado universities start studying cannabis?
Melanie Asmar gets to the root of the story over at Denver Westword

New weed study shows that the munchies are real, and why

By Jack Daniel on February 11, 2014 Medical, News

In a new study published this week in Nature Neuroscience, European researchers claim to have proven that smoking weed does, in fact, give you the munchies. Beyond that, they appear to have isolated the specific region of the brain that is affected by THC consumption, and identified the process through which that desire to eat an entire box of Lucky Charms at 2am comes from.

Flickr.com/enerva

So many choices…

In their study, the team of neuroscientists used a mischief of mice to conduct their herbal experimentation on, due to the cognitive similarities that mice share with humans. Roughly half the time, the mice got to get super baked, the other half they had to sit around sober as churchmice, and then…well…what happened to some of the poor critters near the end is downright freaky.

FL Senator Marco Rubio refuses to answer whether or not he’s smoked pot

By Jack Daniel on February 11, 2014 Culture, Legalize It, News

Have you asked yourself, “Wow, I wonder if Marco Rubio has ever been stoned?” Probably not, because, honestly, who cares?
The funny thing is that Rubio refuses to answer the question because he thinks people might actually care.
The Associated Press decided to ask Rubio the pot question.
Our friends over at the Miami New Times have his response, and their reaction.

Humor: Medical Marijuana Will Kill Florida

By Jack Daniel on February 7, 2014 Culture, Legalize It, Say what?

This November, throngs of Floridians will strap on their sandals and flop their way to the polls to cast ballots that may well be the end of Florida as we know it. That’s right, folks. It’s over. Kiss it all goodbye.

Because on November’s ballot is an amendment so evil and insidious that mere contact with the ink will be enough to turn toddlers into meth-crazed cannibals. I don’t even want to say it.
Fine, I’ll say it: Medical Marijuana.
To read the hilarious full parody, click on over to our friends at the Broward/Palm Beach New Times

High Times Medical Cannabis Cup returns to SoCal this weekend

By Jack Daniel on February 7, 2014 Culture, Legalize It

This weekend, on February 8th and 9th, an estimated 17,000 weed enthusiasts from every corner of the cannabis community will descend on the NOS Events Center in San Bernardino for the second time in as many years, to feast their eyes, and their lungs, on the finest marijuana and concentrates that the west coast has to offer.
While, technically, this weekend’s event is referred to as a High Times Medical Cannabis Cup, little or no flavor or culture is lost in translation between the new-age Cups in the U.S., and the granddaddy of them all, the official annual Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam. Competitors, vendors, and buyers all converge for two full days to form a scene complete with informational seminars, special guest appearances, live music, and of course, the awards.

Mason Tvert Q&A: The burning ambition of an advocate who’s been pushing pot for a decade

By Jack Daniel on February 7, 2014 Culture, Legalize It

Mason Tvert, featured in the following wide-ranging Q&A, has played a key role in Colorado’s legalization of marijuana since 2005.

Mason Tvert, of the Marijuana Policy Project

Beginning with pro-pot campaigns at Colorado State University and the University of Colorado, Tvert and his SAFER organization advocated for statewide recreational marijuana legalization for eight years, working step by step on MMJ initiatives and then decriminalization on city and state levels until Amendment 64 passed in November 2012.
Now communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, Tvert has begun work on vaporizing marijuana laws outside of Colorado.
Josiah Hessie with Denver Westword sat down with Tvert to get his take on the black market, contact highs, smoking in public, and why he feels it’s too early to tell what the legal weed world is going to look like.
The full interview can be seen over at Westword

Author Jack Daniel