In a stunningly misguided article written by Dennis Thompson for HealthDay.com, and unfortunately republished on WebMD.com, he asserts that society is bound to pay a steep price for allowing various forms of marijuana legalization to be passed into law.
In his hit piece on pot, Thompson warns of the “dark side” of legal weed, claiming that the growing trend we are seeing in marijuana acceptance is directly creating a major uptick in fatal car accidents, and that soon the dangers of drunk driving will pale in comparison to the dangers of driving with weed in your system.
Author Jack Daniel
President Barack Obama made waves in an interview with the New Yorker magazine a couple weeks ago, in which he finally stated the plain and simple truth that no American president up until now has had the guts to tell, that marijuana use is no more dangerous than alcohol use. Pro-cannabis advocates took the statement as a cautious grain of optimism, while the DEA and sheriffs across the country crapped their cages.
The question though, whether or not marijuana is just as safe as alcohol, is an important one, as it casts a very real shadow of doubt over the retention of cannabis on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. In a House Oversight Committee hearing yesterday on Capitol Hill, the White House’s Deputy Drug Czar was grilled on this very same topic, and like the president, he finally gave in to reality.
| WhiteHouse.gov |
| Deputy Drug Czar Michael Botticelli |
Miami-Dade Police conducted three raids of three separate grow houses in the Redland on Tuesday and hauled off about $1 million worth of marijuana in the process.
Local 10 reports that 800 pounds of pot was rounded up at a grow house on Southwest 200th Street and 174th Avenue alone. The narcotic bureau broke down a gate to find a house with two rooms turned into a hydroponics lab. 30 plants were found in one room. 25 in the other. The owner of that home managed to escape before police arrived, and they’re still searching for suspects.
Read the full story over at the Miami New Times
The benefits of cannabis use are many, and are as varied as the types of people who benefit from the plant. Not a week goes by anymore without at least one headline about another person, young or old, who claims that marijuana saved their life.
In a groundbreaking report just published in the American Journal of Public Health, researchers from the University of Colorado, scouring state-level suicide data over a 17-year period, may have proven that legalizing marijuana may be saving more lives than we think.
| William Breathes |
| The budroom at #22 on the list, Colorado Harvest Company |
As of January 1, when recreational marijuana sales officially began, the City of Denver had licensed eighteen shops. The numbers have grown steadily since then. By our January 21 update, fifteen more shops had gotten the city’s blessing, and in the couple of weeks since then, another four have won approval, bringing the current total to 37. Michael Roberts lists them all in order of licensing, along with photos, videos, links and excerpts from those critiqued by Westword marijuana reviewer, and Toke of the Town editor, William Breathes.
Westword has the countdown here
When Colorado passed Amendment 64 in 2012, cities across the state were given until October 1st, 2013, to have their own individual rules put in place to regulate the inevitable wave of recreational retail pot shops.
Aurora, Colorado, the third largest city in the state, has no legal medical marijuana storefronts, and feeling the pressure of the impending deadline for recreational stores, enacted a moratorium of up to one year on the opening of any retail outlets either. That was in May of last year.
Since then, the spitballing City Council and the Ad Hoc A64 Committee have made some rather far-fetched proposals to get in on the lucrative legal weed market, even proposing that the city grow and sell its own! But their latest proposal may be the most ludicrous one to date.
The effort to legalize marijuana in Missouri is going full-steam ahead with everyone from activists and lawmakers to the state’s only prisoner serving life without parole for marijuana-only offenses trying to free the weed.
| Kholood Eid |
| Mizanskey hopes a measure will pass that would free him from prison after more than 20 years behind bars. |
Show Me Cannabis is currently polling two initiatives to see if there’s enough support to try to get on the 2014 ballot. State Representative Chris Kelly (D) introduced House Bill 1659 last week, which would legalize and regulate marijuana for people over the age of 21. And Jeff Mizanskey, the man who has been in prison for the past 20 years serving life without parole for marijuana, has submitted a proposal that would make him a free man.
Dubbed the “Mizanskey Measure” by Mizanskey’s attorney, Tony Nenninger, who filed the paperwork in Mizanskey’s name, the initiative would legalize marijuana for people over the age of 21 and release nonviolent offenders from prison.
Ray Downs at the Riverfront Times has all of the details
Visitors to the DEA Headquarters building, located in Washington D.C., may be surprised to learn that there is an actual museum onsite. Fun for the whole family, hard-earned taxpayer dollars were used to construct not only a fully detailed mock medical marijuana dispensary, but a quaint faux crack house right next door. Because, you know, Schedule I, etc.
DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart passes by the monuments to the War on Drug’s failures each day when she arrives to work, and the constant reminder has her lashing out with blame for everyone but her own department.
The Hawaiian Islands have historically been known for exporting fresh fruits and nuts, dank coffee beans, and sunburnt tourists. While the many legends of amazing pakalolo strains like Kauai Electric, Kona Gold, and the infamous Maui Wowie have made their way to the mainland over the years, extremely strict anti-cannabis state laws, and a lack of will to reform them, have kept Hawaii’s finest weed a well-kept secret.
One high-ranking state lawmaker hopes to change that, though, and in the process help turn marijuana into Hawaii’s new number one cash crop.
Ever since Colorado’s medical marijuana boom, law enforcers have been worried about people driving stoned
| Toke of the Town |
— and these concerns likely helped motivate strict open-container laws related to marijuana.
But now, following the launch of recreational pot sales, one of Colorado’s most powerful legislators has introduced a bill that would make it more difficult to prove an open-container violation — and a marijuana attorney sees the move as a positive one.
Michael Roberts at Westword has the rest of the story.