Melody Kenyon of Fort Collins, Colorado, was shocked when her application to open a medical marijuana dispensary by the name of Canna King was denied by the city. She was so shocked, that she has filed a lawsuit in the Larimer County Court against the city of Fort Collins, claiming that it is the city, not her, who is guilty of moral turpitude.
When you think of politics in Washington D.C., you rarely think of speed, efficiency, or common sense. Yet, in just half a year, the nation’s capital has gone from the dark ages of full prohibition, to be poised now on the verge of passing two new measures that would place it among the most liberal of jurisdictions when it comes to cannabis legislation.
The first big development, reported on here back in October, was the D.C. City Council’s 10-3 landslide decision to move forward on legislation to end the current marijuana possession laws, and replace them with more fair and effective punishments for law breakers. D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray has also voiced his support for new regulations, tossing his clout behind what is already a supermajority in the City Council.
| Compton Mayor Aja Brown. |
Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s, the city of Compton, CA gained an infamous reputation across mainstream America as a drug-addled wasteland, ruled by gangs and racked by unthinkable violence.
Fueled at the time by accounts from gangster rap titles and Hollywood portrayals of the hardened region of South Central Los Angeles, today Compton is much less violent, but just as vulnerable, running a $40-million deficit as it struggles to try to avoid all out bankruptcy. It’s not hard to see that a change of direction is needed.
| Flickr.com/Simon Strandgaard.td> |
It was a Tuesday morning in San Diego, just over a month ago on November 7th, when SDPD received reports of broken glass at a local business, with a possible burglary having had occurred overnight. Police investigators arriving on the scene quickly determined that the business in question was a medical marijuana dispensary, and the focus of their investigation quickly shifted from aiding possible burglary victims, to persecuting law abiding citizens and shuttering a legitimate business.
You see, San Diego was home to nearly 300 storefront medical marijuana dispensaries as recently as two years ago, but an intense crackdown by joint task forces, combining the might of local and federal authorities, led to nearly every single brick and mortar storefront being closed by the end of 2011.
The relatively calm and temperate coastal waters stretching between Tijuana, Mexico and San Diego, California have long served as an alternate route for drug smugglers hoping to avoid the heavily congested and scrutinized overland border crossing checkpoints separating the two countries.
From paddling pounds of pot over on surfboards, to cramming kilos of chronic into claustrophobic garage-built submarines, authorities on both sides of the border have pretty much seen it all when it comes to maritime marijuana smuggling on the west coast. Startling though, is what seems to be a recent uptick in interdiction involving gunfire, and whether or not that is a result of new, more aggressive tactics by the Coast Guard.
As one of the original counties formed when California was granted statehood back in 1850, Mendocino County is known for its picturesque northern Californian coastline, its majestic redwood forests, and of course, its weed production.
Home to a short-lived, county-regulated, cannabis cultivation program for nearly two years, Mendocino now finds itself stuck between the citizens who willingly signed up for the program, and the federal government who is seeking to acquire all of their personal information for reasons unknown.
Fifteen years ago, voters in the state of Washington passed into law one of the nation’s first state-level medical marijuana programs. While certainly flawed, as most of those early laws were, the pioneering program has produced a robust network of doctors, growers, dispensaries, and patients in the Pacific Northwest.
Last year, in the 2012 elections, Washington joined Colorado as the first two states to legalize recreational marijuana use for adults, enjoying an easy 55-45 victory at the polls. More recently, a memo was sent out by Attorney General Eric Holder and the U.S. Department of Justice, essentially giving the two states the feds’ blessing to move ahead with their experiments with legal weed. It’s all good in Washington, then, right? Unfortunately, no.
| Jim Greenhill via Flickr. |
In southwestern Arizona, along a lonely stretch of Highway 86, lay the Tohono O’odham Indian Nation and the tiny village of Pisinemo. The village itself, home to only about 250 full-time desert-dwelling residents, is actually known by the locals as Pisin Mo’o (or Buffalo Head), but somebody at the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division blew it when they made the road signs, forever giving it the bastardized version now in use.
It was on the western edge of Pisinemo, on a cold fall night four years ago, on November 12, 2008, where U.S. Border Patrol Agents Dario Castillo (25) and Ramon Zuniga (31) finally caught up to the prey that they had been hunting throughout the night, a group of four suspected drug smugglers. The four men were suspected to be in the country illegally, part of a larger group of smugglers that had scattered earlier in the night, leaving behind an alleged $600,000 worth of weed.
| Jovan Jackson, from YouTube. |
Just over one year ago, on October 24th, 2012, historical legal precedent was set in the state of California in regard to its ambiguous medical marijuana laws. San Diego based medical marijuana storefront owner, Jovan Jackson, had been tried in court twice, based first on entrapment style undercover buys in 2008 (acquitted of all charges), and then trumped up charges of possession and sale of marijuana after a raid on his shop in 2009, of which he was eventually found guilty.
| Jack Daniel. |
| ZHO flyer from CHAMPS. |
Last week, CHAMPS Trade Show and B2B Expo landed for the first time ever in Denver, Colorado, bringing with it hundreds of vendors and thousands of buyers from all over North America for a 3-day meet and greet at the Convention Center downtown. Those fortunate enough to gain entrance to the event were treated to amazing wholesale deals on everything from old school handcrafted artwork, to the hottest cutting edge technology, and cannabis ambassadors Tommy Chong and Bob Snodgrass could be seen perusing the various booths, undoubtedly amazed at how far the scene has come.
But amid the rows of apparel, functional glass, e-cigarette and/or herbal supplement booths stood two gentlemen behind a long, nondescript table littered with eye-catching but similarly nondescript flyers, repeatedly doing a demo where it appeared that they were “blasting” butane through a tube – indoors at the Denver Convention Center.