Author Steve Elliott ~alapoet~

Experienced Potheads Show No Change In Task Performance

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 9, 2010 Medical, News

If you are an experienced pot smoker, marijuana doesn’t affect your task performance, according to a new study.

If you’re going to smoke pot, for goodness’ sakes, smoke it every day, man.

Experienced marijuana consumers show virtually no changes in cognitive performance after using cannabis, according to clinical trial data published online this week in the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior.

Investigators at Columbia University in New York and San Francisco Brain Research Institute assessed acute marijuana-related effects on cognitive functioning in 24 volunteers who reported consuming cannabis at least 24 times per week, reports NORML.

Scientists found that participants’ overall performance accuracy on episodic memory and working memory tasks “was not significantly altered by marijuana.”

“The present findings show that smoked marijuana produced minimal effects on episodic and spatial working memory of near-daily smokers,” the researchers concluded.

Maine Pot Dispensary Applicants Wait For Friday Decision

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 8, 2010 Dispensaries, Medical

Graphic: Reality Catcher

Maine will announce on Friday which of seventeen applicants will get the eight dispensary slots as part of the state’s medical marijuana law.

The prospective dispensaries said they will charge anywhere from $200 to $400 an ounce for medicinal cannabis, reports John Richardson at the Waterville Morning Sentinel. The state has not set any limits on prices, but said it is “reviewing” the pricing information as part of the application process.

Many of the shops will also provide massage, acupuncture and yoga as extra services, the Morning Sentinel reports. One plans to organize knitting and quilting groups. Another wants to hire a pastry chef to turn marijuana into gourmet organic edibles.

While the Maine medical marijuana market is untested, since there have been no state-licensed dispensaries until now, most prospective dispensary owners said they expect to sell at least $1 million worth of cannabis in the first full year of operation, starting July 1, 2011.

Former Major Leaguer Says Marijuana For Aches, Pains

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 8, 2010 Culture, News

Photo: Pantagraph.com

Former Major League Baseball player Dmitri Young’s McLean County Jail booking photo

Former Major League Baseball star Dmitri Young said he wanted to give fans an explanation of why he was carrying a small amount of cannabis in an Illinois airport Monday morning that led to misdemeanor charges of possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

“Since retirement, I’ve been in a lot of serious pain,” the former Detroit Tigers star told Shawn Windsor of the Detroit Free Press.

“From my quads to my back to anxiety from my mother’s death, it takes a toll,” Young said. “I didn’t want to use pills. I had already been to rehab before and knew I didn’t want to be on opiates. So, in talking with physicians, we decided this was the best way to go.”

“I used poor judgment,” Young said. “And I have to pay the consequences.”

Man Smuggles Marijuana Into Jail Using Chinese Takeout Box

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 8, 2010 News

Photo: The WEBstaurant store

Tastes great, but you’re hungry again in 15 minutes.

A Georgia man has been arrested after sheriff’s deputies claim they caught him trying to smuggle marijuana in to an Alabama jail inmate in a container of Chinese food.

Pike County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Edward Ridley, 41, of Cordele, Ga., and charged him Saturday with felony “promoting prison contraband,” reports Matt Elofson at the Dothan Eagle.

He was still being held at the Pike County Jail Thursday on $7,500 bond.

Ridley entered the jail with a styrofoam container of Chinese take-out food, including rice and shrimp, for inmate Vincent Thomas, acccording to sheriff’s department records.

Illinois Man Caught With Marijuana On Way To Court

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 8, 2010 Uncategorized

Photo: Post-Tribune

Jeremy Erskine Jamal Miller, 18, thought he’d just bring along his weed when he had to show up in court on a robbery charge.

A Lynnwood, Illinois man was arrested for marijuana when he pulled out a bag of pot while emptying his pockets in front of Porter County Courthouse security on the way to his Tuesday hearing.

Jeremy Erskine Jamal Miller, 18, ended up pleading guilty to felony theft in handcuffs that morning, then was taken away by Valparaiso, Indiana police officers afterward on a marijuana possession charge, reports James D. Wolf, Jr., of the Merrillville Post-Tribune.

Court Security Officer Doug Crandall said when Miller came into the courthouse, he emptied his pockets onto the table — including a small baggie of cannabis.

Miller then knocked the baggie to the floor, as sneakily as possible under the circumstances, and bent over.

Officers then found the sack of pot in his sock.

Judge Mary Harper had to ask an officer to remove the handcuffs so Miller could sign his plea agreement in court.

Miller, who originally faced up to eight years in prison for felony robbery after holding up two Valparaiso, Indiana men who had given him a ride on September 3.

Boy Charged In BB Gun Robbery Of Marijuana From Dealer

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 7, 2010 News

Graphic: Bleat

Bond has been set at $40,000 for a 17-year-old Arlington Heights, Illinois teen who prosecutors claim took two ounces of marijuana — at BB-gunpoint — from a pot dealer.

Nicholas Saegebrecht was charged with aggravated robbery in the incident, which happened Monday night in Arlington Heights, reports Tania Karas of the Chicago Daily Herald.

Saegebrecht called the victim to set up the pot deal, according to police. Then, on his way to the agreed-upon meeting point in the parking lot of a downtown Arlington Heights business, he picked up the BB gun, the police report said.

When Saegebrecht brandished the BB gun at the dealer, the marijuana was handed over, the complaint said.

Officers later pulled over the vehicle Saegebrecht was in, and found the BB gun used in the crime. Saegebrecht, who probably isn’t in any danger of being nominated for a high-IQ award, also had a pending case for possession of a controlled substance, according to the prosecutor.

DEA Raids Medical Marijuana Protest Organizer

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 7, 2010 Medical, News

Photo: Gus Burns/The Saginaw News

John Roberts, 48, said he and his fiancee, Stephanie Whisman, 38, were raided after he organized a medical marijuana protest last week. Roberts is holding a syringe of Rick Simpson hemp oil, a liquid cannabis extract ingested orally for pain and to induce sleep.

Perhaps as a warning to those who dare to speak out, federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents on Tuesday raided the home of a Michigan medical marijuana patient, activist and caregiver after he organized a protest outside the Saginaw County Courthouse last week.

John F. Roberts, 49, of Thomas Township, said he believes the raid was in retaliation because he organized last week’s protest accusing the Saginaw County Sheriff of raiding patients and caregivers, reports Kim Russell at NBC 25. Protesters had come from around the state, some holding signs reading, “Learn The Law.”

L.A. County Moves To Ban Pot Dispensaries In Unincorporated Areas

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 7, 2010 Dispensaries, Legislation

Photo: Hidden Treats

Spineless Los Angeles County Supervisors are about to cut off safe access for 1.5 million people.

A million and a half people are about to lose safe access to marijuana.

Worried that Los Angeles’s new crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries is pushing the pot shops out into other communities, pot-phobic Los Angeles County supervisors took steps Tuesday to ban dispensaries from unincorporated areas countywide.

“It leaves the unincorporated portion vulnerable,” said Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, author of the motion. The board, according to Antonovich, should protect residents’ “safety and property values.”

California Pot Prices Could Plummet To $38/Oz. With Legalization

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 7, 2010 Legislation, News

Photo: Guanabee

The price of marijuana could plummet as much as 80 percent, and consumption would rise, if Californians approve Proposition 19, the cannabis legalization measure on November’s ballot, according to a detailed analysis by researchers at Rand’s Drug Policy Research Center.

Currently between $300 and $450 an ounce in California, the cost of pot could drop as low as $38 by eliminating the expenses and challenges of operating in the black market, according to the study, reports John Hoeffel at the Los Angeles Times.

The researchers admitted they weren’t certain how much pot use might be spurred by cheaper prices, but they noted one typical estimate is that a 10 percent drop in price typically increases use by about three percent. Other factors, such as getting rid of the legal risks associated with marijuana use, could also increase usage between five percent and 50 percent.

End Mexico’s Bloody Drug War: Legalize Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 7, 2010 Global, News

Photo: FrontPageMag.com

The Drug War has resulted in about 16,000 deaths in Mexico over the past three years.

When substance abuse treatment professionals start calling for the legalization of marijuana, we can be sure that we are mainstreaming our message of cannabis liberation.

That’s why Toke of the Town is running this guest editorial by Steven Lo, who is affiliated with AllTreatment.com, an online resource which offers help in finding drug rehab centers.

Let me quickly add that Toke of the Town does not endorse or support any form of “marijuana rehab,” whatever that’s supposed to entail, and that we believe the entire concept of “marijuana addiction” is so deeply flawed as to be useless.

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