February 22 was a seemingly normal, snowless day at Taos Ski Valley outside of Taos, New Mexico. That is, until the U.S. Forest Service showed up and started treating the place like the scene of a major crime in progress.
Instead of focusing on real problems in our national forests like poaching, four armed Forest Service agents wearing flak jackets took a drug dog around the resort parking lot and to cars along the side of the road to bust pot smokers (and people with cracked windshields).
And then there was one. Pretty much. One of two surviving initiatives that would ask voters to legalize recreational marijuana in California has failed to make the ballot, the Secretary of State’s office says. The California Cannabis Hemp Initiative (CCHI) did not turn in enough qualified signatures. Two others have already dropped out of the running, leaving just one viable possibility, the Marijuana Control, Legalization & Revenue Act, it would seem.
Last Thursday, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that Colorado’s Amendment 64 applies retroactively to defendants whose actions would have been legal under the measure and were appealing convictions when it became law. A64 co-author Brian Vicente has called the decision a huge victory, while Colorado Attorney General John Suthers suggests that it is largely inconsequential, although he’ll probably appeal it anyhow. Who’s right? One pot advocate sides with Suthers but wishes a pox on both his and Vicente’s houses.
| Flickr/InkKnife-2000 |
| Iowa cornfield. |
Iowans overwhelmingly want to allow their sick neighbors and family members to be able to access legal medical cannabis according to a poll released this week from Quinnipiac University.
According to the study, 87 percent of 1,411 voters polled said that state laws need to be changed. Medical marijuana saw no less than 68 percent across all political parties, gender and age groups. Conversely, 55 percent of those same voters said recreational use of cannabis should remain illegal.
If you bought some weed in St. Louis between 2006 and 2010, the man your dealer probably got it from has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
On Thursday, David Ingram Henderson, 39, of Maryland Heights, was sentenced after having been convicted last November of one felony count each of “conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute over 1,000 kilograms of marijuana; conspiracy to manufacture over 100 plants of marijuana, and the manufacture of 100 marijuana plants.”
| Cannabis Training University/Wikipedia commons. |
Miamians hoping to take their careers to a higher level might get the chance as soon as next month. Medical marijuana may still be a pipe dream in Florida, but Jeremy Bufford, the founder of Medical Marijuana Tampa, says he’s planning to open South Florida’s first school aimed at teaching weed entrepreneurship.
| Patrick McClellan. |
Gov. Mark Dayton has directed two members of his staff as well as the state public health commissioner to work with medical marijuana supporters in crafting a bill he could possibly sign into law within the next two months.
The news came on Thursday after patients and advocates descended on his mansion in St. Paul with strollers and signs that read, “Love Over Law Enforcement.” They called on the governor to stop letting the spokesmen of public safety dictate the conversation and to offer new negotiating partners, now that the bill has been effectively stalled.
Dozens of state-legal marijuana business owners and representatives from all over the country converged on Washington D.C. yesterday to pitch The Small Business Tax Equity Act to members of the U.S. House and Senate.
The bill – a brief, single page addendum to current tax laws – fixes current tax laws in the United States to allow for medical marijuana businesses to take the same deductions as other legal businesses are allowed to take on their federal returns. Currently, they are stuck paying the entire bill, which some say nearly doubles what they should really owe the government.
Could North Carolina ever legalize recreational pot as a source of income for their state? Not with the current bass-ackwards leadership available to the citizenry. Of course, they’ll allow tobacco farming. But pot? Hell no. We’re talking about a state that still has completely dry counties and doesn’t allow hunting on Sunday.