| 4:20 at Seattle Hempfest 2010. |
The 22nd Annual Seattle Hempfest was a major success over the weekend judging not only by the huge attendance of about 85,000 people Saturday and Sunday, but also by the reaction of the local police who refused to ticket attendees for publicly smoking cannabis.
Florida is one step closer to getting a statewide public vote on legalizing medical marijuana. With powerful backers like Orlando super-lawyer John Morgan and funding from big Democrats around the state, the push by People United for Medical Marijuana is blazing ahead.
The group needed to collect 68,314 signatures to trigger a Florida Supreme Court review of the initiative’s language. And so far, the groups says they’ve collected at least 100,000. New Times Broward-Palm Beach has the full story.
| Shelby County SD. |
An Ohio gun owner’s newly-purchased 1,000-pound gun safe was about 280 pounds heavier than it should have been upon deliver after police say Mexican smugglers loaded the iron box down with ten 28-pound bundles of weed before shipping it.
The Ohio man was not suspected in the smuggling (which is a good thing considering he’s the one who called the police).
| Two-year-old Vivian Wilson suffers from major siezures that could be helped by cannabis. |
Update 3:20 p.m. 8-16-2013: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie doesn’t care about suffering, sick children in his state. That’s the message sent to medical marijuana supporters today after the guv vetoed a bill and sent a bill easing minor access to medical cannabis back to the legislature for fixes.
Among his chief complaints: edibles should be accessible only to minors and children would still need two doctors to sign off before the children could access medical cannabis. Christie says he will sign the bill if those issues are addressed.
| USCG. |
Leo Carrillo State Beach can produce a nice little wave. But this morning surfers were treated to more than a 1-foot swell. A high-speed chase was happening offshore. Yes, the U.S. Coast Guard pursued what officials are calling a “drug boat” for nearly 30 minutes. You can just guess who won.
LA Weekly has the full story.
While medical marijuana dispensaries have existed in Oregon for a number of years, the shops are only just now state legal after Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber signed House Bill 3460 into law Wednesday creating a state-run licensing and regulatory system for the shops.
| Tim Tipton with former Denver Nuggets coach George Karl. |
Medical cannabis has been on the fast-track to mainstream acceptance over the last few years, and more and more high-profile organizations, including the MS Foundation, are aligning themselves with cannabis groups promoting the safe and beneficial plant.
Add to that list Boulder’s BStrong foundation, which raises money for cancer research and treatment for the Boulder Community Hospital and George Karl Foundation. Last Saturday, BStrong awarded Colorado cannabis activist Tim Tipton with its Extra Mile Caregiver award at the annual BStrong Bike Ride and fundraiser for his work with indigent cancer patients, as well as his efforts on behalf of the Phoenix Tears Foundation. Denver Westword has the full story.
| TokeoftheTown.com |
Seattle Police won’t be ticketing people for public consumption at this weekend’s Hempfest. Instead, they’ll be issuing munchies along with information on the newly-passed marijuana laws in Washington state.
We already predict that there will be two schools of thought on this from the ganja smoking camp: The first, is that it’s a funny, smart and tongue-in-check way of distributing some public information to a target group of people. The second is that it’s an insulting way for police to continue stereotype cannabis users as junk-food eating dumbbells. We here at Toke side more with the former than the latter here, though admittedly we have a thing for Doritos to begin with.
| comptroller.nyc.gov |
| John Liu. |
New York City mayoral candidate John Liu yesterday proposed regulating and taxing legalized (limited) amounts of cannabis as part of his campaign platform yesterday.
And while the idea is commendable in a city with thousands of marijuana arrests each year and a racial bias in enforcing marijuana laws that borders on criminal, Liu’s plan is based on questionable statistics, cannabis price-fixing and a tax rate of over 28 percent.
| Hedi Fleiss from a 2008 booking photo. |
Former high-profile Hollywood pimp Heidi Fleiss has been charged with several marijuana-related crimes after police say they found about 400 plants at her Pahrump, Nevada home last week while serving warrants on another woman.
Police in the small town 45 miles west of Las Vegas weren’t originally looking for Fleiss or marijuana, but say that when they scoured the property looking for their target they came upon 158 cannabis plants growing in Fleiss’s backyard.