Author William Breathes
| TokeoftheTown.com |
California legislators failed to pass a bill regulating the state’s medical marijuana industry last week, leaving things the limbo they’ve pretty much been in since then 1990s with no state oversight into the industry.
The General Assembly had debated a bill introduced by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano from San Francisco that would have given state the ability to regulate the industry through the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
| Miami. |
Miami has a serious pot problem.
According to a study released yesterday by the ACLU, Miami-Dade is one of the most aggressive and racially biased counties in the country when it comes to marijuana arrests. Not only did Miami have the ninth most marijuana arrests of any American city in 2010, but 57 percent of those arrests targeted African-Americans. That means Miami’s black residents are 5.4 times as likely to be arrested for weed possession than whites.
Miami New Times has the details on the city with the fifth-worst racial disparity in marijuana arrests in the nation.
The New York General Assembly yesterday approved a bill allowing medical marijuana use in the Empire State.
Assembly Bill 6357 was voted in with a 95-38 vote. The discussion now moves over to the state Senate in the next few weeks, which takes up the nearly identical Senate Bill 4406. If approved, the bill would allow for qualifying patients to receive a doctor’s recommendation to use cannabis. Patients would be allowed to possess up to 2.5 ounces purchased at one of several state-regulated medical marijuana dispensaries.
According to the U.S. Coast Guard, agents who were part of a 45-foot response boat that was on routine patrol last night spotted the sailboat as it attempted to enter the harbor. ” As the crew approached the sailboat, the pilot reportedly veered to the right and ran the sailboat onto the beach,” the Coast Guard’s press release states. “Two people reportedly jumped from the sailboat and ran away. Coast Guard crewmembers docked their boat and made their way to the beached vessel where they reportedly discovered approximately 80 to 90 bales of marijuana.”
The O.C. Weekly has the rest.
| Wikipedia. |
Ultimate Fighting Championship fighters can now toke cannabis (recreational or medical) relatively safely without fear of repercussions from the league, so long as they aren’t doing so directly before a fight.
UFC officials raised the threshold of latent marijuana in the system from 50 nanograms per milliliter of blood to 150 nanongrams last week, announcing the decision to reporters at the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s Steroid and Drug Testing Advisory Panel on Friday.
| flickr.com |
Think two years in jail and four years on probation is too much for someone to spend in jail for growing medical cannabis? Of course you do, you have a heart and a brain.
But federal prosecutors in Montana feel differently, and are pushing to increase the sentences handed down by a District court judge earlier this spring on four medical cannabis growers, including a former University of Montana quarterback.
| Vertical gardening. |
This Mile High Gardening Conference, which took place in Denver over the weekend, had sessions aplenty about 21st Century growing techniques, with a big focus on aquaponics and a vertical garden installed by the Spanish firm Urbanarbolismo.
What wasn’t on the program? Marijuana — although it was originally supposed to be. The change in plans frustrated representatives of one dispensary, but the organizer says he had to cut it because of resistance from other sponsors.
Former Microsoft bigwig Jamen Shiveley announced this week that he’s creating the first national marijuana brand and that he eventually hopes to build the company up to be the Starbucks of recreational pot. To accomplish that, he eventually plans to break down international drug laws and import cannabis grown in Mexico.
“It’s a giant market in search of a brand,” Shiveley said at a press conference. “We would be happy if we get 40 percent of it worldwide.”