| Brick weed. |
At least one drug warrior is admitting that marijuana legalization measures in the states are leading to a decline in weed crossing the border from Mexico. An unnamed El Paso undercover narcotics officer tells KHOU in Houston that he’s starting to see more marijuana grown in the U.S. in the border town he patrols.
The city of Garden Grove, Calif. has had a ban on medical marijuana dispensaries in the town since 2008, though up until last week you wouldn’t have known it by driving through the municipality of about 175,000 southeast of Los Angeles.
But all that changed May 6 when the California Supreme Court ruled that cities do have the power to ban medical marijuana collectives and as of today, the city is actively enforcing it’s ban.
| TokeoftheTown.com |
Serious marijuana discussion is taking place in our nation’s capitol, if only at the municipal level.
According to the Washington Post, D.C. city council members are trying to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana and have a few proposals in the works to do just that.
Marijuana advocates were abuzz last month — and by “abuzz” we mean excited, of course — when a bill to reduce penalties for marijuana possession was passed out the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee. The bill had been watered down to apply only to people younger than 21, but the Texas chapter of NORML, the national pot-legalization organization, still called it an “amazing step for Texas.”
Also encouraging was progress on a medical marijuana bill that would make medical need a valid defense in pot possession cases. The measure, some version of which has been introduced in the past several sessions, got a hearing for the first time ever. Both those bills — the only pro-marijuana legislation to get any sort of traction this session — are now officially dead, which isn’t to say that marijuana activists are admitting defeat. Dallas Observer has more.
| Flickr.com/Alden Chadwick. |
Regular marijuana use can reduce the risk of developing diabetes, according to new research published in the American Journal of Medicine.
The study shows that marijuana users have better blood sugar control, lower levels of insulin and much thinner waistlines than non-users. All that despite the munchies.
If the state allows people to use medical marijuana, they should also allow those patients to drive so long as they aren’t impaired. That’s the gist of a law currently making its way through the Nevada legislature that would exempt medical marijuana patients from laws prohibiting drivers from having any marijuana – active or inactive – in their systems.
Nationally-known drug counselor Dr. Christian Thurstone says that people will develop strong marijuana addictions and will start injecting marijuana to find a deeper, heavier high. Okay, if you’re done hysterically laughing, we’ll move on.
The basis for his assertion? Well, it certainly has nothing to do with science. Instead, Thurstone basis this on so-called “addiction rates” he’s seen in studies and the fact that BHO has become so popular. And people actually consider this guy an expert. Clearly he’s really only an expert at ass-backwards paranoia. Read the rest of Thurstone’s idiotic assertion over at Denver Westword.
| Wikimedia.com |
| The bladder. |
All of what you take into your body comes out somewhere, and that somewhere is often in your urine. Gross thought, but it has some major health implications when it comes to carcinogens like cigarettes and other tobacco products that can increase your risk of bladder cancer.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case cannabis according to a recent Kaiser Permanente study in Los Angeles. In fact, the good herb might lower your risk of developing such problems.
While the cannabis communities of Colorado and Washington await a response to recently-passed marijuana laws from Attorney General Eric Holder, it seems he’s busy writing other speeches: graduation remarks for the University of California at Berkeley law school commencement, which as held over the weekend.
Ganja activists took the opportunity to swarm the campus and even went so far as to fly a custom banner over the outdoor Greek Theater that read: “Holder: End Rx Cannabis War #peace4patients,” according to the Huffington Post.
You probably know the rules by now: in New York City, if you’re caught in public view with pot, or in possession of 25 grams or more, you’re getting a violation. Because of this (well, at least, partially), New Yorkers made up 99.2 percent (149,951) of the entire state’s marijuana-related arrests of 155,048 stoners last year.
But lately, the external pressures placed on internal agencies by the incredibly high rates has become an engine for policy shifts. This is why Governor Cuomo continues to try to outlaw the public view provision in the criminal code last year. And why Bloomberg has opted out of the ‘stay overnight in jail, be at court in the morning’ situation for marijuana offenders. And why NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has even told his officers to chill with the pot arrests. Luckily, it looks like these efforts are actually showing real-time results. Village Voice has the 4-1-1.