Author William Breathes
| Andrew Walton. |
Over the last few months in Colorado, there has been a proliferation of free-marijuana giveaways on Craigslist, with respondents getting weed at no charge if they offered a donation or bought something else — like a sticker, or washer/dryer repair. Participants insisted that such offers were authorized under Amendment 64, which allows Colorado adults 21 and over to possess small amounts of marijuana. Law enforcers disagreed — including, presumably, the folks at the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, who’ve busted Andrew Walton for taking part in such a scheme.
Click over to Denver Westword for more on this story.
| USBP |
| A California beach bust from last year. |
Add military bases to your list of places you don’t want to use as a drop zone for your $1 million marijuana haul. Yesterday a 20-foot boat was found floating upside down without an engine floating outside of Vandenberg Air Force base Santa Barbara, California. Since the base – the third largest in the world – is used for testing missiles and firing rockets into space, this caused quite the stir.
| TokeoftheTown.com |
Illinois is one step closer to having medical marijuana laws on the books after a bipartisan subcommittee approved HB0001 to move into the House for a full vote. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time bills have made it this far only to find their demise before the entire House.
If passed, the Illinois medical marijuana bill would allow patients to possess up to two and a half ounces, which they could replenish at one of 60 proposed, state-regulated dispensaries every two weeks. Herb would be grown in 22 cultivation facilities scattered across Illinois.
| Drug money. |
For their weekly feature story this week, the Phoenix New Times looks into the workings of an Arizona drug smuggling gang:
“Rodrigo, his 19-year-old cousin Sal, his uncle Sergio, and four other family members live in the small house on Phoenix’s west side. From the house’s garage, the pot moves to wholesalers. “Most of them are black or Jamaican,” Rodrigo says. Each year, Palmona’s group distributes about 10,000 pounds of marijuana to different people who drive it to places like Michigan, Maryland, Kentucky, and Chicago, where it’s divided into pounds, half-pounds, ounces.”
For the rest of the (completely amazing) story, head over to Phoenix New Times.
| N.M. State Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino. |
A bill that would require the state of New Mexico to conduct an economic study on legalizing and regulating marijuana passed out of sub committee yesterday and now moves on to the senate for approval.
| New Jersey flag. |
The New Jersey Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee gave their approval to a bill that would protect medical marijuana patients from being denied organ transplants in that state. The bill received a vote of 7-2-1 Monday, and will now go before the state senate for approval.
| Platshorn in his smuggling days. |
Since late 2012, former drug smuggler turned activist Robert Platshorn has been buying up TV time on local stations for an infomercial. Provocatively titled “Should Grandma Smoke Pot?,” the spot aims to educate the elderly on the pros of medicinal legalization, an extension of Platshorn’s popular “Silver Tour.”
But now Platshorn says his ads are being pulled just as the Florida legislature is taking up medical marijuana legislation introduced last month. “Stations have refused to carry it due to subject matter, and unfortunately the law does allow you to do so,” he tells the New Times.
For the entire story from Kyle Swenson, head over to our friends at The Pulp.
| USS Thatch will not busting drug runners next month. |
If you notice an abundance of schwag out on the east coast and in Florida, you can thank your United States congressperson. The U.S. Navy announced this week that they won’t be patrolling the Caribbean for drug runners starting in April thanks to forced budget cuts by Navy officials.