Colorado marked its its six-month anniversary with recreational cannabis last week. And as with many committed relationships, there’s more trust going forward.
Starting July 1, Colorado applications for retail marijuana business licenses no longer require current ownership of an operational medical marijuana business. The state is currently accepting new applications, with approved companies able to open as early as October 1. But even though the MMJ requirement has been removed, an applicant must still qualify as a resident of the state — for at least two years. Learn more over at Westword.com
Author William Breathes
| Adam Hartle (left) with Tom Tancredo. |
In January 2013, ex-Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo had promised to puff a joint on camera as part of a comedian/filmmaker’s movie about Colorado’s new marijuana laws should the measure pass — which it did.
Tancredo later welched on his bet under pressure from his family. But in Mile High — The COmeback of Cannabis, the now-completed documentary, which screens tonight through Thursday (with Hartle promising to give out free legal pot to adults 21 and over outside theaters), Tancredo watches as the director blazes.
| Minnesota state capitol. |
Lawmakers in other states are now turning to Minnesota’s new cannabis law as a model for their own legislation, despite the law’s restrictions on eligibility and usage.
Over the past few weeks, legislators in both Pennsylvania and Georgia have turned to the Minnesota law, which passed in May, as a starting point for bills in their own states. But while the Minnesota law makes medical marijuana legal, it’s limiting, offering only certain kinds of cannabis for certain patients.
The first time Tim Morgan smoked Afghani weed, he thought, “I like this.” The 20-year-old college student was hanging out in his Gainesville apartment with his high school girlfriend and about ten friends. Everyone was huddled around a single measly joint.
A 20-year-old South Florida woman named Melissa Acosta and one other woman (unidentified for now) were detained in Cuba this week for allegedly trying to smuggle in synthetic weed.
In a Red state known for their gray hairs as much as their beaches and gators, access to affordable medicine is constantly an issue on the minds of the population. Which is why it isn’t surprising (to us, that is) to see as much as 84 percent of adults 65 and up supporting a medical cannabis proposal currently campaigning in Florida – who wouldn’t want to be able to grow their own medicine?
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo today will sign a bill making New York the 24th state to allow for medical marijuana. The bill does not allow anyone to smoke cannabis, however, and patients must either vaporize or eat the medical cannabis.
A looming trial in Los Angeles involves: five medical professional defendants, including a Huntington Beach resident; Medicare and Medi-Cal being stung for $2.7 million in Oxycontin reimbursements; billings for $4.6 million in medical procedures that were not needed or never performed; and 900,000 Oxy pills eventually being sold on the streets, according to federal prosecutors. Two other Orange Countians were convicted in the wide-ranging case.
OC Weekly has more.
A rancher in Texas last week stumbled upon about 5,500 marijuana seedlings in small starter pots on land he was leasing and called the police. That alone isn’t really a story. Clandestine grow operations happen all the time in this country (it’s a byproduct of it being illegal, of course).
No, what makes this story newsworthy is that the Chambers County Sheriff’s Office is truly clueless when it comes to understanding the value of money. Those 5,500 starter plants were valued at $2 million. That breaks down to more than $360 per-seedling. To put that into perspective, a fully rooted clone sells for (at most) $40 at a recreational pot shop in Colorado.
Jim Denny has 7,500 square feet of hemp plants and a problem: His homeowners association has found that his plants are a violation of the HOA rules and has ordered him to “replace” them by the end of next week. The reason? The HOA board says that Denny failed to get approval for “landscaping modifications” to his lot and that his 75-foot-by-100-foot hemp plot is a home business in violation of the Todd Creek Farms HOA rules.
To comply with the board’s findings, Denny is giving away his hemp plants (and in some instances, selling them for a small fee) to anyone who is registered with the Colorado Department of Agriculture to grow industrial hemp.
Melanie Asmar at the Denver Westword has the full story.