| Gary Lee’s Motor Club & Grub. |
As you can tell by this photo, Gary Lee’s Motor Club & Grub boasts a rather large bar — which should indicate the sort of intoxicant in which the venue specializes.
Nonetheless, Israel Perez, who’s racked up 48 charges, nineteen of them felonies, since 1993, allegedly chose this location to try selling some marijuana — and when he was asked to stop, he’s said to have expressed his displeasure with a gun. The Latest Word has more.
| New York state Rep. Hakeem Jeffries rallies for marijuana reform in NYC. |
On Tuesday the New York State Assembly passed, for the fifth time since it was introduced in 1997, the Compassionate Care Act. The bill would legalize medical marijuana in New York state, allowing sick New Yorkers relief from symptoms associated with cancer treatment, MS, epilepsy, and other ailments. With that vote, New York comes one step closer to joining the 21 others states and the District of Columbia where marijuana is legal in some form.
More over at the Village Voice.
| William Breathes/TotT. |
A bill that would ban the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration from prosecuting medical marijuana patients, caregivers and businesses which are otherwise following state laws is up for debate this week in Washington D.C.
Similar measures have failed in recent years, but bipartisan backers of the bill – including author Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California – say they’ve got the support this time around.
| Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton and a bud of marijuana that legal Minnesota patients will never be able to access. |
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton has given his approval to a state law that allows patients to access concentrated forms of cannabis for oral use and vaporization only.
While the move does legalize access to limited forms of medicine for certain patients, it’s still tough to call Minnesota a medical marijuana state when patients can’t actually access actual marijuana. But technically, they are now medical marijuana state #22.
For a year-plus, we’ve shared claims of pot profiling from drivers who say they were pulled over on bogus pretenses in other states simply because their vehicle had Colorado license plates. For instance, a 65-year-old was told she fit the profile of a drug smuggler because she didn’t fit the profile of a drug smuggler and a man was pulled over due to a rental car records snafu that didn’t really exist.
Out-of-state agencies tend to deny that they profile despite evidence suggesting they do — and a new report offers possible reasons why such efforts happen. Videos below show three Colorado drivers getting pulled over in Idaho for the most minor of infractions, but in each case, troopers found weed.
| Upgradde #3. |
Staff at the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy provided early technical support for a medical marijuana research study that became the basis of the bill awaiting Gov. Mark Dayton’s signature.
If that news isn’t surprising, consider this: Although the board takes no official position on the medical efficacy of the plant, it has made the process of reforming marijuana laws in Minnesota more difficult.
In the months since limited marijuana use and possession became legal for adults 21 and over, we’ve been seeking out statistics related to driving under the influence of marijuana in the hope of determining how the number of offenses compares to alcohol-related DUIs. Earlier this month, for instance, we revealed that at one Larimer County checkpoint, the ratio of alcohol to pot busts was 21 to 1.
Now, the City of Lakewood has provided information about a checkpoint last Friday night, as well as figures compiled between 2009 and 2013. The data shows that at least 75 percent of DUI arrests over these periods involved alcohol — and that total is often a whole lot higher.
| Flickr/Joi Ito. |
New York state Rep. Hakeem Jeffries is sick and tired of watching the New York City police abuse their power while the mayor’s office does nothing but make empty promises. From January to March, police made more than 7,000 arrests for marijuana possession in NYC, and 86 percent black or Hispanic – all after NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio promised to right the increasingly crooked ship.
| Toke of the Town. |
Pro-medical marijuana organization, Oklahomans for Health is kicking off their petition drive today at the state capitol in Oklahoma City.
Chip Paul, spokesman for the group, says they need to gather 160,000 signatures to get their proposal on the ballot. In order to do that, Paul says they’ll also need to raise some coin.
While cities across California continue to put bans in place on medical cannabis businesses and even home cultivation, Desert Hot Springs is taking a different approach: tolerance.
Leaders in the small town north of Palm Springs – currently the only other city in the county that allows for medical marijuana shops – unanimously approved allowing medical pot shops in the city this week, agreeing that allowing the industry would help both medical patients as well as city coffers.