Author William Breathes


This week, our colleagues at the Broward-Palm Beach New Times have dispensed a ten-step program on how you can jump in on the medical marijuana craze that is expected to hit Florida soon and become a pot mogul. Or, not. Writer Francisco Alvarado went out and did all the research on what it takes to become a marijuana entrepreneur and learned it’s not as easy as it might seem. The story follows Bob Calkin, a man who runs the Cannabis Career Institute, and his packed seminars at which he teaches ordinary folks what it takes to become a pot baron.
People in Florida who are looking to delve into the business are banking on the medical marijuana amendment passing in November and forking over their money to hear Calkin’s tips. And for good reason. Medical marijuana is potentially big business. Read the entire tale of how people are making big bucks of the medical pot industry before it’s even legal in the Sunshine state over at the New Times.

Video below.

Anti-pot group Smart Colorado found this past weekend’s 4/20 celebration “shocking” — but a report from Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News juggernaut, The O’Reilly Factor, turns the event into a punchline, albeit while portraying participants as sadly clueless idiots. The report, from regular correspondent Jesse Watters, juxtaposes snippets of stoners making hazy comments like “I love chocolate bunnies,” “I wake up, smoke a bowl, go to sleep, wake up, smoke a bowl, go to work” and “I’m a trust-fund kid — I don’t do anything” with comedic film clips, like one from Dumb and Dumber in which Jim Carrey declares, “You are one pathetic loser!” That’s followed by an interview segment in which Watters acknowledges that some people at 4/20 “had real jobs — bartenders or they worked with their hands,” but they “don’t really aspire to anything.”
Check out O’Reilly and Watters’ idiocy below.


Demonstrators descended on the state capitol rotunda Wednesday thrusting fists and signs into the air with chants of “yes, we cannabis!”
For two hours, the hallways echoed with the voices of cops, writers, pols, and lawyers invited by Minnesota NORML, which lobbies for marijuana reform. They rubbed elbows with both jean jackets and blazers, showing the disparate makeup of a group that is often typecast and dismissed as burnouts.
“This movement is about people who like drugs, people who hate drugs, and people who just don’t give a damn about drugs,” says Neill Franklin, a former narcotics officer, from the podium. “It’s about everyone who is concerned about cannabis prohibition in the United States today.”
In the crowd, Grassroots Party founder Oliver Steinberg smiles when asked about how pot reform has gone mainstream. He attended his first demonstration back in the early 90s with some of the same people who showed up here.
“The only difference now are those cameras,” he says, pointing to the TV crews.
Read the entire story over at the Minneapolis City Pages.

A Nebraska highway check.

Nebraska police officers are increasingly frustrated with Colorado for what they say is an increase in pot trafficking in their state that they tie directly to the legalization of cannabis across their state’s western border.
This week, the Omaha World-Herald profiled several cops and state troopers who say they feel overburdened and suggest that Colorado help fund their fight against pot. They’re wasting money and resources on a problem that Colorado should handle, they believe.

Flickr/Anupam Kamal


A tragic accident involving a four-year-old shooting his three-year-old brother occurred Sunday. Fortunately, the younger brother is OK, but because the father was in another room allegedly smoking marijuana, the St. Louis County police and local media decided to make that the focus of the story.
The shooting happened around noon on Sunday. A loaded gun was hidden inside a closet, and the child was able to reach it. He and his brother played with the gun and it went off, a bullet striking the younger brother in the left shoulder. The child was treated at a local hospital for soft-tissue injury and released.


Three Phoenix residents were caught trying to bring back more than 1,200 pounds of marijuana to the United States in RVs, on the pot holiday of “4/20.”
If the more seasoned drug-smugglers can get caught crossing the border by hiding drugs in specially fabricated compartments or inside bodily orifices, you can bet the pot-filled RV plot didn’t go over so well.


Louisiana lawmakers will not be reducing the penalties for the possession of an ounce of marijuana and have decided to maintain some of the harshest pot penalties in the country.
The sad thing? The reductions still would have made criminals out of cannabis users and those caught still faced up to six months in jail and $500 fines as before. In fact, it wouldn’t have really done much of anything – yet lawmakers still were opposed to it based on knee-jerk principles alone.

U.S. Navy.
Washington D.C.


While the elected officials of our nation’s capital have already decided that decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana is the best thing for their city, the move still has to be approved by the U.S. House as per federal law. More accurately, the bill has to be disapproved in 60 days or less, giving congress the option of ignoring the move and letting it become law by default.
But that doesn’t look like it will be the case, as a Republican-controlled House subcommittee plans to discuss the matter.

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