A recreational marijuana proposal in Arkansas has finally been given the green light by the state Attorney General.
Proponents of the measure now have to gather 78,133 signatures to get it on the November state ballot.
Browsing: Legalize It
The press used to be so well-respected in this country that they were referred to as “the fourth estate”. In February 1891, Oscar Wilde wrote, “Somebody — was it Burke? — called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time no doubt. But at the present moment it is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three…We are dominated by Journalism.”
Today, well over a century later, with the advent of 24-hour cable news stations, AM talk radio hero worship, and the internet, the media holds more power than ever.
As Nassau County police officer Vincent LoGiudice entered the Mineola courtroom in Long Island yesterday, a hallway full of his fellow police officers erupted in a cacophony of applause in support of their colleague.
What did Officer LoGiudice do to earn such powerful show of backing and apparent respect from his co-workers? Well, on April 25th, during a routine traffic stop, officer LoGiudice brutally beat 20-year-old Kyle Howell within an inch of his life, using vicious blows from his knees and police baton to leave the victim with broken bones and a future full of surgeries.
For the third time in less than two months, New Approach Oregon has received $100,000 towards their cause from the Drug Policy Alliance of New York. That brings the total donations over the last two months to more than $300,000 thanks to two other $100,000 donations.
On May 5th, Manitoba Games released a smartphone app by the name of Weed Firm. Less than three weeks later, the app had received over 5000 reviews on iTunes, with an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars, and had shot to the top of the charts on Apple’s App Store.
An indie game developer finds success in the market, iTunes receives a flood of customers downloading the wildly popular app – win/win, right? Apparently not, since just yesterday Apple pulled Weed Firm from its App Store with no explanation to its fans, or its developers.
It took nearly a decade to come up with the funds, but it took just a couple of days for Forest Service crews to remove one and a half tons of garbage from a remote location in the heart of Arizona referred to as the Fossil Springs Wilderness.
Populated by evergreen trees and crystal clear watering holes, and featuring breathtaking vistas at nearly every turn, the area does see its share of hikers. But the “PACK IN, PACK OUT” mentality of most outdoor enthusiasts keeps the area clean, and the habitat as natural as possible.
How then could 1.5 tons of trash sit around out there for nine years? And who the hell left it there?
| USDOJ |
Update – 10:00 a.m. 5/21/2014: FBI Director James Comey has pulled a 180 today, announcing that he is in no way loosening the agency policy on marijuana use. Comey has indicated that his comments were a joke (an unfunny joke that basically stereotypes all young people and computer hackers as pot users). Comey retracted his comments today at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting after being grilled by Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions.
“I am absolutely dead-set against using marijuana,” Comey said today. “I did not say that I am going to change that ban.” Original story below.
| http://seuss.wikia.com/ |
You might think that drunkenly plowing his car into the Capitol building at 3am, then going on to evade prosecution and finish out his term as a U.S. Congressman, only to become a leading voice opposing marijuana legalization would make Patrick Kennedy the biggest delta-bravo in Project SAM.
Ok, he might still be, but boy does he have some competition from his partner, and co-founder of “Smart Approaches to Marijuana”, Kevin Sabet.
The PhD associate professor has a mind-numbing piece up over at Huffington Post right now, instructing the rest of us on how to talk about pot. It’s a 5-step plan … 7 steps short of the one Patrick Kennedy is somehow above, but would have no problem imposing on you.
| Creative Commons |
Martin Nickerson Jr. is suing the government.
As a citizen of the state of Washington, he is suing Governor Jay Inslee, as well as Attorney General Bob Ferguson and state tax chief Carol Nelson for what he claims is a wrongful demand to collect taxes from him related to a medical marijuana dispensary he operated years ago.
Nickerson, who is currently facing federal marijuana possession and distribution charges, questions whether it should be legal for the state of Washington to assess taxes on a federally illegal drug, even citing Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. Yeah, he went there.
| (U.S. Air Force photo illustration by Tech. Sgt. Michael R. Holzworth) |
One of the darkest examples of the consequences of cannabis prohibition is the rise in recent years of synthetic marijuana alternatives, such as the all-too-popular brand K2, or “Spice”.
Although these so-called “synthetic cannabinoids”, intended to simulate the effects of real weed, are already banned in many states, and have been the focus of several high-profile DEA raids of late, the creators of the chemical mixtures simply alter their recipes ever so slightly to sidestep law enforcement and prosecution.