| www.djrsterenborg.eu |
Australian pro surfer Mark Richardson busts his ass in the water to compete in the rarified air of the elite pro levels. Not just compete, mind you, win. In 2011 Richardson won the World Masters Championship after a grueling six-elimination heat competition.
But according to the International Surfing Association, he cheated because he had THC in his system. Because of that Richardson has been forced to return his medals more than two years after he won them.
| Kyle Berry’s mugshot. |
Kyle Berry loved growing cannabis and felt that sharing his knowledge of cultivation with the world was his way of giving back to the cannabis community.
Sadly, the New Hampshire man’s generosity bit him in the ass after police detectives say they watched the videos and recognized his reflected face in a shiny surface and were able to spot his name address on a package – all of which led to his arrest and pleading guilty to manufacturing a controlled drug yesterday. Instead of making videos for the next year, he’ll unfortunately be spending his time behind jail walls.
| ct.gov |
The Connecticut medical marijuana program can now officially move forward after proposed regulations for the newly-created industry were approved last night by the state General Assembly. The rules now head to the secretary of state for filing.
Officials say that within two weeks the new medical marijuana department will be accepting grower and retailer applications. Licenses should be issued at the start of the new year, which means medical marijuana dispensaries are at least five months away from being open.
The medical cannabis program in Vermont has been a huge success. So much so, that the state is allowing a fourth medical marijuana dispensary to open next year as a way of expanding access to needy patients.
Applicants have until Sept. 3 to get their paperwork and $2,500 non-refundable application fee into the state Department of Public Safety.
| Gupta Kush. |
A Boulder, Colorado medical marijuana dispensary recently tried honoring CNN’s Sanjay Gupta the best way they knew how: by naming a strain of kush after the well-known doctor who recently came out in favor of medical cannabis as a valid therapeutic treatment.
For their part, Gupta’s bosses at CNN aren’t very pleased. Helping Hands dispensary owner Jeff Kless says the media giant has asked him to stop selling the strain under that name. Kless tells Animal New York, however, that he’s not sure if that’s the route he’s going to take and was waiting for a cease and desist letter before he took any action.
Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy yesterday announced that the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to hold a hearing to discuss the conflicts between state and federal marijuana laws next month.
Both medical and recreational marijuana laws will be on the table for discussion, notably whether or not state employees implementing the programs will be safe from prosecution however Leahy also feels that the state’s rights to enact recreational laws should be respected.
| Missouri State Rep. Jeremy LaFaver. |
As we reported yesterday, Representative Jeremy LaFaver, a Democrat from Kansas City, was arrested on Sunday after Missouri State Patrol officers stopped him and found marijuana in his car. He was charged with possession of less than 35 grams of marijuana and drug paraphernalia possession. Now the Democrat is being pressured by the state’s Republicans to step down entirely.
But that’s not happening any time soon, LaFaver tells The Riverfront Times.
| Kansas City Democrat Jeremy LaFaver. |
Missouri State Rep. Jeremy LaFaver is apologizing to nobody in particular after being arrested over the weekend in Columbia, Missouri with a pipe and an ounce of marijuana. While his instant reaction was to beg forgiveness, we think he should have taken the opportunity to announce that he enjoys cannabis and that it’s high time Missouri change their laws.
Of course, the Kansas City Democrat wants to remain a politician, so of course that would never happen.
| Wikimedia commons/Stanislav Kozlovskiy. |
Medical marijuana is legal in California, but the combination of valuable drugs and what is often a cash-only business can attract some rough characters.
That’s why some dispensaries use armored car companies to get their money to and from their favorite bank (or elsewhere). But the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says no more. The federal authority has told armored car companies they can no longer work with some, perhaps all, cannabis retailers in California and Colorado. LA Weekly has the rest of this absurd story.
The collapse of the U.S. housing bubble wreaked tremendous amounts of misery on homeowners, who suddenly discovered that they owed more on their mortgages than their houses were worth, or found themselves in overbuilt and mostly vacant subdivisions, or could no longer afford ballooning mortgage payments. But whereas they saw their hopes for future solvency flushed down with the rest of the global economy, Julius and Jarrod Williams, two brothers from McKinney, Texas, saw opportunity.
For the rest of this strange and weird saga, check out the Dallas Observer.