| Wikipedia. |
Ultimate Fighting Championship fighters can now toke cannabis (recreational or medical) relatively safely without fear of repercussions from the league, so long as they aren’t doing so directly before a fight.
UFC officials raised the threshold of latent marijuana in the system from 50 nanograms per milliliter of blood to 150 nanongrams last week, announcing the decision to reporters at the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s Steroid and Drug Testing Advisory Panel on Friday.
| flickr.com |
Think two years in jail and four years on probation is too much for someone to spend in jail for growing medical cannabis? Of course you do, you have a heart and a brain.
But federal prosecutors in Montana feel differently, and are pushing to increase the sentences handed down by a District court judge earlier this spring on four medical cannabis growers, including a former University of Montana quarterback.
| Vertical gardening. |
This Mile High Gardening Conference, which took place in Denver over the weekend, had sessions aplenty about 21st Century growing techniques, with a big focus on aquaponics and a vertical garden installed by the Spanish firm Urbanarbolismo.
What wasn’t on the program? Marijuana — although it was originally supposed to be. The change in plans frustrated representatives of one dispensary, but the organizer says he had to cut it because of resistance from other sponsors.
Former Microsoft bigwig Jamen Shiveley announced this week that he’s creating the first national marijuana brand and that he eventually hopes to build the company up to be the Starbucks of recreational pot. To accomplish that, he eventually plans to break down international drug laws and import cannabis grown in Mexico.
“It’s a giant market in search of a brand,” Shiveley said at a press conference. “We would be happy if we get 40 percent of it worldwide.”
From heroin-stuff navels to cans of jalapenos stuff with ganja, it’s been a weird month at the Arizona-Mexico border for would-be smugglers. Our friends at the Phoenix New Timeshave put together the top five strange interactions with border patrol in May along with a poll to figure out which was the most oddball attempt.
Head over to the Valley Fever blog to cast your vote.
Update – 5/31/2013 9:20 a.m.:The Phoenix woman accused of attempting to smuggle 12 pounds of pot into America on a bus from Mexico has been set free after a judge ruled she had nothing to do with the cannabis.
Video footage showing Yanira Maldonado getting on a bus in Mexico with a small purse and two bottles of water was all it took to end the week-long ordeal that had the Mormon mother of seven facing jail time in Mexico for allegedly smuggling drugs.
An amended version of a bill that would end Louisiana’s draconian three-strikes law for some marijuana crimes has finally made its way through the house.
But it could be a tight squeeze to get the bill through. The Louisiana Senate adjourns next week, leaving little time to have the bill heard, debated and voted on before the politicians leave Baton Rouge for the year.
The New York General Assembly yesterday approved a bill that would reduce he penalties for public display of small amounts of marijuana.
Assembly Bill 6716, introduced by Brooklyn Assemblymember Karim Camara, would make public display of marijuana a ticketable offense instead of one that mandates jail time. The law somewhat aligns public display laws with private possession laws passed in 1977 that decriminalized up to 25 grams of marijuana.
| Robert Platshorn in the 1970s. |
Our favorite reformed pot smuggler and marijuana legalization activist, Bobby Platshorn, is at it again, with an ingenious scheme to bring the good word on maryjane to the attention of legislators and the general public. And once again he’s drawing on support from an unexpected quarter of the population — America’s senior citizens.
If all goes well –and it’s looking “better than fine,” Platshorn says — on Monday, June 17 two busloads of seniors from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, and carloads of sympathizers from as far off as Ohio and Colorado, will descend on the nation’s capital to educate U.S. representatives on the medical benefits of weed and the need for drug law reform.
Broward-Palm Beach New Times has the local angle.