News

Nepal Makes Largest Marijuana Bust In History

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on June 12, 2012 Global, News

Landrace cannabis grows wild in Nepal

Police in Nepal reported on Monday that they have made the largest marijuana bust in the nation’s history, seizing about 2.5 tons from a dealer near the capital city, Kathmandu.

Officers found 5,820 pounds (2,640 kilos) of cannabis packed into 88 plastic sacks “and bound for India,” police superintendent Sher Bahadur Basnet told Agence France Presse.

The haul had a street value in Nepal of about $155,000, according to Basnet, but it would be worth far more on the international market.

Weed Not Greed Tour To Cover U.S. This Summer

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on June 11, 2012 Culture, News, Products

Weed Not Greed

Weed Not Greed, a nationwide tour sponsored by the Cannabis Information Network, will be promoting awareness of marijuana/hemp uses and advocating for the repeal of marijuana prohibition from coast to coast this summer.

Top 3 Mexican Presidential Candidates All Pledge Shift in Drug War

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on June 11, 2012 Global, Legislation, News

ColorLines

Mexico’s Drug War has claimed more than 50,000 lives in five years

After More Than 50,000 Prohibition-Related Deaths in 5 Years, Candidates Say Reducing Violence More Important Than Simply Seizing Drugs, Making Arrests

DPA Executive Director Ethan Nadelmann: Next President Should Show Bold Leadership and Follow Other Latin American Presidents’ Call for “All Options On The Table”

The top three presidents candidates in Mexico have all promised a significant shift in their country’s drug war strategy, according to a front page story in Monday’s New York Times. The candidates are pledging to prioritize a reduction in prohibition-related violence, which has led to more than 50,000 deaths since President Calderon launched a war on the drug traffickers in 2006, over conventional measures such as arrests and seizures.

2nd Medical Marijuana Patient Denied Transplant by Cedars-Sinai

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on June 11, 2012 Medical, News

THC Finder

Patient Advocates Urge World-Renowned Hospital to Change Its Discriminatory, Politically-Motivated Policy

Patient advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) recently discovered that a second patient at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has been denied a transplant in the past year because of their medical marijuana use.

In response, ASA sent a letter Monday to the Cedars-Sinai Transplant Center on behalf of Toni Trujillo, a qualified medical marijuana patient who was removed from the kidney transplant list earlier this year. Trujillo has had kidney problems for most of her life and has been on dialysis for the past five years, ever since an existing kidney transplant began failing. The letter urges the world-renowned hospital to promptly re-list Trujillo and change its policy with regard to medical marijuana.

Tommy Chong Fighting Prostate Cancer

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on June 9, 2012 Culture, Medical, News

Wikipedia

Cheech (left) and Chong in 1972

Comedy legend Tommy Chong, 74, half of the iconic cannabis comedy duo Cheech & Chong, is fighting prostate cancer, he announced Saturday.

He was diagnosed “about a month ago,” Chong told CNN.

He revealed his condition in an interview about cannabis decriminalization, saying he first noticed symptoms about eight years ago while in prison for selling “drug paraphernalia” on trumped up federal charges (all he did was ship glass Chong bongs through the mail to people who had ordered them).

“I’ve got prostate cancer, and I’m treating it with hemp oil, with cannabis,” he told CNN’s Don Lemon. “So (legalizing marijuana) means a lot more to me than just being able to smoke a joint without being arrested.”

Cannabis and LGBT Activists Submit Signatures for Safe Access

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on June 8, 2012 Legislation, Medical, News

Nuggetry

Fifteen percent of registered voters in Imperial Beach, California have signed the initiative to overturn the city’s current ban on safe access to medical cannabis and replace it with reasonable regulations.

The Safe Access Ordinance of Imperial Beach, a collaborative effort between Canvass for a Cause, a San Diego based LGBT non-profit, San Diego Americans for Safe Access, and concerned citizens, launched the first ever initiative to regulate safe access to medical cannabis in Imperial Beach. If passed, the measure would repeal the city’s current ban and replace it with strict zoning regulations and operational requirements for medical cannabis dispensing collectives and cooperatives.

Attorney General Defends Medical Marijuana Crackdown

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on June 8, 2012 Dispensaries, Medical, News

What On Earth?

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder claims the Obama Administration is only going after those who are “taking advantage” and “acting out of conformity … with state laws”

Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday defended the Department of Justice’s crackdown on medical marijuana, claiming growers and dispensaries “took advantage” of state medical marijuana laws.

Holder, appearing before the House Judiciary Committee, admitted that the Obama Justice Department had broken with the Bush Administration in pledging not to go after anyone acting within state medicinal cannabis laws, reports Dan Freedman of the Hearst Washington Bureau.

More High School Students Smoke Marijuana Than Cigarettes

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on June 7, 2012 Culture, News

More high school students in the United States now smoke marijuana than smoke cigarettes, according to the federal government.

A youth risk survey [PDF] from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday reported that 23 percent of high school students said they had recently smoked cannabis, while 18 percent said they had smoked cigarettes.

Among students nationwide, the prevalence of current marijuana use increased from 1991 to 1999 (14.7 percent to 26.7 percent) and then decreased from 1999 to 2011 (26.7 percent to 23.1 percent). The prevalence of current marijuana use increased from 2009 (20.8 percent) to 2011 (23.1 percent).

I-502’s Marijuana DUI: FAQs vs. Facts

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on June 7, 2012 Legislation, News

Barking up the wrong tree

By Philip Dawdy

Cannabis Activist

One of the most controversial provisions of New Approach Washington’s I-502 is its per se DUI limit of 5 nanograms of active THC metabolite per milliliter of blood.

It’s a limit that some critics have dubbed “unscientific” and “draconian.” Others claim that it is not a measure of impairment and would threaten the driving rights of every medical cannabis patient in Washington State.

These are serious criticisms. So how does New Approach Washington defend its 5 nanogram provision?

Senator Adds Hemp Legalization To Farm Bill

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on June 7, 2012 Growing, Legislation, News

Bodhi Group

Canadian farmer harvests a bountiful hemp crop. He could be joined by his U.S. neighbors if Sen. Ron Wyden’s amendment to the Farm Bill is successful

Vote Hemp Encourages Support for Proposed Amendment by Senator Wyden on Industrial Hemp in the Farm Bill

Amendment Would Exclude Industrial Hemp From the Definition of Marijuana

Vote Hemp released an action alert on Thursday encouraging support for Senator Ron Wyden’s submitted last-minute amendment to the Farm Bill, S. 3240, the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2012, which would exclude industrial hemp from the definition of “marihuana.”

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