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Injustice In Seattle
White House Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske claims that hemp products contain THC.

Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske has a response(ish) to a petition sent to the White House supporting the legalization of hemp. In his “response,” Gil reveals either a stunning ignorance about hemp, or a shocking propensity to tell a whopper.
By Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy
America’s farmers deserve our Nation’s help and support to ensure rural America’s prosperity and vitality. Federal law prohibits human consumption, distribution, and possession of Schedule I controlled substances. Hemp and marijuana are part of the same species of cannabis plant. While most of the THC in cannabis plants is concentrated in the marijuana, all parts of the plant, including hemp, can contain THC, a Schedule I controlled substance. The Administration will continue looking for innovative ways to support farmers across the country while balancing the need to protect public health and safety.
The amounts of THC found in industrial hemp — even in the flowers — are so minute as to be meaningless, since the trichomes contain a preponderance of CBD instead. But the amounts of THC found in hemp fiber are so low as to be undetectable — that’s why hemp fiber products are legal in the United States.

Peter Reynolds Watch

By Kevin John Braid
Special to Toke of the Town
The murky world of far-Right politics has never been associated with marijuana legalization.  That is, until recently, in the UK, where a small political party, CLEAR, campaigning for cannabis law reform in Britain, has been marred with controversy by its leader, Peter Reynolds. Reynolds is a self-confessed Tory (that’s like a US Republican) and former member of the UK Freedom Party, a breakaway party from the far right British National Party (BNP).
It all started back in early 2011 when the members of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance (LCA), a longstanding pressure group in the UK campaigning to end prohibition of marijuana in Britain, voted to register as an official political party, who then subsequently elected Peter Reynolds as the party leader. Boasting a seemingly impressive C.V., Reynolds came into the UK cannabis scene promising to clean up the image and make great progress with politicians to get a change of law brought about in Britain.

Moderate in the Middle

Four new medical conditions could eventually qualify patients to participate in Arizona’s medical marijuana program.

The state health department is considering whether it should add depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and migraines as “debilitating conditions,” which would allow patients suffering from those conditions to legally use medicinal cannabis under Arizona law, reports Yvonne Wingett Sanchez at The Arizona Republic.
If the new conditions are approved, Arizona would be the only state in the nation to specifically allow medical marijuana for anxiety and depression, according to Will Humble, director of the state Department of Health Services, which oversees Arizona’s medical marijuana program. However, California’s broadly written medicinal cannabis law basically allows physicians to recommend marijuana for any condition that, in their medical opinion, it could help.

Joe Mabel
The medical marijuana industry in Washington state does not oppose legalization in the wholesale manner in which Dominic Holden, above, claims they do; they merely object to many of I-502’s provisions

By Philip Dawdy
Special to Toke of the Town
The road to cannabis legalization is certainly proving to be an odd one in Washington State, filled with so many ironies that I’ve lost count. Here comes another set of ironies.
On April 13th, the New York Times published an op-ed by Dominic Holden, “news” editor of The Stranger. Its contents prompted me to send the following letter to the editor, which the paper decided wasn’t important enough to share with its readers. In my opinion, Holden has been writing about I-502 in a way that is both deceptive and journalistically unprofessional.
Here’s what I sent the Times:
In journalism school, I was taught that journalists should strive to avoid conflicts of interest and should always reveal them in instances where they cannot be avoided. Interesting then that in his “Smokeless in Seattle” opinion piece on April 13 in which he lambasted the medical marijuana industry for opposing a legalization initiative in Washington State, Dominic Holden did not inform readers that he used to be an employee of the ACLU of Washington.

Narfolaxer
Oaksterdam founder Richard Lee is fully separating himself from the school and his other cannabis-affiliated businesses

By Jack Rikess

Toke of the Town

Northern California Correspondent

Two weeks and a few days after the Federal Government raided Richard Lee’s world in Oakland, showing the Cannabis World who’s boss, Oaksterdam is back.
At a mid-morning press conference held in the last remaining quarters left to the University, Richard Lee officially stepped down as the school’s dean to pursue drug policy reform, on a national level, full-time. Dale Sky Jones, Oaksterdam’s executive chancellor, will continue the University’s commitment of quality training for the cannabis industry, as per Richard’s mission statement.  

slumz.boxden
The University of Colorado at Boulder will be on lockdown this Friday, complete with campus police conducting checkpoints and demanding proper ID from everyone in sight. The reason? Authorities want to finally snuff out the school’s annual pro-pot rally. 

Attorney Robert J. Corry, Jr., filed an emergency temporary restraining order in Boulder District Court on Thursday, asking the court to prohibit the University of Colorado at Boulder from closing its campus to the public on 4/20.

The UC-Boulder administration has said they will shut down the entire campus to non-students for the entire day on Friday in order to stop a legal protest that is protected by the First Amendment. Students will be allowed to enter campus only if they show their student ID card.
“What the university is trying to do is kill a fly with a nuclear ICBM,” Corry told The Raw Story‘s Stephen C. Webster on Thursday. “It’s completely overreaching to shut down an entire campus to all members of the public.”

Marty Caivano/Colorado Daily
A reveler lights up at the 4/20 smoke out on the CU-Boulder campus last year.

The eternal culture battle between the straights and the stoners continues to play itself out as 4/20, the international cannabis holiday, becomes a lightning rod for controversy. The latest iteration of the battle has more than 350 University of Colorado – Boulder students RSVPing to a Facebook event encouraging students to wear a suit and tie to campus and around Boulder on Friday, April 20, to protest the 4/20 smoke out.

That’s right — they want you to pledge your allegiance to a morally, ethically and financially bankrupt system that has spent untold tax dollars, for the past 75 years, arresting millions of people for no better reason than that they choose to use a harmless plant. And they want you to do that by identifying with the overarching, corrupt power structure so strongly that you validate their tottering worldview by donning a suit, the symbol of their drab mindless conformity and hen-hearted unwillingness to rock the boat.

Vitamin Thick
CU-Boulder regularly holds one of the biggest 4-20 events in the country, but CU administrators have closed the campus to the public and are threatening arrests

CU-Boulder to Close Campus to Visitors, Threatens Arrests
DPA to Urge Reform of Punitive Marijuana Laws in Colorado on 4/20 with Airplane Banner, Full Page Ads and On-the-Ground Presence
April 20, the quasi-official holiday for people who enjoy marijuana, is recognized by millions around the world. This year’s holiday will have a deeper significance for Coloradans as Amendment 64 is on the ballot to tax and regulate marijuana. Amendment 64 decriminalizes marijuana for adults and allows local municipalities and the state to establish a non-medical, regulatory framework for cultivation, distribution and sale.
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