Browsing: News

WHEC
Diane Bielewicz, 61, of Nunda, New York, called police on her son for firing a gun in the house, but wound up going to jail herself for marijuana cultivation.

​In what the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office is describing as one of the biggest marijuana growing operations they’ve ever seen, a New York mother and son were arrested for cultivating cannabis after the mother called police, saying her son was firing shots inside their home.

Deputies said they were called to the Nunda, N.Y., home of Diane Bielewicz, 61, after her son Joseph Bielewicz, 33, started firing a gun, reports Christine VanTimmeren at WHEC. When deputies got there about 3 a.m. on Tuesday, they said they found “hundreds” of marijuana plants growing inside the home, around the property, and in a state wildlife preserve just off their property.
Besides what they breathlessly described as “one of the most sophisticated growing operations they had ever seen” (Incidentally, ever notice how the cops describe every single busted grow as either “the most sophisticated ever” or “dangerously primitive”? Seems there’s no middle ground with these clowns), officers also found more than 20 weapons including shotguns, rifles and pistols.

KOB Eyewitness News 4
Aw, MAN… I coulda hooked her up nice. Anamicka Dave was arrested after posting an ad on Craigslist looking for pot.

​Here’s how not to find weed: A New Mexico woman was arrested after police said she put an ad up on Craigslist trying to buy marijuana.

Anamicka Dave, 29, of Albuquerque, was charged after undercover officers posing as pot dealers (I’d like to have seen their “disguises”) arranged to meet her through text messages, reports Joe Bartels at KOB Eyewitness News 4.
Dave’s Craigslist ad in the “Casual Encounters” section noted that she was new to town and “looking for Mary Jane.”
The ad was so blatant, Roswell Police Sgt. Ty Sharpe said he had to make sure it wasn’t posted by another undercover officer.
“I was really surprised that someone would actually put on there they were looking for weed — an actually illegal product — to the fact that I called my boss to make sure it wasn’t one of our guys trying to do a reverse sting,” Sharpe said.

Kalan LP
Hey man, pass the bag.

​You’d think it was some sort of sugar-coated apocalypse to hear some drama-addicted folks making a brouhaha about the marijuana-shaped candies that are now available.

Never mind the fact that you can’t get high on ’em. Just the very fact that they’re shaped (sort of) like the leaves of that evil cannabis plant is enough to get some (bored? angry? neurotic?) parents all in a lather.
The candy part of the ring is shaped like a marijuana leaf. The packaging shows a joint-smoking, peace sign-shooting hippie type and has the word “Legalize” on it.
The “Ring Pots Pot Shaped Ring Candy” and “Pothead Lollipops” are distributed to retail stores by novelty supply company Kalan LP, based in a Philadelphia suburb named Lansdowne, reports Amanda St. Amand of the St. Louis Post-Disptach.

RAND Corporation
If your science upsets the powers that be — like, for instance, rabidly anti-marijuana Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich — then obviously there’s something wrong with science, not with the powers that be.

Report Comes Down After Heavy Pressure From L.A. City Attorney’s Office — But It’s Still Available For You To Read: See Link At End Of Article

A September report from the RAND Corporation showing that crime rates went up in neighborhoods where medical marijuana dispensaries were forced to close created lots of media interest and comment — and it apparently made someone very uncomfortable.

In a highly unusual move for RAND, as of Tuesday morning, the report is no longer available on its site.

Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich’s office was “vocal” in its criticism of last month’s RAND report showing that crime went up in neighborhoods when dispensaries were shut down — so RAND took their own report off their website.

Toke of the Town asked RAND why the report “has been withdrawn pending further review.”
“We took a fresh look at the study based in part upon questions raised by some folks following publication,” responded Warren Robak of RAND Corporation’s media relations department.
“We are continuing our review of the study and have now decided that while the review is pending, we should remove the report from circulation,” Robak wrote.
The L.A. City Attorney’s Office has been the organization most vocal in its criticism of the study, questioning its methods and conclusions,” Robak told me after I asked who, exactly, was “raising questions.”
Why, exactly, a city attorney should have input on the results of a scientific study is a question we should all be asking at this point.

AFP/Sonny Tumbelaka
Australia’s ambassador to Indonesia, Greg Moriarty, has been working to secure the release of the 14-year-old boy who was arrested for marijuana, among huge media interest

​The arrest of a 14-year-old Australian boy in Bali for marijuana possession has created a media firestorm. The boy will likely be held in “drug rehabilitation” for up to another month while he waits to learn how and when he will go to trial.

The Australian ambassador to Indonesia said the case is his “top priority,” reports The Conversation, and even Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard telephoned the teen in prison on Sunday, assuring him “everything is being done” to secure his release.

Luke Thomas/Fog City Journal
Founder/president Kevin Reed of The Green Cross: “The Green Cross will act no differently today or tomorrow, than we did a month ago”

​The founder and president of The Green Cross, a medical marijuana delivery service in San Francisco, responded on Monday to the recently announced federal crackdown on cannabis dispensaries, saying the collective “will act no differently today or tomorrow, than we did a month ago.”

“Following the release of the Cole Memo earlier this summer, the United States Department of Justice announced their intention to ‘crack down’ on medical cannabis dispensaries across the state of California,” Reed told members of The Green Cross collective in a Monday email. “At a press conference last Friday in Sacramento, US Attorneys reminded us that federal law prohibits the use and distribution of cannabis for any purpose regardless of state law, and, outlined heightened enforcement techniques tailored for each of California’s US Attorney districts.

Bhudeva
Hemp has been grown everywhere for thousands of years. It is only in the last 75 years that is cultivation has been irrationally outlawed in the United States.

Veto of SB 676 is a Huge Setback for California Farmers, Businesses and the Economy

Vote Hemp, the nation’s leading grassroots hemp advocacy organization, along with industry trade group the Hemp Industries Association (HIA) — both working to revitalize industrial hemp production in the U.S. — expressed “extreme disappointment” on Monday that California Governor Jerry Brown has vetoed SB 676, the California Industrial Hemp Farming Act.
After moving smoothly through the California Legislature with bipartisan support, the legislation was vetoed by Gov. Brown. The first hemp bill to land on Brown’s desk, SB 676 is the fourth bill since 2002 in support of hemp farming to pass the California Legislature, but all four met gubernatorial vetoes.
The bill would have established guidelines for farming the oilseed and fiber varieties of hemp, which are used in a myriad of everyday consumer products including food, body care, clothing, paper, auto parts, composites and building materials.

Freedom Is Green
The legendary Robert Platshorn served more prison time for a nonviolent marijuana offense than anyone else in U.S. history. Now he’s teaching other seniors about medical marijuana on The Silver Tour.

​Almost every time a poll is taken on public levels of support for medical marijuana, one of the groups most resistant to the idea is one that stands to gain the most from it: senior citizens. If we, as a community, can find a way to educate seniors on the health benefits and palliative qualities of medicinal cannabis, it will be a huge step towards achieving the numbers it will take to legalize medical marijuana on the federal level. Seniors are known as the most powerful voting bloc in the nation, and they always show up at the polls.

That’s where the legendary Robert Platshorn, the Black Tuna himself, comes in. Platshorn — who started as a pitchman, became one of the biggest marijuana smugglers of the 1970s, and then spent almost 30 years in federal prison — has taken on the job of informing his fellow senior citizens about the health benefits of cannabis.
The Silver Tour is the only organization reaching out to seniors about medical marijuana, according to Platshorn, and its work consists of informing them on ways to organize, petition and contact their local politicians to demand legal, safe access to medicinal cannabis.

Zazzle

​On Friday, four U.S. Attorneys in California announced a new federal policy in the state which would be counter to the Obama Administration’s long-held policy of not interfering in state medical marijuana laws.
The new policy will target collectives operating within 1,000 feet of schools or parks, despite the fact that local zoning ordinances have often allowed collectives to operate as long as they were more than 600 feet from schools. It may also be used against providers who distribute in excess of a certain amount, whether or not those providers were acting in full compliance with state and local law.
 
“The Obama administration has lost its way on medical marijuana and is about to seriously anger millions of Americans,” said Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association. “For some inexplicable reason, they have suddenly decided to target providers who are faithfully complying with state and local laws and pay their taxes.

Prison Inmate Penpal
They’re probably celebrating the new Obama Administration policy toward medical marijuana dispensaries.

​U.S. Attorneys Announce That Dispensaries In California Must Close
In a press conference Friday, all four U.S. Attorneys in California announced that the Obama Administration will no longer ignore dispensaries and will actively prosecute many commercial operations.
The attorneys said they will concentrate on criminal prosecution and asset forfeiture against the landlords of medical marijuana dispensaries or cultivation centers, and threaten action against certain commercial organizations.
Multiple businesses throughout the state have been given 45 days to close down.
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