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Posting About Marijuana On Facebook Can Get You Fired

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on August 2, 2010 Culture, News

Your cannabis activism on Facebook may mean a lot to you. Or maybe you just like posting party pictures. But if you’re in the corporate world, either one can get you fired.

In a growing nationwide trend, companies are starting to pay more attention to their employees’ Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace postings — and that’s not always a good thing, especially when staffers are involved in the marijuana subculture.

This has resulted in employers increasingly punishing employees who are seen as damaging the “digital reputation” of the firms for which they work, reports Tim Devaney at The Detroit News.

This year, more than one in five companies with 1,000 or more employees — 21 percent — have disciplined employees for “violating social networking policies,” compared to 13 percent in 2008, according to a survey by Proofpoint Inc., an email security company in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Ultralight Flight To Check Two Pot Plants Lands Fla. Men In Jail

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on August 2, 2010 Growing, News

Photo: Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission

Two men are accused of flying this small ultralight aircraft to an island to tend two marijuana plants.

Two Brevard County, Florida men are in jail on marijuana cultivation charges after they made an ultralight flight, allegedly to tend their cannabis plants on a deserted island inside a conservation area, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

An agency inspector working on the nearby Seminole Ranch Conservation Area about 9 a.m. on Friday said he saw an ultralight plane land near a palm island in the St. Johns River in Volusia County, agency spokeswoman Joy Hill said, reports Jeff Weiner of the Orlando Sentinel.

DEA Returns $62 Cash Seized In Marijuana Grow Room Raid

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on August 2, 2010 Growing, News

Photo: Jeff Schrier/The Saginaw News

Ed W. Boyke, 64, stands with some of the belongings that the Saginaw County Sheriff’s Department seized when they raided his home on April 15. Boyke legally grows medical marijuana and police raided his home because they claimed to believe he was violating the law. He had to pay $5,000 to get his own stuff back.

Medical marijuana patient and provider Edwyn W. Boyke hoped he was going to get his guns and grow equipment back when, two days after the Saginaw County Sheriff’s Department returned his TV, he was asked to return to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s office in Saginaw, Michigan.

But when Boyke arrived at the DEA office on Friday afternoon, he said an agent told him the guns and other items, including grow equipment, “would be retained as possible evidence” in an ongoing federal investigation into whether Boyke violated drug laws by growing and possessing harvested marijuana and plants inside his home.

The DEA agent handed Boyke $62 in cash that was taken from Boyke’s wallet during the raid and wished him a good day.

“They called me and said come pick up my stuff, said they had it, they were through with it,” Boyke said. “It sounded like he was going to give me everything,” he said, reports Gus Burns of The Saginaw News.

Boyke, a legal, registered patient who smokes marijuana to ease back pain caused by a pinched nerve, hoped to recover his four guns — three hunting rifles and an antique, inoperable Russian gun — which he said Saginaw deputies seized from his Saginaw Township home while a DEA-secured search warrant was being served on April 15.

Gamer Teen Accidentally Leads Cops To Parents’ Pot Farm

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 31, 2010 Growing, News

Photo: Lake County News-Sun

The Millers: They’re in the jailhouse now, all of ’em

Damn kids. Police traced an Illinois teen to his home after he allegedly stole credit cards and used them to play Internet games. When police entered the home, they stumbled upon his parents’ marijuana growing operation and arrested them as well.

Authorities had been investigating multiple fraudulent online orders and downloads resulting from a Lincolnshire, Ill., car burglary in July. In that case, the victim’s credit card was taken from his vehicle, reports Frank Abderholden at the Lake County News-Sun.

Truth Comes Out: Adults See Alcohol, Tobacco Riskier Than Pot

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 30, 2010 Culture, News

Graphic: OC NORML

Americans view alcohol and cigarettes as more dangerous than marijuana. Tellingly, even a majority of adults who drink alcohol rate it as riskier than pot. Those who never drink alcohol are more evenly divided.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey released this week found that a scant 17 percent of American adults rate use of marijuana as riskier than drinking alcohol. Fifty percent say alcohol is more dangerous, while 26 percent rate the two as equally risky.

Similarly, 46 percent say smoking cigarettes is more dangerous than smoking pot. Twenty-four percent disagree, saying marijuana is more dangerous than tobacco. One in four, 25 percent, say tobacco and alcohol are equally dangerous.

Opposition To DEA Pot Raids Spreads Across Political Spectrum

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 30, 2010 Medical, News

Photo: Politico

Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake on DEA medical marijuana raids: “What part of ‘not a priority’ does Michele Leonhart not understand?”

Two ideologically diverse advocates on Wednesday echoed an earlier call by a coalition of drug-policy reform groups by condemning a series of recent raids by the Drug Enforcement Administration on medical marijuana collectives operating legally under state law.

The Tenth Amendment Center, a group that advocates for states’ rights, and Jane Hamsher, the publisher of Firedoglake.com, called on the DEA to respect duly adopted state medical marijuana laws and immediately end those raids.

“The federal government is only authorized to exercise those powers that ‘We The People’ delegated to it in the Constitution,” said Michael Boldin, founder of the Tenth Amendment Center. “It is especially egregious when these laws are used to justify raids in states where the use and distribution of cannabis is expressly allowed by law.”

WA Governor’s Office Calls Pot Legalization ‘Legitimate Idea’

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 29, 2010 Legislation, News

Photo: KOZE950.com

Could marijuana legalization be in Washington state’s future? The office of Gov. Chris Gregoire said Thursday that it’s a “legitimate idea.”

Could marijuana legalization be in Washington state’s future? The office of Gov. Chris Gregoire said Thursday that it’s a “legitimate idea” that will be considered.

When Gov. Gregoire opened an online suggestion box on ways to fix the state’s budget, she may not have expected pot legalization to come in at first place. But it has been in the lead for more than a week now, and the governor’s office even has a somewhat positive response.

“It’s a legitimate idea,” said Gregoire spokeswoman Karina Shagren, who said the Governor is reading the list herself, as is Marty Brown, the director of the governor’s budget office. “But we’d like to see how the federal government would respond.”

With marijuana legalization apparently so popular among Washington’s (and America’s) voters, the idea is being considered right along with the roughly 1,750 others that have been submitted so far.

Court Rules Marijuana Use No Reason To Take Mother’s Kids

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 29, 2010 Legislation, News

Graphic: Reality Catcher

The state cannot take children away from a mother simply because she tests positive for marijuana use, the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday.

According to the decision, reversing a Marion County juvenile court ruling, the children can’t be taken away without evidence showing the mother’s cannabis use endangers the kids, reports Helen Jung at The Oregonian.

The juvenile court had earlier ruled that the state Department of Human Services had jurisdiction over the two children, a 19-month-old and a 6-month-old. The state had argued that the simple fact fact that the mother used marijuana “presented a reasonable likelihood of harm to her two children.”

But the appeals court reasonably agreed with the mother’s argument that the state had failed to provide any evidence connecting her marijuana use with risk to the children.

The children and the mother are identified only by their initials in the case to protect their anonymity.

Deputy Smuggles Pot To Inmate; Inmate Busted; Deputy Walks

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 29, 2010 News

Photo: Let’s Talk Style

An inmate who allegedly received a box of marijuana-filled ballpoint pens from a female Cook County, Illinois sheriff’s deputy is facing a felony contraband charge for the transaction.

But prosecutors declined to charge the deputy after she was arrested earlier this month for hand-delivering the cannabis inside the Cook County Criminal Courts Building, reports Matthew Walberg at the Chicago Tribune.

Wait, what?

“We are still at a loss as to why this particular case did not get charged,” said Joe Ways, head of the sheriff’s Office of Professional Review, which investigates employee misconduct.

The state attorney’s office said the case fell apart because incompetent sheriff’s investigators did not follow specific instructions to ensure they had the evidence needed to show the deputy knew she was delivering drugs to inmate Brian Goolsby, 28.

Bermuda Sucks: Passenger Hauled Off Cruise Ship For Pot

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 28, 2010 Global, News

Photo: Cruise Law News

Bermuda is not a good place to vacation, if you like marijuana.

Yet another passenger has been hauled off a cruise ship in Bermuda for allegedly arriving on the backwards-ass island with marijuana.

Hey, Bermuda? Get a fucking clue. If you really want to be a vacation paradise, you need to let people smoke weed. Arresting tourists is bad for business, morons.

George Koumoulis, 37, of Abingdon, Maryland, was removed from the Norwegian Dawn on July 22 after police found just over seven grams of cannabis in his cabin, reports Nadia Arandjelovic at Bermuda newspaper The Royal Gazette.

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