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Portland, Maine Accepts Marijuana Dispensary In Business Zone

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 20, 2010 Dispensaries, News

The City Council of Portland, Maine has unanimously agreed to include a medical marijuana dispensary in the city’s business zoning ordinance.

Three companies have been selected by the state Department of Health to dispense cannabis to authorized patients in Maine. The state-licensed dispensaries will be in six locations around the state, including downtown Portland, reports Amanda Hill at WLBZ2.

The state of Maine has agreed to allow Northeast Patients Group to open dispensaries in Portland, Thomaston, Augusta or Waterville, and Hermon.

The group is looking at a number of locations in Portland, now that the zoning ordinance allows it to open a dispensary within the business 2, 3, and 7 zones of the city.

One key location under discussion is the former location of a Key Bank on the corner of Congress and St. John Streets, but one concern is that it’s too tight an area to accommodate a lot of traffic.

Can Ecstasy Ease Post-Traumatic Stress?

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 20, 2010 Medical, News

Graphic: Tribe.net

MDMA, better known by its street name, Ecstasy, is illegal but a new study suggests that it is also a promising treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The study, published in the Journal of Pscyhopharmacology, included 20 patients with PTSD from traumas such as sexual assault and combat stress, reports Amanda Gardner at CNN.

On two separate occasions, 12 of the people took MDMA and then spoke for several hours with a pair of trained therapists. The others took a placebo but received the same therapy. All of the participants got additional therapy sessions that did not involve the drug.

Ten of the 12 people who took MDMA had, two months later, improved so much they no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD. Three of the participants whose condition had prevented them from keeping a job were even able to return to work.

Marijuana Advocates Cheer DEA Agent’s Exit From Colorado

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 19, 2010 Culture, News

Photo: U.S. News

Asshole DEA agent Jeffrey Sweetin is leaving Colorado. Yaaay! Unfortunately, this meth-filled Elmo is not his replacement. Boooo!

Dude, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

That’s the message from Colorado marijuana advocates who are cheering the departure of federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent Jeffrey D. Sweetin because, they said, they believe his views are not in line with the will of Colorado voters who legalized cannabis for medical purposes, reports Felisa Cardona at The Denver Post.

The opinionated special agent in charge of the Denver office of the DEA said he understands that he’s become the “face” of the War On Pot in Colorado, but said his exit doesn’t mean the fight over marijuana is finished.

“The person who takes my place is going to have the same mission I have,” Sweetin said.

Maine’s Marijuana Dispensaries: Profiteering ‘Nonprofits’?

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 19, 2010 Dispensaries, News

Photo: BusinessBroker.net

Maine’s new voter-approved medical marijuana dispensaries are expected to make cannabis more accessible to disabled and ill patients — but making it reasonably priced may be another matter.

Concerns about affordability are arising as the state’s state-licensed dispensary operators have set their prices high, in what they claim is an effort to prevent resale on the streets.

The newly licensed dispensaries in Maine have revealed they plan to sell their cannabis for $300 to $400 an ounce, comparable to California dispensary prices, reports John Richardson at The Portland Press Herald.

Paris Hilton Caught With Cannabis Again

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 19, 2010 Culture, News

Photo: California Rumor

Paris Hilton has been briefly detained, then released, after being caught with marijuana (again).

American socialite Paris Hilton has reportedly been caught again with marijuana.

The multi-millionaire heiress was arrested and detained shortly on the French island of Corsica after less than a gram of cannabis was found in her handbag when a drug dog alerted officers, according to police, reports Shania Stevewolsen of World Correspondents.

Hilton, 29, was detained after her arrival at the Figari Airport in Corsica, aboard a private jet from Paris, France last Friday.

She was searched in a secure area of the airport police station and an amount of cannabis that weighed less than a gram was found in her handbag, according to Corse-Matin newspaper.

Due to the small amount of marijuana found, she was warned not to travel with drugs, then released within an hour with no criminal charges, the newspaper reported.

The marijuana was confiscated and destroyed.

Educational Site Worried Students Will Visit Like-Named Pot Site

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 16, 2010 Culture, News

Graphic: Newsbowl.com

Newsbowl.com gets you a grade-school education site. Newsbowl.org gets you a medical marijuana site.

The owner of a grade-school educational website says he’s worried he’ll be run out of business by a medical marijuana site with an almost identical name.

Peter Vavak, owner of Newsbowl.com, said he fears students will mistakenly log on to marijuana site Newsbowl.org and find information on how to buy medical marijuana instead of the school quizzes they were expecting, reports Ken Contrata at Fox News.

Even worse, Vavak fears, parents could see their children go to the marijuana “dot-org” site, call their teachers, and cancel their subscriptions to his educational “dot-com” site.

Narcs Claim Sound Is Dangerous ‘Gateway Drug’ For Kids

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 16, 2010 Culture, News

Photo: blogspot

In one of the latest examples of moronic Drug War hyperbole, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics is warning parents about a dangerous new “drug” — binaural sound.

Seems these Okie drug warriors are convinced that seemingly harmless MP3 downloads are just the latest way crazy teenagers are using to get high. They call listening to the files “i-dosing,” and claim that evil “digital dealers” are selling kids the aural equivalent of crack cocaine, reports Jason Mick at DailyTech.

“Kids are going to flock to these sites just to see what it is about and it can lead them to other places,” warned Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics spokesman Mark Woodward.

Woodward claims the “digital drugs” are leading formerly innocent children down a primrose path of self destruction and harder drugs.

Seventeen Mag Tells Teens Marijuana Will ‘Make You Fat & Ugly’

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 16, 2010 Culture, News

Graphic: Style Rookie

Yes, girls, pot makes you “Fat & Ugly,” if you believe Seventeen. (look on the lower right).

Seventeen Magazine, that bastion of annoying shallowness aimed at teenage girls, has reached a new low.

The rag, which for years has plumbed the depths of journalism, exploring just how negative a self image can be foisted upon America’s anorexics-in-training, has now told its wide-eyed readership that marijuana is, and I’m quoting here, “THE PARTY DRUG THAT CAN MAKE YOU FAT & UGLY.”

Never mind, as pointed out by 13-year-old Style Rookie blogger Tavi in a righteously indignant open letter to the magazine, that the message being given to impressionable teenage girls is oh God, the worst possible thing that could ever, ever happen to them is that, heaven forbid, their appearance should fall short of Hollywood ideals!

Never mind that equating “fat” and “ugly” in such a casually cruel way — in a culture which, more and more, values artificial standards of “attractiveness” and “beauty” over all else, and defines those as being synonymous with “unhealthily skinny” — tells teenage girls that their looks define them, and that they should feel really bad about themselves if they somehow don’t “fit.”

U.S. Government Says Abuse Of Prescription Drugs Up 400%

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 16, 2010 Culture, News

Graphic: White Noise Insanity

A new U.S. government study finds a 400 percent increase in the number of people admitted to hospital emergency rooms for abusing prescription pain medication such as hydrodocone, oxycodone, and morphine.

Even with the wide popularity of prescription medication, pain pills remained the second most common type of illicit drug use in the United States in 2008, according to the study. While more than six million Americans admitted to abusing prescription painkillers in the month before the survey, more than double that amount — 15.2 million people — said they had used good old marijuana.

The increase in pill abuse among those 12 and older was recorded during the decade from 1998 to 2008. It crosses every gender, race, ethnicity, education and employment level, and all regions of the country, according to The Associated Press.

According to the study, seven of the top ten drugs reported abused by 12th graders are prescription drugs, reports the Dakota Voice.

California Cities Taxing Pot Dispensaries To Trim Budget Deficits

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on July 16, 2010 Dispensaries, News

Photo: Zazzle

On July 13, the city council of Berkeley, California asked voters to approve a 2.5 percent tax on the city’s medical marijuana dispensaries, three of which grossed a total of $19 million last year.

“This is huge,” said Mayor Tom Bates. According to the mayor, the tax will help close a $16.2 million budget gap, but it’ll do more than that, report Christopher Palmeri and Michael Marois at Business Week.

It also makes sure that as marijuana sales go mainstream, the local community — not outside business interests — benefits. “We don’t want to have Philip Morris coming in here, sucking up all the money,” Bates said.

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