Browsing: News

Photo: Lori Horwedel/AnnArbor.com
A plethora of pot pipes: potential profits for an exhibitor at the Michigan Caregivers Cup

​Despite the forced cancellation of their medical marijuana competition and a brief mix-up over lecture admission prices, the Michigan Caregivers Cup is drawing plenty of visitors and continuing through the weekend, according to event organizers.

The contest, which would have been held Saturday, was canceled after law enforcement threatened that participants could be criminally prosecuted, reports Lee Higgins at AnnArbor.com.

Graphic: Aural Wes
Wesleyan students chose Giant Joint over two human competitors for the student assembly.

​Wesleyan University students have elected “Giant Joint” to the student assembly, beating out two human competitors for the seat.

In the election last month, Giant Joint, a consistent vote-getter in representative elections since 2006, finally achieved victory with 416 votes, reports Aviva Markowitz of The Wesleyan Argus.
The genesis of Giant Joint took place in 2006 when Bev Allen, who graduated from the Middletown, Connecticut university in 2008, walked around the campus dressed as a giant joint.
The first year Allen ran for the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) as Giant Joint, she got 50 votes.
What began as a protest against a Student Health Advisory marijuana safety campaign resulted in a new Wesleyan write-in tradition: Giant Joint for WSA.
“I am proud and excited,” Allen said in an email to The Argus. “I definitely wanted Mr. Joint to live on after my graduation.”

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Olathe: Cut us in on the cash, and you can stay

​Just like that, the Town of Olathe, Colorado says it will now charge medical marijuana dispensaries an annual fee of $3,000 to operate.

The Olathe Town Board voted unanimously for the new ordinance on Monday night, according to Town Administrator Scott Harold, reports KKCO. Two board members weren’t present for the vote.
Harold said the board “feels the ordinance is necessary” to “regulate” dispensaries. He claimed the board had been “talking and finalizing the wording of it” (translation: figure out how much we can shake them down for) since June.
Oh well, Toke of the Town supposes it could be worse. The Board could have tried to ban dispensaries outright.

Photo: Dakta Green
Dakta Green: “I will never stop campaigning to free cannabis users from these harsh and unfair laws”

​The trial of a New Zealand man campaigning to have cannabis legalized is going ahead next week after he lost his bid to stop the proceeding.

Dakta Green said he was nevertheless “encouraged” by comments from the judge.
Green is facing six marijuana charges and is scheduled to go on trial in Auckland District Court next week, reports 3 News.
“The truth is coming out,” Green said on his Facebook page. “If we don’t win in court we will win in the court of public opinion.”
Green had applied for a stay of proceedings on the grounds that the charges against him breached his rights under the Bill of Rights Act.
Friday in a reserved decision Judge Anne Kiernan threw out his application, ruling he had produced no evidence that his rights had been breached.
However, during her ruling, the judge said Green had produced some persuasive arguments for the legalization of cannabis, but that the court was not the right place for such arguments to be heard.

Photo: Westword
Cannabis potency testers Full Spectrum Laboratories were raided by federal agents Wednesday. Marijuana samples were seized, but no arrests were made.

​Federal agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration earlier this week raided a Denver potency testing laboratory and seized medical marijuana samples.

Cannabis advocates say the federal raid is the latest example of continued official harassment of the medical marijuana industry, reports John Ingold at The Denver Post.
The raid of Full Spectrum Laboratories happened on Wednesday, according to Betty Aldworth, the lab’s outreach director. Aldworth said federal agents took dozens of medical marijuana samples, both small amounts of pot and test tubes of “extraction fluid,” but left the lab’s equipment.
No employees were arrested.
Aldworth was at the State Capitol to watch lab co-owner Bob Winnicki testify about State Senator Chris Romer’s new medical marijuana bill when both Full Spectrum employees got an email letting them know the DEA had “stopped by” the lab, reports Michael Roberts at Westword.
By the time Aldworth and Winnicki got back to the lab, “it was full of DEA agents” and other local law enforcement hangers-on who spent the next several hours seizing all the marijuana they could find.

Photo: www.hollywire.com
Where there’s Willie, there’s weed. Let’s just all come to terms with it.

​Willie Nelson was supposed to play a gig in Kenansville, North Carolina Thursday night, but he had to cancel the show because of an illness.

But you know how it is on the road. The show got canceled, and the probably bored and stir-crazy members of his band managed to get themselves into some trouble there in little old Duplin County.
Agents with the North Carolina Alcohol Law Enforcement Division issued citations to three members of Nelson’s band for having moonshine whiskey and small amounts of marijuana, reports Laura Phelps at WNCT.com.


Graphic: photobucket.com
California’s 2010 election: Be there, or be square.

​Do you live in California? Are you over 18? Then make sure you’re registered and ready to vote.

Supporters of legalizing marijuana announced Thursday they have gathered about 700,000 signatures for their initiative, making it almost certain that Californians will be able to vote on it in November.

The marijuana advocates plan to turn in the petitions to elections officials in some of the state’s larger counties, including Los Angeles, reports John Hoeffel in the Los Angeles Times.
Supporters need 433,971 valid signatures to qualify the measure, known as the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act.
The initiative’s main promoter, medical marijuana entrepreneur Richard Lee of Oaksterdam University in Oakland, paid for the professional signature-gathering effort that was bolstered by volunteers from California’s hundreds of cannabis dispensaries.


Photo: NIDA Marijuana Project at The University of Mississippi
The entire supply of marijuana for research in the United States is grown by the NIDA in Mississippi.

​One federal agency controls all the marijuana research done in the United States. And that agency has just admitted that it won’t fund research into the benefits of marijuana — only the supposed “negative consequences.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) told the New York Times last week that the agency “does not fund research focused on the potential medical benefits of marijuana.”

“As the National Institute on Drug Abuse, our focus is primarily on the negative consequences of marijuana use,” NIDA spokeswoman Shirley Simson told the Times.

Graphic: OC Weekly

​A Florida man has agreed to plead guilty to selling, over the Internet, a powdered drink mix designed to help truck drivers, pilots, train engineers and others pass federally mandated urine tests to detect drugs.

Stephen Sharp claimed the mix is 100 percent effective in blocking the urine tests from showing metabolites of common recreational drugs, including marijuana.


Photo: CBS13.com
If you plan on stealing James Tillman’s marijuana, you’re going to need more than three guys.

​They’re not going to get James Tillman’s weed.

Tillman, 67, on Sunday shot and wounded one of three burglars who broke into his Sacramento, California home to steal his medical marijuana, reports Elyce Kirchner of CBS13.com.
The other two fled and haven’t been seen since.

Mr. Tillman was definitely having none of their nonsense. After all, his grandkids were at home.
Tillman was in his bedroom when the intruders tried to go all gangster on him, but he wasn’t trippin.’
“We went back and forth and I shot him,” Tillman said. “They just didn’t give a damn. They knew we were in here, with the lights on, and with kids.”
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