This church of ours is open to all. . . . There will be no outcasts,” reads a banner looming over comedian Pat Leborio as he struts onto the stage. He’s in the church hall of St. Clement’s by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in San Clemente, ready to start a set for an audience that seem to be the last people on earth ready to listen to an hour of insults thrown their way: addicts.
As past weed-themed gift lists we’ve run featuring the best marijuana gifts of 2012 and 2013 demonstrate, Colorado pot shops have embraced the holidays for a while now. But 2014 promises more deals than ever, with a number specifically pegged to Black Friday.
As the Associated Press has reported, The Grass Station is promising to sell $50 ounces to the first sixteen customers per day Friday-Saturday, November 28-30. Here’s a graphic featuring all its Black Friday “door busters:” The Latest Word has more.
| Evan Amos. |
A former city councilman in Harford, Maryland was arrested with more than two pounds of pot in September and will be facing multiple felony and misdemeanor charges that could land him jail for years.
According to court records unsealed last week, Lance Miller was busted with multiple bags of pot totaling 2.25 pounds in September in a house that cops imply was used as a grow facility.
| Part of a new marijuana-edibles-education billboard introduced earlier today. Additional images below. |
Earlier today, a new billboard encouraging responsible storage of marijuana edibles was introduced by the Marijuana Policy Project; see more images below. MPP spokesman Mason Tvert stresses that the display is part of an ongoing educational campaign and shouldn’t be interpreted as message to legislators, who’ll be making decisions about edibles packaging after a working group essentially punted following many weeks of work on the issue.
Thanksgiving week in Amsterdam for the last 26 years or so has been a haven for cannabis users and those wanting to celebrate marijuana culture thanks to the High Times Cannabis Cup.
But it seems that after more than a quarter-century of generally being hassle-free, the Dutch are cracking down on events and have shut down the main expo for the event and are strictly enforcing five-gram possession laws and a total ban on solvent-based concentrates.
An attorney’s opinionated rant against marijuana in a Michigan courtroom last week cost her a case, even though most seemed to agree she had won.
In her closing arguments in a case against a Michigan medical cannabis patient accused of growing more than he was allowed, Alger County prosecutor Karen Bahrman went off on a tear on the state’s medical marijuana laws, the Alger Hemp Coalition, a local cannabis advocacy group, and patients in general. She said their vision was to live in a “country where everybody can walk around stoned.”
| Photo by EvaK via Wikimedia Commons. |
The two middle-aged men were ambitious. They wanted to repair their sailboat and navigate across the ocean, from Colombia to Italy. All so they could smuggle two tons of cocaine.
According to a federal arrest affidavit filed last week, keysnet.com reports, two South Florida men — Juan Soberon and Marin Spariosu — the latter a registered agent of a downtown Miami jewelry store, conspired to front thousands of dollars’ worth of emeralds in exchange for cocaine. Flush with money from the initial sale, the two sailors would then embark on the much grander plan of smuggling up to two tons of coke across the ocean. Except, of course, they got caught. The coke suppliers they were meeting with were actually informants for the Drug Enforcement Agency. Miami New Times has more.
Despite the passage of new laws making the possession of small amounts of pot legal in Alaska, prosecutors in the state say they’ll still be pursuing cannabis cases until the new laws are signed and on the books.
In other states like Washington and Colorado, prosecutors began dropping minor possession cases even before the governor signed the bill into law – arguing that they wouldn’t be able to take the case to trial, nor would they want to waste the resources. It’s what they community they serve clearly demanded they do with the vote. But apparently, the cops and prosecutors don’t care about respecting the people they serve in Alaska.
Billy Benjamin Hayes Jr., 39, is one of Arizona’s most vocal marijuana activists. Few people welcomed the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act when voters passed it in 2010 more than Hayes. The lanky father of three is a marijuana enthusiast, a grower for nearly his whole life who imbibes regularly, whether by smoking, vaporizing, or eating.
His name often is seen in Internet forums of the Arizona Department of Health Services, the agency that oversees the medical-marijuana program. Having learned just enough law to be dangerous during an eight-month stint in prison on a marijuana-possession violation, he’s sued the federal government (unsuccessfully) over the law’s
”25-mile rule,” which limits where patients can grow marijuana, and helps his pro bono pot-activist lawyer, Tom Dean, write court motions.
Hayes needs an attorney because he’s also an entrepreneur who just may be ahead of his time. Ray Stern at the Phoenix New Times has more on Hayes and the state of Arizona’s medical marijuana system.
| Two of the three 30lb parcels of pot that showed up at City Blue this week |
Founded on 13th and market Street in downtown Philadelphia in 1981, the high styled retail outlet City Blue now has 25 locations across Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and Ohio.
Touting themselves as “a leader and innovator in urban fashion”, managers in all City Blue locations are likely very busy these days ordering in new items to be sure that their shelves are fully stocked for the holiday rush. With so many packages in transit during this time of year, mistakes certainly do happen, but when the manager of the City Blue store in Upper Darby, PA sliced into an unknown package delivered to his store earlier this week, he was greeted by a box full of product that he simply could not sell…at least, not legally.