What initially seemed like a huge publicity score has turned into a challenge for Olivia Mannix and Jennifer DeFalco, founders of the marijuana PR firm Cannabrand. A quote attributed to Mannix that reads in part, “We’re weeding out the stoners” caused a backlash that led to a client very publicly dropping the firm, and Cannabrand’s attempts to manage the mess haven’t been especially tidy.

If you’re in Appleton, Wisconsin and were looking to blast off into a psychedelic wonderland this weekend for a half-hour at a time, you’re probably going to have to change your plans. Cops last night busted a DMT lab while conducting a raid originally for pot.
Cops say they busted into the home with a warrant last night around 5:30 p.m. expecting to find a lot of herb. Instead, they say they stumbled into a chemistry lab designed for dimethyltryptamine (DMT) production.

It is not unusual for a court to hear testimony in a particular case where the defendant uses the excuse of being addicted to drugs in hopes that the judge will sentence them to substance abuse classes and not jail. However, a Massachusetts courtroom took a bizarre turn earlier this week when a woman told the judge that her boyfriend beat the living snot out of her because he wasn’t stoned on marijuana.

David Harrison, whose mentally ill son Jason Harrison died at the hands of Dallas police in June, filed a lawsuit on Friday claiming two officers used excessive force when they shot his son six times within minutes of arriving at the son’s home on Glencairn Drive.
Linda Turley, David Harrison’s lawyer, writes in the lawsuit that officers John Rogers and Andrew Hutchins shot Jason Harrison “multiple times when Jason Sherard Harrison, an unarmed man, did not pose a risk of injury to himself or others.” The police have said that the younger Harrison had a screwdriver in his hand and made an aggressive act toward the officers, causing them to open fire.
Both officers and the city of Dallas are named as defendants. More on this alleged police abuse over at the Dallas Observer.

Professor Wayne Hall dislikes drugs. So much so, he advises the World Health Organization on drug issues and teaches “addiction policy” at the King’s College in London. According to Hall, he’s gone through 20 years of research and can show that marijuana leads to mental illness, sick babies and car crashes.
His findings are based on government-funded (anti-cannabis) reports from the last 20 years that he hand-selected. Basically, he’s parroting other, old reports and passing it off as something new.

In recent weeks, anti-marijuana advocates have been pushing polls they say show a majority of people in Colorado and beyond are cooling on cannabis legalization. But Mason Tvert, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project and a primary proponent for Amendment 64, which legalized limited pot sales in Colorado, doesn’t see a new groundswell of opposition.

Americans are no longer safe to cultivate common garden vegetables without risking the violent wrath of the drug war. No other citizen understands this lunacy quite like Georgia resident Dwayne Perry, who told reporters at WSB-TV that he was raided by drug agents earlier last week after an aerial surveillance unit mistook his okra crop for marijuana.
That’s right — it appears as though Georgia law enforcement has not had enough experience taking down marijuana grow operations to distinguish the difference between okra and the cannabis plant.

Don Willis wants to kill wolves. He also wants to be governor, but right now he’s all about killing him some wolves. So much so, that he’s made it a part of his gubernatorial campaign strategy. See, Wyomong has permitted wolf hunts in the past but this year a federal judge put the animals – a key component to the western ecosystem – on a protected list. That pisses off Willis, who (as previously noted) just wants wolves to die. Now Willis is saying the state should allow the hunt despite the federal protection because Colorado has legal weed.

Here’s a helpful tip that should probably go without saying: when you’re in court for marijuana possession, don’t possess marijuana. Seems like common sense, right? apparently not to Richard Thompson.
See, Thompson, 32, allegedly showed up at Port Authority court in New Jersey this week for initial court hearings for DUI and marijuana possession charges with a backpack full of weed.