| Flikr.com |
A medical marijuana using Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer has kicked off a media storm in Canada this week after publicly admitted his cannabis use while on the job, notably while in the iconic red uniforms Mounties are known for wearing.
This caused outrage from the RCMP, but not so much about Cpl. Ronald Francis using ganja itself. He can do that and even while on the job, they say. But the Yukon will thaw before he’s allowed to light up while wearing his Red Serge.
A Thai woman caught with nearly 40 pounds of pot in a bus station in Sungai Petani last February will be hung for her “crime” according to Malaysian English-language news site, The Star.
Thitapah Charoenchuea, a 26-year-old single mother of a ten-year-old daughter, has maintained that she is was framed and that this was someone else’s drug deal gone wrong. She says that a man she only knew as “Ali” approached her before she boarded a bus after a brief stop on a bus from Changlun to Kuala Lumpur and asked Thitapah to take care of his bags and he would meet her in Kuala Lumpur.
The Arizona Republic published a TKO of its editorial board this weekend, after the writers declared that the state’s voter-approved medical-marijuana program was “one of the biggest cons around.”
Dr. Gina Mecagni, a local emergency physician, simply annihilated the Republic’s assertion that most medical-pot patients probably are fakers, echoing arguments we’ve also made here at Toke of the Town. Check out Dr. Mecagni’s response over at the Phoenix New Times.
| Corey Ann. |
Here’s a strange one from our friends at the Dallas Observer. Legend has it that the slaves who once labored in the fields of the LeBeau Plantation never entirely left. Cruelly mistreated, some to their death, their restless spirits wandered through their master’s sprawling mansion, taking revenge upon its occupants. One by one, the LeBeau family was driven mad, two of them hanging themselves in the upper rooms. Decades later, a little girl was mysteriously thrown to her death from a fourth-floor window.
Police say it was those stories that inspired Fort Worth’s Dusten Davnport, 31, to visit the house Thursday nights with a group of friends, get stoned then burn it down. Click over to the Dallas Observer for the details.
(Ex) Buffalo Police Officer James Hamilton is a hypocrite. On one hand, he’s a cop. His job is to bust pot dealers, growers and users in his town along with the rest of the Buffalo Police. They are good at it, too.
On the other hand, Hamilton allegedly was a mid-sized pot grower and dealer who tended a basement garden with 82 marijuana plants while on the force where he recently was named “Rookie of the Month,” according to the Buffalo News.
Last Friday afternoon, Kim Cope was driving along Beach Street in North Fort Worth, Texas on her lunch break when she was stopped at a police roadblock. After being ushered into a nearby parking lot, she was given a menu of options. The cops told her she would be paid $10 for cheek swabs, $50 for a blood sample or she could take a free breathalyzer. She opted for the latter, thinking it was the “easiest way for her to leave”.
Here’s the catch: the tests were voluntary and part of the 2013 National Highway Transportation Safety Administration going on right now. Read more about the tests and what to avoid over at the Dallas Observer.
| Toke of the Town/Sean MacEntee. |
There’s a new all-time record for the largest unsuccessful pot-smuggling attempt in Arizona. The previous record was set in January, when a Mexican man attempted to drive 14,121 pounds of pot — with an estimated value of $7.1 million — through the port of entry in Nogales.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman says details on this bust will be released at a press conference tomorrow afternoon, but says this haul was worth more than $10.1 million. Phoenix New Times has the full story.
| Weldon Angelos. |
Weldon Angelos has been in prison for nearly ten years on federal charges of selling about $350 worth of pot and he’s got another 45 to go. The heavy sentence comes from the fact that Angelos had guns in the house where he delt the pot, never mind that he never used them, showed them or even mentioned them in the deal.
Think that sounds absurd? So do several prominent politicians, scholars and even an ex-FBI director who are all asking President Barack Obama to set Angelos free.
Note to would-be cannabis growers: Taking over the apartment of a known heroin junkie for your grow op is not a good way to start. Forcing him into captivity for three days in said junkie pad grow op? Even worse idea.
He’s a heroin junkie–he’s going to get out and get his fix.
An Arizona judge yesterday ruled that medical marijuana patients in that state essentially do not have the right to grow their own medicine anymore.
Judge Katherine Cooper in Maricopa County (yes, that Maricopa County) made the decision yesterday in response to two men filed a challenge to rules in the 2010 medical marijuana laws saying that patients could only grow their own if they lived more than 25 miles from a dispensary.
