Grassroots Colorado was a marijuana club closed after a 4/20 weekend raid in 2015.
Update: The Denver Responsible Use Initiative, a Denver NORML-backed proposal intended to create venues for the social consumption of cannabis in the Mile High City, fell short of qualifying for the November ballot — and attorney Judd Golden, who was both the author of the initiative and one of its primary proponents, has a major takeaway from the experience.
The state votes in November.
Here’s your daily round up of pot news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D.-Mass.) said she’s “open” to REC legalization in Massachusetts.
Pennsylvania is moving aggressively to create rules for its MED industry. Major regulatory changes are coming in L.A.
Portland (Ore.) City Hall is fighting with a pot shop about a license requirement.
In SFWeekly, I said we need more weed reporters. I also spoke to HelloMD about WeedWeek and the cannabis beat.
Kayvan Khalatbari
He co-founded one of the first dispensaries in Denver and, earlier this month, he sold it to Willie Nelson for his Willie’s Reserve operation. Now Kayvan Khalatbari, who was featured in our January 2, 2014, roundup of leading ganjapreneurs, is looking ahead to other ways he can contribute to Denver’s ever-evolving culture through art and advocacy. Khalatbari sat down with Westword to discuss what he’s doing next, his thoughts on Denver’s growth, and whether he’d consider another run for Denver City Council or even mayor.
Westword: Talk about the Cannabis Symposium in October.
Kayvan Khalatbari: It’s a symposium on October 26, which is the front end of the Marijuana Management Symposium the city throws at the convention center. We’re going to have a day totally committed to stewardship and have all these traditional folks, utility and technology people, operators in the industry, come and speak about what you can do right now that will impact the business positively and the environment positively, but also long-term best practices that we’re creating internally.
The late Jack Splitt.
Update: Back in June, Jack Splitt was at the center of a joyous scene.
As seen in our previous coverage below, he was alongsisde his mom, Stacey Linn, the executive director of the CannAbility Foundation, as Governor John Hickenlooper, a seat away, signed a bill allowing young medical marijuana patients like him to take their cannabis-based medication at school — something that had previously been forbidden. The resulting legislation became known as Jack’s Law.
Just over two months later, that triumph has turned into tragedy. Jack, who suffered from cerebral palsy, has died at the age of fifteen.
Irvine, Calif.-based Weedmaps is full of bogus dispensary reviews, according to an investigation by the L.A. Times.
Reporter Paresh Dave looked at nearly 600 businesses reviewed on the site and found that 70% included reviews submitted from a single IP address (i.e. a single computer). A textual analysis found that 62% of reviews on the site are “fake.”
Weedmaps, a Yelp-like service with operations in several states, had stored the IP addresses of anonymous reviewers, in its publicly available code. A Weedmaps executive said the 62% figure is far too high, and emphasized that reviews are only part of the product.
Love, romance and smoke were in the air for the Simply Cooking class with Scott Durrah.
Longtime chef Scott Durrah has a strong restaurant personality — and a strong tolerance for cannabis. He showed off both at last Saturday’s Simply Cooking demonstration that combined his love of food with his love of cannabis — and his love for partner Wanda James, with whom he runs Jezebel’s Southern Bistro as well as theirdispensary, Simply Pure. The theme of the day’s cooking demonstration was love and romance — and the pop-up kitchen definitely got hot.
Durrah prepared two dishes that morning: pan-seared scallops salad with grapefruit and cannabis-infused olive oil, and a lamb chop preparation that incorporated his homemade cannabis-infused coconut oil, mint tincture as a mint sauce, bok choy and brown rice. Pro tip: Store your cannabis-infused coconut oil in a hollowed-out coconut. Not only does it improve the flavor, Durrah says, but “It just looks so cool.”
it’s another security concern dispensaries face.
The following is excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.
Ryan Kunkel, owner of Seattle dispensary Have A Heart alleges that a recent robbery was an inside job.
Mexican police executed more than 42 suspected gang members on a ranch last year.
The Justice Department said it would stop using private prisons on grounds that they’re more dangerous and less well run than public prisons. The move does not apply to most prisoners in the country, who are incarcerated under state laws.
Dear Stoner: I’ve tried sativas and indicas, and they’re all fine and dandy, but I’m looking for something more in the middle. What are some good hybrids that are actually hybrids?
Happy Jack
Dear Jack: All hybrids are actually hybrids. In fact, nearly all of the strains you’ll find nowadays are hybrids, but it’s easier for people to label something that’s 80 to 90 percent indica as “indica” instead of “indica-dominant hybrid” and then have to explain what that means. But I’m guessing you mean something like a 50/50 hybrid, many of which you’ve probably seen or tried around town.
A photo from the Kansas State Patrol Facebook page.
For years, we’ve written about reports of marijuana profiling.
The claims consistently maintain that law enforcers in jurisdictions beyond this state are more apt to stop vehicles for marijuana-related searches if they’re outfitted with Colorado license plates.
Such tactics were always controversial. Now, a federal court says they’re totally unjustified.
You would be forgiven for not recognizing the nondescript brick warehouse in Phoenix’s Grand Avenue industrial district as the site of a high-tech agricultural facility.
But as soon as you step inside, the smell of hundreds of marijuana plants is overwhelming. As you make your way through the small rooms that line the main hallway, you can hear the whoosh of ventilation fans and the gentle hum of huge artificial lights suspended above a lush green canopy of leaves. Reggae, old-school hip-hop, and pop-punk blare from a portable speaker as a crew of 30 or so workers trim, water, and inspect the all-female crop of cannabis plants casually known as “the ladies.”