Given Fox News’ conservative slant, it’s no surprise that most of the network’s coverage about Colorado’s legalization of recreational marijuana sales has been largely or wholly negative. Take Bill O’Reilly correspondent Jesse Watters’s report about 4/20 in Denver, which sought laughs by characterizing attendees as clueless burdens on society.
It’s surprising, then, to see Fox News essentially hyping marijuana tourism to Colorado in a new post with an unexpectedly positive tone. Denver Westword has more.
A few months back we told you about Jacob Lavoro, who was facing life in jail after cops falsely charged him with distributing more than 400 grams of hash by using the entire weight of a batch of hash brownies instead of just the four grams he allegedly used.
Thankfully, someone in Williamson County, Texas has a heart. Or a least a brain that can listen to logic, as the charges that could have brought him a mandatory 10 years or a maximum of life in prison have been dropped. He is still facing two lower-degree felonies and up to 20 years in jail, however.
Would-be legal medical cannabis users in Iowa say the state’s CBD-only medical cannabis program isn’t meeting their needs.
It isn’t necessarily surprising to hear, considering the program never allowed Iowans to grow cannabis to make the oil, nor does it allow them to even purchase oil in Iowa. Instead, they have to get permission from the state to travel outside of Iowa, purchase the medicine, then illegally transfer it across state lines back home, 32 ounces at a time.
Live in Santa Fe, New Mexico? Use cannabis? Well, this November you should vote to make your life just a little easier and stress-free by voting to abolish laws making the possession of up to 28 grams a misdemeanor charge worth up to 15 days of your life in jail and $100 in fines.
Under the proposed changes, marijuana possession of up to 28 grams would be a civil infraction punishable by a $25 fine. Read it below.
| Flickr user 0_hai/Modified under Creative Commons license |
| Hit bongs, not spouses |
In the business of analyzing the domestic abuse statistics and trends in our country, there is a term used called “Alcohol or Other Drug” involvement, or AOD. The data seems to show that the impairment, poor decision making and amped up aggression that is generally associated with abusing alcohol, or “Other Drugs”, commonly leads to physical violence in a marriage.
Studies over the decades have varied, but they typically show that 48% to 87% of the time that a person is physically assaulted by their spouse, the aggressor is juiced up on some booze.
So, what do the statistics say about weed?
While we think the Emmy’s are generally just a reach-around for Hollywood elite and don’t really represent the best acting, directing or writing on television, the awards ceremony occasionally provide some entertainment.
Like last night, when comedian Sara Silverman showed off her hash-oil filled vaporizer pen to a national audience while completely blowing off mindless questions about fashion and proved that at least one person in Hollywood thinks the awards are as big of a joke as us.
| William Breathes. |
On Wednesday and Thursday of last week, our colleagues at the Riverfront Times Richard Stulz, Lac Qui Parle county attorney, in hopes of speaking with him about why he decided to press charges against Angela Brown, the Madison, Minnesota woman who gave her ailing teenage son medical marijuana oil to (effectively) treat symptoms stemming from a traumatic brain injury.
But Stulz, unfortunately, isn’t in the mood to talk about it. Their calls weren’t returned, and that appears to be the case for other reporters who have reached out to him as well.
Colorado attorney Rob Corry recently asked for a temporary restraining order to halt tax collection while the matter is considered, but Denver District Court Judge John Madden rejected that request at Friday’s session. The ruling disappoints Corry, but he’s optimistic about the case’s future and feels plenty of interesting information came out — including, he says, the admission by city and state reps that anyone buying marijuana in Colorado is incriminating themselves in the eyes of the federal government.
As Corry said in June, when the suit (on view below) was originally filed, “The primary cause of action is based on the Timothy Leary case before the U.S. Supreme Court:” — a reference to 1969’s Leary v. U.S. “That case struck down the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 after Leary successfully argued to the court that payment of a marijuana tax was a violation of the Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination.”
| Timophey Tkachik/Flickr. |
When smuggling a stash of marijuana through the foothills of West Virginia, it is highly advisable to eliminate any and all bizarre variables from the equation that could possibly contribute to an accident or an unsavory run in with the law… or both. Just ask 20-year-old Seth Grim, who was arrested last Friday for possession of marijuana after his dog caused him to lose control of his Ford Explorer and wipe out along a stretch of highway — exposing the unusual contents of his SUV.
Week after week, we report on headlines and stories regarding the many, many potential health benefits there are to responsible cannabis use. From epilepsy to cancer, and from ADD to PTSD, cannabis, in many cases we are told, can possibly cure them all.
Reactions to these headlines usually bounce back and forth between the anti-cannabis crowd saying something like, “No way…” to the pro-pot people saying, “Holy shit!” But the results of a study just published in JAMA Internal Medicine have merged the two reactions into a pretty universal reply of “No shit!”