For the first time in its history, Minnesota NORML plans to draft a marijuana legalization bill for consideration during the next legislative session. Marcus Harcus, the new associate director of the organization, tells us “the precedent that was set in Colorado and Washington gives me hope that it’s a reasonable fight.”
Discussions about the bill are preliminary at this point, but some of the details will be hammered out during an upcoming MN NORML strategic planning retreat, Harcus, who came to NORML from Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, says. Legal experts will be brought in to help write the bill, he adds.
A study due to be released in the International Journal of Cancer (IJC) has concluded that whether you like to spark up a joint once in a while, once a week, or once the last one goes out, the cannabis smoke alone that you inhale does not increase your risk of lung cancer or COPD.
While this may seem like old news to those in the know, the tired old myth that smoking pot leads to certain respiration issues is still a favorite, and effective, strategy of those opposed to cannabis legalization of any form.
We have to give Orlando’s Tavish Smith credit: getting out of police handcuffs while in the backseat of a cop car and then trying to eat the evidence in the front seat is a pretty bold move.
But it is also a stupid one, considering she was on video the entire time.
Myles J. Ambrose, one of the paranoid forefathers of the American drug war, died earlier this month at the age of 87 in Leesburg, Virginia. Although, throughout the years, there was speculation that bookies were taking wagers on who would be the first to dance on Ambrose’s grave: a prominent Mafia family or a Mexican drug cartel, in the end it was a heart attack that led to his demise.
Federal agents and local police arrested 28 people last week tied to a synthetic drug ring selling bath salts and synthetic marijuana nationwide.
The drug ring imported chemicals with misleading labels and descriptions from China and other countries, according to four indictments filed in the U.S. District Court in the past month. Workers in the St. Louis area and in Indiana used the chemicals to make and sell drugs that resemble methamphetamine and marijuana, though with more dangerous side effects.
Last week, Miami-Dade police escorted 62 year-old Miriam Baydes and $300,000 worth of marijuana out of a Southwest Miami-Dade home.
Police were in the area before 4 a.m. conducting an unrelated investigation according to WSVN, when they smelled a strong oder of marijuana emanating from the home in the in the 14600 block of Southwest 63rd Terrace. More over at the Miami New Times.
| ThierryEhrmann/Flickr |
So, the new Pope isn’t down with pot. What a shocker.
After riding an almost unprecedented wave of mainstream popularity, Pope Francis somehow surprised a whole lot of stoners last week by officially condemning cannabis use, as well as the rising tide of legalization, in a speech given to the International Drug Enforcement Conference.
At precisely 2:51 a.m. on Friday, June 20, the New York State Assembly passed the Compassionate Care Act, which (when the bill passes the senate, as it is widely expected to, when it is taken up around 10 a.m.) will make New York the 23rd state in the union where medical marijuana is legal…as long as you don’t smoke it. Seriously: Patients will need to use a vaporizer, pills or other extraction method. The use of joints, bongs and pipes–anything you light up–is strictly verboten.
Under the new law, physicians will have to go through a certification and registration process before they can prescribe the drug legally. Patients, likewise, will need to be certified by a doctor, and they will have to register with the Department of Health, which will provide an ID card proving one’s certification, but they will be free to carry up to 30 days supply of medical pot.
The girlfriend of a killer once housed inside the Orange County, California Jail testified Wednesday that a friendly sheriff’s deputy twice secretly tipped her to potential searches so she wouldn’t be caught smuggling contraband including drugs and weapons inside the facility. Prosecutor Aleta Bryant elicited the testimony from Ha Duc Nguyen who is hoping her statements in support of the government’s bribery case against now fired deputy David Lloyd Cass will result in her lenient punishment for the illegal, two-year smuggling operation.
Nguyen told the jury that on December 3, 2011–the day she was planning to smuggle marijuana, candy and a cell phone (plus charger and cord) to killer Stephenson Choi Kim–Cass contacted her with a warning. More over at the OC Weekly.
A proposed law to begin strict, statewide regulation of marijuana dispensaries would allow edibles and concentrates (wax, honey oil, dabs, shatter) to be sold legally in California dispensaries.
An earlier version of the bill proposed by Sen. Lou Correa would have banned concentrated cannabis products, often blamed for home-lab explosions triggered by butane extraction processes. Medical marijuana advocates have been dead set against the legislation.