In a handful of places in Texas — Austin and Midland and San Marcos, for example — getting caught carrying a small amount of marijuana will get you a ticket and a court date but, barring more serious infractions, won’t involve handcuffs.
Dallas has a different approach, even though they could easily take the high road.
“We take you to jail,” Chief David Brown told our sister paper, The Dallas Observer, in a recent interview.
| jlwelsh/FlickrCommons |
| Sign posted at the Ritz Ybor Amphitheater in Tampa, FL |
Matthew Heller is a Florida business owner with a company by the name of HornBlasters. He sells air-horns to folks who feel that their vehicle just needs more horn. He cruises around the Tampa area in a massive blue pickup truck with his company’s name emblazoned on the sides, and his namesake product wired smartly throughout for ultimate horn-honking capabilities.
Mr. Heller likes his horns loud, and his rap music even louder, so one night this past February, he hopped in his big blue truck and made his way over to the local music venue to catch a hip hop concert. Though no doubt confident that the implied threat of an infernal racket of horns going off if any alarm should be sounded would ward off any would-be car thieves, Heller had no idea who might end up snooping around his truck that night.
Medical marijuana activists see the state’s new law as only the beginning of broader reform. They’ve vowed to continue fighting at the capitol and extend coverage to thousands more Minnesotans.
Success or failure depends not only on the stamina of such activists, but on the outcome of this fall’s elections, particularly in the race for governor. Of course, a lot can happen in a year. But it’s worth considering where the remaining candidates stand on this single issue to get a better sense of the difficulty of the task ahead.
| Debbie Wasserman-Shultz. |
Medical marijuana’s biggest financial backer, John Morgan, is speaking out against U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s stance on medical marijuana. Wasserman Schultz voted against a bill that would prevent the Drug Enforcement Administration from targeting medical marijuana operations in states where it is legal.
Wasserman Schulz released a statement over her vote, saying that she doesn’t believe “it is appropriate to limit the Executive Branch’s ability to enforce current federal law at their discretion.” In her statement, however, she also took the stance that Amendment 2 is written too broadly, using the pill-mill argument some anti-medical weed groups have been using to justify her vote against the bill.
In a perfect example of why it’s best — if you’re looking to run a successful drug empire — to keep the manufacturing and distribution arms of your outfit separate, the Drug Enforcement Administration moved to seize 35 financial accounts, six cars, jewelery, almost $20,000 in cash, seven gold Canadian “Maple Leaf” coins and 18 properties from Lawrence Shahwan of Lewisville, Gas Pipe head shop owner Jerry Shults and others associated with the Texas and New Mexico-based chain.
According to court documents, the seizure comes after a months-long investigation consisting primarily of federal agents going to Gas Pipe shops and purchasing what the documents call “synthetic marijuana,” but is more accurately described as a varying cocktail of hallucinogenic chemicals mixed with a plant base. The substance is packaged as potpourri or incense or something else that shouldn’t be ingested. Before July 2012, synthetic marijuana was legal. That month, President Obama banned it. It’s now just as illegal as actual marijuana. For more, check out the Dallas Observer.
Despite being three states away from Colorado and the fact that legalized recreational sales in Washington haven’t even begun, law enforcement in Tennessee blame those two states (and California) for marijuana found in Tennessee.
Never you mind that Kentucky, long home to some of the most prolific outdoor cannabis growers in the country, shares hundreds of miles of border with Tennessee. This is those dirty, weed-loving Western states’ problem, damnit.
There’s going to be a slew of reports in the next few months about marijuana-related traffic deaths increasing in the United States as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wraps up a three-year study on marijuana and it’s impact on drivers. And, as usual, they are likely going to claim that stoned drivers are a plague on the roads and that there are masses of red-eyed, resin-fingered pot smokers out killing people on the roadway.
| AmarandAgasi/FlickrCommons |
Drivers in the state of Washington may have had a strange encounter while stopped at a red light this past weekend. We’ve all probably had the less fortunate approach our idling vehicle and peddle for loose change, or have a guy try to sell a newspaper, or start washing the windshield while we wait. But when is the last time that someone bum-rushed your ride offering to give you $60 to take a brief “survey”?
That is precisely what happened beginning last Friday in Spokane and Yakima counties, and continued throughout the weekend. Government-funded orange-vested survey teams were tasked with bribing Washington motorists to hand over voluntary roadside breath, saliva, and blood samples, in exchange for the prospect of easy money.
An administrative law judge this week ordered the state to allow PTSD sufferers to use medical marijuana, reversing a decision by the state health-services department.
Will Humble, director of the state DHS, wrote about Wednesday’s decision by state Administrative Law Judge Thomas Shedden in his blog last week.
“I have until July 9 to either accept, reject or modify the recommended decision,” Humble wrote. “I’ll be studying the report and will make a decision after analyzing the Decision and Order.”
| www.weedmaps.com |
Leading up to the statewide California election this past Tuesday, it is probably safe to say that a majority of voters in San Diego did not realize that they were casting ballots either for, or against, safe access to medical marijuana in the city.
There were no particular referendums for reefer, no specific ballot measures for medical marijuana, but the disappointing results in the city’s District Attorney race, and a rightward-shift in the too-powerful City Council, are reportedly the result of low voter turnout.
It was a tough day at the polls for pro-cannabis activists in America’s Finest City. Another in a disheartening string of crushing blows against any legitimacy for medical marijuana in San Diego.