The world’s smallest island nation is banning alcohol and legalizing cannabis. Members of the Nauruan Parliament approved a measure legalizing the sales, cultivation, use and possession of marijuana for adults on the island with a fifteen to four vote.
Nauru now joins Uruguay as one of the two nations to outright legalize the plant. Government offiials say the hope to boost travel to the extremely remote island, which has been almost entirely decimated by 50 years of phosphate strip mining.
| Basil Soufi/Commons. |
Los Angeles has had a contentious relationship with medical marijuana dispensaries for years that culminated last year with Proposition D, which banned all but 135 dispensaries in the city, shut down hundreds of shops.
But not all of them closed quick enough, prompting the Los Angeles City Attorney, Mike Feuer to begin filing criminal complaints with dispensary landlords and building owners – more than 120 since September of last year.
Virginia is for medical marijuana lovers, with 84 percent of registered voters polled in a recent Quinnipiac University Polling Institute study saying they want legal access for sick Virginians.
But support for medical marijuana doesn’t equal support for the recreational use of cannabis, with 46 percent of people in the same poll agreeing that adult use be tolerated. That could shift in the next few years, however. Seventy-one percent of voters aged 18 to 29 said they want to legalize cannabis.
Increasingly, Coloradans driving out of state are finding themselves the target of questionable highway patrol stops that seem to always end with an attempt to flush out any weed the driver may have on themselves. Cops in other states deny they are singling out Coloradans, but anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention knows that’s crap.
One Coloradan is stepping up and doing something about it: 69-year-old Darien Roseen, a man who has never once tried marijuana in his life. Roseen has filed a lawsuit against Idaho State Police officers in Payette County, Idaho.
Mothers of children with afflictions they believe could be treated by medical marijuana claim Governor Dayton “suggested” to them during a private March 13 meeting that they should just buy pot off the street in lieu of having legal access. (Watch video of one mother detailing what was said at the meeting at the bottom of this post.)
According to a WCCO report, Dayton wasn’t contradicting that version of events as recently as Wednesday. “The governor does not deny he told at least one of the parents to buy illegal pot off the street,” Pat Kessler reported. Gov. Waffles tune changed during a news conference late last week, however.
| Phil Konstantin |
| San Ysidro Border Crossing By Phil Konstantin |
As the busiest land border crossing in the world, the U.S./Mexico border checkpoint at San Ysidro in California has seen its fair share of smuggling attempts. But to this day, the stop and seizure of a van stuffed with four tons of marijuana back in 2002 remains as one of the largest weed busts on record at the bustling international checkpoint.
The discovery was made as the van was just a few car lengths away from a successful border crossing, in the lane of a seasoned Border Protection inspector by the name of Lorne “Hammer” Jones. Long respected among his peers as the last line of defense on our nation’s southern border, Lorne Jones, it turns out, had spent over a decade working in cahoots with powerful Mexican drug cartels, repeatedly waving through vehicles he knew to be loaded with illegal drugs, or illegal aliens.
| Gov. Mark Dayton. |
During a private chat at the Governor’s Residence with medical marijuana supporters earlier this month where the governor sounded a pessimistic note about medical marijuana’s prospects this session, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton did indicate there’s still a way those who want it can get it.
Why, just buy it on the street! It’s not like pot is super hard to find on the black market these days anyway, right? And even if you’re arrested with some, the punishment is only a petty misdemeanor.
Minneapolis City Pages has the full story.
| Legend has it this was actually a poorly-run BHO extraction. |
There was a whole lot of shaking going on in northwest Denver last Sunday, when an attempt to make hash oil exploded in a rental duplex in the 2900 block of Julian Street. Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey formally charged 40-year-old Jeff Garbarek, 39-year-old Steve Donnel and and 43-year-old Scott Mitchell with fourth-degree arson in connection with their cannabis-cooking incident; they are scheduled to appear in Denver County Court on April 9. In the meantime, hands off the butane! This was just the latest in a string of hash-oil disasters in the Mile High City; keep reading for our top six.
| Incredibles white chocolate/Pop Rocks bar from Colorado. |
Michigan’medical marijuana laws are pretty screwy. Namely: edible forms of marijuana aren’t covered under the laws. Patients have to smoke it or vaporize it. At least, that’s the ruling from the state Supreme Court who clearly had no freaking idea what they were dealing with.
All of that seems like it’s about to change based on the overwhelming approval of a Michigan state House bill re-legalizing edible forms of medical cannabis.
Taco Bell may have made a fortune off of the effects of cannabis, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily support the legalization of the plant.
In an Ask Me Anything interview yesterday on Reddit, Taco Bell president Brian Nicco had a tongue-in-cheek diversion to one user’s query as to where the fast food chain stands on pot legalization.