One lucky guy’s going to see Tommy Chong, Snoop Dogg, and Cypress Hill — just because he reads Toke of the Town.
Last month, when we announced our Spring Gathering Music Festival and Medical Marijuana Expo ticket giveaway, you guys responded: 156 of you entered and dared dream of winning.
A lucky winner has been randomly selected from the entrants…
Congratulations to Mike Sillman of San Francisco!
“I am very excited to win these tickets,” Mike told Toke of the Town Friday morning. “I am an avid reader of Toke of the Town!”
| Photo: The University of Edinburgh |
| Ye won’t be comin’ inside if ye have traces of guid weed on ye hands, mukker. Aye, laddie, ya can be as blootered as ya laik, but ya cannae be using drugs! |
Get as blootered as ye like, laddie, but you cannae be usin’ cannabis! Patrons were tested for drugs at pubs in Aberdeen, Scotland, last weekend, in something called the “Pub Watch Scheme,” the latest Orwellian phase of “Operation Maple,” an anti-drug effort by local police.
A “drugs itemizer” was used at 10 licensed premises in the city’s Sheddocksley, Northfield and Bridge of Don areas. The device allows police officers or door staff to check for illegal drugs by swabbing a person’s hands, reports Danny Law at STV.
No drugs were detected, but Bridge of Don Local Policing Team Inspector Moray Watt tried to put a good face on things, claiming he “felt the operation was a success” despite the fact that it didn’t accomplish anything except annoying patrons.
| Photo: Russia Beyond The Headlines |
| Russian Drug Czar Viktor Ivanov: Calls for legalization are “a propaganda campaign promoting the use of narcotics” |
The head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service on Friday criticized this week’s call for legalizing marijuana as “a propaganda campaign promoting the use of narcotics.”
Drug Czar Viktor Ivanov was responding to a 24-page report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which suggested on Thursday that governments should consider legalizing some drugs such as marijuana to curb global drug trafficking, since the decades-old “global war on drugs has failed.”
“We have to realize that we are dealing with a global propaganda of illicit drugs here,” Ivanov claimed, reports RIA Novosti.
“This propaganda campaign is linked to the huge profits [from sales of illicit drugs]that are estimated at about $800 billion annually,” he said.
Ivanov claimed that Russia had already gone through what he called the “sad” experience of temporarily legalizing drugs containing codeine, an opiate used for its painkilling, anti-cough, and anti-diarrheal properties.
Ivanov said Russians annually consume about six metric tons of codeine, which he said has “essentially has the same properties as heroin.” He claimed the demand for codeine is growing exponentially.
| Photo: Mail Online |
A Miami police officer was arrested by the FBI on Thursday and charged with possession of cocaine and marijuana he had stolen from a drug dealer last year.
Roberto Asanza, 31, of Miami, a six-year veteran of the force, was charged with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, reports Jay Weaver at the Miami Herald. Asanza, a Marine veteran and 1998 graduate of Coral Park High, was released on a personal surety bond after his first appearance in federal court on Thursday.
Asanza faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. His lawyer — an assistant federal public defender named Kashyap Patel — declined to comment.
| Graphic: Scannain |
Mr. Nice, a riveting British film which will be released in the United States on Friday, June 3, tells the story of the legendary Howard Marks, a Welsh-born Oxford University student whose initial dabbling in marijuana dealing led to a career as an international cannabis smuggler. His chosen vocation resulted in supposed connections to the Irish Republican Army, MI-6 and the Mafia — all amid side jobs and cover gigs as travel agent, teacher and spy.
Watching an advance screening copy of the movie last night, Viki and I were glued to our seats by this compelling tale of a rural young Welshman’s transformation into one of the biggest cannabis dealers on the planet. Howard Marks, with his sharp, analytical business mind and fearless, calm demeanor, would have done well at anything, but thank goodness he chose the noble calling of weed smuggler.
From its evocative early scenes of the 1960s where the innocent young Marks is introduced to the world of hashish, to his meetings with IRA operatives in Ireland, members of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love in California, and hash smugglers in Pakistan, Mr. Nice almost always hits the sweet spot, with star Rhys Ifans doing an incredible job of capturing Marks’ character.
| Photo: KOMO News |
| Ex-Mayor Floyd “Butch” DeRosia was arrested in April 2010 on charges of selling marijuana to an informant. He was convicted by a jury on Wednesday. |
A Snohomish County, Washington jury on Wednesday convicted a former Granite Falls mayor of dealing marijuana.
Floyd “Butch” DeRosia faces up to six months in jail after the verdict, according to Deputy Prosecutor Halley Hupp. DeRosia is scheduled to be sentenced later this week, reports the Everett Herald Net.
DeRosia was one of more than a dozen people arrested last year as a result of a two-year “investigation” into “drug trafficking” in Granite Falls. City police officers worked undercover with detectives from the Snohomish Regional Drug Task Force and informant snitches.
| Graphic: Virgin |
Feel that? It’s the political ground shifting underneath our feet.
On Thursday, the Global Commission on Drug Policy, an international organization consisting of high level current and former heads of state, along with policy experts, released a report suggesting world governments give up the War On Drugs and consider more rational harm-reduction policies, including removing all criminal penalties for the possession and use of marijuana.
The Commission, which includes former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, among many others, urged leaders to consider alternatives to incarceration for drug use to shift their focus toward treatment of drug abusers, rather than punishment and interdiction for recreational users.
| Photo: Prohibition’s End |
Vermont Governor Pete Shumlin on Thursday signed S. 17, a bill authorizing up to four dispensaries where registered patients can buy medicinal cannabis, augmenting the state’s already-existing medical marijuana law.
Vermont joins Colorado, Maine, New Mexico, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Arizona and Delaware on the list of states that explicitly allow cannabis dispensaries. Washington, D.C., is also in the process of implementing a program that will allow five marijuana dispensaries in the nation’s capital.
“This is a great day for a lot of patients throughout the state that, until now, have been unsure how to go about obtaining medicine their doctor has recommended,” said Dan Riffle, legislative analyst with the Marijuana Policy Project.
| Carl Sagan portrait by Pat Linse |
“I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, unavailable to us without such drugs.”
~ Carl Sagan
| Photo: Eric Kayne |
By Jack Rikess
Toke of the Town
Northern California Correspondent
I am totally Fed up.
If you haven’t heard already, ex-presidents, prime ministers, eminent economists and the Big Dudes of the business community will be meeting to discuss how the world’s drug policies “just ain’t working.” The quote is mine.
The Global Commission on Drug Policy will host a press conference at the prestigious Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York on Thursday, to pull the trigger on their findings that describe the Drug War as a failure and call for a “paradigm shift” in approaching the issue.
The commission will demand that the focus change from criminal justice towards a public health approach. The global advocacy organization Avaaz, which has nine million members, will present a petition in support of the commission’s recommendations to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
The commission cites such factors as the cartel-related violence in Mexico, President Barack Obama’s comment that it was “perfectly legitimate” to question whether the War On Drugs was working, and the wider global economic crisis. These factors have the world leaders questioning whether it is time to change our course when it comes to the War On Drugs.