| Photo: Workathometruth.com |
I’ve got your number, dude.
I know how you are. You’re sitting there doing bong rips and practicing your latest witty repartee, or maybe perfecting the best insult in history, or crafting the snappiest comeback ever.
Or, hell, I don’t know. Maybe you’re just looking for a fancy new way to say “Brah, I am soooo stoned,” or you make it your daily practice to go around asking your online buddies “Can you spare a joint?”
Either way, heads up, heads: Toke of the Town‘s new Disqus commenting system is on the way.
It should be up and running in a couple weeks, allowing you to create your own icons, reply directly to others, “and otherwise be 37 percent more festive,” as Pete Kotz, my Village Voice Media cohort over at True Crime Report, put it.
Of course you know we’re in favor of that.
If you want a preview to see what the new commenting system will be like, click here.
| Around 600 people attended the inaugural Seattle Cannabis Farmer’s Market, according to organizer Jeremy Miller. |
By Jack Foster
Photos by Knottyy
Seattle Cannabis Journal
The very first Seattle Cannabis Farmer’s Market was held with the blessing of the surrounding community. It was encouraging to see our law enforcement’s attitude reflecting that of the people. The Farmer’s Market provides a safe place for patients to have regular access to a variety of medicine and providers.
For now, at least, the Market is hosted in the centrally located Little Red Bistro’s ‘Moroccan Room’ near Dexter and Denny.
I topped off my morning toke of “Jesus” with a coffee from Uptown Espresso, where I took preliminary notes. Once the mood struck I wandered down to the site of the Farmer’s Market. Patients enter through the front of the restaurant, passing the bar and heading through the back door. The high-ceilinged Moroccan Room housed a good deal of vendors, and a sea of patients.
I found the market boasted a comprehensive cross-section of the medical cannabis community in Washington State. Everyone from single growers, to delivery services, to full brick-and-mortar operations were present.
| Photo: Mixed Martial Arts |
| Would you take your marijuana back away from Matt “The Law” Lindland if he stole it? |
“Ultimate Fighter” and former Republican political candidate Matt “The Law” Lindland is being sued for allegedly stealing six mature marijuana plants from a patient.
In a suit filed March 3 in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Oregon, plaintiff Gonzalo Aldana Gamboa says Lindland offered last year to let Gamboa grow cannabis under the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program on Lindland’s property in Eagle Creek, reports James Pitkin at Willamette Week.
Gamboa registered the grow site with the state of Oregon and harvested six mature plants last October, according to the lawsuit. Lindland helped Gamboa load the plants into a U-Haul truck and told him he was moving them to his shed to dry, the suit says.
| Photo: PNG/Regina Leader-Post |
| Home basement grow-ops like these are being targeted by thieves around Langley, British Columbia, Canada. |
Some British Columbia residents who are legally licensed to grow medical marijuana are being ripped off by thieves.
Three Langley, B.C., medical marijuana grow-ops have been robbed in the past six months, reports Cassidy Olivier at The Province. But Royal Canadian Mounted Police said there is “no way to tell” if the grows are being specifically targeted because they are a medicinal cannabis operation, or simply because they have pot.
“We’re very concerned,” said Supt. Derek Cooke of the Langley RCMP, reports CBC News. “This is a significant problem for the community.” There are more than 800 legal medical marijuana grow-ops in B.C., according to Cooke.
| Photo: Jeff Vendsel/Marin Independent Journal |
| Lynette Shaw, founder and director of the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, which is being audited by the IRS. |
The Internal Revenue Service has notified the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax, California that it owes millions of dollars in unpaid back taxes, according to the dispensary’s founder and director, Lynette Shaw.
Shaw said the IRS audited the Alliance’s tax returns for 2008 and 2009 — and disallowed all of the dispensary’s business deductions, reports Richard Halstead at the Marin Independent Journal.
Although dispensaries throughout California are reportedly being audited by the IRS, the Alliance is the first to be directly told it can’t deduct business expenses, according to Shaw.
“Every dispensary in the nation, past present and future is dead if this is upheld,” Shaw said.
Laraine Newman takes the lead in this great sketch from Saturday Night Live. I was 16 when this first aired in April 1977 (and yes, I was watching).
| Graphic: Lifeboat Foundation |
| Queen Victoria famously used cannabis to ease her royal menstrual cramps. |
By Jack RikessToke of the Town
Northern California Correspondent
In honor of the 100th anniversary of Women’s Day, I present the Top 11 Women of Weed, ladies I think have made a difference, cannabis-wise, in my life.
11. Queen Victoria
If you are of a certain age, she is the first famous pot smoker that we heard of in the Sixties.
Because she used cannabis for her majestic cramps, she also was the first internationally known medical marijuana patient.
England may be getting a new king soon, but Queen Vicky will always be the royal “oui” to me.
| Graphic: Cafe Press |
A New Hampshire House committee on Wednesday brought seriously ill Granite Staters closer to relief with a 14-3 “ought to pass” vote on a bill to allow the medical use of marijuana.
The House Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee endorsed House Bill 442, which creates a narrow exception in New Hampshire law for people with certain qualifying medical conditions to use marijuana medicinally with a doctor’s recommendation.
HB 442 now moves on to the full House for a vote.
Introduced by Rep. Evalyn Merrick (D), herself a cancer survivor, the bill has five Republican cosponsors, including the chair of the Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee, Rep. John Reagan (R-Deerfield).
| Photo: Los Angeles Times |
The office of Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen “Nuch” Tratanich has stepped up its efforts to close unlicensed medical marijuana dispensaries, notifying landlords and operators of 140 pot shops that they must close immediately.
In a letter sent Monday, the office contacted dispensaries which did not file applications to participate in a lottery to choose 100 that will be allowed to operate in the city, reports John Hoeffel at the Los Angeles Times.
The city clerk received 228 applications from dispensaries and is currently reviewing them all to make sure they qualify for the drawing. To qualify, pot shops must have been in business since September 14, 2007.
| Photo: Terry Pierson/The Press Enterprise |
| Agents found “Wally,” a four-foot, 55-pound alligator, in a home where marijuana was being grown. They claim he was guarding the plants. |
California narcotics investigators raiding what they called a $1.5 million marijuana growing operation found a four-foot alligator they claimed was guarding the crop.
Now, I know the press just loves exotic pets guarding marijuana crops, just how effective a guard would a four-foot alligator be? Not very, if one can judge by the photo of someone holding the fuckin’ thing. Turns out the gator was just as (in)effective at guarding pot as the B.C. marijuana bears were last year.
In any event, the Riverside County drug task force members, along with Department of Justice agents, moved in on the East Hemet house Monday night, seizing nearly 2,300 marijuana plants, reports KTLA News.