Toke of the Town — Marijuana and Cannibis News

Colorado Bill Targets Cannabis Tinctures And Ointments

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 14, 2011 Legislation, Medical

Cannabis tinctures and ointments would become illegal under a bill currently before the Colorado Legislature. Why, exactly? Apparently they threaten “public peace, health and safety.”

A new bill that attempts to create more restrictions on the medical marijuana industry in Colorado by banning cannabis tinctures and ointments was released last Wednesday.

House Bill 11-1250 was written to “prohibit marijuana-infused consumable food and beverage product manufacturing and sale.” After an outcry from the medical marijuana community, the bill was amended to apply only to ointments and tinctures, not food or beverage products, reports Chelsea Long at Boulder Weekly.

Ryan Hartman, owner of Boulder Wellness Center, said he was worried about the bill’s impact on his dispensary.

Delaware Lawmakers Submit Medical Marijuana Bill Again

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 14, 2011 Legislation, Medical

Photo: Robert Craig/The News Journal

Sen. Margaret Rose Henry: “Delaware legislators have been listening to patients and families in community meetings and the stories they’ve heard changed minds and hearts”

Medical marijuana backers have filed another bill in the Delaware Legislature to legalize medicinal use of cannabis.

This is the third straight year that Senate Major Whip Margaret Rose Henry has introduced medical marijuana legislation, reports The Associated Press. Henry said she is optimistic for the bill’s chances this year.

“Delaware legislators have been listening to patients and families in community meetings and the stories they’ve heard changed minds and hearts,” Sen. Henry said. “Legislators have begun to understand the very real need for legislative action to allow this treatment option without in any way undermining law enforcement or the prosecution of those engaged in the recreational use of marijuana.”

Rep. Helene Keeley, the House co-sponsor, said that unlike California and 13 other medical marijuana states — but like neighboring New Jersey — the bill would not permit patients to grow their own marijuana. This is a disturbing trend with recent marijuana laws — it’s as if there is some sort of competition to see which state can make a medical marijuana law the least friendly and useful to patients.

Senate Minority Leader Gary Simpson (R-Milford) said he is undecided about SB 17, the medical marijuana bill, and claimed he is “concerned” that marijuana is a “gateway drug” that “leads to the use of more dangerous drugs.” I think we can pretty much give up on hearing anything intelligent on from that guy on the subject of cannabis.,

Oakland Hires New Law Firm For Big Pot Farm Plan

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 14, 2011 Growing

Photo: The Washington Post

Oakland City Attorney John Russo wouldn’t advise the city council on their plans for an industrial pot farm — so they hired another law firm.

The City of Oakland has hired a new law firm to press ahead with its plan to authorize large-scale industrial medical marijuana farming operations. Last week, City Attorney John Russo said he and his office would no longer represent the city after the Council introduced a revised ordinance for the pot farm plan, in spite of recent warnings of potential criminal liability from both the district attorney and the U.S. attorney.

The law firm of Meyers Nave Riback Silver & Wilson have been hired to provide medical cannabis cultivation legal advice to the city in the absence of any help from City Attorney Russo.

City Attorney Russo’s withdrawal has inflamed relations with the city’s new mayor and several council members who accuse him of putting politics before his client’s interest, reporets Kate Moser of The Recorder.

Big Medical Marijuana Win In Washington: 133 Plants, Not Guilty

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 11, 2011 Growing, Medical, News

Graphic: Reality Catcher

In a huge win for medical marijuana advocates, a southwest Washington man who grew cannabis for a dying cancer patient has been acquitted of drug charges.

Mark Hensley of Vancouver, Wash., was arrested last year with 133 marijuana plants, many of them small clones between 1.5 to 2 inches tall, attorney Douglas Hiatt told Toke of the Town Friday afternoon.

Hensley was growing the plants to produce cannabis oil for his former tenant, William Britten, who died of esophogeal cancer last August.

Clark County Superior Court Judge Rich Melnick found Hensley not guilty on Friday, Hiatt told us.

His client, Hensley, was allowed to grow more than the Washington’s medical marijuana law’s presumptive limit of 15 plants because it takes lots of cannabis to produce the oil, Hiatt said. “Mr. Britten used a significant amount of cannabis for appetite and nausea and to control the pain, obviously. He was very, very sick.”

Meet The Craig’s List Of Marijuana: 420list.org

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 11, 2011 Dispensaries, Products

Graphic: 420list.org

A platform for medical marijuana patients to share classified ads, listings, events, news and more, 420list.org serves as a central hub to facilitate communication between patients and dispensaries with local and real-time ads.

Jon at 420list.org answered a few questions for Toke of the Town.

Toke: How long has 420list.org been operating?

Jon: The official launch was on 4/20/10.

Toke: How many dispensaries are listed?

Jon: Currently there are 1,191 dispensaries (including delivery services), and 98 doctors listed.

Toke: How many states do you have listings for?

Jon: All 15 medical marijuana states, plus other states for news, etc.

Drug Czar Lies His Ass Off; Claims ‘100 Groups’ Studying Pot

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 11, 2011 News

Photo: LIFE

Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske said this week that there are “over 100” ongoing FDA studies on marijuana. There are two.

U.S. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske sat down for an interview with The Daily Caller’s Mike Riggs earlier this week — and managed to tell one hell of a whopper while he was at it.

When Riggs asked the Drug Czar, “You’ve said before that you don’t see medical benefits to smoked marijuana and also that the jury is still out on medical marijuana. What sort of scientific consensus does the ONDCP [Office of National Drug Control Policy] require? How many studies have to come out arguing for medical benefits? What do you need to see?”

“You know there are over 100 groups doing marijuana research,” the Czar replied, “and they’re getting their marijuana from the University of Mississippi. There are several things in clinical trials right now. So we’ll just have to wait for those.”

Judge Upholds Walmart’s Firing Of Medical Marijuana Patient

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 11, 2011 Medical, News

Photo: Katy Batdorff/The Grand Rapids Press

Cancer patient Joseph Casias was Walmart’s Employee of the Year — but they fired him after learning he uses medical marijuana with a doctor’s authorization.

Walmart’s former Employee of the Year won’t be going back to work there. A federal judge on Friday ruled that Michigan’s medical marijuana law protects legal users from arrest, but doesn’t protect them from employers’ policies which ban pot use.

Joseph Casias, who has an inoperable brain tumor, was fired by the Battle Creek Walmart after he failed a routine drug test following a workplace injury, reports John Agar at The Grand Rapids Press.

“The fundamental problem with (Casias’) case is that the (medical marijuana law) does not regulate private employment,” U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker wrote in his 20-page opinion.

“Rather, the Act provides a potential defense to criminal prosecution or other adverse action by the state… All the (law) does is give some people limited protection from prosecution by the state, or from other adverse state action in carefully limited medical marijuana situations,” the federal judge ruled.

According to Judge Jonker, the law “says nothing about private employment rights. Nowhere does the (law) state that the statue regulates private employment, that private employees are protected from disciplinary action should they use medical marijuana, or that private employers must accommodate the use of medical marijuana outside the workplace.”

Worth Repeating: 1974 Govt. Study Showed THC Shrinks Tumors

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 11, 2011 Medical

Photo: We Must Know

Welcome to Room 420, where your instructor is Mr. Ron Marczyk and your subjects are wellness, disease prevention, self actualization, and chillin’.

Worth Repeating

By Ron Marczyk, R.N.

Health Education Teacher (Retired)

In 1974 researchers learned that THC, an active chemical in marijuana, shrank or destroyed brain tumors in test mice.

But the Drug Enforcement Administration quickly shut down the study and destroyed its results, which were never replicated — until now.

Here is the study the DEA funded, then tried to destroy and remove from universities across the United States — and the first redo study that proved it correct.

Seattle Hempfest Fights For Its Life; Sues Seattle For 2011 Permit

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 10, 2011 Culture, News

Photo: Seattle Hempfest

Hempfest always is a huge, happy hunk of humanity.

With no confirmed venue and no confirmed dates, Seattle Hempfest, the world’s largest annual cannabis protestival, is fighting for its life.

Hempfest has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the City of Seattle in an effort to get a 2011 permit to produce the annual free speech rally, which aims to reform America’s cannabis prohibition.

The lawsuit calls the city’s unwillingness to delay planned construction, or to stage the work to accomodate Hempfest, “unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious.”

The suit, which also includes Seattle’s mayor, director of the Seattle Department of Transportation, director of Seattle Center, and chairperson of the Seattle Special Events Committee, asks the city to issue an appropriate permit for Seattle Hempfest in August 2011.

The lawsuit also seeks, if necessary, to stop Seattle from implementing the West Thomas Overpass project in such a way as to interfere with the use of Hempfest’s home, Myrtle Edwards Park, in August 2011. Planned summer construction of the skybridge in Myrtle Edwards Park, which has been the location of Hempfest since 1995, has displaced the mammoth event which routinely draws more than 100,000 attendees annually.

Montana House Votes To Repeal Medical Marijuana Law

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on February 10, 2011 Legislation, Medical, News

Photo: Dylan Brown/Independent Record

Montana Speaker of the House Mike Milburn wants to take medical marijuana back away from sick and dying patients in his state — and now he’s a big step closer to doing exactly that

The Montana House of Representatives has approved a measure to repeal the state’s Medical Marijuana Act with a vote of 63 to 37. The vote serves as an ironic counterpoint to the overwhelming 62 percent to 38 percent majority by which Montanans legalized medical marijuana less than seven years ago, in November 2004.

During last Friday’s legislative session, Speaker of the House Mike Milburn (R-Cascade) claimed Montana was “duped” into passing the Act, and most of the House joined him in his attempt to thwart the will of the voters.

Milburn claimed many of the people who have been approved for medical marijuana “aren’t the terminally ill,” reports Marnee Banks at KRTV.com.

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