| Graphic: Naming And Treating |
By Jack RikessToke of the Town
Northern California Correspondent
Here are the stories, tidbits and bong-thoughts of 2010 that caught my attention.
In July, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs changed its stance from “attention” to “at ease” by allowing the use of medical marijuana for GI’s in the states where medicinal cannabis is legal.
Maybe one of the biggest underreported stories of the year was the acceptance by the U.S. federal government to allow marijuana as a possible medical treatment.
| Photo: Melvyn Stiriss |
| Melvyn Stiriss: “The Farm collective was our attempt to create a utopia.” |
Voluntary Peasants Trilogy Tells The Story of S.F.’s Monday Night Class and The Farm
When a ragtag band of hippies set out in a 20-bus caravan from San Francisco in 1970 looking to reinvent society, they rode into the history books with a psychedelic, very weird yet very American tale of idealism and do-it-yourself utopia.
And right there in the midst of things was young writer Melvyn Stiriss. Tom Brokaw once said of himself, “In the sixties, I was a young up-and-coming reporter, and I came right up to the edge of what was happening, and I backed away.”
“At that time, I too was a rising young journalist,” Stiriss said. “I came up to that same edge as Tom, only I went Wheeee! Over. And that has made all the difference.”
“The fact that I am a trained, experienced journalist placed me in a situation that was both enviable and uniquely challenging,” Stiriss said. “I never entered the hippie world with the idea of writing about it. I was never just a fly-on-the-wall, unattached observer. I was in deep, sometimes over my head.”
| Photo: Conspiracy Planet |
| I just pray that all you marijuana supporters will join my other followers, and don’t forget to send the cash. |
The marijuana reform movement got some support from an unlikely source this week as 700 Club founder Pat Robertson, closely identified with the fundamentalist Christian Right in American politics, called pot legalization “getting smart on crime.”
Robertson aired a clip on a recent episode of his 700 Club TV show that advocated the viewpoint of drug law reformers who run prison outreach ministries, reports Stephen C. Webster at The Raw Story.
“It’s got to be a big deal in campaigns: ‘He’s tough on crime,’ and ‘Lock ’em up!’ ” Robertson said. “That’s the way these guys ran and, uh, they got elected. But that wasn’t the answer.”
| Photo: MPR News |
| Mike Meno: “Leaving MPP was not an easy decision… but continuing circumstances at the organization compelled me to look for other opportunities” |
Citing “continuing circumstances at the organization,” Mike Meno, director of communications at the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project, announced on Wednesday that he is leaving the group.
“It’s with mixed emotions that I’m writing to let you know I’ve decided to leave the Marijuana Policy Project at the end of this year,” Meno wrote in an email addressed to “Friends and Colleagues.”
“Leaving MPP was not an easy decision, especially considering how much I believe in its mission and how much progress our movement has made in the last year,” Meno said, “but continuing circumstances at the organization compelled me to look for other opportunities.”
In what police are calling a “rare” seizure, a routine traffic stop early Sunday in the New York City borough of Queens led officers to more than a quarter-ton of marijuana.
Two officers in an unmarked car noticed a white 2010 Dodge Caravan run a red light and make a quick turn without signaling at about 4 a.m. Sunday, reports Mosi Secret of The New York Times. Officer Jason Zummo said he tried to stop the vehicle, but the driver sped off, leading them on a five-block chase.
The Caravan drove onto a dead-end street, where the drive jumped out and fled on foot. The officers grabbed him as he was trying to scale a fence. Officer Zummo claimed Hunter resisted arrest, struggling to avoid being handcuffed, reports Jano Tantongco of The Queens Courier.
| Photo: Boots & Sabers |
| When told they could go to jail for Oakland’s new ordinance allowing large-scale marijuana farming, city council members voted to suspend and revise it. |
The Oakland City Council voted 7-1 in closed session on Tuesday to suspend its program to permit and tax four industrial-sized medical marijuana farms and increase the number of dispensaries, at least until the new cultivation plan can be amended to address objections voiced by law enforcement.
The decision came after Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley warned earlier this month that the large-scale commercial growing operations envisioned by city officials could be illegal under state law. O’Malley also said members of the City Council could be prosecuted by her office if they approved the plan, reports Cecily Burt at the Oakland Tribune.
The City Council had voted in July to license and regulate large cultivation operations which would grow and produce medical marijuana. The council also recently voted to double the number of cannabis dispensaries from four to eight.
| America’s Most Wanted |
| Former McAllen, Texas police officer Francisco Meza-Rojas was sentenced to 27 years for dealing drugs. |
A former police officer in McAllen, Texas, was sentenced to serve 324 months in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons as punishment for his involvement in a drug trafficking conspiracy which spanned a period of at least eight years starting in 1996, U.S. Attorney José Angel Moreno announced on Tuesday.
Francisco Meza-Rojas, 45, was identified as a leader of a smuggling organization which operated on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande River between Granjeno and Penitas, a rural area south of Mission, Texas, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
Meza-Rojas and an associate, Jose Moncerrat Narvaez, led the part of a larger organization which specialized in the transportation of controlled substances from the edge of the Rio Grande River to locations in the Mission and McAllen areas where they would be held until the owners of the drugs picked them up.
Meza-Rojas used his brothers, as well as other individuals, to act as lookouts during the smuggling operations, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office. He would strategically place his workers along the smuggling route to call out the locations and movements of law enforcement vehicles throughout the area, the office said.
| Graphic: Quick Trading Company |
Just think of it: Big, juicy buds, so resplendently trichomed you can practically smell ’em, with fresh ones every month. Besides being a description of your life (if you’re lucky), this can also be a description of your calendar (if you have about eight bucks).
Marijuana expert Ed Rosenthal has brought another beautiful cannabis calendar to the waiting weed-lovers of the world, and it’s a doozy.
Every month of the Big Buds 2011 Calendar features a spectacular portrait of a different marijuana plant in full, beautiful bloom. The resins look good enough to roll, and the plant shots are enough to make any ganja gardener green with envy.
The full-color photos are accompanied by information describing the strain, and references the seed company which developed it.
| Graphic: PORMAL |
Pointing to its medicinal value, a group in the Philippines is pushing for the legalization of marijuana use in that country.
In an article posted on its website, the Philippine Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (PORMAL) said marijuana, also known as hemp and cannabis, has shown “established” effects in the treatment of nausea, vomiting, premenstrual syndrome, unintentional weight loss, and lack of appetite, reports Kimberly Jane Tan at GMANews.tv.
Other “relatively well-confirmed” medicinal effects include the treatment of spasticity, painful conditions (especially neurogenic pain), movement disorders, asthma, glaucoma, inflammatory bowel disease, migraines, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, and hepatitis C, according to PORMAL.
| Graphic: Magickal Graphics |
| David Hodgkinson got the equivalent of a lump of coal in his Christmas stocking from the RCMP. |
B.C. Man May Be Spending Christmas In The Dark
Medical marijuana grower David Hodgkinson may be having a dark Christmas after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police swooped in on his home Friday, busted up his grow operation and cut off his power, reports Robert Barron at the Nanaimo Daily News.
Hodgkinson has been growing medicinal cannabis for about a year under a government license from Health Canada, and was licensed to grow up to 49 plants. But his license expired in August, despite the fact that he applied for its renewal eight full weeks before its expiration date, as stipulated by the government.
But since Health Canada over the past year has experienced a “sharp rise” of applications to grow medical marijuana that have “slowed the process down,” according to a spokeswoman, Hodgkinson’s license wasn’t renewed in a timely manner.
Did that delay result in an apology for laggardliness from the government or its health ministry, especially since their slowness could impact the health of patients?
No, it got Hodgkinson, of Cedar, British Columbia, an armed police raid and his electrical power cut off.