Graphic: KushCon

Cannabis has captured the attention of the world.  From December 17-19, 2010, the Colorado Convention Center will be buzzing with thousands of medical marijuana experts and enthusiasts in what is being billed as the largest cannabis lifestyle convention to ever take place on planet Earth – KushCon II.
 
The NORML Women’s Alliance fundraising weekend begins a day early with a business-to-business networking event sponsored by the Medical Marijuana Business Alliance and Kush Magazine on Thursday, December 16, where the elite of the cannabis industry will gather to celebrate the movement and to organize product and service giveaways expected to raise more than $100,000 for the charity.
The international media has extensively covered the “Stiletto Stoners” phenomenon, fascinated by professional women’s use of cannabis. Celebrities like Melissa Etheridge and Alanis Morissette are putting a new face on this controversial plant.

Graphic: Steve Jerman
“This was an entry to a contest sponsored by Salt Lake City Weekly newspaper,” Jerman said. “Outgoing Mayor Ross ‘Rocky’ Anderson had spent $20,000 on an Old Master-style oil painting of himself for City Hall. The City Weekly publisher thought he’d do the taxpayers better and offered $300 for the best Rocky portrait. Here I played up the Mayor’s left-leaning agenda. Don’t know what he thought, but I won $100 as a runner-up.”

​Half the fun of marijuana, for recreational users, is what you do after you get high. Pot, for many, is not an end in itself, but a way to alternatively experience art, music, culture, and life.

And when paired with art that by itself can be consciousness-altering — like that of award-winning art director and graphic designer Steve Jerman — it can arguably provide us with insights on the human condition, and on a good day even moments of apotheosis.
Jerman’s book Mergings is a book to be savored, to be re-experienced on different days and at different times of the day, and in various states of consciousness.
“In Adobe Photoshop, I transpose two similar, but disparate, images to create a third image,” Jerman said, “which is full of intrigue because of the purposeful and coincidental shapes, colors and tangencies achieved.”

Photo: William Kaempffer/New Haven Register
The Connecticut State Police — that bunch of Scrooges — spoiled Christmas by going ahead and opening the gifts.

​A cross-country, 100-pound marijuana shipment — wrapped up to look like Christmas presents, complete with bows — arrived at a well-kept Cape Cod house in New Haven, Connecticut Wednesday morning. But Scrooge’s minions, the cops, were there, too.

State police executed a search warrant at 621 Townsend Avenue for the entire morning and into the afternoon, reports William Kaempffer of the New Haven Register
A 29-year-old self-employed musician, Julio Ramos, admitted to police that he was the intended recipient of the gift-wrapped marijuana, police said.

Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Patrol
This is the 593 pounds they found on the rail car. I’d rather see the 4,478 pounds that was mixed in with the squash on the tractor trailer.

​U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers working at the Port of Nogales, Arizona made two marijuana seizures in the space of a couple hours Monday, thwarting attempts to smuggle more than 5,340 pounds of marijuana into the country.

“Every day, our officers and agriculture specialists are out on the line, looking for threats to our way of life,” said Port Director Guadalupe Ramirez, practically breaking into tears at the thought of his own true heroism. “And successes like this make their time and effort worth every minute.”
How inspiring, Mr. Ramirez. I guess that dries up the supply of marijuana in Arizona, then, right? Problem solved? Good job!
May we now assume our “way of life” is no longer “threatened” by “marijuana”?
Well fuckety-fuck! That’s certainly a relief.

Graphic: Blogzilla

​It looks as if Colorado’s medical marijuana grow rooms and dispensaries will soon have live cameras with state employees watching on the other end. But that’s not the worst of it, according to some patient advocates.

One item among the 90-something pages of regulations and procedures for Colorado’s medical cannabis industry unveiled this week by the Department of Revenue is making some patients particularly nervous — the plan for a massive new database of patients who enroll in the Medical Marijuana Registry. The list will be available around the clock to law enforcement agencies.

Currently, the registry is maintained by the Colorado Department of Health and Environment, reports Greg Campbell at Face The State, and it can only be accessed by police officers when they need to confirm the enrollment status of a person in custody.

Photo: Zazzle

​New data revealed on Thursday shows that Vermont state government spends more than $700,000 annually to pursue Vermonters for possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Based on the new findings, state Rep. Jason Lorber (D-Burlington) announced plans Thursday to introduce a bill that would decriminalize the possession of less than one ounce of cannabis.
“We should stop wasting $700,000 a year on a failed policy,” Rep. Lorber said. “It’s time for a smarter approach. That means decriminalization for an ounce or less of marijuana.”
“In a time of great fiscal strain, it is critical that we focus law enforcement resources on offenses that pose the greatest threats to public safety,” said Windsor County State’s Attorney Robert Sand.

Photo: KEZI

​A national poll conducted by the University of Iowa shows overwhelming support to legalize marijuana for medical purposes, but broad opposition to recreational use.

The poll, released December 7, showed 65 percent of adults — almost two-thirds — favor legalizing medicinal cannabis, while just 30 percent favored legalization for recreational purposes, reports Cindy Hadish at KCRG-TV.
“Medical marijuana is becoming a less controversial issue for Americans,” said Amanda Keller, UI graduate assistant for the Hawkeye Poll Cooperative and for the independent study class that conducted the poll. “We see quite a bit of support.”

Photo: Queerty
Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO): The only way to accomplish objectives would be to eliminate “the failed policy of prohibition with regard to marijuana and replace it with regulation”

​The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to pass a resolution Wednesday declaring illegal marijuana cultivation on federal lands to be an “unacceptable threat to the safety of law enforcement and the public,” and calling upon the nation’s drug czar “to work in conjunction with federal and state agencies to develop a comprehensive and coordinated strategy to permanently dismantle Mexican drug trafficking organizations operating on Federal lands.”

Speaking on the House floor on Tuesday, Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colorado) agreed with the goals of H. Res. 1540, but said the only way to accomplish such objectives would be to eliminate “the failed policy of prohibition with regard to marijuana and replac[e]it with regulation.”

Photo: Last.fm
“O great creator of being, grant us one more hour to perform our art and perfect our lives.” ~ Jim Morrison

​Jim Morrison, the legendary lead singer and lyricist of The Doors, would have been 67 years old today. The shaman and wild man was born December 8, 1943, in Melbourne, Florida.

The “Lizard King” is known as one of the most distinctive frontmen in rock music history, and also dabbled in poetry and filmmaking. He reportedly had an I.Q. of 149.
In 1965, after graduating from UCLA, Morrison met future Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach. With the addition of John Densmore on drums and Robby Krieger on guitar, The Doors were born.
The Doors took their name from the title of The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley’s book of mescaline experiences, itself taken from a William Blake quotation in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, in which Blake said “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is — infinite.”
The Doors achieved national prominence in 1967 with the hit single “Light My Fire” and hit the charts again in 1968 with “Hello, I Love You,” in 1969 with “Touch Me,” and in 1971 with “Love Her Madly” and “Riders On The Storm.”
Weary of the rock star lifestyle after only four years, Morrison “retired” to Paris at age 27 in March 1971. He died of unknown causes in Paris on July 3, 1971.
Morrison’s poetry writings are available in the books The Lords and the New Creatures, Wilderness, and The American Night.

Graphic: Reefer Smoke

​A six-foot marijuana plant decorated as a Christmas tree was confiscated from the home of “an old hippie,” who is now facing a drug possession charge, German police said Wednesday.

In a press release entitled “All you need is love, or how a hippie celebrates Christmas,” police in the western city of Koblenz said they found the big cannabis plant in the living room of the suspect, reports AFP.
“A hippie celebrates Christmas too, just differently,” read the release. “The two-meter-tall marijuana plant had been put in a Christmas tree stand and decorated with a string of lights.” 
“When asked, the hashish fan told the perplexed officers that he had intended to add more decorations to the ‘tree’ and place the presents under it, according to tradition.”
Narcotics detectives stumbled on the unconventional Christmas tree while searching the home of an “old 68er,” a reference to the groups of young students and workers who participated in political protests which swept across Germany in 1968, reports The Local.
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