Toke of the Town

WA: 80,000 Pot Legalization Petitions Go Out With Newspaper

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By on Culture, Legislation, News

Graphic: Washington State Marijuana Law Reform

​There’ll be something different in the June 23 edition of Seattle alternative newspaper The Stranger — a copy of I-1068, the Washington state marijuana legalization initiative.
Initiative sponsor Sensible Washington said it raised funds last week through its Facebook page to cover the cost of printing 80,000 of the petitions and having them inserted in the free, weekly newspaper that’s widely distributed in the Seattle metro area.
The petition will be accompanied by a full-page ad which will explain to readers how they and their friends can sign I-1068 and get it into Sensible Washington’s hands by the first part of next week.
“Other initiatives are spending upwards of $1 million to get on the ballot with paid signature gatherers,” said Philip Dawdy, I-1068 campaign director and an initiative co-author. “We’re being forced to be a little more creative since it’s been difficult to get our volunteer signature gatherers in front of the public due to the terrible weather in Western Washington over the last two months.”
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Police Discover 600 Pounds Of Marijuana Inside Semi

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By on News

Photo: WTHI
After a Tuesday morning traffic stop on I-70 in Indiana, police said they discovered 600 pounds of marijuana in a semitrailer

​A traffic stop on Interstate 70 in Indiana turned into a big marijuana bust.

Around 9:30 Tuesday morning, an officer stopped a semitrailer going east on I-70 in Putnam County, Indiana; police said the ensuing search uncovered 600 pounds of pot, reports Lindsay Stalf at WTHI.
Officers claimed they found nine bags of marijuana “with a street value of $600,000.”
Attempts to learn just who these officers think would give a thousand bucks a pound for Mexican schwag were unsuccessful.
The 51-year-old driver, Emanuel Joseph Edwards of North Carolina, was unceremoniously thrown into the Putnam County Jail.
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Weed Truck Gives Free Pot Lollipops At Lakers Victory Parade

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By on Dispensaries, News

Photo: Richard Vogel/AP

​It was a high old time at the Lakers’ victory parade in Los Angeles Monday. A medical marijuana truck emblazoned with WeedWorldCandies.com was giving out free pot lollipops along the parade route, according to Gale Holland at the Los Angeles Times.

The truck was handing out marijuana lollipops in hues of orange and blue, the Lakers’ team colors, according to the Times.
The pot truck, itself, was green, “with a photo mural of young women in bikinis sorting marijuana leaves,” Holland reports. (If anybody has or can get a picture of the truck, I’d love to run it here on Toke of the Town.)
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N.Y. Patients Call On Governor To Include Marijuana In Budget

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By on Legislation, Medical

Photo: Matt Deturck/Rochester City Newspaper

​Chronically ill patients from across New York state gathered in Albany on Tuesday to make a final plea for Gov. David Paterson and the Legislature to include a compassionate medical marijuana program in the state’s budget.

An overwhelming 71 percent of New York voters think medical marijuana laws are a “good idea,” according to a February 4 Quinnipiac University poll.

On Monday, the Pharmacists Society of the State of New York became the latest state health group to endorse New York’s medical marijuana bill.
“Lawmakers need to stop playing games while patients’ lives hang in the balance and include medical marijuana in the budget,” said Richard Williams, a Richmondville, N.Y., resident who suffers from HIV and hepatitis C.
“I have found marijuana to be the best available treatment for the joint damage, nausea and appetite loss caused by my HIV medication, but I am forced to break state law and become a criminal if I seek such relief,” Williams said. “Along with countless other patients, I have waited for more than a decade while other states have passed medical marijuana laws protecting patients and New York has refused. The time is now.”
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High Praise For Pot Potations: S.F.’s Best Cannabis Drinks

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By on Culture, Products

Photo: SF Weekly
Kushtown Pineapple Soda will tickle your taste buds and tease your brain cells. Can I get it cheaper by the case?

​With the flourishing medical marijuana dispensary scene in San Francisco, it’s no surprise that there are plenty of delicious cannabinated beverages available.

But how to tell the good from the bad? It was pretty much let the higher buyer beware until now.

SFoodie to the rescue! Our fellow Village Voice Media scribes over at the SF Weekly have selflessly made their way through countless pot potations (yes, they probably did lose count).
And incredibly, they managed to pull themselves together enough afterward to select the five tastiest, “notable for their deliciousness as much as for their dosage,” SFoodie helpfully notes.
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Stoner Tries To Pass Off Brick Of Pot As His Wallet

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By on Culture, News

Photo: Monroe County Sheriff’s Office
Comely Deputy Danielle Malone saw a bulge in the suspect’s pants. Bet that happens pretty often! Here, she holds two large compressed bricks of marijuana seized after a traffic stop. The bricks together weigh an estimated “6 to 8 pounds.”

​”Is that your billfold, or are you just glad to see me?” Two Florida men pulled over early Sunday morning on Cudjoe Key tried to pass off a big brick of marijuana as a wallet, according to police.

Deputy Danielle Malone claimed she saw a white Crown Victoria speeding and swerving around 3 a.m., according to Brian Hamacher of NBC Miami. When she pulled the vehicle over and approached the driver’s side, Deputy Malone claimed she saw a large black garbage bag on the passenger’s side of the floorboard.
By the time she got around to the passenger’s side to check it out, she said the bag was gone, but the passenger “suddenly had a large bulge in his pants leg.” I’ll go out on a limb here, and make a guess that sort of thing happens to the deputy on a regular basis.
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Drought: Israel’s Stoners Bummed Out As Marijuana Prices Soar

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By on Culture, Global

Graphic: Jewlicious

​Israel is suffering through the worst marijuana drought in memory. Not even the most seasoned pot smokers can recall a dry spell like this one, reports Saar Gamzo at Haaretz.com.

Reasons for the current weed shortage include recent drug busts by the police and border guard; cooperation between Egyptian cartels trying to boost profits by limiting the supply; and unusually low rainfall this year.
Conspiracy theorists are even claiming a secret Israeli government program to “combat apathy” and “stir up the nation’s fighting spirit.”
But whatever the cause, cannabis costs more than ever before in Israel.
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Illinois: Plan To Burn 5,525 Pounds Of Pot Ignites Activists

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By on Medical, News


Photo: Brian Jackson/Sun-Times
Headed for the incinerator: 5,525 pounds of marijuana seized last week by the Cook County sheriff’s office

​​Medical marijuana activists are hotly protesting plans by Cook County, Illinois, officials to burn more than 5,500 pounds of cannabis seized last week in a big pot bust.

“Depending on its purity, that represents a lot of medicine that could have helped so many Illinoisans,” said Julie Falco, a North Side woman who uses marijuana to ease the symptoms of multiple sclerosis.
Her reaction was echoed by others calling on Illinois to join 14 other states in legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes, reports Vernon Clement Jones at the Chicago Sun-Times. Last Wednesday’s seizure of 5,525 pounds of pot — and the subsequent plan to burn the cannabis — has ignited a hot debate.
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Judge Orders Pot Patient: Stay 1/4 Mile From Your Own Stepkids

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By on Culture, Medical

Graphic: Slate

​Earlier this year, a judge in rural Washington who called the state’s medical marijuana law “an absolute joke” and “an excuse to be loaded all the time” ordered a stepfather, Julian Robinson, to stay at least a quarter-mile away from the teenagers he has helped rear for the past 13 years, because he is a medical marijuana patient.

That means Robinson can’t be around the children, even though they live in his home near Castle Rock, Wash., with his wife and their four younger children, reports Gene Johnson of The Associated Press.
Robinson said he sometimes stays with friends, or rolls out a foam sleeping pad in his neighbor’s horse trailer. He said he misses baseball games and church services with the kids.
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Britain Approves Liquid Marijuana As Prescription Medicine

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By on Medical, Products

Photo: Drog Riporter
Sativex, unlike the pill Marinol, has more than 60 of marijuana’s cannabinoids instead of just THC.

​Sativex, a cannabinoid-based liquid medicine sprayed under the tongue, has been approved for use in Great Britain to help treat the muscle spasticity suffered by multiple sclerosis patients, it was announced on Friday.

Sativex is a natural marijuana extract that is provided by British-based GW Pharmaceuticals. It was approved in 2005 for use in Canada to treat neuropathic pain.
“Once again, the scientific community has confirmed that marijuana is medicine and it can provide safe and effective relief to patients suffering from certain conditions,” said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project.
“Sadly, our federal government, through the Drug Enforcement Administration, has blocked effective research into the therapeutic effectiveness of marijuana,” Kampia said. “The United States could be leading the world in the development of cannabinoid-based medicines, but instead our government has ceded this industry to the U.K., while intentionally prolonging the agony of patients in this country.”
The Food and Drug Administration has already approved for medical use in the United States the pill Marinol, which contains only marijuana’s principle psychoactive component, THC.
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