Toke of the Town

ABC News Sound Man Busted For Pot At Obama Appearance

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By on News


Some Wingnut Site

​The Secret Service arrested an ABC News sound engineer covering President Barack Obama’s Iowa trip after marijuana was discovered in his backpack Tuesday, ABC News confirmed, reports UPI.

The audio engineer, whose name was not reported, was part of the ABC crew covering the presidential visit. A local camera man hired by ABC brought the sound man into the assignment, according to mediabistro.com.
The pot was discovered as the sound man and camera man were routinely searched by Secret Service agents. Federal agents then turned the sound man over to local law enforcement, according to the report.
ABC News lost no time in distancing itself from the errant sound man.
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New Zealand Sweep Targets Cannabis Cultivation Industry

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By on Global, Growing

Photo: Stuff.co.nz
Dumb cop smirks with High Times, part 1,536: Constable Anna Plowman shows off copies of that “dangerous” magazine seized at a New Zealand shop that was the subject of a search warrant Tuesday.

​A nationwide “drug bust” went down in New Zealand Tuesday, as police shut down all 16 branches and the distribution center of hydroponic cultivation chain Switched On Gardener.

Hundreds of people ranging in age from 20 to 60, including customers of the stores, were arrested, with many facing charges for selling equipment for growing marijuana, reports the New Zealand Herald.
Police raided 35 businesses and homes throughout the country as part of a two-year undercover police investigation code-named Operation Lime. The bust targeted businesses and individuals selling equipment which the officers claim is used for growing cannabis.
Police seized records showing who was buying the growing equipment, then launched more stings to catch suspects in the act of growing and selling cannabis.
Police Minister Judith Collins congratulated officers on shutting down what they claim is a major source of equipment for commercial marijuana growers. Collins claimed Tuesday’s arrests would send a strong message to those who “tried to produce drugs in New Zealand” that they would be caught.
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Rural California Sheriff Ignores Voters, Favors County Pot Ban

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By on Legislation, News

Photo: Redding Record Searchlight
Sheriff Steve Warren wishes he was a DEA agent: “No matter what, marijuana is still against federal law”

​Maybe Lassen County Sheriff Steve Warren wasn’t paying attention 14 years ago when medical marijuana was legalized in California.

Sheriff Warren told the Board of Supervisors at their April 20 meeting that his position on marijuana is “very clear.” The sheriff said he’d already asked the administrative office if the county could “simply prohibit marijuana cultivation and dispensaries in the county.”

“Pardon my ignorance,” Warren, who must have been unaware of just how much he was asking, said to the supervisors, “but I thought we already had a moratorium. I thought we already had a prohibition such as Citrus Heights, Lincoln, Roseville, and some of those other cities have done.”
“I thought the only one [dispensary]we had in the world around here was in the city,” the sheriff said, reports the Lassen County Times.
But Warren said his department has “encountered” two other marijuana dispensaries in the county.
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N.J. Man With M.S. Free On Bail While Appealing 5-Year Pot Sentence

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By on Growing, Medical, News

Photo: Robert Sciarrino/The Star-Ledger
John Ray Wilson, a multiple sclerosis patient, has been granted $15,000 bail so he can remain free while appealing his five-year prison sentence for growing 17 marijuana plants behind his home

​A Franklin Township, N.J., man who was sent to prison for growing marijuana which he said was used to treat his multiple sclerosis will remain free on $15,000 bail while he appeals his conviction, a Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday.

John Ray Wilson, 37, is serving a five-year sentence for second-degree “drug manufacturing” and third-degree drug possession for growing 17 marijuana plants behind the house he rented, reports Jennifer Golson at The Star-Ledger.
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Humboldt County Accepts DEA Funds For Pot Eradication

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By on Growing, News

Photo: Public CEO
Do you live in Humboldt? These idiots just got $170,000 more in federal money to pay them overtime for stealing your pot.

​The Humboldt County, California Board of Supervisors accepted $170,000 from the federal government for “marijuana related law enforcement work” last Tuesday morning, despite one man’s advice to the contrary.

“Respect the sacred herb,” Tad Robinson said during the public comment portion of the meeting. “Say ‘No DEA, this is not what we want our law enforcement to do in Humboldt County.'”
The funding, from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, will be used to pay Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies overtime “for the eradication of marijuana.” The money will also pay for the salary and overtime of reserve officers, reports Donna Tam at the Redwood Times.
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‘Waiting To Inhale’ Free Screening, U. of Iowa, Tuesday Night

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By on Culture, Products

Graphic: Waiting To Inhale

​​A free screening of the award-winning medical marijuana documentary Waiting To Inhale will be held on the campus of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, at Shambaugh Auditorium, 100 Main Library, on Tuesday, April 27, at 7:30 p.m.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with patients and activists about medical marijuana and ongoing attempts to make Iowa the 15th state to give seriously ill patients safe and legal access to medical marijuana.
Rep. Mary Mascher (D-Iowa City) will also be in attendance.
This screening, which will be co-hosted by the University of Iowa Students for Sensible Drug Policy, takes place as the state prepares to create a medical marijuana task force this summer and proponents hope to move a medical marijuana bill through the Iowa Legislature next year.
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California Courts Rule In Favor Of Marijuana Patients

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By on Medical, News

Graphic: TopNews

​It was an open and shut case — or at least, the police in a northern California town thought so when they confiscated more than two pounds of marijuana from a couple’s home, even though doctors authorized the pair to use cannabis for medical purposes.

San Francisco police evidently thought the same with a father and son they suspected of using the state’s medical marijuana law to operate what the cops claimed was an illegal trafficking organization, reports KTVQ.
But both those cases, along with possibly dozens of others, were tossed out in recent weeks because of a California Supreme Court ruling that struck down a seven-year-old state law that put an eight-ounce limit on the amount of marijuana that medical users are allowed to possess.
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‘Father Of Medical Marijuana’ Dennis Peron Suffers Stroke

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By on Culture, News

Photo: The Wow Report
Dennis Peron is co-author of Prop 215, which legalized medical marijuana in California

​Dennis Peron, the “father of medical marijuana” who co-authored Proposition 215, the 1996 ballot initiative which legalized medical cannabis in California, has suffered a stroke, reports Joe Eskenazi at SF Weekly.

“That’s why I didn’t give a speech at the Hemp Expo,” Peron, 65, told the Weekly. The cannabis guru and gay rights activist said he suffered the stroke about a month ago and underwent an operation Sunday to “unclog my artery.”
Peron in the 1990s came to serve as a figurehead for the cannabis legalization movement, and was highly influential in the debate in California, thus helping to change the political atmosphere surrounding marijuana in the United States.
A Long Island native, Peron served the Air Force in Vietnam and afterward moved to San Francisco’s Castro District in 1969, where he sold marijuana and ran the Big Top pot supermarket out of his home in the 1970s.
He opened the Church Street Compassion Center in 1993, the very first “pot club” in the United States, which became the legendary San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club in 1995, a year before Prop 215 legalized medical pot.
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Upcoming Marijuana March Reaches Goal Of 300 Cities

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By on News

Graphic: Cures Not Wars

​The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) is hailing the passage of another milestone for the Global Marijuana March, with Georgetown, Guyana and Ryebrook, N.Y., as the 299th and 300th cities holding a march, rally, forum or benefit on the weekends of Saturday, May 1 and May 8.

NORML and numerous other groups called for more cities this year to participate, so that organizers could meet and surpass their stated goal of more than 200 cities.
“Worldwide action is necessary for any outright legalization, since cannabis is largely prohibited globally by a United Nations treaty known as the Single Convention, enacted in 1962 through the efforts of top anti-cannabis zealot Harry Anslinger, the original instigator of U.S. cannabis prohibition in 1937,” said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of NORML.
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Canada: Ottawa Police Chief Supports Pot Decriminalization

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By on Legislation, News

Photo: Chris Mikula/The Gazette
Ottawa Police Chief Vern White said although he doesn’t want people to have criminal records for simple marijuana possession, he doesn’t agree that cannabis is harmless.

​Ottawa Police Chief Vern White said he isn’t interested in arresting marijuana users or giving them criminal records, and would support discussing decriminalization. “My only concern about the word ‘decriminalizing’ is the suggestion to the public that [marijuana]is not a dangerous drug,” he said.

The Ottawa Citizen asked about pot decrim following a recent community meeting, reports Tony Spears.
An Angus Reid poll earlier this month showed a majority of Canadians want to legalize marijuana. And on April 20, hundreds flocked to Parliament Hill to light up in an annual tradition in support of decriminalization.
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