Toke of the Town

Prohibition Doesn’t Work: Denmark’s Massive Hash Crackdown Fails

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By on Global, News

Photo: Galaxy/.09
Six years into a Danish cannabis crackdown, the only difference is dealers now use tables instead of booths

​Six years later, an expensive and brutal crackdown has only produced one real change in the hash district: Now the dealers use tables instead of booths.

It was six years ago this week that Danish police held their first full-scale raid on Pusher Street, the world famous road in Copenhagen’s hippie district, Christiania, where people openly buy hashish.

The hash raids were the result of the government’s decision to crack down hard to the area’s hash trade. But today, both police and politicians admit the trade still thrives on the street, if in a slightly more discreet way.
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L.A. Cops Try To Sell Reefer Madness To Skeptical Hawaiians

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By on Dispensaries, Legislation, News

Graphic: 300zxFreak

​Two zealously anti-pot Los Angeles police officers on Wednesday warned Hawaii it could “see an increase in crime” if it legalizes medical marijuana dispensaries and softens its marijuana laws.

“It’s so bad in L.A.,” claimed Sgt. Eric Bixler of the Narcotics Division of Los Angeles Police Department. Bixler said law enforcement officers there “deal daily with the effects” of California’s Proposition 215, which allows patients and caregivers to possess and cultivate marijuana for personal medical use, reports Melissa Tanji at The Maui News.
People driving while smoking, and teens buying marijuana at dispensaries to resell on the street are just some of the problems caused by California’s medical marijuana law, the officers claimed.
Of course, since they’re good honest cops, we have to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they really believe nobody in California history ever drove a car while high until the medical marijuana law passed in 1996. Maybe they’re just a little slow in getting around to actually reading the language of the law, which prohibits sales to anyone without a doctor’s recommendation to use pot.
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California Man Arrested For Pot Twice In One Night

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By on Growing, News

Photo: The Uncle Taz Marijuana Gallery

​A Santa Rosa, California man was arrested twice Wednesday night — first when he was pulled over for expired registration and police found marijuana and $55,000 in the car, and later when he bailed out of jail and came home to find a squad of detectives raiding his house, where they seized pot plants, a stolen handgun and “other evidence,” according to police.

Early Thursday, Stephen Elliott, 41, was still in the Sonoma County Jail with a bail of $25,000, according to jail personnel, reports Mary Callahan at the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.
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Tennessee’s Chief Medical Examiner Arrested For Marijuana

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By on News

Photo: The Commercial Appeal
Dr. Bruce Levy

​OK, so you’re at the top of your game. You lead the field in your state. And after a long day’s work of conducting autopsies, who’s to blame you if you need to toke up and unwind with a little of the kind? The Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, that’s who.

Bruce Levy, chief medical examiner for Tennessee, was arrested in Mississippi and charged with felony marijuana possession, police said Wednesday.

Dr. Levy, 49, was arrested after police found a package of marijuana with his name on it — not a smart idea, in case you were considering it! — and more pot at his hotel room in central Mississippi, where he has a lucrative side gig as a coroner.
The package with Levy’s name on it at a distribution center contained less than an ounce of marijuana, according to Jon Kalahar of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics. Agents on Tuesday also found several containers at his Ridgeland, Miss., hotel room, each with less than an ounce of pot, reports The Associated Press.
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Attorney: Marijuana May Not Impair Driving Ability At All

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By on News

Photo: images.com

​Does marijuana really affect your ability to drive safely? An Orange County, California attorney says there’s evidence to show it doesn’t — and testing for the presence of marijuana doesn’t measure impairment, anyway.

Drunk driving laws today typically define “driving under the influence” as covering both alcohol and drugs, with marijuana included as “drugs.” In most states, the very presence of marijuana in a driver’s blood is either illegal in itself, or is considered proof of impairment.

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Oregon Man Tests Whether Medical Pot Users Can Carry In Public

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By on Legislation, Medical

Photo: KATU
Medical marijuana patient Paul McClain: “I feel that I was complying with state regulations”

​Oregon medical marijuana patient Paul McClain is facing court next month on a charge he says he never expected. “If [they rule]according to the law…,” he said, “then I’m going to be exonerated.”

McClain goes on trial next month for illegal marijuana possession. Officers found a bag weed and pot pipes in his backpack during a search last month at the Springfield Justice Center, the city’s police station, reports Tom Adams at KATU.com.
“It’s our belief that he’ll be convicted based on the definition of the law,” said Springfield Police Sergeant Tom Borchers.
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Rhode Island Senate Panel Recommends Decriminalizing Pot

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By on Legislation, News

Graphic: Reality Catcher

​A Rhode Island state Senate commission has recommended that an ounce or less of marijuana be decriminalized in the state.

The panel, chaired by state Sen. Joshua Miller (D-Cranston), voted Tuesday to approve a 24-page final report concluding that marijuana law reform would save Rhode Island money by avoiding “costly arrests [and]incarcerations due to simple possession of marijuana,” reports Katherine Gregg of The Providence Journal.
The report says that Rhode Island could take its lead from Massachusetts, where adults 18 or older caught with an ounce or less of pot are required only to pay a $100 civil fine “that goes directly to the municipality in which the penalty was issued.”
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Maryland: Medical Marijuana To Be Debated Thursday

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By on Dispensaries, Legislation, Medical

Graphic: Marijuana Policy Project

​On Thursday, March 18, the Maryland State Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee will receive testimony on SB 627, a bill that would make Maryland the 15th state in the nation to have an effective medical marijuana law.

Sponsored by Frederick County Republican Sen. David Brinkley, the bill would allow state-regulated outlets to to dispense medical marijuana to patients who receive a recommendation from their doctor.
The bipartisan bill is sponsored by Senate President Mike Miller, Minority Leader Allan Kittleman, Minority Whip Nancy Jacobs, and Deputy Majority Leader Robert Garigiola, among others.
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Loud Sex Results In 10-Year Marijuana Sentence

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By on Growing, News

Graphic: Blogs 4 Common Sense

​For a New Jersey man, an evening of loud sex has resulted in a 10-year prison sentence for growing marijuana.

On February 17, 2007, New Jersey state troopers arrived at the home of Brian McGacken of Farmingdale, N.J., responding to an anonymous 911 call complaining of screams coming from McGacken’s home, reports Daniel Tencer at The Raw Story.
McGacken answered the door and explained that he’d just been having loud sex; his girlfriend appeared at the front door and backed up his claim.
But officers searched the home anyway, and found enough marijuana — including growing plants — to put McGacken away for 10 years on charges of producing a controlled substance.
McGacken appealed the conviction, arguing that once police officers knew the noise was due to consensual sex, they no longer had reason to search his home or to even be there.
But the appellate panel at Superior Court of New Jersey didn’t see it that way.
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