| Photo: Bryant Anderson/The Daily Triplicate |
| Sheriff’s Sgt. Steve Morris last year displayed some of the four pounds of marijuana seized during a traffic stop. On Friday, the pot was returned to its owner. |
Daniel Sosa went to Crescent City, California last Friday to pick up four pounds of marijuana.
He had a 2 p.m. appointment to pick up the stuff — at the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office.
“It seemed weird,” Sosa said. “I was worried they were going to arrest me again.”
If the pot looked familiar to Sosa, it was because it was the same weed that had been confiscated from him a year ago, during a routine traffic stop, reports Kurt Madar of The Daily Triplicate.
| Photo: Customs and Border Protection |
| “Lo, thou must hide thy stash much better next time.” |
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers on Wednesday found 30 pounds of marijuana stuffed into framed pictures of Jesus Christ at the border with Mexico, reports CNN.
“This is not the first time we have seen smugglers attempt to use religious figures and articles of faith to further their criminal enterprise,” said William Molaski, port director of the agency’s office in El Paso, Texas.
| Photo: Raising Consciousness |
| The late Dr. Carl Sagan, cosmologist, author, philosopher, humanitarian… and cannabis user. |
“The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.”
| Photo: Political Scrapbook |
| U.K. drugs advisor David Nutt was sacked for… well, advising about drugs. |
It all started late last year when David Nutt, chairman of Britain’s Advisory Committee on Drug Misuse (ACDM), was sacked by Home Secretary Alan Johnson after Nutt said scientific evidence showed cannabis and ecstasy are less dangerous than alcohol.
Now more than 80 leading scientists in the United Kingdom have signed a document rejecting a set of government principles which they say would compromise their scientific integrity, reports health editor Sarah Boseley at The Guardian.
| Photo: Jenn Miller |
The City of Seal Beach, California has paid a medical marijuana patient $32,500 to settle a lawsuit resulting from what he called the unlawful confiscation of 50 marijuana plants.
Bruce Benedict, 45, sued the Seal Beach Police Department for $1 million in August 2008, alleging violations of civil and safety codes, false imprisonment, battery and trespass, reports Jaimee Lynn Fletcher at The Orange County Register.
“I’m happy that I won,” Benedict said. “I’m happy that they got slapped in the face.”
“It’s not about the money,” he said. “These [cops]are bad for society.”
| Graphic: NORML |
| Neutron Media to NORML: “If CBS changes their morals we will let you know.” (See the rejected ad below.) |
CBS and Neutron Media Screen Marketing have rejected a paid marijuana legalization advertisement from NORML that was intended to appear on the CBS Super Screen billboard in New York City’s Time Square.
The 15-second ad, which asserts that taxing and regulating the adult use and sale of marijuana would raise billions of dollars in national revenue, was scheduled to appear on CBS’s 42nd Street digital billboard beginning February 1.
According to NORML, representatives from Neutron Media approached the pro-pot organization in mid-January about placing the ad, which was scheduled to air 18 times per day for a two-month period. The NORML Foundation entered into a contractual agreement with Neutron Media to air two separate NORML advertisements, and produced an initial ad exclusively for broadcast on the CBS digital billboard.
| Photo: www.redrosenet.com |
| Playboy Bunnies prepare to fend off horn-dog Rob Kampia as they arrive at the Marijuana Policy Project’s 3rd Annual Party and Fundraiser on June 12, 2008, at the Playboy Mansion |
Aw, maaaan. No more Bunnies?
Since former Executive Director Rob Kampia stepped down at the Marijuana Policy Project to receive therapy for his “hypersexualized” condition, fundraising isn’t the only thing to take a hit.
Now, the pro-pot organization’s annual party at the Playboy Mansion has been cancelled, reports Amanda Hess at Washington City Paper.
In an organization-wide email, MPP’s second in command, Alison Green, who stayed on to pick up the pieces after Kampia’s embarrassing departure, informed staffers that “MPP will not be holding a party at the Playboy Mansion this year.”
Green said the cancellation was primarily due to Kampia’s absence. “Without Rob doing his normal major donor fundraising we simply don’t have the cash flow to pay the upfront deposits that would be due now,” she wrote in the staff email.
| Graphic: Reason.com |
A New Mexico medical marijuana patient battling cancer has been dropped by a state-licensed dispensary after he voiced his frustrations with the cannabis provider to the press.
Robert Jones, of Las Vegas, New Mexico, has been a qualified medical marijuana patient since November 2007, just after the state-licensed program began — but he has yet to get his hands on any medical marijuana.
When Jones spoke of his frustrations to the Santa Fe Reporter for a story last August, his licensed grower, Santa Fe Institute of Natural Medicine, terminated Jones’ membership, reports Alexa Schirtzinger.
| Graphic: thefreshscent.com |
| OK, quick: You’re head of the Department of Corrections. Officers under you misbehave and improperly arrest a medical marijuana patient. What do you do? Lie and cover up for them, if you’re Eldon Vail of the Washington DOC. |
The head of the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC), Eldon Vail, seems to put a lot more effort into covering up the lousy job his subordinates are doing, than in actually doing his own job.
The Washington DOC, following the example of the not-cool Attorney General Rob McKenna, is already notorious for its extremely hard line against the use of medical marijuana for individuals on probation.