| Photo: gothamist.com |
| Snoop Dogg: “Buy my medicine, buy my medicine…” Fo’ shizzle. |
When rap music icon and stoner legend Snoop Dogg visits and you cook a batch of brownies, there are going to be pot jokes.But things got even better than that when Snoop visited Martha Stewart’s show.
Snoop Dogg: “Trying to make some brownies, but we’re missing the most important part of the brownies.”
Stewart: “You want green brownies… brownish green brownies.”
Snoop: “The greener, the better!”
Stewart: “The greener, the better!”
Then, together, they break into an awkward, impromptu rap.
Priceless!
Is it just me, or is Martha a lot more “street” than she was before she did time?
| Photo: www.funatiq.com |
| Here’s busted but unrepentant cyclist David Mock carrying around hundreds of pounds of pot behind his bike. (Just kidding.) |
The absurd charade around marijuana in professional athletics of assumed evil and feigned penitence continues with the saga of cyclist David Mock, marijuana user.
The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA, yes, there really is such a thing, folks, and they take themselves quite seriously) said today that Mock, 32, accepted a three-month suspension, reports the Associated Press.
His offense? An agency-administered urine test showed positive for a metabolite of cannabis.
The Anti-Dopers say Mock actually got off light. His period of ineligibility started Dec. 11, but was reduced from three months to “time served” (only six days?!) after he completed the agency’s “anti-doping educational program” (those must be really great).
The agency said Mock’s urine from Aug. 15 at the Yankee Clipper race tested positive.
| Photo: www.freedomsphoenix.com |
| Calm down, Chief. It’s just pot. |
Port Orchard, Wash., Police Chief Al Townsend is against legalizing pot, and he’s called a new bill to legalize marijuana in the state “ludicrous.”
“If the goal of the bill is to legalize marijuana for the purpose of generating tax revenue, that’s ridiculous,” Townsend wrote in an email to Kitsap Sun crime reporter Josh Farley.
Chief Townsend calls into question the judgment of his fellow Kitsap Countian, Rep. Sherry Appleton (D-Poulsbo), one of the co-sponsors of HB 2401, which would legalize marijuana for persons 21 and older.
| Photo: CMMNJ |
Jurors have found a Somerset County, N.J., medical marijuana patient not guilty of the most serious charge against him — operating a drug facility out of his home — reports Jennifer Golson of The Star-Ledger.
John Ray Wilson, 37, was growing 17 marijuana plants, which he said he used to treat his multiple sclerosis.
Wilson was found guilty of second-degree manufacturing and third-degree drug possession for the dried marijuana and psilocybin mushrooms New Jersey State Police seized at his rented home on Aug. 18, 2008.
Testimony in the case started Tuesday before Superior Court Judge Robert Reed, and attorneys delivered closing arguments this morning. The jury deliberated just before lunch and came to a decision about 4 p.m. Eastern time today.
| Photo: Seattle Hempfest |
| Christmas Day Vigil For Prisoners of the Drug War: Here’s the group from 2008. Be there this year, Dec. 25 from noon until 2 p.m.! |
A Christmas Day vigil to honor and show support for Americans arrested for marijuana and non-violent drug use, and to oppose America’s cannabis and drug laws, will be held in Seattle from noon to 2 p.m. December 25.
Seattle Hempfest and the November Coalition invite “anyone with a peaceful nature” to join the vigil at the King County Jail to stand against America’s marijuana laws and show solidarity with those unjustly incarcerated.
“We will be respectful and we will increase the peace with our presence,” said organizer Vivian McPeak of Seattle Hempfest.
Vigil attendees are expected to be polite, non-confrontational and not to block access to any thoroughfare at any time, according to McPeak.
| U.S. Army Corps of Engineers |
| Despite a moratorium on the opening of any new dispensaries, beautiful Richmond, California still has safe access for medical marijuana patients — for now. |
East Bay city Richmond, Calif., will hold off on an outright ban of medical marijuana dispensaries, Katherine Tam reports in The Oakland Tribune.
City leaders in Richmond, an residential inner suburb of San Francisco, say they are still looking for a way to regulate dispensaries without exhausting police resources, “which should be focused on homicides and more serious violent crimes.”
Richmond officials plan to study other cities’ tactics as they weigh their options.
“See if there is a way to try to accomplish the goal of getting a convenient way for people to have access to medical marijuana in a way that doesn’t lead to constant drains of police resources,” said Councilman Jim Rogers.
| Reality Catcher |
| Marijuana’s going mainstream. |
Six House Democrats have filed a bill in the Washington State Legislature to legalize marijuana.
The bill, which would make pot legal for those 21 or older, would use nearly all the money raised through sales at state liquor/marijuana stores for substance abuse treatment and prevention.
Marijuana revenues will probably be comparable to those for alcohol, according to Dickerson. Alcohol revenues run about $330 million yearly in Washington.
The six Democratic legislators sponsoring the bill are Mary Lou Dickerson and Scott White of Seattle, Roger Goodman of Kirkland, David Upthegrove of Des Moines, Sherry Appleton of Poulsbo and Mary Helen Roberts of Lynwood.
Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, a Republican, is already on record as opposing the bill. “Like most of my colleagues in law enforcement, like my father who was in law enforcement, I’m not a big fan of making marijuana available without a prescription,” McKenna said.
| MediLeaf |
| The little dispensary that could: MediLeaf is still open in Gilroy, Calif. |
Gilroy, Calif., Councilman Perry Woodward has called for a “full refund” of legal fees from the city’s contracted law firm after learning that Gilroy’s assistant city attorney advised the neighboring City of Los Altos to take a “diametrically opposed” stance on banning marijuana dispensaries, reports Jonathan Partridge at the Gilroy Dispatch.
Woodward urged the council to demand restitution for all legal fees paid to hired attorney Linda Callon of San Jose-based law firm Berliner-Cohen in connection with regulating medical marijuana dispensaries. According to the Dispatch, the councilman has sent emails to fellow council members, city administrators and Callon herself.
| Photo: CMMNJ |
| MS patient John Ray Wilson, left, and a supporter |
In a move that could be huge for the medical marijuana movement, a New Jersey judge reversed course today, allowing a multiple sclerosis patient on trial for growing 17 marijuana plants to testify about his medical condition, Brian Thompson of NBC New York reports.
Although Judge Robert Reed had earlier ruled defendant John Ray Wilson couldn’t present a defense based on medical necessity, Wilson was allowed to mention his MS after multiple conferences among lawyers and the judge.
“I told them [the arresting officers]I was not a drug dealer and I was using the marijuana for my MS,” Wilson was allowed to tell the jury.
“I think it carried weight, even though it was one sentence,” said Chris Goldstein of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana in New Jersey.
No follow up on Wilson’s MS was allowed.
He faces up to 20 years in prison on the “drug manufacturing” charge.
| loopylettuce.wordpress.com |
| Here’s what pot does to you. Just ask Jill Wellock! |
Freelance writer Jill Wellock has a problem.
She really, really dislikes marijuana and, apparently, those who use it.
Wellock generously shares this extreme distaste with us in a guest op-ed piece in today’s edition of The Olympian, the newspaper of Olympia, Washington, the state’s capitol.
Jill gets right down to business with a real winner of a headline:
‘Marijuana saps initiative, ambition and responsibility’
Headline aside, we know right off the bat we’re in for a bumpy ride when Jill starts off by confiding in us that she attended a “rough junior high.” Apparently not really one for nostalgia, Wellock recalls “the stoner girls” carving “Joe Elliot” [sic]“into their forearms with wood screws to prove Def Leppard allegiance.”
Oh, Jill. First of all, if they carved “Joe Elliot,” they aren’t done carving, because the rock star’s name is spelled “Elliott.” Maybe you should give those “stoner girls” a call and tell them they need to get back out the wood screws.
Secondly, if these had been real “stoner girls” during the time period mentioned, they wouldn’t have been carving freakin’ Def Leppard tributes on their arms; it would have been Marilyn Manson. Or maybe Jerry Garcia.