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Search Results: harder (114)

Study: With Legalization, Teens Find It Harder to Buy Weed

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By on News

The study is from a U.S. government agency.

Here’s your daily dose of pot news from the newsletter WeedWeek.

U.S. teenagers find it harder to buy weed than they have for 24 years, according to an annual survey by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The same study found that teen drug use is declining nationally.

Humboldt County’s growing areas voted against REC, but the cities voted for it.

A long awaited task force report in Canada recommended 18 as the legal buying age. For more see hereand here. The country plans to legalize REC next year.

REC businesses in Portland, Oregon, are struggling to obtain licenses. And the head of the state’s lab accrediting agency is stepping down.

Florida lawmakers are thinking about how to regulate MED. For more see here. A proposal in Ohio would allow 40 MED dispensaries in the state.

Tennessee Republicans are considering a MED program.

Radio Free Asia reports that Chinese visitors to North Korea buy pot by the kilogram and sell it for a healthy mark-up in China.

Australian economists say legalizing REC would be good for the Queensland economy.

Stanford Medical School professor and tobacco advertising expert Dr. Robert K. Jackler editorializes that “If nationwide legalization happens, it is essential that the tobacco industry is banned from the marijuana market.”

L.A. Weekly profiles Seventh Point LLC, a cannabis private equity firm focused on Los Angeles. The firm expects L.A., the world’s largest cannabis market, to be the “Silicon Valley” of weed. The city’s cannabis community is uniting to legalize dispensaries.

Keith McCarty, CEO of delivery app Eaze, is stepping down, shortly after the company secured $13M in funding. He’ll be replaced by Jim Patterson, who, like McCarty was a senior executive at Yammer, a workplace social network which sold to Microsoft for more than $1 billion.

DEA Says the Media Makes it Harder to Prosecute Pot Crimes

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By on News
It also said other drug problems are more pressing.
Here’s your daily dose of pot news from the newsletter WeedWeek.
In a report, the DEA said media attention is making it more difficult to prosecute marijuana offenders.
Ferrell Scott, sentenced to life without parole for possession and conspiracy to sell marijuana, was denied clemency by President Obama.

Charles “Eddy” Lepp, “a defiant 64-year-old Vietnam vet and ordained Rastafarian minister” was released after serving eight years in federal prison for growing.

Two pieces in The Guardian examine the human toll of Mexico’s decade-old, U.S. supported drug war

A New York Times photojournalist documented dozens of homicide victims of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war. The Duterte administration defended its record to Reuters.

Big deal political thinker Ian Bremmer tweeted that Duterte wants to advise Trump on drug policy.

The activist New Jersey Weedman, who faces cannabis charges, compared himself to a “ prisoner at Guantanamo.”

Leafly tells the stories of Sam Caldwell and Moses Baca, “ drug war prisoners 1 & 2,” in 1937. Both were apprehended in Denver. It also cites the work of a “48-year old drug felon and autodidactic cannabis historian who goes by the pen name “Uncle Mike,” maintains a site at UncleMikesResearch.com.

Steve Kerr, coach of the Golden State Warriors, said he tried MED for his back pain. It didn’t help him but he took a strong stand in favor of it for athletes:

“If you’re an NFL player, in particular, and you got lot of pain, I don’t think there’s any question that pot is better for your body than Vicodin,” Kerr, 51, said. “And yet, athletes everywhere are prescribed Vicodin like it’s Vitamin C, like it’s no big deal. And there’s like this perception in our country that over-the-counter drugs are fine but pot is bad. Now, I think that’s changing.”

The comment got attention and he later added to his remarks. Kerr said the NBA should explore MED for pain relief. New York Knicks president and celebrated coach Phil Jackson said he’d also used MED for pain adding, “I don’t think we have been able to stop it in the NBA. I think it still goes on and is still a part of the culture in the NBA. I think it is something that we either have to accommodate or figure out another way to deal with it.”

Forbes has more on the science of athletes and MED.

Vice asked budtenders about their worst customers. They’re not fond of weed snobs and scary types. The Cannabist serves up 10 budtender commandments, including “Thou Shalt Not Be Too High.”

The Pantone Color Institute, picked Greenery as the color of 2017.

The AP visits Malana, India, a Himalayan village that depends on cannabis. Uruguay will host a cannabis museum.

A bestseller in Germany and the U.K. says the Nazis ingested huge amounts of meth, and that Hitler was an opiate addict. “Blitzed,” will be published here in April.

Law Would Make it Harder For Cops to Take Your Stuff

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By on News


Cops, backed by federal law, have been taking stuff from innocent people, and some not-so-innocent people, at alarming rates for more than a decade. The government’s “equitable sharing” civil forfeiture rules encourage federal agents and some local cops to seize goods from folks they believe are criminals. Encouragement comes in the form of language that lets agencies keep what they take. Some departments have been known to proudly advertise that their fancy new vehicles were taken from alleged bad guys.
And unlike the rest of our criminal justice system, these federal rules don’t require due process. In fact, the law says if you want your stuff back, you must sue the government to prove it wasn’t used in the commission of a crime. The burden of proof is on you.
California U.S. Rep. Tony Cárdenas, along with New Jersey Rep. Scott Garrett, this week proposed new legislation that would change that. LA Weekly has more.

Why Colorado Tokers Love Tang Tang

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By on Culture, Dispensaries, Growing, Medical

“Tang” is one of the more difficult flavor concepts for me to grasp. Is it sweet? Savory? Sour? A mix of all three? Calling something “tangy” at a family dinner table will often lead to an argument from someone who thinks tangy and tart are the same thing, thanks to powdered-drink-pushing chimpanzees. In actuality, tang is supposed be slightly sour while adding another fresh or zesty characteristic, as with plain yogurt, sourdough bread or certain tomato sauces.

Tangy cannabis strains are even harder to pinpoint, because the trait doesn’t really exist in most outside of Cannalope Haze and some peach- and apricot-leaning strains. Sour flavors in pot usually come from terpenes found in citrus fruits, which are clearly more sour than tangy — but when matched with light pine, herbal or floral notes, the tang is there.

Why Colorado Tokers Love Sage N Sour

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By on Culture, Dispensaries, Growing, Medical

The name is a little much, but SAGE (Sativa Afghani Genetic Equilibrium) has always been underrated in the legalized version of Denver, and can only be found in a few dispensaries…if you’re lucky. A precursor to Girl Scout Cookies, Gorilla Glue and other potent strains with long, even-keeled highs, SAGE peaked in popularity in the mid-2000s, But even if you can’t find the original, any other version will usually do, particularly Sage N Sour.

Also called Sour Sage, Sage N Sour is even harder to locate than SAGE, but a handful of pot shops occasionally carry it. Known for better daytime effects and focus than its parent, Sage N Sour is a cross between SAGE and the energetic and ever-pungent Sour Diesel. The hybrid’s rubbery aroma and coffee-like effects tilt much more on the Diesel spectrum, but assertive spicy and piney notes on the back end and a pacifying head high balance out those gassy characteristics.

Beat the Heat With These Summertime Sativas

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By on Cannabis Encyclopedia, Opinion, Products

Is there a fast-forward option for the rest of July? I’ve been waking up with a sweaty back every morning for three weeks now. I understand that our trash cans aren’t melting and our airports aren’t being shut down, as they are in Arizona, but we’re not used to this shit.

Getting motivated to play outside like you once did during the summer gets harder as the years go by, especially when it’s 90 degrees out in the morning. These eight sativas might not lower your body temperature, but they’ll chill your mind enough to stop worrying about those musty britches you’ve been walking around in all day.

Denver Social Use Initiative Maintains Small Lead

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By on News, Uncategorized

It would be the first in the country.

Here’s your daily round-up of pot-news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. 

Denver’s social use initiative is in the lead with some ballots still uncounted. If approved it would be allow bars and other businesses to apply for on-site pot consumption permits.

After Election Day, there are now eight more Senators and 68 more members of the House representing REC states, and six more Senators and 33 more members representing MED states. Marijuana.com predicts that it will be harder for them to reject cannabis reform legislation out of hand.

Massachusetts treasurer Deb Goldberg says she may need an extension of the October 2017 deadline to begin accepting license applications. Additional tweaks on taxes, edibles and DUI are anticipated.

How Florida’s MED program will work remains hazy.

Marijuana Business Daily calls it an $8 billion-night based on the combined annual sales projected in the newly legal states. Vox explains the votes. The New York Times has a round-up.

Rob Sands, CEO of Constellation Brands, whose portfolio includes Svedka Vodka and Robert Mondavi wine, said the company is interested in going green. “There are going to be alcoholic beverages that will also contain cannabis.”

The New York Stock Exchange accepted cannabis real estate investment trust (REIT) Innovative Industrial Properties’ listing. It will be the first cannabis REIT to trade on the exchange. It’s ticker will be IIPR.

Canadian producer Aphria announced a C$35M raise, the largest by a public company to date. Legal Canadian growers have raised more than C$313M in the last 13 months.

The New York Times profiles Denver-based Dixie Brands as it builds a national presence.  (For more on interstate trade, see my April story in The Washington Post.)

WIRED tells us to “Get ready for the Budweiser of bud.”

Adrian Sedlin, CEO of California grower CannDescent, told Fortune that leaving California companies without bank accounts is “ not a tenable position.”

LAWeekly finds some psyched local cannabis executives. The San Jose Mercury News talks to some pumped-up Investors.

Weed Wins Big on Election Day, But What Will Donald Trump Do?

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By on News

The president-elect may not be a hardliner, but he’s surrounded himself with them.

Here’s your daily round-up of pot-news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. 

The all-but-final Election Day tally is California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Maine legalized REC, whileFlorida, Arkansas, and North Dakota legalized MED.

Arizona rejected a REC measure. Montanans voted to allow a MED industry, though it remains contentious.

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson (R), a legalization opponent and former DEA chief, said the process requires federal input. “It’s an example of the states innovating in a risky area, and certainly the states are leading on this, but we’re to a point that the federal government is going to have to readdress this,” he said. “This does not call for a state-by-state solution, it calls for … a national solution.”

This is an early indication that the cannabis industry will be harder for the Donald Trump administration to ignore than it was for the Obama administration.

Vice president elect Mike Pence (R) has replaced New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as head of Trump’s transition team. Both are known for their hardline stances against legalization, as is former New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, a possible attorney general in the administration.

Several pieces speculate on what a Trump presidency means for legalization. Here are three:  The Cannabist, MJBiz, Reveal (Center for Investigative Reporting).

Drug Policy Alliance head Ethan Nadelmann said, “the federal government retains the power to hobble much of what we’ve accomplished…The progress we’ve made … will be very much at risk when Donald Trump enters the White House.”

Vivian Azer, a stock analyst with Cowen, predicts cannabis will be a low priority for Trump.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D.-Ore.), probably pot’s best friend in Congress, said he thinks the industry’s priorities for banking and tax reform could both pass a Republican Congress under President Trump.

 

Canadian Company Plans Massive Grow

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By on News, Uncategorized
The announcement comes shortly after it raised millions of dollars.
Here’s your daily round up of pot news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek.
Vancouver-based grower Aurora Cannabis is planning a giant 600,000 square-foot grow in Alberta. That’s the size of 10 football fields. Canadian grower Aphria inked a deal to supply an Australian company with MED.
At least two large Canadian producers consider the  new federal home grow rules  “a setback for the advancement of sound cannabis policy.”
The Commodities Futures Trading Commission approved the first exchange for trading hemp derivatives.

UK Newspaper The Daily Mail Misses the Mark on Marijuana

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By on Global, Media

Across the pond this weekend, The Daily Mail (aka Britain’s version of Fox News) dropped their version of a bombshell story, claiming that they had found the source of the scourge of high grade weed that they claim is infesting their countryside.
A news rag known for its hardline conservative slant, The Daily Mail is hardly a trusted source for reliable cannabis news, or really any news for that matter, but their alleged insight into the growing pot market is so completely ass-backwards, it is really no wonder that the UK trails so far behind the US when it comes to cannabis reform.

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