Toke of the Town

Search Results: jones (105)

Billionaire Soros Gives $1 Million To Prop 19 Pot Legalization

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By on Culture, News

Photo: Business Week
George Soros: “Police could focus on serious crime instead”

​​Billionaire financier George Soros on Tuesday donated $1 million to support Proposition 19, the California ballot initiative to legalize, tax and regulate recreational cannabis use.

The cash from Soros, a longtime supporter of marijuana law reform, should allow a much more intense media blitz in the final week before Election Day.
Prop 19, which has had some trouble raising money, had only just rolled out its first television ad in the Los Angeles area on Monday, eight days before the election, reports Josh Richman of the Oakland Tribune.
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Emperor of Hemp Featured On FDL Movie Night Monday

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By on Culture, Products

Graphic: Emperor Of Hemp

​The Jack Herer documentary, Emperor of Hemp will be the featured film on Firedoglake.com’s Movie Night Monday October 25, beginning at 8 p.m. (Eastern Time) and ending at 9:30 p.m.

A story on the film by Lisa Derrick will begin at 8 o’clock and kick off a live online chat with Director Jeff Jones and Writer/Producer Jeff Meyers.
“Firedoglake’s Just Say Now campaign has been instrumental in supporting medical and recreational marijuana legalization initiatives this political season,” Meyers told Toke of the Town on Monday.
When we lost cannabis activist Herer on April 15, he passed into the hallowed hall of hemp history, a man who devoted his life to the cause of marijuana freedom.
Jack pledged to fight every day of his life until either cannabis was legal, he was dead, or until he turned 84. He took the pledge very seriously and never stopped fighting, giving an impassioned speech at Hempstalk 2009 and then collapsing with the heart attack that ended up taking his life a few months later.

Toke of the Town Interview: Mendocino Sheriff Tom Allman

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By on Culture, Growing

Photo: Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office
Sheriff Tom Allman: “The difference between what Eric Holder did and Bush’s assistant U.S. attorney is nothing.”

​Northern California’s Mendocino County is world renowned for the quality and quantity of cannabis grown there. As part of the Emerald Triangle, along with Humboldt County, local buds including “Mendo Purps” have helped marijuana users everywhere have a happier day.

Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman has been supportive of medical cannabis growers who go by the rules. He stands as an example of a law enforcement official who engages in a respectful dialogue with the cannabis community, rather than talking down to it or dictating to it.

What would it be like to be sheriff of a county where marijuana rules the economy — a county known for growing some of the finest cannabis in the world?

Toke of the Town‘s correspondent, blogger Jack Rikess of the Haight in San Francisco, got a chance to sit down with Sheriff Allman and find out.
Their wide-ranging discussion covered the unique marijuana culture of Mendocino, the possible impact of Prop 19 cannabis legalization on the county’s pot-centered economy, and the Sheriff’s innovative zip-tie program for legal growers.
Let’s listen in as Toke‘s Rikess and Sheriff Allman have a relaxed talk.
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Former Narcotics Agent: It’s Time To Call Off The War On Drugs

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By on Uncategorized

Photo: East Bay Express
Retired police officer Russ Jones: “When I arrested a drug dealer, all I did was create a job opening”

​Russ Jones, who has spent more than 30 years fighting the War On Drugs, has something to say about his life’s work: it is a complete failure that should be ended.

“The U.S. over the last four decades has spent $1 trillion of our tax dollars, made 38 million nonviolent drug arrests and quadrupled our prison population,” Jones said, reports columnist Tom Barnidge of the Contra Costa Times. “And the rate of addiction today, 1.3 percent, is the same as it was in 1970, when we started.”
Jones, 64, spoke to the Martinez Rotary Club last week on behalf of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a volunteer organization of 15,000 former judges, prosecutors, federal agents and police officers working for the end of drug prohibition.
He wasn’t specifically promoting California’s Prop 19, which would legalize marijuana in the state, but he said he welcomed any advancement toward the larger goal of legalizing and regulating all controlled substances.
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Remembering The “Emperor Of Hemp”: DVD Review

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By on Culture, Products

Graphic: Emperor Of Hemp

​Cannabis activist Jack Herer (1939-2010) was a true American original. When we lost him on April 15, he passed into the hallowed hall of hemp history, a man who devoted his life to the cause of marijuana freedom.

Jack pledged to fight every day of his life until either cannabis was legal, he was dead, or until he turned 84. He took the pledge very seriously and never stopped fighting, giving an impassioned speech at Hempstalk 2009 and then collapsing with the heart attack that ended up taking his life a few months later.
Jack’s friends decided to honor the man and his work with a memorial tribute edition of writer/producer Jeff Meyers’ and director Jeff Jones’ 1999 documentary, Emperor Of Hemp. “We went back through all of Jack’s original interview footage and found a few never-before-seen gems, 20-plus bonus minutes of classic Jack at his fiery best,” Meyers says on the Emperor Of Hemp website.
“In the 11 years since the release of Emperor Of Hemp, our humble low-budget marijuana documentary has been seen by millions all over the world and has aired on PBS stations in major U.S. cities,” Meyers, a former L.A. Times reporter, said. “We receive email all the time from viewers who say the documentary has enlightened them to the truth behind marijuana prohibition.”
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Oakland City Attorney Backs Prop 19 To Allow Marijuana

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By on Legislation, News

Photo: Living In The O
Oakland City Attorney John Russo: “What we’ve being trying to do is fight a raging fire with a watering can. The better way is to cut off the oxygen”

​Breaking from the staunch opposition of most law enforcement groups, Oakland City Attorney John Russo on Monday joined about two dozen officials from across California to publicly support Proposition 19, the measure allowing recreational marijuana that will appear on November’s ballot. Another group gathered in West Hollywood with the same message.

Their support of Prop 19 goes against the majority of law enforcement agencies in California, which oppose the measure, reports Angela Woodall of The Oakland Tribune. “It’s very difficult for them to change, Russo said Monday in front of Oakland City Hall.
Meanwhile, a coalition headed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca — “No On Prop 19” — blasted the measure in a statement signed by scores of police chiefs, sheriffs, law enforcement associations and district attorneys, of all whom want to keep those fat federal anti-pot funds flowing.
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Marijuana Trading Cards Celebrate High Achievements

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By on Culture, Products

Photo: East Bay Express

​​A Berkeley medical marijuana dispensary has released a spiffy set of cards that allows cannabis enthusiasts to compare high-scoring strains such as Afghani Goo and Grand Daddy Purple.

“It was really just like an evolution of the labeling system,” said David Bowers, manager at the Berkeley Patient’s Care Collective, a 10-year-old pot shop on Telegraph Avenue. Introduced in March, the cards feature glossy photos of beautiful buds along with details about their defining traits and medical usefulness, reports Josh Harkinson at Mother Jones.
“Consumers want to get rid of physical pain, restore appetite, or find mental relaxation, and different strains help,” Bowers told David Downs at East Bay Express.
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Minister Headed To Trial; Faces 7 Years For Medical Marijuana

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By on Medical, News

Photo: Lansing State Journal
Rev. Wayne Dagit, 60, during a July preliminary hearing. The minister faces up to 7 years in prison for providing medical marijuana to patients in Michigan.

​Undercover agents spent untold thousands of tax dollars and man hours “monitoring” Rev. Wayne Dagit and patrons of the Green Leaf Smokers Club in Williamstown Township, Michigan, as part of their surveillance of the medical marijuana collective. Now the minister is headed for trial on pot charges, facing up to seven years in prison.
“He was set up from the beginning,” Rev. Dagit’s son, Mike James, told Toke of the Town. “My dad didn’t even have money for the alleged marijuana. He was so broke, he couldn’t even pay attention. They think that a man that moved into town with his 15 year old six months ago would suddenly have money and connections in Michigan for 100 pounds? There’s more to the story.”
“My father was doing everything by the book,” Jones told us. “He was set up by some kid named Matt that was supposedly a new friend of my dad’s church. He was an informant sent in to do everything in his power to set my dad up. This guy was a snake, and he did everything he could to get my dad to do something that he could get busted for. My dad never had money to buy the amount that is advertised that they confiscated.”
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Michigan City Rejects Huge Medical Marijuana Factory

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By on Growing, News

Photo: Mother Jones

​The Royal Oak City Commission on Monday unanimously rejected a request to suspend the city’s moratorium on commercial businesses involving medical marijuana, blocking — at least for now — the attempt by a warehouse owner to turn his building into the state’s largest marijuana growing facility.

The 7-0 vote to keep in place a 180-day moratorium passed in May came near midnight after a packed, lengthy meeting at which dozens of citizens spoke for and against allowing medical marijuana businesses in the Michigan city, reports Bill Laitner of the Detroit Free Press.
Landlord James Canner met with city officials in May in hopes of avoiding foreclosure on his 23,000-square-foot warehouse by leasing it to a tenant who would convert it into roughly two dozen grow rooms for medical marijuana caregivers, reports Jonathan Oosting at MLive.com.
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Man Caught With 19 Bags Of Marijuana At Courthouse

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By on News

Photo: Fulton County Jail
These are the 19 bags of marijuana police claimed they found on Ricky Hefflin as he tried to enter the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia.

​Ricky Hefflin either has big cojones or perhaps impaired decision-making skills.

Hefflin, 26, remains in jail after being arrested Wednesday for carrying 19 bags of marijuana into the Fulton County Courthouse, according to police.

Officers at the courthouse claimed they noticed “something suspicious” in Hefflin’s back left pocket when he went through the security line at the building’s metal detector, reports Raisa Habersham at the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Deputies said Hefflin was asked to empty his pockets and put his items in a bin for scanning by the courthouse magnetometer. But he refused, saying, “I don’t have anything,” according to officers, reports My Fox Atlanta.
Hefflin tried to walk on into the courthouse, but was stopped by the arresting officer, who once again requested that he empty his pockets.
​When Hefflin “became nervous” and didn’t move, the officer told him to place his hands against the wall and proceeded to search him.
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