A small, unmanned, boat washed ashore onto Ft. Lauderdale beach early Monday morning. And while boats washing ashore is nothing new to South Florida, this particular boat had several bales of pot on board.
Come to think of it, boats washing ashore with bales of pot in them is nothing new in South Florida, either. Either way… POT BOAT. Broward-Palm Beach New Times has the full story.
| Photo: Eric Hasert/TCPalm |
| Ingrid Peters helps recover debris from the 33-foot boat that came ashore carrying 1,100 pounds of marijuana on Tuesday morning. “You never know what’s going to wash ashore,” Peters said. |
An abandoned boat carrying about 1,100 pounds of marijuana drifted ashore this week on a Treasure Coast island in Florida.
I’m not going to waste time complaining about my life — everyone has to eat shit sometimes, and my diet is relatively free from that substance — but the tidal wave of feces lapping on my shores last week broke records. Financial, medical and relationship issues all culminated in one massive dump, and just like that, I was officially over being an adult. I needed an age-cation.
| Akiva “David” Saltzman. |
A New York man facing prison time for pot trafficking was found shot execution-style in a burned out car in Los Angeles earlier this month. The New York Daily News is reporting that Akiva “David” Saltzman was killed on October 3, though his attorney is saying it is unrelated to the case.
| North Shore cookies from Colorado. |
Last month, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd shared a bad experience with a marijuana edible during a visit to Colorado, joking (maybe) that such items be stamped with a “stoned skull and bones.”
The Dowd piece, coupled with other negative news stories linked to edibles use, is among the inspiration for First Time 5, an edibles-education campaign being launched at an event tomorrow. Steve Fox, executive director of the Council for Responsible Cannabis Regulation, offers the Denver Westword a preview.
In an era of 24-hour cable news, non-stop talk radio, and a never ending list of politically flavored blogs, it is easy to be overwhelmed by it all. Planes are going down over Russia, bombs are being dropped in Gaza, and back at home, Republicans and Democrats bide their time bickering over gay marriage and contraception coverage.
It’s enough to make people want to just tune out altogether, and unfortunately, they are in droves. This manufactured apathy for all things “political”, trickles down from global, to national, to state, and ultimately to local politics; and can have dire real-world consequences in the community.
The city of San Jose, in northern California’s Bay Area, is realizing this sad reality the hard way when it comes to medical marijuana. There, as in many Californian municipalities, the local City Council has turned a tuned-out public against its own best interests when it comes to weed.
| Boston Public Library Flickr edited by Toke of the Town. |
As we reported back in June, Maryland state Rep. Andy Harris, a Republican, is spearheading a move that would block the decriminalization of limited amounts of marijuana in Washington D.C.
But many, including D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray see it as a shot to D.C.’s home rule and Democrat-controlled city council. Now Gray is urging all D.C. residents to boycott Maryland’s beaches and resort towns.
In January of this year, The Washington Post conducted a poll of Washington D.C. residents which found that 8 in 10 polled said they were in favor of either decriminalization, or straight up legalization, of weed in the nation’s capital.
In March, the City Council voted to decriminalize cannabis possession, knocking the punishment down from a year in jail, to a $25 fine. The District’s medical marijuana program is expanding, and much like in Colorado, none of these things are leading to the reefer madness we’ve been warned about for decades.
But with legalization talk being passed around the tightest circles in the nation’s capital, leave it to local Congressional Republicans to try to halt the inevitable progress of reform.
The U.S. House of Representatives is standing in the way of Washington D.C.’s marijuana decriminalization laws, refusing to authorize funding for the law change.
Despite that, Mayor Vincent Gray says the city will still move forward with the change, which makes the possession of about an ounce of pot a civil infraction punishable by a $25 fine. But Gray also warns that House Republicans could possibly shut down the city’s medical marijuana program as well.
| USDOJ |
Update – 10:00 a.m. 5/21/2014: FBI Director James Comey has pulled a 180 today, announcing that he is in no way loosening the agency policy on marijuana use. Comey has indicated that his comments were a joke (an unfunny joke that basically stereotypes all young people and computer hackers as pot users). Comey retracted his comments today at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting after being grilled by Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions.
“I am absolutely dead-set against using marijuana,” Comey said today. “I did not say that I am going to change that ban.” Original story below.