Search Results: vancouver (73)

Mary McNeil/Flickr.
Vancouver Police Department Chief Jim Chu.

Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu says that police need more options in dealing with marijuana possession charges and decriminalizing the possession of 30 grams or less at the federal level could save millions in court and police costs.
Chu delivered his message to his peers earlier this week at the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police annual meeting. The association also passed a resolution urging the government to provide alternative ways of dealing with the “crime” of low-level marijuana possession.

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.

The situation appears under control.

The following is excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.

An investigation in Hugo, Colo. found THC in the drinking water. Authorities found signs of tampering on a well and initiated a criminal investigation. Additional tests are underway to confirm the finding. Initially, the cannabis community said contamination is unlikely since THC is not soluble in water.

Screening stations have been set up for residents and water is being trucked in. Hugo, a town of about 750 on the state’s eastern plains, does not have any marijuana businesses.

LA Weekly looks at how legalization  could change employer drug testing  policies. The California Supreme Court has ruled that a MED card does not allow employees to be high on the job, or overrule company drug testing policies. In the future, the piece notes, this stance may lead to disability suits.

In California, concentrates remain a “ legal gray area.”

A random controlled study out of Holland proved that alcohol makes users more aggressive and cannabis makes them less aggressive. (Read the study here.)

Vancouver activist Dana Larsen said customers don’t need prescriptions at his MED pharmacies.

Colorado has released a PSA on cannabis and pregnancy. Chronic and/or severe pain is by far the most common qualifying condition for MED.

Washington state hopes new labelling will keep kids away from edibles.

Between 2002 and 2013, it’s estimated that Massachusetts crime lab chemist Annie Dookhan, who was later convicted of perjury and evidence tampering, corrupted more than 24,000 cases. Those convicted based on her work can now seek new trials. Dookhan served three years in prison.

An audit in Houston found 298 wrongful drug convictions. A researcher at the libertarian Cato Institute argues that the drug war has made policing more violent.

Operation Sabot, Canada’s annual sweep for illegal outdoor grows, takes place at the end of summer. Each year it targets a different region right before the harvest.

Maryland withdrew a proposal to ban letters to prisoners (except legal correspondence). The state’s prisons have been overwhelmed by Suboxone, an opioid available in sublingual strips that prisoners receive in envelopes.

If California legalizes, what will happen to people in prison for marijuana offenses? Missouri governor Jay Nixon (D), signed a law that will make it easier for marijuana offenders to get their records expunged.

A bill in the U.S. Senate would protect the families of children with epilepsy from prosecution if they obtain CBD treatments.

Home gardening in Washington D.C. just got a lot more fun.

The following is excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.

Washington D.C. consultant Natalie Carver has started a business assisting home growers. “She rolls her joints with rosemary, lavender, and mullein, a bronchial dilator used by Native Americans in spiritual ceremonies.”

A rabbi and an African-American pastor are among the parties competing for grow licenses in Maryland.

The German bestseller “ High Hitler: Drugs in the Third Reich,” is being translated into English.

Product Earth Expo, the U.K.’s largest cannabis convention, took place for the second time. An Australian man called the cops on his father for burning his crop.

There has been a resurgence of the red cannabis associated with Calabria, the rugged “toe” of Italy. In another piece, Leafly’s Enrico Fletzer asks if legalization is coming to Naples, where organized crime controls the market. Fletzer also calls Bologna the “ Hemp capital of Europe.

Rival pro-legalization groups had an altercation outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. An organizer with Cannabis Culture said he was attacked by someone wielding a yoga mat. I’m just juvenile enough to mention that western Canada’s premiere art museum is known as “ the VAG.”

Washington D.C. consultant Natalie Carver has started a business assisting home growers. “She rolls her joints with rosemary, lavender, and mullein, a bronchial dilator used by Native Americans in spiritual ceremonies.”

Contrary to internet rumors, doughnut chain Tim Hortons will not start selling pot next year.

The video game Hemp Inc. resembles Farmville, with one predictable difference. Vice also interviews some female dealers.

The new 419.99 mile markers on Interstate 70 in Colorado, do not get stolen as often as their 420 mile predecessors.

Olympics-branded weed is available in Rio.

 

Commons/IDuke


For some people, owning a home is one of their lifelong aspirations, only second to living out the rest of their days stoned to the bone in a legal marijuana state. Indeed, this level of paradise seems relatively easy to achieve these days, especially since an increasing number of states have voted to legalize the leaf for medical and recreational use.
Unfortunately, the problem some folks are running into, shortly after the last piece of furniture has been pulled off the U-Haul, is that some neighbors are not very pot-friendly and more than willing to file a complaint with the homeowners association the moment the first puff of pot smoke crosses the fence.

CannabisCulture/FlickrCommons


After spending five years in six different prisons across six different states, Canada’s Marc Emery has been scheduled for release and is due back in Canada between August 10th and the 25th.
He recently gave his first interview to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) since earning that release, and if authorities in either country thought he may just silently go about his business after being caged up with thieves and killers for a half a decade, they have sorely underestimated the self-proclaimed “Prince of Pot”.


In scenes remniscent of Colorado’s recretaionl sales in January, recreational pot stores are opening with long lines and, despite high prices, they are selling out of their inventory.
Brian Budz tells Oregon Live that he thought he had enough product to last ten days at his Vancouver-based New Vansterdam shop and instead it lasted three days. Shops like his are having to close down and open erratically as more herb comes in. Prices – ranging from $15 to $30 a gram – reflect that.


In October of last year, we reported here at Toke of the Town on a landmark move by the Canadian government to pump over $1.3 billion dollars into a new national medical marijuana program. The approach was aimed at providing the rapidly growing number of medical marijuana patients with access to cannabis produced by massive, state-of-the-art growing and distribution operations.
The new law proposed to outlaw home growing, forcing medical marijuana patients to go to these large-scale pot shops for their weed. But on March 21st of this year, a Federal Court ruling put a halt to that section of the new regulations, and temporarily grandfathered in anyone who was already licensed to grow at home before September 30th, 2013.

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