Search Results: conspiracy/ (4)

The practice seems frankly un-American.
Here’s your daily dose of pot news from the newsletter WeedWeek.
Though the practice is not widely understood, 84% of Americans oppose civil asset forfeiture, once it’s explained to them, according to a Cato Institute/YouGov survey. It defined the practice as “taking a person’s money or property that is suspected to have been involved in a drug crime, before the person is convicted of a crime,”
Lawyers for Jeronimo Yanez, the Minnesota police officer who fatally shot Philando Castile last summersay Yanez should be pardoned in part because Castile was high.

With pot now legal in Massachusetts, some police dogs are “ overqualified.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who wants to advise President-elect Trump on drug policy, says that as mayor of Davao he used to personally hunt drug suspects down on his motorcycle and kill them, in order to encourage constituents to do the same.

A court ruled that finding evidence of marijuana use in someone’s trash is not alone grounds to search the house. A law professor disagrees.

Colorado is awarding $2.35M in research grants to study driving while high and the effects of dabbing, among other topics. The Cannabist says DUI is a pressing issue.

A Johns Hopkins study found that cannabis legalization reduces opioid overdose deaths by as much as 25%.

The synthetic marijuana that sent 18 people in Brooklyn to the hospital in a “zombie” like state, was 85 times as powerful as marijuana.

Doctors remain skeptical of marijuana’s medical value.

Colorado is about to raise the allowances for residual solvents in concentrates. Leafly investigates how much of these chemicals is unhealthy.

A doctor tell’s Gwyneth Paltrow’s site Goop that cannabis can help with PMS.

Illegal grows in California are sickening and killing wildlife.

A Connecticut MED user is suing Amazon and a staffing company for refusing to hire him.

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.

 

Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis Police Sgt. Larry J. Davis is released from the federal courthouse on Thursday after being indicted on federal drug charges on Wednesday

​A St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department sergeant and his brother have been indicted on federal marijuana charges after investigators said they diverted confiscated packages containing cannabis for distribution and sale.

Larry J. Davis, 46, is assigned as a supervisory sergeant for a division of the St. Louis Police Department that conducts investigations into illegal gang activities and illegal drug distribution, according to the indictment, reports KMOV.
The indictment alleges that from October 1, 2010 through January 10, 2012, Larry Davis seized packages containing suspected marijuana, and instead of taking them to the police department, unbeknownst to the package handling companies, investigators say Davis took the packages home with him to St. Louis City.
It was a pretty good scam — for awhile. You see, several years ago, St. Louis police stopped regularly checking packages for drugs at delivery services like UPS and FedEx, reports Robert Patrick at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. But Larry Davis didn’t say anything; he just kept making the rounds and collecting the packages.

Photo: Orlando Sentinel
Birdwatcher Robin Brown was handcuffed, thrown in jail, stripped, and body cavity searched — for possessing sage.

​Robin Brown Was Stripped, Subjected To A Body Cavity Search, And Spent The Night In Jail

A birdwatcher landed in a Florida jail on felony charges of marijuana possession after a clueless sheriff’s deputy mistook the sage she had in her backpack for pot.

Robin Brown, 49, of Hollywood, Florida, was arrested after Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy Dominic Raimondi, 51, decided her sage was marijuana. Deputy Dumbass, I mean Raimondi, then searched her car and found more “pot,” which was also sage.
Tellingly, the dimwitted deputy’s notoriously unreliable field kit said the sage — bought at an airport gift shop in Albuquerque, New Mexico — tested positive for marijuana, reports Susannah Bryan at the Orlando Sentinel.