Search Results: pot/ (63)

Hapa veggie sushi.

Even if it’s nothing more than a publicity stunt, it’s a brilliant one: The homegrown Hapa Sushi chain is running ads promoting a pairing menu unlike any other in the country (because it wouldn’t be legal anywhere else besides Washington!).
Whether you’d like your raw fish with indica, sativa or a hybrid, Hapa’s got some suggestions for you, along with ideas about how to craft your high-as-a-kite dinner conversation. Denver Westword‘s Cafe Society blog has the full story.

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.

He’s seen as a possible Secretary of State.
Here’s your daily dose of weed news from the newsletter WeedWeek:
Congressman Dana Rohrbacher (R-Calif.), an industry supporter, believes Trump will leave legal states alone. The New York Times examines how California companies are adapting to the legal market.

In Maryland, Black lawmakers are furious that the state is moving forward to award dispensary licenses, despite outrage that none of the initial grow licenses were given to African-Americans.

Reason tracks the “ uneven course” of REC sales in Oregon. California may amend a tax rule favorable to MED consumers.

A few cities in south Florida have created a six-month moratorium on MED dispensaries. The new year could bring new vigor to the push for MED in Georgia.

Arkansas may delay its MED program. North Dakota too.

MED won a substantial victory in South Africa.

Cannabis private equity firm Privateer Holdings, which has raised $122M, has its eye on overseas markets.

The Financial Times does a deep dive into how the alcohol industry thinks about cannabis.

The New York Times visits a Washington grow that’s experimenting with energy efficient lights. Theworld’s largest marijuana factory could be built in Alberta. USAToday explores the $25 billion business opportunity in California.

LAWeekly asks if cannabis is a better business for Native Americans than casinos. The paper also says cannabis marketing is getting “ classier.”

The Texas Standard explains the huge proposed jump in CBD-oil business fees.

More industry trade groups are sprouting.

Due to safety concerns, Denver’s new social use rule will not include bars and other establishments with liquor licenses. Bar owners are not happy.

The NYTImes asks whether insurers will pay for patients’ MED.

New York broadened its MED law. Utah is studying its very-limited MED program.

The Onion weighs in on the possibility that weed weakens heart muscles.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has strengthened language confirming that marijuana users can’t buy guns.

The Inlander tells the story of Isaiah Wall, a teenaged police informant who ended up dead.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy, which includes former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, recommended that all drugs should be decriminalized.

Cannabis should be legalized, according to an new report from the Adam Smith Institute, a U.K. think tank. It has the equivalent of bipartisan support.

In Scotland, a court accepted a man’s explanation that his £25,000 in plants are for personal consumption.

Air travelers out of Fairbanks, Alaska can keep their weed, the TSA confirmed.

A barely-clothed model was hired to serve as a charcuterie platter during an industry party in Las Vegas. A photograph of her covered in what looks like salami, prosciutto and other cold cuts sparked some outrage. (Robert Weakley, CEO of Altai Brands, took responsibility and apologized.)

Among other things, they are preparing safety guides for “trimmigrants”

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

Reveal follows up on its investigation of sex abuse of trimmigrants in California’s Emerald Triangle, with an update on how communities in the region have responded.

Massachusetts became the first state on the east coast to legalize REC, despite opposition from the state’s most prominent politicians, both Democrats and Republicans. Dispensaries could open as soon as January 2018.

All four states voting on MED approved it. In Florida, voters legalized MED with 71% in favor. In Arkansas, a MED initiative has a comfortable lead with most precincts reporting. North Dakota’s MED initiative passed with about 64% of the vote and Montana’s Initiative to expand MED access also passed comfortably.

Each of the MED states also voted for Donald Trump, who is now president-elect.

It looks like the proposed REC business bans in Pueblo, the Colorado industry’s secondary hub, failed. I wrote about the situation for the L.A. Times.

There were numerous local votes in Oregon on the industry’s status in communities. See the results here.

The Eureka Times-Standard explains your rights in California post Proposition 64. Public consumption will not be allowed except in licensed businesses, which will open in 2018 at the earliest.

Stocks in private prison companies jumped following Donald Trump’s victory. Racial disparities in criminal enforcement remain a concern.

The Nation profiles Bill Montgomery (R), the anti-pot Phoenix prosecutor who won re-election.

An odor problem has earned a Boulder grow $14,000 in fines.

The NFL Player’s Association said it would explore MED as a pain management tool. The league isn’t budging, for now.

Playboy calls legalization one of the election’s “ silver linings.

Colorado Harvest Company and O.pen vape were among the major donors to Levitt Pavilion amphitheater, a new venue for free concerts in Denver.

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.

 

For a segment called “The Pot Vote” that aired Sunday, October 30, 60 Minutes came to Colorado to investigate the marijuana boom. The piece began as a typical new-industry-brings-ups-and-downs-to-community piece that swung not so subtly to pose an ominous — and misrepresentative — picture of what’s going on in this state’s cannabis industry.

Jonathan LaPook, a two-time Emmy-winning journalist with an M.D. to boot, begins the segment by promising to show “what’s working and what’s not” in Colorado, the first state to allow the sale of recreational marijuana, then briefly discusses how attitudes toward legalization have shifted in recent years.

The company applied to trade on NASDAQ earlier this year but was rejected.

Here’s your daily round-up of pot-news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Download WeedWeek’s free 2016 election guide here.

Social network MassRoots, defaulted on almost $1 million in debt payments and laid off about 40% of its staff, according to SEC filings. This week Chairman and CEO Isaac Dietrich, wrote an upbeat letter to shareholders that did not reference either setback. The company has raised more than $5 million.

The activists put up a long fight.

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

Michigan almost certainly won’t vote on REC this year. The state’s Senate advanced regulation for MED dispensaries.

Both MED initiatives that will appear on the Arkansas ballot “ are simply recreational marijuana masquerading as medicine,” according to Jerry Cox, executive director of the conservative Christian group Family Council. If both initiatives pass, the one with more votes prevails.

The service also failed to protect customer information.
Here’s your daily round up of pot news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek.

Irvine, Calif.-based Weedmaps is full of bogus dispensary reviews, according to an investigation by the L.A. Times.

Reporter Paresh Dave looked at nearly 600 businesses reviewed on the site and found that 70% included reviews submitted from a single IP address (i.e. a single computer). A textual analysis found that 62% of reviews on the site are “fake.”

Weedmaps, a Yelp-like service with operations in several states, had stored the IP addresses of anonymous reviewers, in its publicly available code. A Weedmaps executive said the 62% figure is far too high, and emphasized that reviews are only part of the product.

The long awaited decision was a disappointment for cannabis activists.
The following is excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will not reschedule marijuana. The 186-page decision was published Thursday in the Federal Register. The DEA also  put hemp growers on notice .

Following the decision, The Washington Post’s Christopher Ingraham wrote: “The FDA cannot determine it has a medical use in part because of the highly restrictive legal status of the drug. It’s a classic bureaucratic Catch-22.” Ingraham also collected responses from members of Congress.

For additional details and analysis on the DEA decision see Scientific American,  John Hudak atBrookings and  Wednesday’s  special edition  of WeedWeek. The industry weighs in here and here.

Federal law will continue to view cannabis as a Schedule I drug, meaning that it has high potential for abuse and no recognized medical value. Other Schedule I drugs include heroin, LSD and ecstasy (MDMA).

Some in cannabis circles expected the agency to reclassify the plant as a Schedule II drug, the next most restrictive classification under the Controlled Substances Act. Schedule II drugs include cocaine, methamphetamine and several prescription opioids. (See a more complete list here.)

Cannabis activists and businesses generally want to see marijuana de-scheduled and regulated like alcohol. Rescheduling, which still could happen in the future, raises problematic questions for the pro-cannabis community about regulations governing businesses and access to MED. One lawyer called the prospect of rescheduling a “ nightmare” for the industry. My reporting suggested that the changes wouldn’t be as drastic.

NPR quotes DEA chief Chuck Rosenberg saying that he gave “enormous weight” to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)  view that marijuana has “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States”

“This decision isn’t based on danger. This decision is based on whether marijuana, as determined by the FDA, is a safe and effective medicine,” Rosenberg said, “and it’s not.”

The DEA says it will, however, expand the number of facilities allowed to grow marijuana for research. For a long time, a facility at the University of Mississippi has grown all of the marijuana ordered by the federal government. Scientists who want to study MED will still need to obtain permission from the federal government.

*
I spoke to Hilary Bricken, a cannabis business attorney at Seattle firm Harris Moure, about the decision. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity:WW: This is what you predicted. What do you think were ultimately the main factors in the decision?
HB:My honest conclusion is it’s politics. It’s totally political. It’s so strange that there’s not been more transparency regarding the dialog between the DEA and the FDA. All of a sudden the DEA is saying the decision is not being based on danger to consumers. Now they’re saying quote,
“It’s based on whether marijuana as determined by the FDA is a safe and effective medicine, and
it’s not.” And that allegedly this is based on science, which is interesting because there’s a
significant lack thereof. Only recently have scientific research barriers been removed by the feds.
What’s your interpretation of the ruling to increase the number of growing facilities?
Basically, Ole Miss has had this monopoly for years. Even though the [request for proposals], to be able to cultivate cannabis for the federal government gets issued publicly, they’ve always chosen Ole Miss on a contract basis.
[The potential is] to start expanding those cultivation licenses to other researchers that may not have such, I don’t know if the word is bias, but certain types of opinions that they haven’t changed for two decades. I think it’s a positive PR piece, but I’ll believe it when I see it, if they actually do [grant more licenses].
What’s going to be the next big thing to look out for?
It’s a hurry up and wait situation with the federal government, like it always is.
Even if Hillary Clinton won the presidency, even though we have the Democratic platform calling for a reasonable pathway to legalization, I think she’s going to follow through on what she’s maintained regularly, which is: We need more research before we can unleash this product on the American public, even in the medical capacity.
To me what that also means, is that states are going to continue to lead the way on marijuana law reform and policy. I think [cannabis]just turned more into alcohol then let’s say pharmaceuticals because states are going to continue to legalize, despite what the federal government may do. It could take years now for legalization or even some type of pathway for medical marijuana. I think the states are actually going to be the ones that force [the federal government’s]hand eventually. I think it’s going to be a hurry up and wait situation, even with a Clinton administration.
*

Additional reactions:

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, (D-Ore.):

“This decision doesn’t go far enough and is further evidence that the DEA doesn’t get it. Keeping marijuana at Schedule I continues an outdated, failed approach—leaving patients and marijuana businesses trapped between state and federal laws. …It’s not enough to remove some barriers to medical research. Marijuana shouldn’t be listed as Schedule I; it shouldn’t be listed at all.”

Tom Angell, Chairman, Marijuana Majority:

“President Obama always said he would let science — and not ideology — dictate policy, but in this case his administration is upholding a failed drug war approach instead of looking at real, existing evidence that marijuana has medical value…A clear and growing majority of American voters support legalizing marijuana outright and the very least our representatives should do is let states implement their own policies, unencumbered by an outdated ‘Reefer Madness’ mentality that some in law enforcement still choose to cling to.”

Kevin Sabet, CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, an anti-legalization group:

This is not on surprising at all to scientists and people who follow this issue. What we’ve seen in the last couple of years is actually the science pointing in the direction of marijuana being more harmful, not less harmful…It’s also a huge blow to medical marijuana companies who were ready to press send on marketing emails touting a decision to reschedule and pushing their goods on to people who might now think that the feds totally gave up on the issue.

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