Tag Archives | Marijuana

Unions Hoping Marijuana Industry Becomes Major Employer

By on February 6, 2013 in News 3

When organized labor unions campaign on behalf of legal marijuana growing and distribution, you know that America is way past the tipping point. Molly Redden reports for The New Republic:

Early one morning in April, DEA and IRS agents and U.S. marshals raided several Oakland properties owned by Richard Lee, then the leading figure of California’s medical-marijuana industry. At Oaksterdam University, Lee’s multistory business school for marijuana workers, agents went in with power saws, a sledgehammer, and a small battering ram, and walked out with file drawers and bags full of loose documents. At Lee’s dispensary down the block, they heaped live cannabis plants into trash bags. Word got out, and soon hundreds of protesters surrounded Oaksterdam, screaming “Fuck you, pigs!” at the officers. Some of the agitators milled around all day, hoisting signs, blocking the road, and, yes, smoking pot.

A more sober cohort also joined the protest—officials from the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5.

… Read the rest

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Today’s Blue Light Special: 10 Pounds of Weed

By on February 1, 2013 in News 5

A fantastic headline courtesy of SPD Blotter:

Police seized a big package of pot earlier this week after the weed took a wrong turn on a cross-country trip and landed in the stock room at a north Seattle Kmart.

Just after noon on January 28th, Kmart employees called police to their store at 132nd and Aurora Avenue N. after a package—filled with 10 pounds of weed wrapped in garbage bags, packing peanuts, and cleaning-fluid-soaked pages from a Korean newspaper (?!?)—arrived at the store.

Delivery information on the package indicates it was originally shipped via UPS from Los Angeles to a Philadelphia address, but never made it to its intended destination in Philly.

Whoever sent the package listed the address of the Seattle Kmart on the return label…

[continues at SPD Blotter]… Read the rest

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5 Nanograms Of THC In Your Blood? You’re Legally Stoned

By on January 26, 2013 in News 13

You always knew that the legalization of weed was going to mean new laws regulating driving while baked, and Colorado is once again leading the way with a new bill, reports CBS4 Denver:

A plan is in the works to set a limit for people driving while under the influence of marijuana, and this time lawmakers say they’ll get it done.

There’s a lot of pressure on lawmakers after legalizing pot. As the number of users grows, there is growing concern the number of people driving under the influence will as well. In 2011, the most recent data available, 13 percent of deadly crashes in Colorado involved pot…

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Alcohol Damages Teens’ Brains, But Marijuana Does Not, Study Reveals

By on January 10, 2013 in News 3

Be sure to talk to your kids about staying safe by hanging with the stoners, not the frat bros. Medical Daily reports:

Perhaps in response to the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington last month, more teens are lighting up than ever before. However, one study suggests that parents have less to fear from marijuana than from alcohol. The study found that while marijuana had no effect on the health of teenagers’ brain tissue, alcohol did.

The researchers, from the University of California, San Diego and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, performed the study on 92 16- to 20-year-olds. The researchers found that, after a year and a half, kids who had drank five or more alcoholic beverages twice a week had lost white brain matter. That means that they could have impaired memory, attention, and decision-making into adulthood. The teens that smoked marijuana on a regular basis had no such reduction.

… Read the rest

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The Resurrection of Arthur

By on January 9, 2013 in News 0

Back in 2011, Disinfo helped impart the terrible news that one of my favorite publications in the history of the universe, Arthur, was unfortunately closing down shop (Arthur R.I.P.) due to financial strains, but we failed to tell you the upside. It came back.

So, we’re a little late on this story actually as the new issue officially dropped on December 22nd (those crazy kids) but that’s okay because I just got around to reading the last half of it over weekend anyway. Holy rad.

Arthur holds a special place in my heart. It was the interview they did with Grant Morrison back in 2004 (super embarrassing, didn’t even know who he was at the time) that maybe planted the first suggestion compelling me towards pursuing westernized occultism and chaos magick. A few years before that point I’d burnt out completely reading books about UFO’s and remote viewing. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction fine people.… Read the rest

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Liberian Law Enforcement Hope to Crack Down on Bong County’s Marijuana Farmers

By on December 28, 2012 in News 2

Picture: Golbez (CC)

Meanwhile, in news that writes itself…

Via AllAfrica.com:

Law enforcement officials in Liberia’s central region of Bong County say weak drug laws are making it difficult for the Government of Liberia (GoL) to crack down on marijuana farmers engaged in domestic marijuana trade in that part of the country, the Heritage has gathered.

According to report, many farmers in Liberia are turning to growing marijuana to make ends meet. Marijuana is largely a domestic trade, the report notes. The United Nations (UN) Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says marijuana is the world’s most widely used illegal drug. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime adds that many African countries, like Liberia, have ideal growing climates for marijuana.

Keep reading.… Read the rest

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Vikings Grew Cannabis, Findings Reveal

By on December 22, 2012 in News 11

Researchers say it is unclear whether the plant was used for hedonistic purposes or merely for producing cloth and rope, but I think we all know the answer. ScienceNordic reports:

The Sosteli farmsted, in Norway’s southermmost Vest-Agder County, offers strong evidence that Vikings farmers actively cultivated cannabis, a recent analysis shows. The cannabis remains from the farmsted date from 650 AD to 800 AD. This is not the first sign of hemp cultivation in Norway this far back in time, but the find is much more extensive than previous discoveries.

“The other instances were just individual finds of pollen grains. Much more has been found here,” says Frans-Arne Stylegar, an archaeologist and the county’s curator.

“We don’t know if hemp could have been used as a drug. Most of it was probably used in textile production,” says archaeologist Marianne Vedeler at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo.

… Read the rest

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Four Documentaries on Cannabis: the basics, the economics, the history, and the benefits

By on December 21, 2012 in News 9

via chycho

A lot of documentaries have been produced on cannabis over the last few years and I have no doubt that many more will most likely be produced in the future, especially now that the battle to end prohibition has kicked into high gear.

The focus of these documentaries varies vastly, and it’s sometimes hard to know beforehand if what you are about to watch will satisfy your curiosity. There are overlaps between the works, understandably so since the central theme of all of them is cannabis, however, the ones that do standout are the ones that emphasize certain details of the story. Four of these documentaries are embedded below.

In the first we address some of the basic issues at hand by taking a tour with a very pleasant and delightful young man. The second is about the business of getting high, centered on the marijuana trade industry in British Columbia, Canada.… Read the rest

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Marijuana The New Normal In California

By on December 21, 2012 in News 1

California often paves the way for cultural shifts in America and with the front page of the New York Times declaring that marijuana is so common that it might as well be legal in California,  should we expect the whole nation to follow?

Let Colorado and Washington be the marijuana trailblazers. Let them struggle with the messy details of what it means to actually legalize the drug. Marijuana is, as a practical matter, already legal in much of California.

No matter that its recreational use remains technically against the law. Marijuana has, in many parts of this state, become the equivalent of a beer in a paper bag on the streets of Greenwich Village. It is losing whatever stigma it ever had and still has in many parts of the country, including New York City, where the kind of open marijuana use that is common here would attract the attention of any passing law officer.

… Read the rest

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UK’s Incredibly Unpopular Deputy Prime Minister Turns to Drugs

By on December 18, 2012 in News 5

Picture: World Economic Council (CC)

“Daniel-san, must talk. Walk on road, hm? Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later get squish just like grape. Here, karate, same thing. Either you karate do ‘yes’ or karate do ‘no.’ You karate do ‘guess so,’ get squish just like grape. Understand?”

- Mr Miyagi

It’s a shame Nick Clegg is the UK’s classic example of a politician who breaks promises[1] because his new stance on the drugs laws, reported here by The Guardian, should be applauded:

Divisions between David Cameron and Nick Clegg over Britain’s “war on drugs” emerged on Friday after the Liberal Democrat leader said that current policy was not working and accused politicians of “a conspiracy of sience”.

Committing his party to pledging a major review of how to tackle the drug problem in its 2015 election manifesto, Clegg claimed Britain was losing the war “on an industrial scale”.

… Read the rest

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