Latest EntryMar 12, 2014 Online Issue Leave a comment
Sonora Police Chief Mark Stinson says the two 8-year-olds and a 9-year-old were discovered by another student last week at Sonora Elementary School. Superintendent Leigh Shampain told KPIX-TV the students were smoking in a school bathroom.
Mar 12, 2014 Online Issue Leave a comment
GREELEY, Colo. — A barber here is refusing to serve customers who smell like smoke — pot smoke — even though marijuana is legal throughout Colorado.
And he’s legally within his right to discriminate, according to Denver lawyer Scott Robinson.
“Business owners absolutely have the right to refuse service to someone who has been smoking pot, is drunk, or for any other reason as long as it’s not an unlawful or unconstitutional reason such as race, religion or gender,” Robinson said.
The sign posted on the door of Hugo’s Barber Shop about 50 miles northeast of Denver is guaranteed to lose some business: “Please do not come in if you smell like marijuana, there are families with kids who don’t want to smell it. This is a business not your house, thank you.”
Mar 12, 2014 Online Issue Leave a comment
DENVER—The first tax figures for the first state in the nation to legalize retail marijuana shows the drug brought in $3.5 million in taxes and fees in January.
Of that, $2.1 million came from recreational marijuana and the remaining $1.4 million from medical marijuana.
The figures from the state Department of Revenue also give a preliminary idea of the size of the marijuana trade in the state, showing $14 million worth of marijuana was sold in the first month of legal sales.
Medical marijuana still outsold recreational pot by more than two to one, netting $31 million in sales that month.
The report provides the first concrete proof of what pro-marijuana advocates had promised, that growing and selling the drug locally would generate economic activity here rather than sending drug money out-of-state, and that the drug could provide a windfall to the state government.
Mar 6, 2014 Online Issue Leave a comment
Source: Washington Post
Washington, D.C. — The D.C. Council on Tuesday is poised to make the city one of the nation’s most lenient for marijuana possession, easing penalties that most often ensnare African Americans including a potential one-year jail sentence that is expected to be reduced to a $25 fine.
To keep the odor of marijuana from wafting across the nation’s capital, however, city lawmakers in recent weeks pulled back from an even more liberal proposal to buffer residents from arrest: Smoking marijuana in public would remain a crime, akin to toting an open can of beer, and would carry a maximum penalty of up to six months in jail.
Amid growing support locally and nationally for legalizing marijuana, D.C. lawmakers said they are acting out of an interest in greater social justice when it comes to pot arrests — not civil liberties to allow more drug use. By leapfrogging many states in loosening its marijuana laws, the city is firmly planting itself in a national debate over legalization — even as questions remain about how much a new law might accomplish.
Decriminalizing possession of marijuana, but leaving the act of smoking the drug a crime, critics say, will keep alive concerns about racial profiling in arrests. It also will add gray areas in policing: D.C. officers would not be able to arrest on the smell of marijuana, for instance; they would have to see the smoke. And being marijuana-impaired in public would not be a crime equal to public intoxication — unless it occurs behind the wheel.
Mar 6, 2014 Online Issue Leave a comment
Source: Reuters
Atlanta — A Georgia measure that would legalize use of a liquid, non-intoxicating form of marijuana for patients with severe seizure disorders has been passed by the state House of Representatives with wide support.
Lawmakers approved the legislation on Monday in a 171-4 bipartisan vote, and the bill, which would limit availability of medical marijuana to a handful of research facilities, now goes to the state Senate for consideration.
The measure’s sponsor, Republican Representative Allen Peake, said he had become interested in the issue after learning about a constituent’s 4-year-old daughter, who suffers from a seizure disorder.
“This really was a human story,” Peake said in an interview on Tuesday. “I couldn’t be more proud of my colleagues for the courageous vote they cast.”
Medical marijuana in various forms is legal in 20 states. Florida, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee and at least six others are considering legalizing it, according to Washington-based pro-marijuana group NORML.
Mar 6, 2014 Online Issue Leave a comment
Source: Time
USA — The new commercial from MarijuanaDoctors.com might seem to make perfect sense to a medical marijuana patient who has just taken a dose of their medicine. For most others, the logic may take a moment to sink in.
During the one-minute spot, which the company is touting as the first ever medical marijuana business commercial to air on major networks, a faux dealer pushes sushi in the street, opening up a coat filled with raw fish like cartoon thieves open trenchcoats filled with black-market Rolexes. “You wouldn’t buy your sushi from this guy,” the voiceover concludes. “So why would you buy your marijuana from him?”
“We felt the viewing public would agree that in the states providing safe access, continuing to obtain medicine illegally is as absurd as purchasing raw fish from a drug dealer,” the company’s CEO Jason Draizin said in a press release. Of course, purchasing “sushi” from the “sushi dealer” remains the only option for those who are obtaining the “sashimi” for recreational purposes, as opposed to those who require “California rolls” for medical reasons, in most places.
Feb 17, 2014 Online Issue Leave a comment
Posted by CN Staff on February 14, 2014 at 19:46:01 PT
By Danielle Douglas
Source: Washington Post
Washington, D.C. — The Obama administration on Friday gave the banking industry the green light to finance and do business with legal marijuana sellers, a move that could further legitimize the burgeoning industry.
For the first time, legal distributors will be able to secure loans and set up checking and savings accounts with major banks that have largely steered clear of those businesses. The decision eliminates a key hurdle facing marijuana sellers, who can now legally conduct business in 20 states and the District.
So far, the Obama administration has dealt with the legal dilemmas posed by Colorado and Washington — where state laws now allow recreational marijuana use — largely by choosing not to enforce the federal statutes. Eighteen other states allow the sale of medical marijuana — though federal law does not allow that, either.
