Current News Flashes

Date May 25, 2010 Author By GreenAdmin Category Smoke Signals

El Paso Times, May. 18, 2010 – U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske says our strategy to combat illegal drugs hasn’t worked — for 40 years. It’s difficult to argue otherwise. Countless numbers of schools have proclaimed to be “Drug-Free Zones.” We’ve all seen those words woven with crepe paper on school-yard chain-link fences — for years. We spent countless millions of dollars to educate ourselves on the evils and the harm illegal drugs pose.

Pueblo Chieftain, May. 19, 2010 – Councilwoman Judy Weaver Wants Ballot Question to Decide Medical Pot Issue. Never mind. It turns out that City Council received some bad information Monday when city staff briefed council on the pending state law for licensing medical marijuana dispensaries. Contrary to what council was told, the legislation, which has been passed by the Legislature, would give the city authority to immediately license and regulate those businesses, even though state licenses will not be available until July 2011.

Summit Daily News, May. 19, 2010 – Community Forum Raises Questions on Pot at School FRISCO — Local high school students face suspension or expulsion for possessing marijuana at school, but medical pot on campus hasn’t been addressed. “It’s something our school is working on. It could be becoming a growing issue,” said Brett Tomlinson, assistant principal at Summit High School. He and Summit County undersheriff Derek Woodman addressed such issues during a Summit Prevention Alliance-sponsored community forum Tuesday at the Summit County Community and Senior Center.

Denver Daily News, May. 18, 2010 – Poll: Growing Support for Legalization; Med Pot Industry Braces for Likely Regs A leading marijuana-legalization activist believes a poll showing that almost half of Coloradans’ support legalizing and taxing marijuana is a “sign of things to come.” Meanwhile, some medical marijuana activists are figuring out how to move forward following the Legislature’s passage of bills aimed at limiting the industry. Mason Tvert of Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER), a group dedicated to pointing out the ways they believe marijuana is safer than alcohol, believes the Rasmussen poll released last week showing that 49 percent of the state’s voters support legalizing marijuana is proof that marijuana legalization will happen in the foreseeable future.

The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, May. 18, 2010 – Patients, Doctors Groups Push for Medical Marijuana Research, Treatment CEDAR FALLS – As a local blues musician’s CD plays in the background, a man opens a baggie of marijuana and rolls a thin joint. As he puffs, smoke wafts through the detatched garage behind his Cedar Falls home, and he visibly relaxes. But the man – who wouldn’t give his name for fear of prosecution for marijuana possession – wasn’t looking to get high. Instead, he claims the marijuana relaxes his leg muscles, which have been stiff ever since a spinal cord injury left him in a wheelchair nearly three decades ago.

Sensible Washington, a group gathering signatures for a ballot initiative that would end marijuana prohibition in Washington state, reported last week that members of West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team (WestNet), a federally-funded drug task force, seized about 200 signatures during a raid on a medical marijuana club. From Sensible Washington’s site: “We have made repeated calls to […]

In the aftermath of the recently release video showing a family terrorized and their pets shot by a SWAT team in Columbia, Missouri, that city’s police chief is now saying he supports efforts to change marijuana laws so officers will no longer need to spend time and resources enforcing them. During a press conference yesterday, Columbia […]

While states across the country are discussing positive reform of marijuana laws, there have recently been some bizarre exceptions, as other states have renewed attacks against one of the most recognizable icons of marijuana use: the water bong. Yesterday, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty vetoed a bill that would close a loophole in state law that makes […]

The absurdity of marijuana prohibition in the United States is on full display today in The New York Times. On the one hand, we have the national “newspaper of record” publishing a long, mouth-watering and entirely non-critical article about “haute stoner cuisine” in the restaurant industry. On the other hand, we have an article on […]

For people who still don’t believe that medical marijuana is a mainstream issue supported by a majority of Americans, last night’s GOP Senate primary in Kentucky provided just one more example. Newcomer Rand Paul, son of Republican congressman Ron Paul, defeated establishment candidate Trey Grayson, in part, because of his support for medical marijuana laws. Here’s how […]