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Friday, July 5, 2013

Study: Cannabis Compound Reduces Cigarette Consumption In Tobacco Smokers

Investigators at University College London conducted a double blind pilot study to study the impact of organic non-psychoactive cannabinoid CBD (cannabidiol) versus placebo in 24 tobacco-smoking subjects seeking to quit their addiction. Participants were randomized to receive an inhaler containing CBD (n=12) or placebo (n=12) for one week. Trial investigators instructed subjects to use the inhaler when they felt the urge to smoke.
Abstract

The role of the endocannabinoid system in nicotine addiction is being increasingly acknowledged. We conducted a pilot, randomised double blind placebo controlled study set out to assess the impact of the ad-hoc use of cannabidiol (CBD) in smokers who wished to stop smoking. 24 smokers were randomised to receive an inhaler of CBD (n=12) or placebo (n=12) for one week, they were instructed to use the inhaler when they felt the urge to smoke. Over the treatment week, placebo treated smokers showed no differences in number of cigarettes smoked. In contrast, those treated with CBD significantly reduced the number of cigarettes smoked by ~40% during treatment. Results also indicated some maintenance of this effect at follow-up. These preliminary data, combined with the strong preclinical rationale for use of this compound, suggest CBD to be a potential treatment for nicotine addiction that warrants further exploration.

Investigators concluded in the preliminary data that CBD could be a potential treatment for nicotine addiction and warrants further exploration.

Five Reasons Cops Want to Legalize Cannabis

Objectively speaking, cannabis prohibition has failed on all accounts, and when one looks at simply the facts, continued efforts against consumption is unjustifiable. The RollingStone helps drive home this point in Five Reasons Cops Want to Legalize Marijuana

1. It's about public safety.

While marijuana is a relatively harmless drug, the black market associated with it can cause significant harm. Much like the prohibition of alcohol, marijuana's illegality does not erase the profit incentive – instead, it establishes a risky, unregulated market in which violence and intimidation are used to settle disputes.

"When we ended the prohibition of alcohol, Al Capone was out of work the next day," says Stephen Downing, Los Angeles' former Deputy Chief of Police. "Our drug policy is really anti-public safety and pro-cartel, pro-street gang, because it keeps them in business."

Marijuana trafficking represents a significant chunk of business for black-market cartels. Though the exact percentage of cartel profits from pot is disputed, lowball estimates fall at around 20 percent.

"During my time on the border, I saw literally tons of marijuana come over the border from Mexico," says Jamie Haase, a former special agent in the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement division. "Competition over the profits to be made from this illicit industry has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of individuals in that country, and an ever-increasing amount of violence spilling over into the United States, where the Justice Department estimates Mexican cartels now operate in more than 1,000 American cities."

2. Cops want to focus on crimes that hurt real victims.

In the past decade, police made more than 7 million marijuana arrests, 88 percent of them for possession alone. In 2010, states spent $3.6 billion enforcing the war on pot, with blacks nearly four times as likely as whites to be arrested. That's a lot of police time and resources wasted, says former Seattle Chief of Police Norm Stamper, who had an "aha moment" about marijuana policy while working for the San Diego Police Department in the late 1960s.

"I had arrested a 19-year-old in his parents' home for the possession of a very small quantity of marijuana, and put him in the backseat of a caged police car, after having kicked down his door," recalls Stamper. While driving the prisoner to jail, he says, "I realized, mainly, that I could have been doing real police work, but instead I'm going to be out of service for several hours impounding the weed, impounding him, and writing arrest, impound, and narcotics reports. I was away from the people I had been hired to serve and in no position to stop a reckless drunk driver swerving all over the road, or to respond to a burglary in progress, or intervene in domestic violence situation."

Cops have limited resources, and spending them on marijuana arrests will inevitably divert them from other policing. Adds Stamper, "In short, making a marijuana arrest for a simple possession case was no longer, for me, real police work."

3. Cops want strong relationships with the communities they serve.

Baltimore narcotics veteran Neil Franklin says the prevalence of marijuana arrests, especially among communities of color, creates a "hostile environment" between police and the communities they serve. "Marijuana is the number one reason right now that police use to search people in this country," he says. "The odor of marijuana alone gives a police officers probable cause to search you, your person, your car, or your home."

Legalizing pot, says Franklin, could lead to "hundreds of thousands of fewer negative police and citizen contacts across this country. That's a hell of an opportunity for law enforcement to rebuild some bridges in our communities – mainly our poor, black and Latino communities."

Franklin adds that this would increase citizens' trust in police, making them more likely to communicate and help solve more serious crimes. Building mutual respect would also protect cops on the job. Adds Franklin, "Too many police officers are killed or injured serving the War on Drugs as opposed to protecting and serving their communities."

4. The war on pot encourages bad – and even illegal – police practices.

Downing says that monetary incentives for drug arrests, like asset forfeiture and federal grants, encourage an attitude where police will make drug arrests by any means necessary, from militarized SWAT raids to paid informants who admit to lying. "The overall effect is that we are losing ground in terms of the traditional peace officer role of protecting public safety, and morphing our local police officers into federal drug warriors," Downing says.

Quotas and pressure for officers to make drug arrests – which profit police departments via federal funding and asset forfeiture – also encourage routine violations of the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. The NYPD, for example, stops and sometimes frisks well over 500,000 people a year, the vast majority of them youths of color – the basis for a pending federal lawsuit challenging the policy on constitutional grounds. While New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has defended stop-and-frisk as a way to get guns off the street, in fact, it's more often used to arrest kids with small amounts of weed. Stamper adds that legalization would allow police officers "to see young adults not as criminals, but members of their community" – and start respecting those young people's civil liberties.

5. Cops want to stop kids from abusing drugs.

Marijuana's illegality has done very little to stop its use. A recent survey by the National Institutes of Health found that 36 percent of high school seniors had smoked marijuana in the past year. Legalization would most likely involve age restrictions on marijuana purchases, while at the same time providing quality control over product. "The only way we can effectively control drugs is to create a regulatory system for all of them," says Stamper.

"If you are truly a proponent of public safety, if you truly want safer communities, then it's a no-brainer that we have to end drug prohibition and treat [marijuana] as a health issue, like we did with tobacco," says Franklin. "Education and treatment is the most effective and cost-efficient way to reduce drug use."

On the other hand, adds Franklin, "If you support a current system of drug prohibition, then you support the very same thing that the cartel and neighborhood gangs support. You might as well be standing next to them, shaking hands. Because they don't want an end to prohibition, either."

Marijuana prohibition in the end is very costly to society, wasting billions of dollars and countless hours in law enforcement, justice system and penal system time. Marijuana isn't completely harmless, no drug is, but prohibition is by far more detrimental pot can ever be.

It's time to finally put an end to the criminalization of marijuana.
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Friday, June 28, 2013

Maine: Medical Marijuana Program Expanded To Include Patients With PTSD And Other Debilitating Disorders

Patients diagnosed with post-traumatic stress, Crohn’s disease, and other debilitating disorders will now be eligible for cannabis therapy, under legislation approved yesterday absent the Governor’s signature.

The new law expands the list of qualifying conditions for which a Maine physician may legally recommend cannabis to include “post-traumatic stress disorder,” “inflammatory bowel disease” (such as Crohn’s and/or ulcerative colitis), and “dyskinetic and spastic movement disorders and other diseases causing severe and persistent muscle spasms” (such as Parkinson’s disease and/or Huntington’s disease). It is the second time that Maine legislators have acted to expand the pool of patients who may have access to medicinal cannabis.

See the expanded list: MaineLegislature.org
Read the full artical : NORML

Marijuana Bacon Recipe


Watermelon cleverly combines two of your favourite things Marijuana & Bacon for the perfect treat. The BC bacon is then wrapped around cubes of cantaloupe. This recipe makes a perfect appetizer for any soiree.

Thursday, June 27, 2013

New York Senate Ends Session with out actin on Marijuana Bills

ALBANY, NY — Senators in the New York Legislature adjourned for the 2013 session without voting on a medical marijuana bill or addressing a bill that would have fixed loopholes in the state’s decades-old marijuana decriminalization law that allows police to arrest people for having marijuana in “public view.”

Assembly Bill 6716 and its identical companion Senate Bill 3105, would have decriminalized possessing up to 15 grams of marijuana in public view, while smoking in public would remain a misdemeanor. Under the state’s 1977 marijuana decriminalization law, private possession of up to 25 grams of marijuana is a non-criminal citation, punishable by a $100 fine. However, the possession of any amount of marijuana in “public view” has and will remain a criminal misdemeanor.

Assembly Bill 6357, the Compassionate Care Act, which would have allowed the medical use of marijuana by qualified patients in New York. This is the fourth time that the New York Assembly has passed medical marijuana legislation.

Marijuana Mojito Recipe



Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Monday, June 17, 2013

Letters to Congress on ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition

Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2013

By reading the letters to the representatives in support of ending cannabis prohibition and those against it, we can better inform ourselves in our quest to end cannabis prohibition. While some are well-articulated and factual, while others are uninformed, poorly worded.

In order to turn the tides, factual information and activism will be needed in order to turn the tides of inaction and misinformation. Get out and urge your representative to represent the will of the people.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Take Action: Safer Arizona Marijuana Legalization Initiative

Safer Arizona is a grassroots initiative to legalize Marijuana in Arizona. At the moment the initiative is at the petition stage. In order for this initiative to get on the election ballots in November they need to have support from a large enough representation of the population to prove there is a large enough collective that feels strongly that change needs to take place.

So make your voice heard if you are a resident of Arizona, and spread the word.

You can email Volunteer@saferarizona.com to let them know you are interested in volunteering!

Racially Biased Arrests for Pot

Editorial by the New York Times Editorial Board

Researchers have long known that African-Americans are more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites, even though studies have repeatedly shown that the two groups use the drug at similar rates.

New federal data, included in a study by the American Civil Liberties Union, now shows that the problem of racially biased arrests is far more extensive that was previously known — and is getting worse. The costly, ill-advised “war on marijuana” might fairly be described as a tool of racial oppression.

The study, based on law enforcement data from 50 states and the District of Columbia, is the most detailed of its kind so far. Marijuana arrests have risen sharply over the last two decades and now make up about half of all drug arrests in the United States. Of the more than eight million marijuana arrests made between 2001 and 2010, nearly 90 percent were for possession. There were nearly 900,000 marijuana arrests in 2010 — 300,000 more than for all violent crimes combined.


The 'Stop and Frisk' program carried it out in NYC, which targets almost exclusively minorities lead to the higher rates of arrest. The marijuana arrest rate for minorities is disproportional skewed do to this practice.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Monday, May 6, 2013

Ohio Lawmaker Introduces Measure to Put Marijuana Legalization Before State Voters

Via: NORML
Representative Robert F. Hagan (D-Youngstown) has introduced a measure that would put marijuana legalization on the ballot before state voters. House Joint Resolution 6 would place a question on the Ohio ballot asking voters to approve allowing people 21 or older to purchase and use marijuana. Under this proposal marijuana would be sold only by state-licensed establishments and would be subject to a 15 percent excise tax.

“With billions upon billions spent on the war on drugs with little progress to show for it, it is time for more-sensible drug policy in this country,” stated Representative Hagan.

To be placed on the ballot, HJR 6 would need to receive a three-fifths vote from the legislature. The full text of the measure is available online here.

If you live in Ohio, please take a moment to contact your Representative and urge him/her to support this historic legislation! It is time to let the people of Ohio decide for themselves whether or not it is time to legalize marijuana.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Medical Marijuana-Hating Assemblyman Caught With Marijuana Gets Charges Dismissed


NY State Assemblyman Steve Katz, who was arrested for alleged pot possession last month after voting against the legalization of medical marijuana last year gets his case dismissed thanks to a plea deal.

In March, Katz was pulled over at a car stop in Albany, and officers found less than 25 grams of pot in his vehicle. But the charge—a violation carrying up to $285 in fines—will be dropped, provided Katz completes 20 hours of community service and refrains from law-breaking for a year. "We said from the beginning that this would be quickly resolved, and it was. And we’re very happy this is done,”

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Vermont House Approves Marijuana Decriminalization

Valley News
If this bill goes all the way Vermont would become the 16th state to have decriminalized.
The Vermont House gave preliminary approval Friday to a bill that would change the offense of possessing up to an ounce of marijuana from a misdemeanor crime to a civil offense similar to a speeding violation.

On roll call vote of 98-44, the House endorsed the bill, which would impose a fine of as much as $300 for anyone caught with up to an ounce of the drug.

The bill also contains provisions designed to eliminate the possibility of a permanent criminal record or future collateral consequences such as ineligibility for certain jobs or government benefits for those convicted of possessing up to two ounces, or up to four plants.

The legislation now goes to the Senate, which is also expected to pass it.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

The evolution of marijuana laws

The evolution of marijuana laws
The best visualization of that trend that we’ve seen comes courtesy of the Atlantic Wire’s Philip Bump and Elspeth Reeve.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Kentucky Industrial Hemp Legislation Becomes Law Without Governor’s Signature

On Friday, April 5th, Governor Steve Beshear of Kentucky let Kentucky’s industrial hemp measure become law without his signature. Gov. Beshear had expressed concerns that marijuana growers could hide their illegal growing operations with hemp plants. Despite his concerns, he allowed the measure to become law without his signature and did not veto the legislation.

After the bills approval by the state legislature, Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer stated that “by passing this bill, the General Assembly has signaled that Kentucky is serious about restoring industrial hemp production to the commonwealth and doing it in the right way. That will give Kentucky’s congressional delegation more leverage when they seek a federal waiver allowing Kentucky farmers to grow hemp.”

Kentucky is now the ninth state to have passed a law allowing for farmers to cultivate industrial hemp. Hemp cultivation is still prohibited by the federal government.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Bill to Legalize and Regulate Marijuana Introduced in Alabama

If you live in Alabama click here to easily write your Representative to support this legislation!

Rep. Patricia Todd (D-Birmingham) has introduced House Bill 550, the Alabama Cannabis and Hemp marijuana and the cultivation of up to 12 mature marijuana plants by those over the age of 21. It would also authorize the Department of Revenue to establish marijuana retail outlets.

Get out there and spread the word.

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Marijuana Legalization Measure Formally Introduced in Maine

Representative Diane Russell (D-Portland) formally introduced LD 1229: An Act to Tax and Regulate Marijuana into the Maine legislature. This legislation would legalize the sale of as much as 2 1/2 ounces of marijuana per week to people 21 or older at licensed retail locations. It would also permit for the cultivation of the plant in private settings. The measure has been assigned to the Joint Standing Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety, but has yet to be scheduled for a hearing.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

House Resolution 499: Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2013

HR 499

House Resolution 499 introduced by Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) has proposed legislation, which would effectively end the federal prohibition on marijuana and allow states to set their own policies.
House Resolution 499: The Ending Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2013, would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, transfer the Drug Enforcement Administration’s authority to regulate marijuana to a newly renamed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Marijuana and Firearms, require commercial marijuana producers to purchase a permit, and ensure that federal law distinguishes between individuals who grow marijuana for personal use and those involved in commercial sale and distribution.
NORML Take Action to End Marijuana Prohibition! Congress needs to hear from you, please take a minute and click here to quickly and easily write your Representative and urge him or her to support the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2013!

Retired Police Captain speaks out aginst the War on Drugs


Monday, February 18, 2013

Drivers stoned on marijuana test their driving skills



CNN may have just posted their best piece of investigative journalism in years. In the following video, three drivers of varying ages got incredibly high on marijuana and test-drove cars around a course. A driving-ed instructor accompanied them to avert any chance of an accident, and police watched from the sidelines to spot any visible 'signs' of inebriation in their movements.

The volunteers -- a young daily smoker, adult weekend smoker and elder infrequent smoker -- proceeded to test escalating levels of stupor against the new baseline 'legal limits' in Colorado and Washington state. They had to reach excesses of 5 times the legal limit before their ability to drive became impaired. In most cases, the danger they presented was driving too slowly or with frequent hesitations.


And here is a video of my new favorite person: Addy

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

More and more Americans want pot legal

After CO and WA legalized it, the rest of the country realized that they can effect change. I can see if only one state did it, but the fact that two states went ahead and accomplished it. People are wakening up.
(CNN) -- Last week, my op-ed in favor of cannabis legalization ran on CNN.com. This week marks three years since I first wrote that marijuana should be legal. I'm amazed at how the debate has changed in just a few years.

I was inundated with messages from readers, and was humbled by some of them.

Here's one from a Southern Baptist church pastor: "I have seen firsthand the heartache caused by America's prohibition against marijuana. I have visited young men in prison, who I knew in my heart should not be there ... It is time for us to speak out and tell the truth about marijuana ...

"But so many are afraid to speak out because they fear being labeled 'pro-drugs'... I pray daily that God will end this dreadful 'war.'"

The overwhelmingly positive comments posted on CNN.com, especially from those who don't use marijuana, show that more mainstream Americans are willing to voice their pro-legalization opinions. Informed adults are challenging old dogmas, and they worry less about the folly of "Reefer Madness" than refined sugar's role in shortening their children's lives.

Given the thousands of thoughtful comments in the past week, I'd like to address several of the most important themes readers have discussed:

Damon00 writes: "A couple of years ago, comments for articles like this were much more negative. People are learning."

If CO and WA are left alone by the feds, other states might be willing to legalize it for recreational use.

Monday, January 14, 2013

59% of Arizonians Want Marijuana Regulated Like Alcohol

Via: NORML

I am hoping for a wave of marijuana legalization initiatives proposals in the upcoming years. If it's happening in Arizona it's happening then there is hope for everywhere.

A poll released today, commissioned by the National Cannabis Industry Association and conducted by Public Policy Polling, found that a majority of Arizona residents would vote “yes” on an initiative to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol.

When asked, “If an initiative appeared on a future ballot in Arizona, proposing that marijuana be regulated in a manner similar to alcohol and sold to adults 21 years of age or older in statelicensed stores, would you vote ‘yes’ in favor of this initiative or ‘no’ against this initiative?” – 59% stated they would vote “yes” (40% felt strongly, 19% not strongly) and only 36% stated they would oppose the measure (33% strongly feeling so, 3% not so strongly).

The survey also questioned Arizona voters on their current medical marijuana law and found 59% of respondents support the law and only 37% are opposed.

The poll was conducted on January 9th and 10th and surveyed 600 Arizona voters. You can view the full poll here and read the official release from The National Cannabis Industry Association here.