Pot // Current TV

Virginia Is For Potheads?

When this country got torpedoed by the Great Recession of 2007, we experienced the largest collapse in state revenues on record. Now, nearly two years after the bottom fell out of the economy, all but four states have been forced to cut services for residents. More than 30 states have raised taxes and 29 still face budget shortfalls.

Among the states struggling to dig itself out of the financial abyss is Virginia, whose budget deficit reached $2 billion in 2012. Even at 8.3% growth in 2011, Virginia won’t fully restore its losses from the recession until 2019.

But David Englin, a Democratic delegate from Arlington, is unwilling to wait seven more years for a recovery and has a creative proposal to give Virginia’s economy an instant shot of adrenaline. It’s House Joint Resolution 140 and it’s raising eyebrows among some of his fellow lawmakers and constituents.

Englin wants Virginia's state-owned liquor outlets, called ABC stores, to start selling marijuana.

At least, for now, he wants the General Assembly to allow for a study on the economic impact of the sale and taxing of pot in Virginia as well as the feasibility and practicality of legalization.

“Right now, people are smoking marijuana, Englin told his local CBS affiliate. “Respectable members of society are out there secretly purchasing and smoking marijuana and the money they spend on that is going into the hands of criminals. So this legislation just seeks to find out how much money we could potentially be raising to fund core services of the Commonwealth.”

“What’s next? Selling it at Walmart (WMT)?” countered Wayne Frith of Substance Abuse Free Environment (SAFE) who believes marijuana’s health and safety implications are far too serious to allow this measure to pass.

Northern Virginia resident Bernard Hill thinks the proposal is “crazy” and opposes his tax dollars being spent to explore it. All told, the study, taken on by a joint subcommittee, would set the state back a little more than $15,000.

Hill may not be familiar with the old business adage “You have to spend money to make money” because if he was, he may be more comfortable knowing what kind of a return he’d be guaranteed on his investment. In 2011 alone, states like Colorado and California -- where medical marijuana is legal -- reaped $1.7 billion in sales.

To put this figure into perspective, consider that Pfizer (PFE) made $1.9 billion off Viagra -- which is legal everywhere.When this country got torpedoed by the Great Recession of 2007, we experienced the... more

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New research about cannabis use

Michael Balderstone of the Hemp Embassy in Nimbin is hopeful that new research will... more

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Stoned seniors: Germany faces epidemic of hippy pensioners

They include sixty-plus grandmothers spaced out on LSD and 70-year-old grandpas in... more

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Woodstock, Forever In My Heart

____________ Click here to read the CNN iReport:... more

EthicalVegan
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Super Frat: Newt World Order

Mistah Sh*t watches one of the GOP candidates talk about weed.

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Washington & Rhode Island governors petition DEA to reclassify marijuana

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire and Rhode Island Gov.... more

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Comment: Reefer madness in a final frenzy

As the Leveson Inquiry looks at media standards, we should investigate the lies written about cannabis in the British press.

By Peter Reynolds

In the mid 1930s, after the end of alcohol prohibition, Harry Anslinger, former assistant commissioner at the Bureau of Prohibition, was settling into his exciting new job as head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and working on his next campaign.

"This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with negroes, entertainers and any others," he wrote in one of Randolph Hearst's newspapers. Hearst was behind the organised campaign against cannabis hemp, then one of America's most successful crops, by timber, oil and paper interests. The strategy was to slur the plant with the racist term "marijuana", demonise it, outlaw it and wipe it out.

Come forward about 80 years to the present day. In the US there is the White House drugs czar Gil Kerlikowske and the head of the DEA, Michelle Leonhart. In Britain we have James Brokenshire, the Home Office minister. These people are faithful in style and message to their role model Anslinger. They use arguments and propaganda of exactly the same type and value but adjusted to politically correct 2011 terms. Their weapon is deceit and their strategy is intransigence. The prejudice, discrimination and media scaremongering continues. As Anslinger had Randolph Hearst's media empire, so Brokenshire has the Daily Mail.
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The Mail came out all guns blazing last week in response to the Global Initiative on Drug Policy Reform and the ex-head of MI5, Baroness Manningham-Buller, calling for legal regulation. Despite the furious propaganda war it has waged against cannabis and cannabis users the issue won't go away. Why? Because millions of British citizens regularly use and enjoy cannabis with no ill effects and many find it of enormous therapeutic benefit for conditions such as chronic pain, MS and Crohn's disease. Also, because this war on cannabis is just another war on people. It is futile, expensive and causes far more harm than it prevents. It has created the modern phenomenon of rented property being destroyed, electricity being stolen with human trafficked gardeners and intensive production of high potency cannabis.

(much more at link)As the Leveson Inquiry looks at media standards, we should investigate the lies... more

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The drug cartels Thank You to CA for keeping them in Business

US authorities find major drug tunnel in San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — An estimated 17 tons of marijuana were seized in the discovery of a cross-border tunnel that authorities said Wednesday was one of the most significant secret drug smuggling passages ever found on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The tunnel discovered Tuesday stretched about 400 yards (400 meters) and linked warehouses in San Diego and Tijuana, authorities said.

U.S. authorities seized about nine tons of marijuana inside a truck and at the warehouse in San Diego's Otay Mesa area, said Derek Benner, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent in charge of investigations in San Diego. Mexican authorities recovered about eight tons south of the border.

Authorities spoke at a news conference near packages of seized dope festooned with labels of Captain America, Sprite and Bud Light. The markings are codes to identify the owners.

Photos taken by Mexican authorities show an entry blocked by bundles that were likely stuffed with marijuana, said Paul Beeson, chief of the Border Patrol's San Diego sector. Tunnel walls were lined with wood supports. The passage was equipped with lighting and ventilation systems.

The tunnel was about four feet high and three feet wide. It dropped about 20 feet on the U.S. side.

Two men allegedly seen leaving the warehouse in a truck packed with about three tons of pot were pulled over Tuesday on a highway in suburban La Mesa and arrested. A California Highway Patrol officer was overwhelmed by the smell, according to a federal complaint.

Cesar Beltran and Ruben Gomez each face a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted of conspiracy to distribute marijuana, said Alana Robinson, chief of the U.S. attorney's narcotics enforcement section in San Diego. They were scheduled to be arraigned Thursday.

Cross-border tunnels have proliferated in recent years, but the latest find is one of the more significant, based on the amount of drugs seized.

Raids last November on two tunnels linking San Diego and Tijuana netted a combined 50 tons of marijuana on both sides of the border, two of the largest pot busts in U.S. history. Those secret passages were lined with rail tracks, lighting and ventilation.

read more: http://news.yahoo.com/us-authorities-major-drug-tunnel-san-diego-185929368.htmlUS authorities find major drug tunnel in San Diego SAN DIEGO (AP) — An... more

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Truck fire leads to 50 pounds of Marijuana found in panels

A massive truck fire leads to firefighters finding 50 pounds of marijuana hidden in a... more

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What We Have to Say About Legalizing Marijuana

By: Gil Kerlikowske

When the President took office, he directed all of his policymakers to develop policies based on science and research, not ideology or politics. So our concern about marijuana is based on what the science tells us about the drug’s effects..................

Oh, good. Then we’ll look forward to implementation the 1972 Shafer Commission Report or any of the other government and scientific studies that recommend the decriminalization of cannabis.

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According to scientists at the National Institutes of Health- the world’s largest source of drug abuse research – marijuana use is associated with addiction, respiratory disease, and cognitive impairment...............................

“Addiction” links to a NIDA page noting the lifetime dependence rate of cannabis to be 9% – that is, 9 in 100 people who try cannabis will develop a dependence. Kerlikowske does not mention that caffeine has the same 9% rate, alcohol is a 15% rate, and tobacco is a 32% rate. NIDA scientists also rated the addictive qualities of those substances and rated cannabis about equal to caffeine in risk. The withdrawal from this rare dependence is characterized by the Institute of Medicine as “mild and short lived” and “includes restlessness, irritability, mild agitation, insomnia, sleep disturbance, nausea, and cramping.” (Speaking of withdrawal, Mr. Drug Czar, you do know withdrawal from alcohol can kill a person and it’s legal, right?)
“Respiratory disease” links to a 2008 Science Daily article on a study entitled “Bullous Lung Disease due to Marijuana” which looked at the cases of ten people who came in already complaining of lung problems, who admitted they smoked pot over a year. The subject was featured in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine as it found “insufficient evidence for a causative link“. Matthew Naughton, author of the 2008 study, co-authored a 2011 study which noted “unfortunately, it is difficult to separate marijuana use from tobacco smoking which does confound these reports“. (Speaking of tobacco, Mr. Drug Czar, you do know tobacco is much worse for the lungs and it’s legal, right?)

“Cognitive impairment” links to a 1996 NIDA fact sheet on studies of cognitive impairment involving card sorting. Since then…

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We know from an array of treatment admission information and Federal data that marijuana use is a significant source for voluntary drug treatment admissions and visits to emergency rooms.............................

“Voluntary drug treatment admissions” links to 2007 TEDS data tables showing that 37% of the people admitted to treatment for marijuana hadn’t used it in the past thirty days. These tables are based on admissions data that show 57% of marijuana treatment admissions were coerced by law enforcement (drug courts) and only 15% of such admissions are actually “voluntary drug treatment admissions”. (This is much easier to debunk when the Drug Czar links to the government tables that make our point. Thanks, Gil!)

Read the petition / full response & article: http://blog.norml.org/2011/10/29/white-house-response-to-normls-we-the-people-marijuana-legalization-petition/By: Gil Kerlikowske When the President took office, he directed all of his... more