Regarding "Oklahoma, Nebraska AGs liken Colorado to 'drug cartel' over pot" (News, Jan. 7): As a Colorado resident who helped end cannabis prohibition, I strongly disagree with Oklahoma and Nebraska's claim likening Colorado to a "drug cartel." Oklahoma and Nebraska's desire to continue caging responsible adults who choose to use the relatively safe, extremely popular God-given plant is dependent on Colorado perpetuating the historically discredited "Reefer Madness" scam, dependent on punishing Colorado for not punishing its citizens for using a beneficial plant with a tantrum. In reality, citizens including Oklahoma's and Nebraska's own citizens liken cannabis prohibitionists as being anti-Christian, vulgar and just plain wrong. In the end, cannabis prohibition and discrimination will be history. Stan White, Dillon, Colo. [end]
Ryan Norris spent years trying to find help for his mental illness and addiction before dying of suspected fentanyl overdose Ryan Norris, described as a kind-hearted person and once promising athlete, spent his last days trying to get help for his addiction. His spirits lifted, his mother Christine says, when he heard a space had become available at the Sage Health Centre in Kamloops, one of several treatment centres where he was wait-listed. His bags were packed when, about a week before he died, he received a call that the space was no longer available. He became despondent, and left the house in what his mother believes was a search for heroin to ease his pain. [continues 992 words]
Silicon Valley Financiers Investing in Marijuana Apps, Services Venture Capitalists Get Behind Efforts to Legalize Recreational Pot Use Cannabis Startups Attracting Top Talent From Technology, Finance Sectors Henderson, Nev. - Isaac Dietrich was smoking marijuana at his best friend's college apartment a few years ago when an entrepreneurial vision burst forth as heady as the most potent strains of Head Cheese or Ghost Train Haze. "We had an epiphany," he said. "Grandma doesn't want to see me taking bong rips on Facebook. So we decided we needed a place where people could post about it." [continues 2383 words]
Whether or not re-legalizing cannabis will help Illinois' economy - which it most certainly will - is the wrong reason to end cannabis prohibition ("Make Cannabis Legal To Revitalize Illinois Economy, Dec. 29, 2015"). End cannabis/marijuana prohibition because it's the right thing to do. Caging responsible adults who choose to use the relatively safe, extremely popular God-given plant is anti-Christian, vulgar and one of North America's worst policy failures in history. Stan White, Dillon, Colorado [end]
SACRAMENTO (AP) - The governor of California pardoned Robert Downey Jr. on Thursday for a nearly 20-year-old felony drug conviction that led to the Oscar-nominated actor's imprisonment for roughly a year. Downey was among 91 people granted pardons for criminal convictions after demonstrating they had rehabilitated themselves and been out of custody for at least 10 years, Gov. Jerry Brown's office announced. The pardon does not erase records of a conviction but is a public proclamation that the person has remained out of trouble and demonstrated exemplary behavior, according to material on Brown's website. [continues 225 words]
Man Says in Lawsuit They Were Unlawfully Seized AZTEC - A local man is demanding the San Juan County Sheriff's Office reimburse him for dozens of marijuana plants seized from his property in a raid in May 2014. Gilbert Oldfield claims in a lawsuit filed in District Court on Dec. 1 that a sheriff's deputy unlawfully seized 43 marijuana plants last year from his residence on County Road 3950. The deputy, Nima Babadi, seized the marijuana plants, despite knowing Oldfield possessed a New Mexico marijuana grower's license, according to the complaint. [continues 409 words]
Legalisation of Dagga Claimed to Be the Economic Boost South Africa Sorely Needs THE flagging economy would get a multibillion-rand boost if dagga use were legalised, say proponents of such a move. The activists believe that taxing dagga would strengthen the economy and attract more tourists. But what they call "unnecessary legal red tape" is denying the country these benefits. Eighteen activists applied to the Cape Town High Court yesterday to have dagga use legalised. Montagu pig farmer Jeremy Acton, leader of the Dagga Party, is among the applicants. He wants sections of the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act, and of the Medicines and Related Substances Act, declared unconstitutional. [continues 740 words]
Last week Donald Trump once again lied. This time he said he saw thousands of Muslims in Jersey City celebrating 9/11 - which is a flatout lie that many others are now repeating. Can you say revisionist Christian history? I remember soon after 9/11, watching the events from my Riverfront State Prison cell's cable TV and seeing Palestinians in Gaza and Egyptians cheering Osama bin Laden's revenge attacks. Nothing like that happened in the USA or it would've been on TV, on someone's camera, and in the press. Local police would've responded to this, and it could've been on the front pages of national newspapers.I'm a newsjunkie; allI do is read, listen to, and watch news. A couple newspapers at the time actually printed that Israelis were arrested in New Jersey celebrating, but I'm sure Trump doesn't remember this. It doesn't fit the reality he wants to believe: http:// tinyurl.com/whathappenedisraelis [continues 179 words]
Denver's marijuana regulators are asking the City Council to expand rules that would bar any new players from entering the state's largest market. For two years, a city moratorium aimed at controlling industry growth has allowed only existing medical marijuana businesses to open recreational dispensaries, grow houses or edible manufacturers. That's set to expire Jan. 1, a prospect that has had eager entrepreneurs and investors lining up. But new proposals submitted Tuesday by Denver's marijuana policy office would extend the moratorium two more years. And a newly proposed moratorium would bar any new applications for medical marijuana business licenses during the same period. [continues 577 words]
There can be no doubt that the daft war on drugs is devastating many of the world's poorest countries, from Africa to Latin America. But this has been ignored by major charities that claim to campaign for international development, presumably for fear of upsetting their donors. Now one has broken ranks, with the release of an important report from Christian Aid condemning what it calls "a blind spot in development thinking". Christian Aid deserves credit for taking a stand, one which has caused internal palpitations. The report itself highlights the hypocrisy of successive British governments that have poured money into aid yet supported the prohibition ripping apart poor communities. One day they will see that sanctimonious talk of saving the world is not a solution to complex problems. [continues 474 words]
What a long, strange trip it's become, even though it's just been a little more than a month. Boulder City Council decided to take a look at its cannabis regulations, and the first of three readings took place Sept. 30. For the most part, municipalities and counties in Colorado that allow cannabis sales adopted the state regulations written after the passage of Amendment 64. For whatever reasons, the City of Boulder came up with its own complex set of rules, which often differ from the state's. Confusion over the differences was at least one reason to prompt the reconsideration. [continues 738 words]
Regarding Heather Mac Donald's "Obama's Tragic Let 'em Out Fantasy" (op-ed, Oct. 24): Respectfully, Ms. Mac Donald would do well to spend time in a real federal courtroom to observe the ridiculously low amount of drugs that needs to be trafficked for an offender to earn a long prison sentence. Our office, located in a state with the nation's highest rate of drug-overdose deaths, routinely represents drug addicts charged with distributing as few as two or three prescription pain pills to other addicts who happen to be cooperating with local law enforcement agencies. Such defendants are hardly the serious drug traffickers Ms. Mac Donald suggests fill federal prisons. [continues 195 words]
At the after-party for the National Cannabis Summit - an annual conference thick with entrepreneurs and business people, held in the bowels of the Sheraton in downtown Denver - eight of us attendees boogied alongside one of the more engaging speakers, the medical researcher Dr. Suzanne Sisley, who wore throughout the party a towering, purple velvet Mad Hatter's hat. Remembering that in her speech she had said, "I've never tried marijuana in any form," I wanted to whisper in her ear, "But your millinery tells a different story." [continues 1618 words]
Legalization Bill Will Become Law Unless Mccrory Vetoes Spring Hope Has One of the Only Hemp Processing Plants in the Country Supporters Battle Stigma: 'We're For Rope, Not Dope' Farmers in North Carolina are likely to wake up Saturday morning with a new option for growing crops: Industrial hemp production is expected to become legal at the stroke of midnight. Lawmakers passed the legalization legislation in September, in the final days of the session. The proposal hadn't previously been made public, and some conservative groups worry that questions about the plant's connections to its cousin, marijuana, didn't get answered. [continues 1072 words]
SANTA ANA - An embattled medical marijuana dispensary where Santa Ana police were filmed during a May raid purportedly eating pot edibles was searched by officers again Monday and ordered to close. Santa Ana police carried out a search warrant at Sky High Collective on West 17th Street, Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said. "They continue to operate illegally," Bertagna said. "They don't have a permit." Marla James, a volunteer at Sky High, provided the Register with a copy of the search warrant, which indicated that police had confiscated about 22 pounds of marijuana edibles, computers, electronic tablets and digital video recorders from the dispensary. [continues 322 words]
Making Substances Illegal 'Cedes Control to the Drug Dealers' SOUTH Africans growing dagga in their gardens would help destroy the illegal market and the cartels that control it. This is what Durban chef Christian Baker told the High Court in Pietermaritzburg this week in a bid to have his prosecution on a drug-related charge stayed. He intends challenging the constitutionality of provisions in the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act. The court granted a postponement of the trial and ordered Baker to institute his case within 60 days or have the criminal charge reinstated. [continues 293 words]
Voting for one of the three left parties means voting for a government that disregards every one of God's 10 commandments. One might say, but they don't allow murder or stealing. Yes they do! They allow murdering the most helpless human beings, the ones that should be the most secure, still living inside of their mother. But what about stealing? Well, they allow taking the lives of these little people that might have lived a happy long life. Also, all three left parties are in support of assisted suicide. I am not going into more things that the left thinks is normal, like totally unnatural stuff. [continues 128 words]
Abortion, Refugees and Marijuana Legalization Among the Topics in Norwich Oxford's federal election candidates were faced with questions about abortion, marijuana, Syrian refugees and federal debt when they gathered in Norwich for their sixth all-candidates meeting Monday night. Students in the public speaking class at Rehoboth Christian School asked the five candidates prepared questions before opening the microphone to the audience at the event, hosted by the Norwich Township Chamber of Commerce. Conservative incumbent Dave MacKenzie, NDP candidate Zoe Kunschner, Liberal candidate Don McKay, Green Party candidate Mike Farlow and Christian Heritage Party' candidate Melody Aldred were each asked to explain their party's platform on abortion and their feeling about being required to toe the party line, as is the case for Liberal MPs. A later question from the floor raised the topic again. [continues 889 words]
I hear the Pentagon ordered Gov. Christie to tell his National Guard commander to lose weight. At first I thought it was an Internet hoax, then I had to take a couple bong rips to stop laughing so hard. Ummm, can you say "Pot, meet the kettle." The late-night TV hosts have had a ball with this one. I can only take that as a funny scenario. Is it political or intentional? As far as timing goes it was perfect - right in the middle of his presidential campaign. I'm with the "just say no to Christie" pot-smoking crowd. [continues 805 words]
Last week Larry Wilmore did a skit on The Nightly Show that showed how Fox News can take a falsehood (in the sketch, it's a poll that shows 58 percent of Americans believe that cop killings are on the rise, when statistics actually show they are falling), give it a title (the "war on police"), repeat the meme over and over, have a couple of talking heads connect it to something else (the Black Lives Matter movement), and finally show Ted Cruz and Scott Walker blaming the rise in violence against cops on President Barack Obama. [continues 672 words]
