Three months into the start of California's recreational marijuana market, industry leaders are voicing concerns that sales are not meeting projections, and that high taxes, complicated regulations and a thriving black market are having deleterious effects. The leaders pressed government officials to make changes during Tuesday's gathering of an estimated 600 people at the California Cannabis Industry Association conference at the Sheraton Grand in Sacramento. "This is an industry in crisis," said Kristi Knoblich, president of the association's board and co-founder of Kiva Confections, a manufacturer of edible cannabis products. "This is me sounding the alarm." [continues 599 words]
"My uncle is prescribed marijuana." "My parents use it, and they're doing fine." As a drug prevention specialist who does in-school presentations in the U.S., as well as internationally, Zach Levin has seen the problem firsthand: Teens know that recreational use is legal in states such as Colorado and that medical use is on the rise, and they're using that information to support the old argument that a little weed never hurt anyone. And starting today, Illinois teens have one more argument: In a symbolic win for legalization forces that did not change local laws, Cook County residents voted in favor of legalizing recreational marijuana use by a wide margin Tuesday, with 68 percent in favor and 32 percent against. [continues 790 words]
When Mack Hudson of Lexington was 16 years old, he was paralyzed when he fractured his skull, broke his neck and shattered a key vertebrae in a car wreck. Over the past 10 years, he's been prescribed increasing doses of opioids -- Percocet and Roxycodone to alleviate the pain. "It messes with my head," he said. "I can't think straight. I can't function straight. I'm just not myself." So Hudson traveled to California and Colorado to experiment with marijuana. [continues 905 words]
Nelson Police executed a search warrant on a downtown medical marijuana dispensary and arrested five employees. Five employees at MMJ marijuana dispensary, 752 Vernon Street, were taken into custody Tuesday morning, March 20, without incident. Charges against the employees are pending, said a release from NPD Chief Constable Paul Burkart, adding that all five were released from custody Tuesday afternoon. Until charges are formally laid, Burkart said the NPD will be making no further comment as the investigation is ongoing. A further update can be expected in the next week. [continues 267 words]
OAKLAND, Calif. - When officers burst into Rickey McCullough's two-story home in Oakland a decade ago they noted a "strong fresh odor of marijuana." Mr. McCullough had been growing large amounts of marijuana illegally, the police said. He was arrested and spent a month in jail. A few weeks ago the city of Oakland, now promoting itself as a hub for marijuana entrepreneurs, awarded Mr. McCullough, 33, a license to sell marijuana and the prospect of interest-free loans. Four hundred miles to the south, in the Los Angeles suburb of Compton, Virgil Grant, 50, straddles the same two worlds, but with a different outcome. He was a marijuana dealer in the 1990s whose customers are said to have included rap stars like Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Tupac, and he spent more than eight years in prison on marijuana convictions. But his vision of starting a marijuana dispensary in his hometown was dashed in January when the residents of Compton voted decisively to ban marijuana businesses from city limits. [continues 1415 words]
Doctors would decide which patients should use marijuana as medicine instead of being limited by a narrow list of eligible diseases set by law, under a sweeping medical marijuana overhaul approved by a state Assembly panel Thursday. The measure that cleared the Assembly Health Committee would also allow registered patients to buy up to four ounces of cannabis, or twice as much as they are permitted to obtain now. The dispensaries and cultivators would be divided evenly in the northern, central and southern regions of the state, including the six who are already licensed to grow and sell. [continues 454 words]
Joe Redner, Tampa's outspoken strip club owner and lung cancer patient, is confident he'll be able to legally grow his own marijuana plants soon, after stating his case in trial before a state circuit court judge on Wednesday. Redner, 77, made his case against the Florida Department of Health in a Tallahassee courtroom Wednesday on why he has a constitutional right to grow his own marijuana plants. Leon County Circuit Judge Karen Gievers is expected to rule on the case next week. [continues 613 words]
Is a marijuana dispensary an "unlawful" business? A federal judge in Philadelphia will decide. This arcane dispute over language in the deed of a marijuana dispensary in Northeast Philadelphia could carry outsized implications: A ruling by U.S. District Judge Gene Pratter could affirm the superiority of federal law, which considers marijuana illegal, over state law, where in Pennsylvania and 29 other states, it is not. Pratter's decision came Thursday in a strongly-worded memo that described the case as "a fundamental clash between state and federal law." [continues 739 words]
Marijuana companies will be banned from a majority of cities and towns in Massachusetts when recreational sales begin this summer, a Globe review has found, the latest indication that there will be fewer pot stores in the early going than many consumers expected. At least 189 of the state's 351 municipalities have barred retail marijuana stores and, in most cases, cultivation facilities and other cannabis operations, too, according to local news reports, municipal records, and data collected by the office of Attorney General Maura Healey. [continues 1220 words]
The Town of Oliver is setting aside a hearing to "hash out" some details in local bylaws prior to the legalization of the sale of recreational marijuana. Council on Monday "decimated," as Coun. Larry Schwartzenberger put it, a staff recommendation to restrict cannabis sales via zoning bylaws in Oliver, as well as a $15,000 ask to hire a consultant to determine the wishes of the community. "We will be able to approve or disapprove an application. If something is in the commercial zone that's too close to a park or school, we will just not approve it," Schwartzenberger said. [continues 259 words]
Sex-ed, pot and Brown There's no dust on Doug Ford. Just a day after being elected head of Ontario's PC party, Ford has announced he'll repeal the Liberal's sexed curriculum, hand marijuana sales back to the people and make a decision on permitting Patrick Brown to run as the PC candidate in the riding of Simcoe North. While political pundits are licking their pencils in anticipation of analyzing Ford's every move, the newly elected leader is already out there working the crowd and winning over voters. [continues 416 words]
The legalization of pot may be looming but that doesn't mean police are backing off their crackdown on the "grey" marijuana market. Most recently, RCMP in Colchester County raided the Community Compassion Centre in Bible Hill. They seized cash, marijuana, marijuana derivatives and drug paraphernalia, and charged Ricky Joseph Leclerc, 51, of Upper Kennetcook. He's scheduled to appear in Nova Scotia provincial court Friday. "The RCMP will continue to work within the existing legislation under the Controlled Drug and Substances Act," RCMP spokesman Cpl. Dal Hutchinson said Monday in an email. "If we determine that there is a violation of the legislation, we will take appropriate action." [continues 322 words]
A provincial government commitment to provide $ 40 million to help municipalities cover the costs of pot legalization is a starting point, says Mayor Chris Friel. But Friel remains critical of the Ontario government's approach to the legalization of marijuana saying the increased law enforcement and safety costs are just one part of the overall picture. "I'd say that it's a starting point because right now no one really knows what the extra costs will be," Friel said. "But again I ask: where is the public consultation? [continues 472 words]
News release that called for study to make personal use legal called 'a surprise' Things started off on a pretty collegial tone Tuesday morning in Vancouver city council. Much of the morning session was concerned with development plans for an 8.4-hectare site in south Vancouver. Councillors echoed their support for the project, and one commented on proceedings going "so smoothly." The mayor agreed, saying it was nice to conduct the meeting "without the kind of friction that can sometimes occur." [continues 768 words]
This summer, millennials, their anxious parents and users from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside to Bay Street will get what they long believed was their right - the opportunity to toke up legally. That will be a seminal societal event (pun intended). However, what is attracting less attention than it should are breakthrough discoveries about how non-psychoactive cannabis extracts can alleviate suffering and treat diseases that afflict hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Legalization of a substance for recreational purposes and medical studies should be unrelated issues. But since they are based on the same plant, legal prohibitions and social stigma have held back research, thereby prolonging the suffering of patients and costing lives. [continues 534 words]
WEST BRIDGEWATER - The class had covered bullying, Internet safety, and good decision-making, and by February, Officer Kenneth Thaxter could see that the sixth-graders were ready. The lights went off, and the projector went on. "Today," the DARE officer said, "we're going to talk about marijuana." For 16 years, every elementary school student in this small town has learned about drugs from Thaxter. But this year, his lesson needed to change, and he was about to find out whether the students knew why. [continues 1558 words]
Near the historic native village of Kitwancool in northern B.C., the hereditary chief of the Gitanyow frog clan has his eye on an old logging site that could be the perfect place to grow a new cash crop. "It's already serviced with a power supply," said Will Marsden. "We see an opportunity for our people to be employed in sustainable jobs in our traditional territories." Those jobs would be in the legal marijuana trade, coming soon to British Columbia and the rest of Canada. [continues 740 words]
A popular marijuana website has told the state's cannabis czar that she lacks the authority to make the company stop running advertisements for unlicensed pot retailers. In a letter sent Monday to Lori Ajax of the Bureau of Cannabis Control, Doug Francis and Chris Beals of Weedmaps.com said the company is not licensed by the bureau and therefore not subject to its enforcement. They also said Weedmaps is protected from such action because the company is an "interactive computer service" covered under the federal Communications Decency Act. The law states that such a service shall not be treated as the publisher of information provided by a third party. [continues 405 words]
Unlicensed marijuana delivery companies are operating across Sacramento County, drawing the ire of legal pot retailers and warnings from state and local regulators. Regulators cite concerns about the delivery companies not paying fees and taxes and selling weed that hasn't been tested for pesticides or other possible toxins. They say the companies are threatening the financial viability of legal retailers who must pay those costs in a new legal marijuana market that started in California on Jan. 1. In Sacramento County, about 200 marijuana delivery services were advertising Friday on the website Weedmaps.com. Only one jurisdiction in the county, the city of Sacramento, has plans to allow cannabis delivery services, and it has yet to issue permits. In the interim, city pot czar Joe Devlin has told delivery companies to register with city, and eight have done so. [continues 835 words]
A former Pennsylvania narcotics agent will plead guilty to conspiring to launder money from a seizure of nearly $1.8 million in illicit drug proceeds in 2014, federal court records show. By pleading guilty Timothy B. Riley, a retired state attorney general's office agent, could be sent to prison for up to 20 years and fined up to $500,000, according to a plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg. Federal authorities charged Riley, 48, of Philadelphia, on Feb. 23 with accepting three cash payments totaling $48,000, which he knew was stolen from a drug dealer. Riley then deposited the money and used it in financial transactions, according to David Freed, U.S. attorney of Pennsylvania's Middle District. [continues 397 words]
