Man Busted With Marijuana Says It Is for Religious Purposes Richard L. Chavez, aka "Rasta Ritchi," smokes marijuana as a religious sacrament, and he smokes a lot of it. So when Bernalillo County sheriff's deputies arrived at his home at 4 a.m. two months ago, they discovered upwards of 75 plants - some of which stood more than 12 feet tall in Chavez's South Valley front yard - and more than 8 ounces of pot. They arrested him, and now he's facing felony charges of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, despite what Chavez claims is his religious right to smoke marijuana as a practice of his faith. [continues 403 words]
Just before dusk, 18 strangers enter a yurt on a Midwestern homestead. Peruvian tapestries decorate the walls of the large, round structure, and rattles stand poised for a ceremony. The participants - professional men and women, ages 35 to 65 - put on comfortable clothing and set up sleeping bags, pillows and blankets. Everyone gets a plastic bucket, cheerfully colored in green, red or blue. "It looks like a big pajama party," jokes the host, Kim. The shaman, a North American who trained in South America for more than a dozen years, takes a seat at the front and leads the group through a conversation about what to expect. [continues 3778 words]
Finding out that contemporary Nashville musicians are including cannabis in their songwriting got me to thinking about how cannabis made its way into popular songs and culture. THC, the active ingredient in cannabis that stimulates the frontal lobe of the brain, which has to do with creativity, among other things, has been a favorite drug among musicians at least dating back to the days when recording began and, I suspect, a lot earlier than that. My first exposure to a drug reference in a song came in 1963 via a relatively innocuous song about growing up. "Puff the Magic Dragon" was written by Peter Yarrow and Leonard Lipton and performed by Peter, Paul & Mary on the 1963 album Moving. I was 16, already a huge PP&M fan, and I identified with the story of Jackie Paper moving away from childhood - "Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys" - and I would have been blissfully unaware of its so-called cannabis references had I not read about them in national publications. [continues 748 words]
Disperate Agendas but the Same End-Goal I recently spoke with Brandy Zink, chair of the Michigan Chapter of Americans for Safe Access, about the movement to legalize marijuana, when she said, "When marijuana is legal, we're still going to need medical marijuana." That got me to thinking. There are a lot of fronts when it comes to cannabis activism - each of them viable in their own way, yet inseparably intertwined with each other. The most visible fronts are the medical marijuana movement, the push to legalize recreational use of marijuana, the industrial hemp initiative, and efforts to end the drug war and legalize them all. [continues 947 words]
(AP) - California's Napa and Sonoma valleys have their fancy wine tours, and travelers flock to Scotland to sample the fine single-malt whiskeys. But in Jamaica, farmers are offering a different kind of trip for a different type of connoisseur. Call them "ganja" tours: smoky, mystical - and technically illegal - journeys to some of the Caribbean island's hidden cannabis plantations, where pot tourists can sample such strains as "purple kush" and "pineapple skunk." The tours pass through places like Nine Mile, the tiny hometown of legendary reggae musician and famous pot-lover Bob Marley. Here, in Jamaica's verdant central mountains, dreadlocked men escort curious visitors to a farm where deep-green marijuana plants grow out of the reddish soil. Similar tours are offered just outside the western resort town of Negril, where a marijuana mystique has drawn weed-smoking vacationers for decades. [continues 743 words]
Ecclesiastes says there is nothing new under the sun, and while the Bible did not anticipate fluorescent grow lights, its broader point may be well taken as an unidentified company scouts the Hartford area for a facility for growing marijuana indoors in accordance with Connecticut's new law authorizing medical use of the plant. It's not clear why anyone would invest in such an enterprise while federal law on marijuana still conflicts with state law and federal agents could smash up any "medical marijuana" operation. [continues 572 words]
Possession for Medicinal Use Led to Expulsion From Reservation TULALIP - Dennis Boon was a healthy child, he says, until he was hit in the head with a 7-iron. He was 14 years old when he and some other boys were hitting Wiffle golf balls in eighth-grade PE class. Boon's ball rolled away, in front of another boy. Boon saw the boy talking to someone else, so he thought it was safe to reach down and get his ball. [continues 2001 words]
Sixty-four-year old Roger Christie, a resident of Hawaii's Big Island, although most recently of Cell 104 at the Honolulu Federal Detention Center, is a Religious Science practitioner, a minister of the Universal Life Church, ordained in the Church of the Universe (in Canada), an official of the Oklevueha Native American Church of Hilo, Hawaii, and the founder of the Hawai'i Cannabis THC Ministry. As you might guess, it was the last of those spiritual vocations that landed him in prison. [continues 937 words]
Some say the good book approves of kind bud. Apparently God, who - from a believer's standpoint - is the creator of all things, including marijuana, doesn't care if you use it. At least that's the opinion of the Rev. John Jackson of Trinity United Church of Christ in Gary, Ind., and probably quite a few of his peers. Jackson attended a recent conference called "View from the Pulpit: Faith Leaders and Drug Decriminalization" at the American Baptist College in Nashville, Tenn. The group of black pastors focused on the injustice of drug law enforcement because African-Americans make up only 13 percent of drug users, but make up 59 percent of those convicted for drug offenses. [continues 870 words]
Ayahuasca Research Shows Unparalleled Addictions Support Ayahuasca might just sound like an exotic plant with a tricky name, but one group of researchers and one performer is discovering that the South American substance could have more miraculous properties than science may have realized - namely, as a medicine that can actually coax people out of their addictions. A new report published this past month by the Journal of Current Drug Abuse Reviews exposes the details of a study on ayahuasca-assisted treatment in a rural First Nations community in B.C. The preliminary observational study, which was completed by researchers affiliated with UVic's Centre for Addictions Research of British Columbia, looked at the work of world-renowned addictions specialist Dr. Gabor Mate and his use of ayahuasca to treat "problematic substance use and stress" in the rural community. [continues 792 words]
What: T.J. Dawe's Medicine When: Friday and Saturday, 7 p.m. (also tonight at the Nanaimo Art Gallery, 150 Commercial St.) Where: Metro Studio, 1411 Quadra St. Tickets: $20 advance ($25 door) www.eventbrite.ca For Vancouver actor/writer T.J. Dawe, it's been one long, strange trip indeed. The University of Victoria theatre grad brings his latest one-man show, Medicine, to the Metro Studio this weekend. The autobiographical piece details his experiences with a psychedelic concoction known as ayahuasca. [continues 615 words]
A Hearing on His Defense Will Delay the Case for Three Months Yet another delay in the prosecution of Roger Christie will keep the Hawaii cannabis advocate jailed without bail for well over three years before a jury trial is held in the case. A federal marijuana trial for Christie, who has been held without bail since July 2010, has been postponed from next month to October. The delay was triggered by a request from Christie's lawyer for more time to respond to a prosecution move to keep the religious freedom defense from being used in the trial. [continues 589 words]
DENVER - A frequent marijuana user who says Colorado's pending pot DUI bill sets the legal limit too low is suing to block the bill, arguing it violates his constitutional rights. Brandon Baker, who said he uses marijuana for religious reasons, filed his lawsuit Tuesday in federal court in Denver. The bill awaits the signature of Gov. John Hickenlooper, who supports the stoned-driving measure and is expected to sign it next week. After the marijuana bill passed, Hickenlooper issued a statement lauding the driving standard as "a much-needed new tool to keep our highways safe from impaired drivers." [continues 224 words]
Month living with homeless in Vancouver gives Toronto's Jay Barton a new perspective on street life On a cold evening in early spring, Jay Barton carried several sheets of cardboard under his right arm. He wasn't going to turn them into moving boxes. He was going to use them to make his bed for the night. Barton was sleeping outside on a loading dock in east Vancouver. He was sharing the space with Heath Noble, a buddy he'd made while living on the street. [continues 2267 words]
TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA or not was a talking point earlier this week among NATION online readers when police seized a large quantity of drugs at the beach in Fitts Village, St James. The topic is now being ventilated even more after High Court judge Randall Worrell, speaking at Wednesday's National Consultation on the Anti-Drug Plan, recommended the legalizing of certain drugs for personal use. Some shared their views on this "smoking hot" topic: Glenn Damon Clarke: "Cannabis oil is currently being used to cure cancer. Why can't Barbados legalize marijuana, employ farmers to grow it and make this cannabis oil, do our own research on this cure, and invite people from all over the world to come here for a full course of treatment? [continues 358 words]
The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs is meeting in Vienna this week to recommend measures to combat the world drug problem. But in Vancouver, the war against illegal drugs appears to have been won already by those who favour "harm reduction," with its publicly funded crackpipe kits, safe-injection rooms and "free" heroin and methadone fixes. This does little more than apply a Band-Aid - as opposed to abstinence-based treatment, which actually gets people off drugs but is frowned upon by the politically correct powers-that-be. [continues 446 words]
The drug salvia is readily available in stores and online. It can cause severe hallucinations and lack of body control. But it's still legal in Canada. For six years, Const. Sara Foote worked as a high school liaison officer in Durham region giving speeches about drug awareness to students. But when it came to Salvia divinorum, she was the one needing an education. What she learned was that a lot of students had tried salvia. But far more worrisome was the fact that the drug was legal and easily accessible. It still is. [continues 837 words]
A lawsuit filed against Shasta County earlier this year in Superior Court by a medical marijuana collective in Burney shuttered by the county's pot shop ban has moved to federal court. And the Irvine-based attorney representing the county Board of Supervisors and others named as defendants in the lawsuit has already filed a motion seeking to have it dismissed. That motion, which claims the lawsuit fails to state any claims for relief against the defendants, is scheduled to be considered April 17 in U.S. District Court in Sacramento. [continues 370 words]
As some Shasta County officials are poised to move forward today with banning outdoor pot grows to curb crime and complaints from neighbors, some attorneys doubt their solution would stand up to legal scrutiny in the unstable world of medical cannabis law. The Board of Supervisors today will discuss whether to look into scratching outdoor medical marijuana grows from the county's pot ordinance, as well as making violations of the ordinance a $1,000 misdemeanor fine instead of a $100 infraction. [continues 987 words]
Chewing On The Plant That Helps Flavor Coke Is Banned In South America Last week, the United Nations voted on an appeal by Bolivia to amend the international treaty that prohibits the chewing of coca leaf. Bolivia won a partial victory - a tiny sign that the world may be ever so slowly coming to its senses on the insanely harsh treatment of this humble, mostly harmless plant and the people, mostly South American natives, who enjoy it in its raw form. [continues 700 words]
