Orchard Park Woman Believes Drug Could Help Treat Daughter's Severe Seizures Wendy Conte thinks she has found something that could enable her daughter, Anna, to live without a tube constantly feeding drugs into her belly in hopes of staving off the severe seizures that have plagued her nearly the entire 81/2 years of her life. The solution that the Orchard Park mom points to is medical marijuana. Conte is among a growing number of people advocating for the State Legislature and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to legalize its use in New York. [continues 1040 words]
SEATTLE - The female marijuana plant, sold for its sticky psychoactive chemicals, is where the value lies in the marijuana industry. But the industry has long been dominated by men and can be crassly sexist, particularly in underground pot commerce. Women are relegated to supporting roles and sometimes blatantly viewed as sex objects, according to a study published this year. One Craigslist ad for pot trimmers posted by a grower in California sought a "good looking girl" willing to have sex. Legalization in Washington state, though, could give women recourse for sexual harassment and withheld wages, and make the industry safer for women in general, said Lydia Ensley, a Seattle dispensary operations manager. [continues 706 words]
I'm already sick of seeing and hearing from the three Lockport women who injected themselves with a flesh-eating drug. Amber Neitzel, 26, and her sister, Angela, 29, are admitted heroin addicts. Their mother, 48-year-old Kim Neitzel, also is addicted to the illegal drug. The women have become the face of Krokodil, a disfiguring man-made drug that leaves users with dead and rotting skin. Police officials are trying to identify the source of the drug, which costs about $8. [continues 686 words]
LITTLE AXE - Few Oklahomans could rival Norma Sapp's efforts to legalize marijuana. She drove a motor home across the United States, serving as the support vehicle for a friend who was riding his one-eyed paint horse, Misty, across the country to raise awareness of a message: "Cops say legalize marijuana, ask me why." She has walked the marble hallways of the state Capitol more times than she can remember to advocate for changes in Oklahoma's marijuana laws. And she ran for a state House office in the 1990s - and quickly learned she didn't want it. [continues 1004 words]
Facing the threat of a bitter court battle, a Colorado Springs mother on Monday resumed treating her 3-year-old son's cancer the traditional way: using chemotherapy. Had she been left to choose, Sierra Riddle would have swapped those chemo-filled pills for a unique strain of medicinal marijuana grown near Divide. "I'm not going to gamble with his life," Riddle said. "But at the same time, I don't think we should poison his body if he doesn't need it." [continues 506 words]
SEATTLE - The female marijuana plant, sold for its sticky psychoactive chemicals, is where the value lies in the marijuana industry. But the industry has long been dominated by men and can be crassly sexist, particularly in underground pot commerce. Women are relegated to supporting roles and sometimes blatantly viewed as sex objects, according to a study published this year. One Craigslist ad for pot trimmers posted by a grower in California sought a "good looking girl" willing to have sex. Another advertised that he'd pay extra for topless workers. [continues 1439 words]
From Washington State to Washtenaw County, Women Are Spearheading Policy Change. Members of the group Michigan Moms United gathered outside the state Department of Human Services last week, along with other groups protesting the controversial removal of 6-month-old Bree Green by Child Protective Services from her Lansing family. The child's father suffers from seizures and is a medical marijuana patient; her mother is a registered caregiver. An Ingham County Court referee ruled that Bree was in danger because her mother had marijuana in the house and someone with a gun could break in. [continues 923 words]
WEST JORDAN - A Utah mother whose 11-year-old son has severe epilepsy is helping to launch a legislative initiative to legalize a liquid form of medical marijuana in the Beehive state, which may put a new face on the issue. The face will be of children who could potentially be helped by a strain of the drug, not of unkempt potheads who roll their own weed. Jennifer May, of Pleasant Grove, believes a hybrid form of cannabis offers hope to patients, such as her son, who suffer from Dravet syndrome, which can trigger hundreds of seizures a day for its victims and limit the life expectancy to 18 years or fewer. Her family currently spends more than $75,000 a year on medication in an effort to provide some relief and hope for their child in dealing with his epilepsy. [continues 593 words]
Maybe before trying to be a cool dude by admitting toking up, even as an MP, Justin Trudeau should have been paying more attention to what his mother has said. She stated that quitting pot smoking was a great help with her mental issues. The proven fact is that the THC content of today's hydrophonic marijuana is many times more potent than in the past. This makes it more addictive, damaging to one's health. Justin Trudeau should have weighed all the facts before proclaiming himself a pot smoker. Larry Comeau Ottawa [end]
LITTLE ROCK (AP) - The mother of a young man who authorities say fatally shot himself while handcuffed in the backseat of an Arkansas patrol car has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Jonesboro, its police chief and two officers. Lawyers for Chavis Carter's mother, Teresa Rudd, filed the federal lawsuit on Friday - almost a year to the day after Carter's death. Jonesboro police have faced criticism about the circumstances surrounding the July 28, 2012 death of Carter. Officers said they searched him twice without finding a gun, but later noticed him slumped over and bleeding in the back of the patrol car. [continues 210 words]
Editor's Note New Hampshire is the 19th state to allow some form of medical marijuana. The Telegraph's six-day series, Cannabis Care, examines New Hampshire's therapeutic marijuana legislation and how the law will work, including who can get the drug, how much it will cost and what needs to happen before the first batch of marijuana is legally distributed in the state. Inside her small apartment, Darlene Wilson looked over her various Native American artifacts and paintings that hung on the walls. [continues 850 words]
A 21-year-old Sterling Heights man was convicted Tuesday of driving under the influence of marijuana and causing the death of his girlfriend. Timothy Wilds likely faces time behind bars for the December 2010 crash in his hometown that killed Brittany Nowicki, 18, of Macomb Township. The main charge is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. A jury deliberated about 2-1/2 hours Tuesday following a three-day trial in front of Judge Mary Chrzanowski in Macomb County Circuit Court in Mount Clemens. [continues 440 words]
PHOENIX - Medical marijuana patients whose drugs are taken by police are entitled to get it back, the Arizona Supreme Court has ruled. In a brief order, the justices rejected arguments by prosecutors that the drug is strictly regulated by the federal government, leaving police legally powerless to turn marijuana over to anyone else. They gave no reason for their ruling. The order most immediately affects Valerie Okun, whose drugs were taken from her nearly two years ago on Interstate 8 near Yuma. While she was never prosecuted - she has a valid medical marijuana card from California - sheriff's deputies refused to return the drugs. [continues 416 words]
A Detroit police officer is accused of felony involuntary manslaughter and gross negligence in the fatal shooting of 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones. In testimony Wednesday, Sgt. Anthony Potts recalled being outside Aiyana Stanley-Jones's the home watching the upstairs balcony as members of the Special Response Team raided the two-unit dwelling looking for a homicide suspect on May 16, 2010. A flash-bang grenade went off, and later, he heard a "pop" and suspected the entry team had shot a dog inside the home with an MP5 submachine gun, Potts said. [continues 603 words]
Media Blitz Helped Get Arizonan Freed After spending more than a week in a Mexican jail facing drug-smuggling accusations, the woman who had become the center of a social-media and news-media storm returned home to metro Phoenix even as her case turned into a political lightning rod. Early Friday morning, she and her family crossed the border into Arizona. There, by day's end, a congressman had called for an investigation into the case, suggesting someone planted the 12 pounds of pot that was found under the woman's seat on a Mexican bus, and a Mexico governor had apologized for the incident. [continues 1310 words]
A Mormon mother from Goodyear whose detention in a Mexico jail on suspicion of drug smuggling made international headlines, inspired a "Free Yanira" hashtag on Twitter and won the attention of politicians on both sides of the border was freed by a judge late Thursday after spending nine days in jail. Family members said a surveillance video shown during a court hearing Thursday helped prove that Yanira Maldonado was not trying to smuggle bundles of marijuana as had been alleged by Mexican federal authorities last week. [continues 744 words]
Her Lawyer Claims She Was Framed PHOENIX (AP) - An Arizona mother of seven accused of trying to smuggle marijuana into the U.S. had a court hearing Wednesday where her lawyer pushed for her release from a Mexico prison, saying she was set up. In an interview with The Associated Press after the hearing, lawyer Jose Francisco Benitez Paz expressed optimism that he had proven the charges against Yanira Maldonado were baseless and that the 42-year-old could be released by Friday. [continues 398 words]
Today, we're going to play You Be the Judge. You are only competing against The Honourable Martel Popescul, chief justice of Saskatchewan's Court of Queen's Bench, who presided over the trial. The following details are from his written judgment, issued last week: The case begins in the fall of 2010 with a young woman driving alone in her sister's 2002 Acura from Calgary to Winnipeg. Near Swift Current on Highway 1, she is seen by a patrolling RCMP officer to be using a handheld cellphone. She stops promptly when the red and blue lights come on behind her. [continues 592 words]
The Cathy Jordan Medical Cannabis Act will come before Florida legislators in 2013 in honor of a wheelchair-bound Parrish woman who has fought for the past 16 years for the legalization of medical cannabis in Florida. But Cathy Jordan's celebrity in the area of medical cannabis, including her conviction that the herb has helped her battle her Lou Gehrig's disease, does not insulate her from existing marijuana laws. Jordan's husband, Robert, told the Bradenton Herald that his Parrish home in Beck Estates on 98th Avenue in Parrish was raided shortly after 2 p.m. Monday by deputies and detectives with the Manatee County Sheriff's Office drug intervention unit who wore ski masks. [continues 525 words]
[name redacted] was scheduled to have an operation on her hip this week. Instead, the 79-year-old southeast Atlanta woman sits in the Fulton County jail after police say they discovered more than 9 pounds of marijuana in her home last week. "I can't believe that she's over 60," neighbor Jennifer Brown told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday. "Let alone that she (might be) doing that kind of stuff. This is too much." The arrest warrant states that [name redacted] was spotted Thursday evening selling more than 8 ounces of pot - a felony - in Buckhead. [end]
