Finding a place to house a medical marijuana dispensary is rarely an easy task, but MariMed Advisors, which specializes in developing cannabis businesses, encountered especially aggressive pushback working for a client in Annapolis, Md., last year. The company reviewed several hundred potential locations for the client's proposed dispensary before finally finding one that met nearly every one of the strict requirements demanded by officials of Anne Arundel County. It had the proper zoning classification and the necessary road access. It was not within 1,000 feet of a school. And, as an added plus, the storefront was discreet, located below ground level and behind another building. [continues 1146 words]
TALLAHASSEE -- Chiding a judge who sided with sick patients and saying plaintiffs likely won't win on the merits of the case, an appellate court on Tuesday refused to allow smokable medical marijuana while a legal fight continues to play out. The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal came in a lawsuit initiated by Orlando trial attorney John Morgan and others who maintain that a Florida law barring patients from smoking their treatment runs afoul of a 2016 constitutional amendment that broadly legalized medical marijuana. [continues 470 words]
JEFFERSONVILLE, GA. - When Georgia authorities found out that smoking marijuana was ridding 15-year-old David Ray of seizures that had plagued him through childhood, the consequences were swift and severe. His mother and stepfather - Suzeanna and Matthew Brill - were arrested and jailed for six days. David, no longer able to medicate with pot, was hospitalized for a week after suffering what his mother called "the worst seizure of his life." He was then discharged to strangers and sent to a Division of Family and Children Services group home after his parents were stripped of custody - another example of "how the war on drugs breaks up families," said Lauren Deal, Suzeanna Brill's attorney. [continues 106 words]
LINDSAY, Okla - Danny Daniels, an evangelical Christian in the rural Oklahoma town of Lindsay, is reliably conservative on just about every political issue. The 45-year-old church pastor is anti-abortion, voted for President Donald Trump and is a member of the National Rifle Association who owns an AR-15 rifle. He also came of age during the 1980s and believed in the anti-drug mantra that labeled marijuana as a dangerous gateway drug. But his view on marijuana changed as his pastoral work extended into hospice care and he saw patients at the end of their lives benefiting from the use of cannabis. [continues 687 words]
U.S. health regulators on Monday approved the first prescription drug made from marijuana, a milestone that could spur more research into a drug that remains illegal under federal law, despite growing legalization for recreational and medical use. The Food and Drug Administration approved the medication, called Epidiolex, to treat two rare forms of epilepsy that begin in childhood. But it's not quite medical marijuana. The strawberry-flavored syrup is a purified form of a chemical ingredient found in the cannabis plant -- but not the one that gets users high. It's not yet clear why the ingredient, called cannabidiol, or CBD, reduces seizures in some people with epilepsy. [continues 902 words]
A convicted Colombian drug cartel leader who went undercover to inform on Mexican kingpin "El Chapo" and other major traffickers has been sentenced to 31 years in prison. The Miami Herald reports that 48-year-old Henry De Jesus Lopez Londono, who was arrested in Argentina and extradited to Miami in 2016, was sentenced on Monday for drug trafficking conspiracy. U.S. District Judge Donald Graham previously rejected a plea deal that included 17 years behind bars. Lopez Londono could have received a life sentence. Officials say Lopez Londono was involved in the smuggling of some 60,000 kilograms of cocaine between 2007 and 2012. [end]
Jeff Greene, the Palm Beach billionaire who this week joined a crowded slate of Democrats seeking to replace Gov. Rick Scott, shared his thoughts about marijuana with Truth or Dara during a lengthy interview that included some chit-chat about Willie Nelson and air pods. (Spoiler alert: He's a fan of both the musician and the technology). On medical marijuana, Greene's got the same take as his competitors, who've all come out in support of allowing patients to smoke their treatment. [continues 615 words]
LAFAYETTE, Colo. - The political rise of Colorado's cannabis industry is, in essence, the story of Garrett Hause's alfalfa farm. Mr. Hause, a broad-shouldered, 25-year-old horticulturist who tills his family's land in the shadow of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains, said he was never particularly interested in politics - that is, until voters legalized cannabis in 2012. He started familiarizing himself with the stringent state regulations that govern the industry. He and a friend then created Elation Cannabis Company, which uses a section of the family's soil to grow hemp. [continues 1295 words]
WASHINGTON - Tyson Timbs would like his Land Rover back. The State of Indiana took it, using a law that lets it seize vehicles used to transport illegal drugs. Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the Constitution has anything to say about such civil forfeiture laws, which allow states and localities to take and keep private property used to commit crimes. Mr. Timbs bought the Land Rover after his father died. The life insurance money amounted to around $73,000, and he spent $42,000 of it on the vehicle. He blew most of the rest on drugs. [continues 848 words]
You could be in luck: Florida's Medical Marijuana Industry Is Beginning To Take Off Medical marijuana dispensary hiring in Florida is beginning to germinate, as existing operators prepare to open new stores and other companies enter the market. In South Florida, legal growers operate only a handful of dispensaries. But those dispensaries -- including Knox Medical, Curaleaf and Trulieve -- are laying the groundwork for new locations in the tricounty region and across the state. And California-based MedMen is getting ready to enter the market, which could heat up competition. [continues 1289 words]
A few years ago when I served on the board of the co-op building where I live in Brooklyn Heights - a fact suggesting a degree of squareness so profound it should discredit my authority to go on - my next-door neighbor came to me with recurring complaints that her apartment, at various points, but mostly in the evenings, reeked of pot (that, children, is what we of the Atari generation call it) so intensely that it seemed as if someone had come in and lit up right on her sofa. That her oldest daughter began to worry that she was getting a contact high while she was doing her homework made me despair for a generation and suggested that perhaps a certain unwarranted hysteria had taken hold. Then one night, at a moment of extreme fragrancy, my neighbor texted and asked me to come over and take a sniff for myself, and it seemed as if I had walked into a commune in the Redwoods sometime between the Tet offensive and the presidency of Gerald Ford. [continues 772 words]
New York City's Police Department suffered a major embarrassment this spring when a New York Times investigation demolished the department's claim that people of color were more likely than others to be arrested on petty marijuana charges, because citizens in their communities complained more about pot smoking. The investigation found that even when complaints were factored in, the police nearly always arrested people at a higher rate in black areas. A new policy Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Tuesday will lead to fewer people being arrested for smoking marijuana in public. But the new approach - in which officers would usually issue summonses instead of hauling people off to jail - does not address the core problem of racial inequality and poses new dangers. [continues 466 words]
The authors suffer from the same confirmation bias and first-order thinking that begot the demonstrably unsuccessful war on drugs and has sustained it, to tragic effect, for nearly 50 years. Despite enormous expense and countless American lives lost to street violence and incarceration, access to and abuse of marijuana and other drugs remains as prevalent as ever. Why, then, do intelligent people refuse to accept that the goals of the antidrug crusade haven't been, and cannot be, achieved by prohibition? [continues 196 words]
In 1994 as a NYPD narcotics detective, I did a study of prisoners arrested for drug crimes for a statistics class I was taking at night. Nine of 10 users stated they started with marijuana, 70% started using between ages 10-15, and 92% before the age of 21. Society must educate our youth before the ravages of drugs become irremediable. Al Schille [continues 3 words]
What's understated is the potential major negative health effects, particularly in connection with developing brains (into the middle 20s), such as permanently impairing brain functioning and cognition and increasing the likelihood of serious psychotic disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and paranoia. Is severely damaging the health of our nation's youth and causing major injury to society worth tax revenue and income to the self-serving marijuana industry? McLean, Va. [end]
It makes sense to make marijuana readily available as a less harmful alternative to truly harmful drugs such as opiates. Why would a drug pusher carry marijuana in his inventory when you can buy it over the counter? Messrs. Kennedy and Sabet are behind the times. Matt Ryan Bremerton, Wash. [end]
In Colorado the number testing positive for marijuana in fatal crashes has risen each year from 2013 (47) to 2016 (115), more than doubling (145%) in those four years. Of the 547 traffic fatalities in 2015, 99 were due to marijuana, 187 to alcohol and 35 to both. The most common drug in all fatal crashes is marijuana. There are also other health-related issues to consider. The cardiovascular and cancer risks inherent in smoking tobacco also apply to marijuana. While cigarette smokers inhale more smoke, marijuana smokers hold it longer in their lungs. Marijuana can also demotivate individuals. They lose their ambition and competitiveness. [continues 5 words]
Patrick Kennedy and Kevin Sabet's "This Is No Time To Go to Pot" (op-ed, June 15), at long last, takes on several key deceptions about marijuana, and these men have the credentials to speak. But where are the others? The neurologists? The pediatric psychiatrists? The Business Roundtable groups and chambers of commerce which also are competent and which should have a passionate professional interest in maintaining drug-free workplaces and safeguarding our youth? It is high time they joined in allocating resources to stop this juggernaut. [continues 126 words]
According to Messrs. Kennedy and Sabet, cannabis legalization is "a failed experiment." But in Washington state, which like Colorado legalized in 2012, support has increased from 56% to an astounding 78%. Some failure! Paul Kuhn Nashville, Tenn. [end]
A closely watched medicine made from the marijuana plant reduces seizures in children with severe forms of epilepsy and warrants approval in the United States, health officials said Tuesday. British drugmaker GW Pharmaceuticals is seeking permission to sell its purified form of an ingredient found in cannabis -- one that doesn't get users high -- as a medication for rare, hard-to-treat seizures in children. If successful, the company's liquid formula would be the first government-approved drug derived from the cannabis plant in the U.S. [continues 606 words]
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