It's impossible to understand the labyrinthine rhyme or reason behind any part of the Goliath spending bill passed by Congress to keep the government running another year. A bill that includes a rider that, for instance, would give Wall Street the same opportunities to be reckless with investments on the government dime like it did back in the early 2000s again sounds like lunacy to me. The riders dealing with cannabis are as strange and bizarre as the Wall Street giveaway, and they send conflicting messages. On the one hand, we have the attempt by Delaware Rep. Andy Harris and Kentucky Rep. Hal Rogers to nullify the District of Columbia's recent approval of cannabis legalization. A law was passed in November, with almost 70 percent of voters approving, that allows District adults to grow, possess and share small amounts of cannabis. [continues 702 words]
Dear Stoner: I saw something the other week about marijuana not being good for creativity. It seems like it should have come from The Onion or National Report, since pot seems to help people be more creative - but it was real. WTF? P. Nutbag Dear Nutbag: We thought it was a joke, too, but apparently scientists in the Netherlands claim it's true. Of course, their "study" was extremely narrow and, ironically, limited in creativity. Scientists gathered three groups of tokers in a lab and gave each group edibles - - some had 22 milligrams of THC, some had 5.5 milligrams of THC, and the losers got no THC at all. Whomp. The test itself was to come up with as many uses for a pen as they could in five minutes, and to find the link between the words "hair," "time" and "stretching." (We posted the answer below so you can test yourself later while stoned.) That's it. No word on if the test subjects considered themselves creative types in the first place or even if cannabis helped increase creativity in people in other realms - like music, visual arts, dance, coding or writing. And who knows what type of herb they gave the test subjects? Some strains are only good for melting into a couch. Of course, we're also not saying that an artist in a creative slump can do a dab and instantly create a masterpiece - but to deny the link between cannabis and creativity is pretty absurd. [continues 192 words]
DENVER (AP) - Colorado will spend more than $8 million researching marijuana's medical potential - a new frontier because government-funded marijuana research traditionally focuses on the drug's negative health effects. The grants awarded by the Colorado Board of Health will go to studies on whether marijuana helps treat epilepsy, brain tumors, Parkinson's disease and post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of the studies still need federal approval. Though the awards are relatively small, researchers say they're a big step forward. While several other federal studies currently in the works look at marijuana's health effects, all the Colorado studies are focused on whether marijuana actually helps. [continues 564 words]
DENVER (AP) - Colorado will spend more than $8 million researching marijuana's medical potential - a new frontier because government-funded marijuana research traditionally focuses on the drug's negative health effects. The grants awarded by the Colorado Board of Health will go to studies on whether marijuana helps treat epilepsy, brain tumors, Parkinson's disease and post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of the studies still need federal approval. Though the awards are relatively small, researchers say they're a big step forward. While several other federal studies currently in the works look at marijuana's health effects, all the Colorado studies are focused on whether marijuana actually helps. [continues 373 words]
$8.4 Million Will Be Used to Research the Medical Effectiveness of Marijuana Colorado's Board of Health on Wednesday approved up to $8.4 million of grants to pay for eight studies on medical marijuana, part of the largest-ever state-funded effort to study the medical efficacy of cannabis. The studies will look at whether marijuana can be used to treat childhood epilepsy, post-traumatic stress disorder, Parkinson's disease, inflammatory bowel disease, pediatric brain tumors and spine pain. University researchers will conduct all of the studies, meaning the results will provide some of the best - and most respected - evidence to date on whether marijuana is a useful medicine. [continues 452 words]
DENVER (AP) - Colorado will spend more than $8 million researching marijuana's medical potential - a new frontier because government-funded marijuana research traditionally focuses on the drug's negative health effects. The grants awarded by the Colorado Board of Health will go to studies on whether marijuana helps treat epilepsy, brain tumors, Parkinson's disease and post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of the studies still need federal approval. Though the awards are relatively small, researchers say they're a big step forward. While several other federal studies in the works look at marijuana's health effects, all of the Colorado studies are focused on whether marijuana actually helps. [continues 263 words]
Cruel and unusual Institutions like JPMorgan Chase Bank have made it clear they will not work with the marijuana industry until it's federally legal to do so. It's never been clear that it wouldn't accept accounts from people who buy from the industry. But that's the situation allegedly facing couple Joy Wood and Phil Rockwell. Wood, a 44-year-old alcohol counselor, says she first got an inkling that her bank account was in trouble when her phone bill payments bounced in recent months. She looked and found two phone payments had been rejected, she says, as well as two rent payments. In short order, the couple was evicted from Champions at Nor'wood. (The apartment complex would not confirm personal information when contacted by the Indy.) [continues 321 words]
BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. (AP) - Business is booming in Colorado's mountain resorts, and the addition of recreational marijuana stores this year has attracted customers curious about legalized pot. But there's mounting anxiety that ski towns have embraced stoner culture a little too much, potentially damaging the state's tourism brand. That worry flared up in two resort towns last week. In Breckenridge, residents voted overwhelmingly to force downtown's lone dispensary off Main Street to a less-visible location. And just up the road in Granby, town officials used a property annex to prevent the first dispensary from opening there. [continues 490 words]
BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. (AP) - Business is booming in Colorado's mountain resorts, and the addition of recreational marijuana stores this year has attracted customers curious about legalized pot. But there's mounting anxiety that ski towns have embraced stoner culture a little too much, potentially damaging the state's tourism brand. That worry flared up in two resort towns last week. In Breckenridge, residents voted overwhelmingly to force downtown's lone dispensary off Main Street to a less visible location. And just up the road in Granby, town officials used a property annexation to prevent a dispensary from opening. [continues 363 words]
BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. (AP) - Business is booming in Colorado's mountain resorts, and the addition of recreational marijuana stores this year has attracted customers curious about legalized cannabis. But there's mounting anxiety that ski towns have embraced stoner culture a little too much, potentially damaging the state's tourism brand. That worry flared up in two resort towns last week. In Breckenridge, residents voted overwhelmingly to force downtown's lone dispensary off Main Street to a less-visible location. And just up the road in Granby, town officials used a property annex to prevent the first dispensary from opening there. [continues 262 words]
DENVER - A Colorado gun-rights group Friday launched an initiative campaign to allow legal marijuana users to obtain concealed handgun permits. Edgar Antillon, co-founder of Guns for Everyone in Westminster, known for providing free concealed-carry classes, said he had filed a proposed ballot measure that would bring Colorado's gun laws in line with its legal recreational and medical marijuana laws. "Basically, we just want to sync up Colorado's marijuana laws with our concealed-carry permit laws," Mr. Antillon said. [continues 270 words]
The Family Is Mulling Whether to Reap What They've Grown. Aurora - The place was a grease pit. Now look at it: Wall panels made of reclaimed pine beetle kill wood. Empty glass cases ready to be filled. An ATM just delivered. And $100,000 worth of bulletproof windows, frosted to shield prying eyes from the product. On the late November day before the opening of Medicine Man's second recreational marijuana store, Andy Williams is on the phone with a guy trying to sell him a sound system. Someone is always trying to sell him something. [continues 2035 words]
Organizers behind the world's first credit union established for the marijuana industry had no word Wednesday on the status of their application for a master account with the Federal Reserve System. The Fourth Corner Credit Union hoped its account would be established by Dec. 10, but will have to wait at least another two weeks to learn the fate of their efforts to open its doors, people close to the process said. Any credit union or bank needs a Federal Reserve master account to operate. Approval is typically procedural once a business has a valid charter and routing numbers. [continues 157 words]
Dear Stoner: I'm a committed home brewer, and I was wondering how to make pot beer. I was thinking of adding oil to my beer, but I didn't know if that wouldn't dissolve in beer. I also thought about putting flower in the beer, like a hop, and boiling it for an hour - but I didn't know if that would extract the THC. If you have any ideas, I would love to hear them. Mark in Mayfair [continues 441 words]
Do you remember Acapulco Gold? Panama Red? If you do, you can probably appreciate the latest twist in the war on cannabis. NPR reported recently that cannabis grown in the United States is being smuggled into Mexico and places beyond. Yes, you read that right. Let it settle in for a minute. Most of the cannabis used in the United States over the last decades has come from south of the border. Anyone who has used cannabis over the years remembers Mexican marijuana: Seedy, not a lot of buds or very strong, but plentiful and cheap. Not anymore. Today, Americans prefer U.S.- grown cannabis, and apparently, so do many Mexicans, who are willing to spend more for American pot than for their own homegrown. Acapulco Gold, make way for Sour Diesel. [continues 750 words]
The CBD boom in Colorado started with a story. There were 35 juvenile medical marijuana patients in Colorado in March 2013, when CNN landed in the state to film a documentary about one of them. Since infancy, Charlotte Figi suffered from debilitating seizures due to Dravet syndrome. She practically lived at the hospital, where her parents, Paige and Matt, had signed do-not-resuscitate orders for their little girl. Every night when they went to sleep, Charlotte's older brother and twin sister said their goodbyes to her, not knowing whether she'd be alive in the morning. [continues 224 words]
Watch the bills The Southern Colorado Cannabis Council (sococc.org) is gearing up for the coming legislative session, which begins in January. Among other efforts at the state Capitol, the group, formerly known as the Colorado Springs Medical Cannabis Council, says in a newsletter to expect: The "Drug Endangered Child Bill," which the group says currently has no sponsor, and is still in the draft stage. "It is even tougher to say that people in our own industry are helping to draft this, but they are," writes executive director Jason Warf. "In a nutshell, this bill allows the tools for law enforcement and child services to make the determination that cannabis is a danger to your child. [continues 335 words]
The most famous plant in the Colorado CBD boom isn't really a plant. In news stories, in news releases by the congressman carrying a bill to legalize it and even on the website of the group that provides it, Charlotte's Web has been described as a strain of marijuana. In early November, its growers announced that it's not. "Charlotte's Web itself is not actually a plant," Joel Stanley said during a webcast question-and-answer session. "But there are specific plant phenotypes, specific genetics that go into the Charlotte's Web product." [continues 162 words]
Families Who Brought Their Sick Children to Colorado Seeking a Marijuana Miracle Found Something Else: Each Other. With Doctors Largely Standing on the Sidelines, the Parents' Cannabis Community Offers Camaraderie and Support As They Treat Their Kids. Preston loves country songs - the louder, the better. So, one morning in mid-October, Ana Watson cues up Jason Aldean's "Big Green Tractor" on her phone and hands it to her 12-year-old son, still in his pajamas. And then something magical happens. [continues 3049 words]
Charlotte Dravet's message to parents is simple: Don't move. As the namesake for the severe form of epilepsy that afflicts many children arriving in Colorado for medical marijuana treatment, Dravet said parents often ask her about whether moving to Colorado is worth it. She tells them to wait. "It seems too early to change all the life of a family at this stage of the knowledge on this compound," she wrote in an e-mail to The Denver Post. [continues 252 words]
Inside Colorado
