Business is booming for local marijuana dispensaries Jordan Chambers dropped in to the Weeds marijuana dispensary on Montreal Road recently and bought a package of cannabis-infused chocolate turtles and two coconut dreamy bars. "I think this is great," she said of the dispensary, whose display cases are stuffed with jars of dried weed and packages of cookies, brownies and candy. Staff warned her not to eat the treats in one sitting, because they are potent. The federal government has warned that the marijuana products sold at illegal dispensaries such as Weeds are unregulated and could be unsafe. [continues 1641 words]
Despite government warnings, people flock to buy from shops Jordan Chambers dropped in to the Weeds marijuana dispensary on Montreal Road recently and bought a package of cannabis-infused chocolate turtles and two coconut dreamy bars. "I think this is great," she said of the dispensary, whose display cases are stuffed with jars of dried weed and packages of cookies, brownies and candy. Staff warned her not to eat the treats in one sitting, because they are potent. The federal government has warned that the marijuana products sold at illegal dispensaries such as Weeds are unregulated and could be unsafe. [continues 1616 words]
Stacey Lock has been working in the harm reduction tent at Shambhala Music Festival for eight years now, but she's never seen the party scene like this before. According to her the province-wide fentanyl emergency has everyone on edge, including the festival's organizers. "It's really affecting the party scene because it's changing the climate. It's getting sketchy. Not too long ago it felt like you could know what you were doing and if you didn't know we could tell you," Lock, who is the festival's harm reduction director, told the Star. [continues 548 words]
The Legal Synthetic 'Weed' That Kills As any republican with truly conservative beliefs will tell you, government intervention leads to negative consequences. In the case of prohibition, it leads to black markets that, without the option of regulation, create more harmful scenarios than their potentially legal analogues. There is perhaps no greater example of this in our current events than that of marijuana prohibition and the consequent market for a dangerous synthetic called "spice." It's the same argument the right often uses to keep their fingers tightly wrapped around the triggers of their beloved assault rifles: "If you make it illegal, then only criminals will have them leaving law-abiding Americans in a dangerous situation." [continues 508 words]
RESTRICTIONS ON TESTING RETAIL MARIJUANA PUT PUBLIC SAFETY AT RISK, SCIENTISTS WARN Health Canada's restrictive approach to marijuana safety testing is putting the public at risk, a growing chorus of scientists and activists warns - saying consumers are potentially being exposed to contamination in products that are widely accessible since the federal Liberals took power promising legalization. A number of laboratories accredited by Health Canada say the regulator has repeatedly discouraged them from analyzing any cannabis that does not come directly from one of the country's 31 licensed medical marijuana producers - even as hundreds of dispensaries have sprouted up in Vancouver and Toronto, flooding the market with products of unknown provenance. Patients' requests to have their federally licensed medical marijuana tested to ensure its safety are also blocked. [continues 968 words]
Ottawa says it's dangerous. Dispensaries say it's safe. The Globe subjected unregulated weed to a battery of tests to find the truth Inside a sterile facility, the lab technician holds up a petri dish to show the intricate pattern of bacteria that are quickly multiplying. "Looks like something is already growing," she says, surprised by how much has amassed in less than a day and a half. In any other context, the dish would be a sight to behold, with an attractive swirl of shapes that resembles an oil painting. But the bacteria growing inside are Citrobacter freundii, a human pathogen that can lead to serious infections, particularly in the elderly and weak. [continues 6688 words]
To a child on the prowl for sweets, that brownie, cookie or bear-shaped candy left on the kitchen counter is just asking to be gobbled up. But in states that have legalized marijuana for recreational use, notably Colorado, that child may end up with more than a sugar high. A study published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics says that in Colorado, the rates of marijuana exposure in young children, many of them toddlers, have increased 150 percent since 2014, when recreational marijuana products, like sweets, went on the market legally. [continues 524 words]
DENVER - To a child on the prowl for sweets, that brownie, cookie or bearshaped candy left on the kitchen counter is just asking to be gobbled up. But in states that have legalized marijuana for recreational use, notably Colorado, that child may end up with more than a sugar high. New York Times These brownie bites by Spot contain 5 milligrams of THC per serving. A study in JAMA Pediatrics says the rate of marijuana exposure in young children in Colorado has increased 150 percent since recreational use was legalized. [continues 789 words]
To a child on the prowl for sweets, that brownie, cookie or bear-shaped candy left on the kitchen counter is just asking to be gobbled up. But in states that have legalized marijuana for recreational use, notably Colorado, that child may end up with more than a sugar high. A study published on Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics says that in Colorado the rates of marijuana exposure in young children, many of them toddlers, have increased 150 percent since 2014, when recreational marijuana products, like sweets, went on the market legally. [continues 750 words]
Advisory Ends After Residents Were Told Not to Bathe, Drink or Cook With Their Tap Water Hugo - the small town that made a sudden appearance in national headlines for nearly two days - is returning to normal after state laboratories determined that all six field tests that gave rise to suspicions about THC-contaminated water turned out to be false positives. Sandie Bailey and her 10-year-old daughter, JoHanna, said Friday that dishes were starting to pile up in their kitchen in Hugo because they were scared to use the town's water. The water was feared to be contaminated by THC, the main psychoactive compound in marijuana. Testing by the CBI, announced Saturday, eliminated that fear. Photos by RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post [continues 355 words]
DENVER - There are no marijuana dispensaries or greenhouses in the tiny railroad town of Hugo, where Theodore Roosevelt once ate breakfast with the local cowboys. But this week, Hugo's 740 residents were told to stop drinking the water after the town's water supply tested positive for THC, the psychoactive chemical in Colorado's most famous cash crop. The trouble started when a local company trying to calibrate its employee drug tests pulled a positive reading from Hugo's tap water. The town's Public Works Department investigated and found signs of tampering and "forced entry" at one of the wells that supply the town's drinking water, a spokesman for the Lincoln County sheriff told reporters. The town sealed off the well that seemed to be the source of the tainted water. [continues 298 words]
The state's highest court said Wednesday that people convicted on drug charges in cases that involved a disgraced state chemist, Annie Dookhan, can seek new trials. Last year, the Supreme Judicial Court gave special permission to people to undo their pleas if they had pleaded guilty to drug charges in Dookhan-related cases. On Wednesday, it ruled that the same protection must be extended to some defendants who went to trial. "Regardless whether a defendant pleads guilty to a drug offense or is found guilty at trial . . . the evidence is still potentially tainted by Dookhan's misconduct," Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants wrote for the court. "The taint is still attributable to the government [because] it may be impossible for the defendant to prove [their] case . . . was actually tainted by Dookhan's misconduct." [continues 609 words]
California's historic medical-marijuana regulations are reshaping the state's multibillion-dollar industry - but niche areas remain in a legal limbo. Consider the Chalice California hash and glass-art bash, which went down in the high desert of Southern California earlier this month. Wu-Tang Clan performed before thousands of attendees, and hundreds of vendors spent three days accepting "donations" for concentrated pot resins, which were many-times stronger than raw marijuana flowers. The event itself sprawled across dozens of acres of the San Bernardino County Fairgrounds, and free "dabs" - tiny hits of super-potent vaporized weed oil - were handed out like slushies in the 95-degree heat. All this despite the fact that California's marijuana-concentrates industry exists in an evolving grey area. [continues 673 words]
Health workers highlight fentanyl, W-18 Party people are heading in droves to Pemberton Music Festival this weekend, and it's a truth acknowledged that some will be on a chemically fuelled trip, Hunter S. Thompson style. But given B.C.'s fentanyl crisis, provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall is warning festival enthusiasts that mixing drugs could be fatal. He said health officials still don't know how much fentanyl - or worse, W-18 - is added to some recreational party drugs like ecstasy, cocaine and speed. [continues 406 words]
The police raids around a gritty Brooklyn intersection were meant to show that city officials were taking charge after 33 people had been stricken by suspected overdoses of K2. But the spectacle, captured by a crush of news media, came up all but empty, without a single packet of the drug seized. The outcome of the attempted crackdown underscored the challenges the authorities face in combating K2, a potent substance that is easy to distribute and hard to regulate. Its low price and powerful high have made it popular among some homeless people, and its effects have periodically transformed patches of the city - like the one on the border of Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant where the raids were carried out - into theaters of public drug use. [continues 873 words]
Halfway through 2016, Colorado's employment growth is meeting expectations and the the economy continues to outperform the nation: Employment is growing faster here, housing is hotter and incomes are higher, according to a report released Thursday by the University of Colorado Leeds School of Business. And Colorado's fledgling marijuana industry - which, in the grand scheme of things, is just a tiny sliver of the economic pie chart - is backfilling retail sales losses from the bankruptcy of a certain Englewood-based sporting goods retailer and bolstering otherwise sluggish manufacturing segments, according to the Colorado Business Review report. [continues 650 words]
All Three Parties Support Legalization, but Specifics Are Scanty Justice Minister Andrew Parsons, Opposition Leader Paul Davis, and New Democrat MHA Gerry Rogers have all smoked marijuana, and all three are in favour of legalizing it. But when it comes to the nitty-gritty of legalized weed in Newfoundland and Labrador, the picture is still very hazy. "There's plenty of meetings, plenty of work, but all of it sort of based on a wait-and-see," Parsons said. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau campaigned on a promise of legalizing marijuana in Canada, and since taking office last year, the federal government has started to make moves in that direction. [continues 394 words]
No One Knows What Legal Weed in N.L. Will Look Like Justice Minister Andrew Parsons, Opposition Leader Paul Davis, and New Democrat MHA Gerry Rogers have all smoked marijuana, and all three are in favour of legalizing it. But when it comes to the nitty-gritty of legalized weed in Newfoundland and Labrador, the picture is still very hazy. "There's plenty of meetings, plenty of work, but all of it sort of based on a wait-and-see," Parsons said. [continues 424 words]
Growth of Dispensaries in B.C. Increased Demand; Where Supplies Come From Unclear Customers of Victoria's marijuana dispensaries have to rely on pot luck. While the bottle of Pinot Grigio at the liquor store shows where the wine was grown, the alcohol content and whether it contains sulphites, customers are not told where the marijuana sold at local dispensaries is coming from. "No store will tell its clients exactly where they get it from," said James Whitehead, owner of medical marijuana dispensaries in Sooke and Victoria. "It's not like a vineyard where they say: 'Here it is on the vineyard map. Go drive by and have a look.' There are no tours of the grow facilities. They are clandestine operations." [continues 1201 words]
Nevada billionaire and Sands Las Vegas CEO Sheldon Adelson once proposed the U.S. nuke Iran, and donates to Republican Party candidates who share his uncritical and unwavering support for Israel. He has lobbied to expand the Interstate Wire Act to outlaw all online gambling instead of just sports betting. He is currently lobbying for a special session of the Nevada Legislature this summer to approve his scheme to bring the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas by an increase in the hotel room tax. If the new Las Vegas football stadium is such a great idea, why doesn't Mr. Adelson use some more of his own considerable fortune to build it? [continues 494 words]
