Cannabis Hemp News

The Temptation of Dr. Weed by Jed Gottlieb The elusive Dr. Sands stands in one of MSU’s many research greenhouses. After a spate of negative publicity, Sands wants to change his image from monster to miracle worker. Through the window of his Montana State University-Bozeman lab, Dr. David Sands can barely be glimpsed. Almost totally obscured by piles of data and stacks of fungus-filled Petri dishes, patches of the 60- something scientist’s cornflower blue Oxford show through. There’s a knock at lab door and a call. “Hello? Dr. Sands?” “Yeah, I’m here,” he responds from his hiding spot, poking out his bald, bespectacled head. Even expecting invited guests, his …

17 indicted in E. Kentucky marijuana roundup By Alan Maimon amaimon@courier-journal.com The Courier-Journal LONDON, Ky. -- A major marijuana roundup in Eastern Kentucky resulted in federal indictments of 17 people accused of cultivating nearly 4,000 plants. U.S. Attorney Greg Van Tatenhove of the Eastern District of Kentucky said the joint federal, state and local investigations announced yesterday show authorities are serious about cracking down on the ''most widely used illicit drug in America.'' ''We're still in the midst of the battle,'' Van Tatenhove said at a news conference on the indictments. The two-day roundup of suspects that ended yesterday resul…

Hilo - No charges have been filed against the three medical marijuana patients arrested six months ago. Police arrested John and Rhonda Robison and their roommate, Kealoha Wells, after seizing 20 marijuana plants and 1.5 ounces of dried marijuana July 8 from their Kalaoa home. The Robisons and Wells were released the same day, pending further investigation. All three are registered with the state Public Safety office to use marijuana for medical purposes. John Robison, 36, and Wells, 31, have acute lymphocytic leukemia, and Rhonda Robison, 31, has a nerve and muscle degenerative disease called Charco Marie Tooth. Deputy Prosecutor Fred Giannini, who is assigned to …

Since the bottom line here is terrible physical pain, let's start with someone who has spent most of her life in that condition. There are millions like her. Patricia C. is 47 today and lives in California. At the age of 12 she developed scoliosis, and 16 years later, her doctors told her she had the neck and spine of an 80-year-old. A car crash in 1998 left her with additional spinal trauma and a brain injury. Her whole life revolved around pain. She had no appetite, was sunk in depression and prayed to God to release her from her torment. It's not as though medical marijuana shifted Patricia to a bed of roses. "A lot of the time," Patricia C. said recently, "I have t…

Over the past few decades, the United States' love affair with the automobile has become more and more an addiction to the pump as it is anything else. One of the main causes is the rising importance of what was once a niche vehicle: the sport-utility vehicle, or SUV. The auto industry, seizing on the "flavor-of-the-month" status that the Chevrolet Suburban enjoyed, has produced ever larger and less fuel-efficient SUVs. With more and more SUVs on the roads, the need for the pump is greater than ever, to the nation's environmental, social and political detriment. Conservative commentator Arianna Huffington has taken a stand against increasingly unnecessary SUV use, al…

Derided by the White House as "nothing more than a cheap political stunt," marijuana advocates' attempt to hold Office of National Drug Control Policy head John P. Walters' feet to the fire for his overt, taxpayer-funded political campaigning against drug-reform state ballot initiatives bore some small fruit this week. Responding to a formal complaint from backers of the Nevada marijuana legalization measure that received 39 percent of the vote in November, Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller formally charged the nation's drug czar to issue "a written response to the complaint" by January 27th. The complaint against Walters was filed in early December by the Mariju…

Nevada's secretary of state has asked National Drug Czar John Walters to explain why he hasn't followed the state's campaign contributions and expenditures law. Secretary of State Dean Heller released a letter Wednesday that he sent to Walters, asking the federal official to explain why he has failed to submit legally required information about his efforts to defeat Question 9. Nevada voters in November rejected the ballot question, which would have allowed adults to possess as much as 3 ounces of marijuana in their homes. During the campaign, Walters made three trips to Nevada to speak out against the ballot question, and his Office of National Drug Control ran many…

Marijuana isn't a gateway drug to heroin or cocaine. But neither is it a relatively harmless recreational drug, as many Americans believe. And telling youngsters to ``just say no'' to drugs without examining the facts behind marijuana use in the United States does no one any good. These facts speak out loud and clear in a series of research reports published in the British journal Addiction. Policy makers in Washington should review them carefully before they decide where money should best be spent on the ``war on drugs.'' The ``gateway'' thesis that has long been a basic principle of drug policy in this country was disproved by a study by the private, nonprofit Rand…

Tri-Valley Herald Jury selection began Tuesday for the trial of pro-marijuana author and activist Ed Rosenthal of Oakland, who faces federal drug charges for growing marijuana under the state's medical marijuana law. But evidence of that state law and Oakland's city ordinances will be excluded from his trial under an order U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco issued Monday barring Rosenthal from mounting a defense based on medical issues. The trial begins next Tuesday and is expected to last more than a week. Defense attorneys had hoped to show jurors that California voters in 1996 passed a ballot measure permitting medical marijuana use, and that …

The first stage of a trial for an Oakland marijuana author began in a federal courtroom in San Francisco this morning with the start of jury selection. Edward Rosenthal, 58, is accused of conspiring to grow more than 1,000 marijuana plants, actually growing more than 100 plants, and maintaining premises for marijuana cultivation at a former Oakland warehouse. Rosenthal has written several books about marijuana cultivation as well as a marijuana column for an alternative newspaper. If convicted, he could face a lengthy sentence. The conspiracy charge carries a mandatory 10-year sentence upon conviction. The cultivation charge carries a mandatory five-year term and the…

HARRISONVILLE, MO -- A suspicious accident and a powerful odor coming from the car led to a major drug bust Thursday. It happened shortly after midnight on U.S. Highway 71 in Cass County after the driver of a green Ford fell asleep at the wheel and the car careened off the road. Deputies roused the sleeping driver, who they identified as Kermit Gibbs, 41, of Kentucky. Police said they found more than 100 pounds of pot stashed in his back hatch. The smell, they said, was overwhelming. The marijuana was worth about $75,000. Authorities said he may have been using some of it. They admitted that luck played into the drug bust. They said if Gibbs hadn't fallen asle…

Source: Kenai Peninsula Online Juneau -- Lt. Gov. Loren Leman stopped an initiative drive seeking to decriminalize marijuana, ruling Tuesday that hundreds of signatures collected were not valid. Leman, a former state senator who sponsored a bill in 1999 to turn back the state's medical marijuana laws, said in a statement that the pro-marijuana group will have to begin from scratch to get its measure before voters in 2004. The proposed initiative would have asked voters in the August 2004 primary ballot to decriminalize and regulate marijuana. Backers submitted 484 booklets containing signatures of Alaskans who supported putting the measure on the ballot. But of…

Source: Canadian Press The chief of Ottawa's medical marijuana program has been putting the brakes on a Health Canada proposal that would give needy patients direct access to government dope. A newly released document shows that Cindy Cripps-Prawak has been fighting a proposed policy shift that would deliver government-certified marijuana to chronically ill Canadians. Currently, Health Canada will provide its standardized marijuana only to accredited researchers, who would then dispense it to select patients in clinical trials. Patients not enrolled in such trials can seek federal authorization to possess marijuana to alleviate symptoms - but they have to get the…

International policies on the use and possession of marijuana underwent some major reforms in 2002. Canada and England are leading the way to decriminalization while the United States remains reluctant to accept medicinal uses of the currently illegal drug. Although the issue remains hotly contested, pro-marijuana organizations say they are steadily making ground. Decriminalization, eh? On Dec 9, Justice Minister Martin Cauchon announced Canada could do away with criminal penalties for the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use as early as this spring. This statement came days before the release of a special House of Commons report recommending P…

Source: Stockton Record In California, Prop. 215 was passed in 1996, making it legal for people suffering from AIDS, cancer and other serious diseases to use marijuana if they have a doctor's prescription. But since 9/11, the war on drugs has been subsumed by the war on terrorism. In the last year, with the rationale that the drug trade may fund terrorism, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency has taken action against more than 35 medicinal marijuana patients, cooperatives and providers in California. The most recent incident in September pitted Santa Cruz pot growers Michael and Valerie Corral, who run the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, against federal ag…