In light of the overwhelming passage of legislation favoring Industrial Hemp farming, Rural Vermont is pleased to see that Vermont farmers are now one step closer to growing hemp. The recent passage of H.747 authorizes the Vermont Agency of Agriculture to begin the process of allowing Vermont farmers the economic opportunity to cultivate Industrial Hemp. Although, the legislation is still dependant on the removal of federal prohibitions, Rural Vermont is pleased that a third consecutive Vermont Legislative Biennium overwhelming displayed strong support for Vermont farmers to cultivate industrial hemp as a cash crop.
 
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http://vtdigger.org/2012/05/21/rural-vermont-applauds-passage-of-industrial-hemp-amendment/

 
A Waimate councillor is calling for cannabis decriminalisation for the good of her community.
Sandy Mulqueen has formed a lobby group and has made a submission in the council’s long term plan outlining a project to decriminalise marijuana for personal and medicinal use.
The lobby group We Desire Change has been launched online and is backed by her submission.
A Facebook page dedicated to it has attracted 1100 friends since it was formed last week.
Mulqueen says she wants cannabis legalised around the world.
“It’s a wee bit of semantics; I’ve been using decriminalise but I don’t think it’s the right word.
“I think we need to open debate; we’re not being taken seriously by the major political parties.”
 
Read complete article here:
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/councillor-launches-campaign-legalise-cannabis-4896938

Joshua Glazer Editor and Content Director, “URB Magazine” and URB.com

 
After our exclusive Anonymous interview, other members of the hacker collective came forward to reveal more details surrounding their plan for legalization.
They’re calling the next steps of their process Phase 2. Phase 2 involves organizing marches in support of medical cannabis in as many locales as possible. There is another aspect of the plan — and it is something more controversial.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joshua-glazer/hackers-anonymous-declare_b_1532365.html

Jon Walton

 
The farcical war on drugs that has incarcerated millions, cost taxpayers billions, and led to the deaths of untold numbers of domestic and international civilians, is also smothering an industry with the potential to reduce the carbon footprint of the building sector, one of the largest polluters on the planet.
Hemp, the fibrous material from low-TCH strains of the Cannabis plant, has uses ranging from food to medicine, clothing, paper, and even construction. When hemp is combined with lime, you get a carbon-negative building material with greater flexibility and only 15 percent of the density of traditional concrete. Called hempcrete, this insulating and moisture regulating mixture is hard to come by in the United States, as the Cannabis plant is currently federally prohibited from being used in industrial production.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.constructiondigital.com/green_building/hempcrete-another-victim-of-the-war-on-drugs

 
“Celebrity Apprentice” star and performer Penn Jillette isn’t thrilled with President Obama’s stance on marijuana laws.

“Now, he has not left this to states’ rights,” Jillette said. “As you know, medical marijuana you can get in California, and the feds are coming in to try to stop this. States’ rights don’t mean jack sh*t to the Obama administration on anything except gay marriage.”
Penn says, “I think it’s beyond hypocrisy. I think it’s something to do with class. A lot of people have accused Obama of class warfare, but in the wrong direction. I believe this is Obama chortling with Jimmy Fallon about lower class people. Do we believe, even for a second, that if Obama had been busted for marijuana — under the laws that he condones — would his life have been better?”
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/people/news/article_1698389.php/Penn-Jillette-s-Obama-Marijuana-Blast-VIDEO

As weed goes mainstream, hallucinogens are making a scientific and cultural comeback.

 
Cannabis has passed the tipping point toward widespread social acceptance  (and probable legalization). Even prominent judges in states where marijuana is illegal  are coming out as users and advocates. And now, if pop culture and scientific inquiry are any indicators, it would seem that psychedelics are re-entering the national dialogue with a marked separation from their perceived hippie past—and that’s probably a good thing.
Today, scientists throughout the country are delving into the trippy world of psychedelics to finally provide some concrete data and potential uses for the long-illegal drugs. Most notable, perhaps, is the work of Charles Grob at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, which was recently profiled in the New York Times Magazine . Grob has been administering psilocybin, the active chemical in magic mushrooms, to terminal cancer patients, with the hope of alleviating their understandable end-of-life anxiety. And it’s been working .
Harvard’s John Halpern conducted recent research that indicates LSD is an effective treatment for debilitatingly painful cluster headaches , even at sub-psychedelic doses. He started a company, Entheogen Corp. , around manufacturing and distributing a non-trippy LSD derivative known as BOL-148 to treat the disorder.
Even Oprah Winfrey’s mag  wrote up a story last year detailing a doctor’s use of MDMA, Ecstasy’s main ingredient, as a treatment for PTSD in rape victims. Results from that study indicate that some 83 percent of subjects felt that the use of MDMA helped them overcome their traumas. The same doc is also behind the most recent round of MDMA testing on Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans  suffering from the disorder. LSD has also been used  to treat the disorder as recently as last year.
Even pop culture’s getting on board. Recently on Mad Men, Roger Sterling’s LSD adventures  portrayed a fairly even-handed, hysteria-free experience.  Comedians like Joe Rogan , Doug Stanhope  and others have come out in support of the use of psychedelics for personal growth and creativity. Even Steve Jobs, hero to millions of geeks and businessmen around the world, gushed about his love for LSD  in his recent authorized biography, saying dropping acid was “one of the most important things” he ever experienced.
Of course, humans have used psychedelics essentially since the dawn of humanity to treat a host of medical, mental and spiritual ailments. Noted scientist and philosopher Terence McKenna’s “Stoned Ape” theory  even posits that the addition of low doses of foraged psilocybe cubensismushrooms into the Homo erectus diet was a prominent force behind the evolution of Homo sapiens and modern society due to the vision enhancement, sexual stimulation and empathy increase caused by low doses of the drug.
 
Read complete article here:
http://blogs.phillymag.com/the_philly_post/2012/05/18/psychedelics-new-pot/

Chuck Neault, 67 of Chino, waits for the charter bus. (Thomas R. Cordova/Staff Photographer)
Local medical marijuana activists took a bus from Upland to Sacramento via Riverside on Friday to attend a unity conference and meet state legislators.
“I need it,” said Chuck Neault Sr., 67, of Chino, before the bus picked him and others up in the parking lot of G3 Holistic Inc. in Upland.
Neault, who uses a wheelchair or a cane to travel, said he has a medical marijuana prescription for multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, fibromyalgia and more.
Activists including Neault left Upland late Friday morning to go to the THCF Patient Center in Riverside and then to Sacramento on Friday night.
Read complete article here:
http://www.sbsun.com/ci_20656325/upland-medical-marijuana-activists-head-sacramento?IADID=Search-www.sbsun.com-www.sbsun.com

By REUTERS

Photo credit: AP | File photo shows a marijuana plant in Portland, Ore. Medical marijuana advocates have a message for Democratic leaders and federal prosecutors with an eye on political office: Don’t mess with pot. (March 28. 2011)
 
A cancer-stricken judge in New York has become an unlikely voice in support of legalizing the use of medical marijuana with the admission that he smokes pot to ease the side effects of his treatments.
Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Gustin Reichbach, who is being treated for pancreatic cancer, wrote in a New York Times article on Thursday that he had been using marijuana provided by friends at “great personal risk” to help him cope with the nausea, sleeplessness and loss of appetite from chemotherapy treatments.
“This is not a law-and-order issue; it is a medical and a human rights issue,” wrote Reichbach, 65, who has spent 21 years on the bench in Kings County Supreme Court and continues to hear cases even as he receives cancer treatment.
 
Read complete article here:
http://newyork.newsday.com/news/new-york/ny-judge-with-cancer-makes-case-for-marijuana-1.3728853

Reporter: Sean Murphy

 
PIP COURTNEY, PRESENTER: Hemp is one of the oldest crops known to humankind.
And some historians believe the need for material to make ropes and sails for the Royal Navy was the real reason behind the establishment of Australia as a penal colony more than two centuries ago.
Now hemp is making a comeback of sorts, with licensed production in most states supplying growing markets in masonry, fibreglass replacements and textiles. But a push to legalise foods made from hemp seeds could be the key to Australia’s hemp industry taking off.
ONSCREEN: The Hemp Comeback
SEAN MURPHY, REPORTER: At Ashford in the New England region of New South Wales they used to grow tobacco on the verdant plains of the Severn River but now farmers like Leon Minos are growing industrial hemp.
LEON MINOS, HEMP GROWER, PONDA: Traditionally my grandparents and parents grew tobacco here, and that was predominantly tobacco. And then the tobacco industry folded and yeah, we’re just looking at another industry to get up and running and hopefully be good for the Ashford area.
SEAN MURPHY: With his wife Connie, they’re growing about six hectares of hemp under licence, providing hurd for a growing market in masonry material for building.
CONNIE MINOS, HELP GROWER, PONDA: We really like the crop. It’s something that’s been a really interesting industry, I guess, for to us get involved in over the last three years. We’ve learnt a lot about it in that time and I guess we’re always impressed with just how diverse the product can be, and it’s something that we’re hoping really does take off.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2012/s3506777.htm