By Patrick Hobin
San Francisco is looking to outlaw smoking tobacco in public places — but the famously liberal city won’t extend the ban to marijuana.
New legislation would prohibit smoking anything other than medically-prescribed marijuana at street fairs, festivals and other outdoor events held on city property, KCBS of San Francisco reported. The city’s board of supervisors is weighing the new rule.
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http://www.newsmax.com/US/Francisco-smoking-ban-marijuana/2012/07/21/id/446114
Month: July 2012
Fallin agrees to early release of woman who got 12-year term for $31 marijuana sale
By CARY ASPINWALL World Staff Writer
Gov. Mary Fallin has agreed to early release for inmate Patricia Spottedcrow, a young mother whose story of lengthy sentence for selling a small amount of marijuana was featured in a Tulsa World series on Women in Prison.
Under the governor’s stipulations, Spottedcrow will be required to complete 120 days at a community-level Department of Corrections facility before she is released. Spottedcrow, 27, was originally handed a 12-year sentence in a blind plea before a judge for selling $31 worth of marijuana to a police informant.
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http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=14&articleid=20120720_14_0_GovFal129410
Feds up money to spin waste hemp into fibre
Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz says Ottawa is putting money into a Saskatoon company that turns waste flax and hemp straw into high-quality fibre.
Ritz says Advanced Foods and Materials Canada is getting $500,000.
The company also produces micro-nutrients for food and health products.
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http://www.canada.com/Feds+money+spin+waste+hemp+into+fibre/6959551/story.html
Marijuana restrictions eased for organ transplant candidates at OHSU and Portland VA
By Noelle Crombie, The Oregonian
OHSU Hospital has quietly eased restrictions on pot use among people seeking organ transplants, a shift driven in part by the rising number of medical marijuana patients in Oregon.
The hospital in the past year has revisited its long-standing policy that required six months of negative drug screens and even the possibility of drug rehabilitation for marijuana users before patients could be waitlisted for a liver transplant. The revised policy allows marijuana users who meet all other criteria to be waitlisted for liver transplants if a single screen turns up negative.
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http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/07/marijuana_restrictions_eased_f.html
According To Morgan Freeman, Criminalization Of Weed Is The “Stupidest Law Possible”
The various laws that keep marijuana illegal are the dumbest ones on the books, according to the voice of God, Morgan Freeman.
Freeman has been a highly vocal advocate for the legalization of marijuana for a long time now, and once again stressed his belief that weed should be legalized in a recent interview with Newsweek. Here’s what the Dark Knight Rises star had to say about it:
“Marijuana! Heavens, oh yeah. It’s just the stupidest law possible, given history. You don’t stop people from doing what they want to do, so forget about making it unlawful. You’re just making criminals out of people who aren’t engaged in criminal activity. And we’re spending zillions of dollars trying to fight a war we can’t win! We could make zillions, just legalize it and tax it like we do liquor. It’s stupid.”
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http://www.inquisitr.com/279773/according-to-morgan-freeman-criminalization-of-weed-is-the-stupidest-law-possible/
Roseanne Barr To Pres. Obama, ‘You Get My Joint When You Pry It Out Of My Cold, Dead Fingers!’
By Radar Staff
Roseanne Barr loves her marijuana.
The TV star, appearing on the Late Show withDavid Letterman Tuesday, explained that her hot temper of yesteryear has been cooled by regular hits from the bong.
“I wasn’t as stable [in the past] … that’s before I started smoking the medical marijuana,” the 59-year-old said.
Roseanne, who’s never been shy to wear her politics on her sleeve, had a warning for the commander-in-chief in regards to overturning California’s liberal marijuana laws. (It is legal there with a doctor-prescribed license.)
PHOTOS: Roseanne Barr Makes Presidential Campaign Appearance
“One thing I want to say: [President Barack]Obama is trying to take our medical marijuana away over there in California, and he’s going to send in Federal troops to get our medical marijuana.
Watch the video on RadarOnline.com
“I’ll tell you this Obama: You get my joint when you pry it out of my cold, dead fingers!”
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http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2012/07/roseanne-barr-david-letterman-marijuana-president-barack-obama
Mother Energy and Hemp: Part One by Rand Clifford
An all-pervasive energy is fundamental to the Cosmos. Not “empty”, vacuum space itself is an ocean of energy, the essence of nature. Tesla called this universal force, “Free energy”. Inventors who have also found the key have added the names: “Zero-point energy”; “Energy from the vacuum”; “Background energy”; “Radiant energy”; “Cosmic energy”; “Aether”…many others.
Tesla predicted that if we are ever allowed to use free energy…someday mankind will hook their machinery up to “the very wheelworks of nature”. Here the terms “Mother Energy” and “Free energy” are interchangeable.
Born of Mother Energy, hemp elegantly transforms sunlight and water into essentials of life on Earth—a regal powerhouse of the plant kingdom. Beyond that, certain relationships might not seem obvious, such as Mother Energy and hemp being artificially linked in ways that hinder humanity. Mother Energy and hemp offer extreme public benefits spanning the biosphere, potentially brightening the future of humanity. Alas, in regressive ways practiced and preached in the US above all, Mother Energy access and hemp farming are both suppressed for precisely the same reason: Protection of entrenched corporate profits.
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http://www.pacificfreepress.com/opinion/12048-mother-energy-eternal-earth.html
Marijuana and the reality of the war on drugs: It’s a cash crop for Appalachia
Lisa King
Photo: Remote area of Kentucky where marijuana flourishes
WYTHE CO., Va., July 17, 2012 — In 2008 alone, Appalachia grew four billion dollars worth of marijuana . As the economy weakens and jobs become even more scarce in an already impoverished region, more Appalachians have resorted to 21st century bootlegging. In short, white lightning has been replaced by green lightning.
The mountain people have finally arrived on a renewable natural resource that does not leave their land raped and ruined as a result. Despite the formidable efforts by law enforcement to curb production, marijuana produced annually is at an all time high in the region.
In the top three marijuana producing states of the region , Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky, there has been a substantial increase in plants eradicated by authorities.
In the “marijuana belt ,” a 65 county region in these three states where the growing and trafficking of marijuana has been targeted and fought with substantial federal resources, the median income has yet to reach $8,000 per year.
The choices for people here are so few. It should not come as a shock then that the people in this remote region have resorted to growing marijuana to feed their families. Given the limited options and the huge monetary benefits, who can really blame them?
It is safe to say the prohibition of marijuana has been as big a failure as our earlier attempts to prohibit alcohol. Currently, 17.4 million Americans admit to using it regularly. In 2010 6.9% of the population reported using marijuana, up from 5.8% in 2007.
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http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/appalachian-chronicles/2012/jul/17/marijuana-and-reality-war-drugs-its-cash-crop-appa/
Researchers identify cannabinoid-making pathway
U of S researchers have discovered the chemical pathway that Cannabis sativa uses to create bioactive compounds called cannabinoids, paving the way for the development of marijuana varieties to produce pharmaceuticals or cannabinoid-free industrial hemp. The research appears online in the July 16 early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
U of S adjunct professor of biology Jon Page explains that the pathway is an unusual one, involving a specialized version of one enzyme, called hexanoyl-CoA synthetase, and another enzyme, called olivetolic acid cyclase (OAC), that has never before been seen in plants.
“What cannabis has done is take a rare fatty acid with a simple, six-carbon chain and use it as a building block to make something chemically complex and pharmacologically active,” Page says.
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http://www.news-medical.net/news/20120717/Researchers-identify-cannabinoid-making-pathway.aspx
Children Are Using Medical Cannabis, And That’s A Good Thing
Jayden David’s father Jason reports that his walking is better — Jayden was previously non-ambulatory. He can now swim, an activity he adores, without having a seizure
“But, what about the children?!”
Why children with Dravet syndrome are using cannabis and why consistent access to their medicine is important
By Sarah Russo
CannCast.com
Parents of some children with Dravet syndrome, a rare and severe type of epilepsy, are using CBD-rich cannabis to treat their condition. Finding this medicine is difficult and getting consistent access to quality medicine is even more so.
Dravet syndrome is a severe myoclonic epilepsy whose onset occurs in infancy. Those with Dravet may have upwards of 100 seizures per day. The most intense episodes can last for 15 minutes to up to an hour. There is no known cure. The best available treatment is to minimize seizures, which are precipitated by environmental stress.
The longer a person has an epileptic attack, the higher the likelihood that prolonged damage could occur. Dravet seizures are so intense and long that brain development is delayed. In severe cases, a seizure may cause cardiac arrest. Each day can vary drastically for those with Dravet. There are a variety of pharmaceutical anticonvulsants available, but none of them eliminate seizures, and all have side effects.
Recently, a group of families affected by Dravet have turned to CBD-rich cannabis as a treatment for their children. These families have formed a Facebook group that allows members to provide support, compare notes, and to share experiences.
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