by MARK WIGGINS / KVUE News and photojournalist DENNIS THOMAS

 
Full Article:
http://www.kvue.com/news/Kinky-Friedman-Agriculture-Commissioner-Runoff-250391281.html

Written by Gregory A. Hall The Courier-Journal

A truck drives past bales of dried hemp on the premises of company Hanffaser Uckermark eG in Prenzlau, eastern Germany on July 27, 2013. (BERND SETTNIK/AFP/Getty Images) / AFP/Getty Images
 
Chris Poynter, a spokesman for Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, said hemp can help pull many contaminants out of the soil of former industrial sites, a valuable step toward potentially redeveloping so-called brownfields.
 
Full Article:
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20140217/BUSINESS/302170030/Hemp-project-Louisville-would-look-cleaning-brownfields
 

By Erielle Reshef

OKLAHOMA CITY —A local group said Saturday that a petition to change the penalty for possession of marijuana in Oklahoma City is gaining traction quickly.
“The purpose of the petition in Oklahoma City is to take away jail time for the simple possession of marijuana,” said petition proponent Mark Faulk.
If passed, the measure would make the punishment for possession of marijuana similar to a traffic violation.
“It will reduce it basically to a traffic ticket, $500 or less,” Faulk said.
Those who filed the petition said they were on pace to surpass their goal for signatures.
“We have (obtained) between 1,000 and 1,500 signatures within one week,” Faulk said.
 
Full Article:
http://www.koco.com/news/oklahomanews/okc/petition-to-lessen-punishment-for-marijuana-in-oklahoma-city-gains-momentum/25000182

CBC News

Henry is one of eight applicants from New Brunswick — and 450 across the country — seeking marijuana production licences from Health Canada. (Micah Walter/Reuters)
 
“Understanding that you have to process your trauma. Marijuana’s just a tool. All the opiates and all the alcohol and all the prescription medications don’t allow you to process the trauma — it didn’t work. When I got off them all and just used cannabis, I could start understanding my trauma,” he said.
 
Full Article:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/vet-fighting-to-provide-medical-pot-for-others-with-ptsd-1.2574951

SUSAN STRONGMAN

Stephen Colbert is nothing if not a principled capitalist, and he proved so on Thursday night as he gave the thumbs up to the legal-and-lucrative ganja.
 
Video:
http://tv.yahoo.com/news/stephen-colbert-endorses-marijuana-market-toking-video-135600708.html

Photo of The Federal Correctional Institution in Florence, Colorado (FCI Florence)
 
Oh, the joy and heartbreak of being here in Colorado.
It is somewhat ironic that the Feds would send me here, to the only state that has made sales of marijuana completely legal, not only for its own citizens but also those just passing through.
I am serving a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence for growing marijuana at low or no cost to whoever needed it in Northern California. I grew 30,000 plants out in the open to make sure anyone who needed medical marijuana got it, regardless of whether they could afford it. I am also a Rastafarian minister and using cannabis is part of our spiritual practice, and should be protected by the law. The judge in my case even stated she didn’t think I belonged in prison, but that she had to sentence me to the mandatory minimum.
I began my sentence in FCI Lompoc, in Southern California and was moved to FCI La Tuna near the Texas-Mexico border. I requested a move and here I am now at FCI Florence, in Colorado.
 
Full Article:
http://cannabisnowmagazine.com/current-events/joint-opinions/i-am-serving-a-10-year-mandatory-minimum-for-marijuana-in-colorado

NEW DELHI: Cannabis, the plant from which bhang, ganja and hashish come, has been regarded a traditional intoxicant in India. And yet it is outlawed in its homeland.
Around the end of the 19th century, the British imperial government in India wanted to import Scotch whisky. This was also the time when resentment against the colonial power was gathering critical mass. Hence, there were protests — bhang and ganja, argued some, were indigenous intoxicants; alcohol, it was claimed, was alien to Indian culture.
The British government, always correct in procedure, set up an inquiry commission — were bhang and ganja as safe as Scotch whisky? Christened the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, the inquiry was characteristically thorough. Hundreds were interviewed, including medical experts. At the end of its two-year labour (1893-94), the commission concluded that bhang or ganja were only as harmful as scotch. That, sadly, stymied the entry of scotch whiskey into India. But it also proved that cannabis derivatives, such as bhang, ganja and hashish, were ‘soft’ drugs; not injurious to health as ‘hard’ drugs.
 
Full Article:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/How-hemp-was-outlawed-in-homeland/articleshow/32110623.cms

Campbell wrote: “To forbid or even seriously to restrict the use of so gracious a herb as hemp would cause widespread suffering and annoyance and to large bands of worshipped ascetics, deep-seated anger. It would rob the people of a solace in discomfort, of a cure in sickness, of a guardian whose gracious protection saves them from the attacks of evil influences…Bhang brings union with the divine spirit. We drank bhang and the mystery of who I am grew plain. So grand a result, so tiny a sin.”
 
Full Article:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Grand-result-just-a-tiny-sin/articleshow/32109620.cms

Posted by Parvez Jabri

 
Researchers in Industrial University of Behbehan, Iran has produced the gel of hemp pulp nanofiber used in kraft paper production.
If developed to industrial levels, it would rule out the imports of high-quality paper especially to produce cartons, Meher News Agency reported.
 
Full Article:
http://www.brecorder.com/business-a-finance/industries-a-sectors/162487-iranian-researchers-produce-high-quality-paper.html