Hemclad hemp panels for M&S


 
A flagship new 195,000 square foot Marks & Spencer store is being built in Cheshire Oaks, UK, using Hemclad composite pre-fabricated wall panels developed by Lime Technology.
Offering the cost effective and fast track construction credentials associated with offsite construction, Hemclad provides high levels of insulation, thermal inertia and negative embodied carbon.
Each timber cassette panel is filled with Lime Technology’s Tradical Hemcrete, a bio-composite material made with hemp and a lime binder.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.ecocomposites.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10134%3Ahemclad-hemp-panels-for-mas&catid=3%3Anews-free&Itemid=2

The Real Deal Behind Obama’s ‘Yes We Cannabis!’ Rhetoric

By Dirk Hanson

 
The progressive website Firedoglake summed up the darker view of the fed’s strategy recently: “Demonize it, prosecute it, shut it down, then grab the market.” For legalizers, Sativex is the Trojan Horse the government will use to destroy any chance that anybody besides Big Pharma will get more than a sliver of the marijuana market when all the dust settles. They point to statements by former deputy drug czar Andrea Barthwell, who denounced medical marijuana on the grounds that “any prescriptive medicine should depend on years of careful scientific scrutiny, not whims at the ballot box by individuals who lack the qualifications to make such decisions.”
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.thefix.com/content/president-obamas-reefer-madness8005
 

Cannabis is focus of research start-up

BY CAROLYN Y. JOHNSON > Boston Globe

It’s a plant more commonly associated with lava lamps and Pink Floyd than cutting-edge science. But Thursday, a small Marblehead, Mass., company plans to post online the hundreds of millions of letters of DNA that make up Cannabis sativa in a first step toward truly understanding and enhancing marijuana’s therapeutic potential.

For years, Kevin McKernan built genome sequencing technologies – powerful tools designed to provide insights into cancer and potential treatments.

But when desperate friends with cancer forwarded studies of medical marijuana’s use, he became intrigued. Earlier this summer, he founded Medicinal Genomics, a small firm that will partner with pharmaceutical companies to explore compounds made by the plant.

Bayer rapped for tweeting about medicines

By Andrew Jack 

Bayer has been sharply reprimanded by the UK pharmaceutical industry regulator for using Twitter to promote two high-profile prescription medicines to the public, in a pioneering case highlighting the dangers of social media for marketing.
The Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority, the self-regulatory arm of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, said the German-based company had brought “discredit” on the industry by tweeting the launch of an erectile dysfunction medicine and a cannabis-derived painkiller.
The action highlights fresh scrutiny by international regulators of innovative social marketing techniques alongside more traditional approaches as drug companies seek new ways of selling their medicines.
The UK judgment, which will be published in two medical journals, is an embarrassment to the company, although it is not accompanied by a fine or any other formal penalty.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/38eb93c2-c812-11e0-9501-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1VDgCOVpD

Hempseed Good for Women’s Health

UMIA, Iran—Hempseed may offer women who have had their ovaries removed via improving post-ovariectomy complications, according to current research (Methods Find Exp Clin Pharmacol. 2010 Sep;32(7):467-73). Cannabis sativa L. seed (aka hempseed) has been used for the treatment of various gynecological diseases in traditional medicine. The potential of this plant to protect against complications of menopause has been raised, but rarely studied. Therefore, 20 female rats were divided into five groups: sham-operated (sham), ovariectomized (OVX) and three other ovariectomized groups: HST1 percent, HST2 percent and HST10 percent, which received 1-percent, 2-percent and 10-percent hempseed, respectively, in their diet for three weeks. The effects of hempseed on plasma lipid and lipoprotein profiles, estradiol and calcium levels were evaluated. Rats were tested for behavioral changes using the forced swimming test.
Ovariectomy, independent of the type of diet, caused elevation of plasma calcium, total cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels, while hempseed modified. Plasma estradiol levels were significantly lower in the OVX group compared to other groups. The swimming times for the OVX and sham groups were significantly shorter than the HSD10-percent group. All hempseed-treated groups were less anxious and showed significant declines in fecal boli compared to the sham group. The exploratory diving percent decreased in the HST10-percent group compared with other groups.
http://www.naturalproductsmarketplace.com/news/2011/08/hempseed-good-for-women-s-health.aspx

4:20 Yoga Class in Atwater Village: Getting Bendy While Baked

By Amanda Lewis

lizwjoint.jpg
Elizabeth McDonald
Liz McDonald practices yoga on a beach in Brazil while smoking a fat cartoon joint.


Take a nice deep inhale, press the feet, elongate the neck and allow any sort of tension to just drop out of the head, but don’t think about food. We’ll be needing to relax the booty muscles, to slooowly roll down one vertebrae at a time, to find your breath and allow it to move your body, but really, don’t think about food. 
You’re at the 4:20 Remedy Yoga Class at Brazilian Yoga and Pilates in Atwater, stoned and lying contorted on your yoga mat in a spacious warehouse with hardwood floors, a wall of mirrors and natural afternoon light, so take two more breaths here and then “step into your back foot like you’re squishing a grape,” as Stefani Manger instructs the class.
But you weren’t thinking about food.
“We’re trying to work out this crunchy peanut butter in our shoulders,” says Manger, who sports a black leotard under black yoga pants, turquoise feather earrings and a messy bun with bangs swept across her forehead. “Twist a little bit deeper, squeezing out the toxins, like some of that wine, the pizza…”
“I had pizza and wings last night!” shouts 33-year-old petite blonde Liz McDonald, a self-described “yogangsta” and owner of this year-old studio. As you strain to open up your shoulder blades and sink your hips a bit lower, the munchies become unbearable.
“You gotta squeeze hard, girl!” Manger calls to her.
“It’s wrong for Crispy Crust to offer the wings for only $2.99!” McDonald says, pushing herself deeper into the pose. A man in a red Godzilla shirt with Japanese writing decides he can’t take it anymore.
“Let’s get some now!” he says, sending the class into a fit of giggles.
After moving to L.A. from Brazil two years ago, McDonald noticed that many of her private clients took a few puffs of marijuana before practicing yoga and decided to dedicate a class at her new studio to combining two of hippy-dippy California’s favorite feel-good, vaguely medicinal pastimes, raising a peace sign to say “Chill, man” to the competitive, stressed, traffic-soaked city beyond.
McDonald conceived of the 4:20 class as “a gathering of creative minds, a very non-judgmental place where all are welcome,” she says. “Do I really want a couple of uptight conservatives in here? Ideally no, but… my business welcomes all types of people, especially those tight-asses that may need it most!”
 
Read complete article here:
http://blogs.laweekly.com/stylecouncil/2011/08/weed_pot_marijuana_yoga.php

If you support prohibition, and claim not to be corrupt, then give us our laboratory

By Pete Guither
There are two main reasons to support prohibition.

  1. You are corrupt. You support it because you make money off it, or it gives you power or status, despite the damage it causes to society and people.
  2. You actually believe that prohibition is necessary to protect society and people.

This post isn’t for the people in #1. They shall have their own reward, and be first against the wall when the revolution comes suffer the fate of The Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.
This is about the second category: people who think prohibition is protecting society and the people, and that legalization (in any form or scheme) would result in some amount of increased damage.
Here’s the problem with their view:
The whole thing rides on a balancing act between:

  1. An uncertain and unknowable increased amount of problem usage of a particular drug due to legalization of any sort…. and
  2. All the known damage caused by our present prohibition scheme (violence, black market profits, enormous criminal justice costs and backlog, corruption in government and law enforcement, lack of trust in police, attacks on liberty, increased dangers of drug use, lack of regulation, damage to individuals and families, etc.)

In order to make this argument, the supporters of prohibition have to claim that (a) would be of greater damage to society than (b). That’s a pretty strong claim. Especially when they have NO data to support it.
It all boils down to claims made based on “common sense” or what appears to actually be their gut instinct or bias.

Common sense tells you that legal cocaine would be used and abused as much as alcohol.

Well, no. It doesn’t. Nor does any of the data that we do have.
Of course, when we point to Portugal, or Amsterdam, we’re told that that’s not a true picture of legalization, since those countries haven’t actually fully legalized any drugs.
Exactly. Nobody has. Nobody has been allowed to do so. So there is no data to show what would actually happen in the case of legalization. At least we can point to actual data from halfway measures to bolster our case. All the prohibitionist can do is point to “common sense” that has been pulled from some nether region.
If anyone truly believes that they want what’s best for society, the path is clear. Vague claims of uncertain futures are simply not enough.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.drugwarrant.com/2011/08/if-you-support-prohibition-and-claim-not-to-be-corrupt-then-give-us-our-laboratory/

What Obama has to say about medical marijuana

 
What makes real town hall meetings interesting–the unscripted ones–is that people ask what is on their mind. In Minnesota on Monday, President Obama was asked, “if you can’t legalize marijuana, why can’t we just legalize medical marijuana, to help the people that need it?”Said Obama, “Well, you know, a lot of states are making decisions about medical marijuana. As a controlled substance, the ssue then is, you know, is it being prescribed by a doctor, as opposed to, you know — well — — I’ll — I’ll — I’ll — I’ll leave it at that.”
 
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fblogs.suntimes.com%2Fsweet%2F2011%2F08%2Fwhat_obama_has_to_say_about_me.html

Open Forum: A look at the hemp plant

In a recent Vox Pop titled “No Thanks” the caller spoke out against ethanol.  I also say “No Thanks” to ethanol. Alcohol yes! Did you know Henry Ford’s original automobiles ran on alcohol? Back in the day it was very common for people to have a still to make alcohol for fuel. Prohibition ended that.
Another casualty of prohibition was the hemp plant. Any land that will grow corn, will grow hemp. The hemp fiber is better then cotton for clothing and paper as well as many other uses. Hemp plants are huge resembling trees.  Like bamboo they grow fast. The clothing and paper produced from hemp is just as white and soft as any from cotton; the paper due to the long fibers can be recycled more times then the wood fiber. As clothing the cloth is more durable and holds color better.
 
Read complete article here:
http://brainerddispatch.com/opinion/open-forum/2011-08-14/open-forum-look-hemp-plant

East Coast Marijuana Reform Bills Staying Active

 
 
Politics are staying green this summer as state legislators keep momentum on bills to legalize medical cannabis or decriminalize pot possession for adults. Extended debates continue for some legislation, but there is significant momentum behind new campaigns.
 
Read about Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland:
http://www.freedomisgreen.com/east-coast-marijuana-reform-bills-staying-active/