Could Cannabis Really Be an ‘Exit Drug’?


Could Cannabis Really Be an ‘Exit Drug’?
 
When Joe hit rock bottom, he knew it. At age sixty, he’d been drinking since he was sixteen and his liver was a mess. Every time he tried to quit in the past, he failed. “But this time was different,” he told me with a steady gaze. “This time I was about to lose my wife, my career and everything I’d worked for.” Realizing he faced the final straw, he knew he couldn’t fail again. He quit “cold turkey” but the shakes, sweats and anxiety that followed became overwhelming and he was tempted to have a drink. Then a friend gave him a joint and Joe reluctantly took a few hits. Within minutes, his anxiety diminished, the “edge” softened and his body appeared to regulate itself as the shakes and sweating gradually stopped.
Joe hasn’t had a drop to drink in nearly two years. But every night after work, he comes home and takes two or three hits off a joint to “tamp down the day.” Without it, Joe is convinced he’d be back drinking. “When I look in the mirror now, I see a totally different person,” Joe told me. “I’m more engaged in life, more social and just healthier overall. And I really do think that the pot has a lot to do with it.”
 
Full Article:
http://www.ladybud.com/2014/02/04/could-cannabis-really-be-an-exit-drug/

Business Owners Looking to Nevada for Pot Legalization

By Nathan Baca, Investigative Reporter – bio | email
By Alex Brauer, Photojournalist – email
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LAS VEGAS — Medical marijuana dispensaries are just months away from opening in Las Vegas and already business owners are talking about setting up retail weed stores.
Colorado is one of the latest states to make pot legal. Sarah Overbeck works the counter at the Denver Kush Club. She’s handling a whole new customer now. Nobody in Colorado needs a card, permission, or even a reason to buy weed.
“I’m looking to relax and now you can just stop by the pot store at the end of the night. You just go home and relax. A drink, a glass of wine, or a joint, it doesn’t really matter. It’s kind of the same thing,” said Nick Kjolhede, Colorado resident.
 
Full Article:
http://www.8newsnow.com/story/24623788/i-team

Pine Ridge reservation considers legalizing marijuana

Joe O’Sullivan Journal staff
Rapid City Journal
 
PINE RIDGE | After Robin Tapio endured 10 months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment for breast cancer, she turned to marijuana to feel better.
“I wasn’t eating and the pain and everything,” the Pine Ridge woman said recently. “As soon as I got done smoking, I got my taste buds back and the pain in my body went away.”
 
Full Article:
http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/pine-ridge-reservation-considers-legalizing-marijuana/article_af9b0f7c-cb6b-504a-a11a-6e8da8005087.html

How Texans are buying pot in Colorado: ‘It’s, like, the new tourism’

mramirez@dallasnews.com

 
DENVER — Here in America’s Amsterdam, even locals are still getting used to the idea that they can be open about purchases once made in secret.
But with Colorado’s legalization of recreational marijuana use and regulated retail operations, cannabis business is smoking: Dispensaries statewide have seen sales explode — Huffington Post reported first-week sales of $5 million — dwarfing the medical transactions legal since 2009.
Much of that interest has come from Texas — and North Texans in particular, who’ve long invaded the Centennial State for skiing, snowboarding and, in the days before it became widely available, even Coors beer.
 
Full Article:
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/metro/20140201-how-texans-are-buying-pot-in-colorado-its-like-the-new-tourism.ece
 

Pot Will See Sales Spike For Super Bowl, Just Like Pizza

By  @seanmgregory

Recreational marijuana (cannabis) called Ice is arranged for a photograph inside the Evergreen Apothecary in Denver, Colorado, U.S., on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2014.

Matthew Staver / Bloomberg via Getty Images
 
If you’re looking to stock up on Super Bowl goodies, you’ll find no shortage of deals at pizza joints, the supermarket or the beer distributorship. But you won’t find any Super Bowl specials at the DenverKush Club, a marijuana dispensary. Before New Year’s Day, when only the sale of medical marijuana was legal in Colorado, the Kush Club would discount a gram of marijuana if, say, the Broncos scored four touchdowns. But those promotions disappeared once legal recreational sales started under new state law.
“We’ve just been running out of product so quickly,” says Jess Vanderpool, a store manager. “We can’t really justify any deals right now.”
 
Full Article:
http://keepingscore.blogs.time.com/2014/01/31/super-bowl-2014-marijuana-legalization/