A Limited Amount of “Caring”: Parents and Advocates React to Realm of Caring’s Federal CBD-Only Bill

 
A Limited Amount of “Caring”: Parents and Advocates React to Realm of Caring’s Federal CBD-Only Bill
Image: Jason and Jayden David, photo courtesy of Jason David 
 

Congressman Scott Perry (D-PA), Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN) and Representative Paul Broun (R-GA) introduced the “Charlotte’s Web Medical Hemp Act of 2014″ yesterday in Pennsylvania, flanked by representatives from Colorado’s Realm of Caring (RoC), the producers of the high-CBD low-THC Charlotte’s Web cannabis strain.
According to yesterday’s press release from RoC,
The bill proposes to exclude industrial hemp and cannabidiol (CBD) from the definition of marijuana, ensuring that children and individuals with epilepsy and other debilitating seizure disorders have access to life-changing Cannabidiol (CBD) Oil and therapeutic hemp such as the Charlotte’s Web™ brand of hemp products. High CBD hemp strains have provided relief for thousands of people in the United States as it’s shown to reduce the amount and duration of seizures in children suffering from epilepsy and other seizure disorders.

One might think that the introduction of a federal medical marijuana bill with a good chance of passing would receive widespread support from cannabis reformers. However, in the pediatric cannabis community, parents are expressing disappointment, frustration, and even disgust over the proposed legislation. Perhaps, as RoC says in their press release, that’s because the bill would only allow for a product that’s not really medical marijuana at all.

Full Article:

http://www.ladybud.com/2014/07/29/a-limited-amount-of-caring-parents-and-advocates-react-to-realm-of-carings-federal-cbd-only-bill/

 

People in Colorado Are Serving Marijuana at Their Weddings

By 
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The gift bag in my hotel room at the last wedding I went to included water (good), cookies (better), and Advil (best). The gift bag at Lauren Meisels and Bradley Melshenker’s wedding in Colorado included a joint and pot-infused lip balm.
It wasn’t just a small “welcome to Colorado where weed is legal!” gesture — their entire wedding incorporated the drug, according to a delightful writeup in the New York Times. Flower arrangements included buds and leaves, the couple’s dogs wore collars with buds woven in, and the tables were named after different strains. The favor, of course, was epic:
Before going into dinner, the guests were given a baby marijuana plant in a ceramic pot with their name and table assignment written on a card in green ink, in the kind of stylish script you might find on a container of artisanal goat cheese.
 
Full Article:
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/news/a29490/people-in-colorado-are-serving-marijuana-at-their-weddings/

Altered state: My first visit home since Colorado legalized recreational marijuana

By Katie Johnston
Colorado marijuana
 

Usually when I talk to people about Colorado, the discussion revolves around my home state’s stunning mountain ranges and superb hiking, skiing, and camping.

This year, it’s all about pot.

In January, Colorado became the first state in the nation to legalize sales of recreational marijuana, so when I went home to visit my mom this summer, I decided to investigate this new tourist attraction — a purely professional curiosity, of course.

Full Article:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/travel/2014/07/26/altered-state-first-visit-home-since-colorado-legalized-recreational-marijuana/Icez3kEfguPIAuuV0bOKxN/story.html?p1=Article_Trending_Top

The New York Times Calls for Marijuana Legalization

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
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It took 13 years for the United States to come to its senses and end Prohibition, 13 years in which people kept drinking, otherwise law-abiding citizens became criminals and crime syndicates arose and flourished. It has been more than 40 years since Congress passed the current ban on marijuana, inflicting great harm on society just to prohibit a substance far less dangerous than alcohol.
The federal government should repeal the ban on marijuana.
We reached that conclusion after a great deal of discussion among the members of The Times’s Editorial Board, inspired by a rapidly growing movement among the states to reform marijuana laws.
 
Full Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/27/opinion/sunday/high-time-marijuana-legalization.html?_r=1

A Natural Concrete Made of Hemp

By Christine Walsh
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Using concrete as the primary construction material leaves a huge carbon footprint, which is why building green should focus on minimizing the use of it. Hempitecture is a firm, which is striving to create more awareness for one such green alternative, namely hempcrete, which is concrete made of hemp. However, since industrial hemp is still illegal in the US, hempcrete has to be imported, which raises the price of this building option.

Hempcrete uses the inner woody core of the hemp stalk to make a mineral matrix, which forms a non-toxic, carbon-negative, and energy-efficient building material. Hempcrete is easy to make, since it only requires the core fiber of the industrial hemp plant, a mixture of natural minerals, and water. The resultant hempcrete is completely non-toxic, carbon-negative, and energy-efficient, which makes it one of the most sustainable construction materials available today. The wall system made of hempcrete is also very breathable, has great natural insulating ability and is easy to work with.
 
Full Article:
http://www.jetsongreen.com/2014/07/a-natural-concrete-made-of-hemp.html

16 Jobs Being Created By the Marijuana Industry

Samuel Becker

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Marijuana is now legal for recreational use in both Colorado and Washington, and retail sales have officially kicked off in both states. Colorado got off to a head start, and has brought in millions of dollars in tax revenue for the state, prompting many others around the country to start the legalization conversation among their own legislators. Washington’s market has officially been open to the public for a short amount of time, and so far, revenues have been stymied by a lack of adequate supply. Over the course of the next several months, things are expected to even out, and Washington residents hope to see similar results to what Colorado is experiencing.

Tax revenue has been the major selling point to local governments throughout the legalization effort, and that makes sense. But there are also numerous other economical benefits to ending prohibition, including an influx of new jobs to the market. Keeping cannabis relegated to the black market meant that the profits from its sale, as well as those working to earn those profits, stayed off the books. By bringing marijuana into the legal realm, an accurate picture of how much money there is and how many people there are working within the industry is being developed for the first time.

Full Article:

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/business/16-jobs-being-created-by-the-marijuana-industry.html/?a=viewall

Nearly Half Of Seattle’s Marijuana Citations Go To Homeless People

BY SCOTT KEYES
A homeless veteran in Washington D.C.

A homeless veteran in Washington D.C.

CREDIT: SHAWN DAVIS

There are many activities that, while illegal in public, are perfectly acceptable when done in the privacy of one’s home. Changing clothes. Sex. Drinking alcohol. And now, in Colorado and Washington state, smoking pot.
But Seattle’s 2,303 homeless people don’t have the privilege that four walls provide. If they want to partake in these human activities that society as a whole enjoys, they risk citation and arrest.
That’s precisely what the Seattle Police Department found when they examined the first half of 2014: homeless people accounted for nearly half of all marijuana citations.
 
Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/07/25/3464261/seattle-marijuana-homeless/

Vegas medical marijuana deadline draws crowd

By JANE ANN MORRISON LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
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The deadline for land use and licensing applications for medical marijuana establishments in Las Vegas ended Wednesday with a last-minute frenzy of late comers eager to beat the 3 p.m. deadline.
If you didn’t have a ticket by then, you were out of luck.
Karen Duddlesten, the city’s business licensing manager, said the staff would stay as late as it took to process the flurry of people. As of 8 p.m., there were no final numbers of applicants.
But among those listed on the map were some prominent names. Mayoral son Ross Goodman linked with a group including attorney Ed Bernstein and philanthropists Gard and Dr. Florence Jameson. Restaurateurs Michael and Jenna Morton applied. So did two notable private investigators — Peter Maheu and Steve Rybar, the undercover officer in the FBI’s corruption sting Operation Yobo, which in the early 1980s brought down Nevada state Sen. Floyd Lamb and a handful of others. State Sen. Mark James was an applicant, as was former Assembly speaker and retired Henderson police chief Richard Perkins.
 
Full Article:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/pot-news/vegas-medical-marijuana-deadline-draws-crowd

Why 2014 Is a Major Election Year for Marijuana Reform

Photo Credit: Jan Havlicek / Shutterstock.com
 
Voters in several states and municipalities nationwide will head to the polls this November and decide whether or not to radically alter the way many parts of America deal with pot.
Voters in three states – Alaska, Florida, and Oregon – will decide on statewide measures seeking to legalize marijuana use and commerce. In addition, voters in the District of Columbia and in various other cities will decide on municipal measures seeking to depenalize the plant’s possession and consumption by adults.
 
Full Article:
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/why-2014-major-election-year-marijuana-reform

Tasmania’s industrial hemp industry to double

The Advocate
 

TASMANIA’S industrial hemp industry – even within a climate of red tape and protracted government inaction – is set to double next year to 200ha.

 This is according to Industrial Hemp Association of Tasmania president and Bishopsbourne commercial hemp grower Phil Reader, who said high level talks currently taking place in Canberra between state and federal governments could soon result in the shackles being released from the industry, which involves about 15 farmers statewide.jFu
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