Maine Lawmakers Reject Marijuana Blood Test Bill For Drivers



 
A bill that would allow a blood test to determine whether a driver is impaired from marijuana use is heading to defeat.
The Maine House on Friday voted unanimously to reject the bill, which set a blood level limit that would allow police to charge impaired motorists with operating under the influence.
 
Full Article: 
http://wabi.tv/2016/04/01/lawmakers-reject-marijuana-blood-test-bill-for-drivers/

Project Runway star Tim Gunn wants to legalize industrial hemp in Massachusetts

By Gintautas Dumcius | gdumcius@masslive.com
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Some Massachusetts lawmakers are hoping to legalize the growth and production of industrial hemp in the Bay State, saying it’ll be an economic boon to a region of the state with high unemployment.
While they’ve displayed reluctance to approach legalizing marijuana for recreational use as an independent group has a question on track for the November ballot to do just that, hemp is another matter that has some legislators’ support.
Lawmakers argue that hemp is a whole other crop, too. On Tuesday they hosted television star Tim Gunn in an effort to push for a bill (H 773) that would “establish policy and procedures for growing industrial hemp” in order to help the state’s agricultural industry.
The bill is sponsored by state Rep. Chris Walsh, D-Framingham.
North Carolina legalized industrial hemp in 2015.
Supporters of the Massachusetts bill say Fall River was once a leading supplier of hemp rope before hemp production was banned at the federal level.
“We’re intent on getting this back and getting it back to Massachusetts,” said Gunn, who has appeared on “Project Runway” and “How I Met Your Mother.”
 
Full Article: 
http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/03/television_star_tim_gunn_wants.html

Pot-Pairing Events are the Latest Legal Weed Trend

BY
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The house is a 1930s Craftsman on the banks of the emerald-green North Fork of the Nehalem River, in the foothills of the Oregon Coast Range, a few miles from the Pacific. It was one of the region’s first homestead sites, a dairy farm for the collective that makes Tillamook cheese. Until two years ago, a quintet of 20-something dudes who worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rented it, playing foosball in the living room. But on a stormy Sunday in March, the house played host to an entirely different kind of affair.
In the massive kitchen that overlooks the river, a crew arranged trays of Scotch eggs, scones, brownies, bites of frittata and cake, and beet tartare-laden crackers. In the living room, a stream of 29 guests helped themselves to Haiku White Tea from Portland’s Jasmine Pearl Tea Co., pondering whether to spike it with one of two PNW Potions lined neatly along a wooden console table: mysterious tinctures labeled “Medi Mate” and “Plain Jane.” As the guests sat, the staff carried out sets of three-tiered serving trays for each cluster of attendees: one with the snacks they’d prepared in the kitchen, another with three levels of organically grown, freshly ground marijuana. Welcome, said the top-hatted host, to High Tea.
 
Full Article: 
http://www.newsweek.com/pot-pairings-marijuana-legal-states-weed-meets-brunch-441870

Cannabis oil a saving grace for Lake Country woman after end of life diagnosis

by  Kevin Parnell – Lake Country Calendar

Lake Country mom Cheryl and dad Chris Pearson with their oldest son Justin. Cheryl’s treatment with cannabis oil has extended her life after she was given just months to live with cancer. — Image Credit: Kevin Parnell
 
Cheryl Pearson has never smoked pot. Given just months to live after finally receiving a diagnosis of stage 4 ovarian cancer, the Lake Country resident was at first against the use of medicinal marijuana as part of her treatment.
But after a tumultuous ride through Canada’s medical system, which for nearly four years had misdiagnosed the reasons behind the rapid decline in her health, the impairment of her motor skills and the loss of use of her  bodily functions, Pearson is now a believer in the controversial treatment.
Today her cancer is in remission and she has lived well past December of 2013—the time her cancer doctors gave as her “end of life date.”
And while no one involved in her mainstream treatment is going to say it, it appears cannabis oil, made from the marijuana plant and administered to Cheryl by her family, played a major part in extending her life. It has given the family hope and has become a regular part of life for the Pearsons, a family of five, with three kids attending UBC Okanagan, including the couple’s oldest, who is now studying the effects of marijuana as a potential cancer-killing agent.
 
Full Article: 
http://www.lakecountrycalendar.com/news/373870571.html
 

Judge lifts decade-old injunction against Pine Ridge hemp farmer, Alex White Plume

Associated Press
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A federal judge on Monday lifted a decade-old injunction prohibiting a South Dakota tribal member from producing industrial hemp, although other issues need to be resolved before he can grow it on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Viken of South Dakota said there has been a “shifting legal landscape” since the 2004 order was filed against Alex White Plume, an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. That includes a change in hemp laws in the 2014 farm bill and legalization of marijuana in some states.
White Plume’s lawyer, former U.S. attorney from North Dakota Timothy Purdon, said the order is a victory for both White Plume and tribal sovereignty.
“This order brings some justice to Native America’s first modern day hemp farmer,” Purdon said. “For over 10 years, Alex White Plume has been subject to a one-of-a-kind injunction which prevented him from farming hemp.”

 
Full Article: 
http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/judge-lifts-decade-old-injunction-against-pine-ridge-hemp-farmer/article_cd34f78e-09f5-5037-b9b0-a05d7538d8ec.html

Decriminalise all drugs and maybe go even further, leading experts say

Christopher Ingraham

Several US states have already legalised marijuana Getty Images
 
A group of 22 medical experts convened by Johns Hopkins University and The Lancet have called today for the decriminalization of all nonviolent drug use and possession. Citing a growing scientific consensus on the failures of the global war on drugs, the experts further encourage countries and U.S. states to “move gradually toward regulated drug markets and apply the scientific method to their assessment.”
 
Full Article: 
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/decriminalise-all-drugs-and-maybe-go-even-further-leading-experts-say-a6952431.html
 

Uruguay’s legal marijuana policy en route to next phase of regulation



A marijuana home grower works on a marijuana flower in his home in Montevideo, Uruguay. Photograph: Andres Stapff/Reuters
 
The first country in the world to legalize marijuana sales was Uruguay, a tiny South American nation with a population of only 3.3 million wedged between Brazil and Argentina.

Uruguay fully legalized the production and sale of marijuana in December 2013 after a decade-long grassroots movement headed by mostly middle-class consumers managed to convince the government it was safer to legally sell weed rather than to allow drug dealers to run the market.
The system now in place grants licenses to private producers for large-scale cannabis farming and regulates its distribution at a controlled price of about one dollar a gram through pharmacies to registered consumers.
Private individuals are also allowed up to six plants at home. Larger amounts can be grown at “cannabis clubs” where individuals band together to produce marijuana in greater quantities as long as it is not for sale.
 
Full Article: 
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/24/uruguay-legal-marijuana-next-phase-regulation

Santa Cruz veterans plan cannabis expansion to Monterey County

War, Peace and Mary Jane
 
In 1974, Albert Brett decided he wanted nothing to do with his fellow Vietnam War veterans. “I didn’t want to be associated with any of those crazy vets,” he says.
He wandered the west, then settled in Idaho. Then in 2013, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and went through surgery and chemotherapy at a Veterans Affairs clinic. His odds of survival were low. So low, he says, that out of desperation he decided to try every remedy he could. He hadn’t smoked weed since 1982, but Brett asked some hippie friends to hook him up. They procured a bag – he didn’t ask how – and Brett processed it into oil and started taking a gram a night in capsule form, like pills.
Now he’s 67 and cancer-free, and credits his recovery to cannabis. “I don’t expect a ticker tape parade, but I do expect an honest dialogue,” Brett says.
 
Full Article: 
http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/people/831/santa-cruz-veterans-plan-cannabis-expansion-to-monterey-county/article_d1af3a44-f136-11e5-8c53-77addafb87f1.html

Cannabis oil dispensary coming to North Texas

BY

 
In 1936, the movie Reefer Madness warned parents about the slippery slope of destruction smoking marijuana would cause in the lives of both them and their children.
Who would’ve guessed the bones and boards of a building from the Reefer Madness era might help change the message of marijuana entirely in Texas?
 
Full Article/Video: 
http://cw39.com/2016/03/24/reefer-madness-cannabis-oil-dispensary-coming-to-north-texas/