By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

 
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

By Christine Walsh

 
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

Samuel Becker

 
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

BY SCOTT KEYES

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/

By JANE ANN MORRISON LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

 
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

By CHRIS PIPPOS

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

By The Associated Press 

By: Tom Morgan

I couldn’t accept that I was going to die. And when I found I was cured I was completely shocked

Mike Cutler

BY JONATHAN J. COOPER
 
Oregon voters will be deciding this year whether to legalize marijuana for recreational use. State elections officials certified Tuesday that the petitioners submitted enough valid signatures to qualify the measure for the November ballot. Election workers say there were roughly 88,500 valid signatures — about 1,400 more than required.
 
Full Article: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/