Restorium2

I just barely keep up on my obligations to patients. If I was in your shoes, hate to say it, but the dispensary has some ok product for $150 an ounce. Not that great but no one needs to go without.

When the legislature banned a patient and caregiver from extracting marijuana using butane inside of a residence, the reason given was for the safety of the public. I would definitely give up butane for the sake of real patients and medical marijuana. Why do they have to involve all extractions when only butane is known for explosions?

Turning To Marijuana for a Runners’ High and More Posted by CN Staff on April 20, 2018 at 13:52:42 PT By Jen A. Miller Source: New York Times Colorado -- The ultramarathoner Avery Collins, among the fastest in the world, is not shy about appearing in photographs holding a bong. The first time he tried running after using marijuana, he said, he realized “it allowed me to be very present and not to worry as much about overall times and what’s going on with the run.” Mr. Collins, a 25-year-old from Colorado Springs, is one of a likely legion of athletes who use marijuana as part of their training — although he’s one of the few fast enough to get an endorsement deal from an edibles company. While there are no statistics about how many runners smoke a bowl before hitting the trail, as Mr. Collins often does, marijuana is the second most widely used drug among athletes after alcohol, according to the American Journal on Addictions. Runners say cannabis and cannabis products make their long runs more enjoyable. Many say that pot helps them to recover from hard workouts and races faster. “You have two different reasons potentially for using cannabinoids,” said Marcel Bonn-Miller, an adjunct assistant professor of psychology in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine who also works with pharmaceutical companies and nonprofit groups doing cannabinoid research. “One is to enhance your ability to train. The other is recovery oriented.” On a federal level, the purchase, possession or use of marijuana is illegal, considered a Schedule I drug — in the same category as heroin, LSD and ecstasy. But attitudes about marijuana have been rapidly changing in recent years, with former stalwart opponents to legalization like John A. Boehner, the speaker of the House from 2011 to 2015, announcing on Twitter “my thinking on cannabis has evolved.” Marijuana is legal at some level in 29 states plus the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico. Sixty-one percent of Americans now say marijuana should be legalized, up from 31 percent in 2000, according to the Pew Research Center. It’s also not prohibited for recreational use in the eyes of the World Anti-Doping Agency, whose World Anti-Doping Code is used by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, International Olympic Committee and International Paralympic Committee. In 2013, the organization raised the threshold limit of the cannabis metabolite carboxy-THC that could be found in an athlete’s urine from 15 nanograms per milliliter to 150. That’s significantly higher than levels set by some professional sports organizations in the United States. The threshold is 15 in the National Basketball Association and 50 in Major League Baseball, for example. The World Anti-Doping Agency’s decision to raise the threshold “means that athletes using the substance in competition will be detected, while the chances of detecting out-of-competition use,” which is not prohibited, “are substantially reduced,” said James Fitzgerald, senior manager of media relations and communications for the group. Studies on the effects of marijuana on athletes are sparse. “Most of the work is, at the moment, observational, looking at people who use and don’t use and comparing them,” said Dr. Bonn-Miller, who is conducting studies on the use of cannabinoids among former professional football players. “There hasn’t been a whole lot of funding for this.” A 2017 survey in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport found only 15 published studies that investigated the effects of cannabis and its main psychoactive ingredient, THC, on exercise performance. “It is generally considered that THC won’t improve aerobic performance and strength, and my review confirms that impression,” said Dr. Michael C. Kennedy, a cardiologist, clinical pharmacologist and associate professor at the University of New South Wales and St. Vincent’s Hospital Medical School, who conducted the review. He doubts claims that it helps with recovery and improves concentration, and says that athletes who tout its athletic virtues are just promoting cannabis use. “It will not make you faster, it may slow you down and certainly should not be used if there is any possibility of heart disease,” Dr. Kennedy said. Indeed, some studies have linked marijuana to hypertension and other heart risks. But Dr. Bonn-Miller believes that from a physiological standpoint, the relationship between marijuana use and running makes some sense. “There’s a lot of overlap in terms of the pathways that are activated between what’s known as a runner’s high and the high that comes from THC,” he said. “Both of those involve activation of the endocannabinoid system, so it’s not too surprising that THC might be used to enhance the runner’s high that’s gained from endurance exercise.” Runners also report using products with cannabidiol, or CBD, a nonpsychoactive component of marijuana that has shown to have anti-inflammatory properties, for recovery. The CBD is usually applied through an oil. “It lowers the amount of many, many pro-inflammatory cytokines — things that our body makes naturally in response to any inflammation response,” said Dr. Orrin Devinsky, director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at NYU Langone Health, who is studying the use of CBD to treat epilepsy. He said that CBD has also been shown to bind to serotonin receptors, “which may be related to its effect as an anti-anxiety agent.” Scott Dunlap, a 48-year-old ultrarunner who calls himself a semiprofessional (he has sponsors but also a day job) and who once ran a race in a marijuana leaf costume, says he will use an edible or vape marijuana after a long race. (He tried it once during a run and said he wound up “lost and hungry.”) He doesn’t see using marijuana after running a race as all that different from drinking a beer — except that a lot of races provide beer free. The 420 Games, which has events in California, Colorado and Pennsylvania, gives out samples — sometimes marijuana, but more often oils and creams containing CBD — in places where they are legal, though the sponsors say they are not intended to be used at the event. “I can honestly say it’s one of my favorite events of all time,” said Mr. Collins, the ultrarunner, who previously served as a spokesman for the event.

The Great CA Cannabis Experiment Lurches Forward Posted by CN Staff on April 20, 2018 at 10:20:15 PT By Robin Abcarian Source: Los Angeles Times California -- If you find yourself driving in Venice in the next little while, you may notice that the illuminated "Venice" sign at Pacific and Windward avenues that functions as a gateway to the famous boardwalk has sprouted neon cannabis leaves. The sign, which changes seasonally (red and green bulbs at Christmas, a heart on Valentine's Day, flag-colored bulbs on the Fourth of July) will honor a relatively new holiday: 4/20, which evolved from a Bay Area high school ritual to the most important day of the year for cannabis lovers. To coincide with this "holiday," a technology company with San Francisco roots held an open house this week at its new Venice office, just steps from the sign. Eaze, a platform that connects consumers to dispensaries for home deliveries of cannabis, invited the city's cannabis czar, a dispensary owner and a delivery driver to talk about the newly legalized recreational market. The company, which now occupies the building that was once home to the late sculptor Robert Graham and his wife, Anjelica Huston, also invited a group of social justice activists who are working to make sure that people in communities that have felt the brunt of the wrongheaded drug laws — Latinos and African Americans — are getting a chance to benefit from the brave new world of cannabis legalization. I was not at all surprised to hear that Cat Packer, manager of the city's Department of Cannabis Regulation, had been inspired to become a drug reform activist after learning that half of all drug arrests have traditionally been for marijuana and that people of color have been hurt the most by such laws. "Nothing has contributed more to the system of mass incarceration of people of color in the U.S. than the war on drugs," Packer said. But I confess I was a little surprised to see in the audience, among the dispensary owners and local officials, "Freeway" Ricky Ross. Ross was a notorious Los Angeles cocaine kingpin in the 1980s who spent 20 years in federal prison after being convicted of buying 100 kilos of cocaine from a federal agent. "I'm trying to get into the cannabis industry," said Ross, 58, who has been the subject of documentaries and now gives speeches to kids about staying out of trouble. "I want to grow, distribute and own a dispensary. I believe that we need somebody in the industry that's going to make sure that the little people have an opportunity." He believes his name, which he has fought in court to protect, can be put to use as his brand. (He lost a lawsuit against the rapper Rick Ross, and was wearing a T-shirt that said "The real Rick Ross is not a rapper.") After the event I chatted with Yvette McDowell, a retired Pasadena prosecutor who is thinking about practicing law again in order to help people with cannabis convictions expunge their records, as the new law allows. McDowell seemed a bit skeptical about Ross. "The only thing I would say is if he has turned his life around, fantastic," she told me. "If he is moving forward and helping others to try and do something positive, then that's a good thing. I know he should have a lot of lessons to teach." Legalization has brought with it many conundrums (including the idea that a convicted cocaine dealer could successfully brand himself as a legal cannabis entrepreneur). It has driven up the price of manufactured cannabis products (because of all the new taxes), driving down the price of bulk cannabis (because of a glut of flowers) and making it difficult to figure out what is a legal business and what is not (because of the thicket of local and state laws governing licensing). It has also led to a new crop of consumers — many of them approaching senior citizenship — who may have tried cannabis as teens or young adults and want to try it again. For many, this is where a platform like Eaze comes in. Any adult who wants to try marijuana — or, in the case of so many baby boomers, try it again — should have no problem laying their hands on the stuff. If you don't feel comfortable walking into a dispensary, you don't have to. Delivery services have sprouted up all over the place. Eaze, the biggest and most well known, is a tech platform that functions as a kind of middleman between consumers and dispensaries, which employ the drivers. Craig Wald, 72, owns a dispensary in Studio City, and is one of two Los Angeles retailers who work with Eaze. The arrangement, he said, has been great for business. "We probably have 125 drivers," said Wald, 72, who owns Perennial Holistic Wellness Center. "If you are driving home from work, and your back hurts, or you're not feeling well, you can say, 'Gosh, if I can order it on the phone right now before I get to the car, and it will be there when I get home,' why wouldn't I do that?" I've been intrigued by Eaze for several years, shortly after I started paying attention to the serious side of cannabis. After years of denial (mainly because I don't like the way cannabis makes me feel), I finally embraced the idea that pot is less dangerous than alcohol, beneficial for many medical conditions and ridiculously understudied because of half a century of federal prohibition. Back in 2015, I heard about a well-funded company that used technology to get weed to its customers within 15 minutes. That's less time than it takes to get a pizza delivered. I got in touch with Eaze, and that November, the company let me spend an afternoon roaming around San Francisco with a driver, watching him hand over paper bags of product to medical marijuana patients in exchange for wads of cash. (Remember, this was before recreational pot was legal, so all consumers were considered patients.) Two and a half years later, the company is expanding around California. It has slightly altered the 15-minute promise. "Our target is always under an hour," Eaze communications executive David Mack told me Wednesday. It also produced an annual report about the state of cannabis in 2017— which markets grew the fastest, who is consuming and when. More women are using cannabis, and fewer people are buying flower and are opting instead for manufactured products like vaporizers. Will it come as any surprise that the top day of the year for imbibers is 4/20? If it does, then you haven't been paying attention.

How Seniors Joined the Cannabis Craze Posted by CN Staff on April 20, 2018 at 10:03:50 PT By Sara Davidson Source: New Yorker Magazine USA -- On a sunny afternoon last August, a dozen women from Balfour Senior Living, in Louisville, Colorado, boarded a bus for a field trip to a marijuana dispensary. One used a walker, one was hooked up to an oxygen tank, and another wore a linen suit and jewelry. All were told to wear hats while walking from the bus to the dispensary door. “The sun is our enemy,” one said. Joan Stammerjohn, who is eighty-four, said she’d joined the group because she’s had chronic pain in her legs, and has been on OxyContin for ten years. “I’d like to get off it,” she said. Others said they had ailments like arthritis or back pain, but didn’t want to disclose their names because they believe marijuana is still stigmatized. “We’re travelling incognito,” one said. “I’m excited. I came to open my mind—I want to know the latest things. I hope this won’t be in the paper, though. We’ll have a crowd coming to Balfour, thinking this is the coolest place.” Filing inside the Ajoya dispensary, they were overwhelmed by display cases filled with pills, tinctures, edibles, jars of green flower clumps, vape pens, oils, patches, and creams. As they listened to budtenders suggest what to use for pain, arthritis, or sleep, a ninety-two-year-old bowed her head and slowly, slowly, started slumping against the counter. “Are you all right?” I asked. She fainted to the floor. A staff member knelt beside her as she regained consciousness. Paramedics arrived, but a half hour later, the woman, smiling, walked out the door with a hundred and twenty dollars worth of products. Seniors are America’s fastest-growing population of new cannabis users. Ten thousand people turn sixty-five each day, according to the Pew Research Center, and more and more are trying the drug for their health and well-being. Even conservative politicians are warming to the idea. John Boehner, the sixty-eight-year-old former Speaker of the House, who in 2011 said he was “unalterably opposed” to the legalization of marijuana, recently made news by announcing that he was joining the board of Acreage Holdings, which distributes cannabis across eleven states. His “thinking on cannabis” had “evolved,” he tweeted. In Louisville, the week before the field trip, there had been a lecture at Balfour by Joseph Cohen, D.O., the founder of Holos Health, which advises people on medical cannabis. The talk drew an overflow crowd of two hundred, with people standing against walls and spilling into the hallway. “The first thing older folks say when they enter our office is, ‘I don’t want to get high,’ ” Cohen said. He explained that there are two primary compounds in cannabis: THC, which is psychoactive, and CBD, which is not. “So CBD is a great solution for elders,” he said. “I took a little CBD before this talk, to make sure I stay calm.” Cohen is seventy-one, with a long, gray ponytail and a beard. He recommends CBD for age-related diseases, such as Parkinson’s, dementia, osteoarthritis, and chronic inflammation. “CBD has twenty times the anti-inflammatory power of aspirin and two times the power of steroids,” he said. Since cannabis is federally illegal, none of his claims—or those made by any other clinician—can be supported by double-blind studies on humans, the gold standard in medical science. But in February a peer-reviewed study of almost three thousand patients in Israel, the first of its kind, showed that cannabis can be safe and effective for seniors, and lead to decreased use of pharmaceuticals, including opioids. In the study, published in the European Journal of Internal Medicine, almost ninety-four per cent of patients reported improvement in their condition, with their pain level reduced by half. For Cohen, who practiced obstetrics and gynecology for thirty years, such results speak to the power of the endocannabinoid system, which regulates many body processes, such as nerve signalling, reproduction, and the immune system. “When I went to medical school, we didn’t know about the endocannabinoid system,” he said. “We knew about THC because we’d light up between classes.” The audience laughed. “We’re wired for this plant,” he continued. He explained that the body makes endocannabinoids—chemicals similar to THC and CBD—which lock onto receptors found throughout the body, especially in the brain. “Receptors are not found in the body because there is a plant out there that will trigger them,” Raphael Mechoulam, the Israeli biochemist who discovered THC, in 1964, said. “Receptors are present because the body makes compounds that activate them.” Two major groups of seniors are turning to cannabis. The first, like the women on the field trip, have never tried marijuana and are drawn to its alleged health benefits. The second are boomers who “smoked dope” in the sixties and seventies, giving it up when they became focussed on careers or raising kids. An attorney I know in Los Angeles, who didn’t want his name disclosed, recently returned to the drug after developing acute pain in his joints. At seventy-one, he was diagnosed with polymyalgia rheumatica, an inflammatory autoimmune disease. His doctor put him on prednisone. This decreased the pain but had unpleasant side effects, including insomnia, and required him to give up his passion for fine wine. When he began hearing that CBD was anti-inflammatory, he secured a medical license and went to a dispensary. “I was shocked,” he said. “The last time I was smoking grass, you bought a baggie filled with sticks and seeds from some shady character.” At the dispensary, he saw products labelled with the names of strains and the percentages of THC and CBD they contained. “The twenty-something budtenders became my sommeliers,” he said. “They’re as knowledgeable as wine stewards at the best L.A. restaurants.” He found a strain, Bubba Kush, that helped him sleep, and gradually started experimenting with other strains, finding new and enjoyable effects. Another boomer I talked to is a former high-school art teacher, in Boulder, who wanted to try CBD for anxiety. After receiving strains with high amounts of the chemical from her daughter, in Seattle—Colorado growers were breeding the plant to increase THC instead—she started making her own oil from the plant. Her kitchen looked like a scene from “Breaking Bad.” (“Breaking Bud,” as she put it.) The oil relieved her anxiety, and she shared it with friends, asking them to report their responses. One said it improved her arthritis; another said it helped with acid reflux. About forty per cent felt no effect. This confirmed what’s generally acknowledged: people respond differently to the same sample of cannabis. “You have to be your own chemistry set,” she said. Cannabis’s appeal isn’t universal; it's still stigmatized in some communities. Sue Taylor, a seventy-year-old retired Catholic-school principal, never smoked pot while raising her three sons, and many in her Oakland community, she said, saw it as “a hardcore drug that got their young men in jail.” The incarceration rate of African-Americans for drug charges is nearly six times that of whites, despite a similar rate of drug use. When one of Taylor’s sons called to say he was studying at Oaksterdam University, which offers training for the cannabis industry, she flew to Oakland to “save him from drugs.” But she was persuaded of pot’s medical value after doing some research, visiting senior care homes, and working at Harborside dispensary, where she saw patients’ conditions improve after cannabis treatment. Taylor is now a commissioner on aging in Alameda County, and said she is one of two people in California certified to train physicians and nurses in medical cannabis. She speaks at churches and senior centers. “In the beginning, they’ll sit, frowning, with their arms folded across their chests,” she said. “I tell them I’m not trying to convince anyone, I’m only here to educate you about the health benefits.” This summer, she plans to open iCANN Berkeley, a dispensary and wellness center, in a historically black neighborhood, which will cater to seniors. “Seniors are the most vulnerable population we have,” she said. “People think they can give them a pill and not worry if it’s gonna kill them because they’re almost dead anyway.” For Taylor, polypharmacy—the prescription of multiple drugs—is an urgent issue. “Most seniors we see are taking fifteen to twenty-six pills a day,” she said, adding that this can start with something as simple as a consultation for high blood pressure. “The doctor gives them a pill for it, which causes the thyroid to go out. The thyroid pill causes the liver to go out. The liver pill makes your pancreas go out of whack, and the list goes on,” she said. “Most important, the patients are not getting better. They’re getting worse and worse.” Six months after the Balfour field trip, I contacted some of the participants to see how they’d fared. Leslie Brown, who suffers from insomnia, said she tried one pill. “I gave it a shot and it didn’t help me sleep, so I didn’t take any more,” she said. Her husband, Ira, who has neuropathy, said he tried a gummy bear two times and “it had no effect.” When I reported this to Cohen, he said that “people have to realize that you sometimes you have to wake up your receptors. You have to try it several times. And not everything works for everybody, anyway.” When I told this to Leslie, she was silent. “Maybe I’ll try it again,” she said. “It would be nice to have a good night’s sleep.”

No consideration for those that safely extract for medical conditions. There are very safe ways to extract. And it's actually very easy to be safe. Extracting is one of the most effective ways to help patients. One of the tried and true medical uses for cannabis. Tristin Cole is attempting to make victims out of the weakest among us. In the name of what? Safety? Hard to believe anyone would work so hard and be so ignorant about the subject they are working on. More people get hurt trying to fry a turkey on thanksgiving than extracting oil. So make turkey frying illegal too with a 5 year felony, 10 years if anyone gets hurt, 20 if killed. Why do law makers want to wade so deep into our lives like this to take away personal freedom? That's what Tristin Cole is standing for, taking away a basic freedom to cook your own food.

Commercialized cannabis is like finding out the girls you looked at in Playboy were just hookers. I looked at High Times for bud porn. Always thought those ladies would be free someday, only to find out now you will always have to pay to play. Reality bites.

How Legalized Pot Could Ruin Famous Pot Convention Posted by CN Staff on April 19, 2018 at 20:45:29 PT By Avi Selk Source: Washington Post USA -- The legendary pot-judging contest called the Cannabis Cup has somehow managed to flourish under prohibition. Maybe because prohibition was relatively simple. High Times magazine brought the gathering to at least one U.S. city each year for most of this decade, even when recreational pot was illegal in all 50 states. Local opposition was hardly an obstacle then. The cup drew thousands to a Detroit jazz club in 2011, even though suspicious police officers repeatedly intruded on what the Detroit Free Press called its “sealed medicating tent.” Flash-forward to 2018: Pot has been legalized in nine states since, including California this year. You’d think this weekend’s Cannabis Cup in San Bernardino, Calif., would be a smokeout to remember. High Times has estimated at least 20,000 will attend — to celebrate their drug’s newfound legitimacy as they sample gourmet weed, pet baby goats, get high on a Ferris wheel and see Nas and Lil Wayne perform onstage. Well, that was the plan. Barely a day before the event was supposed to begin, High Times’s event director found herself in perhaps the least mellow place on earth, a city council meeting, as she tried desperately to bring the festival into compliance with a confusing suite of new regulations that accompanied pot’s legalization. And she failed. After a nearly 45-minute debate on Wednesday, the San Bernardino City Council voted unanimously to deny the Cannabis Cup a marijuana permit — forcing it to begin on Friday with no drugs, or not begin at all. The shock vote also suggests that the once-underground pot movement, which kept U.S. cannabis culture alive through years of prohibition, may face even larger threats in the age of legalization. “We want to learn how to work with these new rules and regulations,” High Times event director Sameen Ahmad told San Bernardino council members at the beginning of Wednesday’s meeting. “We’ve been here for a very, very long time. We’re a community ourselves, as are you.” High Times, which this newspaper once compared to a “Playboy for drugs and the counterculture,” launched the Cannabis Cup in the 1980s in Amsterdam — one of the few countries where it was broadly legal. The magazine has been holding the event in various U.S. cities since 2010 — occasionally moving it when the contest offended local laws or sensibilities. The cup was forced out of Los Angeles in 2013, for example, and out of Denver three years later — ironically after Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize marijuana. “The event was tolerated for years as it served as an outlet to protest federal law,” Inc. observed at the time. “But now as Colorado’s legal marketplace enters its third year, state laws like the ban on public consumption are being enforced.” San Bernardino, in contrast, became a reliable haven for the cup. The Washington Post’s Marc Fisher visited the event in 2014, when it operated under California’s medical marijuana laws, and observed what looked less like a medical convention than a days-long party. “In the ‘medication area’ of the nation’s biggest marijuana exposition, scantily clad young women hand out marshmallows they’ve dipped into a rushing fountain of pot-laced chocolate,” Fisher wrote. “Everywhere, growers lovingly explain the virtues of dozens of plant strains such as Gorilla Glue, Silver Haze and Crystal Coma.” And so it went in San Bernardino, year after year with no major complaints. Until this year. In January, a 2016 proposition legalizing recreational marijuana across California finally went into effect. With new freedoms came, of course, new rules and regulations — and a sort of catch-22 for High Times. As explained at Wednesday’s meeting, the California Bureau of Cannabis Control won’t approve a marijuana event unless the local government issues organizers a permit first, two months in advance. But San Bernardino didn’t even have a system to issue marijuana permits until early April. High Times, meanwhile, said it was confused by the new laws and had been trying to negotiate with the state before the city. That left Ahmad, the magazine’s event director, standing before the council on Wednesday evening, pleading at the last minute to let the contest go forward — because several famous rappers and several thousand attendees were likely already on their way. “We have nationally recognized acts coming, and this is all associated with [the] city of San Bernardino,” she said. “It would be very unfair to all those people … to be denied because a company is coming to you to try to do the right thing.” But the council members, who apparently had not been consulted about any prior Cannabis Cup, turned increasingly hostile to the event as the meeting dragged on. “Is it possible this event will go on illegally without our permitting it?” asked Fred Shorett. “We’d have to shut them down.” “Would we be in fact somehow aiding and abetting in this, um, yeah,” said council member John Valdivia, before trailing off. “How do we reconcile the state law versus the permit processing?” There were no great answers. City staff members had been working with High Times since learning of the company’s dilemma and proposed at the meeting a sort of Band-Aid solution: San Bernardino could issue a medical marijuana permit for the Cannabis Cup and impose a surcharge on each ticket sold to pay for police who’d be needed to guard the event. But by this point several council members were worried about passing an ordinance that might conflict with the state’s rules on short notice. “I feel like it’s being shoved down our throats at the very last minute,” said Virginia Marquez. “I’m sitting here and being asked to break the law,” added Bessine Richard. Before the meeting, a High Times spokesman had told NBC News that he expected the special permit to sail through. But by the end of the night, a clearly distressed Ahmad watched as every single council member came out with a reason to vote against her — from legal concerns to what one member called “crap on the floor from attendees.” Only two audience members appeared to be watching the meeting — one of whom worked at a U-Haul center across the street from the event and complained that it would block the parking. Ahmad tried one last time. She admitted that High Times might have erred in interpreting the new laws but implored the council to reward its good intentions. “There have been events going on this year under the new law that never filed for this permit, that you let happen, that were not shut down,” she said. “We’re the first ones here asking you to do this properly. We’ve done this for so long. We’re asking you to let us do this.” The council voted 6 to 0 to deny the requested permit. A member asked if the cup, set to begin on Friday, would now be canceled. She had no answer but seemed uncomfortable with the idea of a Cannabis Cup without cannabis. As of Thursday, tickets are still on sale for the events, which city officials have promised to shut down if anyone lights up against the rules. In a statement to Cannabis Now, High Times’s chief executive released a vague statement about the future of marijuana. “The new regulations of the cannabis world provide new hurdles to overcome.” Update: After this article published, High Times sent the following statement: The San Bernardino City Council decision to block, at the last minute, the lawful sale of Cannabis-based products during this weekend’s Cannabis Cup event at the National Orange Show Fairgrounds is deeply regrettable. It impairs the legal ability of farmers to sell their products to willing customers, as guaranteed under the state’s Urban Agriculture Incentive Zone legislation. High Times has worked for years with San Bernardino city and county planners and leaders to help make our annual Cannabis Cup event there the state’s biggest celebration of legalization. The event has become a remarkable cultural celebration featuring amazing music, vendors of a wide range of products, food and more. It’s also a major boost to the San Bernardino economy, drawing thousands of visitors from across the state and beyond. This year, new laws and provisions are impairing the rights of commerce and free expression for those lawful companies and citizens. These new provisions stand in stark defiance of the people’s will, as ratified by Prop. 64’s full legalization of Cannabis use and sale in 2016. Further, the Cannabis Cup is held on fairgrounds governed by the Urban Agriculture Incentive Zone, under long-established provisions protecting farming and agriculture events. Those laws prevent local municipalities from blocking or obstructing such gatherings. Based on the Agriculture Incentive Zone laws, we did not pursue a city license until this week, as the city adopted an ordinance requiring municipal approval only 8 days ago. Given the 60 day lead time required for approval, the Board’s basis for denying the application, this put our brand in an impossible spot to meet all the required prerequisites. High Times has a long history of orderly, safe cultural celebrations that follow the law while allowing citizens to exercise their legal rights. The 44-year-old magazine was the first focused on the Cannabis industry, and has been sponsoring Cannabis-related events nearly as long. We will continue to be a beacon of freedom and progress, while respecting the laws of the State of California. The Cannabis Cup will proceed this weekend. As organizers, we will emphasize to vendors the continuing need to respect current laws and codes. This event is about much more than buying and selling marijuana. It celebrates the people, music and medicine that heal so many, who are part of a culture that unites millions. The movement will not be stopped.

Cannabis Use Could Cut Into Wine Consumption Posted by CN Staff on April 19, 2018 at 10:10:21 PT By Liza Zimmerman, Contributor Source: Forbes USA -- According to an April report by New York City-based Rabobank, “existing research does indicate that rising marijuana use will negatively affect the growth of beverage alcohol.” The primary drivers of this trend include the fact that women and older consumers are saying they intend to use more marijuana when it is legal; a focus on health that cannabis fits into; and marijuana becoming legalized in states that already have high levels of wine consumption. The report notes that “every demographic group expected their marijuana consumption to rise, but the rise was especially significant among women and older, wealthier consumers,” which makes sense because “these individuals conceivably have the most to lose [like mortgages or higher-paying jobs] if caught using [or] possessing illegal drugs." In terms of cannabis’s health conscious appeal, “For weight-conscious consumers, a group skewing slightly female, marijuana has another advantage: It is calorie free.” Rabobank adds that cannabis companies are expected to market the product as a “healthy, ‘lifestyle’ product.” Wine also stands to lose as cannabis is being steadily legalized in states that are home to robust wine consumption. “According to IWSR [the London-based research group that does not spell out its name], the average per-capita wine consumption in states with legalized marijuana is 13.4 liters. The average for states without legal adult-use marijuana is 8.2 liters. Over 30% of U.S. wine, by volume, is consumed in states that have legalized adult-use marijuana.” A Closer Look at the Data In a recent interview, Stephen Rannekleiv, a global sector strategist for beverages in Rabobank’s New York City offices, took a deeper dive into the data. Markets like California, he noted, stand to lose more wine consumption as wine is currently consumed in higher quantities there than in markets such as New York. The second major reason that wine consumption might decline more in California is that the state is more advanced in the cannabis legalization process, Rannekleiv said. It could also be said that “California moved faster on the legalization process because there is more consumer interest, so changes may be a bit more pronounced.” Rannekleiv continued that he doesn’t envision “the hardcore wine enthusiasts, or those that like wine because of how it reflects on their image/status, suddenly replacing wine with cannabis.” The move to replace wine with marijuana is more likely to happen at the end of the day with consumers who will use it to unwind, he added. These wine consumers may “not be hardcore [wine] enthusiasts. They tend to skew to the under-$10 segments.” As a result, “I would guess this is the price segment most likely to see some potential impact from legalization.” In the end, those who want to have a rare steak after a hard day in the office are not likely to pair it with cannabis, but other types of wine-to-marijuana usage shifts are likely to be seen on the horizon.

“The time for decriminalization has come, and I hope we can move the ball forward on this,” Schumer said. It's a game of inches and we have a great run game.

Schumer Backs Federal Effort To Decriminalize MJ Posted by CN Staff on April 19, 2018 at 20:34:09 PT By David Weigel Source: Washington Post Washington, D.C. -- The Senate’s top Democrat will introduce legislation to decriminalize marijuana, the first time that a leader of either party in Congress has endorsed a rollback of one of the country’s oldest drug laws. In an interview with Vice News, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that he’d seen the effects of current marijuana laws, under which the drug has the same legal classification as heroin. “First, I’ve seen too many lives and families ruined because of the criminalization of marijuana,” Schumer said in a statement to The Washington Post. “Too many people caught with small amounts have spent far too much time in jail. Second, this has had a disproportionate effect on communities of color. But the bottom line is it’s just the right thing to do. People should have this freedom.” Marijuana legalization, which spent years as a fringe political cause, has become increasingly popular with all voters and increasingly embraced by Democrats. In January, the Pew Research Center found 61 percent of Americans supportive of legalization, with support reaching 70 percent among millennials. Last year, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who is seen by many Democrats as a potential presidential candidate in 2020, introduced the Marijuana Justice Act, which would legalize the drug nationwide; it was later endorsed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), whose state legalized marijuana in 2015, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who is also seen as a potential presidential contender. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who endorsed a marijuana-legalization initiative in California during his 2016 presidential campaign, endorsed Booker’s bill Thursday morning. Schumer is introducing separate legislation on Friday — a date that is an unofficial holiday for marijuana users. His bill would not legalize marijuana outright, but instead allow states to decide whether to make the drug available commercially. It would end the limbo that marijuana sellers find themselves in, months after Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded Obama-era guidance that prevented federal law enforcement officials from interfering with the marijuana business in states where it had legal status. “The bill lets the states decide and be the laboratories that they ought to be,” Schumer said. “It also will ensure that minority- and woman-owned businesses have a dedicated funding stream to help them compete against bigger companies in the marijuana business. Critically, we ensure that advertising can’t be aimed at kids, and put real funds behind research into the health effects of THC,” referring to the primary psychoactive substance in marijuana. Schumer’s move was quickly celebrated by legalization supporters, who began the week by thanking Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for fast-tracking a bill that would legalize industrial hemp. “In the past week or so we’ve seen an unprecedented escalation of political support for marijuana law reform,” said Tom Angell, chairman of Marijuana Majority. “It seems as if both parties may have finally realized just how popular marijuana legalization is with voters and are afraid of the other party stealing the issue.” Democrats see the Schumer bill as part of an ongoing effort to attract young voters, who tend not to participate in midterm elections. Schumer has also gotten behind a campaign to restore “net neutrality,” regulation that would prevent Internet service providers from skewing the prices or download speeds for certain kinds of data. “The time for decriminalization has come, and I hope we can move the ball forward on this,” Schumer said.

The worm has turned..... punish the punishers.

Bernie Sanders Backs Bill To Punish Anti Cannabis States Posted by CN Staff on April 19, 2018 at 09:49:29 PT By Tom Angell Source: Forbes Washington, D.C. -- Several potential rival presidential candidates are teaming up on legislation to end the federal war on marijuana. On Thursday, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is signing on as a co-sponsor of the Marijuana Justice Act, introduced last year by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ). Many political observers expect that Booker and Sanders will compete for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), another rumored contender, is also a co-sponsor of the bill. Although the three senators may be just months away from the start of a hard-fought political nominating contest, they are linking arms in support of the most far-reaching cannabis reform bill ever to have been filed in Congress. "Leaders in the Democratic Party are increasingly recognizing that leading the charge on legalization is not only good policy, but good politics," Justin Strekal, political director of NORML, said in an interview. "The constituencies which the party claims to stand for are the ones who have most felt the weight of prohibition and the lifelong consequences of prohibition." The Marijuana Justice Act, if passed, would not only remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act so that states could legalize without federal interference, but would also withhold funding from states that maintain criminalization and continue to have racially disproportionate arrest and incarceration rates for cannabis. The legislation would also direct federal courts to expunge prior marijuana convictions and would allow people punished under disproportionately enforced cannabis laws to file civil lawsuits against those states. Money withheld from states with discriminatory marijuana policies would be used to fund job training and libraries. During his run for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, Sanders became the first major contender to endorse legalization. He also filed legislation in the 114th Congress that would have simply removed cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act. Earlier this year, he launched an online petition calling on the federal government to "end its failed war on drugs." Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) is also a sponsor of the Marijuana Justice Act. Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) filed a companion bill in the House in January. It currently has 27 cosponsors. "With Senator Sanders cosponsoring the Marijuana Justice Act alongside Senators Booker and Gillibrand, it’s time for the party to speak with one voice that they will legalize marijuana and expunge the criminal convictions of the millions who are being held back from achieving both employment and the American dream," NORML's Strekal said. This is a developing story and will be updated.

That's the way the money goes... Pop go the weasels .....

Some Republican Lawmakers Now Think Highly Of It Posted by CN Staff on April 17, 2018 at 05:17:15 PT By Kurtis Lee Source: Los Angeles Times Washington, D.C. -- States that have passed laws legalizing recreational marijuana in recent years appear to have found some new, unexpected supporters: Republican politicians. Since voters began to pass recreational marijuana measures in 2012, the pro-pot movement has seen swift support from many Democrats, with Republicans often pushing back against legalization. Those expressing concern or opposition have cited, among other things, the potential for pot to be a gateway drug, and they have regularly sided with law enforcement, which has established a unified front against recreational marijuana. But a recent mix of public opinion, an influx in tax revenue and questions surrounding states' rights has in part led to a shift in rhetoric and legislative proposals. President Trump last week spurned a threat by his Justice Department to crack down on recreational marijuana in states where it is legal, easing concerns about the possibility of raids and prosecution. Trump's directive Friday came in response to concerns from Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.). Since January, Gardner has criticized an announcement by Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions that he would rescind an Obama-era policy that directed federal prosecutors not to target marijuana businesses that operate legally under state law. Gardner had responded to the announcement by blocking Justice Department nominees. Gardner had opposed recreational marijuana before Colorado passed its legalization measure in 2012, but has become one of the law's staunchest defenders. For him, the issue centers on states' rights. Shortly after Sessions' announcement, Gardner tweeted that it "trampled on the will of the voters in CO and other states." To date, nine states — Colorado, California and Nevada among them — have legalized marijuana for recreational use, allowing people 21 and older to purchase and possess up to an ounce of marijuana. Many states that have legalized recreational use have seen a boom in tax revenue. In 2016, Colorado generated about $250 million in tax revenue from recreational pot. Washington state raked in even more, about $256 million. Most of the money goes toward public school systems, according to state agencies that are tasked with overseeing legal marijuana. The cost of legal marijuana varies based on taxes imposed in states and cities. In Denver, for example, marijuana costs an estimated $163 an ounce, according to MarijuanaRates.com, which tracks cannabis pricing. In Los Angeles, an ounce costs an average of about $250. Neal Levine, chairman of the New Federalism Fund, a nonpartisan group that aims to maintain state and local authority over cannabis laws and has worked on policy with Republicans, said that over the years his organization has seen support grow in the GOP. "Siding with state governments over federal regulation is an important principle of federalism and consistent with conservative values," Levine said. "The president himself has been a consistent proponent of states' rights and letting the federal government get out of the states' way on this issue. We expect our Republican champions on Capitol Hill will continue to lead on this issue and for those numbers to grow." He cited the work of, among others, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa), who is the lead sponsor of the Respect State Marijuana Laws Act. The measure, which has more than a dozen Republican cosponsors, aims to prevent the federal government from criminally prosecuting individuals and businesses that are engaging in state-sanctioned activities specific to the possession, use, production and distribution of pot. Other Republicans who have worked on marijuana legislation include Rep. Tom Garrett of Virginia, who last year introduced the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2017. If passed, the bill would take marijuana off the federal controlled substances list — joining other substances such as alcohol and tobacco. In addition, several other Republicans have crafted legislation to protect medical marijuana laws, which have been passed in more than two dozen states. Even so, these measures have stalled in the Republican-controlled Congress. Lawmakers have not made the issue a focal point, instead concentrating on such issues as tax reform. Levine said it's only a matter of time before more Republican members of Congress change their tune and make the issue a legislative priority. Last week, former GOP House Speaker John A. Boehner announced that he was joining the advisory board of Acreage Holdings, a company with cannabis operations in several states, and that his position on legal marijuana had changed based on public opinion. For years, Boehner had opposed legal marijuana, in part because he believed it was a gateway drug. "As public opinion shifts, members' opinions on this are going to shift — I'm a prime example," Boehner told Bloomberg. "Over these last 10 years, my attitude has changed pretty dramatically on this." In October, a Gallup poll found 64% of respondents supported the legalization of recreational use of marijuana in the United States. For the first time, the poll found, a majority of Republicans surveyed — 51% — favored legalization. That number was up from 42% a year before. Meanwhile, 67% of independents supported legalization in the October poll, compared with 72% of Democrats. Other surveys have shown similar results. Mason Tvert, vice president of communications for VS Strategies, a public affairs firm based in Denver that specializes in cannabis policy, said he expects the numbers will continue to trend upward. "And that's going to force politicians — especially Republicans who have been somewhat reluctant — to continue to support the end of marijuana prohibition," Tvert said. In recent years, some Republican governors have implemented legalization efforts at the behest of voters. Two years ago, Nevadans overwhelmingly passed a measure allowing the sale and possession of up to an ounce of marijuana for anyone older than 21. Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval opposed the ballot measure but softened his language and worked to implement the law after voters passed the measure by a nearly 10-percentage-point margin. And in January, Vermont Republican Gov. Phil Scott signed a bill that legalized recreational marijuana. In Vermont, legalization has been debated for years, with most polls showing widespread support for it. Among voters there, 57% supported allowing adults to possess and grow limited amounts of marijuana, according to a survey conducted last year by Public Policy Polling. Thirty-nine percent opposed. "I personally believe that what adults do behind closed doors and on private property is their choice," Scott said when he signed the legislation. "So long as it does not negatively impact the health and safety of others."