Actress Susan Sarandon recently tweeted a message to rappers A$AP Rocky and Action Bronson, saying, "thx for the shout out on '1Train.' Not sure what it means, but let's blaze one & talk about it some time."

It comes as no surprise that Sarandon, or Rocky and Bronson would want to blaze one. Sarandon has been an outspoken supporter of marijuana use for years - it probably helped her get through the chilly days on the set of the classic movie Rocky Horror Picture Show. Rocky and Bronson put out tracks that boast about their involvement with the stuff, so there's no surprise there. What's interesting is that the 68-year-old Sarandon reached out across the age and cultural divide to invite the youthful performers for a smoke.

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In the United States, and in Michigan, autism is growing. In fact, it is growing at such an alarming rate that it has just recently been identified as a significant public health issue, due to statistics provided by the Center for Disease Control's Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, a nationwide federal program that tracks autism rates around the country.

Estimates show that autism rates have risen in every report since tracking began in 2002, from one in 150 in 2002 to one in 68 in 2010. There is not a cure, however, new studies show, autism can be treated.

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Back when I was in college, I walked into a friend's dorm room one night to find a bunch of weed scattered on a table with a bunch of ripped up papers. I could tell these guys were buggin' because their eyes were all bugged out as they stared at me.

"Can you roll a joint?" one of them implored.

Apparently these guys were using something else and needed to chill out. I coolly slipped into a seat, grabbed some papers, and commenced to rolling. These guys were really grateful as they sucked the sweet smoke into their lungs.

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I had a friend named Tim who used to refer to marijuana according to the effects discerned on a first smoke. He would call a product laughing weed, or munchies weed, or sleepy weed, or happy weed, or dancing weed ... you get the idea.

Recent advances in understanding the bud actually supports Tim's manner of classifying what came his way. Tim's pronouncements weren't scientific - although his sampling of the substance was more scientific than the know-nothing government prohibition - but we are discovering that there are indeed different kinds of pot with different effects. That is particularly true when considering medicinal use. In the past, marijuana dealers on the illegal recreational market have mostly sold generic "weed" (generally Mexican), with occasional supplies of Colombian, Jamaican, Hawaiian, and a few other lines named after their supposed geographic origins.

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According to the Center For Disease Control, 44 people die from prescription opioid overdoses every day in the United States. In 2013, more than 16,000 people fatally overdosed on prescription painkillers.

Recently, researchers from the Rand Corporation and the University of California-Irvine have determined that in the 18 states that allow medical marijuana and also allow dispensaries, there was a 16 percent reduction in "opioid-related mortality" (deaths) and a 28 percent reduction in opioid-abuse treatment admissions. In the six states that allow medical marijuana, but not dispensaries, there was no difference in opioid related overdoses or abuse treatment admissions. Their conclusion: Marijuana dispensaries save lives.

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In our July 22 Higher Ground column ("Making an example") Larry Gabriel wrote about a police sweep on a Detroit Medz dispensary, a move which appeared to be defended by Detroit Councilman James Tate. Robert Sharpe, a policy analyst at Common Sense for Drug Policy, weighed in.

Regarding Larry Gabriel's July 22 column, would City Councilmember James Tate and the Metropolitan Detroit Community Action Coalition prefer that we go back to the old days when violent drug cartels had a monopoly on marijuana distribution? It's long past time to stop treating marijuana like kryptonite. The plant is not nearly as dangerous (or exciting) as drug warriors would have us believe.

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Last week the Detroit Medz shop on Detroit's west side was raided for "selling marijuana outside the provisions of the state medical marijuana act," says Sgt. Cassandra Lewis of the Detroit police media relations department. News reports said police found two guns, 4,100 grams (about 9 pounds) of marijuana, and arrested one person - although Lewis says two individuals were arrested that evening.

Lewis says that there were complaints from the community and that police previously had made undercover buys there, although it's not clear if those undercover buys were made by people with state cards (or fake ones as has been done in the past) or by folks who just walked in with nothing to show.

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I was saddened and disappointed to read The Detroit News report that Detroit police officers had raided a medical marijuana dispensary and arrested several apparent bad actors who were allegedly selling marijuana to eighth graders.

As a member of the Michigan Cannabis Development Association (MCDA), I was appalled and disgusted by these alleged actions, as were many of my colleagues, who are legitimate businessmen and businesswomen trying to provide medicine to patients with serious illnesses.

The MCDA believes that medical marijuana, which can be tremendously beneficial to legitimate patients with serious medical conditions, should be for the medical use of registered patients only.

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The only thing my father ever told me about marijuana was that I shouldn't use it because it was illegal. He didn't say it was bad for me or anything. He pointed out that you can drink alcohol in front of the police and not get arrested. That's the kind of thing that someone who was around during alcohol prohibition - and dad was - would say.

Today you still can't smoke a bud in front of the cops in most situations. But with legal medical marijuana in a bunch of states and legal recreational moving along smartly, there are a lot of people who never thought much about it noticing green buildings popping up in their neighborhoods or maybe some really bright lights shining from their neighbor's house at night. Here's a little primer for the curious on the herb superb.

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I read with interest Nolan Finley's Editor's Note, "Get pot legalization right," and his prediction that marijuana would be legal for adults in Michigan by the end of 2016.

To that end, I have been working on legislation to decriminalize and regulate the trade in marijuana. Getting it right and learning from the experience in Colorado is critical if Michigan is to maximize the public safety and financial gains of ending prohibition.

Marijuana prohibition is a colossal failure. It is an expensive and hopeless endeavor that drives profits for violent criminals. Our head-in-the-sand policy doesn't keep marijuana out of the hands of adolescents, and it pushes the trade in marijuana into neighborhoods. Additionally, it distorts the priorities of our law enforcement resources. Rather than wasting hundreds of millions of dollars every year arresting and prosecuting marijuana users, we can redirect those efforts toward providing substance abuse treatment and taking down violent criminals.

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When you lift that freshly poured glass of beer to your lips, the scent that bubbles up to your nose, sometimes tickling it, just before the liquid rolls across your tongue, is part of the entire experience. It gives an olfactory preview of the depth of flavor in the beer. What you smell are the hops in the beer, specifically the terpene -Myrcene, which gives beer its bitter, hoppy smell and taste. It's a good complement for beer. -Myrcene is known to be sedating, a muscle relaxant, a bit of a hypnotic, and an anti-inflammation agent - - all geared to making your beer-drinking experience an enjoyable one.

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Would you smoke marijuana if it were legal?

Backers of two rival ballot initiatives to decriminalize the cultivation, purchase and use of marijuana are betting that a significant percentage of Michigan adults a=C2=80" at least 12% a=C2=80" would, generating upwards of $200 million a year in tax revenue once the state has established the ground rules for a legal market.

But what if you knew your employer could fire you for having chemical traces of marijuana in your bloodstream a=C2=80" even if you used it only

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Prediction: Recreational marijuana use will be legal in Michigan within two years. The door that cracked with the approval of medical pot use is now wide open. A Detroit News/WDIVTV poll finds that 56 percent of state residents favor legalizing marijuana for general use.

That will embolden backers of petition drives aimed at getting marijuana legalization on the November 2016 ballot. If the issue makes it on the ballot, it will pass.

But it should be done right. The problem with the medical pot authorization is that it kept too many trappings of the illegal drug trade in place. For example, the pot is produced for the most part not by commercial growers but by the patients themselves, or their caregivers. And it's sold primarily in single purpose outlets that could pass as head shops.

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Re: Chad Livengood's June 16 report, "Legalize pot, 56 percent in Michigan poll say": Only 56 percent support legalizing marijuana? Who is this other 44 percent who believes the government should tell you what you can and cannot put in your body?

Billy Green,

Farmington Hills

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I am all for legalizing marijuana, but only when all levels of government are in concert. Adding recreational use to the existing law would be the right thing to do for decriminalization and freeing up court dockets but there has to be guarantees of the ability to freely use cannabis without fear of prosecution from any law enforcement agency when the user is in complete compliance with the law.

Mark Durfee, Detroit

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Lisa Smith is outspoken about the good effect that medical marijuana has on the symptoms of her son Noah's autism. She's so passionate about it that she spoke at a public hearing before the state committee charged with making recommendations on adding qualifying conditions under the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act.

Actually, there may not have been hearings had it not been for Smith. A couple of years ago the committee voted against autism as a qualifying condition, and once they do that the issue is usually not revisited. But after seeing the effect that marijuana had on her son's autism after she used it to treat his epilepsy, Smith sued the state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA), which oversees medical marijuana certifications, to force the office to take another look at it.

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Those who say that medical marijuana is a steppingstone to recreational marijuana are correct - although generally for the wrong reasons. However, in the rush to recreational here in Michigan and elsewhere, it would be a huge mistake to discount medical use and the needs of patients.

People outside of the marijuana movement tend to see the pro-marijuana crowd as a bunch of stoners wanting to get high - even the medical users. There are some people who are using medical marijuana with a wink and a nod as cover to get high. But I've also talked to numerous folks who would either be dead or have a significantly lower quality of life without it. People tell me they are successfully treating cancer and managing the symptoms of epilepsy with marijuana extracts. Others are using it to control pain and to kick addictions to painkillers that no longer work for them. People with multiple sclerosis and diabetes are finding that it enhances their quality of life.

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It was a smart bit of positioning the MI Legalize team has been doing in relation to the whole Michigan roads and infrastructure funding argument. They were smarter than Gov. Rick Snyder and his Republican-controlled legislature were in parsing the mood of state voters on raising the sales tax by 1 percent - something Snyder went all in on before failing spectacularly.

One of the cornerstones of the MI Legalize plan, which hasn't been finalized or registered with the state for petitioning, is that 40 percent of the taxes raised will go to fixing the roads. Voters didn't want to pay the sales tax, but they may well decide to let the stoners pay for it.

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A year ago, Kimberly Cole was taking 11 different prescription drugs to try to control her epileptic seizures, neuropathic pain, and other health issues. Then, on her doctor's advice, she tried marijuana.

Today she doesn't take any of those 11 drugs.

Marijuana was a choice of last resort. Cole has suffered from epilepsy since birth and was not a candidate for surgery because seizures were on both sides of her brain. It was not unusual for her to suffer numerous seizures per day - sometimes losing consciousness and control of her body. The effects were so severe she sometimes had to learn how to count again - and she's an industrial engineer. In 2012 she had a seizure, fell down a flight of stairs, and broke her back that brought on the neuropathic pain.

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When I was at the breakfast for Tommy Chong a couple of weeks ago, I talked with another African- American at the event. Actually, he was the only brother at this gathering of activists and dispensary owners aside from me.

As we spoke, I noted that brothers are few and far between when it comes to marijuana activism. His comment was: "And you know why."

Indeed I do. Brothers are afraid to stick their necks out on this issue because when the powers that be decide to start chopping heads off they know which heads are going to roll first. Given the history of the war on drugs and the fact that African-Americans get arrested for marijuana at more than three times the rate of whites, it makes sense to be paranoid.

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