SIERRA MADRE DEL SUR, MEXICO (AP) - Red and purple blossoms with fat, opium-filled bulbs blanket the remote creek sides and gorges of the Filo Mayor mountains in the southern state of Guerrero. The multibillion-dollar Mexican opium trade starts here, with poppy farmers so poor they live in woodplank, tin-roofed shacks with no indoor plumbing. Mexican farmers from three villages interviewed by the Associated Press are feeding a growing addiction in the U.S., where heroin use has spread from back alleys to the cul-de-sacs of suburbia. [continues 741 words]
With 61 Marijuana Dispensaries, Vancouver Has More Stores Than the Rest of Canada The number of over-the-counter marijuana dispensaries in Vancouver has soared in the past year to an estimated 61 shops. But as for what's in store for 2015, the city's police, politicians and pot impresarios all say the future looks pretty hazy. That tally means Vancouver has more dispensaries than the rest of Canada combined, according to the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries. CAMCD, an industry organization, estimates that more than 80 per cent of the country's dispensaries are in B.C. [continues 726 words]
Legislature 2015 20 Separate Bills Tackle Issues Including Taxes, Zoning Issues, Medical Pot OLYMPIA - So many tweaks are needed to reform Washington state's marijuana laws that state House lawmakers began Monday a two-day session of public hearings on nearly 20 separate bills. The proposals range from fixes in the way marijuana is taxed and where it can be sold, to how local governments are allowed to ban it. But the unifying theme Monday for the House Commerce and Gaming Committee was reforming the fledgling marijuana industry to bring into the system the state's black-market growers and sellers. [continues 550 words]
Ganjapreneur Threatens to Sue Wheat Ridge Over Scuttled Deal Wheat Ridge - A man with dreams of building a cannabis shop and grow house on a quiet corner in Wheat Ridge is planning to sue the city for $ 700,000 after what he says was a broken promise that has cost him much of his investment. Babak Behzadzadeh, a businessman who lives in Cherry Hills Village, accuses Wheat Ridge officials of assuring him and his partners for weeks that all was well with his plan last summer to locate a pot store at the southeast corner of Miller Street and West 38th Avenue. [continues 782 words]
Repeat after me: "Marijuana is bad for adolescents and young adults." See, that wasn't so hard. But it was for Colorado. Last summer, the state released its first public education campaign in the post-marijuana legalization era. It came up with the slogan "Don't Be a Lab Rat." The entire campaign was premised on "some people question this research." It suggested that the jury is still out, that the risks to teenagers are unknown. Critics of the campaign claimed it was simply a scare tactic. Really? Nothing was scary about this wishy-washy message about adolescent and young adult marijuana use, other than it ignored the truth. The message "Marijuana is harmful ... maybe ... we're not sure" seems more likely to achieve the opposite effect than what is intended. Unfortunately, teens might conclude, if the state can't even say for sure that it's bad, then it must be OK. In fact, from 2011 to 2013, the percentage of Colorado high schoolers that perceive moderate or great risk from regular marijuana use decreased from 57.6 percent to 54 percent, according to the 2013 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey. [continues 217 words]
Colorado Publishes Review of Marijuana Health Research Colorado released a sweeping report Monday about marijuana and health - - everything from pot's effect on drivers to asthma, cancer rates and birth defects. The 188- page report doesn't include new research on marijuana. Instead, it's a review of what its authors call limited existing studies. The report looks at studies showing that risk of a motor vehicle crash doubles among drivers with recent marijuana use, and that heavy use of marijuana is associated with impaired memory. [continues 317 words]
Proposal Ends Congress's Restriction on Setting Up Regulations in the City President Obama's $4 trillion budget would do a lot of things, but one of the most controversial may turn out to be allowing legal sales of marijuana in the nation's capital. D.C. voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure last year to follow Colorado and Washington state in legalizing pot for recreational use. But in December, outgoing Democrats and incoming Republican leaders in Congress moved to halt the measure. Under a broad budget deal, they prevented the District's mayor and council from spending any money to work out the specifics of how pot would be sold, which the ballot measure left up to local politicians to decide. [continues 447 words]
On Feb. 24, limited personal possession and small private marijuana grows become unequivocally legal in Alaska for people over the age of 21. To some people, that date means an end to an injustice that has exacerbated other inequities in America, and an end to unique contradictions inherent to Alaska laws regarding marijuana. To others, it represents a capitulation in the war against intoxication and a shift that brings Alaska closer to vice and indolence. Many others are somewhere between. No matter our perspectives on the personal use of marijuana, it is unavoidable that Alaska is now front-and-center in a nationwide trend and that history is unfolding before our eyes. [continues 317 words]
FAIRBANKS - North Pole Mayor Bryce Ward introduced legislation on Monday effectively restricting marijuana use outside of the home. The ordinance is part of a package of measures dealing with the regulation of marijuana in North Pole. The ordinances were advanced for a vote on Feb. 17. The new voter-approved state law, which goes into effect on Feb. 24, decriminalizes cannabis but prohibits using it in public. What is a public place was left undefined. Here is how Ward proposes to define a public place: streets, highways, sidewalks, alleys, transportation facilities, parking areas, convention centers, sports arenas, schools, places of business or amusement, shopping centers, malls, parks, playgrounds, prisons and other portions of apartment houses and hotels not constituting rooms or apartments designed for actual residence such as hallways, lobbies and doorways. [continues 228 words]
