SPRINGFIELD, Colo. — Along the plains of eastern Colorado, on a patch of soil where his father once raised alfalfa, Ryan Loflin is growing a leafy green challenge to the nation’s drug laws. As part of regulation, Colorado will be able to randomly test hemp crops to ensure that they have only trace amounts of THC, a chemical in marijuana. His fields are sown with hemp, a tame cousin of marijuana that was once grown openly in the United States [...]
An analysis from pro-medical marijuana group Americans For Safe Access found that President Barack Obama’s administration has spent nearly $300 million on combatting medical marijuana in states that have legalized the drug. The report calculates the total amount of federal spending on medical marijuana intervention at $289 million over Obama’s four-and-a-half years in the White House. According to the analysis, the Drug Enforcement Administration alone spent 4 percent of its budget in 2011 and 2012 cracking down on medical marijuana [...]
UPDATE: A source in the U.S. Attorney’s Office tells KING 5 News that only four pot dispensaries were raided. The source says the raids were a continuation of an investigation that became public in 2011 when the DEA raided several pot dispensaries. The raids were not the federal government making a statement about pot use in Washington state, the source says. The raids involved people incriminated in 2011 who did not plead or go to trial. — Original story — [...]
Cannabis plants are sprouting up all over a German town after pro-marijuana supporters planted tens of thousands of seeds last month. Supporters of the group A Few Autonomous Flower Children spread several kilograms of seeds around the university town of Gottingen last month. They say they are protesting its ‘demonisation’ in Germany’s ‘restrictive drug laws’. Scores of the plants have sprouted all over the town this week to the fury of the local police and council. A website shows dozens [...]
A bill that would require Maine food retailers to put labels on products that contain genetically modified ingredients is moving forward. The state senate recently gave approval approximately one week ago, which means it faces further votes in the House and Senate. The bill wouldn’t go into effect until four other states pass similar laws, but it’s still an encouraging step forward. The vote was a crushing 141 to 4 in favor of GMO labeling, another great support for the [...]
WASHINGTON — It took 50 years for American attitudes about marijuana to zigzag from the paranoia of “Reefer Madness” to the excesses of Woodstock back to the hard line of “Just Say No.” The next 25 years took the nation from Bill Clinton, who famously “didn’t inhale,” to Barack Obama, who most emphatically did. And now, in just a few short years, public opinion has moved so dramatically toward general acceptance that even those who champion legalization are surprised at [...]
Published in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the study examined the effects of consistent marijuana use on Crohn’s patients who suffered from severe cases of the disease. The results of the 21-subject study point toward the drug’s anti-inflammatory properties as being responsible for quieting symptoms in many patients, and even reaching total remission in others. The Disease: Causes, Symptoms, And Treatments Often mischaracterized as an autoimmune disease, Crohn’s disease is in fact an immune deficiency state. Arising from a host [...]
A lawsuit filed against the National Security Agency by a coalition of 19 organizations illustrates how some Federal policies violate American rights, regardless of demographics, political affiliation or personal beliefs. The group, represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, includes a variety of organizations focused on everything from human rights abuses, gun rights and Islamic relations to the Unitarian church and marijuana reform advocates. At the heart of the case, First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA, is the NSA’s [...]
For his book “Too High to Fail,” author Doug Fine took off to Mendocino, California, where growing marijuana is big business. A tolerant county sheriff sees pot as a source of much-needed revenue for his department and local government, even as the Obama administration sporadically swoops down on medical marijuana dispensaries. Entering the gray zone of the green revolution in northern California, Fine documents an entrepreneurial spirit that represents a key feature of the stereotype of the American dream: risk [...]
