Washington cities slow to implement legal marijuana
Though Washington voters approved growing and selling recreational marijuana, few cities have taken steps to implement the law. SEATTLE — Sales of recreational marijuana are due to start in Washington around late spring, but there’s no welcome mat — at least not yet — for pot businesses in dozens of cities around the state. A […]
Marijuana application numbers growing
The final list of applicants for a recreational marijuana license wasn’t available at press time, but the most recent compilation released by the Washington Liquor Control Board shows a marked jump in the number of marijuana license applications that have been filed. One board employee, who asked not to be identified, said the list […]
Colorado’s legal recreational marijuana industry opens
DENVER – Crowds were serenaded by live music as they waited for the nation’s first legal recreational pot shops to open. They ate doughnuts and funnel cakes as a glass-blower made smoking pipes. Some tourists even rode around in a limo, eager to try weed but not so eager to be seen buying it. And when […]
Uruguay: Does a Nobel Peace Prize await?
Uruguay has perhaps the most beautiful tennis courts in the world, and they are made of red clay and not grass. That’s important to note about the second smallest country in South America that has emerged among the most talked about in the modern world when it became the first nation to fully legalize marijuana. But […]
Fewer US teens see harm in marijuana
Fewer American teenagers consider marijuana to be dangerous, an influential survey has found, a fresh sign of growing public acceptance of a substance that US federal law considers on a par with ecstasy. Some 39.5 per cent of high-school seniors view marijuana as harmful – down from 44.1 per cent just a year ago – […]
The rehabilitation of marijuana
(USA TODAY) — In 1979, U.S. taxpayers were helping to fund the eradication of marijuana fields in Mexico. Municipalities around the country were passing anti-paraphernalia laws prohibiting the sale of bongs and rolling papers. Only 27% of the nation favored legalizing marijuana, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll taken that year. Flash forward to […]
Study Shows Youth Marijuana Use Has Gone Down – to the 8th Grade
A new survey conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse shows changing attitudes and perceptions about marijuana risks are responsible for the increasing number of 8th-graders who smoke pot, according to MSN News. The Obama administration expressed its concern last Wednesday, December 18, over the rising use of marijuana among teens. The new study […]
Washington Residents Smoke Way More Weed Than Officials Thought
Knowing how much marijuana people consume is now a very important statistic for officials in Washington and Colorado. That number can help them make sound decisions about how to regulate the supply side of the country’s first recreational marijuana markets. And on Wednesday a non-profit think tank released a report showing that Washington residents consume far more weed […]
More students think marijuana is OK, study says
Most teens may be “Above the Influence” when it comes to cocaine and cigarettes, but marijuana use is growing among students. Sixty percent of U.S. high school seniors do not see regular marijuana use as harmful to their health, according to this year’s Monitoring the Future survey from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. More […]
Pot plays big on TV in ‘Glee,’ ‘Parenthood,’ and ‘Mad Men’
The abundance of marijuana on television suggests that a long-subterranean appreciation for the plant is growing, even thriving, above ground. Whereas 2005′s “Weeds” famously featured Mary-Louise Parker as a suburban mom dealing pot to maintain her upscale lifestyle, and Dave Chappelle’s “Half-Baked” celebrated the subculture with comedy, pot is steadily making its way into more […]
FIVE COMMON MARIJUANA MYTHS, DEBUNKED
Stoners of the world, don’t kill the messenger: On Monday, a brand-new study emerged that links heavy marijuana use to schizophrenic-esque brain changes in young people. Published in Schizophrenia Bulletin, the research demonstrated that young teenagers who smoked pot heavily were more likely to see structural brain changes that, alarmingly, mirrored those in people with schizophrena. But hold on: while anti-marijuana activists could […]
Cop’s “Stupid Potheads” Remarks Spark Marijuana Legalization Debate Wednesday
Remember when that Missouri drug cop said that people who think marijuana should be legalized are a bunch of illiterate potheads who collect welfare checks? Well, that has resulted in a debate on marijuana legalization to be held this Wednesday at the Ethical Society of St. Louis. It all started because of a “Facebook […]
‘I take a puff and I’m 17 again’: Lady Gaga opens up about falling in ‘love’ with marijuana after it made her ‘forget she was famous’
She has never shied away from talking about her appreciation for marijuana, but Lady Gaga has now opened up as to why she enjoys smoking the Class B drug. The eccentric singer spoke about her love of weed while being interviewed by Alan Carr when she appeared on his show Chatty Man on Wednesday. The […]
Jamaica Marijuana Tours Lead Visitors Through Island’s Hidden Pot Plantations
NINE MILE, Jamaica — Napa and Sonoma have their wine tours, and travelers flock to Scotland to sample the fine single malt whiskies. But in Jamaica, farmers are offering a different kind of trip for a different type of connoisseur. Call them ganja tours: smoky, mystical – and technically illegal – journeys to some of […]
SF’s Civic Center Plaza to be awash in cannabis Saturday
The movement is coming home. San Francisco is widely seen as the cradle of America’s medical cannabis industry, which has grown far and wide since the days when Dennis Peron opened the first cannabis club (illegally) in the late 1980s in the Castro district to help gay men dying of AIDS. On Saturday, homage […]
What should federal role be in regulating pot? #tellusatoday
We asked our followers on Twitter what role the federal government should have in regulating marijuana. Comments are edited for clarity and grammar: The U.S. government should turn the marijuana issue over to the states. They have the most to gain or lose from it. — @RadioEPTL Federal government should tax legal marijuana sales to fund […]
Drug Use Drops for America’s Youth, Rises in the Over 50 Crowd
Drug use among America’s youth is dropping, but it’s booming among people over 50, a U.S. government survey released Wednesday shows. Last year, the rate of illicit drug use among children and teenagers 12 to 17 years old dropped to 9.5 percent, down from 11.6 percent a decade earlier, according to the Substance Abuse and […]
Marijuana laws done right
By Rob KampiaSeptember 4, 2013 The Justice Department made headlines last week when it announced a new federal policy on marijuana. It should come as welcome news to the majority of Americans who, according to an April Pew Research Center poll, believe marijuana should be made legal for adults. The policy memo issued to U.S. attorneys across […]
Regulate Pot? Uruguay’s been there, with whisky
Uruguay is poised to make history as the first government to run a legal marijuana market. Sen. Lucia Topolansky tells The Associated Press they plan to license growers, sellers and users quickly after senate approval in September, protecting smokers from criminal dope dealers. Uruguay has experience monopolizing addictive substances: The government has made Scotch whisky […]
What to tell your child about marijuana
Marijuana-use issues for children should not be confused with the freedom-of-choice debate for adults. As with tobacco, most users start young, when they are vulnerable and don’t understand the risks. I never met a cigarette smoker who was glad he or she had that first butt. As parents, we want to protect our children, but […]
America’s Stoned Kids: guinea pigs of cannabis legalisation
Denver, the setting of this spliffy documentary, is The Mile High City in more ways than one Professor John Marsden. Photograph: Unknown/BBC Marijuana use on TV has been growing like hydroponic plants under fluorescent light and a Baby Bio sprinkler. Back in finger-waggy 1990, we had a preachy one-off spesh called Cartoon All-Stars To The […]
The U.S. Is Changing Its Mind About Marijuan
Most Americans now think that marijuana should be legalized. A new paper for the Brookings Institution by Bill Galston and E.J. Dionne draws attention to this startling shift of public opinion: Support for legalization has surged by almost 20 percentage points in less than a decade and by 11 points in the past three years. According to […]
A Starbucks for Pot? National Chain of Marijuana Stores in the Works
If one newly converted pot-smoking visionary has his way, the Washington-based company he created will become the Starbucks or Coca Cola of the cannabis industry. He even has plans to import marijuana from south of the border–currently illegal according to international law—and he’s apparently got the president of Mexico on board. Jamen Shively is probably […]