Legal Canadian medical marijuana producer has shipment seized by mounties
Toke of the Town
Apr 7, 2014
Despite having approval from Health Canada, Tweed Marijuana says a shipment of herb grown by private B.C. growers previously licensed to grow cannabis was seized by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police over the weekend.
All of this after Tweed invited the mounties to examine the shipment. Only in Canada are people nice enough to invite the police over to check out their quasi-legal operations.
“We felt everything was done absolutely correctly,” Tweed chairman Bruce Linton told the National Post. “When you call police to say, ‘Come look at this,’ you believe you have everything in order.”
Tweed made headlines late last week as the first publically traded pot company in Canada. The group is one of the dozen that are legally allowed to produce and distribute cannabis under new government laws. The cannabis they were purchasing was produced under the old laws, which allowed for a caregiver-patient system similar to many U.S. states.
For their part, the RMCP isn’t saying anything. It’s their policy to not comment on ongoing investigations. Though, really, there’s not much to investigate. Again, this is Canada and everyone is being really nice and up-front about everything.
Growers licensed under the old system were able to sell off “starting materials” like clones, seeds and immature plants to the new, big, government-licensed grows.
Apparently, Tweed saw such a demand for products, however, that they asked the Health Department for a waiver to purchase actual bud. They got it, and thought everything was okay. Until last Monday, that is.
Linton says they had the police check out the shipment in part to be transparent, but also in part to protect the goods.
Part of the confusion comes from the ever-changing rules. Lawsuits have been filed in part to keep home cultivation in place, and there have been several changed deadlines for transferring materials.
Guatemalan President Will Present Plan To Legalize Marijuana
The Weed BlogBy Phillip Smith
Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina said Wednesday his country could present a plan before year’s end to legalize the production of marijuana and opium poppies. His comments came in an interview with Reuters.
Perez, a conservative and former general, has been a harsh critic of the US-led war on drugs in Latin America, repeatedly denouncing such policies at international forums. He has alsopreviously mentioned the possibility of moving to legalize marijuana and opium production, but has yet to put forward a concrete plan to do so.
But a presidential commission has been studying the issue of reforms in the country’s drug laws, and Perez told Reuters he expected the commission to make its recommendations by October and that the measures could be presented by year’s end. That could include a bill to legalize drugs, particularly marijuana, Perez said.
“The other thing we’re exploring… is the legalization of the poppy plantations on the border with Mexico, so they’re controlled and sold for medicinal ends,” Perez said. “These two things could be steps taken on a legal basis.”
While Afghanistan is by far the world’s largest opium producer, accounting for nearly 90% of global production, poppies are also grown in the Western hemisphere — in Mexico and Colombia, as well as Guatemala. Western hemisphere opium accounts for most of the heroin consumed in the United States.
Perez is keeping a careful eye on his northern neighbor, too. Mexico decriminalized drug possession in 2009, but has been loath to take further steps to end the drug war there, although there are now proposals afoot to legalize marijuana. Meanwhile, Mexican drug trafficking organizations, under pressure in their home country, have expanded their operations in Guatemala and other Central American nations.
Article From StoptheDrugWar.org – Creative Commons Licensing – Donate
Teenagers are smoking coffee to get high – videos included
by John Vibes
Intellihub News
Mar 31, 2014
Due to strict laws on illegal drugs, teenagers are turning to more dangerous household products to get high
(INTELLIHUB) — While police are locking people up for using illegal drugs, there are some who are using even more dangerous and harmful legal chemicals to get high. One recent example is the dangerous new trend of smoking coffee. When ingested through smoking, coffee is far more dangerous than many common illegal drugs. Smoking coffee has been known to cause trouble breathing, dizziness, vomiting and even hallucinations.
The coffee is being prepared for smoking in the same way that crack cocaine is prepared, with “Chore Boy” copper scrubber and the “Glass Rose” cylinders that are sold at many gas station convenience stores. If you saw someone smoking coffee, you may actually think that they were smoking crack.
According to MedLinePlus the full list of effects for smoking coffee include:
- Breathing trouble
- Changes in alertness
- Confusion
- Convulsions
- Diarrhea
- Dizziness
- Fever
- Hallucinations
- Increased thirst
- Irregular heartbeat
- Muscle twitching
- Increased likelihood of outrageous behavior
- Rapid heartbeat
- Sleeping trouble
- Urination – increased
- Vomiting
The following are videos showing teenagers smoking coffee with homemade devices:
As I have discussed in the past, prohibition actually encourages this sort of behavior. In the black market one of the major drawbacks is that there is no accountability among the people selling the drug. Since anyone can get kidnapped and thrown in a cage for even dealing with the stuff, it really doesn’t make sense for people to be plastering their names and logos all over the drugs. In this age of corporate mercantilism logos and branding may seem like a really tacky idea, but when looking at the black market we can see the value in such things. Someone who is selling a product with their name on it, is going to go through far greater lengths to ensure the quality of their product, as opposed to someone who would remain anonymous.
This anonymity creates an incentive for people to be dishonest with what they sell. This could lead to rip offs, or downright contamination of the drug with unwanted harmful substances. This is why there was bathtub gin that would make you go blind if your drank it during alcohol prohibition. This is also the reason why some of the harder street drugs today are cut with toxic chemicals that increase the chance of overdose ten fold. The fact that the drugs need to be smuggled also creates the incentive to make drugs more potent, and thus in some circumstances more dangerous. The increased potency and decreased availability inevitably leads to a massive increase in cost. The increased cost is a whole other issue with its own unique side effects in regards to drug safety. When the price of the real drugs go up, people just start huffing paint thinner, smoking bath salts and cooking up crystal meth in their basements, which is then even many times more dangerous than the unbranded drugs on the black market.
Writer Bio:
John Vibes is an investigative journalist, staff writer and editor for Intellihub News where this article originally appeared. He is also the author of an 65 chapter Book entitled “Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance” and is an artist with an established record label. You can find him on his Facebook.
For media inquires, interviews, questions or suggestions for this author, email: vibes@intellihub.com or telephone: (347) 759-6075.
Read more articles by this author here.
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MUST LISTEN — The Classical Trivium, Magic Mushrooms, The CIA & Zionism: An Interview With Jan Irvin
The Real Deal
Mar 28, 2014
In this episode of The Real Deal journalist Joshua Blakeney interviewed California-based ethnomycologist Jan Irvin of http://www.gnosticmedia.com. Irvin addressed a wide array of subjects in the show including the Classical Trivium, the role of the CIA in popularizing Magic Mushrooms, Jewish ideologies and the health effects of consuming wheat.
This show will be archived here:
http://radiofetzer.blogspot.com
Other relevant links include:
Alaska Voters Will Soon Decide on Marijuana Legalization
PHOTO CREDIT: REUTERS/JASON REDMOND
by Elizabeth Renter
Natural Society
March 1, 2014
It’s official, Alaska voters will soon decide whether or not to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in their state. The proposal officially qualified for a statewide ballot on Wednesday after thousands of signatures were verified and certified by Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell. On August 17, voters in the northernmost state will go to the polls for pot.
As Reuters reports, if voters approve the measure, it would make Alaska the third state to legalize recreational marijuana, coming after Colorado and Washington who approved recreational pot in later 2012.
The proposed initiative would allow adults ages 21 and over to possess up to one ounce of marijuana for personal use and to grow up to six plants for their own consumption.
In addition, the proposal “charts a course” for a system of state-regulated marijuana sales as we see in Colorado, where dispensaries made well over $1 million in just their first day of business.
“A bipartisan tidal wave of public support for regulating marijuana like alcohol in Alaska has pushed this issue onto the ballot, and we will be running an aggressive campaign designed to build momentum on that,” said legalization campaign spokesman Taylor Bickford.
Marijuana users in the state aren’t the only ones who would benefit from the law. The state itself would collect a tax of $50 per ounce sold at the wholesale level.
VIDEO — Marijuana In The Post Prohibition World
Press For Truth
Feb 19, 2014
While the Canadian government is taking a major step backwards for our freedoms by restricting the rights of medicinal marijuana users, Colorado and Washington State have legalized marijuana for both medicinal and recreational use and so Dan Dicks of Press For Truth went to Seattle to investigate!
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DOCUMENTARY — Cocaine Cowboys (2006)
YouTube — futurejumpupdnb
Jan 7, 2013
In the 1980s, ruthless Colombian cocaine barons invaded Miami with a brand of violence unseen in this country since Prohibition-era Chicago – and it put the city on the map. “Cocaine Cowboys” is the true story of how Miami became the drug, murder and cash capital of the United States, told by the people who made it all happen.
PN 