the herb grinder

Central City, Colo. — Don Boring owns a grocery store, a liquor store and now, a medical marijuana dispensary. The main difference among them is that he has to produce his own pot inventory. Colorado set a Sept. 1 deadline for dispensaries to show they grow at least 70 percent [...]

The Union, 31 Aug 2010 - I'll bet a beer that most of you would have no problem finding a gin and tonic, if booze was illegal today. Guys like Al Capone would see to that. Big Al, they say, was knocking down $60 million per year in the late 1920s from alcohol alone, during a period when our governm [...]

Appeals by two sacked truck drivers against separate employers have failed. One was dismissed for driving dangerously and the other for using drugs.The Employment Relations Authority found that both had been justifiably sacked.In...

The Cortez Journal, 31 Aug 2010 - Board Of County Commissioners Votes Down Medical Marijuana Facilities The Montezuma County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Monday to ban the operation of medical marijuana centers, cultivation sites and infused product industries in unincorporated portions [...]

Santa Cruz Sentinel, 30 Aug 2010 - SANTA CRUZ -- A new synthetic marijuana and the resurgence in popularity of a hallucinogenic drug have police and community leaders worried because both substances are legal and for sale in the Santa Cruz area. "I don't know enough about this stuff," Wat [...]

Daily Camera, 31 Aug 2010 - A decision by the Boulder County Land Use Department to approve the transformation of a one-time organic egg farm north of Longmont into a marijuana growing operation will stand, county commissioners decided Tuesday morning. The commissioners decided not to "call up [...]

The investor saw potential in the scrubby 67 acres tucked away amid multimillion dollar homes: He would turn the land into a vast pot farm and capitalize on the booming medical marijuana industry. But Scott Mullner, a city councilman from Laramie, Wyo., infuriated his Colorado neighbors with his plan to place [...]

Aurora Sentinel, 30 Aug 2010 - AURORA | How much is too much when it comes to medical marijuana? Members of the Aurora City Council Neighborhood Services Policy Committee suggested preliminary rules to help solve questions of home-grow operations during an Aug. 19 meeting. [...]

Albuquerque, N.M. — New Mexico is proposing an increase in fees on medical marijuana producers to help fund administration of the state’s program. The New Mexico Department of Health, which operates the program, wants to increase the application fee on would-be producers from the current $100 to $1,000 [...]

Reigning world surfing champion Mick Fanning bounced back with a blistering second-round effort after action finally got under way at the Billabong Pro Tahiti yesterday. The 28-year-old Australian was beaten into second place...

Calgary company with help from local firms develops electric vehicle with body parts made from hemp Don’t call it the cannabis car, but a Calgary transportation company and its partners including some Toronto firms have developed an electric vehicle with hemp body parts. Calgary-based Motive Industries says it will unveil the design of the [...]

Smoking pot can make some of the pain go away, without the patient getting high. The finding comes from what researchers in Montreal believe to be the first outpatient clinical trial of smoked cannabis, involving 21 people with chronic neuropathic pain. The results, which included improvements in mood and sleep, were published today in the [...]

World — Smoking cannabis, also known as marijuana, reduced pain in patients with nerve pain stemming from injuries or surgical complications, new research shows. Twenty-one adults with chronic nerve pain were taught to take a single inhalation of 25 milligrams of cannabis through a pipe, three times a day, for five [...]

See the rest of M.D. Shorter's Mukwah photos here. Mukwah Jamboree is a different sort of music festival. As much as it's about camping in the woods and hearing a wide range of great music (ranging from dubstep to ska), there is an element of community that's hard to duplicate at larger festivals. [...]

Whoops. This is not quite what I had planned for the remaining Purple Jems. Time to get some more seeds! Can you guess what happened here? [...]

The Billings Gazette, 30 Aug 2010 - We're encouraged by last week's legislative action moving the process forward to tighten Montana's medical marijuana regulations. Granted, this is just a little step in what will be a long legislative effort that could bring more restrictions to the state's medic [...]

The Gazette, 28 Aug 2010 - Maketa Says Pot Moratorium Would Do Harm Monument Police Chief Jacob Shirk is a respectable, qualified lawman and a person of integrity. He would have made a good sheriff. But he didn't stand a chance in his recent primary race against Sheriff Terry Maketa. [...]

Toronto Star, 27 Aug 2010 - Calgary company with help from local firms develops electric vehicle with body parts made from hemp Don't call it the cannabis car, but a Calgary transportation company and its partners including some Toronto firms have developed an electric vehicle with hemp body parts. [...]

Bozeman Daily Chronicle, 29 Aug 2010 - It took a few headlines around the state about how local communities were coping with the explosion in the use and sale of medical marijuana, but some Montana lawmakers are finally getting serious about regulating this burgeoning industry at the state level. O [...]

The shift by some states to legalize marijuana is being invoked by a pair of New York City attorneys who are challenging whether a Saratoga County man implicated in a coast-to-coast drug smuggling case should be subjected to severe federal penalties at a time when the Justice Department has arguably softened its position on the [...]

The Orange County Register, 29 Aug 2010 - ANAHEIM - They came to learn about marijuana laws, how to start a medical dispensary business, what they could do to change the stigma of the drug. Inside a cavernous hall at the Anaheim Convention Center, more than 1,000 people gathered Saturday for Orange [...]

AlterNet, 24 Aug 2010 - Ten Weeks From Election Day, It's Clear How Much Prop. 19 Has Already Accomplished for the Drug Policy Reform Movement. Californians have a chance to make history in November when they vote on Proposition 19, which would legalize marijuana for adults over 21. Polls collectiv [...]

The Ukiah Daily Journal, 27 Aug 2010 - 28-Year-Old Ukiah Man Held on Suspicion of Murder, Investigation Remains Ongoing A shooting at a large-scale marijuana growing operation near Kneeland Wednesday night left one man dead, another wounded and a third in custody on suspicion of murder. [...]

The Cortez Journal, 26 Aug 2010 - "DARE To Just Say No" is the slogan that uniformed police officers teach to fifth- and seventh-graders in the Drug Abuse Resistance Education's 17-week anti-drug course. But at this year's DARE graduation in May, while kids were saying "no" to c [...]

The District is writing strict new rules to regulate its nascent medical marijuana industry, but some of the entrepreneurs best positioned to lead the way have blemished backgrounds – including drug convictions at odds with the city’s vision. Among the District’s 300 proposed rules is a requirement that operators would need to [...]

Calif. — When the Los Angeles City Council adopted its medical marijuana ordinance, it aimed to rout unscrupulous dispensary operators whose unruly customers irritated residents and operators who opened up willy-nilly across the city, ignoring a ban on new stores. But the ordinance has snared operators who appear to have [...]

The Cortez Journal, 26 Aug 2010 - DENVER - Forget about yuppie coffee shops. Colorado's new growth industry is marijuana, with a workforce of at least 1,800 people. Hundreds of medical marijuana shops have opened their doors since 2009, yet it has been difficult to figure out how lucrative the busi [...]

Columbus Dispatch, 29 Aug 2010 - Mexican Cartels Turn to Rural Ohio for Marijuana Operations LATHAM, Ohio -- At Thelma Jean's diner, patrons can pour their own cups of coffee before taking a seat under the faded photographs of the town's military service members lining the red-white-and-blue wallpa [...]

The Guardian, 28 Aug 2010 - Alcohol Should Not Have a Special Status Among Narcotics. We Need to Toughen Up on Booze and Lighten Up on Other Drugs Have you ever wondered what an advert for cocaine might look like if illegal drugs were legalised? I'm looking at one now. An attractive young woman in [...]

The Daily Sentinel, 27 Aug 2010 - Allowing medical marijuana dispensaries to proliferate across town sends the wrong message to youth, according to a local group of mothers with teenagers. A grass-roots movement of 10 mothers has formed a group called PACT, Parents Advocating for our Community and [...]