Jackson was Spending $50,000 Per Month on Prescription Drugs

London, June 30 : Pop legend Michael Jackson was battling with numerous disorders and was spending 30,000 pounds (50,000 dollars) a month on prescription drugs like narcotic pain relievers, muscle relaxants and anti-depressants before his death.

The ailing “Thriller” star, who died last week, was said to have consumed “mountains of medication” as he battled [...]

50 Celebrities Who “Go Green” - Cannabis Green

While “going green” is all the rage right now, especially in Hollywood, these 50 celebrities have been going green in, well, other ways, for years.  Here are 50 stars who have most notably been linked to marijuana. Kristen Stewart Twilight star Kristen Stewart has been photographed smoking pot, and her affinity for marijuana definitely [...]

Actress Under Fire for Backing Cannabis

Actress Kim Bu-Seon’s Calls On National TV For Marijuana Use To Be Legalized Are Causing A Public Uproar.
In a pre-recorded interview on MBC’s live morning show on Friday, the 46-year-old, who has advocated the legalization of the drug, said, “Marijuana is not a narcotic; it is technically an Oriental herbal medicine which Koreans have [...]

Melissa Etheridge: Medical Cannabis Should be Legal

Each day an estimated 6,000 Americans will try marijuana for the first time. It’s the most common illicit drug in the United States with nearly 15 million people using it at least once a month.
All this week, “Anderson Cooper 360″ is taking a close look at the deeply divisive issue of drug legalization in [...]

Drug Czar Gets Humiliated in Rolling Stone Interview

Rolling Stone’s June issue takes an in-depth look at the evolving political climate surrounding drug policy (a portion is available online), including a deliciously embarrassing visit with drug czar Gil Kerlikowske. Remember Kerlikowske’s recent statement about not calling it a “war on drugs” anymore? Well, guess what he’s got in his office:
…despite this sudden [...]

Megan Fox: ‘I Hope They Legalise Cannabis’

She talks about her experience with the drug..
Megan Fox has openly admitted to smoking cannabis and called for the drug to be legalised.
In an interview with GQ magazine, the actress said the American government’s anti-drugs stance was “all propaganda”.
“I can’t tell you how much bullsh*t I’ve been through because I will openly say that [...]

The Dandy Warhols to Perform at Benefit for US Cannabis Legislation Reform

David J will also spin tunes at Playboy Mansion event
The Dandy Warhols are set to perform at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles on Thursday (June 4) in support of reforming US marijuana legislation.
The event will be hosted by actress Fairuza Balk and will also feature a DJ set by David J of Bauhaus [...]

Enrique Iglesias: ‘I smoked cannabis’

Enrique Iglesias has allegedly revealed he has tried cannabis, it has emerged.
The singer reportedly used the substance for inspiration when he released his first album at the age of 21.
“I have taken grass, hoping I would write better music,” Iglesias said. “But it made my writing worse and I felt terrible and paranoid.”
Now the [...]

Comedian Ron White Aims to Have The Last Laugh

 
By Ken Tucker
 
NASHVILLE (Billboard) - Comedian Ron White’s new album, “Behavioral Problems,” recently debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Comedy Albums chart. But White, who made a name for himself on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour with Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall and Larry the Cable Guy, says the new album will be his last.
 
“Three’s [...]

U.S. rethinks strategy after failure of “war on drugs”

by Xinhua writer Yang Qingchuan
WASHINGTON, June 26 (Xinhua) — Not long before this year’s International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, which falls on Friday, the U.S. “Drug Czar” acknowledged the de facto failure of the “war on drugs,” a four-decade-long campaign to curb the trade and usage of illicit [...]

UN Drug Czar Attacks Legalizers — Legalizers Say “It’s About Time”

As the world marks the end of the first century of drug prohibition — the first international anti-drug convention was signed in Shanghai in 1909 — the global anti-drug bureaucracy finds itself on the defensive. Faced with a rising chorus of critics, the bureaucracy fought back this week as the United Nations Office on [...]

Israel: A matter of substance

By Haim Shadmi
Since the use of medical cannabis was authorized a decade ago by the Health Ministry, its production and distribution has become, well, a growing industry
“The 1990s were the golden age of chemical substances. In every forest, you could find a group of individuals who had taken Ecstasy pills and were tripping and [...]

Medical Cannabis in Three Countries: The Advantages of Federalism

Jacob Sullum | June 25, 2009, 11:48am
Last week Ha’aretz ran a story about medical marijuana in Israel (the country where THC was first isolated, back in 1964). It provides some interesting contrasts with the situation in the United States. Unlike here, where 13 states recognize cannabis as a legitimate medicine but the national government continues [...]

Drug Czar Kerlikowski Addresses UN Report on Success of Decriminalization

The remarks from our Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy on the release of the UN 2009 World Drug Report, which endorsed drug decriminalization in a reversal of previous policy. Guess which 17-letter D-word never gets mentioned once in our “drug czar’s” 781-word statement?
“It is a great pleasure for me to [...]

The History of Hydroponics

by Danny Danko
Hydroponic cultivation—the growing of plants without soil—is a science as ancient as the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon and as modern as a future NASA mission to Mars. Over the centuries, the crude agricultural techniques of the Babylonians and Aztecs have been refined into space-age plastic systems in which plants literally defy [...]

UN Backs Drug Decriminalization In World Drug Report

In an about face, the United Nations on Wednesday lavishly praised drug decriminalization in its annual report on the state of global drug policy. In previous years, the UN drug czar had expressed skepticism about Portugal’s decriminalization, which removed criminal penalties in 2001 for personal drug possession and emphasized treatment over incarceration. The UN [...]

Politician Fired up Over Oshawa Cannabis Party

Organizer wants Oshawa Cannabis Day to be an annual event
By Jillian Follert

OSHAWA — A local councillor is worried the City’s plans for a family-friendly Canada Day party by the lake could go up in smoke — literally.
In recent weeks, information has been posted on YouTube and Facebook announcing Oshawa Cannabis Day 2009, slated for [...]

Medical Cannabis Transforms Into Big Business in Israel

How did Yohai Golan-Gild go from being an organizer of psychedelic drug parties to being a provider of medicinal marijuana in Israel - with the full approval of the Health Ministry?
“The 90s were the golden age of chemicals,” Golan-Gild said. “In every forest clearing there were people taking ecstasy and LSD and dancing themselves [...]

Oregon Cannabis Clinic Owes Overtime, Worker Says

PORTLAND, Ore. (CN) - A former worker at The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation says the clinic refused to pay him overtime wages after he worked more than 80 hours a week during “crunch time in the garden.”
Andrew Hangerud says the medical marijuana clinic suddenly locked him out of its garden in May, refused to [...]

Oregon Legalizes Hemp Cultivation

Oregon’s House of Representatives voted Monday night to legalize the cultivation of hemp, becoming the sixth state to do so just this year.
Oregon’s Senate voted 27 to 2 in favor of the new law last week. Monday’s 46 to 11 House vote means that the measure will become law, barring an unlikely veto by [...]

Yuba County: Coming Soon: Cannabis Store in Linda

By Ben van der Meer
Yuba County will get its first medical marijuana store within the next week, with a Yuba City man in the final stages of opening a cooperative dispensary in a Linda strip mall.
Marysville Healing Center, as owner Chander Sidher plans to call it, will have a small retail store in the [...]

Cannabis Raids Ramp Up This Week

UKIAH - State marijuana eradication teams are arriving on the North Coast today, two weeks earlier than usual.
“They’re planting earlier, we might as well get out there and start picking them,” said Special Agent Michelle Gregory, a state Department of Justice spokeswoman.  She said officers in the state’s CAMP, Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, program, [...]

Los Angeles Moves Against Cannabis Dispensaries, Prompting Anger

Sending a clear signal that it wanted to close hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries, a City Council committee Monday recommended denying requests from 28 dispensaries for exemptions from a moratorium.
The hearing left dispensary owners and their lawyers furious. They complained that notices arrived over the weekend or not at all, speakers had just minutes [...]

Los Angeles: Action Angers Dispensaries

Sending a clear signal that it wants to close hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries, a City Council committee Monday recommended denying requests from 28 dispensaries for exemptions from a moratorium.
The hearing left dispensary owners and their lawyers furious. They complained that notices arrived over the weekend or not at all, speakers had just minutes [...]

Rosemead Debates Banning Cannabis Dispensaries, Adult Stores Today 6-30

The Rosemead city council on Tuesday will consider taking emergency steps to stop the proliferation of medical marijuana dispensaries and adult businesses in the city.
The council will consider adopting urgency ordinances placing moratoriums on both types of businesses.
The immediate ban on medical marijuana dispensaries is necessary in light of recent changes to state and [...]

In Spokane Wash. Medicinal Cannabis Dispensaries Opening Up

Spokane: Medicinal marijuana dispensaries opening up

SPOKANE - Now that marijuana can be legally used to ease patients’ pain, dispensaries are opening in Spokane to provide it.
And regardless of whether such stores are what Washington voters and legislators envisioned when they allowed medical marijuana, it may only be a matter of time before the businesses [...]

Westlake Orders Cannabis Shop to Close

Facility’s manager says he’s doing nothing illegal
The air inside Amazing Healing Supply in Westlake Village was pungent with the aroma of premium hydroponic and homegrown marijuana.
College-aged employees behind double-paned glass insist the self-described “one-stop hemp shop” is not actually a store, but a nonprofit collective that accepts donations, not payments, to serve qualified medicinal [...]

Taking the Libertarian Movement from Main Street to Wall Street

Doctors told Steve Kubby that he had only six months to live. That was more than thirty years ago! What has Mr. Kubby done with the extra time physicians told him he didn’t have?
Well, besides becoming an icon in the medical marijuana movement and running for the LP presidential nomination in 2008, he is [...]

Feds’ Top Cannabis Researcher Says It Should Be Legal

A University of California researcher who has performed US-government sponsored studies of marijuana and lung function for over 30 years says that pot should be legal.
In an interview with the McClatchy newspaper chain, Donald Tashkin of the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, said: “[A]t this point, [...]

Cannabis Science CEO Given 6 Months to Live - 35 years ago

http://pr.cannazine.co.uk : When Cannabis Science Inc (OTCBB:CBIS ) CEO Steve Kubby explains his beliefs in medical marijuana he does so with a passion and a verve which comes from a depth and understanding that most of us could simply never imagine. A mindset which comes as a result no doubt, of being told he [...]

Study Turns Cannabis Wisdom on Head

Forget the stereotype about dopey potheads. It seems marijuana could be good for your brain.
While other studies have shown that periodic use of marijuana can cause memory loss and impair learning and a host of other health problems down the road, new research suggests the drug could have some benefits when administered regularly in [...]

Popular Pro-Cannabis Prof Wins Teaching Award

By Damore Ramwa, The Albany Student Press via UWire
Mitch Earleywine, a University at Albany psychology professor, is described as “popular” by the university’s newspaper. That’s likely due in part to his pro-marijuana advocacy, but Earleywine recently received the Excellence in Teaching Award at the university’s 2009 President’s Awards for Excellence ceremony in May.
Earleywine, [...]

Cannabis, Let The States Decide

IN 2003, Seattle voters approved a ballot measure to make marijuana possession the lowest police priority. Seattle has lived with this rule for more than five years. It is not perfect, but it is a more tolerable rule than the city had before.
We offer the rule to the nation. If “lowest police priority” seems [...]

Becoming ‘Granny Storm Crow’

Scientific studies report facts. Forget the all the urban myths and rumors, and make up your own mind using facts. Cannabis is medicine! Educate yourself!
I am a well-respected teacher’s aide in my 60s. I start my day with 8th grade math. I quilt, paint, sculpt and am an avid genealogist. I enjoy posting on [...]

Talking Points For Challenging the Medical Use of Cannabis Argument

Talking Points For Challenging the Medical Use of Marijuana Argument

DEA Statement
Response

The Medical and Scientific Evidence

There are over 10,000 scientific studies that prove marijuana is a harmful addictive drug. There is not one reliable study that demonstrates marijuana has any medical value.
If there are more [...]

Cannabis Treatment for H1N1, Diabetes, and MS - It Is True

Two companies are doing research on the multivariate uses of cannabis sativa — marijuana. This is serious research, done correctly, and taken seriously by the medical and research community.
Cannabis Science Inc., is studying the potential of the phytocannabanoids in marijuana being a preventative of death by asphyxiation due to inflammation of the lungs in [...]

A Major Deal Over a Minor Issue

Earlier this month, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the federal government would no longer “target” medical cannabis providers who operated within state law. It remains unclear how the federal government will decide who provides marijuana within state law and who does not. One thing is clear; the feds do not fully understand [...]

This Is Your War on Drugs

Since 1998, the drug czar has been mandated to lie to the American people. So what would a fact-based drug policy look like?
—By Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery

AMONG OUR LEADERS in Washington, who’s been the biggest liar? There are all too many contenders, yet one is so floridly surreal that he deserves special attention. [...]

Reefer, Sports, and the Constitution

by H. Scott Prosterman –
I am shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you, to learn that prominent college and pro athletes have been indulging in marijuana. I thought that went out of style when Reagan put an end to the fun of the 60’s and 70’s. Seriously now, seriously now; it’s time to re-visit this issue.
Recent [...]

Police Applaud Themselves For Raiding Innocent People and Killing Dogs

Police in Prince George’s County, MD have completed their internal investigation of the botched raid on the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo. Their disgusting, though unsurprising, conclusion is that they did a terrific job:
The findings of the internal review “are consistent with what I’ve felt all along: My deputies did their job [...]

Wash. House Subcommittee Oks Cannabis on D.C. ballot

By: Michael Neibauer
A House appropriations subcommittee has lifted a long-standing budget rider banning the District government from spending any money to decriminalize marijuana.
The Financial Services panel, which has oversight of D.C., has removed from the 2010 budget 11-year-old language outlawing the District’s use of federal or local funds to legalize marijuana or reduce penalties [...]

Boris Johnson, Sarah Palin And Barack Obama Star In Pro Cannabis Campaign

BORIS Johnson, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, George Bush, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, David Cameron and Hazel `It had no effect on me” Blears star in drugs campaign.
TO prove that taking illegal drugs need be no barrier to a successful carrer in politics, charity Release has launched a deck of playing cards to illustrate it [...]

Americans Are Living And Dying In A Militarized Police State

Today, police departments across the United States more closely resemble an occupying army than they do public servants responding to calls for help. Police officers can now be seen wearing helmets and body armor and carrying AR-15’s, just to deliver simple warrants. The militarization of our police departments not only gives the appearance of [...]

Taking the Libertarian Movement from Main Street to Wall Street

Doctors told Steve Kubby that he had only six months to live. That was more than thirty years ago! What has Mr. Kubby done with the extra time physicians told him he didn’t have?
Well, besides becoming an icon in the medical marijuana movement and running for the LP presidential nomination in 2008, he is [...]

Cannabis Mamas!

Gina Kaysen Fernandes: A new wave of reefer madness is sweeping suburbia — but it’s not just teenagers who are lighting up. Middle-aged, middle-class soccer moms are smoking pot … a lot. These women aren’t stoners: they’re teachers, lawyers, and, perhaps, even your neighbor who prefers puffing a joint to sipping chardonnay.
“Marijuana is the [...]

Los Angeles: Action Angers Dispensaries

Sending a clear signal that it wants to close hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries, a City Council committee Monday recommended denying requests from 28 dispensaries for exemptions from a moratorium.
The hearing left dispensary owners and their lawyers furious. They complained that notices arrived over the weekend or not at all, speakers had just minutes [...]

Niles Illinois Man Will Fight Eviction For Growing, Using Medical Cannabis

NILES — Steve Allain has his answer, and it’s not the one he would have preferred.
Allain is the 54-year-old Niles man who, in a Tribune story last month, acknowledged he uses marijuana to help him deal with Crohn’s disease, hepatitis C and acute depression. To him, voter approval of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act [...]

Westlake Orders Cannabis Shop to Close

Facility’s manager says he’s doing nothing illegal
The air inside Amazing Healing Supply in Westlake Village was pungent with the aroma of premium hydroponic and homegrown marijuana.
College-aged employees behind double-paned glass insist the self-described “one-stop hemp shop” is not actually a store, but a nonprofit collective that accepts donations, not payments, to serve qualified medicinal [...]

Los Angeles: 29 Medical Marijuana Hardship Hearings Today

The kangaroo court continued today with 28 of the applications denied, one continued to the next meeting.
The one item continued (#11) will be heard at the next set of hearings. The collective had a letter from the local neighborhood council stating they wanted to meet with the operator and offer their input on the [...]

Mayoral Write-In Candidate Wants to Grow Medical Cannabis Industry in Flint

by Kristin Longley
FLINT, Michigan — Ronald Higgerson has his own cure-all solution for Flint’s ills — marijuana.
But he doesn’t want everyone smoking it — just growing, harvesting and selling tons of it as part of a local medical marijuana industry.

If Flint voters elect him mayor in August, Higgerson plans to make the city a [...]

Wash. House Subcommittee Oks Cannabis on D.C. ballot

By: Michael Neibauer
A House appropriations subcommittee has lifted a long-standing budget rider banning the District government from spending any money to decriminalize marijuana.
The Financial Services panel, which has oversight of D.C., has removed from the 2010 budget 11-year-old language outlawing the District’s use of federal or local funds to legalize marijuana or reduce penalties [...]

In Manattan They All Inhaled

by: Elizabeth Benjamin
All three Democrats seeking to become Manhattan’s next DA experimented with marijuana in their youth, and one is strongly calling for a serious study investigating whether marijuana should be decriminalized, the DN’s Michael Saul reports.
“I’m fully supportive of a really well-informed debate about this topic,” said Manhattan DA hopeful Richard Aborn this [...]

LAPD Chief Moore: Police Can Now Go After Sham Collectives

By Richard Bort and Denny Schneider
Deputy Chief Michel Moore is the Commanding Officer of Operations-Valley Bureau, and is the “top cop” in the San Fernando Valley. He was the featured guest at the Valley VOTE June meeting and naturally, the subject was crime. Chief Moore called this the “best of times and the [...]

Medical Cannabis in Three Countries: The Advantages of Federalism

Jacob Sullum | June 25, 2009, 11:48am
Last week Ha’aretz ran a story about medical marijuana in Israel (the country where THC was first isolated, back in 1964). It provides some interesting contrasts with the situation in the United States. Unlike here, where 13 states recognize cannabis as a legitimate medicine but the national government continues [...]