Jacob Hunter's blog

By Paul Armentano

The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has issued its final order rejecting a ruling from the agency’s own Administrative Law Judge finding that it would be ‘in the public interest’ to grant the University of Massachusetts a license to grow marijuana for federally regulated research.

The rejection preserves the monopoly held by National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) on the supply of marijuana for Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-regulated research. In 2010, a spokesperson for the agency told The New York Times, “We generally do not fund research focused on the potential beneficial medical effects of marijuana.”

In 2007, after extensive hearings, DEA Judge Mary Ellen Bittner opined in favor of allowing a researcher at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst legal permission to cultivate marijuana for use in FDA-approved clinical trials. Read more »

By. Gizmodo

The September issue of Wired has a nationwide map of marijuana prices (excluding Alaska and Hawaii, where people apparently don't smoke weed.) It's fascinating to see the price differences nationwide, but there are interesting economic points as well.

The map was put together by FloatingSheep, a group that maps and analyzes location-specific data. In this case, it took data from the Price of Weed website, which crowd-sources marijuana prices. As Floating Sheep explains, using that data it was pretty easy to create a weed price map:

    After cleaning the data to get rid of the outliers, we created a continuous surface using a statistical interpolation technique known as kriging to identify the average variance among price differences through a spherical semivariogram model. To obtain a price for each location show in the map above, an interpolated value was estimated as a weighted average of prices from its twelve neighboring points. Read more »

By. North Colorado Business Report

A survey generated by a medical marijuana advocacy group says the banning of medical marijuana centers would harm Fort Collins's economy.

The survey, scheduled for release in late September and paid for by the Fort Collins Medical Cannabis Association, was conducted by Fort Collins-based Jami Duty Consulting. It found that "all the signs that help point to a healthy growing economy will be damaged by the closure of these dispensaries."

Fort Collins city council has placed a question about banning centers on the Nov. 1 ballot.

The intent of the survey was to "set a benchmark for cannabis businesses in Fort Collins," Terri Gomez, FCMCA representative, told the Business Report Daily. "We're pleased with the results showing that it is a vibrant spot in our economy. It demonstrates the financial commitment each of the business owners have made to our community." Read more »

By Ray Stern

The Arizona U.S. Attorney isn't likely to launch a "bad faith" prosecution against state workers administering the new medical pot law, says a group opposing Governor Jan Brewer's federal lawsuit on the issue.

Besides, say lawyers for the group of defendants, those state workers wouldn't be violating federal law, anyway.

The case should be thrown out because of those and other reasons, the defendants argue in a motion filed on Friday. (See below). The defendant group includes lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union, would-be dispensary owners and other supporters of medical marijuana. Read more »

By Kazi Stastna, CBC News

Although a specific drug cartel has not as yet been implicated in the recent arson attack on a Monterrey casino that killed 52 people, many observers suspect the incident is a product of the bloody turf wars and extortion rackets involving Mexico's notorious drug cartels.

The ruthless battles among competing cartels and between the cartels and the government forces trying to take them down have claimed at least 40,000 lives since 2006, the year that Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon, launched a crackdown against the cartels that many say has only increased the violence. In 2010 alone, the bloodiest year to date, more than 15,000 people were killed in drug-related violence.

Although there are many areas of Mexico where cartels are not active, in the states and cities they do control, their reach is vast. They not only employ local gangs as enforcers but exert control over police, the military and politicians. Mayors, governors, journalists and police officers have all fallen victim to the cartels' particularly brutal brand of intimidation and violence. Read more »

By Curtis Cartier

Tomorrow will mark one week since Jerry Laberdee has eaten a meal. The 56-year-old medical-marijuana patient and dispensary owner has been in a Spokane County jail cell since last Tuesday, after he refused to take his court-ordered drug test. He's now pledging to go without food until he's released and allowed to take the medicine that he was legally authorized to take under Washington law.

Laberdee's daughter, 28-year-old Jessica Vogel, tells Seattle Weekly that she's had very little communication with her dad since he was locked up, but that she hopes his hunger strike will "wake people up."

"I want people to open their eyes and realize this is not just about marijuana, it's about our constitutional rights are being stripped away," she says. "People should be rioting in the streets."

We reported on the raid on Medical Herb Providers in which Laberdee was first cited, back in May. Jessica Nuna, an employee at MHP, described DEA agents and Spokane Police officers calmly showing up and methodically going through everything in the store, ultimately taking 32 pot plants, $1,400 in cash, several ounces of ready-to-smoke marijuana, and several laptops, cell phones, and other electronic devices. Read more »

By Matthew Claxton, Langley Advance

The former clients of a Langley medical marijuana dispensary raided by RCMP last month are organizing a petition and campaign to have it re-opened.

“People should be able to access medicine that has been prescribed by their doctor,” said Dan Mackle, who was the first client of the dispensary, which ran for about 11 months in Langley City on Fraser Highway.

Randy Caine, the local business owner who opened and operated the dispensary, was licensed by Health Canada to supply marijuana to three clients, but had about 150 active members when it was raided in July.

Police seized pot and baked goods along with some cash.

Now Mackle and others from among the former clients are seeking names on a petition asking Langley City to allow a dispensary to re-open as an official pilot project. Read more »

By. Miranda Nelson, Georgia Straight

Almost 51 percent of B.C. voters participated in the HST referendum, and 54.73 percent of you voted to oust the HST. Those who were in favour of the divisive tax are bitching mightily about the fact that it's going to cost B.C. taxpayers $2.5 to 3 billion to reinstate the PST.

"Where will that money come from?" the pro-HST camp cries. "The selfish lefties have won! We're all dooooooooooooooooooomed!"

But there's a really easy solution to this problem: legalize marijuana.

All of you in favour of legalization? This is your golden opportunity. You know you're never going to be able to sway the hearts and minds of your opposition with facts about the positive effects of marijuana or its medicinal benefits. You're never going to convince conservative-minded people that pot isn't a gateway drug, no matter how many experts you trot out. If the HST referendum has taught us nothing else, it's that the strongest arguments always involve cold, hard cash. So make an appeal to British Columbians using language they understand: money. Read more »

by. Suzanne Phan

For the Sacramento News and Review, medical marijuana advertising has been a gold mine. The weekly paper rakes in big profits by selling ads to medical marijuana dispensaries.

Now, the Sacramento Bee has begun publishing similar ads in its Friday Ticket section.

The Bee could charge as much as $3,000 for a full page, color ad in the Ticket section.

According to the company's director of community affairs, The Bee published four pages of medical marijuana ads in the paper's weekly arts and entertainment section.

Just three months ago, the Sacramento News and Review began printing 30 pages of ads in a special 420 section.

According to Jeff vonKaenel, the CEO and president of the free alternative weekly newspaper, the section includes ads from nearly 50 dispensaries. A full page ad goes for about $2,000. Read more »

By. Joe Klare

When Barack Obama ran for President of The United States, there had to be a reason. To do good, to advance an agenda, to change the course of history; whatever the reason, something drove this man to seek this office.

He now stands on the precipice of reelection. The economy is in tatters and his own party is beginning to turn on him like a pack of rabid wolves. And in the realm of marijuana law reform, he has chosen to reverse his position (video below). The obvious question is why?

We have to begin with the assumption that President Obama wants to serve 8 years as President; otherwise, why run again? Starting from that assumption, we also have to assume that the decisions he makes are designed to aid his reelection. Read more »