VIDEO: Introduction to Cannabis Hemp and industrial revolution
PeaceBud explains how the political changes in America's past along with the industrial revolution has led us into a historical era of post-industrial Oil Wars.
Construction plant: “Some devotees think it’s the answer to everything,” says Pete Walker of hemp
Ian Pritchett, chairman of Lime Technology, in a field of industrial hemp Credit: Ben Stansall
The director of the UK’S Building Research Establishment Centre for Innovative Construction Materials at the University of Bath recently started a £740,000 project, funded by the UK government and the construction industry, to study and develop the material’s use in building. The research builds on foundations laid more than a thousand years ago. Archaeologists in France have discovered a sixth-century bridge where the stones are held together with hemp mortar.
Cultivated for thousands of years for its fibres, which are used to make ropes and textiles, hemp, otherwise known as Cannabis sativa, was so important to the economy during King Henry VIII’s reign that farmers had to grow at least a quarter of an acre or risk a fine. In the latter decades of the 20th century production slumped as cotton cloth and man-made fabrics became prominent but in the 21st century hemp’s reputation is being rebuilt, partly thanks to properties that make it an ideal building fabric for homes.
‘Cannabis crown’ coming to Aspen: Medical marijuana conference slated for weekend in April
A version of Amsterdam's “Cannabis Cup” is coming to Aspen, in which medical marijuana growers, providers, patients and others in the industry will convene over one weekend in April.
The First Annual Western Slope Cannabis Crown, organized by Glenwood Springs resident Bobby Scurlock and the owners of High Country Caregivers, will be held April 17-18 at The Gant.
The conference is open to the public and will include speakers, live music, information booths, and most notably, a competition among providers that showcases their best strains. Growers and providers will vie for the “cannabis crown.”
Scurlock said he hopes to draw about 50 dispensaries from around Colorado and their strains will be tested by Denver-based Full Spectrum Laboratories. The marijuana strains will be diagnostically tested for their THC levels and how it matches up with patients' ailments.
There also will be a “people's choice” award for those who are on the state registry for medical marijuana and have received a “golden ticket” from one of the organizers. The people's choice will narrow down the field for the crown but the ultimate winner will be based on the diagnostic test, Scurlock said.
Marijuana magazine has fruitful debut in Denver
The woman gracing Kush Colorado's centerfold is long-limbed and lovely, but the new magazine's real star is the marijuana plant she clutches to her breast.
Billed as the "premier cannabis lifestyle magazine," the slick glossy debuted in Colorado last month, one more sign of galloping growth in the state's medical-marijuana business.
The city of Denver has more than 300 medical-marijuana dispensaries, the highest number in the nation outside California.
The pace of growth in the industry prompted the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws to recently name Denver "America's cannabis capital." While Los Angeles has more than 1,000 dispensaries, Denver outstrips the City of Angels on a per-capita basis, with more storefronts selling pot than Starbucks shops peddling coffee.
Los Angeles City Council Votes to Close 800 Marijuana Dispensaries
The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to close roughly 800 medical marijuana dispensaries in the city by passing the first reading of an ordinance which would also require 75% of remaining dispensaries to relocate. The vote, to be confirmed in a second reading of the ordinance next Tuesday, will radically change the landscape of medical marijuana distribution in Los Angeles, which has been largely unregulated since dispensaries were first authorized by state law in 1996.
If the ordinance takes effect later this spring, medical marijuana dispensaries will have to find locations more than 1000 feet from various 'sensitive uses' -- including churches, public parks, schools, rehab centers, and other dispensaries. They will also be required to grow all their cannabis on-site, test it for pesticides, provide written notice of their existence to all neighbors within 1000 feet, maintain 24-hour complaint hotlines, hire unarmed security guards to patrol a two-block radius, keep 90 days of security footage and fulfill a number of other registration requirements with the city.
POLL: High Support for Medical Marijuana around the United States
High Support for Medical Marijuana ABC News/Washington Post Poll: 81 Percent Support Legalizing Marijuana for Medical Use Credit: Getty Images
Eight in 10 Americans support legalizing marijuana for medical use and nearly half favor decriminalizing the drug more generally, both far higher than a decade ago.
With New Jersey this week poised to become the 14th state to legalize medical marijuana, 81 percent in this national ABC News/Washington Post poll support the idea, up from an already substantial 69 percent in 1997. Indeed the main complaint is with restrictions on access, as in the New Jersey law.
Fifty-six percent say that if it's allowed, doctors should be able to prescribe medical marijuana to anyone they think it can help. New Jersey's measure, which is more restrictive than most, limits prescriptions to people with severe illnesses. State health officials can add to the list.
DECRIMINALIZE? – Apart from medical marijuana, there have been recent efforts to decriminalize marijuana more broadly in some states. A preliminary vote on one such measure is to be held in the Washington state Legislature this week. In California organizers say they've collected enough signatures to hold a statewide referendum on the issue next fall. And a separate proposal in California to legalize and tax the drug cleared a legislative committee last week. A Field poll there in April found 56 percent support for the idea, which its backers say would raise $1.3 billion a year.
Hawaii will take aim at reforming laws for cannabis
State Sen. J. Kalani English will probably grab a few headlines when he introduces two bills in the legislative session this week: one to legalize medical marijuana dispensaries and the other to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana.
His marijuana reformation bills are modeled after laws already in place in other states. On Friday, the Democrat who represents Upcountry, East Maui, Lanai and Molokai said his motives are at once pragmatic, moralistic and economic.
The measures would free up law enforcement to focus on hard drug traffickers and help the state deal with Hawaii's fiscal year 2011 $1.2 billion budget shortfall on a number of fronts, English pointed out. He said he wasn't certain how much new revenue or costs savings, including for courts and jails, the proposals would make, but he was sure it would be significant.
On Friday, English said that he intends to follow California's lead by legalizing - and taxing - medical marijuana dispensaries to generate revenue. A dispensary is a private, secure facility where people with medical marijuana cards, which have been legal and available in Hawaii for almost a decade, can purchase marijuana for medicinal purposes.
Proponents say the dispensaries provide a safe environment to sell a legal product that provides real relief for those suffering from pain and nausea caused by diseases such as HIV/AIDS, cancer and multiple sclerosis.
15 Greatest Proponents of Marijuana Legalization
Some celebrities are more forthcoming with their love of weed than others -- ahem, Willie Nelson -- but you might be surprised at a few that fight for the drug's legalization.
Boulder: Medical marijuana industry reaching ’saturation point’ in Colorado
Boulder already may be running out of room for medical-marijuana businesses.
In mapping out the 82 medical-marijuana growing facilities and dispensaries now licensed in Boulder, city officials say even relatively loose permanent regulations would mean the industry has nearly reached its saturation point.
The city expects to take up permanent regulations in February and March.
In November, the City Council enacted emergency rules outlining where dispensaries can operate, requiring new shops to stay at least 500 feet away from areas with three or more existing marijuana businesses, and 500 feet away from schools and day-care centers.
"It appears that most areas in the city's three major activity centers (University Hill, Boulder Valley Regional Center and downtown Boulder) are approaching saturation," a city memo reads. "North Boulder and industrial areas in the eastern portion of the city have also seen an increase in the number of applications and are nearing saturation."
Buried School Bus Full of Marijuana, sophisticated growing operation
The Lenoir County, North Carolina, Sheriff’s Office calls it one of the most sophisticated marijuana growing operations they’ve ever uncovered.
Three people are in custody on drug-related charges, after a growing operation was found in a buried school bus. Sheriff Major Chris Hill says digging the large hole and then getting the bus in it required both thought and effort.
Top 10 Cannabis Studies the Government Wished it Had Never Funded
Yes, that's right.....Government funded studies have reached conclusions that marijuana prevents cancer, the gateway effect is a myth, and has no increased risk of lung cancer.
Can't really claim bias for this one....
10) MARIJUANA USE HAS NO EFFECT ON MORTALITY:
A massive study of California HMO members funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) found marijuana use caused no significant increase in mortality. Tobacco use was associated with increased risk of death.
