PHOTOS: Cannabis Cafe opens in Oregon
At the newly opened Cannabis Cafe, people sit around taking tokes from a "vaporizer" — a contraption with a big plastic bag that captures the potent vapours of heated marijuana. Glass jars hold donations of dried, milky-green weed, and the cafe serves up meals and snacks for the hungry.
It’s all perfectly legal and, for cancer patient Albert Santistevan, it's about time.
"It’s a very positive atmosphere. We could use more places like that," the 56-year-old former jewelry shop owner said.
A few weeks ago, Santistevan would have had no place to go. But with the Obama administration’s decision last month to soften the federal stance on medical marijuana, the Cannabis Cafe and a lounge across town popped up, bringing a little bit of pot-friendly Amsterdam to this working class corner of Portland.
Support for legalizing marijuana grows rapidly around The United States… finally!
The same day they rejected a gay marriage ballot measure, residents of Maine voted overwhelmingly to allow the sale of medical marijuana over the counter at state-licensed dispensaries.
Later in the month, the American Medical Association reversed a longtime position and urged the federal government to remove marijuana from Schedule One of the Controlled Substances Act, which equates it with heroin.
A few days later, advocates for easing marijuana laws left their biannual strategy conference with plans to press ahead on all fronts -- state law, ballot measures, and court -- in a movement that for the first time in decades appeared to be gaining ground.
Detroit’s New Cannabis College Raises Hopes For Higher Value Jobs
A new industry has taken root in Detroit with the opening of the city's new 'MedGrow Cannabis College'.
Here students learn how to grow marijuana professionally, debating the 'finer points of inhaling' and which plants 'give the biggest hit'.
And no this isn't some tiny research lab, it's clear what this is about -- making money and building an industry.
Medical Marijuana Inc Continues Development and Completes 1st Stage of the National Rollout of Its Educational Seminars
Medical Marijuana Inc (PINKSHEETS: MJNA) announced today they have completed the taping of the Educational Seminar series as the 1st step toward the Seminar program being offered across America in those states where permitted by law. These Seminars will continue to be held in Ukiah, Ca. through the rest of the year.
The economics of marijuana legalization and taxation
There's been a great deal of talk over the last year or so of legalization and taxation of marijuana. In fact certain states have decriminalized possession of the narcotic - including the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts. There's even a Cannabis Cafe that opened up in Portland, testing a new federal policy not to prosecute medical users (Oregon state law allows for medical marijuana usage) despite use and possession of marijuana still being illegal on the federal level. Health and moral arguments aside, there is a very compelling economic argument to be made to legalize marijuana and thus make it subject to taxation.
The AMA eases its stance on marijuana
The Obama administration announced last month that people who buy or sell medical marijuana in the growing number of states that have decriminalized its therapeutic usage should not be targeted for arrest or prosecution by federal authorities. Now, the American Medical Association (AMA) has called for the federal government to go one step further in easing restrictions, the Los Angeles Times reported last week.
Although the new AMA policy is far from outright support of medically sanctioned pot smoking, delegates of the organization recommended at an interim meeting in Houston last week that marijuana be removed from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Schedule I category of drugs, which includes heroin and LSD. Drugs in this category are deemed unsafe with no currently acceptable medical use. With its recommendation, the AMA hopes to facilitate research on the clinical effects of smoking marijuana, as well as other delivery methods for the drug.
Los Angeles City Council panels reject ban on medical marijuana sales
Rejecting the advice of the city attorney, two Los Angeles City Council committees voted today to scrap a proposed provision that would have banned the sale of medical marijuana.
The controversial measure, first proposed a year and a half ago, delayed deliberations as council members debated the wisdom of ignoring the opinion of the city's top prosecutor. But about four hours into a raucous hearing, council members made it clear they were ready to move on.
"When can we finally stop the merry-go-round?" said Councilman Dennis Zine, who kicked off the City Council's consideration of the issue in 2005 when concerns about dispensaries first surfaced. He proposed an alternative provision that would allow dispensaries to accept cash for marijuana as long as they comply with state law.
William Carter, the chief deputy city attorney, repeatedly argued that state law and state court decisions make it clear that collectives can cultivate medical marijuana but not sell it. "We're stuck with the current law," he said.
The growing pot economy in Michigan — new business booming!
The tailspin may be over, but no one's suggesting that bedrock industries of the Michigan economy like cars and real estate are headed for boom times again.
The Michigan marijuana economy, on the other hand, appears to be going gangbusters.
Once largely underground, activity linked to the cultivation and use of pot is now in full public view thanks to voter approval in 2008 of marijuana use for medicinal purposes.
Equipment manufacturers, retailers, doctors, lawyers and publishers are suddenly advertising, hanging up shingles, opening storefronts and building growing equipment all over the state.
Should cities tax marijuana? debatable, definitely
Taxing medical marijuana sales is an idea worth considering, not because it is a potential cash cow for fiscally constrained governments, but because it could raise revenue needed to cover the services the flourishing businesses will require.
But caution is in order. There are some dominoes that need to fall first.
The topic came up again last week, as Denver City Council members Chris Nevitt and Charlie Brown publicly expressed support for imposing a city sales tax on medical marijuana sales. "We've got to tax this damn thing at the city rate, which is 3.62 percent," Brown told us. "We're talking millions of dollars here."
