cannabisnews.comcannabis newsMajor Sting Targets Commercial Grow Op- June 24, 2008 California -- More than 400 federal and state agents executed search warrants in Southern Humboldt and Arcata today, part of an investigation into what the FBI described as a major commercial marijuana operation. About eight FBI agents serving a search warrant at a house on Virginia Way just outside Arcata this morning were looking through apparent grow lights, tubing, boxes and bags. They refused to talk to the media.http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread24036.shtml Dr. Joycelyn Elders Visits Raleigh Wednesday- June 24, 2008 North Carolina -- Dr. Joycelyn Elders tells it straight. Her short tenure as U.S. Surgeon General under President Bill Clinton ended in 1994 after she suggested at a United Nations conference on AIDS that masturbation was a normal part of sexuality and suggested that "perhaps it should be taught" in order to reduce HIV infections. She's called abstinence-only education "child abuse" and spoken out against the war on drugs. Now almost 75, this sharecroppers' daughter from...http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread24035.shtml Carceiri Vetoes Mandatory Minimum Bill- June 24, 2008 Providence, RI -- Governor Carcieri has once again vetoed bills to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for drug dealers and to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote. With a flood of bills headed his way from the General Assembly session that ended Saturday night, the veto messages that Carcieri issued yesterday on these two bills raise all the same issues he raised when he vetoed earlier versions of the same bills.http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread24034.shtml Medical Pot Ineffective as Acute Pain Treatment- June 23, 2008 HealthDay News -- Oral cannabis (a form of medical marijuana) was ineffective in treating certain types of acute pain and actually increased sensitivity to some other kinds of discomfort, say researchers at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. Their study included 18 healthy women who were given oral cannabis or a placebo. The women were then evaluated for heat and electrical pain thresholds in skin areas that had induced sunburn. This is an accepted method of assessing response to acute..http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread24033.shtml Marijuana's Rising Potency Sparks Debate- June 23, 2008 Boston, MA -- It's a dangerous, highly addictive drug whose skyrocketing potency has only increased its stranglehold on our nation's youth. Or it's mostly harmless, a substance not much worse than caffeine - with medicinal value to boot. It's marijuana. And the polarized debate about its safety has been rekindled by two reports released separately this month by the federal government and a leading drug prohibition group.http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread24032.shtml One Big Drug Test- June 23, 2008 USA -- Which city uses more cocaine: Los Angeles or London Is heroin a big problem in San Diego And has Ecstasy emerged in rural America Environmental scientists are beginning to use an unsavory new tool -- raw sewage -- to paint an accurate portrait of drug abuse in communities. Like one big, citywide urinalysis, tests at municipal sewage plants in many areas of the United States and Europe, including Los Angeles County, have detected illicit drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and..http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread24031.shtml Medical-Pot Politics- June 22, 2008 California -- For years various jurisdictions and law enforcement agencies have dragged their feet when it comes to implementing California's Proposition 215, the initiative passed by voters in 1996 that allows patients with a recommendation from a licensed physician to grow, possess and use cannabis, or marijuana, without legal penalty. Last year three California counties, San Diego, San Bernardino and Merced, announced they would challenge the initiative itself, on the grounds that it is in...http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread24030.shtml AG Rules Hemp Bill is Legal- June 21, 2008 Montpelier, VT -- A constitutional dispute surrounding the so-called hemp bill has finally been resolved, paving the way for Vermont to become only the second state in the country to allow its farmers to grow the crop. Gov. James Douglas, a critic of the hemp bill, had said the measure flies in the face of federal statutes and could ultimately complicate marijuana eradication efforts in the state.http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread24029.shtml Voters Roll Back Liberal Pot Rules- June 21, 2008 Ukiah, CA -- A complete election tally has affirmed that voters on June 3 repealed Mendocino County's liberal marijuana guidelines. "Measure B passed," Mendocino County AssessorClerk-Recorder Sue Ranochak announced Friday after the last of the outstanding absentee ballots were tabulated. Measure B won with 52 percent of the vote, the same margin by which it was leading on election night, June 3.http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread24028.shtml Webb Urges Fresh Look at The War on Drugs- June 20, 2008 Washington, DC -- Virginia Sen. Jim Webb began building a public case Thursday to change the nation's drug laws to stress treatment over incarceration for nonviolent offenders. The freshman Democrat held a hearing of the Joint Economic Committee to solicit testimony from prosecutors and scholars who argued that the decades-long emphasis on incarceration has been costly and ineffective.http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread24027.shtml |