Cannabis Culture reports: “Cheech and Chong have got some pretty blunt advice for Prime Minister Stephen Harper when it comes to Canada’s marijuana’s laws.

“Wise up, you douchebag,” Cheech Marin says with some glee when asked what he’d tell the prime minister.
Chong, who hails from Edmonton, nods in agreement.”

Read More

I’m sure many of you have seen this before, but either way, watch it again. It’s hilarious. (Sadly, the cameraman is having a heart attack, but the video is still awesome.)

Continue reading for the video.

The medical marijuana patient and caretaker who organized a protest outside the Saginaw County Courthouse last week, says investigators raided his home Tuesday.

Thomas Township resident John Roberts organized the protest, accusing The Saginaw County Sheriff of raiding patients and caretakers. Protesters came from around the state, some holding signs reading, “Learn the Law.”

Roberts, who is vice president of the Tri-City Compassion Club, said at the protest, “Our patients had to suffer because they don’t believe in it. I don’t give a rat’s {expletive} what they believe in.”

Wednesday Roberts told NBC25 he believes investigators raided his home in retaliation. He says now he has patients who will suffer.

Saginaw County Sheriff William Federspiel says his department had nothing to do with the raid, and that it was part of a federal investigation.

- Article from NBC25

Read more for the video.(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Click to Enlarge

What is happening to all this weed?

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This picture is full of awesome. Although it would be very stupid to ACTUALLY let your baby smoke, but wouldn’t you want a picture like this? Wait until they are adults, and if they happen to be a stoner just give them the picture.

Hats off to the Florida mother who posted a picture of her baby “smoking” out of a bong on Facebook.

Not only has she managed to outrage mothers all over the world, she has also gotten the attention of the Florida Department of Children and Families who have in turn launched an investigation into her parenting skills – or lack thereof – reports Sky News.

The 19-year-old mother from Keystone Heights, northwest of Gainesville, is defending the photo. She claims it was taken as a joke and posted on Facebook so that she could show one of her friends.

Can’t we realize that Facebook isn’t private?

If drugs were used by or found near the baby, she could face serious charges, including losing her 11-month-old son to the state of Florida.

It’s obviously a joke, you see many pictures of babies with beer bottles or cigarettes, but a bong suddenly results in a police investigation? I’m sure the first two would cause more harm.

Read more at CBS.

Hollywood – An employee at a marijuana dispensary in Hollywood was killed Thursday night during an apparent robbery, police said. The death was reported about 9:05 p.m. in the 1600 block of North El Centro Avenue, just north of the Hollywood Palladium, according to Los Angeles police.

“It is a homicide,” Officer Karen Rayner of Los Angeles police Media Relations said, adding she did not how the person died. “It appears to be a robbery.”

It was not clear if the apparent robbery and killing were related to an earlier armed robbery at an Echo Park marijuana dispensary where one employee was shot dead and another was critically injured, Rayner said.

“The sole employee in the store was found dead by the owner of the store,” Los Angeles police Sgt. Don Lawrence of the Hollywood Station said.

Lawrence said he did not know whether the person was shot, or how he or she died.

An investigation was under way at the scene, Lawrence said.

Capt. Kevin McClure of the LAPD’s Robbery Homicide Unit was en route to the Hollywood dispensary, Rayner said.

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Frederico Moreno, 35, of Lyons, has been charged with manufacturing and delivery of cannabis, a Class X felony. (Cook County sheriff's office)

Describing it as one of the largest marijuana busts in its history, the Cook County sheriff’s police has seized 5,525 pounds of the drug with an estimated street value of more than $20 million.

Charged with manufacturing and delivering cannabis, a Class X felony, is 35-year-old Frederico Moreno, whom authorities described as a “high-level importer” and part of a drug-trafficking organization.

The sheriff’s police, acting on a tip, conducted surveillance on Moreno at a house in the 7800 block of West 47th Street in west suburban Lyons, the agency said. Officers saw Moreno meet with various people, at one point exchanging a package “indicative of drug dealing,” the sheriff’s office said.

Police followed Moreno back to the home on 47th Street, then saw him leaving in his car with a Tupperware container, the office said. Investigators stopped Moreno and arrested him, allegedly finding marijuana in his car.

Officers returned to the house, where they saw another person flee out the back, the office stated, leaving the door ajar.

The officers saw 224 taped bales of marijuana stacked inside the home, the office stated. Moreno allegedly loaded the marijuana at the 47th Street house at night through a printing company warehouse attached to the back of the home.

An associate of Moreno had access to the warehouse after hours and rented the house from the printing company. Neither that associate nor anyone from the printing company is charged in this case.

The marijuana came from Mexico, the office said. The packages were to be sold wholesale to mid-level distributors before being broken down for street-level sales.

If convicted of the Class X felony, Moreno faces between 6 to 30 years in prison. He will appear for a bond hearing Saturday in Cook County Criminal Court in Bridgeview.

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Written by myFOXla – Los Angeles’s new medical marijuana ordinance has a loophole that allows dealers to sell pot over the internet and deliver it to their customers, and a city council member wants to put a stop to that.

Councilman Jose Huizar filed a motion on Tuesday that would ban so-called mobile dispensaries.

“The city has received dozens of complaints regarding this new ruse that has arisen in an attempt to circumvent city and state regulations governing the city’s collectives,” Huizar said in the motion.

“As such, it will be in the best interest of the city, and provide clarification to the public, if the council were to explicitly prohibit any delivery service unless it operates in full compliance with the (ordinance) and existing state law, both of which prohibit the transportation of medical marijuana to a qualified patient except by his/her primary caregiver.”

Huizar urged the council to have the city attorney amend the ordinance “on an emergency basis,” so it can be enacted quickly.

“If we remain silent, who knows? This booming business can get out of control,” Huizar said.

Under the new ordinance, only the 186 dispensaries that were operating when the moratorium was imposed on Nov. 13, 2007 can remain open. Because some of those have ceased operating, the City Attorney’s office estimates there are about 130 pot shops that are “grandfathered” and not banned by the new ordinance.

The operators of 439 pot shops were issued cease-and-desist letters a month ago, instructing them to shut down by June 7. Frank Mateljan, a spokesman for the city attorney, warned those who defy that order could face jail time, fines or eviction.

He said criminal charges could carry penalties of up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, while civil penalties could include fines up to $2,500.

Written by CANNABIS CULTURE – A “Free Marc” campaign organizer was arrested Thursday, June 10th at the Niagara Falls office of Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson in what activists are calling “assault and police intimidation.”

Jacob Hunter, Policy Director of the Beyond Prohibition Foundation and organizer of recent Conservative MP office occupation protests, was accosted by a police officer while attempting to walk through the front door of the Member of Parliament’s constituency office in Ontario. Hunter was there as part of a continuing series of protests being held at the offices of Conservative Members of Parliament by supporters of Marc Emery, and was joined by a group of activists including Jodie Emery.

Hunter was reportedly arrested for “assaulting a police officer”. Activists said another individual was also arrested at the scene.

Several other activists gathered around Hunter as officers prepared to put him in a police vehicle. Activist Eric Compton attempted to use the “hug power” technique by wrapping his arms around Hunter, but police aggressively grabbed him and slammed him on the hood of one of their cars.”

Shocking video after the break. Read more at Cannabis Culture

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Written by Jodie Emery:

On Thursday night, June 3rd, Marc was put into solitary confinement, or “SHU”, (Security Housing Unit) at SeaTac Federal Detention Centre (SeaTac FDC) while he awaits his sentencing in September. The reason? For unknowingly breaking an unwritten rule. I haven’t heard from him since… Here’s what happened.

On Thursday afternoon, Marc had me record a phone call that was meant as his first US Prison Podcast, similar to the ones he did last fall while imprisoned here in BC and posted on iTunes and our website. That evening, as he was writing me an “email” through the Corrlinks prison messaging system, he mentioned that a guard had just given him a citation, said his phone access was suspended for “at least three days” and that there would be a disciplinary hearing in “a few days”.

Read more at Cannabis Culture and FREE MARC EMERY!

"That's a Lot of Pot" (CBS/WBZ)

Wouldn’t it be great to have a ton of pot (literally)? High Times reports on a police investigation:

“Police found 2,000 pounds of pot in a Boston-area apartment earlier this week. Prosecutors are calling the ton of cannabis “the single largest seizure of marijuana in Boston’s recent memory.”

However, despite the 40 plastic wrapped packages stacked to the ceiling of a third floor apartment, Edgar Gonzalez, the man accused of possessing all the pot, claims he had no idea it was there.

Police originally came to the building to execute an unrelated search warrant. However, when Gonzalez saw the officers, he ran. After being caught, Gonzalez explained to the police that he ran because “he thought they were looking for him.”

This aroused officers’ suspicion and a search warrant for Gonzalez’s apartment was obtained. Inside, cops found the stash with an estimated street value of $4 million.

More @ cbsnews.com“

Meet the latest marijuana martyr. ​A 30-year-old Nevada man on Wednesday chose a month in jail instead of probation which would have meant he couldn’t use medical marijuana for one year.

Charles Ray Balzer of Gardnerville, Nev., told East Fork Justice Jim EnEarl he was unwilling to give up pot for a year, and he would do 30 days in jail after he pleaded guilty to harassment, reports The Record-Courier.

Balzer has a legal medical marijuana card from the Nevada State Health Division. He told EnEarl he smokes cannabis and takes a prescription painkiller for a back injury.

If Balzer had accepted probation, he could have avoided the jail term, but one condition would have been that he not use “drugs or alcohol” for one year.

In an unaccountable quirk of the law, use of doctor-recommended medical marijuana is considered violation of probation, despite the fact that it is legal in Nevada.

​After serving 30 days in jail, hemp hero Balzer won’t have any probation restrictions.

Judge EnEarl seemed to be totally oblivious to the fact that Balzer’s marijuana use is legal; beyond that, the judge seemed completely unsympathetic to the patient’s medical plight.

“You’d rather do 30 days in jail than have me tell you you can’t smoke dope?” the ignorant judge fumed. “Doesn’t that sound a little sick?” the judge asked, seemingly too dumb to get the irony of his dumbassery.

“No, sir,” Balzer said. “It’s what the marijuana does for me.”

“I think if I sat around smoking dope all day, it would probably help me out, too,” the proudly ignorant judge replied.

Balzer said he only smoked marijuana at night, to ease his pain.

Balzer’s lawyer, Richard Davies, reasonably pointed out that his client was legally entitled to have the medical marijuana card.

“It’s the will of the people and the Legislature recognizes that,” Davies said.

“Some people marijuana probably does help,” Judge EnEarl said, not bothering to mention how he suddenly became a medical expert. “I am not necessarily convinced Mr. Balzer is one of them.”

Balzer agreed to turn himself in at 8 a.m. on June 11. EnEarl advised him he could have no alcohol or drugs in his system when he checks in. (Or what — they’ll put him in jail? Sheesh.)

When Balzer was arrested for harassing an acquaintance, officers discovered a marijuana grow system in his home, but he produced his Nevada medical marijuana card.

How much longer must seriously ill and suffering medical marijuana patients suffer indignities and insults from dim-witted, self-righteous judges like EnEarl who make medical decisions for which they are completely unqualified? Stay tuned.

Written by Toke of the Town

​A 90-year-old grandmother suspected of selling cannabis was arrested Friday after police raided her home and found more than 170 pounds of marijuana.

A squad of armed South African police officers with drug dogs stormed the elderly woman’s home and discovered the pot stashed in multiple bags, according to the Daily Mail.

“This lady was quiet, old and looked like an angel sent from God,” said the rather poetically inclined Police Inspector Kobeli Mokheseng.

“But we received a tip-off two weeks ago that a lot of people were going into her house and coming out looking happy,” Mokheseng said.

Wow, happy people? That will not do! Obviously, law enforcement was called for, don’t you think?

“We sent in a drugs team who were prepared for a shootout, but they soon realized there was nobody to fight,” Mokheseng said.

Police found three types of marijuana, locally known as dagga, stashed in the pensioner’s garden shed.

The elderly lady, who said she lived alone in the four-room home east of Johnannesburg, South Africa, was arrested and taken into custody.

“She will spend the weekend behind bars, educating the police officers on what she was doing,” Inspector Mokheseng said.

“This was quite an extensive operation going on, with three types of the drug — called Swazi, Local and Skans,” Mokheseng said.

Wow, three separate strains? Granny’s got it goin’ on.

“We found money in plastic bags ready for the bank,” Mokheseng said. “She was making quite a lot of cash.”

“We understand she has many children and grandchildren, and we are trying to contact them,” the police inspector said.

The woman is scheduld to appear before Alberton Magistrates’ Court on Monday. She is charged with possession of illegal substances and selling cannabis.

Written by Steve Elliot

SEATTLE, May 25 (UPI) — Canadian Marc Emery has pleaded guilty to charges of selling millions of pot seeds to clients including marijuana legalization advocates, authorities said.

Emery, 52, pleaded guilty Monday to one count of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and will be sentenced Aug. 27, Seattlepi.com reported. The offenses carry a minimum 5-year jail term, the report said.

Emery was indicted in 2005 but was able to fight extradition to the United States until recently. He arrived Thursday in U.S. District Court in Seattle ahead of the plea hearing Monday.

“Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery’s illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada,” former Drug Enforcement Administration head Karen Tandy said at the time of the indictment. “Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on.”

Tandy led the DEA from 2003 to 2007.

Source

​​Washington drug agents have illegally seized signed petitions for marijuana legalization, according to organizers of ballot initiative I-1068.

Marijuana advocacy group Sensible Washington says it has learned that a dozen signed copies of the marijuana legalization initiative for Washington State of which it is the sponsor, were seized last week by the federally-funded WestNET drug task force.

Advocates say that the drug agents who seized the petitions are interfering with a constitutionally-protected legislative procedure.

“Our estimate is that 2009 signatures are sitting in WestNET’s offices in Port Orchard, apparently seized as ‘evidence’ during a series of raids against the North End Club 420 in Tacoma,” said Sensible Washington campaign director and initiative co-author Philip Dawdy.

​”We have made repeated calls to WestNET’s office, but have yet to receive any assurance that the task force’s personnel have secured the signed petitions and that they plan to promptly return them to Sensible Washington,” Dawdy said.

“It proves how insane marijuana prohibition has gotten, that law enforcement would seized signed copies of I-1068 as ‘evidence’ in a drug raid,” Dawdy said.

“The only thing they are evidence of is democracy in action,” Dawdy said. “It is not a crime or evidence of a crime for citizens to sign a statewide initiative.”

Sensible Washington is calling upon WestNET to immediately return the seized petitions to its offices at 3161 Elliott Avenue, Suite 340, Seattle, WA 98121, or to make other arrangements for the immediate delivery to Sensible Washington.

Written by: Toke of the Town

​”A San Clemente woman born with epilepsy, blindness and cerebral palsy has filed the first lawsuit by a medical-marijuana patient alleging Dana Point’s dispensary ban unconstitutionally interferes with her fundamental rights to life and safety under the California Constitution, according to her attorney.

Traditional medications did not stop the pain suffered when 29-year-old Malinda Traudt came down with osteoporosis in the last two years. However, using cannabis supplied by Beach Cities Collective in Capistrano Beach brought her dramatic relief, states Jeff Schwartz, her lawyer, in a press release.

Traudt’s family had been told to look for hospice before she turned to medical marijuana. Her mother, Shelly White, pushed her into Beach Cities instead–and discovered what they call “life-saving medicine.”

But Dana Point in March sued six medical marijuana dispensaries in an effort to shut them down, arguing such clinics are not allowed under municipal code. The suit Traudt filed in Orange County Superior Court seeks a permanent injunction preventing the city from attempting to shut down the collective.

If that fails, “I guess I’ll have to buy it from the drug dealers,” White tells the Orange County Register‘s Vik Jolly.

Schwartz notes that Orange County judges have sided with dispensary-banning cities–most recently Lake Forest–because their attorneys have successfully argued such establishments violate local zoning laws.

“Cities always win that battle,” he states in his release. “However, when a city interferes with a person’s fundamental, constitutional rights, it must prove that the ban serves a compelling public interest and is narrowly tailored to avoid interfering with other civil rights. And, the city almost always loses.”

That is why Traudt’s suit is based on the Compassionate Use Act (Prop 215) and the California Constitution, which grants everyone the right to life and safety. “In Malinda’s case life requires medicine,” Schwartz says, “and the city of Dana Point is interfering with that.”

Written by Matt Coker from OCWeekly

Montana Therapeutics gives marijuana to about 50 people. Monday's firebombing caused about $2,500 in damage but no injuries. (Larry Mayer/billings Gazette Via Associated Press)

The incidents come as the Billings City Council is scheduled to vote Monday night on a six-month moratorium on approving additional marijuana businesses.

A rock was used to break the glass of Montana Therapeutics at 4:30 a.m. Monday, and a beer bottle filled with gasoline was lighted and thrown inside, according to Sgt. Kevin Iffland of the Billings police. A passerby reported the fire.

Fire crews quickly put out the small blaze, Deputy Fire Marshal Trevor Schilling said.

About 5 a.m. a day earlier, surveillance video showed two young men spray-painting “NOT IN OUR TOWN” on the front of Big Sky Patient Care and throwing a rock through the front door followed by a flaming bottle, Big Sky owner David Couch said.

Nobody was injured in either instance.

Trevor McFarren, co-owner of Montana Therapeutics, said his business provides marijuana for about 50 people and has never had a problem, a complaint or even a bad phone call since opening in January, he said.

McFarren said he believes that Monday’s council vote is linked to the attack, which he said caused about $2,500 in damage.

“I’m sure they’re trying to fuel the fire about” the vote, he said. “It’s more of an attack on the community than anything.” Couch also said he has not had any complaints since his business opened in April. He declined to say how many patients Big Sky has.

“If anything good comes out of this, it will probably be a desire for more education in the general public,” he said.

Police have no suspects, Iffland said. Surveillance video may have captured what happened, but the building’s owners do not want to release the video to police until they speak to their attorney, Iffland said.

Detectives were investigating whether the acts were committed by those who oppose such businesses or by business rivals, Iffland said.

Montana is different from other states in that it has no marijuana dispensaries for patients. Instead, each patient is required to designate a caregiver who provides the pot.

The growth has exposed holes in the state medical-use marijuana law that was passed by ballot initiative in 2004, and the state legislature is hearing recommendations on changes from law enforcement, cities, schools and patients who use marijuana.

Meanwhile, Montana’s cities and towns are testing different ways to deal with commercial growers. Some have banned them from within the city limits; others are seeking ways to regulate them like other businesses. Several cities have imposed temporary moratoriums on new businesses while they figure out a permanent solution.

Billings has issued more than 80 business licenses for stores selling marijuana for medical purposes. The council will decide Monday night whether to put a six-month ban on additional stores within city limits and whether to close those that are within 1,000 feet of a school or a park.

Tom Daubert, an advocate for medical marijuana use who led the initiative campaign in 2004, condemned the attacks but also said some of the businesses need to act with more dignity.

Daubert said Montanans never voted for marijuana storefronts that advertise or commercial production centers in residential neighborhoods.

“The law needs to be modernized, with regulation and oversight designed to prevent some of the undignified and unprofessional behavior we are seeing,” he said.

[Written by Washington Post]

J. Whitworth

A man arrested on suspicion of drug charges and child endangerment said he is concerned with the actions of police who shot two dogs they described as “aggressive” while serving a drug-related search warrant at his home earlier this month in southwest Columbia.

Police arrested Jonathan E. Whitworth, 25, of 1501 Kinloch Court on Feb. 11 on suspicion of possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of marijuana and second-degree child endangerment.
A police SWAT team entered Whitworth’s residence around 8:30 p.m. suspecting a large amount of marijuana at the location, police spokeswoman Officer Jessie Haden said. SWAT members encountered a pit bull upon entry, held back and then fatally shot the dog, which officers said was acting in an uncontrollably aggressive manner.

Whitworth was arrested, and his wife and 7-year-old son were present during the SWAT raid, Haden said. A second dog, which Whitworth’s attorney Jeff Hilbrenner described as a corgi, also was shot but was not killed.

“The family is concerned with what happened,” Hilbrenner said. “We don’t feel like what happened in the home was appropriate. The priority right now for us is the misdemeanor charges.”

Police discovered a grinder, a pipe and a small amount of marijuana, Haden said. Because the SWAT team acts on the most updated information available, the team wanted to enter the house before marijuana believed to be at the location could be distributed, she said.

“If you let too much time go by, then the drugs are not there,” she said.

Drug distributors traditionally have a history with firearms, which is why the SWAT team is used when executing such warrants, Haden said. If the SWAT team believed they could have executed the warrant successfully during the daytime when the wife and child were not present, they would have, she said.

Now there’s video, which you can watch below. It’s horrifying, but I’d urge you to watch it, and to send it to the drug warriors in your life. This is the blunt-end result of all the war imagery and militaristic rhetoric politicians have been spewing for the last 30 years—cops dressed like soldiers, barreling through the front door middle of the night, slaughtering the family pets, filling the house with bullets in the presence of children, then having the audacity to charge the parents with endangering their own kid. There are 100-150 of these raids every day in America, the vast, vast majority like this one, to serve a warrant for a consensual crime.

I now really mean it when I say, “Fuck the Police”. Video after the jump.

[Source]

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

When you’re running from police because they suspect you are drunk driving (because you are), where’s the best place to run and hide? In your marijuana grow house, of course.

Charles Byrd thought it was a great idea, but that was probably only because he was drunk, and running from the cops and needed somewhere to hide.

Timothy Donahue thought it was a terrible idea. He was also found hiding at the grow house after Byrd led the police there. We’re going to assume the men are no longer friends.

They were both arrested and charged for possession with intent to sell. Cops hauled away 69 pot plants and some processed pot with a total street value of $327,000. Byrd was also charged with DUI, driving with an expired tag and no headlights after dark, making an improper turn, and not having his license with him while driving. Way to play it safe, dude.

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Being innovative and outrageously creative in drug smuggling schemes requires a lot of  desperation and obviously a lot of brains. Conversely, evidently as creative as the list of such schemes is as below, they all still got caught. Nevertheless, they do deserve a cachet for coming up with such ingenious ideas. Continue reading for the list!

1. Cocaine Pringles

Chopping and slicing thinly sheets of cocaine to make it look just like Pringles and then putting them in a can of Pringles is definitely a pure desperate act of genius. In 2006, Austin, Texas, police found about 168 grams of cocaine inside a can of Pringles. The cocaine was ingeniously made to look like the actual Pringles crisps. Talk about creativity!

2. Cocaine Statue of Jesus Christ