MJ News for 04/18/2014

hMPp://www.9news.com/story/news/local/2014/04/17/denver-deaths-put-focus-on-marijuana-edibles/7849283/

Denver deaths put focus on marijuana edibles​

DENVER—A recent spousal murder case is the second death this year linked to edible marijuana, sparking questions and concern about what role, if any, the drug played.

Last month, a 19-year-old student fell to his death from a hotel balcony after eating six servings of a pot cookie.

"There's just not enough information right now to say, absolutely, pot was to blame," 9NEWS psychologist Max Wachtel said.

In the case of the murder, there are other factors to consider besides pot.

Police say suspected shooter Richard Kirk was also on medication for back pain in that case, so pot may not have been the only thing in his blood.

Sources told 9NEWS Kris Kirk was on the phone with 911 for approximately 12 minutes before her husband Richard allegedly shot her in the head while she was still on the line.

Court documents revealed that Kirk could be heard in the background of the call "talking about some marijuana 'candy' that he had got from a store."

"There's certainly an extreme likelihood that [marijuana] contributed," Wachtel said. "What we know about the case at this point is that he probably ingested an edible, had way too much pot in his system."

That can cause problems, says Wachtel, who points to a study that looked at the brain on THC, the psychoactive drug in pot.

It found that part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex, gets more active when exposed to the drug. This area is believed to bring in sights and sounds from the world around you, so more activity could mean more sensations.

However, THC also caused another part of the brain called the striatum to slow down.

Scientists think that brain region helps you deal with all those sensations coming in, so less activity could mean a tougher time making sense of the world.

In extreme cases, it can cause a type of psychosis similar to schizophrenia, says Wachtel.

"Little things become huge," Wachtel said. "So a touch on the skin or a little sound that you hear off in the corner becomes a monster or becomes somebody telling you to kill somebody else."

ER doctors say that's rare to see with pot. Usually people come in very sedated.

Regardless, marijuana supporters concede it's easy to overdo it with edibles.

People think, "'Oh, I smoke cannabis, I'm fine,'" said Genifer Murray who runs a marijuana testing company called CannLabs. "Absolutely not, you should always start with 10 milligrams."

10 milligrams is the state's definition of a dose of edible THC.

Karma Kandy, the edible product police say murder suspect Richard Kirk bought, is sold with more than 100 milligrams in as single piece of candy.

There are similar facts in the case of the 19-year-old who jumped from the hotel. Police say he ate one cookie that was 6.5 doses.

A smaller bite didn't produce a high right away, so he ate the whole thing, according to statements in the police report from those who were with him.

It takes longer to get high eating pot than smoking it and the effects can last for hours.

"15 to 20 years from now I think we will look back and be shocked that edibles were legal," Wachtel said. "I think they are not going to withstand public scrutiny. I think that bad stuff is going to continue to happen."

"I think that's ridiculous," countered Murray. "A lot of people don't smoke, so you always want to give them another option."

Murray suggests that people who use edibles, especially for the first time, find products that are already divided into 10 milligrams servings of THC, so they don't have to break off pieces of a cookie or brownie.

All sides seem to agree more scientific study of marijuana's effects in different forms could be useful.

There's no rule against having a single piece of candy that contains the maximum 100 milligrams of THC for an edible item sold as recreational pot.

Colorado has no limit at all on THC content for medical marijuana edibles.

The THC content listed on edibles isn't always trustworthy, either.

Mandatory THC potency testing won't be required until May under state rules. In the meantime, untested products are required to come with a disclosure to the buyer saying they have not been tested.

hMPp://gazette.com/colorado-springs-city-council-divided-about-adding-marijuana-question-to-november-ballot/article/1518469

Colorado Springs City Council divided about adding marijuana question to November ballot​

It's anybody's guess whether the Colorado Springs City Council will put a question on the November ballot asking if residents want to allow recreational marijuana sales.

Members of a nonprofit group, Every Vote Counts, will begin lobbying this month for City Council's support to put a citizen-initiated ordinance question on the ballot.

Without seeing the proposed language, two council members said they support the idea of citizen-driven laws and would vote to put the question on the ballot. Three council members said they would not refer the issue to the ballot, and four said they need to see the language.

"I would want to see what the ballot initiative would do," said Val Snider, an at-large council member who was the council swing vote in July when it voted 5-4 to ban recreational sales.

Snider's vote came as a surprise to proponents who said they believed an at-large council member should represent constituents. In November 2012, Colorado Springs voters said "yes" to Amendment 64, a statewide initiative that allows cities to regulate sales of cannabis for recreational use. The state law also gives cities the option of banning sales.

At that time of the council vote, Snider said he was against recreational marijuana sales because of the number of uncertainties in the new state law.

Asked this week if he would vote to put a citizen-led ordinance on a ballot in November, Snider said he would have to see the language first.

"I would want to see in writing what they want on the ballot," he said. "I'm not buying wholesale into general recreational pot sales."

In July, Mayor Steve Bach said he would have vetoed a City Council ordinance allowing recreational sales. But when it comes to ballot questions, only the City Council can refer issues to the ballot.

Voters may see other citizen-led initiatives in November. A Citizen's Stormwater Advisory Group will ask El Paso County Commissioners to put a question on the November ballot asking voters to approve a stormwater fee to pay for millions in flood control projects across the region.

A draft of the citizen's proposed recreational marijuana ordinance is half a dozen pages long. It would ask voters to reaffirm their vote on Amendment 64 and ask for voters to approve a long list of provisions, including rules about licenses, restrictions about what marijuana products can be sold and a call for public hearings about every proposed marijuana store.

Lindsay Deen, secretary of Every Vote Counts, said she hopes council members will hear the group's proposal before shutting it down. The proposed ordinance includes a provision that retail marijuana stores must be 1,000 feet from schools and 2,000 feet from military bases.

"I'd consider it," said council member Helen Collins, who represents District 4 in southeast Colorado Springs. "The southeast voted for Amendment 64."

Council member Jan Martin said she looks forward to working with the group to draft the ballot language.

"That's always the best approach," she said. "Anytime someone wants to bring something like this forward, it's always best to work with council beforehand."

The proposed ordinance has built-in flexibility for the city when it comes to developing administrative rules, said Mark Slaugh, president of Every Vote Counts.

The risk for the City Council, he said, is if it does not refer the citizen-led ordinance to the ballot, citizens could collect at least 19,861 voter signatures - 20 percent of the 99,306 votes cast in the 2011 mayoral election - and get the question on the ballot without city council approval.

"Once it's on the ballot, the language is locked in," he said.

Council member Andy Pico said citizens have the right to collect the necessary signatures to get an ordinance on the ballot. But he won't vote to put recreational cannabis sales on the ballot.

"I can't envision myself doing that," he said.

Council member Merv Bennett agrees with Pico. He voted in July to ban recreational marijuana sales in the Springs. He said then that he worried about pot becoming more accessible to children and about the negative effect on the military community, which makes up about 40 percent of the local economy. He said he won't vote to put recreational marijuana sales on the ballot because it would give the impression that he favors marijuana sales.

"If (Bennett) voted to put it on the ballot, that might give the impression that he listens to his constituents," Slaugh said. "Why would he oppose giving people a chance?"

Manitou Springs is the only municipality in the county allowing recreational sales. Palmer Lake residents petitioned the issue on to the ballot, and it failed this month.

hMPp://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/story/_/id/10796922/blake-griffin-los-angeles-clippers-supports-medical-marijuana-nba

Griffin: Medicinal pot makes sense​

Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin has added his voice to calls for the NBA and other professional sports leagues to investigate allowing players to use medical marijuana as a means to manage pain.

"So many guys would probably benefit from it and not take as many painkillers, which have worse long-term effects.
”[/I]
-- Blake Griffin

"It doesn't really affect me, but so many guys would probably benefit from it and not take as many painkillers, which have worse long-term effects," Griffin said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine. "So I would vote yes. I just think it makes sense."

Griffin's comments followed remarks made earlier this month by Bucks center Larry Sanders, who advocated for marijuana's legalization just after it was announced he would be suspended five games by the NBA for using the drug.

"It's a banned substance in my league. But I believe in marijuana and the medical side of it. I know what it is if I'm going to use it," Sanders told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at the time. He said he has studied marijuana and knows the benefits.

"In a lot of ways we've been deprived," Sanders said. "You can't really label it with so many other drugs that people can be addicted to and have so many negative effects on your body and your family and your relationships and impairment. This is not the same thing."

More from ESPN.com
Out-of-state visitors enjoying a chance to get legally stoned in Colorado before heading to the ballpark, Rick Reilly writes. Story

Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said in January that the NFL should look into medicinal marijuana as a means of taking the best possible care of its players.

"We have to explore and find ways to make our game a better game and take care of our players in whatever way possible," Carroll said weeks before the Seahawks won their first Super Bowl crown. "Regardless of what other stigmas might be involved, we have to do this because the world of medicine is doing this."

hMPp://www.marketwatch.com/story/canadas-new-marijuana-laws-set-stage-for-growth-2014-04-17

Canada’s new marijuana laws set stage for growth
​

For 11 years, Brent Zettl and Prairie Plant Systems Inc. cornered the market for government-approved medical marijuana in Canada.

Now, after a change this month in Canada’s production and distribution laws made it legal for any licensed company to grow and ship medical marijuana to patients, and illegal for patients to grow their own, Zettl finds himself competing with a dozen new entrants in an industry that could be worth as much as $1.2 billion in a decade. Already, it is drawing investments from hedge funds and private-equity firms in the U.S. and Canada.

Unlike the U.S., where a patchwork of laws vary from state to state, Canada’s new pot laws are federally regulated and uniform, making it more palatable to institutional investors, who have already taken notice. While Colorado and Washington have gone further by legalizing recreational marijuana, the Canadian prime minister’s office has said it would not seek to decriminalize the drug.

The 12 companies that have been granted licenses by Health Canada, the government body overseeing the program, are now turning away potential investors, whereas just a year ago they were struggling to get potential backers to return their calls.

“It’s a much different time now than it was a year ago,” says Mark Gobuty, the chief executive of Peace Naturals Project Inc., a medical marijuana company based in Clearview, Ontario. “Before, it was a reputational risk. Today they’re lining up and telling me I’m very tall and handsome.”

Peace Naturals, which is already shipping marijuana to patients across Canada, has so far raised $3.5 million to expand its production facilities, and expects to raise another $6 million soon, according to Gobuty.

The licensed companies include a Canadian firm using Israeli technology; a family-owned operation on a rural British Columbia farm; and a company that will grow its marijuana in a former Hershey’s chocolate factory outside Ottawa, directly across the street from the local police station.

That company, Tweed Inc CA:TWD +6.35% , earlier this month listed its shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange’s Venture Exchange, the first marijuana company to do so in Canada. Tweed, which has raised more than $10 million so far, uses the Royal Bank of Canada as its banker, and hired Deloitte LLP to be its auditor. Its stock listing is sponsored by GMP Securities L.P., a well-known investment bank based in Toronto.

“There’s a whole lot of people who think the framework in Canada is better aligned for a real growth sector, as opposed to south of the border,” says Bruce Linton, the chairman of Tweed, referring to the U.S.

Brendan Kennedy, a Yale business school graduate and former venture capitalist from Silicon Valley, in 2010 co-founded Seattle-based Privateer Holdings, which invests solely in companies in the marijuana industry. Most of the firm’s investments are in the U.S., and are companies that have ancillary ties to the marijuana industry but don’t actually grow pot. The exception is a Canadian company called Lafitte Ventures Ltd., based on Vancouver Island, in which Privateer will soon have invested $15 million.

“Canada is the only place where we actually touch the product,” Kennedy says. “There’s no disparity between federal and provincial law in Canada. That was extremely appealing to us. You would never invest that amount of capital in a facility in the U.S.”

When Tweed’s Linton makes presentations to prospective investors, he highlights the differences between the two countries’ approaches: he makes two columns, one for developments in the U.S. marijuana industry, and the other for developments in Canada. “For each thing happening in one country, it’s the opposite in the other,” he says.

That’s not to say the industry in Canada hasn’t been without its problems. A federal court earlier this year gave medical marijuana growers a temporary reprieve, allowing them to continue growing small amounts of marijuana on their property pending the outcome of a trial set for later in the year. And this month, two licensed marijuana companies had some of their supply seized by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, thought it’s unclear why.

In the U.S., the market for legal marijuana--in which 20 states allow medical marijuana use and Washington and Colorado allow recreational marijuana use--could be worth $2.5 billion by the end of this year, according to the marijuana industry research firm ArcView Group. Colorado, which started allowing recreational marijuana use in January, earned more than $7 million in tax revenue in the first two months of the year. Washington state is expected to start allowing sales this summer.

Zettl’s Prairie Plant Systems, which had revenue of $12 million last year, raised $20 million two years ago in debt and equity, and is looking to raise another $20 million this year. Pharma Can Capital, a group of former Toronto hedge-fund and tech investors, has spent the past year and a half studying the medical marijuana industry and last month closed a $9 million investment round with the goal of becoming the go-to source of money for medical marijuana startups.

Pharma Can’s CEO Paul Rosen says a significant chunk of the recent investment came from a “large, brand-name” U.S. fund, though he won’t say which, and that they’ve had to turn down other institutional investors. Rosen says that a year ago during pitch meetings, people looked at his firm “like we had a third eye or something,” but that prospective investors are no longer shy about getting involved.Pharma Can has already invested more than $1 million in three different marijuana production companies, and expects to invest more soon.

The medical marijuana market in Canada will be worth roughly $120 million in its first year, according to analysts and executives in the industry, but Health Canada estimates that in 10 years the industry could be worth as much as $1.2 billion in sales.

Aside from the 12 companies that already obtained a license from Health Canada, there are many more applying--more than 500 so far. Those still trying to obtain a license include a former nightclub owner from Quebec and a company in Ontario looking to repurpose an indoor soccer stadium.

hMPp://www.newsday.com/entertainment/celebrities/whoopi-goldberg-writing-cannabis-column-for-the-denver-post-1.7743545

Whoopi Goldberg writing an online cannabis column​

DENVER - Whoopi Goldberg says she's in love with her marijuana-vaporizing pen.

In her new column for The Denver Post's Cannabist website, the Oscar-winning entertainer writes that her "vape pen" relieves the devastating glaucoma headaches she suffers without overwhelming her with a marijuana high.

Goldberg's debut column appeared Thursday.

She writes that marijuana eases the pressure, pain and stress of glaucoma, and her vaporizing pen allows her to get the right amount in small sips.

Goldberg says she's discreet about using the pen if she's in jurisdictions where medical marijuana is illegal.

hMPp://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/platt-fields-park-420-cannabis-7006057

(UK) 1,000 marijuana users to attend 'cannabis festival' at Platt Fields Park​

Drug campaigners say around 1,000 people are set to attend a ‘festival’ celebrating cannabis at a south Manchester park.

The crowds are expected at the ‘420’ day at Platt Fields Park - one of a series of events to be held across the world on Sunday.

The event - now in its fourth year - aims to promote the campaign for the legalisation of cannabis and organisers have said they plan to smoke the drug in public, as they have in previous years. It is the first time that the event has been held in Manchester, the M.E.N. understands.

Police have warned organisers they do not condone the event at the park in Fallowfield and people seen using the class B drug will face arrest.

A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said: “Greater Manchester Police have not received any official notification of a planned event at Platt Fields Park on Sunday.

“Officers will be patrolling the area in conjunction with officials from the park and anyone seen to be actively breaking the law, will be dealt with in an appropriate manner.”

The Platt Fields event is organised by Manchester pro-cannabis groups ManCan and Mannijuana.

Organisers argue the drug should be legalised and say the gathering will be a ‘family friendly day’.

One member said: “Everyone smokes cannabis at the event but it is completely safe and no-one is there to cause trouble.

“It’s the only time when we condone smoking (cannabis) in public under the principal that for this one day we can become autonomous.

“It’s a family friendly day in the same way as taking your family to the pub for the afternoon. In society it’s frowned upon to have children around cannabis but when it’s treated respectfully there’s no problem.

“Cannabis is a safe drug, even compared with legal drugs such as alcohol and this is a day for those who enjoy it to come out and celebrate it.”

The term ‘420’ - pronounced four-twenty - is a code-term that refers to the consumption of cannabis and the ‘counterculture holiday’ on April 20 has been popular in the US since the 1980s.

A similar event in London’s Hyde Park is expected to attract more than 10,000 people.