There’s something funky going on over at the offices of the US attorney’s office. Actually, there are probably a bunch of funk-smelling activities going on there, but we’re just going to talk about one in particular today. Namely, that the same office that investigates domestic acts of terror and drug-smuggling rings is for some absurd reason prosecuting a 19 year-old for possession of a single gram of weed in Oregon of all places, a state which fully legalized marijuana last year, as reported by The Guardian.

Devontre Thomas, a high school student at the time of his arrest and Native American, will be before a federal court soon for his possession of a very, very small amount of cannabis. Many details of the case are unclear and ridiculous. For example, Thomas did not even have any marijuana on him at the time of his arrest, he only confessed to an officer than he had purchased $20 worth of pot after a friend of his was discovered with weed “debris,” according to KGW-TV.

Even less clear than why cops would bother with charging a kid for not possessing weed is why the case was handed over to federal prosecutors, who haven’t charged a marijuana possession case in Oregon since 2011.

“I can’t figure out why they are going after this youth. It literally makes no sense,” Mat dos Santos, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, told The Guardian. “I find it really hard to believe this should merit the concern of the US attorney. It’s really heartbreaking.”

The case bafflingly breaks precedent and ideology with the attorney general’s office, which has issued both a memo in 2013 which stated that the federal government would leave small cases under the jurisdiction of local agencies and another initiative pushes employees to make the most dangerous criminals a priority. Few would argue that Thomas’s activities make him a criminal, let alone a dangerous one.

Photo via Flickr user Heath Alseike

The FDA is greenlighting the prescription of a new liquid THC solution, but only for patients in really rough shape. Syndros, a synthetic cannabinoid for oral use put out by the pharmaceutical company Insys Therapeutics, Inc., is to be prescribed for treating anorexia in AIDS patients and vomiting and nausea in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy treatment, according to a press release.

Interesting to note is that, while plant-derived cannabis products are still Schedule I controlled substances in the U.S., some synthetic cannabis products like Marinol, are Schedule III, meaning they can be prescribed by a doctor instead of “recommended” like organic cannabis in medical marijuana programs. Syndros itself is yet to be officially scheduled, but will likely end up in the same category as Marinol.

Syndros and Marinol are both what’s called dronabinol products, meaning they’re made of synthetic test tube THC. That means their side effects should be pretty similar to old fashioned THC in old fashioned plant cannabis, the big difference being that the new age lab THC does not have the benefit of what’s termed “Entourage Effect.” That effect, some researchers posit, is that THC and CBD are much more effective when consumed in conjunction with the other cannabinoids, terpenes, and what-have-yous that compose the marijuana plant.

When covering this story, High Times pointed out that famed cannabis scientist Dr. Sanjay Gupta much preferred organic cannabis to its synthetic counterpoint. “When the drug became available in the mid-1980s, scientists thought it would have the same effect as the whole cannabis plant. But it soon became clear that most patients preferred using the whole plant to taking Marinol,” Gupta told CNN. “Researchers began to realize that other components, such as CBD, might have a larger role than previously realized.”

So, THC grown in the soil and puffed in a joint is still a Schedule I narcotic, just like heroin or LSD, but a less effective and more elaborately processed synthetic version can be prescribed by a doctor, making it just one of the many paradoxes of marijuana law in this country. However, it’s very possible that, as medical and recreational marijuana programs expand in the states, pale pharmaceutical imitation products like Syndros will become obsolete and disappear from the marketplace.

Snoop Dogg made a public appearance promoting the new MTV sitcom Mary + Jane, a show the rapper is executive producing, last weekend. The Doggfather’s passion project follows two twenty-something women in the hipster mecca of Silverlake, Los Angeles as they sell weed and date and stuff. In addition to executive producing, Snoop has also recorded the theme song and will appear as “like a Snoop fairy,” according to another show EP.

The show is just the most recent addition of cannabis-infused content to be programmed on the airwaves. As legal cannabis is turning into big bucks in the land of the free, the zeitgeist it’s creating is leading to more and more TV and movies on the subject. M + J is just one of more than half a dozen projects being undertaken by major studios about people in the weed biz.

Last week saw the announcement of Humboldt, a new drama series starring John Malkovich from the producers of True Detective and based on the non-fiction book Humboldt: Life on America’s Marijuana Frontier, which follows the culture of Northern California cannabis farmers as they prepare for the changes that legalization will bring to their way of life.

While Humboldt seems to be a serious look at the industry, everyone else is playing it for laughs. Netflix is putting out Disjointed, a dispensary sitcom from Big Bang Theory billionaire creator Chuck Lorre and starring Misery herself Kathy Bates. Meanwhile, HBO’s new iteration of the popular web series High Maintenance debuts next month and NBC is developing yet another dispensary workplace comedy about whacky potheads with yet another punny title: Buds. That one stars Parks and Recreation dude Adam Scott.

Amazon Studios, not to be outdone, is developing two, count them, two different cannabusiness projects. The first sounds a bit like more of the same, being the Margaret Cho-starring hour long Highland, a workplace/family dramedy about some more people who run a dispensary. The second project, though it comes from the guru behind Amazon’s flagship series Transparent, is actually a feature film called Ten Akre Wood, and tells the story of a woman who flees Los Angeles after her marriage falls apart and joins a Northern California grow op.

So, maybe from now on you can save a little money on your endo expenses. Just turn on the tube and see if you can catch a contact high.

Presidential candidates aren’t the only thing republicans seem to be changing their minds about right now. Looks like even the grand old party of traditional values and conservative living is shrugging their shoulders and saying “fuck it” when it comes to anti-marijuana laws. For the first time ever, more Republicans support cannabis legalization than oppose it, 45 to 42 percent, according to a poll from YouGov.

The margin between Republicans who would legalize weed and those who wouldn’t is not wide, but it’s still significant. For one thing, it’s a contributor to the rising support of marijuana legalization overall, which has gone up to 55 percent right now from 52 percent at the end of last year, according to another YouGov poll.

It also shows a major shift in the Republican party during the last year. Last December, polls showed way more party members opposing cannabis legalization (50 percent) than in favor (36 percent). In January 2014, 60 percent opposed legalization while only 28 percent supported it.

So why the mood shift? No hard data on that, but another poll from YouGov might shed some light. 54 percent of Republicans polled said that enforcing marijuana laws costs more than it’s worth. For fiscal conservatives, that’s a big deal.

All this is not to say that anti-ganja sentiment is going the way of the dodo. It was just announced that Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), one of the most high profile 420-unfriendly groups around, has raised $2 million to fight marijuana legalization ballots like the one coming in California (which sounds impressive, except that pro legalization folks in the Golden State have raised more than three times that much so far).

Speaking of charitable contributions, it might not be a bad idea to gift Republican voters a little bit of kind kush, as this week is turning out to be a historically stressful one for the party.

Scotts Miracle-Gro, the lawn and garden supplies company that’s been in business since 1868, just saw its stocks hit an all-time high of $80.14 a share. The reason: cannabis. How do we know that? Because an even more storied institution, JP Morgan, the banking powerhouse that’s been buying and selling American and half the world since 1871, told us.

“The hydroponics market taps into marijuana demand and the company now has a growth option that we think an investor is able to capture for about the price of the traditional business,” JP Morgan analyst Jeffrey Zekauskas was quoted in a Barrons blog post.

People have been getting rich off of marijuana for a long time, and companies have been too for not quite as long, but when investors and stock market analysts from one of the largest banks in the world start talking about it, you know that the business has turned a corner.

While a company like Miracle-Gro makes money indirectly off of cannabis sales (not from the plants themselves but from products used to cultivate those plants), some companies are making a big stab at the stock market with weed commerce.

Puration, Inc. might be the only cannabis extracts company in history to be publicly traded. From what we’ve gathered through research, Puration used to specialize in water purification products, but has moved its focus to extracts recently. The company has announced a million dollar project to team with Colorado cultivators Spanish Peaks ScrumpDelicacies to collaborate on THC and CBD-infused beverages.

Puration is only a micro-cap stock, which means small time (it’s what the brokers got rich off of in The Wolf of Wall Street and called “penny stocks” or “pink sheets”), but it has big designs. A statement widely circulated through PR Newswire this week says the collaboration with ScrumpDelicacies is only one of three upcoming major deals between Puration and other companies, and the company right now is projecting (for themselves) a $3 million revenue forecast.

How much Puration’s big claims are based in truth is pretty much anyone’s guess, but it shows that, even if they’re penny stocks, extract companies are getting into the stock market. And Miracle-Gro’s record high share in nearly 150 years shows that the cannabis business is affecting stocks for major companies outside of the industry. So, if you have a stock broker and you want them to keep putting your money in smart places, I might buy them a subscription to Dabs Magazine in order to keep them in the know.

Photo via Flickr user Sam Viladi

For most athletes who compete in the Olympic Games, it’s the peek of their career. A lifetime of training, discipline and sacrifice all pay off for those exceptionally skilled and lucky few. Which is cool, but can they even smoke weed though?

The answer is simple enough: yes, no, and sort of.

Yes

For many years, cannabis was a no-go for Olympic athletes. The most famous case of a weed-doped competitor was back in the 1998 Winter Olympics when Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati took the gold, then almost had taken from him after testing positive for marijuana.

But since then, things have gotten a little more chillaxed at the World Anti-Doping Agency. A few years ago WADA, a collective led by the International Olympics Committee, significantly raised their THC threshold for athletes from 15 nanograms per milliliter to 150 ng/ml. While the old rubric could essentially disqualify an athlete for having any THC in their system, the new threshold is trying to determine whether an athlete is high at the time of the test.

“Our information suggests that many cases do not involve game or event-day consumption,” Ben Nichols, a WADA spokesperson, told USA Today. “The new threshold level is an attempt to ensure that in-competition use is detected and not use during the days and weeks before competition.”

So, while it’s not a great idea to smoke a bunch of weed while in competition at the Olympic games, if you keep your consumption light and don’t light up at all on game day, you’re probably going to be okay. That should make for a pretty bitching time in the Olympic village, along with the supposedly rampant casual sex it’s known for.

No

But. But but but. Cannabis is still technically a banned substance in WADA’s eyes, alongside steroids and heroin. And there are still consequences for athletes found with THC in their system. In 2012, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency tested nearly 3,000 athletes and found only four tested positive for a stoner’s favorite cannabinoid THC. Out of those four, one was taken off her Olympic team. One out of 3,000 is pretty great odds, but still bad news for wrestler Stephany Lee.

Sort Of

The tough break for Stephany Lee aside, it’s now kind of hard to disqualify yourself through spliff-hitting as long as it’s not right before your test. In order to top 150 ng/ml, a person need to be “pretty dedicated cannabis consumer,” according to NORML’s executive director Allen St. Pierre.

And, while rules have loosened, some make the argument that they shouldn’t have. USADA science director Dr. Matt Fedoruk said that, while cannabis doesn’t meet the traditional definition of a performance-enhancing drug, it might still be giving users an edge over their non-420-friendly competitors. “It’s how it affects some of the other parameters that are really important like pain or confidence or some of the things that are a bit more difficult to measure or define analytically,” Fedoruk said.

You heard it from a scientist. Weed makes you a better athlete.

Photo via Flickr user Noel Reynolds

A Seattle dispensary manager got the best of two armed robbers without even having to leave his couch. Damon Martinez was at home Sunday night watching live security camera footage from his dispensary Have a Heart in North Seattle when he saw two gunmen enter the establishment.

The masked robbers held the collective’s security guard at gunpoint to gain entry to the closing store, then restrained two employees before breaking into the safe. “They zip-tied the workers and terrified them and put a gun in their face,” Martinez told Leafly. “It was a horrible situation.”

Since Martinez was watching from home, he was free to call the Seattle Police Department while the robbery was still underway. “The police were amazing and were here within a few minutes,” he said. “I did a play-by-play for them on which rooms they were in and when they were exiting, so [officers] could be prepared to make arrests when it happened… We coordinated, and they turned off all the lights and the guys walked right into their damn hands.”

Martinez and his employees were lucky that everything went about as smoothly for them as an armed robbery can go. But the incident points to a larger problems for cannabis businesses: federal banking restrictions. Most dispensaries are cash businesses and this, of course, attracts robberies. Have a Heart only foiled its would-be thieves because of the extra-careful safety precautions the store takes such as an armed guard who walks the perimeter of the store and a manager watching a live feed of the security cameras.

This wasn’t even the first time the dispensary had been the target of criminals. An attempted burglary took place at the same location only the week before. The problem is widespread throughout the country. Los Angeles saw a dispensary robbery perpetrated with an assault rifle and body armour earlier this summer that resulted in two employees being shop, and a security guard at a pot shop in Aurora, Colorado was killed during a robbery earlier this year.

But there is promise of change for banking in the cannabis industry. Washington congressman U.S. Rep. Denny Heck is scheduled to meet with state officials this week to try to loosen restrictions on banking interactions with cannabis businesses.

Photo via Flickr user Dank Depot

Somebody’s got a lot of time on their hands. When that big WikiLeaks dump of hacked Democratic National Committee emails came out last month, folks dug deep enough to embarrass the DNC and get its chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz booted from her seat. But most people didn’t dig much deeper than that. Luckily for those who read and write hard-hitting marijuana news, somebody had a little bit of extra time, and used it to expose another bit of Washinton behind-the-scenes shenanigans.

Another DNC email reveals that the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America, a lobbyist group that represents booze pushers, has been trying to stop Washington lawmakers from getting to friendly with the marijuana industry. As reported by Marijuana.com, a newsletter sent to DNC Finance Director Jordon Kaplan contains a paid message from the WSWA, which reads:

A message from Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America: While neutral on the issue of legalization, WSWA believes states that legalize marijuana need to ensure appropriate and effective regulations are enacted to protect the public from the dangers associated with the abuse and misuse of marijuana.

23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized medicinal marijuana while Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and D.C. have legalized possession and recreational use. In the years since the state legalized medicinal use, Colorado law enforcement officials have documented a significant increase in traffic fatalities in which drivers tested positive for marijuana.

Congress should fully fund Section 4008 of the FAST Act (PL 114-94) in the FY 2017 Appropriations process to document the prevalence of marijuana impaired driving, outline impairment standards and determine driving impairment detection methods.

It’s odd to find that the alcohol industry is so threatened by the cannabusiness, since nothing has ever stopped consumers from buying alcohol by the can, case, and barrel, not even completely outlawing the sale of alcohol in the early twentieth century.

Some believe the WSWA’s attempts to question the safety of marijuana are transparently self-interested. While Marijuana Policy Project communications manager Morgan Fox readily admits that driving under the impairment of cannabis is unsafe, he brings up the point that “driving under the influence of marijuana is already illegal and… the existing research shows marijuana’s effect on driving ability is significantly less than alcohol,” he told Marijuana.com.
“It is difficult to see a legitimate reason for the alcohol industry to be taking up this issue. They would do better to fund research on how to decrease drunk driving.”

This is not Big Alcohol’s only attempt to fight the coming tide of legal marijuana. The Arizona Wine and Spirits Association gave $10,000 to anti-marijuana efforts in that state, hoping to prevent the passing of a legalization measure on this November’s ballot.

Photo via Flickr user Phil Long

The DEA’s decision to stay steadfastly anti-marijuana legalization, even in the face of growing tolerance and embrace of the plant by state and local authorities, was expected. It didn’t change much, but it did bring the question of national legalization to the forefront.

Politicians all over the country have commented on the decision. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown called the DEA’s decision to slightly ease cannabis research, but leave all other legal aspects as they were, “shortsighted” and said in a statement that it “only went half the distance.” Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said that the federal agency’s move was unexpected, but thought that his state’s university researchers could nonetheless take advantage of the new guidelines.

Meanwhile, presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton diplomatically celebrated the expansion of medical marijuana research, while promising that she’ll do more once elected to the big house. “We applaud the steps taken today by the Obama Administration to remove research barriers that have significantly limited the scientific study of marijuana,” Clinton senior policy advisor Maya Harris said in a statement.

“As president, Hillary will build on the important steps announced today by rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule II substance,” Harris continued. “She will also ensure Colorado, and other states that have enacted marijuana laws, can continue to serve as laboratories of democracy.”

So Hillary wants to reschedule weed if/when she becomes President. That is great. The only question then is: can she actually do that? Does the president actually have the right to change the status of a controlled substance?

When trying to answer whether President Obama had that ability, writers at Fusion came upon several hurdles that a Commander in Chief would have to jump in order to legalize marijuana at the federal level. One little problem might be that it would be sort of illegal. The US signed a treaty with the UN back in 1961 agreeing not to make cannabis legit, except for medicinal and scientific uses. The UN doesn’t even like that fact that weed is legal on a state level in the US.

The President could work with congress to alter the Controlled Substances Act, but if the GOP holds onto House in the coming election (which is not unlikely), then we’ll have another one of those dysfunctional president-Congress relationships we had during the Obama presidency that resembled a bitter marriage on its last legs more than a cooperative democratic government.

So, it might be easier for Clinton to drop a nuclear bomb than to legalize weed, regardless of her promises. Bummer.

Image via Wikimedia Commons

It’s the dawning of a new genetic age. The CRISPR/Cas9 technology is going to make editing DNA, according to many geneticists, as easy and almost as cheap as editing a document in Microsoft Word. That could mean major breakthroughs in disease treatment and prevention, particularly when it comes to diseases that sprout from genetic predisposition such as sickle cell disease or Huntington’s.

The use of CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats), a naturally occurring immune system in bacteria that can be programmed to cut and paste DNA sequences, could even lead to what some call “designer babies,” babies that the privileged could edit to make stronger, healthier, and smarter than everyone else on the planet. This month, Chinese scientists are going to open Pandora’s box and become the first to experiment with CRISPR on live human subjects.

But what’s the point of living a long, healthy life without a long, healthy joint by our side? Don’t worry. There’s no reason why cannabis should be left behind in the genetic revolution. Several CRISPR experiments have already been done on plants. Some sciencey peeps have succeeded in editing the allergens out of peanuts, diseases have been prevented in tomatoes, and researchers have even monkeyed with the idea of changing the taste of apples with the technology.

And weed? What about weed? What can be done to apples can be done to weed. (Maybe we can even genetically alter apples so that they make better pipes when we’re in a pinch.)

The cannabis genome has already been unlocked, giving scientists an understanding of how, for instance, Purple Kush differs in its genetic code from hemp strains. After looking at “534 million base pairs of sequence across nearly 790 million bases,” according to GenomeWeb, researchers found “enzyme expressions” that predispose the kush to dankness and hemp to anti-dankness.

That kind of information can be used by technology like CRISPER to rewrite genetic code in heady buds and make them even more headier. Thank god for science.

Photo via Flickr user Martjin

Google “hash oil” and the very first entry that will come up, even before a Wikipedia entry, is a site titled “The Dangers Of Dabbing – Educate Yourself On The Dangerous‎ New Marijuana Trend.” It’s listed as an ad, which means somebody is paying good money to make sure that the first impression hash oil makes on someone trying to find out more about the product is that it’s dangerous, so dangerous that they have to use the word “danger” twice in the title.

The article was published by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, a group that sounds like it’s some kind of official government agency, but is instead a non-profit that seeks to provide people with facts about drugs, but doesn’t actually seem to know all that much about drugs.

“The Dangers of Dabbing” is aimed at parents and meant to scare them through buzzwords and shallowly researched evidence. The article calls dabbing “the crack of pot” and makes the claim that, “We do know that marijuana can be addictive.”

Here’s an excerpt of one of the most provocative parts of the article:

“Dabbing comes with a slew of negative side effects, including a rapid heartbeat, blackouts, feeling like something is crawling under the skin, loss of consciousness and psychotic symptoms, including paranoia and hallucinations.

As this trend grows, more YouTube videos are being uploaded by teens chronicling their dabbing experiences. These videos showcase teens dabbing for the first time or experimenting with higher and higher doses trying to outdo their peers on the Internet. Many of these videos feature the individuals falling out of chairs, unable to move on their own and pleading with their friends to call for medical assistance.”

Though most of those side effects do occur in anecdotal evidence, they are rare and the last few mentioned (paralysis, pleading for medical assistance) sound a lot more like YouTube videos of K2 or Spice users. The article only has two sources for the negative effects of using dabs, and both lead to dead pages on other news sites, making a less than credible case for their outlandish claims.

Some crackpot alarmist parent group spreading anti-dabs propaganda is not too surprising. What is alarming, however, is that said propaganda seems to be at least partially funded by the government. According to the NCASA’s website, the organization “is funded by grants from federal and state agencies, as well as private and corporate foundations and by charitable donations from the public.”

Which sucks. If these idiots (who also claim 1 in 7 marijuana users are addicted) can get a government grant, then maybe I can get one to subsidize my wax. Better go start my proposal now.

Officials have determined that a Northern California wildfire that consumed 43 homes last year was caused by an illegal cannabis cultivation operation, as reported by the Associated Press.

The blaze’s culprit was a makeshift water heater which the growers had installed near their 100 plant farm. “It was strapped to a tree. Quite inventive, and why it was not very safe,” California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokeswoman Janet Upton told the AP. The two suspects in the case fled the county, likely to avoid questioning.

The weed-induced “Rocky fire” was the second largest in the region last year, spreading throughout rural areas near San Francisco in Lake, Yolo, and Colusa counties, and destroying 43 homes and 53 outbuildings.

The vast majority of wildfires are caused by man-made missteps like this one. Another fire currently raging in the same area that Rocky scourged last year was caused by a serial arsonist. Of the nearly 5,000 California wildfires this year, 4,808 were caused by humans, over only 115 that were caused by lightning, according to the LA Times.

There are at least three major wildfires at work right now in the Golden State, including the Blue Cut fire, which this week caused 82,000 people to be evacuated from their homes just east of Los Angeles.

Photo via U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Now there’s one more way to get weird. South Africa’s freaky artsy rap-pop duo Die Antwoord are prepping a line of pot concentrate products to release in conjunction with their upcoming album Mount Ninji and Da Nice Time Kid.

The group’s Yolandi Visser and Ninja are teaming with Northern California’s Natural Cannabis Company to produce a new product line called Zef Zol, which will include flowers, vape pens, oil cartridges, infused mouth spray and lip balms, as well as chocolate edibles, according to Channel 24.

When announcing the oil cartridges on their IG feed last week, the duo wrote that “ZEF ZEF refillz dat cum in different flavaz! niiiiiice! ❤️,” so it sounds like the rappers are staying on brand with their new products’ marketing.

Image via Ninja’s IG account @zef_alien

The marketing is also in keeping with Natural Cannabis Company. While other major marijuana producers have partnered with mainstream celebrities like Willie Nelson, Snoop Dogg, or the ghost of Bob Marley, Natural Cannabis Co. has previously teamed with pornstars like Daisy Marie and Havana Ginger. So, Die Antwoord is keeping the company’s celebrity endorsements nice and edgy.

These new weed products are just another way that Die Antwoord is slowly insinuating themselves into every corner of your life. Their likenesses were shamelessly stolen (to cool effect) in the massive superhero blockbuster film Suicide Squad this summer, so pretty soon you’ll be able to smoke Die Antwoord while you listen to Die Antwoord before you go to the Die Antwoord-inspired movie. And then you will probably go insane.

Please support our Sponsor ShatterLabels.com the worlds premiere branding and packaging cannabis agency for Marijuana products and services.

Some rumours are flying around about the U.S. government’s patent number 6,630,507. Does it give the government exclusive rights to sell weed? Does it revoke cannabis’s status as a Schedule I Controlled Substance?

Some were so outraged by the news of the government-owned marijuana patent that they started a social media campaign of writing the patent number on their hand, taking a picture of that hand, and captioning it, “Talk to the 6630507 Hand.” Not the most current diss in the world, but legitimate. Much of the frustration with the government’s stance toward marijuana likely stems (or seeds) from the DEA’s decision earlier this month to not change an MFing thing about the federal legal status of cannabis.

To clarify, 6,630,507 is not a patent on weed in general, or even medical marijuana in particular. It is only a patent on a certain kind of pot and a specific use that is not very common. Specifically, it covers the use of cannabinoids other than THC to treat brain degeneration and damage caused by illnesses such as cirrhosis, as reported by The Cannabist.

Not only is the patent narrow, it’s also pretty weak. Though patent ‘507 was taken out over a decade ago, the cannabinoid treatment it outlines hasn’t actually been used by anyone yet. And the patent is set to expire in 2019. So, it’s a weed patent that no one has actually used yet and that is likely to expire before anyone figures out how to enact it on a large scale.

So, then what’s the big deal? For starters, it shows some pretty major contradictions in the government’s attitude towards pot. How can the same organization that declares marijuana a Schedule I drug, meaning it has no medicinal value, take out a patent on some medical applications of the same drug?

“Naturally, it shows that there is a certain amount of hypocrisy that there is ‘no accepted medical use’ for cannabis according to federal law,” Sam Mendez, an intellectual property and public policy lawyer and executive director of the University of Washington’s Cannabis Law & Policy Project, told The Cannabist. “But,” he added, “there’s no laws against doing so.”

One branch of government lights a joint while the other one stomps out the cherry. Sounds kind of bipolar or two-faced, but Mendez maintained that there’s nothing all that remarkable about the feds’ split personality when it comes to cheeba.

“[The federal government is] a very large organization with hundreds of thousands of federal employees and innumerable number of departments,” he said. “It’s much more complicated than to think about them as a single organism. … The government is allowed to file and obtain patents, and that has no bearing on the Controlled Substances Act.”

A whole lot of athletes are calling out for authorities to permit medical cannabis in their leagues. Pro football players are saying the NFL should get on the weed train and a bunch of NBA players advocated last year that the league re-consider their 420-unfriendly laws. But you got to hand it to MMA fighter Nate Diaz for being the first athlete we know of to put his money where his bruised, banged up, bloody mouth is.
The welterweight fighter unashamedly pulled out a weed vape pen during his post-fight press conference in Las Vegas last Saturday, as reported by MMA Junkie. After an extremely grueling and close fight against Conor McGregor, the fighter answered questions professionally and thoroughly while constantly hitting the pen in his hand.
After a while, one interviewer just had to ask. “It’s CBD,” Diaz answered. “It helps with the healing process and inflammation, stuff like that, so you want to get these for before or after the fights, training. It’ll make your life a better place.”
“Make your life a better place” is a phrase we’d normally say points to a cannabinoid other than CBD being in your system, but maybe that’s just all the punches and kicks to the head talking.
This isn’t the first time Diaz has openly mixed his MMJ with his MMA. He has been a proponent of using CBD to treat sport-related injuries on his Ingstagram feed, where he recently wrote: “shout out to all the homies in the #NFL, the #Olympians in #Rio and all contact sports that are finding healthier ways to deal with their head trauma and wear and tear on their bodies by attacking their injuries with CBD oil. Shout out to TRU for making it happen.”
The caption accompanied a photo of a stack of products from California CBD oil and vape company Tru, the same company Diaz gave a shoutout to during his press conference Saturday. So, if he’s not doing official endorsement for the company, we hope he’s at least getting a discount on those oil cartridges.
You can watch highlights from the press conference via MMAWeekly in the video below.

The mass use of cannabis extracts is such a new phenomenon that learning something new about its effects shouldn’t be too surprising. But that didn’t stop us from being a little rattled by the findings of a new study from the University of Pernambuco in Brazil.

According to the study, though naturally occurring terpenes in cannabis have no known adverse health effects, adding terpenes to cannabis (a very common practice for extracts) alters the chemical makeup of these terpenes and makes them toxic, at least to rats in a controlled study.

Specifically, these Brazilian eggheads looked at what happens when beta-carotene, a common terpene found in many fruits and vegetables, is added to cannabis sativa. Beta-carotene on its own is good for you in moderate doses and can help prevent illnesses such as lung cancer, according to the study. But when beta-carotene and cannabis hook up, the BC begins to “generate various potentially toxic compounds.”

Those toxic compounds were bad news for the lab rats. Those exposed to beta-carotene that had been degraded by cannabis showed higher frequency of kidney disease and experienced “alterations in liver weight.”

It should be noted that the process the scientists used was not the same as an extraction artist in Colorado or California. The researchers combined beta-carotene with the smoke of a cannabis flower, quite different from combining it with a cannabis extract.

It’s uncertain whether the same toxic effect could occur in a dab with added beta-carotene, but it’s probably wise for users who like their dabs nice and terpy to know that there could be side effects to adding terpenes to their wax. The study concluded that, “BC [beta-carotene] intake together with CSS [cannabis sativa smoke] should not be encouraged due to toxicity and loss of antioxidant activity of the BC after contact with the CSS.”

Beta-carotene has also been found to actually increase the likelihood of some cancers in people who use high doses through supplements while smoking tobacco. We’re hoping that further testing is done soon so that we’ll know if tane soup is the only thing we have to worry about when we go concentrate shopping.

For many, legal cannabis in California looks like a done deal. In the polls, at least 60 percent of Californians said they’d vote in favor of Prop. 64, the ballot initiative which would put legal marijuana in place this November.

But nothing’s over till it’s over, and the anti-Pop. 64 people are determined to find a way to poison voters against recreational marijuana. And now they might have actually landed on something: TV commercials.

The ballot measure would allow cannabis advertising just about anywhere, according to the Washington Post. An excerpt from the proposition reads like this: “Any advertising or marketing placed in broadcast, cable, radio, print and digital communications shall only be displayed where at least 71.6 percent of the audience is reasonably expected to be 21 years of age or older, as determined by reliable, up-to-date audience composition data.”

71.6 percent is a pretty low threshold for advertising, and includes almost every TV show or website that isn’t expressly devoted to little kids. A member of the No on Prop. 64 movement told the Los Angeles Times that this lax regulation “means almost every show on television will have ads promoting smoking marijuana.”

And it seems that voters don’t want every show on TV to have ads promoting smoking marijuana. The No on 64 people have put out releases saying that passing the ballot initiative would mean an “end a 45-year ban on smoking ads on television.” And they found in a survey they conducted that support for the measure sank 13 percent when voters were told that recreational marijuana would cause cannabis advertising on prime-time TV.

The only problem with that argument is that it is inconsistent with how the cannabis industry has worked up until now. A similar provision in Colorado allows for marijuana advertising where more than 70 percent of the audience is over 21, according to the Washington Post. But, after years of legal pot in Colorado, not one single cannabis commercial has run on TV. That’s because cannabis commercials are banned at a federal level and TV stations which has considered running weed ads felt a “lack of clarity around federal regulations that govern broadcast involving such ads.”

So, why did the Prop. 64 people even bother to include this provision that could turn into a lightning rod for controversy? Maybe it’s because California weed is expected to be a $6 billion industry by 2020. And those that find themselves in a multi-multi-billion dollar industry like being able to advertise to customers.

Photo via Flickr user David Gach

Cannabis growers in California are mimicking fine wine branding in an effort to separate their product from the increasing quantity of cheaply produced, lower quality weed hitting the state marketplace.

Cultivators in Mendocino County are attempting to gain legal status that will certify their pot was grown in a specific geographical region, and thereby has qualities different from bud grown in other parts of the state, as reported by the Press Democrat.

The wine industry has a similar system, called appellations. When a bottle of wine says Napa or Sonoma Valley, that’s actually a legal distinction certified by the government, which states where the grapes were grown. That distinguishes a wine produced in Napa from Two Buck Chuck or Carlo Rossi.

The California cannabis business is on the boom (Fortune Magazine has projected it will hit $6.7 billion this year) and it’s about to boom a lot harder if weed goes legal this November. That means more and more cheaply produced marijuana is going to flood the market, bud produced in megafarms without the care put in required to get quality product.

That’s why growers in areas like Mendocino County can’t just make better weed, they need to be able to convince consumers that their weed is better, so that it rises above the tons and tons of junky pot out there.

These mega-producers might be able to get high potency, but any discerning pothead knows that THC percentage isn’t what makes great bud. If high alcohol content was what made for good wine, then “Mad Dog 20/20 would win all the contests,” as Justin Calvino puts it.

Calvino is a longtime cannabis industry insider, a former “Haight-Ashbury dope dealer,” as the Press Democrat called him. He’s now one of the Mendocino farmers angling for regional appellations. “We’re trying to refine the palate,” he told PD. “This is the part of the industry that’s most exciting.”

The idea is to brand Mendocino and other regions with qualities specific to their terrain. The amount of sun, amount of rain, type of soil, and other crops, all affect the body and flavor of a bud, just like they do a grape. Calvino wants not only a legal certification for Mendocino County, but also eleven smaller sub-regions to distinguish between the vast terrain of the county.

Farmers in Central Coast and Sierra Nevada are attempting appellations as well. The state Department of Food and Agriculture has to approve the appellations, and can do so only after farmers prove there is a substantial difference in the quality of cannabis grown in their region.

Photo via Flickr user Dan Goofy

Nurses in Toronto are refusing to administer CBD oil to a child suffering from a rare genetic condition, according to CBC News. 11 year-old Francesco Niembro experienced from two to ten seizures per a day as a result of CFC (cardio-facio-cutaneous) syndrome.

When he received a prescription for CBD oil and started taking treatments, the frequency of his seizures was reduced substantially. But Francesco and his mother Maria are having trouble finding nurses who will administer the drug when the boy is hospitalized. “They apologize and they say they cannot administer it because there is no policy established,” Maria Niembro told CBC.

Maria can administer the drug herself during her son’s hospital stays, but that means the child requires his mother to be around him at all times to ensure he can get the drug treatment he needs. Francesco’s oil is given by syringe through a G-tube (gastrostomy tube), a system that might be too complex for a child to administer on them self.

Francesco’s physician Dr. Michael Verbora of the Cannabinoid Medical Clinic in Toronto said he’s seen the same problem in other patients. “This is something new that many of my patients who are using CBD oil are starting to experience. It’s been coming to light recently. It’s very frustrating for a number of my patients who are trying to administer what is a medication that has been effective but unfortunately they are facing what appears to be political barriers,” Verbora told CBC.

The problem is at an institutional level, not a governmental one. While federal regulations don’t prohibit nurses from administering CBD oil, or other medical cannabis products, many hospitals do. One hospital where Francesco was admitted, Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, expressed its conflicting views on the subject.

“SickKids does not currently prescribe or administer cannabinoid oil as part of clinical care, as there are not enough high-quality studies about the safety and efficacy of its use in treating seizures in children,” it said in a statement.

“We understand that there is a need for this type of research and we have recently received Health Canada approval for a clinical trial to determine the safety and dosage of cannabinoid oil for the treatment of patients with drug-resistant epilepsy.”

“From my perspective, I appreciate that it is a newer medication,” said Dr. Verbora. “It’s definitely something that is being studied more and more. On the other hand, it’s a little frustrating for a physician like myself who has been using this medicine for over a year.”

Please support our Sponsor ShatterLabels.com the world’s premiere branding and packaging cannabis agency for Marijuana products and services. 

The Palm Springs Police discovered a hash oil extraction lab Monday after responding to reports of gunfire. One man was arrested and another hospitalized for head trauma, according to The Desert Sun.

In the aftermath, authorities caught wind of an “active honey oil lab,” in the words of Sgt. William Hutchinson. “Honey oil labs can cause very large explosions,” Hutchinson said. “We don’t find current danger here, there was nothing actively cooking, but liquid THC can be very volatile.”

Hutchinson is, we’re guessing, no chemist, as “liquid THC” isn’t remotely volatile. Though the solvent used by extractors is not specified, as usual, authorities and media have confused cannabis extraction in general with extraction that uses quite volatile solvents such as butane. (To be fair, photos from the crime scene are consistent with a BHO lab and I wouldn’t trust a dude who goes wailing on another guy with a gun in broad daylight to be cautious in his use of potentially explosive gases, but these guesses are not substantiated by evidence in the Desert Sun article.)

If I were Sgt. Hutchinson, I’d be a lot more concerned about gun violence than “liquid THC.” Earlier this month, the formerly tranquil neighborhood saw a drive-by shooting. The recurrence of shootings in the area caused one resident, Joanna Perone, to tell the Sun, “I’ve been here 16 years, and this is the first time we’ve seen anything like this. I just think they’re desperate times.”

Shawn Ziegler, 44, was arrested Monday after the incident which drew officers to the extraction lab. According to reports, Ziegler and the victim had an argument over the phone about property and money, which escalated when the victim visited Ziegler’s home. Ziegler produced a handgun and shot it at the ground, then attacked the victim, according to the Sun, “grabbing the victim by the throat and hitting him in the head with the gun, causing it to fire again. The victim ran away and waited inside a passerby’s truck until police arrived.”

Ziegler, as of Wednesday afternoon, was on jail with a $25,000 bond. The victim was treated for a minor head injury. And a bunch of fresh gooey dabs have gone to waste.

Featured image via Wikimedia