Politics

Colorado Supreme Court rules convicts can use medical [cannabis] while on probation

The Colorado Supreme Court just ruled that denying a criminal defendant the right to use medical marijuana while serving probation is a violation of the state’s constitution. According to the state’s medical marijuana statute, a defendant cannot be prevented from using medical marijuana unless the prosecution can supply evidence showing that this prohibition is necessary. In…

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Politics

…Governor will pardon thousands of former cannabis offenders

Unlike the expungement process, which must be handled by the court system, executive clemency allows the governor to pardon or exonerate anyone who’s committed a crime. After the pardons are issued… Attorney General… will ask a circuit court judge to expunge the criminal records for every individual who’s been granted clemency. As a result, hundreds…

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Spirituality

Could psychedelics become the new medical marijuana? Inside the potential benefits and risks… of ‘magic mushrooms’

Psychedelic mushrooms were decriminalized in Denver and Oakland, not legalized. In other words, the ballot initiatives didn’t legalize the selling or manufacturing of mushrooms — rather, they made possession of mushrooms the lowest law enforcement priority, citing their therapeutic benefits. On May 7, residents of Denver, Colorado, voted to decriminalize the use and possession of…

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Anthropology

Overregulation drives illegal marijuana market in legal States, study suggests

“The qualitative analysis of news reports reveals that regulation is one of the main reasons that people stay in the illicit market,” the paper states. “The comparison of marijuana crime trends in Colorado and Washington shows mixed findings. While marijuana offense rates in Colorado largely remained steady over the years, those in Washington increased dramatically…

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Biography/Memoir

The great pot monopoly mystery

“Utility patents are big. Scary,” Holmes said. “All of cannabis could be locked up. They could sue people for growing in their own backyards.” “This is extremely high-end shit,” Schreiber told me. “These are not millionaires. These are billionaires!” [And they] might have a near-monopoly over crucial intellectual property for a commodity whose soothing, mind-altering…

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Biography/Memoir

Why a federally licensed marijuana researcher is suing the DEA

…claims that the DEA has created a monopoly around federally licensed marijuana research. …[Dr. Sue Sisley’s] concerned that her study’s results may have been compromised by poor cannabis quality, explaining that the marijuana is far less potent than strains available in dispensaries or on the black market; the limited strains from Mississippi are also mixed…

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Anthropology

Hemp poised to become major crop

Although hemp’s popularity is nothing new, its potential as an agricultural commodity has blossomed since the 2018 Farm Bill, which classified industrial hemp as a commodity and removed it from the list of controlled substances. Even when Oregon had a hemp program, which was established in 2015 after the 2014 Farm Bill passed, the industry…

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