Weirdest Training Drill Ever: Feds Imagine Marijuana Growers Will Launch Terror Attack? November 21, 2010 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. Northern California pot growers bomb a car and a bus, then take over Shasta Dam in a bid to free an imprisoned comrade. It sounds like the plot to a very cheesy Grade-B thriller, but it was actually the premise for a day-long terrorist attack drill conducted by 20 state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies Wednesday. According to an account published in the local paper the Redding Record Searchlight, the Shasta Dam scenario had the "Red Cell" pot grower/terrorists blowing up the car and bus to create a distraction and then taking over the dam. The drill was part of the US Bureau of Reclamation's Critical Infrastructure Crisis Response Exercise Program, which started in 2003. According to bureau spokesperson Sheri Harral, the drill took 18 months of planning and cost the bureau $500,000.
Nor was he impressed with the pot grower as terrorist scenario. "Red Cell" plotter? Opposing Views: AMA Ends 72-Year Policy, Says Marijuana has Medical Benefits. Why Parents Should Support Legalizing Pot | Drugs. Police chief supports marijuana decriminalization. Ottawa police Chief Vern White says he isn’t interested in giving marijuana users criminal records, and would support discussing decriminalization — with one caveat. “My only concern about the word ‘decriminalizing’ is the suggestion to the public that (marijuana) is not a dangerous drug,” he said.
The Citizen asked White about decriminalization following a recent community meeting. An Angus Reid poll released earlier this month shows a majority of Canadians remain in favour of legalizing the plant. Parliament Hill to smoke up in an annual ritual in support of decriminalization. “If this is about, ‘we don’t want people to have a criminal record for possession of marijuana,’ that message is a good message,” White said.
Either.” But the police chief said that the levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) — the active ingredient in marijuana — has increased several-fold since the 1970s. He also pointed to studies that link consumption of marijuana to the onset ofpsychoses. Decriminalizing Drugs in Portugal a Success, Says Report. Pop quiz: Which European country has the most liberal drug laws? (Hint: It's not the Netherlands.) Although its capital is notorious among stoners and college kids for marijuana haze–filled "coffee shops," Holland has never actually legalized cannabis — the Dutch simply don't enforce their laws against the shops. The correct answer is Portugal, which in 2001 became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.
At the recommendation of a national commission charged with addressing Portugal's drug problem, jail time was replaced with the offer of therapy. The argument was that the fear of prison drives addicts underground and that incarceration is more expensive than treatment — so why not give drug addicts health services instead? The question is, does the new policy work? Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive.
Carl Sagan on the illegality of cannabis. Cannabis Culture Videos » Blog Archive » Prohibitionist Get’s Taken to School. 420 Meaning: The True Story Of How April 20 Became 'Weed Day' This piece was first published on April 20, 2010. See also: A Big Mystery Involving The Origin Of 4/20 Has Finally Been Solved Warren Haynes, the Allman Brothers Band guitarist, routinely plays with the surviving members of the Grateful Dead, now touring as The Dead. He’s just finished a Dead show in Washington, D.C., and gets a pop quiz from the Huffington Post. Where does 420 come from? He pauses and thinks, hands on his side. “I don’t know the real origin. I know myths and rumors,” he says. Depending on who you ask, or their state of inebriation, there are as many varieties of answers as strains of medical bud in California. The origin of the term 420, celebrated around the world by pot smokers every April 20, has long been obscured by the clouded memories of the folks who made it a phenomenon.
The Huffington Post chased the term back to its roots and was able to find it in a lost patch of cannabis in a Point Reyes, California forest. It starts with the Dead. Hager still believes them. Cannabis Caviar: $1,400-an-ounce marijuana promises a bang for your buck. So you think you're a connoisseur, what with your cans of Beluga, Kobe steaks and stash of 1998 Dom Perignon?
Think again if you haven't gotten your hands on cannabis caviar, a new kind of top-shelf marijuana popping up at Colorado dispensaries that sells for the astronomical price of $1,400 an ounce -- nearly four times the average price of other high-grade strains. "This isn't stuff you are sitting around puffing all day," says Jake, general manager of the ReLeaf Center, a Denver dispensary that's selling caviar made in house for $60 a gram. "This is the definition of a one-hitter quitter. " It ain't your grandpa's pot. Caviar is made by soaking marijuana buds in a potent stain of hash oil -- thick, sticky and concentrated liquid cannabis made from dissolving hashish or marijuana in solvents like acetone, alcohol or butane. Once the oil's soaked into the marijuana buds, the whole shebang is allowed to dry for several weeks or months. That's putting it mildly.