Over 6,000 People Pack Amherst’s Extravaganja

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Thousands of Marijuana enthusiasts lighting up in plain sight, even though it’s illegal. “It’s public acts of civil disobedience, it is decriminalized here in Massachusetts, but what it is a civil infraction here. We work really closely with the police and the town. The police’s main purpose here is keeping the people of Amherst safe,” said Patrick Mund, treasurer of the UMass Amherst Cannabis Reform Coalition.
The coalition started the event in 1991 as an on campus demonstration.  Although people were arrested, that didn’t stop them from coming back out year after year until finally the group came to an agreement with the police that there would be no more arrests.
 
Full Article:
http://www.wggb.com/2013/04/20/over-6000-people-pack-amhersts-extravaganja/

3 shot at 4/20 rally, pot celebration in Denver’s Civic Center Park; Police search for suspects

Police are searching for the two suspects who fired shots during the 4/20 pot rally in Denver’s Civic Center Park on Saturday, injuring three people and causing thousands of people enjoying the jovial festivities to flee in panic.
A man and woman, between 20 and 30 years old, were shot in the leg, Denver police tweeted. Their injuries were considered non life-threatening.
A third victim, a juvenile, was grazed by a bullet and walked into a nearby hospital, police tweeted.
A dog, belonging to one of the victims,  also appeared to have been grazed or shot and was seen limping from the scene. Several other people appeared to  have suffered some minor injuries from running or being trampled, according to witnesses.
Police asked those attending the rally for possible photo or video of the shootings, and had no immediate motive for the shooting.
 

 
Full Article:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/shots-fired-at-denver-420-rally-in-denvers-civic-center-park

4/20 Surprise: Proposed Colorado Marijuana Rules Will Make It Easier to Get a Mile-High High

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Marijuana smoke rises at a pro-pot '4/20' rally in downtown Denver, Colo., April 20, 2010. The 2013 celebration will be the first since Colorado legalized the drug.
Marijuana smoke rises at a pro-pot ‘4/20’ rally in downtown Denver, Colo., April 20, 2010. The 2013 ‘4/20’ celebration will be the first since Colorado legalized the drug.
 
Colorado legislators announced legislation for regulating legal marijuana businesses Friday as ecstatic potheads flocked to Denver to light up in public Saturday in celebration of the first “4/20” since Coloradans voted to legalize the drug in November.
The proposed legislation would allow out-of-state residents to purchase one-fourth of an ounce of marijuana “during a single transaction.” It also would allow existing medical marijuana businesses to apply for retail licenses on October 1, three months ahead of other would-be retailers.
 
Full Article:
http://www.usnews.com/news/newsgram/articles/2013/04/19/420-surprise-proposed-colorado-marijuana-rules-will-make-it-easier-to-get-a-mile-high-high

Crowds converge on Denver for 4/20 marijuana rally

By John Ingold, Sadie Gurman and John Wenzel, The Denver Post

 
Thousands of people have converged on Denver’s Civic Center for what organizers say is the largest marijuana celebration in the country.
The rally — held on a day cannabis enthusiasts regard as a holiday called 4/20 — is expected to draw tens of thousands by 4:20 p.m., when attendees will take a collective exhale that fogs the space between Denver’s city hall and Colorado’s state Capitol with a thick cloud of marijuana smoke. This is the first 4/20 rally since Colorado voters legalized marijuana use for people 21 and older in November, and rally organizers have said they expected 80,000 people to attend, though city officials say they expect fewer.
Marijuana smoking in public remains illegal, but  — who are out in force at the event — have said they will take a measured approach.
“We’re not going to be tackling 10,000 people and writing them all a citation,” said Denver police spokesman Matt Murray.
 
Full Article:
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_23070771/crowds-converge-denver-4-20-marijuana-rally

Marijuanamerica: Why America Loves Weed

Author, ‘Marijuanamerica: One Man’s Quest to Understand America’s Dysfunctional Love Affair with Weed’
 
Against all odds, more than seventy-five years after the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act, and after millions of marijuana arrests during the combined drug wars of Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and even Obama, weed somehow seems to be winning. More than a third of the U.S. population has admitted they’ve tried it, and a third of the states have legalized it for medical purposes. Our current president admits he not only smoked pot but inhaled it, and megamoguls like Ted Turner, Mike Bloomberg, and Steve Jobs (R.I.P.) have all enthusiastically hit the hookah.
The media now treats marijuana as commonplace. Smash-hit movies show characters smoking pot as if they were taking a sip of Cabernet [1], and Showtime has based an entire TV series, Weeds, on the premise that marijuana is an integral part of American suburban life. Polls consistently show that over 70 percent of Americans support legalized medical marijuana, and a 2012 Rasmussen Reports poll found that 56 percent of Americans would support legalizing and regulating marijuana in a similar manner to alcohol and tobacco. If that doesn’t qualify as a tipping point, how about the fact that weed is the country’s top cash crop. According to a 2006 study, cannabis is valued at $35.8 billion per year, effectively bitch-slapping the combined value of two traditional American crops — corn ($23.3 billion) and wheat ($7.5 billion).
 
Full Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alfred-ryan-nerz/marijuanamerica-book_b_2999684.html

420 and the Hidden Jewish Cannabis Teachings

Author, ‘Cannabis Chassidis: The Ancient and Emerging Torah of Drugs’
 
Of the folk mysteries lo these past 20 years or so has been: Why is Cannabis smoking identified with the secret number 420?
Once, when I was young, I invested time looking for answers in the Hebrew Bible and mystical tradition. Because I was promised there’d be all kinds of stuff in there.
There was a lot of buzz that year about Gematria, the ancient Hebrew numerological science that allowed the true nature of a thing to be known from the letters of its name transposed into corresponding numbers.
It’s strange and often embarrassing the role and history of numerology in mysticsms. Where gnostic or platonic concepts, speculations and experiences will describe some inherent nature of meaning in signs, patterns and other cyphers, the idea that numbers are inherent and meaningful is extended to the letters of the words that we use as people. Even as far back in the Greek tradition as Pythagoras, this method would extrapolate from the numeric value of a letter — Alpha being 1, Beta as 2 — an expression of logical rational calculation for the sake of prophesy and soothsaying. It’s not clear how much the early Greek thinkers took from the early Hebrew models, or vice versa, although the sacramentalization of the letters does seem more Phoenician/Semetic — if not downright Solomonic.
It’s stupid, but it’s fun. Try it! Take a word and turn it into its numeric transpose, like this: If “A” is 1 and “B” is 2, then “J” would be 10, “K” is 20, “L” is 30, etc. Let’s say: P = 70, I = 9, G = 7, so “Pig” = 86. Cute right? Probably meaningless, but it could be fun, just for novelty’s sake, to look at what else is 86.
Many theories have emerged about the origins of 420: Victor Cypert’s identification of an early 4:20 reference in H.P. Lovecraft’s short horror story “The Walls of Erix” about a mirage plant that affects the senses in a visionary fashion, but only within a moment’s time, so that when narrator looks back at the clock, he sees that it’s STILL just 4:20 — an experience very familiar to many cannabis users. This trumps the reigning theory, the High Times-endorsed claim of “The Waldos” a band in the ’60s who used to sneak out from school at 4:15, arriving at the rendezvous toke spot at 4:20.
But both of these theories ignore how much the early versions of the meme aren’t “4:20” like the time of day or year (Happy April 20! Cough!), but “420” as one whole august body. What’s the oldest source we have for “420”? I used to like the idea that it was connected to that Bob Dylan song, “Rainy Day Woman 12 & 35,” where it was proclaimed that everyone MUST get stoned. But surely there’s something older and deeper, no?
Naturally, the Hebrew word for “smoke” — AShaN (עשן) — equals 420 in the Gematria system: ע=70, ש= 300, נ=50. This goes back to the earliest Canaanite uses of the word, at least 5,000 years. Four-twenty also corresponds to Mitzrayim (מצרים), “Out from Egypt/Constriction,” which led old mystics to speculate on the nature of smoke itself as a tool toward liberation, something that breaks solid, trapped objects out of their constrictions and limitations, to dissolve into the sky. This is an eloquent description, coincidentally or not, of exactly the virtue and concern with cannabis: it breaks down walls.
 
Full Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoseph-leib-ibn-mardachya/420-and-the-hidden-jewish-cannabis-teachings_b_3115882.html

Lottery Winner to Pledge $1,000,000 to Legalize Cannabis

BY MARKETWIRE
 
April 20th, activists and cannabis enthusiasts will gather in cities across Canada, including Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax and Yellowknife. It is hoped the events will be a watershed moment for cannabis law reform as Canadians seek to follow their American counterparts and end the social injustice of cannabis prohibition.
This year, the annual nationwide 420 celebrations are entirely sponsored by lottery winner Bob Erb.
When Bob Erb started buying lottery tickets in the early 1970s, ending the war against cannabis may have seemed more likely than hitting the jackpot.
On November 2, 2012, four decades of playing the lottery paid off: Bob Erb won a $25,000,000 jackpot. Two days later, Canadian laws regarding cannabis changed too as mandatory minimum sentencing for cannabis offences came into effect.
To some, winning the lottery would mean retiring from a life-long career of cannabis activism. But to a man who describes the criminalization of cannabis as the “biggest social injustice” of his lifetime, the money meant a chance to do more.
Bob Erb has championed social justice issues, including cannabis law reform, for decades. He has seen firsthand the harm and waste caused by cannabis prohibition, and has set about making change. Particularly, he has tried to create change from within: in 2001 he ran as a Marijuana Party candidate in the BC provincial election and the following year he ran for mayor. Both times his message was clear: its time for a change on cannabis.
Looking to the future, Bob has pledged one million dollars to fund national campaigns to end the criminal prohibition of cannabis and enact positive regulations regarding use, production and consumer safety. His goal is to see a pro-reform party elected in the next Canadian federal election.
 
Full Article:
http://www.sys-con.com/node/2622704

Why It’s So Hard For Scientists To Study Medical Marijuana

By Shaunacy Ferro

 
Eighteen states (plus the District of Columbia) allow cannabis use for certain medical conditions. Despite that, scientists have a harder time doing research on the potential medical benefits of marijuana than they do on “harder” drugs like ecstasy or magic mushrooms. The public may think of pot use as no big deal, but federal laws make it difficult for researchers to obtain legal supplies. Clinical researchers can get permission from the DEA to grow or create restricted compounds like LSD, MDMA or psilocybin in the lab; not so with cannabis.
The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 placed marijuana in the most restrictive use category, Schedule I, deeming it a drug with no medicinal value and high potential for abuse. To do clinical research with marijuana, you need a DEA license, and you need to get your study approved by the FDA. When it comes to actually obtaining research-grade marijuana, though, you have to go through the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a process that has proved problematic for some researchers determined to study the potential medical benefits of pot.
“Marijuana is a linchpin in the War on Drugs,” explains Brad Burge, the director of communications for the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Research (MAPS), an organization currently embroiled in a lawsuit with the DEA over the right to establish a medical marijuana farm. “There’s a lot of investment in marijuana remaining illegal.”
Anecdotal evidence suggests that marijuana can reduce chronic pain, reduce muscle spasms inpatients with multiple sclerosis and perhaps even help treat symptoms of PTSD. The small amount of clinical research out there also supports the idea that marijuana could be an effective treatment for pain. A 2007 study found that smoking cannabis reduced chronic pain in HIV-positive patients by 34 percent. Results from a Canadian study in 2010 further supported the theory that it can reduce the intensity of neuropathic pain–pain caused by damage to the nervous system–and help patients sleep.
Both the American Medical Association and theAmerican College of Physicians have called for more research into the therapeutic uses of marijuana and for the U.S. government to reconsider its classification as a Schedule I substance.
The University of Mississippi grows and harvests cannabis for studies funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, yet because NIDA’s congressionally mandated mission is to research the harmful effects of controlled substances and stop drug abuse, the institute isn’t interested in helping establish marijuana as a medicine.
“If you’re going to run a trial to show this is going to have positive effects, they’re essentially not going to allow it,” Lyle Craker, a professor and horticulturist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, says.
 
Full Article:
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/why-its-so-hard-scientists-study-pot?single-page-view=true