Prisoner Re-entry: Ex-Convicts Need More Than Clemency


Prisoner Re-entry: Ex-Convicts Need More Than Clemency
 
There has been a lot of talk recently about prison crowding and clemency. We are past the point of debating if our country has a prison problem. The facts that we imprison one in 100 of our citizens, and that the “land of the free” is home to 5% of the world population and 25% of its prison population, are thrown around so often we become numb to what they say about us, and what it means for the people inside.
 
Full Article:
http://www.ladybud.com/2014/03/25/prisoner-re-entry-more-than-clemency/

Marijuana Legalization Measures Will Drive Voters, Poll Finds

By Annie Linskey
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Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
 
A majority of Americans favor legalizing marijuana and would be motivated to vote if a measure to do so is on the ballot, according to a George Washington University Battleground poll released today.
The survey of 1,000 likely voters found 73 percent support allowing marijuana for legal medical purposes, 53 percent favor decriminalization and 68 percent are “more likely” to go to their polling place to weigh in on a ballot.
 
Full Article:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-03-25/marijuana-legalization-measures-will-drive-voters-poll-finds

Missouri “Medical Marijuana Refugee” Explains Why She Had to Leave the Show-Me State

By Ray Downs

jacqueline_patterson.JPG
via Youtube

 
When Jacqueline Patterson took her first toke of marijuana at the age of fourteen, she experienced what it was like to be without pain for the first time in her life. It’s also why she eventually had to leave Missouri.
Patterson was born with cerebral palsy. The muscles on the right side of her body are significantly weaker and less developed than her left, and she speaks with a severe stutter, or as she prefers to call it, a “speech spasm.” Medical marijuana, Patterson says, has helped her deal with the pain her medical condition causes every day of her life, and it also helps with her speech. When she smokes, her brain doesn’t feel as rushed, and she’s able to get the words out easier, she says.
Although using marijuana to treat cerebral palsy is not unheard of these days, it wasn’t an accepted notion roughly twenty years ago when Patterson first tried it and noticed a remarkable difference it made on her body.
 
Full Article:
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2014/03/missouri_medical_marijuana_ref.php

Should Missouri Legalize Marijuana?

Allison Blood
Photo: KMOX

Photo: KMOX
 
Is it time Missouri legalized marijuana?
That was the topic a panel of five experts discussed Monday night at Harris Stowe St. University.
At the public forum, members from the ACLU, police, and pro-pot groups, among others, gathered to talk about what Missouri should do, while other states are legalizing and decriminalizing marijuana.
 
Full Article:
http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2014/03/25/should-missouri-legalize-marijuana/

Cannabis Makes My Son Feel ‘Normal’: Cooper’s Bowling Trip


Cannabis Makes My Son Feel ‘Normal’: Cooper’s Bowling Trip
 
Every Friday in March, all the special needs kids in our local school district go bowling. It’s a special event for the kids, and they all really look forward to it. But my son has never been able to participate until today.
Cooper is 16, and his life has been difficult.
When he was 5 months old, he started having seizures. We tried a combination of approximately 27 different medications. We didn’t know at first that he had Dravet Syndrome, so we tried Lamictal (which is contraindicated for Dravet), and that was a year of increased seizures – it was awful. And then there were side effects…He had a kidney stone the size of a dime when he was 3, and proceeded to have them many more times after that, and had to have them removed with laser surgery. At 7, he had pancreatitis for the second time and it was so bad that he had to be hospitalized for 5 days on an IV, he couldn’t eat or drink.
But those were the good years.
 
Full Article:
http://www.ladybud.com/2014/03/24/cannabis-makes-my-kid-feel-normal-coopers-bowling-trip/

Marijuana Medicine’s Near-Miraculous Healing Powers Require the Whole Plant—Not Just One Oil Extract

Photo Credit: Yarygin / Shutterstock.com
 
Ever since marijuana was banned by the federal government in the 1930s, proponents of prohibition have insisted that cannabis must remain illegal to protect America’s children. “Protecting the children” continues to be the calculated cornerstone of anti-marijuana propaganda, the cynical centerpiece of the war on drugs.
How ironic, then, that today thousands of families in the United States are desperately seeking cannabis remedies to protect their children from deadly diseases. The erstwhile “Assassin of Youth” has become the savior for kids with catastrophic seizure disorders and other life-threatening conditions.
 
Full Article:
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/marijuana-medicines-near-miraculous-healing-powers-require-whole-plant-not-just-one-oil

Update on 80-year-old Stan Rutner’s cancer cannabis cure while in hospice

by: Paul Fassa
cannabis
 
On November 18, 2013, an article reporting an amazing cannabis cure on a Californian approaching 80 years of age was published. The older gentleman’s name is Stan Rutner. It was an amazing story because of Stan’s condition.
The chemo and radiation were killing him and not doing much for his lung and brain cancers. He was wasting away, near death, and had to use bottled oxygen 24/7. Then, his son-in-law and daughter got Stan to try cannabis. The results were amazing.
 
Full Article:
http://www.naturalnews.com/044411_cannabis_cancer_cure_Stan_Rutner.html#

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uJsHcJ6pFk

Marijuana Spa Products You Can Make at Home

 
NEW YORK (MainStreet) — Marijuana isn’t just good for getting a high — it also boasts medicinal benefits that make it great for your skin, too.
“Topical cannabis preparations are not a new way to use cannabis, but rather a very old herbal medicine practice that originates in Asia and the Middle East,” says Sandra Hinchliffe, publisher ofhempista.com and author of The Cannabis Spa Book: Make Marijuana Lotion, Balm, Soak, Wraps, Bath Salts, Spa Nosh & More! (Hempista Press 2013). “People still use topical cannabis preparations for the same reasons that they used them in ancient times — for pain relief, healing and the soothing of irritated skin.”
If you’re able to purchase marijuanalegally, you can actually whip up your own spa products right at home. Read on for a few great do-it-yourself recipes for topical spa products—plus easy instructions to make the perfect spa smoothie!
 
Full Article:
http://www.mainstreet.com/article/lifestyle/marijuana-spa-products-you-can-make-home-0

Global Capitalism Would Make A Pack Of Fully Legal Cannabis Joints Cost 50 Cents, Not $50


Tim Worstall
 
There’s an interesting piece over at Fast Company ruminating on what the cost of a pack of legal cannabis joints would be. The answer they come up with is around $50, with perhaps the top end premium products at the $120 of the current marketplace. There’s a problem with this calculation though for in a properly and fully legal market the cost of a pack of joints will end up somewhere around 50 cents, not that $50 figure. The reason is that while consumption is newly legal in a couple of States production is not legal under Federal law anywhere. And we most certainly don’t yet have anyone (legally of course, the illegal stuff flows over the borders all the time) able to tap into the global market to source production. When it’s possible for that to happen then prices will very swiftly fall to that much lower level of only a few cents per spliff.
 
Full Article:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/03/22/global-capitalism-would-make-a-pack-of-fully-legal-cannabis-joints-cost-50-cents-not-50/