By Laura Cañupan

 
The grand opening of New Zealand’s first Cannabis Museum will be held at midday on Sunday October 6 in Dunedin.
Whakamana: the Cannabis Museum of Aotearoa will open with an exhibit on the history of cannabis law reform activism at the University of Otago dating back to the 1970s, including the “420 protests” that have been taking place over the last decade.
This will be followed by subsequent exhibits focusing on the history of cannabis and New Zealand cannabis culture.
Museum director Abe Gray said a number of guests have been invited to tour the Museum for the opening from noon on Sunday October 6th.
“All the local journalists and politicians will be invited, plus a few celebrity musicians,” he said. “The general public are also invited.”
 
Full Article:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK1309/S00827/grand-opening-for-new-zealands-first-cannabis-museum.htm

BY CAROLYN GRUSKE

Like any distribution operation, Tweed will need to cope with SKU proliferation, inventory security, and automation. (Photo: Thinkstock)
 
SMITHS FALLS, Ontario—Ever since Hershey Canada Inc shut down its chocolate production plant and distribution centre in 2008, the Smiths Falls, Ontario facility has sat empty. But over the course of the next few weeks, the site’s new owner wants to pull it out of mothballs and give it a new purpose: serving as a medical marijuana production and distribution facility.
The company that has purchased the facility, Tweed Inc, is a new organization, created specifically to become a supplier of medical marijuana under a Health Canada program that licenses the production and distribution of the drug.
 
Full Article:
http://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/distribution-and-transportation/news/chocolate-dc-getting-new-life-as-medical-marijuana-facility-117965

by Phillip Smith
Oklahoma NORML Friday released survey results from a Sooner Poll showing strong support for medical marijuana and majority support for marijuana decriminalization. The poll had support for medical marijuana at 71% and support for decriminalization at 57%. The poll did not ask about legalization.
 

 
The poll of registered voters was conducted between August 28 and September 9. The margin of error is +/- 4.9%.
If someone is going to be arrested for a marijuana offense, nearly two-thirds of respondents (64%) said they should be treated instead of jailed.
Under current Oklahoma law, possession of any amount can earn one up to a year in jail for a first offense and from two to 10 years for a second offense. Marijuana sales — of any amount — can earn a sentence of up to life in prison.
 
Full Article:
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2013/sep/21/oklahomans_ready_marijuana_law_r

By SIMON CABLE

Get a good whiff! Mary Berry smells some hemp flour before eating a Date & Hemp Yorkshire Tea Loaf on The Great British Bake Off
Considering she’s been a cookery expert since the Swinging Sixties, you would have thought there was little left for Mary Berry to learn about.
Then she was confronted with a rather exotic tea loaf on this week’s episode of the Great British Bake Off.
The 78-year-old judge on the show had to expand her mind to the idea of hemp – made from cannabis plants – when a contestant decided to use it in flour form.
Full Article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2432837/The-Great-British-Bake-Off-Mary-Berry-tucks-Howards-hemp-tea-loaf.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

ABC News Radio

 
(WASHINGTON) — Rabbi Jeffrey Kahn spent his 30-year career educating others and helping to ease human suffering, leading Jewish congregations in Australia, Illinois, his hometown of Miami and New Jersey.
Now, he is practicing his faith in a different line of work: Kahn runs a dispensary for medical marijuana. Call it a mitzvah — or one of God’s commandments.
“From the Jewish perspective, nothing is more important than the concept of healing and bringing sufferers relief,” said Kahn, 61.
“I was a congregational rabbi during the worst days of the AIDS epidemic and saw up close and personal what people living with AIDS were dealing with and finding relief with medical marijuana,” he said.
 
Full Article:
http://www.wtma.com/common/more.php?m=58&ts=1380081904&article=A894AD2E259711E386DEFEFDADE6840A&mode=2

by Paul Walsh
 
The state Court of Appeals has sided with a Rastafarian, ruling that his right to religious expression trumps his conviction in Ramsey County District Court of a drug paraphernalia offense for carrying a glass pipe.
 
Full Article:
http://www.startribune.com/local/east/225076262.html

by Melanie Orlins

 
A push to legalize medicinal marijuana here in Pennsylvania is making its way through the state senate.
Local parents want lawmakers to pass a bill that would allow their children to take the chemical CBD that is found in the cannabis plant.
They say it could save their lives.
For the Stanley family, seizures have become a part of daily life.
But there’s one new medication out there that’s reaping success across the nation.
And Louann Speese-Stanley says it could be the key to her daughter’s cure.
Full Article:
http://fox43.com/2013/09/24/medicinal-marijuana-push-in-central-pa/#axzz2frj5rCLZ

By: Adam VanHeerden

Professor Raphael Mechoulam
 
 
If you met him on the street, Professor Raphael Mechoulam might seem like any other Jerusalemite grandfather. But behind his serene smile and calming voice is the brilliant mind of the man who kick-started medical marijuana research in Israel and the world.
Since the inception of his research in the 60s, Professor Mechoulam has been nominated for over 25 academic awards, the most recent being the Rothschild Prize in Chemical Sciences and Physical Sciences in 2012.
 
Full Article:
http://ca.shalomlife.com/health/20527/meet-professor-mechoulam-the-father-of-marijuana-research/

• Ramiro S. Fúnez

Marijuana Legalization: NYC’s Next Mayor Will Try to Legalize Weed 
© Flickr (North Cascades National Park)
 
The next mayor of New York City will help usher in the decriminalization of marijuana, regardless of which candidate wins the seat.
Mayoral aspirants Bill de Blasio and Joseph Lhota, who were selected as nominees to represent their respective Democratic and Republican parties following primary elections earlier this month, are both fervent proponents of decriminalizing marijuana.
De Blasio has amassed attention from left-leaning constituents for his progressive views on marijuana legislation. He supports mitigating the legal consequences of medical and recreational usage. “I support legislation to decriminalize the display of small amounts of marijuana,” the Democratic candidate said in July during a public, online interview. “The current law saddles many young people with a criminal record unfairly and it must be changed. I think there are appropriate medical uses for marijuana and I am open to policies that allow for medical use.”
De Blasio, along with former Democratic candidates Christine Quinn and Bill Thompson,admitted to smoking marijuana in the past while John Liu and Sal Albanese, who have never tried the psychoactive substance, both support its full legalization nonetheless.
 
Full Article:
http://www.policymic.com/articles/64903/marijuana-legalization-nyc-s-next-mayor-will-try-to-legalize-weed