By MICHAEL STARR

No doubt about it — she inhaled.
A clip from the upcoming season of WE’s “Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best ?,” shows Joan Rivers inhaling a generous lungful of smoke from a bong, a glass or plastic water pipe commonly used to smoke marijuana.
In the clip, posted online yesterday, Rivers appears to be in a medical marijuana shop. Putting her mouth to the circular bong, she takes a deep breath while a store employee, who’s holding the bong, instructs her to “Suck it in!”
Rivers inhales the smoke, which she immediately coughs up to raucous laughter all around before saying, “I’ll take it!”
 

by Greggory Moore
Last week’s conviction of Joe Grumbine and Joe Byron for selling cannabis out of three storefront collectives may have huge ramifications for the medpot community.
That is, if the verdict survives the appeals process.
The reasons why it may not aren’t hard to fathom. For starters, courtroom observers –including OC Weekly writer Nick Schou — have marveled at the perceived bias of Judge Charles D. Sheldon (“Sheldon’s intense dislike of the defendants and their lawyers [was] obvious,” Schou writes), whose questionable efforts ranged from trying to prevent the jury from considering the California law allowing patients to ” associate within the State of California in order collectively or cooperatively to cultivate marijuana for medical purposes” — an effort an appeals court thwarted a day before the trial began — to erecting a screen so as to prevent the jury from viewing trial attendees.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.lbpost.com/news/greggorymoore/12981

Photo by Lance Draizin

 
By Steve Elliott, Toke of the Town
If you plan to come to the big Silver Tour Show on Jan. 29th at Temple Shaarei Shalom in Boynton Beach, Please call and tell them how many seats you need. The room holds 500, but the show is going virile. Reservations are highly recommended. Please call the Temple office at 561-364-9054, Ext.101.
We’ve pointed out before that one Florida man — legendary former pitchman and marijuana smuggler Robert Platshorn — may hold the key to cannabis legalization in the United States. The reason we say that is that skilled pitchman Platshorn has proven he can sway senior audiences to support medical marijuana, and most of us are aware, seniors vote in heavier numbers than any other age group.
Platshorn, through the Silver Tour, brings the truth about marijuana to senior citizens in Florida and nationwide, and one of the biggest events yet on that tour will take place on January 29 in Boyton Beach, Fla.
The show, “Learn the Real Facts About Medical Marijuana,” will be free and all ages are welcome. It will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday, January 29, at the Temple Shaarei Shalom in Boynton Beach.
Besides Platshorn — the author of Black Tuna Diaries and director of NORML of Florida, who is featured in the hit film, Square Grouper — the film Cannabis Science, which features Dr. Donald Abrams, Dr. Robert Melamede, and Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, among other medical marijuana experts, will also be screened.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.thesilvertour.org/huge-show-truth-marijuana-seniors

By Carey Uhl

 
Lovers of weed and weed-inspired musicians ought to prepare themselves for the Cypress Hill Smokeout Festival 2012.  Come March 3 at NOS Events Center in Southern California, twenty artists will take two separate stages in celebration of music, and, well, marijuana.
Last year, Incubus frontman Brandon Boyd expressed his surprise that the audience hadn’t slipped into a weed coma by the time Incubus had taken the stage.  Throughout the day, billows of smoke escalated from a huge mass of fans that never seemed to crash from their perpetual high.
Cypress Hill Smokeout Festival 2012 should have the same tenacity as last year, with headliners including Sublime with Rome, Korn, Wiz Khalifa, Cypress Hill, The Dirty Heads and Café Tacuba.  More announcements are sure to come in the near future regarding the other bands that will be playing.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.mxdwn.com/2011/12/26/news/cypress-hill-smokeout-festival-2012-announces-lineup-featuring-sublime-with-rome-korn-wiz-khalifa-cypress-hill-the-dirty-heads-and-cafe-tacuba/

By DrBicuspid Staff

 
Tooth Soap has expanded its line of organic and nontoxic products with Tooth Soap Peppermint and Hemp Whip.
Hemp oil contains properties that are beneficial to the body, according to the company.
“Clearly, the Tooth Soap line of green oral care products would not be complete without one formulation that included organic cannabis sativa (hemp oil),” said Karen Van Cleef, Tooth Soap CEO.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.drbicuspid.com/index.aspx?sec=sup&sub=hyg&pag=dis&ItemID=309446

Written by Christopher Cadelago

 
For two years, John Riccio worried that smoking marijuana to relieve his chronic back and shoulder pain would get him in trouble with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Then the department last year began allowing former service members to use medical marijuana — in states that have laws permitting it — in conjunction with their regular treatment. Riccio, a Navy veteran living in South Park, says he sleeps easier now that he can talk about it with his VA doctor without risking his benefits.
The policy clarification has veterans like Riccio wondering why the government continues to classify marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug alongside heroin and deny that the plant has any medicinal use. In October, the four U.S. attorneys in California announced a massive crackdown on marijuana growers and storefront dispensaries.
“It’s complete hypocrisy and it’s a war on people,” said Ricco, a 31-year-old Wisconsin transplant who left the Navy in 2008. “It’s a war on good, compassionate, law-abiding people.”
The directive on medical cannabis has added a new wrinkle to a years-old dispute between the federal government and a growing number of states that allow marijuana for sick and dying patients.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/dec/25/some-vets-caught-between-dueling-medical/
 

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~

 
Deputies returned two pounds of seized cannabis to a California dispensary on Friday after a court ruled that the marijuana had been improperly confiscated.

 
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — An independent report finds that a proposed initiative to legalize marijuana in California could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Researchers at the Legislative Analysts Office predict the California Cannabis, Hemp and Health Initiative 2012 would boost sales tax revenue for state and local governments. The LAO says it would also reduce criminal justice costs.
Proponents of the measure say that could be good news for the state which is deep in the red.
 
Read complete article here:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news%2Fstate&id=8478678

 
B.C.’s medical health officers are joining a powerful coalition of health, academic and justice experts calling for an overhaul of Canada’s anti-drug policies.
 
In a written statement, the Health Officers’ Council of B.C. says it has unanimously passed a resolution to support Stop the Violence BC. The council includes all medical health officers throughout the province as well as physicians, researchers and consultants.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/12/22/canada-marijuana-legalization_n_1165566.html

Travis Okulski

 
An amazing study authored by professors D. Mark Anderson (University of Montana) and Daniel Rees (University of Colorado) shows that traffic deaths have been reduced in states where medical marijuana is legalized.
According to their findings, the use of medical marijuana has caused traffic related fatalities to fall by nearly nine percent in states that have legalized medical marijuana (via The Truth About Cars).
The study notes that this is equal to the effect raising the drinking age to 21 had on reducing traffic fatalities.
One key factor is the reduction in alcohol consumption. The study finds that there is a direct correlation between the use of marijuana and a reduction in beer sales, especially in the younger folks aged 20-29.
A drop in beer sales supports the theory that marijuana can act as a substitute for liquor.
The study also finds that marijuana has the inverse effect that alcohol does on drivers. Drivers under the influence of alcohol tend to make rash decisions and risky moves, whereas those under the influence of marijuana tend to slow down, make safer choices, and increase following distances.