COLORADO SPRINGS — When it hit the streets here last week, the latest issue of ReLeaf, a pullout supplement to The Colorado Springs Independent devoted to medical marijuana, landed with a satisfying thud.

Forty-eight pages in all, it was stuffed with advertisements for businesses with names like Mile High Mike’s, Happy Buddah and the Healthy Connections (which enticed potential customers with promises of “naughty nurses” to tend to patients’ needs).
A full-page ad in ReLeaf costs about $1,100, making the publication a cash cow for The Independent, which has used its bounty from medical marijuana ads this year to hire one new reporter and promote three staff members to full time.
The paper has also added a column called CannaBiz that follows news from across the country; its author is the new marijuana beat writer.
What would happen in the many communities now allowing medical marijuana had been a subject of much hand-wringing. But few predicted this: that it would be a boon for local newspapers looking for ways to cope with the effects of the recession and the flight of advertising — especially classified listings — to Web sites like Craigslist.
But in states like Colorado, California and Montana where use of the drug for health purposes is legal, newspapers — particularly alternative weeklies — have rushed to woo marijuana providers. Many of these enterprises are flush with cash and eager to get the word out about their fledgling businesses.
“Medical marijuana has been a revenue blessing over and above what we anticipated,” said John Weiss, the founder and publisher of The Independent, a free weekly. “This wasn’t in our marketing plan a year ago, and now it is about 10 percent of our paper’s revenue.”
It is hard to measure what share of the overall market they account for, but ads for medical marijuana providers and the businesses that have sprouted up to service them — tax lawyers, real estate agents, security specialists — have bulked up papers in large metropolitan news markets like Los Angeles, San Francisco and Denver.
“This is certainly one of the fastest growing industries we’ve ever seen come in,” said Scott Tobias, president and chief operating officer of Village Voice Media, which publishes alternative weeklies across the country.
Alternative weeklies are not the only publications raking in medical marijuana lucre. Dailies like The Denver Post and The Bozeman Daily Chronicle in Montana are taking advantage of the boom and making no apologies.
“My point of view is, for the moment at least, it’s legal,” said Stephanie Pressly, publisher of The Daily Chronicle, adding that the paper generates about $7,500 a month in advertising from medical marijuana businesses. “The joke around here is that it’s a budding business.”
Newspaper publishers saw an opening for medical marijuana advertising after the Obama administration said last fall that it would not prosecute users and suppliers of the drug as long as they complied with state laws. Though many states have made legal allowances for medical marijuana for nearly a decade (the total now is 14 and the District of Columbia), that decision freed more people to market and sell it as a medical product.
Advertising demand for the drug grew so quickly in Village Voice Media’s Western markets that the company started publishing supplements late last year. It gave them cheeky names like “Chronic-le” in Denver and “The Rolling Paper” in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Orange County. The tag line in Denver displayed underneath a smiling, sauntering, sandal-wearing cartoon joint reads, “Your Guide to Medical Marijuana. Enjoy.”
In Colorado, where people have likened the explosion of medical marijuana to the state’s 19th-century gold rush, the market for ads and information about the drug has been especially strong. The summer 2010 issue of The Chronic-le, at 48 shiny pages, included features like “Toke of the Town,” a summary of the latest marijuana-related news, and a roster of the nearly 250 stores in the Denver area that sell marijuana.
Mr. Tobias said that in Denver money from advertising for marijuana-related businesses has totaled 15 percent of the weekly Westword’s revenue this year and nearly 40 percent of its classified advertising revenue. A small, eighth-page display ad on one of the paper’s glossy inside pages can cost $550.

It’s a nice day. And we need to avoid getting too wrapped up in the constant stress of fighting against prohibition (yes, I’m looking at you, darkcycle) or we’ll burn out. So I’ve recycled one of my old musings. I think it’s still enjoyable today. See what you have to add….
I have occasionally imagined how I would realistically change drug policy if I was President, or had some other poliitical power, and perhaps some day I’ll share that with you. However, today I decided to be different and imagined I was some kind of arbitrary King and decided to retaliate by being contrarian.

DEA agents who investigate doctors for prescribing pain medication must have other DEA agents perform any medical procedures (like heart transplants and brain surgery) that are needed by the agents. After all, if DEA agents know so much about medicine…
Putting a positive choice spin on drug testing, only those students not participating in extra-curricular activities can be drug tested, and only if there are extra-curricular options available and they still choose not to participate. In a related area, felons on parole can avoid drug tests by getting involved in community service volunteer projects. (actually, this one makes a little sense)
Law enforcement officers who are part of no-knock drug task forces must publicly list their names and addresses. Ordinary citizens are allowed to wander through their home between the hours of 11 pm and 4 am and look through their drawers.
Officers wishing to search a car for drugs must get a search warrant from a judge specifying the make, year, color and VIN, along with specific descriptions of the particular drugs they expect to find.
Law enforcement agencies wishing to keep proceeds from Asset Forfeitures must put up as bond an amount equal to the value of the assets seized. If a judge rules for the property owner, the property owner gets his assets back plus the bond, making a nice profit for his trouble.
School Principals who enforce zero-tolerance policies must get written permission from one of their students before taking an aspirin or any other medication (any time of day or night).
Any laws passed that have criminal penalties are automatically infinitely retroactive for those who voted for (or signed) the law. This means, for example, that any Congressmen who vote for enhanced drug possession penalties would be immediately liable under that law for any drugs they took when they were young.
The Drug Czar must wear a silly hat and a sign saying “I am a liar” whenever he goes out in public, and whenever he talks about drug statistics he must perform a leprechaun dance.
All DEA paperwork must be printed on hemp paper.
Inmates in federal prisons construct bongs and waterpipes, and these are sold through an online store run by the Justice Department, and administered by Tommy Chong.
Smugglers who are caught are sent back to their home country with their drugs and told to try again.
All law enforcement uniforms are made with material that smells just like marijuana to drug-sniffing dogs.

When I wrote this, Walters was the drug czar, but I think the “silly hat and leprechaun dance” mental image works even better with Kerlikowske.

Medical marijuana patients can legally grow their own plants, and many are happy to tend their semi-secret gardens. Businesses such as Otherside Farms and Golden State Greenery help set up grow rooms at residents’ homes.

As marijuana dispensaries close, some patients take up a new kind of gardening. (Ellen Weinstein, For The Times / September 28, 2010)

Joanne Clarke, a legal secretary in her late 50s, leads the way down a pale green hallway in her modest Costa Mesa home, past a small guest room on the right and a blue tiled bathroom on the left. At the end of the hall, she opens a door, pushes aside a thick black curtain and ducks inside.
“Isn’t this wild?” she says, gesturing to the high-tech marijuana grow room she and her husband recently installed. “This used to be my daughter’s bedroom.”
Wild is one word for it. Bright is another. Unexpected, yet another. What had been a teenager’s tropical-themed room is now a beaming, humming, indoor plant laboratory complete with silver reflective bubble wrap on the walls, blinding grow lights, ventilation ducts hanging from the ceiling and marijuana plants in various stages of development neatly labeled with names such as Platinum Kush, Purple Diesel and Blue Cheese.
“They are like our children,” Clarke says, gazing proudly at the elegant fronds that look familiar and exotic all at once. “We talk to them.”
Clarke’s grow room is legal — in the state of California, anyone with a doctor’s recommendation to use marijuana can grow it in limited quantities — yet it still feels clandestine. Although she’s open about using pot (crushed and placed in capsules) to help manage the pain of rheumatoid arthritis, she and her husband haven’t shown the room to any friends. “Ninety-five percent of the people I know are fine with it,” she says, “but it’s that 5% that I worry about. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable.”
Just as California has seen a rise in small-scale backyard vegetable gardeners in recent years, marijuana activists and growers cite a similar, if much quieter, rise in medical marijuana patients growing pot for themselves.
The reasons are varied: Buying medical marijuana at a dispensary can be expensive and uncomfortable for those who don’t identify with marijuana culture, and now that the city of Los Angeles has declared that just 41 of the remaining 169 dispensaries are eligible to stay open, finding a convenient place to buy marijuana is becoming increasingly difficult, especially for those with a debilitating illness. The organically minded are concerned about chemicals that might be in marijuana they don’t grow themselves, and still others worry about where their pot came from. “I don’t want to fund terrorism,” one home-grower says.
Some gardeners — and many do see this simply as a form of gardening — say they get the same soothing pleasure from tinkering with grow lights, temperature controls, fertilizers and additives as others get from nurturing prized rose bushes or carefully pruning bonsai trees.
“My husband can spend hours a day in our grow room,” Clarke says. “For him, it’s fantasy land.”
The new breed of home marijuana grower comes in all different forms, whether it’s a 25-year-old rooftop gardener taking as much pride in his first harvest of okra as in the marijuana that grows alongside it or a 75-year-old retiree cheerfully growing cannabis on her senior-village balcony. Pony-tailed boomers are geeked out on the fact that it’s actually legal to grow this stuff, and at least one new grower called up the UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardener help line for Los Angeles County to ask for advice on growing “grass.” (The master gardener on duty misunderstood the question and recommended a drought-tolerant grass. When the caller explained he was talking about grass, she told him she couldn’t help: Master Gardener policy.)
Otherside Farms, a marijuana information and education center founded by Chadd McKeen in Orange County, teaches medical marijuana patients how to grow their own pot and also helps people install grow rooms at home. McKeen says half the people who take the weekend-long class on growing marijuana, which he teaches twice a month, are older couples.
“My market isn’t the 18- to 25-year-olds — they already know everything,” he says. “My demographic is 50- to 60-year-olds.”
When he first started installing grow rooms in homes, McKeen was constantly worried that each job was a setup.
“I thought everyone was a cop,” he says.
But over time he’s become accustomed to the embroidered-sweater-wearing, lighthouse-poster-hanging, older pot smoker who makes up the majority of his clientele. “This is what the marijuana user looks like,” he says.
The grow rooms that McKeen installs are generally replicas of the rooms he has in his storefront headquarters in Costa Mesa, even down to the bright orange Home Depot utility buckets he puts mature plants in. Most of the rooms he installs are in second bedrooms, which he usually divides in half to create two different environments — a “veg room” where the plants grow and a “bloom room” where a change in lighting and temperature encourages budding. He said the rooms generally cost about $15,000 to set up.
Golden State Greenery, another company in Orange County that helps novices build grow rooms at home, offers the “California 5-by-5 special,” a 5-by-5-foot grow tent that can be set up in a living room or garage. The tent is black on the outside to keep light and heat from escaping, and to keep the structure as discreet as possible. But inside, it’s lined in reflective silver to maximize the light source. For $2,500, the company says it can have new clients ready to grow their own cannabis within four hours.
All this fancy (and expensive) growing equipment isn’t technically necessary. It is possible to grow marijuana outdoors in Southern California. If planted in the spring, a seed or clone will generally produce one harvest in early fall. Many people have had success with simply sticking a plant on a balcony or tucking one among the tomatoes in the backyard.
“Pot is actually easier to grow than tomatoes,” said one man in San Diego, who like many people contacted for this article has a doctor’s recommendation and is growing legally but still asked to remain anonymous. “There’s a reason they call it ‘weed.'”
But for many home growers, the best place is inside. An indoor growing system offers environmental controls that would be impossible to get outside — no snails or caterpillars, less chance of powdery mildew. It also offers the possibility of four harvests a year rather than one. Another reason: Marijuana plants, even just a few, are still magnets for trouble even though medicinal pot has been legal since 1996.
“We tell our students it’s kind of like before: You don’t plant it in your front yard or your front porch, and you don’t show it off,” says Jeff Jones, a prominent marijuana activist who teaches grow classes in Oakland and Los Angeles. “There is still the home invasion issue, and your neighbor to the left or to the right might want to steal it from someone who has a VIP pass to grow something that is not legal for others.”
At a recent “traveling party,” when neighbors went around to one another’s homes to check out new additions or garden makeovers, a friend asked Clarke if she and her husband would be showing off their new grow room. Clarke declined.
“It’s still hard for people to understand this is legal,” she says. “So now when people ask about our new hobby, we just laugh and say my husband is growing a few plants for me. People know we’re doing it. They just don’t know the full extent.”

In 2006, Britain’s Home Office reported that 8.7 percent of residents of England and Wales used cannabis. This is an unexpected downward trend; in 2004, when the penalty for possession of cannabis was reduced from five to two years in jail, most believed that consumption would increase. (In 2009, the penalty reverted to five years.) Nevertheless, cannabis remains the most popular illicit drug in England and Wales, mostly used recreationally, though its medicinal use is rising. After a century of research aimed at discovering the drug’s dangers, the British Medical Association described it as ‘remarkably safe … with a side effects profile superior to many conventional medications’.

Far Out: Parvati offering bhang to Shiva

Three centuries ago, the British only knew of the related industrial hemp, cultivated to make cordage, clothing and paper. Today, over 30 countries, including Great Britain, grow hemp for these purposes but also to manufacture biodegradable plastics and biofuels. The British encountered cannabis, or rather bhang, during their initial interaction with the Subcontinent in the 17th century. Sailors, soldiers and merchants no doubt witnessed the sacred as well as recreational use of bhang – smoked by swamis in a chillum, inhaled from a hookah, or mixed in thandai, a drink prepared with almonds, milk, sugar and spices during Holi. Perhaps they also witnessed its therapeutic use in curing fever, dysentery, gonorrhoea and, purportedly, even lisping.
The Oxford English Dictionary indicates that bhang was first mentioned in English in Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621): ‘Another [herb] called Bange, like in effect to Opium’. In fact, however, this reference was lifted from another book – in all probability the first European book printed in India – called Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India (1563) by Garcia da Orto, a Portuguese doctor practicing in Goa. The Portuguese, leading in the colonial scramble, had already stumbled upon bhang.
Thomas Bowrey’s A Geographical Account of Countries Round the Bay of Bengal 1669 to 1679, written in the 1670s but not published until 1905, provides the earliest record in English of the recreational use of cannabis. The incident occurred in Bengal and involved Bowrey, a merchant seaman, and a handful of his kind. He writes of the preparation: ‘Sometimes they mix it with their tobacco and smoke it, a very speedy way to be besotted; at other times they chew it.’ But he advises that ‘the most pleasant way of taking it is [to] Pound a handful of the seed and leaf together, which mixt with one pint of fresh water, and let it soak one quarter of an hour, then strained through a piece of calico, and drink off the liquor and in less than half an hour its Operation will shew itself for the space of four or five hours.’
Of course, a central part of the preparation instructions includes how to deal with the concoction’s effects. Bowrey cautions that the ‘Operation’ will be executed according to ‘the thoughts or fancy of the Party’, so that if someone is ‘merry at that instant, he Shall Continue So with Exceeding great laughter, rather overmerry’. But ‘if it be taken in a fearfull or Melancholy posture, he Shall keep great lamentation and Seem to be in great anguish of Spirit.’ Bowrey is grateful when the cannabis begins to take effect ‘merrily’ upon him and his friends, save for a few, one of whom is so ‘terrified with fear’ that he ‘run his head into a great Moryavan Jaree [earthenware pot], and continued in that Posture four hours or more.’ Others ‘lay upon the Carpets complimenting each other in high terms, each fancying himself an Emperor.’
17th-century score
The first medicinal use of cannabis by Britons was documented during the 1670s in Ceylon. Robert Knox, the son of an East India Company ship’s captain, was confined to the island’s independent Kandyan kingdom for 19 years. In An Historical Relation of Ceylon (1681), Knox discusses how, between 1673 and 1679, he and a shipmate journeyed towards the Dutch-held northwestern coast in a bid to escape. It was during this journey that they came across the substance, when they were ‘sick of violent Fevors and Agues’ from drinking rainwater that was ‘so thick and muddy, that the very filth would hang in our Beards when we drank’. They learned that the antidote to counter the ‘venomous water’ was a mere ‘dry leaf’ called banga in Portuguese, which they ate with ‘some of the Countrey Jaggory Morning and Evening upon an empty stomach’.
Knox eventually escaped and returned to London in 1680. His reintegration with English society began when he visited London’s fashionable coffee shops with his brother James, a talented limner (painter of miniatures). During this period, he was acquainted with eminent persons such as Robert Boyle, Edmund Halley, Samuel Pepys, Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke – and thus he came to the notice of London’s intelligentsia. By the time An Historical Relation of Ceylon was published, the story of his confinement and escape had spread, partly accounting for the book’s success.
During Knox’s absence from England, Robert Hooke had risen to fame as a physicist. In 1678, he introduced the ‘inverse square law’ to describe planetary motions, which Isaac Newton later used in modified form (though Hooke always complained that he was not given sufficient credit for this). During this time Hooke and Knox first met, and the former gave invaluable assistance in the editing and publication of the latter’s book. This marked the beginning of a friendship that endured until Hooke’s death 23 years later.
A notorious spendthrift, in his diary Hooke noted down his expenses at coffeehouses. From this we can gather that there were three coffee-shop meetings within a fortnight – almost a decade after Knox’s return from Ceylon – at which bhang was mentioned. The first two record its effects:

Sat [26 Oct 1689] At Jon. Cap. Knox choc. ganges [ganja or bhang] strange intoxicating herb like hemp, takes away understanding and memory, for a time frequently used in India with benefit.
Tu. 5 Nov 1689: Capt Knox told me the intoxicating leaf and seed, by the Moors called Ganges, in Portug. Banga; in Chingales [Sinhalese] Consa: ‘tis accounted wholesome, though for a time it takes away the memory and understanding.

The third reference is an innocent description of what today would be called a score, albeit without money changing hands: ‘Thu 7 [Nov 1689] from Cap. Knox. Konsa leafe and seed.’
Six weeks later, Hooke employed Knox’s information in a lecture – revolutionary for its time – to the Royal Society that described the social, psychiatric and therapeutic uses of bhang. Hooke informed his audience about its ‘very general and frequent’ use in India, and how his source (Knox) ‘hath made many Trials of it, on himself, with very good Effect’. This suggests that Knox had become accustomed to using bhang on his travels and could well have imported some for his own use.
Hooke instructed how the bhang was to be consumed, and described the onset of the ‘Operation’:

The Patient understands not, nor remembereth any Thing … but becomes, as it were, a mere Natural, being unable to speak a Word of Sense; yet is he very merry, and laughs, and sings … yet is he not giddy, or drunk, but walks and dances … after a little Time he falls asleep, and sleepeth very soundly and quietly; and when he wakes, he finds himself mightily refresh’d, and exceeding hungry.

Hooke also specifically mentioned Knox’s illness in Ceylon, ‘which troubled his Stomach, or Head’. Yet after the bhang, he noted dramatically, Knox had been ‘perfectly carried off without leaving any ill Symptom, as Giddiness, Pain in the Head or Stomach, or Defect of Memory’.

Useful for Lunaticks
Knox had informed Hooke of bhang’s sacred use in Ceylon – no doubt by Indian holy men participating in a pada yatra to a shrine such as Kataragama, some 200 km southeast of Colombo. A devout Christian, Knox was not impressed: ‘He saith “tis commonly made Use of, by the Heathen Priests, or rambling Mendicant Heathen Friars, who will meet together, and dose themselves with this medicine … talking they know not what, pretending after that, they were inspired.”’
In an historic demonstration that would be illegal in Britain by 1925, Hooke produced for his Royal Society audience a quantity of seed and some plants he had cultivated. He intended to sow the seeds to see whether the plant would have the same ‘vertues’ as the ones found in the Subcontinent, having found out after ‘Several trials’ that ‘it hath lost its Vertue, producing none of the Effects before-mentioned.’ The ‘loss of virtue’ is hardly surprising, for it was winter, and even if cultivated indoors the seedlings would have had insufficient sunlight for growth.
Hooke’s experiments the following spring go unrecorded. Assuming they were unsuccessful, though, Hooke must have been disappointed, for he was an insomniac and regularly took laudanum (an opium-and-alcohol solution), the drug of the era, as well as other concoctions. Indeed, it is clear from his diaries that he was quite drug-dependent and suffered unpleasant side-effects. In fact, drug dependency was rife during the Enlightenment period. Robert Boyle revealed that he never left home before imbibing a cocktail of chemically laced remedies, and Edmund Halley read a paper to the Royal Society on his experiences with opium.
Hooke saw great potential in the medicinal and psychiatric applications of bhang, and must have found it an agreeable alternative. He noted that it could ‘prove as considerable a medicine in Drugs as any that is brought from the Indies’, and suggested that it may be of ‘considerable use to Lunaticks, or for other Distempers of the Head and Stomach’ because it seemed to put ‘a man into …a Quiet Sleep’ and ‘in all Possibility would, cure them.’ Hooke’s proposals along these lines were ignored, however, by the medical community. It was not until the 1830s, when bhang’s therapeutic properties were investigated in India, that doctors began to use it as an alternative to opium. Curiously, modern campaigners for the legalisation of cannabis have searched medical texts for supportive references, but have missed Knox’s experience and Hooke’s obscure lecture to the Royal Society.

Two proposed changes to New Mexico medical marijuana rules could generate revenue for administering the state’s program, which was created in 2007 as an unfunded legislative mandate.
One proposal would increase the fee for applicants seeking certification as nonprofit producers of medical marijuana to $1,000 from $100. The other would require producers to pay the state an annual fee equal to 7 percent of their annual gross receipts.
Department of Health spokesperson Deborah Busemeyer said that at the program’s current size — 2,500 licensed patients and 11 certified producers — the annual cost of running the program is about $700,000 to $800,000. Because the program has no budget of its own, costs currently are covered by piecing together resources designated for other programs.
Also proposed are a variety of other tweaks to existing rules, including specifying the department’s authority to audit producers and test their product.
About 200 people showed up at a public hearing on the proposed regulations Thursday. Nearly 50 of them offered comments.
Some protested the addition of more “red tape” to the program, which some patients say is already difficult to navigate, and some worried that the fee increases would result in increased costs for patients.
Others praised the state for creating New Mexico’s program, the only one in the country that makes the health department responsible for setting up and regulating the distribution of medical cannabis.
Several asked why Health Secretary Alfredo Vigil wasn’t present at the hearing and questioned language in proposals to give him sole discretion over certain aspects of the program.
Vigil told The New Mexican on Thursday that the focus on those issues illustrates a lack of knowledge on the part of the public on how state government works.
He said state cabinet secretaries rarely attend rule-making hearings — relying on staff to conduct those hearings and report back to them. Vigil said he also avoids hearings because he feels the presence of “someone up the chain” can be disruptive.
“There is nothing unusual in how this works,” Vigil said, adding that as secretary of a department in the executive branch of government, he is always the one with sole discretion over Health Department programs.
“As far as I know, there are no areas where sole discretion is being created, only clarified,” Vigil said. “Whether those words are on the paper or not, I still am the only one with the ultimate discretion.”
Much of the testimony presented Thursday was aimed at aspects of the program not addressed by the rule changes.
Numerous patients expressed frustration concerning the amount of cannabis patients are allowed to possess. They said the limits — 6 ounces for those who buy from a producer, or four mature plants and a dozen seedlings for those who grow their own — make it difficult to grow enough outdoors during New Mexico’s short growing season to last the entire year. Growing inside, patients said, is expensive because of the cost of electricity.
Busemeyer said that concern will be considered by staff reviewing the proposed rule changes.
Another common complaint from those who testified concerned a requirement that patients renew their medical cannabis cards annually.
Busemeyer said that rule was created by the Legislature and would have to be addressed there.
Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque, spoke in favor of the program during the hearing and, while stopping short of making any promises, said he would support additional funding for research on the medical use of marijuana.
McSorley also requested that the public comment period on the changes be extended. The hearing officer agreed to accept written comments on the proposed rules through Oct. 10. After that, program staff will draft a final version of the rules for Vigil’s approval. The new rules could take effect as soon as mid-November.

Do you feel that your cancer is part of the past, or does it still affect you?
It doesn’t affect me physically anymore, but it affects the way I live my whole life today. The choices I make, the food I eat — everything is influenced by my breast cancer.
Did you ever worry that it would be the end of your career?
No. I had already been through coming out as gay, and it didn’t ruin my career. I just felt that I should keep doing my thing.
On the positive side, has breast cancer given you any creative impulses?
Everything I’ve ever done since being diagnosed with breast cancer has been influenced by it! You face the fear of your own mortality. When I was diagnosed, I started thinking more spiritually and emotionally, both in my personal life and as an artist. Having breast cancer has taught me not to be afraid of anything.
Women with breast cancer often get depressed about losing their hair, but you famously performed bald while undergoing chemotherapy. What made you do it?
When I got the call saying I’d be performing at the Grammys, I thought to myself ‘wait a minute, I’m bald!’ I called some friends, and they all encouraged me to do it. I had thought it would feel a bit strange, but it didn’t.
You’ve said you used and still use medical marijuana. How does it help you?
The first step after you’re diagnosed is that the doctors give you steroids, but that makes you constipated, so they give you another drug for that, but that drug has side effects, too. In the end, you’re on five-six drugs and still feel miserable.
I thought, there’s this plant that gives no side effects except making you hungry, which is good. It makes you happy, too. Medical marijuana made a huge difference for me. I still use it for stress. Stress gives me heartburn and acid in my throat, which means I couldn’t perform unless I used medical marijuana.

So there’s this new website out there called www.priceofweed.com and it’s, well, just what you’d expect.
According to the site, which calculates current prices based on actual reports from consumers (inhalers?), South Carolina has some pretty pricey pot. Our state’s unofficial No. 1 cash crop is running about $440 an ounce. That’s for the high-quality stuff and, really, what other quality do you want in weed?
To put that in perspective, Mary Jane is $432 an ounce in North Carolina and it’s only $379 in Florida — at least in the cities with names that end in vowels. In Kentucky, bluegrass is a mere $400 an ounce.
Yet priceofweed.com reports that on Sept. 25, someone bought a quarter ounce of medium-quality dope in North Charleston and paid $60. For a substandard stash. Last week, someone paid $100 for a quarter-ounce of medium-quality in Mount Pleasant.
Guess everything really is more expensive east of the Cooper.
Meanwhile, some retiree down in Boca just paid $300 for some really premium stuff before hitting the early bird special.
People, this is no way to compete in a global marketplace.
A real cash (only) crop
Now, the South Carolina Department of Agriculture does not list marijuana as one of the state’s top cash crops, which means they must be smoking something.
On the Ag Department’s list of top commodities, they list “broilers” — chickens — as No. 1. Which is sort of like classifying cattle as “grillers.” But there’s nary a word about dope.
Officials say that soybeans, corn and tobacco are our best row crops. But in 2009, our tobacco haul was only $68 million. The folks at drugscience.org estimate that our marijuana industry was $142 million just a few years ago. We’d get more current numbers, but dope dealers apparently are not real good at filing tax returns — sort of like certain gubernatorial candidates.
Bottom line, that’s a lot of weed, but we aren’t getting anything out of it. Other than the obvious.
South Carolina should capitalize on all that publicity we got from Michael Phelps smoking our dope. That’s, like, Wheaties box big.
Don’t try this at home
OK, a disclaimer here. It is illegal to possess, smoke or sell pot in South Carolina. Of course, simple possession is only a misdemeanor — a slap on the wrist.
And if you’re high at the time, hey, you won’t even feel it.
Fact is, usury is technically illegal too, but some politicians are certainly cozy with the check-into-cash crowd. And if that ain’t usury, what is it?
This is not to say marijuana should be legal. But subscribers to the Libertarian point of view (of which there are apparently plenty) say the gubmint should quit burdening us with laws. If anything goes, that should include weed. Otherwise, the purity of our political beliefs are just, yes, up in smoke.

Posted: 11:50 AM September 30, 2010

“Cash Crop” is all about marijuana. But it also is about much more.

The film, absent talking heads, absent a polemic voice-over, takes the audience on a road trip from the Mexican border to the northernmost counties of California — Humboldt, Trinity and Mendocino — commonly known as the Emerald Triangle, where marijuana as a cash crop has replaced the anchor industries of fishing and timber. And so the film creates a nicely framed contradiction — call it widespread cognitive dissonance — between the use and farming of marijuana and the federal and local laws that continue to criminalize pot.

It’s impossible to watch “Cash Crop” and not be reminded of the train wreck called prohibition. Consider the reality on the ground today, specifically in California: it’s been reported that marijuana as a crop produces some $14 billion in annual sales, is the mainstay of many communities and is referred to as the California Green Rush. Nationally, marijuana is thought to be, by some researchers, a pervasive part of the American economy and the No. 1 crop in 12 states and among the top three in 30 states.

From small, mom-and-pop farms, with back-to-the-land characters, to much larger operations, it becomes clear that weed, as its often referred to in the film, is not only part of people’s lives — from recreational to medicinal use — but its is viewed as a civil right. A choice. And who, folks ask, should decide what is pharmacologically efficacious? Big Pharma?

“Cash Crop” explores these questions nicely while never being tedious. Next month, Californians will vote on Proposition 19, a ballot initiative slated to legalize marijuana for cultivation and sale. Fourteen other states have similar proposals in the works. Clearly, our culture and attitudes are changing.

And therein is the rub. Though the feds know that there is a rising tide to decriminalize marijuana, it still is enforcing federal laws that create a tension between Washington and the rights of states to act according to the wishes of their citizens. If you’re in California, you’re no longer in Kansas.

“Cash Crop” is a journey north, a window into American culture wherein Adam Ross, the award-winning director, parallels small vintners and pub owners with cannabis growers of all types, implicitly pointing out the lack of any real distinction between alcohol and pot in terms of social norms. In fact, one local sheriff comments that he has never been called to a domestic disturbance because of marijuana.

Embedded in the film is the question: When will our lawmakers catch up with the people and finally admit that, as a Mendocino County sheriff dryly comments, it’s time to “move on?” A county supervisor candidly points out, “The fact of the matter is, Americans like their marijuana.”

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

The year is 2001. Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas, who famously said, “Greed is good. Greed is right. Greed works”), a Wall Street bandit and a man with panache even in prison clothes, walks out of prison after an eight-year stretch for insider trading. Holding a cell phone the size of a lunch box, he looks around. No one is there to meet him.

Fast-forward to 2008, and there’s a financial tsunami on the way, one that feels a lot like 1929, headed toward the nation’s arbitragers and investment banks. Its momentum will shred esoteric instruments known as credit-default swaps and the real estate market in general.

Wall Street is awash in debt and a Lehman Brothers clone is about to go down, taking thousands of traders with it. Jake Moore (Shia LaBeof) is one of those traders. In desperation, having lost his mentor and his job, and since he is engaged to Gekko’s estranged daughter, Winnie (Cary Mulligan), he seeks out Gordon for advice, and things get complicated.

“Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” has a nice intensity. It runs along the precipice of financial double-dealing, while men stare at computer screens and place huge bets with other people’s money, always in the shadow of imminent disaster.

While the story is familiar, it is nevertheless solidly entertaining. But what is compelling about “Money Never Sleeps” is the actors who deliver superb performances.

Testimony to Douglas’ talent, spanning almost four decades, is his ability to embrace a wide spectrum of characters from the anti-heroes (or existentially challenged) of “Wall Street,” “Fatal Attraction,” “A Perfect Murder,” “Basic Instinct” and “Falling Down,” to the urbane roles found in “American President” and “Wonder Boys.” He has demonstrated a strong comedic talent in “Romancing the Stone,” and “The Jewel of the Nile.” In other words, Douglas is always eminently watchable.

A character actor that has been remarkably consistent and durable is Frank Langella. In “Money Never Sleeps” he portrays Lewis Zabel, Jake’s mentor and the head of the company that’s about to crater. He gives a fine performance as an old-school trader who remembers a time when Wall Street wasn’t scorched earth (or so he insists).

Both LaBeof and Mulligan also deliver convincing portrayals of twenty-somethings who are finding their way in what is referred to by Gordon as the time of the ninja (no income, no assets). But as the film telegraphs, Gordon and the ninjas are back, as is Wall Street.

Easy A

As long as there is a stage of life known as adolescence, and as long as there are places called high school, where said age group is asked to congregate under the guise of getting an education, well, there will be movies made about this intense, vital and quirky subculture.

In truth, films about teenagers too often head over a cliff of stereotypes, clichés and caricature with plots that are immensely shallow and uninteresting. Occasionally, a gem comes along that even though it might not get high school quite right, it’s still charming and funny. That would be “Easy A.”

What makes the film entertaining, and likely hugely appealing to teens, is due in great part to Emma Stone, portraying a very bright, geeky, kind-hearted Olive Penderghast. Surrounded by mean girls, in the guise of teen Christians who strive for purity and abstinence, she manages to navigate the halls of Ojai High with a sense of self and an understanding of her marginalized standing in the school’s social hierarchy.

Inadvertently, she runs afoul of the high school’s gossip network and finds herself the target of malicious stories about her virginity — splashed from text to cell phone to computer. How she frees herself from the web of misunderstanding and fabrications makes for an interesting tale, one that happens to coincide nicely with a book her English class is reading: “The Scarlet Letter.”

Surprisingly, the supporting cast is exceptional, led by Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci as Olive’s very accepting and hip parents. They are wonderful and clearly are having a hoot. And they’re not clueless. The movie also pays homage to the fine teen moviemaker John Hughes, whose signature film, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (1986), will always be the gold standard for great teen comedies.

(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) – The first house made out of hemp has been built in the United States, filling what advocates say is a need for more green building materials.
USA Today reported the home was completed this summer in Asheville, N.C., and two more are in the works. While such homes have been built over the past two decades in Europe, Hemp Technologies co-founder David Madera told the newspaper that they are new to the United States.
The building material Hemcrete had to be imported because hemp comes from the same plant as marijuana, which is illegal to grow in the United States. Inhabitat.com said Hemcrete is made from hemp, lime and water and can be used for a variety of applications including wall and flooring construction and roof insulation.
The 3,400-square-foot Push House, designed and built by Anthony Brenner, also has interior walls made from recycled paper. Inhabitat said another feature is 30 window frames that have been salvaged and fitted with high tech glass, placed in such a way that the most daylight can enter without overheating the house.
Madera, whose company supplied the hemp stalks, lime and water mixture, said the hemp-filled walls are non-toxic, mildew-resistant, pest-free and flame-resistant.
The website Green Building Elements said the home costs about $100 a month to heat and cool. Former Asheville mayor Russ Martin and his wife, Karon Korp, own the home and told the Huffington Post that it cost $130 per square foot to build. That includes the cost of importing the hemp.
Such homes reflect people’s increasing desire to make homes both energy-efficient and healthy. Brenner told USA Today that he started searching for non-toxic materials because he wants to build a health-friendly home for his daughter, who suffers from a rare genetic disorder that makes her sensitive to chemicals and prone to seizures if she is around anything synthetic.
The newspaper said the second hemp house in Asheville is expected to be finished in about six weeks. Builder Clarke Snell told USA Today that he expects it to meet Passive House Institute standards that call for homes to use up to 90 percent less energy than traditional houses.