The Times of London has an article on the flexibility of Afghanistan’s poppy farmers:
“Where opium poppies used to colour the plains of northern Afghanistan, towering cannabis plants now sway in the wind, filling the air with their pungent odour. Farmers in Balkh province were banned from cultivating opium last year and have switched to another cash crop, a rich source of income that is still tolerated by the authorities. Balkh’s burgeoning hashish industry does not pay farmers quite as much as the heroin factories used to for good-quality opium. But the rich black cannabis resin produced around the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif still pays about four times the price of cotton or wheat. It is highly prized by Afghan usersand is exported in large quantities to Pakistan and Europe.”
Mmm, from “hard” to “soft” drugs — progress?
The Kuwait Times has an article entitled: “Kuwait forces irate over US criminals”. The article goes on to say, “Kuwait security forces are irate with the favoritism American expatriates caught violating the laws of Kuwait receive. According to an article in the local Arabic daily, Al-Qabas, unnamed sources claim that Americans arrested for alcohol and drug-related crimes are receiving special treatment.” . . .
Reuters reports — “A Dutch smoking ban will come into force in July next year for all restaurants and cafes — including coffee shops where cannabis is the top attraction, the government decided on Friday.
“Coffee shops will be treated in the same manner as other catering businesses. They will be smoke-free,” Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende told NOS television.
“It would have been wrong to move towards a smoke-free catering industry and then make an exception for coffee shops. People would not have understood that.”
The San Francisco Chronicle has a report on the use of topical pot for skin wounds. . . .
A Miami Herald article notes:
“At a recent backyard barbecue in Miami’s Upper Eastside, a group of middle-age, middle-class folks tamely sipped berry cocktails and beers. Among them: a couple of lawyers, a couple of city administrators and an arts administrator. Somewhere between the skirt steak and the apple pie, somebody lit a joint and passed it around.
Nobody blinked. Even in mainstream, white-collar settings, smoking marijuana can be commonplace and unremarkable, like having a little wine with dinner.
Once a stamp of the arty, the marginal and the counterculture, today marijuana’s popularity cuts across social boundaries. Yet several high-profile marijuana arrests have recently made headlines, highlighting the hazy double standard that exists around an illegal, potentially harmful drug that continues to encroach into the mainstream:
In March, Lawrence Korda, 59, a Broward Circuit Court judge, was charged with openly smoking marijuana in a park in Hollywood. Korda completed a drug and alcohol program to erase the misdemeanor charge, and must take monthly random drug tests for six months and perform 25 hours of community service.
Last month, Utpal Dighe, 31, a prosecutor in the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office, was fired after police charged him with buying marijuana from a street dealer in Coconut Grove.
Also last month, Ricky Williams, 30, erstwhile superstar running back for the Dolphins, probably ended his Miami career by testing positive for marijuana for the fifth time.
For good or ill, people from all walks smoke weed. In fact, 40.1 percent of all Americans 12 years old and up admit having tried marijuana at least once — and 6 percent acknowledge having used it in the past month, federal drug surveys show. The FBI says 786,500 people were arrested for it in 2005, the latest figures available.
One group at least modestly turning away from marijuana is middle- and high-schoolers, ages 12 to 17. The percentage who have used pot at least once dropped from more than 20 percent in 2000 to about 17 percent in 2005, federal researchers say.”
In an attempt to provide more marijuana for medical research purposes The Washington Post reports: "For decades, the federal government has been the nation’s only legal producer of marijuana for medical research. Working with growers at the University of Mississippi, the National Institute on Drug Abuse has controlled both the quality and distribution of the drug for the past 36 years. But for the first time the government’s monopoly on research marijuana is under serious legal challenge. The effort is being spearheaded by a group that wants to produce medicines from currently illegal psychedelic drugs and by a professor at the University of Massachusetts who has agreed to grow marijuana for the group if the government lets him."
USA Today HAD a detailed article 2005.November.22 about a North Dakota conservative Republican’s efforts to allow industrial hemp to be grown in the USA. Here are some quotes:
"David Monson is a conservative Republican in North Dakota’s legislature. He’s also a farmer who believes that a new cash crop could revitalize his state’s agricultural industry, which has been suffering from poor harvests and depressed soy and corn prices. The problem: The crop coveted by Monson and hundreds of farmers like him is hemp, the same species of cannabis plant as marijuana — with virtually no tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the ingredient in marijuana that makes users high. The federal government doesn’t recognize that distinction, and bans the production of hemp in the USA. It does, however, allow manufacturers of cosmetics, clothing, paper and foods to import hemp fiber, seed and oil from Canada and Europe for use in their products."
"The DEA says allowing farmers to grow hemp in the USA would undermine the war on drugs. It says marijuana growers would be able to camouflage their crop with similar-looking hemp plants, and that DEA agents would have difficulty quickly telling the difference. “Let’s not be naive,†says Tom Riley of the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy. “The pro-dope people have been pushing hemp for 20 years because they know that if they can have hemp fields, then they can have marijuana fields. It’s … stoner logic.â€"
" Today, the USA is the only developed nation that has not established hemp as a crop, the Congressional Research Service says. Great Britain lifted its ban in 1993; Germany did so in 1996 and Canada followed two years later. The European Union has subsidized hemp production since the 1990s."
[2007.jun.14 - NB: theoriginal link used for this article is no longer active, although I believe you can purchase the article from USA Today Archives. Click here for a Google News search on industrial hemp.]
"Doctors are set to prescribe a new cannabis-based medicine to patients with multiple sclerosis even though it is yet to be licensed in the UK. The Home Office has agreed to requests from doctors and patients to allow Sativex to be imported from Canada where it has been on sale since late June. The decision by drugs minister Paul Goggins was made in spite of the refusal of regulators last year to award Sativex a full licence in the UK until more clinical data was available. "
The article appeared in
The Dail Mail (UK)
Burglars hunting out cannabis factories
"BURGLARS are breaking into Newham houses which appear unoccupied, hoping to find one of the many cannabis factories uncovered in the borough this year."
(This is Local London — England)
Cannabis Oil Coming
"Just kidding. Actually, the Med-Marijuana line of herbal remedies contains so little of the psychoactive ingredient found in weed, you could down a whole bottle without feeling the slightest buzz. “You can take this stuff till hell freezes over and you’re not going to get a minute of euphoria,” said Bob Martin, a Calgary life insurance salesman who recently got the rights to distribute the hemp-derived remedies in southern Alberta. He said he hopes to start selling the products in Edmonton soon. “Health Canada’s rules for (over-the-counter products) made from marijuana specify they must have less than 10 parts per million of THC, the psychoactive ingredient. Our product has something like 1.5 to two parts per million. While it won’t get you high, Martin claims Med-Marijuana cannabis oil tablets will help with the rheumatism."
(The Edmonton Sun — Canada)