Tag: Marijuana

Joints, Blunts And Spliffs (Oh My)

Almost every state has some sort of legalization of marijuana going on and since it is a Sunday and a good chance for IST to be an FYI blog for the day I would like to point out the differences on the several uses of the weed.

This is basically the terminology used….

Even though cannabis has a multi-millennia history as a plant used for religion, wellness, and recreation, humans eventually had to mask its existence as prohibition swept the globe—not just the United States. Slang, nicknames, and wordplay have been a part of extralegal activity as long as we’ve had laws.

We can thank slang terms for helping to keep the passion of the plant alive, but let’s also be honest: Sometimes coded language can be confusing—especially for newer consumers.

Smoking cannabis works just like tobacco—wrapped up in something else that’s smokeable, or consumed in one of the traditional styles of its indigenous stewards, in a pipe-type format. Some choose one over the other, but in many cultures and regions, people mix the two, which can be a surprise for someone not expecting either straight weed or the adrenaline hit of even just a few flecks of tobacco mixed in.

Wrapped-up and smokable cannabis has many names: joint, blunt, spliff, preroll, bone, stick, roach, cannagar, and others, to name a few. Some of these terms even have different meanings in different regions of the world, so what’s a smoker to do when they’re not sure?

Joints can be pleasurable and fun for the smoker, granting a social, shareable ticket to a delightful buzz, but what’s inside them? Straight-up weed, for the most part. Rolled or stuffed into pre-made cones, joints are among the top methods of consumption.

https://lifehacker.com/the-differences-between-joints-blunts-and-spliffs-1850811382

Just a little fun on this Sunday…..

Enjoy your day and as always….Be well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–04Feb22

Yipee skippy! Mississippi finally enters the 21st century….well at least on the weed front.

A pretty good start…..

Mississippi is legalizing medical marijuana for people with debilitating conditions such as cancer, AIDS, and sickle cell disease, the AP reports. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed the legislation Wednesday and it became law immediately. It could be months before the first marijuana dispensaries open. “There is no doubt that there are individuals in our state who could do significantly better if they had access to medically prescribed doses of cannabis,” Reeves wrote in a statement posted to Twitter. “There are also those who really want a recreational marijuana program that could lead to more people smoking and less people working, with all the societal and family ills that that brings.”

The National Conference of State Legislatures says 36 states and four territories already allowed the medical use of cannabis. Mississippi becomes the 37th state. “For all the people who are touched in some way by a loved one or someone they know who benefits from medical cannabis, this brings their quality of life back,” said Ken Newburger, executive director the Mississippi Medical Marijuana Association, a group that pushed for legalization. A majority of Mississippi voters approved a medical marijuana initiative in November 2020, and it would have allowed people to buy up to 5 ounces a month. The state Supreme Court invalidated it six months later by ruling that the state’s initiative process was outdated and the measure was not put properly on the ballot.

The state House and Senate, both controlled by Republicans, passed the final version of Senate Bill 2095 last week. The new law will allow patients to buy up to to 3.5 grams of cannabis per day, up to six days a week. That is about 3 ounces per month. It sets taxes on production and sale of cannabis, and it specifies that plants must be grown indoors under controlled conditions. Reeves said because of the reduction from 5 ounces a month in the initiative to 3 ounces a month in the new law, “there will be hundreds of millions of fewer joints on the streets because of this improvement.” The new law prohibits the state from providing economic development incentives for the cannabis industry, and it gives cities and counties 90 days to opt out of allowing medical marijuana facilities, for growing or selling.

I am sure the demonizing will soon begin.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Mississippi Voters Mean Nothing!

I have said on numerous occasions that the vote means little to politicians anymore…..and Mississippi proves my point.

Recently there was an initiative that the Mississippi voter approved of the sale of medical marijuana…..a win right?

Maybe elsewhere but not in Mississippi…..

In a brutal loss for direct democracy in Mississippi, the state’s supreme court struck down a ballot amendment on Friday that legalized medical marijuana in the state. But the ruling didn’t stop there. Invoking a technical flaw in the law, the court invalidated the entire process for amending the state’s constitution by popular vote.

“The killing of our ballot initiative process means that Mississippi is, definitively, the state with the least democracy, the most restricted ballot access, and where voters’ voices matter least when it comes to the deciding our future,” said Ashton Pittman, a reporter at the Mississippi Free Press.

“The Mississippi Supreme Court just overturned the will of the people of Mississippi,” read a statement from Medical Marijuana MS, which organized Initiative 65 that would legalize the use of the drug. “Patients will now continue the suffering that so many Mississippians voted to end.”

About 73 percent of voters supporter legalizing medical marijuana, according to Pittman.

At the heart of the court’s decision is a crucial flaw in the process that gives voters the power to amend the constitution by popular vote. According to the law, organizers for ballot measures have to collect signatures from the five different congressional districts in the state. But since the 2000 census, Mississippi dropped from having five districts to having only four.

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/mississippi-supreme-court/

This is what you get when party politics is a decider on judges.

I continue to be a critic of voting as it is today…..

The people’s will means NOTHING to partisan politicians.

If it happened in Mississippi then it can happen elsewhere……..beware!

Watch This Blog!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–08Dec20

Just last week the US House of Representatives made history by voting to decriminalize marijuana…..the fad has gone federal…….for many states have legalized or at least decriminalized weed.

Now the federal reps have stepped into the 21st century….and a cheer went up for their forward thinking….

Reflecting changing attitudes among Americans, the House voted Friday to decriminalize marijuana. The measure, approved with support from both parties on a 228-164 vote, also would expunge nonviolent convictions related to marijuana offenses, the New York Times reports. And the drug would no longer be covered by the Controlled Substances Act. It’s the first time either chamber of Congress has voted to decriminalize pot, and Politico sees it as a “monumental step in marijuana policy.” However, the measure isn’t expected to go anywhere in the Senate anytime soon. Still, approval gives lawmakers something to build on in the future. “What we’re doing here is … recognizing that there is a longtime war on civil rights that was instituted by the Nixon administration,” says Rep. Jerry Nadler, sponsor of the bill. “And we’re eliminating it.”

 
 

House Makes Landmark Move on Marijuana

Votes for first time to decriminalize, though it’s not going anywhere in the Senate
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 4, 2020 2:18 PM CST
 
Shrink
 
Marijuana grows at an indoor cannabis farm in Gardena, Calif., last year.   (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)
 
 

(Newser) – Reflecting changing attitudes among Americans, the House voted Friday to decriminalize marijuana. The measure, approved with support from both parties on a 228-164 vote, also would expunge nonviolent convictions related to marijuana offenses, the New York Times reports. And the drug would no longer be covered by the Controlled Substances Act. It’s the first time either chamber of Congress has voted to decriminalize pot, and Politico sees it as a “monumental step in marijuana policy.” However, the measure isn’t expected to go anywhere in the Senate anytime soon. Still, approval gives lawmakers something to build on in the future. “What we’re doing here is … recognizing that there is a longtime war on civil rights that was instituted by the Nixon administration,” says Rep. Jerry Nadler, sponsor of the bill. “And we’re eliminating it.”

Low-income communities of color have been hurt most by laws and policies intended to reduce the use of marijuana and other drugs, and the measure authorizes a 5% tax on marijuana that could be levied to help those communities and their small businesses, through grant programs. Rep. Jim McGovern says that when he’s asked what systemic racism is, he cites the drug laws. “People’s lives have been ruined—have been destroyed—by possessing just a small amount of cannabis.” Recreational cannabis now is legal in 15 states, and medical marijuana in 35. The ACLU found this year that though Black and white Americans use marijuana at about the same rates, Black people are four times as likely to be arrested for pot possession as white people.

Not so fast!

Sounds good coming from the House…but it will be a lead turd in the Senate…..

Analysis:  NOTHING HAS CHANGED!

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

It Is 4:20 Somewhere

Sunday and a history lesson…..

Weed has become a major news generator these days….not the old stuff but the move to legalize around the country.

We think of weed as a product of the 60s, the Hippies, and the counterculture…..but actually the herb has been used way before those long hair hippies came around…..

Archaeologists have unearthed the earliest direct evidence of people smoking marijuana from a 2,500-year-old graveyard in western China. In a complex of lofty tombs in the Pamir Mountains—a region near the borders of modern China, Pakistan, and Tajikistan—excavators found 10 wooden bowls and several stones containing burnt residue of the cannabis plant. Scientists believe heated stones were used to burn the marijuana and people then inhaled the smoke as part of a burial ritual, the AP reports. “It’s the earliest strong evidence of people getting high” on marijuana, said Mark Merlin, a botanist at the University of Hawaii. He was not involved in the research published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

The history of ancient drug use has long intrigued scholars. In the past century, archaeologists have found cannabis seeds and plants buried in tombs across Central Asia’s highlands. But since the cannabis plant has other uses—seeds are pressed for oil and fibers used for cloth—the presence of seeds alone doesn’t confirm drug use. Using new techniques for chemical analysis, the study’s scientists examined the residue and found evidence of THC, the compound that gives pot its high. Most wild cannabis plants have low levels of THC, so the researchers believe the people who built the graves deliberately selected or cultivated plants with higher amounts. “During funeral rites, the smokers may have hoped to communicate with the spirit world—or with the people they were burying,” says study co-author Yimin Yang.

But do not take my word for it……read the article for yourself…..

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/smoke-cannabis-get-high-weed-history-ancient-tombs-a8956021.html

Just a little something to think about on this 1st Sunday of Summer……

Random Thoughts For A Saturday

I spend a lot of time reading so I come across articles that make me made, or amaze me or those that make me laugh out loud and since I do not have a subject for today I will give some random thoughts…..

Remember the days when you were smoking weed and when it was really exceptional quality you would say…”this is some good shit”!  Sure you do!

That statement may be more literal than you think……

Cannabis resin sold on the streets of Madrid is contaminated with dangerous levels of faecal matter, a study says.

Traces of E.coli bacteria and the Aspergillus fungus were found by analysts who examined 90 samples bought in and around the Spanish capital.

The samples of hashish were wrapped up in plastic “acorns” were the worst offenders, reportedly because of the way they are smuggled into the country.

Some 40% of these also had the aroma of faeces, the study’s lead author said.

Buying, selling and importing cannabis is against the law in Spain, as is using it in public – although it is technically legal to grow it for personal use, provided it is not publicly visible, and to consume it in private.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47811251

We Americans pride ourselves on our successful revolution for independence from England…..we have our “heroes” but we know very little about our revolting days……we know the general George Washington but can you name another?  How about General Pulaski?

Casimir Pulaski, hero of the Revolutionary War and the pride of the Polish-American community, may need a new pronoun — he may have been a she, or even a they.

Researchers who used DNA to identify Pulaski’s bones are convinced the gallant Pole who died fighting for America’s freedom was either a biological woman who lived as a man, or potentially was intersex, meaning a person whose body doesn’t fit the standard definitions of male or female.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/revolutionary-war-hero-casimir-pulaski-might-have-been-woman-or-n991371

The general was a woman……that ought to get the juices flowing from those misogynists on the Right.

Finally….we have heard about “black holes” for decades but we have not been able to find them….all that changed this week…..

Mankind has now something it has never seen before: an image of “the most mysterious objects in the universe”—the black hole. On Wednesday, six simultaneous press conferences were held around the globe, in Washington, Brussels, Santiago, Shanghai, Taipei, and Tokyo, reports Reuters. There, researchers shared the first result of the Event Horizon Telescope project, which in 2017 swiveled a network of radio telescopes worldwide to focus on the center of the galaxy Messier 87, or M87. “We now have visual evidence for a black hole,” they announced. Per a tweet from the Event Horizon ‘Scope, “The image shows a bright ring formed as light bends in the intense gravity around a black hole that is 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun.”

  • More numbers: Per a press release, a black hole’s shadow is created by “the gravitational bending and capture of light by the event horizon,” the region around a black hole from which nothing, including light, can escape. “The shadow of a black hole is the closest we can come to an image of the black hole itself, a completely dark object.” In this case, “the black hole’s boundary—the event horizon from which the EHT takes its name—is around 2.5 times smaller than the shadow it casts and measures just under 40 billion km across.”
  • Wild similes: NPR says trying to view it by looking into the night sky from our planet would be like trying to spot a mustard seed in Washington, DC, from Brussels. The AFP likens it to taking a picture of a pebble on the moon from Earth.
  • The observations: The telescope array known as the Event Horizon Telescope saw radio observatories on six mountains across four continents study M87 over a 10-day period in April 2017. The New York Times reports they captured so much data—5,000 trillion bytes, reports CNN—that it couldn’t be sent over the internet and instead had to be transported on disks. Due to weather, the data from Antarctica couldn’t be flown out until December 2017.
  • More on the challenges: The Washington Post reports those hard drives from the South Pole had to be defrosted upon their arrival at MIT. And then there’s this detail: Astronomers “donned oxygen tanks and climbed three-mile-high mountains to escape the interference of Earth’s atmosphere.”
  • About Einstein: A beautiful explainer from the Times: “The image offered a final, ringing affirmation of an idea so disturbing that even Einstein, from whose equations black holes emerged, was loath to accept it. If too much matter is crammed into one place, the cumulative force of gravity becomes overwhelming, and the place becomes an eternal trap, a black hole. Here, according to Einstein’s theory, matter, space, and time come to an end and vanish like a dream.”

That is my round-up for a Saturday…..more to come……have a day……

The Dog Ate My Homework!

Still a good Saturday all around……my day in the garden is lovely….the wine is tasty……and the cheeses are magnificent…..

As usual I try to find interesting or humorous stuff to post on weekends to save my sanity from the circus we call our government…….I found a good one for today……..

We all have heard the story of the excuse for not having your homework….”my dog ate my homework”….right?  I actually used that excuse in high school and of course the teacher rolled her eyes….but I produced the shredded document with all the holes my dog had left when he had his way with the paper….the teacher was amazed that she had actually found a time when that excuse was accurate and not  con job…..

I recently read an article of something along those lines but instead of homework it is drugs……

“The mice ate the marijuana” was an excuse no more believable than “the dog ate my homework” for authorities in Argentina, where eight police officers have been fired over the disappearance of around 1,200 pounds of pot. The officers in Pinar, roughly 40 miles west of Buenos Aires, argued that the missing drugs had been “eaten by mice” in the warehouse for impounded drugs, the Guardian reports. Some 13,220 pounds of marijuana had been registered there two years earlier and investigators found that the total was more than half a ton short. Forensic experts testified that it was very unlikely that even a large number of rodents could have consumed so much marijuana.

A spokesperson for the judge said, “Buenos Aires University experts have explained that mice wouldn’t mistake the drug for food, and that if a large group of mice had eaten it, a lot of corpses would have been found in the warehouse.” The shortfall was noticed by the new police commissioner, who notified the internal affairs division. In a hearing next month, a judge will try to determine whether the marijuana went missing because of negligence. USA Today notes that although the internal affairs investigators in Argentina decided that rodents could not have consumed the missing pot, police in Wichita in 2013 said mice had managed to chew through evidence bags containing marijuana.

Really Chief….rats ate the weed…..

Yep sounds like a con job…the same as it was when you were in high school…..

What Happened To States Rights?

A mainstay of conservatism has been states rights…..when dealing with abortion, voting and now a days it is all about the marijuana…..a huge cash crop for states and now the DOJ is flexing its muscle…..

The AP on Thursday morning reported Attorney General Jeff Sessions was going to go after legalized marijuana, and so it came to pass. Sessions says he is rescinding a policy instituted under President Obama that had allowed legalized marijuana to flourish in six states, with more considering the move. While the drug is illegal at the federal level, Politico reports the Obama-era guidelines “effectively limited prosecutions” of entities who sold pot in accordance with their own state law. As for whether those prosecutions will now surge, who knows? “I can’t sit here and say whether it will or will not lead to more marijuana prosecutions,” one Justice Department official tells Politico, which notes the announcement seemed to be “deliberately vague” about its own impact. In a memo, Sessions noted that federal prosecutors should decide on their own whether to devote resources to marijuana cases based on other demands in their districts, per the AP. Read on for more on the move and one senator’s very vocal pushback.

Sessions crapping on states rights could drive the US Congress to take up the marijuana issue….until then Sessions will stomp on a conservative pillar….will this become the new conservatism for the 21st century?

What say you?

Grow, Grow, Let It Grow

Native Americans have been crapped on for over 200 years…..whites have hunted then for sport, stole their land, suppressed their culture and starved them……how could they ever rebound from the mass persecution?

First, it was cigarette sells that offered some minor cash compensation….then came gambling which offered a better compensation package….what more could they possibly do to become more self-sufficient?

It seems what began in Colorado has grown into a multimillion dollar industry and spread quickly to other states….but now Native Americans have another weapon at their disposal……MARIJUANA!

Could tribal marijuana be as big a moneymaker as tribal casinos? The federal government has cleared the way for Native American tribes across the country to grow and sell marijuana on their land, reports the AP. The Justice Department says growing and selling will be allowed on reservations—even in states where the drug remains illegal—as long as the tribes follow the same federal guidelines in place in states that have legalized marijuana, including not selling it to minors and not transporting it to areas where it’s outlawed.

“The tribes have the sovereign right to set the code on their reservations,” the US attorney for North Dakota tells the Los Angeles Times. Pot grown on reservations won’t be subject to federal or state taxes, but it’s not clear how many tribes will go into the marijuana business: Many oppose legalization, and the Yakama Nation in Washington state, where pot is legal, has banned it on the reservation. The US attorney for Oregon says that so far, only three tribes of the 566 across the country have shown any interest.

Grow, Grow, Let It Grow!

Building A Case?

Yea….the weekend……now let’s talk about other stuff…..

I recently wrote about the first death linked to the legalization of marijuana in Colorado……in case you missed it………http://lobotero.com/2014/04/15/how-long-did-it-take/ ………..and now there is another horror story coming out of Colorado………

A pair of enterprising fourth-graders in Colorado got caught dealing marijuana pilfered from home at their elementary school, reports ABC News. Officials at the school in Greeley originally got police involved, but they’ve decided to handle it internally with suspensions and with a message to grown-ups: “For crying out loud, secure it,” asks the school district’s security chief.

Authorities say one boy stole (legally bought) marijuana from his grandparents and sold it to three young buyers at his school, netting himself $11 in the process. The next day, one of those buyers brought in a marijuana candy bar and tried to swap it for some of the leafy stuff, reports CBS Local. “It was the simple fact that we had adults that didn’t secure their marijuana,” says the school official. “That sure is concerning because this would have never happened had the marijuana not been so accessible to two 10-year-old boys.” The two other buyers, also 10, face suspensions, too.

I expected to see the opponents of legalization jump all over any negative stories about weed and use it to try and reverse the legalization…..so far not much is happening…….