Author: Thomas Edward

[ad_1] It is a celebratory time in one of New York City’s most historic neighborhoods, which will open its first legal marijuana dispensary next week.  The dispensary, known as Gotham Buds, has a “tentative grand opening” scheduled on September 5 at its location just across the street from the iconic Apollo Theater, according to CBS New York. The local news station noted that the opening of the business has faced “some pushback from the community.” A Harlem-based business group called the 125th Street Business Improvement District filed a lawsuit in April with the New York Supreme Court, claiming that the…

[ad_1] Government officials in the Bahamas last week introduced a number of measures that would dramatically change the country’s marijuana laws, including one proposal that would legalize cannabis for religious and medical purposes. The Associated Press reports that the Bahamian government introduced “several bills” aimed at marijuana reform. One, according to the AP, would decriminalize possession of small amounts of pot. More from the Associated Press on the proposals: “If approved, those caught with less than 30 grams (one ounce) of marijuana would pay a $250 fine and the incident would not appear on their criminal record. Buying marijuana for…

[ad_1] The South Dakota Department of Health has issued roughly 11,500 cards since the medical marijuana program launched in 2021––shattering the department’s projections of 6,000 cards issued by 2024.  “We’ve doubled the amount that we were projecting to see in three years within two years,” said Jennifer Seale, the administrator of South Dakota’s medical cannabis program, as quoted by the local news outlet South Dakota Searchlight. Seale made the comments in testimony on Monday before the Medical Marijuana Oversight Committee in the state legislature.  Members of the committee expressed concern at the ease with which patients have gained access to…

[ad_1] Officials in Duluth, Minnesota this week approved an ordinance that will ban smoking marijuana in all city parks. The passage of the measure came about two weeks after a new state law allowing recreational cannabis use for adults aged 21 and older took effect on August 1. Minnesota Public Radio reports that the newly passed ordinance “also bans vaping marijuana, and extends a ban on smoking tobacco to all city parks,” although consuming “cannabis in other forms, such as gummies, is still allowed.” Previously, according to MPR, smoking pot “was only forbidden in select parks.” The ordinance was approved…

[ad_1] The Associated Press reports that authorities in Indonesia burned a marijuana plantation “after it was discovered by drones.” “A joint team of the National Narcotic Agency, known as BNN, and the National Research and Innovation Agency using drones detected 4.5 hectares (11 acres) of land with an estimated 21,100 cannabis plants ready for harvest, said Wayan Sugiri, the deputy for eradication at BNN. The aerial operation was conducted from Aug. 3 to 13 in Teupin Reuseup village in North Aceh district,” according to the Associated Press. Indonesia, the largest Muslim-majority country in the world, has extremely strict laws prohibiting…

[ad_1] Germany took a major step toward marijuana reform on Wednesday when the country’s cabinet approved a bill that will liberalize its cannabis laws. The approval comes a month after the country’s ministry of health released the draft bill of the new marijuana regulations. After Wednesday, the measure still must be approved by the German parliament before it becomes law, but it marks a significant step. As the Associated Press put it, the approval by the cabinet sets the stage “for the European Union’s most populous member to decriminalize possession of limited amounts and allow members of ‘cannabis clubs’ to…

[ad_1] The Missouri Division of Cannabis Regulation said that it is “issuing a patient and consumer communication to alert patients and consumers about a mandatory product recall” affecting “manufactured products sold to dispensaries and manufacturers by infused product manufacturer, Delta Extraction, LLC, MAN000022.” According to the agency, the “recalled products were not compliantly tracked in the statewide track and trace system (METRC) in order for [Division of Cannabis Regulation] to verify the products came from marijuana grown in Missouri or that the product passed required testing prior to being sold at dispensaries.”  Monday’s notice said that no “adverse reactions for…

[ad_1] In an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday, Janet Yellen recounted eating at a restaurant chain in Beijing called Yi Zuo Yi Wang, a meal that had Chinese social media abuzz last month. A post on Weibo, the popular Chinese blog platform, detailed what Yellen’s party ordered that day, including “jian shou qing, an unusual yet highly sought-after mushroom prized for its unique properties,” according to CNN. Those properties can include hallucinations –– unless the mushrooms are cooked and prepared a certain way, which was the case when Yellen dined there. “So I went with this large group of…

[ad_1] Tex-Mex restaurant E-Bar has been the talk of the town for its anti-stoner policy that is spelled out in a sign posted on its window: “If You Have The Smell Of Marijuana On You We Will Not Serve You.” (“Marijuana” is underlined for good measure.) The signage has drawn recent attention, including in a story published Wednesday by The Dallas Observer. But the owner of the restaurant, Ernie Quinlantan, told the publication that the policy has actually been enforced for five years. The Observer noted that sometimes “when the windows are cleaned, the sign gets taken down, then is…

[ad_1] Officials working on the United States-Canada border late last month seized a massive shipment of marijuana that, at first blush, looked like an 8-year-old’s favorite breakfast. U.S. Attorney Trini E. Ross announced on Friday that “Ajaypal Dhillon, 22, of Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, was arrested and charged by criminal complaint with possession with intent to distribute 100 kilograms or more of marijuana and importing marijuana into the United States,” and that the charges “carry a mandatory minimum penalty of five years in prison, a maximum of 40 years, and a $5,000,000 fine.” According to Friday’s announcement, the arrest and bust…

[ad_1] Police in San Francisco said last week that they have already seized more narcotics this year than in all of 2022, representing what they described as an “unprecedented amount.” The city’s police department announced in a news release on Friday that its officers have seized more than 123 kilograms of narcotics so far in 2023, saying that the drug seizures “come amid an ongoing focus by SFPD and partner agencies to dismantle the open-air drug markets in the [Tenderloin District],” one of the city’s art and music enclaves that has been plagued by crime, and other adjacent neighborhoods.  The…

[ad_1] One woman’s experience in a clinical trial on ketamine therapy turned into a real Mickey Mouse operation.  In a study published last month in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, a group of researchers based in Canada sought to “investigate how previous environmental stimuli shaped the experiences of patients receiving ketamine for treatment-resistant depression (TRD), and develop the concept of ‘imprinting’ to account for such time-lagged effects across diverse hallucinogenic drugs.” “Psychedelic drug experiences are shaped by current-moment contextual factors, commonly categorized as internal (set) and external (setting). Potential influences of past environments, however, have received little attention,” they wrote. The…