Cannabis > Cannabis News Archives > June 2007
+ 30th June 2007 | Hemp products are cheap, good for the environment (USA)
Source: Auburn Journal (CA USA)
Author: Emily Canterbury
It has come to my attention that people haven't recognized the importance of hemp, and how to use it in our daily life. I feel it could be a great new resource used in our society.
Hemp can take the role of trees, for instance, hemp paper could be used while trees could be built into houses. Hemp is harvested for its fibers made for hemp clothing, seeds, and hemp oil. With a relatively short growth cycle of 100-120 days, it is an efficient and economical crop for farmers to grow.
Hemp is among one of the most productive and useful plants known; also very safe. Hemp can be easily constructed to make paper, textiles, building materials, food, medicine, paint, detergent, varnish, oil, ink, and fuel. Unlike many crops, hemp can be grown in most locations and climates with only moderate water and fertilizer requirements. Where hemp is grown, it has become a valuable and environmentally friendly crop.
It's obvious that it conserves trees and it's easier to generate.
Since hemp products are incredibly easy to make, the price of them is reasonably cheap. Now is the time to ask yourself, why haven't I been using hemp products?
+ 29th June 2007 | Reefer Madness: This is your brain on Drugs (USA)
Source: Austin Chronicle (TX USA)
Author: Jordan Smith
When in doubt, go old-school or, at least, why not give it a shot, especially if you don't have anything and I mean anything else going for you? But remember: Retro isn't always hip and when it comes to the sad, sad (and ever more sad) White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, "retro" is just plainass embarrassing.
Case in point: Now that summer is here, so is the ONDCP's latest attempt at scaring you into believing that drugs no, rather, marijuana, is bad, bad, bad. According to the new ONDCP youth anti-drug media campaign report released by the feds this month, kids (that is youth, ages 12-17) who smoke pot are "at least" four times as likely to join a gang as their nontoking brethren.
Yes! Gangs! Pot smoking leads kids to gangs!
And if you don't know what that means OK, the ONDCP is here to point you in the right direction if you're confused.
Kids who smoke pot are more likely to be violent, to get into fights, and gasp! to steal.
Steal!
Sound familiar?
Are you looking around for clues that you're actually in the 21st century and not stuck in, say, 1936? Perhaps you're recalling a certain bit of black-and-white cinematic propaganda, in which the evil weed causes good boys to go bad to rape, to kill, and to go completely insane.
+ 29th June 2007 | Pot grower's house seized (CN)
Source: Era-Banner, The (CN ON)
Author: Joe Fantauzzi, Staff Writer
Newmarket - A Maple marijuana grower was sentenced to 16 months in jail and had his house seized by the Crown Wednesday.
Thanh Tung Dam, 43, pleaded guilty to production of a controlled substance in Newmarket court in connection with a York Regional Police raid at a Cherokee Drive home in November 2006.
Drug and vice officers found more than 400 plants and growing equipment inside the Major Mackenzie Drive and Jane Street area home.
Investigators found a large amount of marijuana and evidence to suggest some marijuana had been harvested before the raid, police said.
The hydro had been bypassed and the home was fortified. An alarm and surveillance camera system monitored activity at the front of the house.
+ 28th June 2007 | Support use of medical marijuana (USA)
Source: Kalamazoo Gazette (MI USA)
Author: Greg Francisco
If we must pursue a War on Drugs, can't we at least do the compassionate thing and remove the sick and dying from the battle field? A ballot initiative recently launched by the Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care does exactly that.
The cannabis plant has been used for millennia as a natural, healing herb. References to cannabis date back to 5,000 years ago in China.
The Old Testament contains multiple references to cannabis (kaneh
bosm) and directs that it be burned in the temple. In New Testament times cannabis was widely used to ease the pains of child birth. And to anoint the dead.
Here in the United States, cannabis ranked as the first, second or third most commonly prescribed medication yearly from 1850 to 1900.
Among the early products of Kalamazoo's Upjohn Company were cannabis preparations.
Only in 1937, over the objections of the American Medical Association, did cannabis become illegal. Since Americans were quite familiar -- and comfortable -- with cannabis this required coining a new name, thus evoking the boogie man of a "new" drug menace sweeping the land.
The word marijuana did not exist in the English language prior to 1937.
+ 27th June 2007 | Top Indonesian MP says dope in food 'Okay'
Source: Sunday Times (Australia)
Author: Unknown (From correspondents in Jakarta)
INDONESIAN Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who opposes legalising marijuana, doesn't mind the drug being used in cooking, a newspaper reported today.
"It's alright to use it as a food seasoning, but it should not be fully legalised,'' Mr Kalla was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Post.
Mr Kalla was commenting on a recent study by two Indonesian agencies dealing with drug abuse that recommended the Government review its policy to outlaw the use of marijuana for recreational purposes, the Post said.
Many of dishes in Aceh province, where hemp plants are grown, such as mutton and beef curry are said to be laced with marijuana seeds to give them a distinctive local flavour.
A drug expert from the National Narcotics Agency reportedly said Indonesia should follow the example of countries like the Netherlands, where marijuana is legal, because it is not as harmful as people thought.
+ 18th June 2007 | Half of prisoners test positive for Pot
Source: Herald Sun (Australia)
Author: Susanna Dunkerley
MORE than 50 per cent of Australia's prisoners tested positive to cannabis over the past year, a new report has found.
The Australian Institute of Criminology today released two comprehensive reports focusing on drug use and intimate relationship violence among prison detainees.
The data was collected from more than 4500 people in police custody at nine sites across the nation.
The data was taken from voluntary questionnaires filled out by the police detainees, 70 per cent of whom also provided urine tests.
The report showed that drug use and intimate relationship violence was high among detainees.
More than 50 per cent tested positive for cannabis, nearly a quarter tested positive to methamphetamines, and around eight per cent to heroin.
Director of the Australian Institute of Criminology Toni Makkai said the figures showed that methamphetamine use among detainees had grown since data was first collected in 1999.
+ 10th June 2007 | Greens' Cannabis Shame
Source: Herald Sun (Australia)
Authors: Chris Tinkler and Liam Houlihan
THE GREENS' chief policy strategist in Victoria has admitted she helped organise a cannabis festival.
Freja Leonard, chief of staff to Victorian Greens MP Greg Barber, used to be a coordinator at Mardi Grass, Nimbin's pot celebration.
Mothers of overdose victims are calling for Ms Leonard to resign and say the revelation raises major questions over Mr Barber's judgment.
The illegal festival features widespread drug-taking, nudity and the Hemp Cup - a judging section designed to find the best marijuana.
Ms Leonard refused to say whether she had taken any illegal drugs during her stay in Nimbin.
+ 5th June 2007 | Lismore protesters court publicity
Source: Lismore Northern Star (Australia)
Author: Helen Jack
The Lismore Courthouse was the scene for a peaceful protest yesterday when 20 people gathered to voice opposition over the outlawing of cannabis and to support a group of people facing court charged with drug-related offences after Nimbin MardiGrass.
Protest organiser and Nimbin Hemp Embassy president Michael Balderstone said the protest was never intended to disrupt court proceedings yesterday.
"We were there to support people who were busted and to witness the whole affair, and to make our point that the war against cannabis is a lost war," he said.
+ NEWS HEADLINES
JUNE 2007
