The Straight Toke - THE Marijuana Blog

Some of you may have heard of CannabisNews.com, or The Media Awareness Project. These news aggregation sites offer a frequently-updated collection of marijuana-related news articles.

Recently, I've started to use another site for my pot-related news: CannabisNews.org. This ad-free, non-commercial site offers a rather nice categorization of marijuana news by country: so if you're looking for pot news in the US, Canada, or the United Kingdom, it might be a good idea to check them out.

Your Brother in Peace,
Julius

Today is 4-20, a day celebrated by stoners the world 'round. As 420 is one of the symbols of stoner culture, it is only fitting that potheads, tokers, and occasional weed smokers celebrate on this day; no government will ever make a marijuana holiday, so we may as well pick one ourselves ;-)

Happy 4-20 from The Straight Toke. Here's to another good year of great bud -- let's all blaze one in honor of our brothers and sisters.

Your Brother in Peace,
Julius

Some 36 years after President Nixon was advised by the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse to decriminalize cannabis, a bill has been proposed to decriminalize marijuana in the United States. Not a single state. Not some territories. The whole thing. Needless to say, this is a pretty big deal -- so if you're a US reader, please head on over to the Marijuana Policy Project's easy action center and help support this marijuana decriminalization bill.

Just a heads-up to those tokers in Phoenix, AZ (in the United States) -- when crossing the border, make sure that your car is clean. The Border Patrol has taken to stopping all inbound cars, and letting sniffer dogs find those who choose to smoke pot. Granted, this is most likely illegal under the Fourth Ammendment to the US Constitution ("The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated") -- but that isn't stopping them from working on busting even small-time smokers:

One of our readers e-mailed me a link to the ONDCP's list of "street terms" for cannabis. As is usual with government agencies, they got it right.... kinda.

• 420 - They said: "marijuana use". Kinda. 420 refers either to the concept of marijuana use as a whole, or to marijuana-related things (i.e. a shot glass with 4:20 on the side is obviously referring to marijuana) -- but nobody uses 420 to refer to a specific instance of marijuana use (as in "Hey, do you wanna go have some 420?")

One of our readers alerted us to this account from a chemotherapy patient about their use of marijuana (from the LA Times.)

While it's absolutely heart-wrenching to hear about the pain and suffering caused by cancer (and its subsequent treatment), we think that Mrs. Wagman's account of her medicinal use of marijuana provides an excellent example of the value of cannabis. The article also contains several items of interest:

Marijuana use is more frequent than many people expect:

No, what really shocked me was how many of my old, dear, married, parenting, job-holding friends smoke pot. [...] Across the ideological spectrum, a lot of my buddies are stoners. Who knew?

A while ago, we posted an article about the DEA's actions against Californian medical marijuana patients. Recently, there's been a pretty big development regarding medical cannabis: the police are giving it back!

Yep -- it's true: in two separate cases, in California and Colorado, police have been ordered to return confiscated medical marijuana. In California, Felix Kha was returned 1/3 ounce of medical marijuana, as his possession was found to be legal under California's Proposition 215. Needless to say, this sets a strong legal precedent in favor of Proposition 215. Cases like this can do quite a bit to strengthen existing laws, so this is a major win for Californian medical marijuana users. The best part of the decision? The courts stated that marijuana is important to the "health and well-being" of citizens:

From time to time, I like to take a moment out of my life to think of all the things I should not do if I were to have marijuana:

1. Carry 32 ounces of pot around at a time.
2. Doing #1 in the United States.
3. Go 20mph over the speed limit, while carrying two pounds of pot.
4. Carry a gun in my vehicle while doing #3.
5. Carry four guns in my vehicle while doing #3.
6. Take my son along with me while doing all of the above.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what Jimmie Cumbee did:

Is Dutch weed really that much stronger than what's available elsewhere? If so, why?

Marijuana's strength is measured in terms of the available concentration of THC. The strongest commonly-available strain of Cannabis contains 22.1% THC -- quite a lot, considering that naturally occurring Marijuana only contains somewhere between two and five percent THC.

Dutch Cannabis typically contains more than 15% THC, but that figure fluctuates from year to year as demonstrated in a report by the Trimbos Institute:

The average level tested in 2007 is 16% compared to 17.5% in 2006.

Dear Julius:
I've read a couple articles recently about the DEA seizing/harassing medical users/growers in California. What's up with that? Isn't grass legal there if its [sic] used as medicine?

That's exactly what I thought when I started seeing those sort of articles -- what is up with that? After all, California passed Proposition 215

To ensure that seriously ill Californians have the right to obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes where that medical use is deemed appropriate and has been recommended by a physician who has determined that the person's health would benefit from the use of marijuana in the treatment of cancer, anorexia, AIDS, chronic pain, spasticity, glaucoma, arthritis, migraine, or any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.