TheBongPlace: The Marijuana Blog

Keith and Andrea Irelan’s 8 year old daughter got more then she bargained for when they bought a happy meal for her on Monday night. What started out as a planned trip to their local McDonald’s restaurant followed by a picnic in the park turned into a big surprise for the
Child Finds Marijuana in Her McDonald’s Happy Meal
Chicago area family according to WMAQ-Chicago.

It was after the Irelans got to the park with their three children that their daughter, who the parents did not want to identify, told her parents that she had received more then one toy in her Happy Meal. Andrea asked her daughter what she received and her daughter replied “A lighter, and another toy”. When her mother looked inside her Happy Meal box she found the Shrek toy that should be in there, but was shocked to find not only the lighter her daughter mentioned, but a small marijuana pipe and a small bag of marijuana.

The Irelans immediately called police who went to the McDonald’s where the meals were purchased to interview the employee’s. On Tuesday, with the help of fellow employees and managers at the McDonald’s, Ottawa police arrested 17 year old McDonald’s employee (now former) Brandon Scott. Ottawa Police Chief Brian Zeilmann said Scott has been charged with possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Police said Scott told them he had come into work for the day and forgot he had his marijuana and pipe in his pocket. He decided to hide the bag of weed, his lighter and the pipe in one of the Happy Meal boxes until he could get it at the end of his shift. Unfortunately for him though he forgot the box and left it where another employee could grab it and put the child’s food and toy into it. The employee was quickly throwing the contents in the box and never noticed the items that were in it.

McDonald’s released a statement saying the employee who was detained and subsequently arrest by police was immediately fired and they have offered a formal apology to the Irelans. The Irelans though say that is not enough for the pain and embarrassment they have had to go through on top of the effect they said the incident will have on their daughter and have planned to sue the McDonald’s corporation.

Floridians could vote for the first time next year to allow marijuana for medical use. A petition drive, started last week by an Orlando woman whose father has Parkinson’s disease, would make the drug legal for any condition as prescribed by a doctor.

Marijuana is the only drug Cathy Jordan says helps her fight Lou Gehrig’s disease. The 59-year-old mother smokes two joints every night to relieve depression and muscle spasms, and to boost her appetite.

“It’s keeping me alive,” said Jordan in an interview at her home in Parrish. “Anti-depressants made me a zombie and other drugs had bad side effects. The crime is that people like me can’t get it legally.”

Floridians could vote for the first time next year to allow marijuana for medical use. A petition drive, started last week by an Orlando woman whose father has Parkinson’s disease, would make the drug legal for any condition as prescribed by a doctor.

The last time such an organized effort to legalize marijuana occurred in Florida was 1997, just one year after California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana. But in Florida the petitioners fell hundreds of thousands of signatures short of getting to a state referendum.

This time the movement faces some of the same roadblocks, such as opposition from law enforcement and a lack of support by the majority of the medical community.

But the climate has become more favorable in ways that could shift the balance.

A dozen other states have approved medical marijuana since Florida last tried to get it on the ballot, and four state legislatures are currently considering proposals.

Federal law, while it has prohibited marijuana since 1937, is also shifting: Last month, Attorney General Eric Holder said the federal government would stop raiding marijuana distributors in states where it is legal.

And Florida’s proponents, People United For Medical Marijuana, hope they can make the argument that legalizing the drug could create tax revenue and jobs to lift the state economy. Kim Russell, the founder, suggested $200 million a year could be gained in tax revenue.

In every state where medical marijuana has been on the ballot it has been successful, with the exception of South Dakota, where it barely lost with 48 percent of the vote. The challenge in Florida will be slightly steeper because the state requires a 60 percent majority vote.

Getting the proposal on the ballot remains the biggest concern for proponents. The state political action group, People United for Medical Marijuana, needs to collect 676,811 signatures from registered voters in 10 months.

Jordan and her husband, Bob, collected signatures back in 1997 on Manatee Avenue and said it was “nearly impossible” to get even 25 a day, and that many people were scared to sign their names to a document linking them to marijuana.

Instead of relying on sick people or patient advocates to get the word out, Russell is focusing on college students and social networking Web sites such as Facebook — a tactic that could either help mobilize a statewide army or provide an easy target for opponents.

One of the main arguments against legalizing medical marijuana is that the effort is a veiled move to improve access to the drug for anyone who wants it. Bill Janes, director of Florida’s Office of Drug Control, and the Florida Sheriff’s Association have already come out against it.

“When we increase the availability of marijuana we increase the availability for young people,” Janes said. “What this petition doesn’t address is how the marijuana will be controlled. Will we just allow random growing of marijuana?”

More than 4,800 people, many of them college students, have joined the Facebook page in support of the petition, which the Florida Division of Elections recently approved, and Russell said hundreds of students at campuses around the state have agreed to pass petitions. The campaign manager is Joshua Giesegh, a 20-year-old who said he is taking the year off from University of Central Florida to focus on marijuana advocacy. He is also a proponent of legalizing the drug for recreational use.

“I used to be one of those people who believed all the lies about marijuana that you learn in D.A.R.E,” an antidrug program offered in schools, Giesegh said in a phone interview. “Then I watched my grandpa die of cancer. He wouldn’t eat anything. I don’t want anyone else to suffer like that.”

People United For Medical Marijuana is not affiliated with national or professional fundraising organizations, and Russell said raising money will be the biggest challenge. She estimates they need up to $5 million for advertising and administrative costs, declining to say how much has been raised so far.

In the drive for signatures, state government leaders could potentially pose a threat, as they have generally grown less tolerant of marijuana. Last year the Legislature voted to strengthen laws against illegal growers. Janes said the tax revenue estimates by the petitioners were overblown and assumed use of the drug would become widespread.

Florida’s petition leaves it to the Legislature to decide how to regulate distribution and sale of the drug. While California’s bare-bones law has led to what some critics say is overprescription of marijuana, more current laws, such as the one that recently passed in Michigan, have guidelines meant to ensure only the truly ill will be able to get it.

In California, marijuana is sold in private shops called dispensaries. In other states patients with prescriptions for marijuana are required to carry ID cards, and it is only allowed to be grown by the patient or a designated caregiver.

Medically speaking, studies have shown benefits from marijuana, particularly for glaucoma and tremors. It has also been shown to increase appetite and alleviate the nausea caused by cancer treatments.

But the major medical associations have stopped short of endorsing it. The American Medical Association in November reconfirmed its decade-old policy that more research was needed. But it did assign a task force to take a closer look.

Dr. Jameel Audeh, a Sarasota oncologist, said back in 1985 when he was in training, marijuana was one of the best ways to relieve nausea in cancer patients. But now there are legal drugs he said work as well, including a legalized pill containing a synthetic version of the ingredient found in marijuana, THC. The potential health problems caused by marijuana, such as lung damage, outweigh the need for it, Audeh said.

“For cancer patients, this would only be needed for a very narrow group, if anyone, and I’m not sure that justifies making it legal because of all the other problems it would cause,” Audeh said.

A terminally ill cancer patient in Sarasota, who asked not to be identified because he does not want to be targeted by police, believes marijuana has kept him alive two years longer than doctors expected. He does not grow it himself because of the risk of getting caught.

Instead he relies on gifts from friends or dealers who charge up to $100 a week. Mainly the drug helps with his mood and appetite, he said. The cancer started in his esophagus and spread to his lungs, stomach and liver. When smoking marijuana became painful because it made him cough, a friend made a vaporizer from a heat gun and a plastic bag.

“Cancer is a fight against appetite and keeping weight on,” he said in an interview at his home. “If you can keep the weight on you can stay alive longer.”

To anyone who thinks it should be illegal, he urges compassion. He is 61 and has two children. At just over 5-foot-10, he weighs only 145 pounds.

“It gives me a quality of life I wouldn’t have without it.”

- Article from the Herald Tribune.

President Barack Obama brushed off a question about legalizing marijuana in his online town hall last month, but guitar god Carlos Santana says he wishes he would seriously consider it.

“Legalize marijuana and take all that money and invest it in teachers and in education,” Santana said in an interview this week. “You will see a transformation in America.”

During his online town hall on March 26, Obama fielded a question about whether legalization of the illicit drug would help pull the nation out of recession. Obama said he didn’t think it was good economic policy, and also joked: “I don’t know what this says about the online audience.”

But Santana said making pot legal is “really way overdue, like the prohibition with the alcohol and stuff like that.

“I really believe that as soon as we legalize and decriminalize marijuana we can actually afford a really good governor who won’t keep taking money away from education and from teachers and send him back to Hollywood where he can do ‘D’ movies and we can get an ‘A’ governor,” referring to former movie action hero and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Santana made the comments as he was promoting his upcoming rock residency in Las Vegas at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. The show debuts May 27 and runs through 2010.

“It’s a milestone for me because I always said I would never do certain things,” Santana said, adding that the list included staying in one place for too long.

“Yet what is very different is this is the year I decided to do all the things that I said I would never do. It’s a way of coming into a room that I thought was dark and I would be afraid and I actually bring my light to it.”

Santana, whose hits vary from “Evil Ways” to “Maria Maria,” said he is also working on two upcoming albums.

While the 61-year-old has previously talked about a possible retirement, he’s decided to be more careful about predicting the future.

“Every time I tell God my plans he cracks up, he starts laughing. So I just decided to be quiet for a while and not say that I am going to retire and go to Maui and become a minister,” he said. “God was cracking up. He thought it was a good joke. So I said, ‘OK.’ Every time I want to make him laugh I tell him my plans. So we’ll see.”

- Article from The Associated Press.

New research out of Spain suggests that THC — the active ingredient in marijuana — appears to prompt the death of brain cancer cells.
The finding is based on work with mice designed to carry human cancer tumors, as well as from an analysis of THC’s impact on tumor cells extracted from two patients coping with a highly aggressive form of brain cancer.

Explaining that the introduction of THC into the brain triggers a cellular self-digestion process known as “autophagy,” study co-author Guillermo Velasco said his team has isolated the specific pathway by which this process unfolds, and noted that it appears “to kill cancer cells, while it does not affect normal cells.”

Velasco is with the department of biochemistry and molecular biology in the School of Biology at Complutense University in Madrid. The findings were published in the April issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

The Spanish researchers focused on two patients suffering from “recurrent glioblastoma multiforme,” a fast-moving form of brain cancer. Both patients had been enrolled in a clinical trial designed to test THC’s potential as a cancer therapy.

Using electron microscopes to analyze brain tissue taken both before and after a 26- to 30-day THC treatment regimen, the researchers found that THC eliminated cancer cells while it left healthy cells intact.

The team also was able, in what it described as a “novel” discovery, to track the signaling route by which this process was activated.

These findings were replicated in work with mice, which had been “engineered” to carry three different types of human cancer tumor grafts.

“These results may help to design new cancer therapies based on the use of medicines containing the active principle of marijuana and/or in the activation of autophagy,” Velasco said.

Outside experts suggested that more research is needed before advocating marijuana as a medicinal intervention for brain cancer.

Dr. John S. Yu, co-director of the Comprehensive Brain Tumor Program in the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said the findings were “not surprising.”

“There have been previous reports to this effect as well,” he said. “So this is yet another indication that THC has an anti-cancer effect, which means it’s certainly worth further study. But it does not suggest that one should jump at marijuana for a potential cure for cancer, and one should not urge anyone to start smoking pot right away as a means of curing their own cancer.”

But that’s exactly what many brain cancer patients have been doing, said Dr. Paul Graham Fisher, the Beirne Family director of Neuro-Oncology at Stanford University.

“In fact, 40 percent of brain tumor patients in the U.S. are already using alternative treatments, ranging from herbals to vitamins to marijuana,” he said. “But that actually points out a cautionary tale here, which is that many brain cancer patients are already rolling a joint to treat themselves, but we’re not really seeing brain tumors suddenly going away as a result, which we clearly would’ve noticed if it had that effect. So we need to be open-minded. But this suggests that the promise of THC might be a little over-hoped, and certainly requires further investigation before telling people to go out and roll a joint.”

How to create your very own light bulb vaporizer.

This is an advanced project, but if you’re a creative smoker, this could be fun for you. Mind you, the recreational smoking of marijuana is illegal. Use this how to at your own risk.

Step 1

First take your light bulb and wrap it snuggly in the t-shirt to avoid injury, just in case it breaks.

Therapeutic use of marijuana has a history spanning over 4,500 years.
The most humane and just approach to helping the sick requires that we continue the availability of medical marijuana. Evidence supporting medical marijuana for appetite loss, glaucoma, nausea, vomiting, spasticity, pain, and weight loss is quite impressive. Evidence for its use for arthritis, dystonia, insomnia, seizures, and Tourette’s syndrome is also very promising.

Opponents of medical marijuana mention that other drugs are available for each of these disorders. Nevertheless, people differ. We have multiple treatments for almost every human problem. Some patients do not respond well to other medications and need medical marijuana to alleviate their symptoms. Many pharmaceutical drugs create aversive side effects that these patients cannot endure. In addition, medical marijuana is often markedly cheaper than these other medications.

Opponents of medical marijuana often point to dronabinol, the synthetic version of one of marijuana’s active ingredients that is available in pill form. The use of only one active ingredient makes dronabinol less effective than medical marijuana. Many ailments respond better to a combination of marijuana’s active ingredients rather than just one. In addition, because dronabinol is a pill, it is difficult for people with nausea and vomiting to swallow. Finally, like any medication that’s swallowed, dronabinol takes a long time to digest and have its effects. Inhaled marijuana vapors can work markedly faster.

Concern over marijuana’s impact on respiratory health is easily remedied. There are no links between marijuana use and lung cancer or emphysema. The associations between smoked marijuana and symptoms like coughing and wheezing can be remedied with the vaporizer. The vaporizer heats the plant so that active ingredients boil off into a fine mist but the plant itself never ignites. The mist contains no tars or noxious gases, making respiratory complications a thing of the past.

The Medford City Council Subcommittee on Public Safety will meet on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 at 6 p.m. in Room 207, Council Office, Medford City Hall.

The purpose of the meeting is to review Council Resolution 09-024 — “Local Options relative to fines and other penalties to marijuana usage in public places.”

The Committee has requested that Chief Leo Sacco, Lt. Mike O’Brien, president of the Superior Officers Union, Harold McGilvary, president of the Patrolmen’s Union, City Solicitor Mark Rumley and Board of Health Director Karen attend the meeting to address the resolutions and amendments.

State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) introduced legislation this week to legalize and regulate the commercial production and sale of cannabis for adults age 21 or over. The proposal - Assembly Bill 390: The Marijuana Control, Regulation and Education Act - is the first bill ever to be introduced in the California legislature that seeks to tax and control the sale of cannabis.

Ammiano introduced AB 390 at a press conference Monday. Joining the assemblyman in support of the measure were Betty Yee, Chairwoman of the California Board of Equalization (Taxation), Oakland City Council member Rebecca Kaplan, Orange County Superior Court Judge James P. Gray (retired), and Dale Gieringer, Coordinator of California NORML, which provided legislative text and financial analysis for the bill.

“With the state in the midst of an historic economic crisis, the move toward regulating and taxing marijuana is simply common sense,” Ammiano said. “This legislation would generate much needed revenue for the state, restrict access to only those over 21, end the environmental damage to our public lands from illicit crops, and improve public safety by redirecting law enforcement efforts to more serious crimes. California has the opportunity to be the first state in the nation to enact a smart, responsible public policy for the control and regulation of marijuana.”

Local news anchors from CBS, ABC, NBC, and PBS television covered the press conference. National stories regarding Ammiano’s bill have appeared in USA Today, as well as on Air America and CNN.

As introduced, AB 390 would raise over $1.3 billion in annual revenue by taxing the retail production and sale of marijuana, according to financial estimates provided by the California Board of Equalization. An economic analysis by California NORML estimates that a legal, statewide retail market for cannabis could generate additional revenues totaling some $12 to $18 billion dollars per year.

The noncommercial cultivation of marijuana for personal use - defined as ten plants or fewer - would not be subject to taxation under the proposal. In addition, AB 390 would not alter existing legislation on the use of medicinal cannabis, nor would it impose new taxes or sanctions on the medical cultivation of cannabis.

A recent Zogby poll of 1,053 likely voters, commissioned by California NORML and Oaksterdam University, reported that nearly six out of ten respondents on the west coast favor taxing and legally regulating cannabis like alcohol.

“This bill is a winning proposition for California taxpayers,” Gieringer said. “It’s time that California stops wasting resources trying to enforce marijuana prohibition, and instead realizes the tax benefits derived from a legal, regulated cannabis market.”