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Canada bears may have been used to guard marijuana

Wednesday, 08 September 2010 00:00

(NECN/CNN) - A Canadian man is speaking out after he was accused of using black bears to protect a garden of marijuana.

Video featuring Allan Piche feeding the bears went viral, and the story took off. Media reports described the bears as "guard bears" for a marijuana grow operation.

But Piche says none of that is true -- the bears just started coming up to his property asking to be fed.

"I mean it was like a total fantasy," he says. "He's got pot, he's got bears, they're guarding the plants, come on, that's what went out around the world. I had hate mail, hate mail, hate mail."

Piche says that he's working with B.C. conservation officials to figure out what to do with the bears. "Between myself and the conservation people, we're going to monitor the neighborhood and talk to people. We're going to see if any bears are causing trouble and they'll have to be destroyed."

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Reader's view: Time for realistic laws governing marijuana

Tuesday, 07 September 2010 00:00

There’s nothing marijuana about synthetic marijuana. Synthetic marijuana is made with chemicals developed in labs and sprayed on nonpsychoactive plants.

Marijuana has been growing naturally for millions of years (though its potency has increased through selection).

So why are people returning time and time again to buy glorified mulch sprayed with mystery chemicals like JWH-018? Because these people want legal marijuana. Haven’t we learned anything from the 18th Amendment? There is a huge demand for weed, and now we are experiencing a wide range of problems associated with its prohibition. Just like the blindness bore from basement-brewed booze, synthetic marijuana is a stand-in that has been rote with unintended consequences.

One brand of synthetic marijuana called Spice has only been in existence for a few years, but already deaths and mental problems are attributed to its use. The synthesized drug should be banned, but our Legislature seems painfully lethargic in passing a bill.

How many people have died from using actual marijuana? Zero. Zilch. Ziparoo. There isn’t one marijuana death on record, while alcohol took 13,846 Americans in 2008, and tobacco claims around

440,000 annually (100 million worldwide in the 20th century!).

To me, it seems common sense to have realistic laws that actually correlate to the level of danger associated with using a drug (“Duluth City Council makes synthetic marijuana illegal,” Aug. 31).

I believe we need to have a new conversation weighing the pros and cons of decriminalizing, taxing and regulating old Mary Jane, especially in this economy. Just like alcohol prohibition led to the consumption of dangerous, home-brewed hooch and to the bankrolling of syndicated crime, the prohibition of marijuana has led to a drug war in Mexico; the inevitable legal imitations have proven to be more harmful than the drug they mimic.

“Put that in your pipe and smoke it,” as goes the oft-unattributed quote.

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Judge allows medical marijuana defendants' use

Monday, 06 September 2010 00:00

A district judge in Ferndale said Thursday that he would allow state-approved medical marijuana defendants to keep using the drug while out on bond -- a sharp contrast to a Waterford judge's statement Tuesday that deemed marijuana use by defendants in a parallel case to be a bond violation.

The contrast in treatment for those arrested in metro Detroit's first major medical marijuana raids showed the breadth of interpretations for the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, Wayne State University law school professor Bob Sedler said.

After Thursday's brief hearings for 10 defendants, Ferndale District Judge Joseph Longo told the Free Press that any who were state-approved patients could use marijuana while awaiting trial. The defendants are to appear at a hearing Sept. 20.

Both sets of defendants were arrested Aug. 25 in raids by the Oakland County Narcotics Enforcement Team.

"They have every right to use whatever medications" their physicians prescribe, Longo said.

The Duluth City Council unanimously voted to outlaw the sale, manufacture, purchase or possession of synthetic marijuana within city limits Monday night. In so doing, Duluth became the first city in the state to make synthetic marijuana illegal.

Councilor Jeff Anderson abstained from the vote because his radio station advertises for the Last Place on Earth, a Duluth head shop that opposed the proposed ordinance.

Jim Carlson, owner of the Last Place on Earth, threatened to sue the city if it placed his business at an unfair disadvantage with competitors in neighboring communities. Because synthetic marijuana accounts for about half of the sales volume at his shop, Carlson said the ban stands to cost more than $400,000 in lost taxes from his operation alone.

Brian Premo, a Duluth resident, spoke in favor of regulating sales of synthetic marijuana but advised against an outright ban of the product. He said the city won’t succeed in keeping people from using synthetic marijuana, often called K2 or Spice, and probably will drive the business underground.

Marijuana brings an estimated $14 billion a year to California. That number is enough to inspire awe, drool even, when thinking of the slice that could be devoured by the state's hungry coffers.

Add to that number the money saved on enforcing prohibition. In this context, Prop 19, California's initiative to tax and regulate marijuana for recreational use, sounds like a no-brainer. However, if it passes, the RAND Drug Policy Research Center projects an 80% price drop. In that case, projected tax revenues will be pipe dreams, and only those who produce mass quantities will be able to stay in business. Most of the cannabis small business owners I talked to at the recent Hemp Con in San Jose are just that, small business owners of the sort who are supposed to be rebuilding our economy.

Kelly Shaeffer wears a gleaming white hoodie embroidered with nugs; if not for that, you might mistake her for a soccer mom. She and her brother own Plant Providers Plus, a delivery service based in San Jose. "I had a business in landscape design for ten years which fell out with the economy, so I turned his hobby into a business and we're doing very well. We're helping a lot of people, a lot of patients. It's very rewarding." When asked what she thinks about Prop 19, she says, "The drop in prices--that would affect my business greatly. Letting the big guys come in, the pharmaceutical companies. They would take over our industry."