Articles Posted in California Marijuana

Medical marijuana use has long been legal in California, but this does not mean that every employer is accepting of the use of cannabis products. Many employers conduct pre-employment drug screening and require employees to undergo routine drug tests during the time they are working for an organization.

These employers may decide to take action and terminate someone when a drug test shows up positive for marijuana. If this happens, questions may arise regarding whether the employee is entitled to unemployment insurance or not.
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Canada’s recent election for Prime Minister was a big win for advocates of marijuana legalization. Justin Trudeau, the Liberal Party candidate, defeated the incumbent prime minister after campaigning on a platform that included marijuana legalization as one of the top goals. The website of the Liberal Party states that the current system of prohibition of marijuana doesn’t work, doesn’t prevent young people from accessing the drug, and results in too many Canadians ending up with criminal records for having small amounts of cannabis. The current system is cited by the Liberal Party as also increasing the cost of the criminal justice system, and creating serious public safety threats because proceeds from the illegal trade of marijuana end up supporting organized crime, hard drugs, and human trafficking.

Many of these problems cited in Canada also exist to an even greater extent in the United States, where Los Angeles medical marijuana regulation lawyers know that the federal government has continued to aggressively fight against dispensaries and growers, even in states that have made medical marijuana legal. If the Canadian government is able to successfully move forward quickly with the legalization of marijuana, hopefully this success can spur further nationwide efforts to decriminalize and legalize cannabis products within the United States.
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Breweries and wineries have long had a lock on the specialty spirits market for those who wish to indulge in a unique, public atmosphere.

But now, a Colorado is set to do with marijuana what breweries do for beer and wineries do for aged grapes.

The business is a $35 million investment and is set to open just a half hour outside of Denver. It will feature greenhouses, as well as a performance space, a rooftop bar, a restaurant, a gift shop and a marijuana dispensary.

The CEO of the project, Green Man Cannabis Ranch and Amphitheater, said he’s working to raise $100 million in capital total to launch at least five of these operations, expanding in to Nevada, Massachusetts, California and then Washington.
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The “War on Drugs” has been an epic failure by many standards, particularly with regard to marijuana. The harm that has been inflicted in the course of this “war” – the gang fights over the black market, the sky-high incarceration levels of minorities, police killings and more – has far outweighed any sliver of benefit society might have gained.

It seems the federal government has in some respects recognized this, and has dialed back the rhetoric and scaled back enforcement. At least to some degree.

However, it continues to allow local law enforcement to up the ante through the Pentagon’s 1033 program. Through this initiative, police departments can request access to surplus military gear. Most notably, armored trucks and other military vehicles that are left over from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Historically, these have included:

• assault rifles
• grenade launchers
• bayonets
• MRAPs (armored military vehicles)

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Marijuana is still classified by federal guidelines as highly dangerous, addictive and having little to no redeeming value.

And yet, 23 states plus D.C. have legalized the drug for medicinal purposes, with four of those going so far as to allow access to the drug for recreational use. Many more have decriminalized minor possession of the drug, even if they haven’t gone so far as to make it totally legal.

But so long as the drug remains illegal at the federal level, there is a great deal of uncertainty regarding its future – and the patients, industries, doctors, employees and organizations connected to it.
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Male teens who use marijuana almost daily – identified as chronic users – are not at higher risk for developing physical or mental health issues – including depression and psychosis – later in life than their non-drug user counterparts.

That finding comes from researchers with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Rutgers University. The psychologists tracked the progress of more than 400 males from their teen years through their mid-30s, noting their differing patterns of marijuana usage.

Overall, the information gathered provided little to no indication that one’s pattern of marijuana usage from teen years through young adulthood had any negative impact on their physical or mental well-being, researchers stated.
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Marijuana is no longer the low quality brownish-green low quality product in the 1960 through the late 1990s, filled with stems and seeds. Today we are dealing with high quality strains of marijuana that have very high levels of THC. Marijuana is also no longer being illegally imported from Mexico in the same large quantities as it once was, as it is being grown in indoor hydroponics operations right here in the United States.

According to a recent news feature from Bloomberg, this is changing the so-called war on drugs in major ways. Authorities never contemplated that not only would shipments from Mexico slow down on their own, but also now they are actually seeing marijuana grown in United States being illegally shipped to Mexico. This also was something drug enforcement agents never thought they would see.

The author of the article met with a street lieutenant of a Mexican gang, which was founded in Texas prison and made millions, beginning in the 1980s, by smuggling marijuana in from Juarez to the United States. While this still occurs, he is now talking about the hottest new strain of marijuana on the Juarez drug market, and it is being grown in America.
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With complete marijuana legalization in Colorado now fully in effect, many have flocked to the state as part of what is being called marijuana tourism. However, one of the things of that has hampered those wishing to come to the state to legally smoke marijuana is that they are having difficulty finding a place to legally smoke.

Unlike Amsterdam, which has hash bars or “coffee shops” as they are often called, it is not legal to smoke marijuana in public within the state. Those who have come to the state and booked a room in a local hotel have run into problems, because all of the hotels in cities like Denver are entirely smoke free. This basically means a lot of people are going into to dispensaries, purchasing marijuana, and then smoking it in public. This is an activity that police will crack down upon, as it is illegal.

Many of these marijuana tourists who flocked to the state last month for the annual 420 celebrations were greeted by unhappy policy police officers that issued hundreds of citations for smoking in public. There are also various reports on the Internet of people being thrown out of their hotel rooms by staff who caught them attempting to smoke in the hotel. According to some commenters, hotel staff members were easily able to recognize what the old college dorm trick of placing a towel under a door represented.
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Despite legalization of medical marijuana use and sale in many areas throughout California, there are many areas which prohibit any outdoor, or even indoor, marijuana grow operations. This has not stopped people from growing marijuana in these areas but has led the grow operations to be run in more remote parts of the state.

According to a recent news feature from the Sacramento Bee, wildlife enforcement officers and game wardens are aware Stones Lake Wildlife Refuge is one of these remote locations where people have illegal marijuana grow operations. Authorities use helicopters to patrol the area looking for signs of a grow operation and then dispatch agents on foot to raid the alleged crime scene.

Authorities say, after they located what is alleged to be an illegal grow operation, they went into the woods to raid the site and arrest the suspect running it. When they arrived, officer claimed suspect was armed with a pistol and refused to drop the weapon when commanded to do so. In response to this alleged refusal to drop his handgun, officers shot and killed suspect.
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