Howard Arenstein, a well-known CBS Radio News correspondent and his wife, Israeli newspaper journalist Orly Katz were arrested back on October 1st for growing marijuana in their backyard. An anonymous tip led police to their house where along with 11 mature plants in the backyard, they found some bagged and ready to distribute, according to the police report, implying that the Arenstiens were dealing the marijuana

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CBS Radio Corespondent Gets a Break

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Hemp Headlines

1. CBS Radio’s Howard Arenstein’s possession and cultivation case for 11 plants in Washington DC is dismissed
2. Marc Emery transferred to a prison in Georgia
3. Students present the case for using hemp paper at their high school.
4. Montana medical board says Skype video chats don’t count as a medical examination

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CBS' "Marijuana Nation" web site is one of their most popular. Great reports going back to 1968 on "60 Minutes" - check it out!

The findings aren’t surprising, but CBS reporting on it is!

(CBS) In a three-month study which followed 23 patients, researchers tested three strengths of marijuana and a placebo to test the effects of the drug on those with chronic pain who had not responded well to traditional  medications.

They found that those who smoked the strongest cannabis – that with the highest levels of tetrahydrocannabinol, often called THC – experienced the greatest benefit.

Nevertheless, although there was a clear reduction in pain, it was very modest.

These findings are only suggestive, lead researcher Mark Ware of McGill University in Montreal and his colleagues wrote, and need to be confirmed in larger long-term safety and efficacy studies.

via Pot, Chronic Pain Relief: New Study Says Marijuana Can Help – Health Blog – CBS News.

HIGH TIMES Danny Danko, CelebStoner's Steve Bloom, HIGH TIMES Rick Cusick, PhillyNORML's Chris Goldstein at NORML's Times Square ad.

Our Times Square Billboard ad has been a huge success.  On 4/20 we debut a new ad that is more locally focused on New York City as the marijuana arrest capital of America.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Hey, nice shout out for the Stash!

‘Money Can Grow On Trees,” Marijuana Legalization Group Announces

Washington, DC: “Money can grow on trees.”  That is the message of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Foundation (NORML) in a 15-second digital ad scheduled to debut in New York City’s Times Square next week.  The advertisement, produced and paid for by NORML’s educational arm, The NORML Foundation, will air on the CBS Super Screen through May 31, 2010.

NORML's "Money Tree" Ad in Times Square should appear on Monday or Tuesday. We're trying to have it play at... wait for it... twenty after the hour.

“Regulating the adult use of marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol could raise over $30 billion annually in new tax revenue, while saving an additional $15 billion per year in law enforcement costs,” NORML Foundation Executive Director Allen St. Pierre said.  “This tax season, why not ask your elected politicians why the federal government continues to spends billions of tax dollars enforcing this failed and archaic public policy.”

Fifty-three percent of Americans now support legalizing marijuana, according to the results of a December 2009 Angus Reid survey of over 1,000 adults nationwide.

The NORML Foundation’s ‘Money Tree’ ad will appear eighteen times per day on the CBS’s digital billboard, located on 42^nd Street.  Approximately 1.5 million people walk by the billboard each day.

In January, CBS and the NORML Foundation entered into a contractual agreement to air the NORML Foundation ad, beginning on February 1, 2010.  However, representatives from CBS and Neutron Media abruptly pulled the ad prior to its scheduled airdate, stating that its content did not comply with the network’s outdoor advertising standards.

Last month, representatives from the political advocacy organization Change.org organized an online petition targeting CBS Broadcasting and demanding the network to reverse their decision.  Nearly 10,000 people signed and sent the petition.

CBS formally changed their position shortly after receiving the petitions.

“NORML would publicly like to thank Change.org for taking on this important political and First Amendment issue,” St. Pierre said.  “We would also like to thank the thousands of concerned citizens who contacted CBS on NORML’s behalf.  Without your participation, this important NORML ad campaign would not have been possible.

“Finally, NORML would also like to extend its appreciation to the CBS Corporation for responding to the will of its viewers, and acknowledging that marijuana law reform is a topic deserving of such a prominent public forum.   Over 20 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana violations since 1965. It is time to end 70-plus years of federal marijuana prohibition with a policy of legalization, taxation, regulation and education.”

The ‘Money Tree’ is anticipated to be the first of two planned ad buys.  The second advertisement is scheduled to debut in Times Square on April 20, 2010 – in conjunction with the informal marijuana celebratory holiday ‘4/20.’

Founded in 1970, NORML is the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots organization advocating on behalf of marijuana law reform.  The NORML Foundation was founded in 1997 to support public education, research, stake holder organizing and impact litigation.  In 2009, NORML Foundation launched the first-ever nationwide television ad campaign calling for the regulation of marijuana by adults.

For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Foundation Executive Director, at (202) 483-5500, or at: director@norml.org.  The NORML Foundation ad is also available online from NORML’s youtube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/natlnorml?blend=4&ob=4.

Did the Tiffany Network finally realize there's gold in them thar buds?

(Change.org) Last month, NORML reported that CBS had denied the group’s request to place an ad in Times Square that touted the potential billions in taxes that would result from legalizing marijuana. Remember, this is a network that boasts marijuana-infused advertisements for their Showtime Network show, Weeds. It’s also the network that was perfectly willing to air a controversial anti-abortion ad aimed at peak viewership during the Super Bowl. But still, somehow CBS decided that NORML’s message (“Legalize Marijuana – Billions in Taxes”) would ruffle the network’s too-delicate sensibilities.

In a Feb. 3 rejection email, NORML was told, “If CBS changes their morals we will let you know.”

Well, it turns out that a month later, the network has decided to stop censoring NORML’s message. This afternoon, our organizing director here at Change.org spoke with CBS’s communication vice president, Shannon Jacobs. Jacobs told us that the network “communicated to the people who wanted to place the ad that they will accept the ad if they still want to run it.”

Congratulations to NORML for winning this well-deserved turnaround — and thanks to all the Change.org readers who helped rout CBS’s decision.

Why do I feel like Lucy just told me that this time she swears she won’t pull away the football when I try to kick it?

We’ll keep you posted on whether and when we get the ad (below) on the CBS Super Billboard in Times Square.  See, when we first were approached on this in January, we had to scramble to raise the thousands necessary to pay for the ad.  Once the ad was scrapped, some of the donors requested their money back and some of the others insisted it be plowed back into other NORML projects.  We’re not like a huge corporation that has millions of unbudgeted dollars lying around and we’re not supported by a billionaire who can just cut a five-figure check on a whim.  All our funds come from the small and medium donations from regular cannabis consumers and supporters like you.

But we know how badly you all want to see that ad on the 26′ x 20′ electronic billboard in Times Square.  We’ll find a way to make it happen.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yeah, it would have to be a CBS affiliate trying to take down medical marijuana, huh?

Well, here’s a fun little story that will have every reefer mad medical marijuana-hating prohibitionist saying, “See, we told you so!”

LOS ANGELES (CBS) ? Los Angeles is about to implement some of the toughest restrictions in the state on medical marijuana dispensaries. But in an exclusive CBS 2 News hidden-camera investigation, we went undercover into medical clinics and found that recommendations for medical marijuana are being sold without ever seeing a doctor.

We found a man, who answers to the name of Dr. Scott, when he provides patients with what amounts to a prescription for medical marijuana. We don’t know if he was smoking some of his own medicine or tobacco, when we caught him smoking a pipe in his car outside the clinic. But we do know he is not a doctor.

David Goldstein: “How do you do that? Only a doctor can give out recommendations?”

Dr. Scott: “I don’t have to talk to you, dude.”

Undercover producer: “I’m confused. Is this a doctor’s office?”

“Yes it is.”

At another location across town, a place bills itself as a doctor’s office, but when we were there, there was no doctor, just prescriptions for sale and medical marijuana.

We found it over and over — obtaining certificates to buy medical marijuana without ever seeing a doctor.

With one of these cards or certificates, small amounts of pot become legal in California! With one you can buy marijuana at hundreds of dispensaries, like one we found in the L.A. area.

The law says in order to get a certificate, you have to be recommended by a doctor, but that is not what we found.

Now of course I personally don’t think an adult needs anyone’s permission to ingest cannabis, so whether or not Californians are actually seeing doctors to get their recommendation doesn’t bother me.   But California has a situation tokers in 49 states envy – you can visit a doctor for a brief exam and pay for a piece of paper that allows you to go into a store to select from various strains of high-grade cannabis – and a greedy few want to jeopardize that by taking a shortcut around the whole “brief exam” portion?

CBS's eye is a little bloodshot from all the profit they make on "CBS: Marijuana Nation" and Showtime's "Weeds"

A nice note just landed in my Inbox – spread the word by tweeting and posting http://bit.ly/NORML-CBS to all your networks:

Hello,

I am the Organizing Director here at Change.org and I thought I’d just send you a quick note letting you know that we just launched an advocacy campaign on our site targeting CBS for rejecting your ad in Times Square. We will be promoting this and following up with CBS directly once we get a substantial number of signatures. I hope you will take a look and consider letting your supporters know about it too:

http://www.change.org/actions/view/demand_cbs_reverse_decision_declaring_pro-marijuana_ad_too_political

Remember, this is what CBS found way too controversial to show – without sound – in Times Square:

Click here to view the embedded video.

But they’re not too shy about marijuana leaves advertising their special news coverage on their website:

And they don’t seem to mind advertising their Showtime Network’s show “Weeds” with numerous marijuana leaves:

This is cool not just because it landed on Huffington Post, but because it landed in the orange Media section and not the usual purple Living section.  This really helps frame the issue correctly as one of corporate censorship and not just marijuana law reform.  Be sure to visit the HuffPo link and leave a comment and retweet the story, as that helps us get more front page placement on HuffPo for future articles.

(Huffington Post) Representatives from the CBS Corporation and Neutron Media Screen Marketing have rejected a paid advertisement from the NORML Foundation, the educational arm of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), that was intended to appear on the CBS Super Screen billboard in New York City’s Times Square.

The fifteen-second ad, which asserts that taxing and regulating the adult use and sale of marijuana would raise ‘billions of dollars in national revenue, was scheduled to appear on CBS’s 42nd Street digital billboard beginning on Monday, February 1, 2010.

Representatives from Neutron Media approached NORML in mid-January about placing the ad, which was scheduled to air 18 times per day for a two-month period. The NORML Foundation entered into a contractual agreement with Neutron Media to air two separate NORML advertisements, and produced an initial ad exclusively for broadcast on the CBS digital billboard.

Days after NORML’s submitted the ad, the organization received the following e-mail, dated February 3, from a representative from Neutron Media stated: “I just received word from CBS and they will not approve your ad. If CBS changes their morals we will let you know.”