Download Link: Secret Stash - Register to access
Download audio file (NORML_SHOW_LIVE_2011-08-26.mp3)

Video streaming by Ustream

Hemp Headlines

Brought to you by Cannabis Fantastic

1. Kern County judge approves of new 12 plant cultivation limits, dispensary bans, and edible bans
2. CASA’s Joe Califano says that Facebook makes kids take drugs!
3. Elijah Woods speaks out about marijuana in HIGH TIMES interview about Wilfred TV show on F/X

Daily Toker Tunes

Brought to you by Urb Thrasher from Urb Age Designs

• Urb Thrasher interviews Tommy & Kevin from The Accused
• Rockin’ Friday: The Accused – “Green-Eyed Lady”
• Rockin’ Friday: The Accused – “Cut & Dried”

Cultivator’s Corner with High Times’ Sr. Cultivation Editor Danny Danko

BONUS: Radical Rant

Video streaming by Ustream

• Obama Administration Raids Gibson Guitars and Raw Milk sellers

Download Link: Secret Stash - Register to access
Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2010-12-01.mp3)

Hemp Headlines

1. New Mexico modifications to medical marijuana grow rules criticized
2. Mendocino County Sheriff saves seven jobs through proceeds from asset forfeiture
3. Connecticut court rules that marijuana cultivation is serious enough crime to force mentally ill man to take medication to stand trial
4. Stupid Stoner Stories: Canadian man busted when GPS takes him and his pound of BC Bud through Maine

Daily Toker Tunes

Brought to you by Grateful Dread Public Radio at http://gdreadradio.net, a 24-hour community service Internet radio station proud to carry NORML SHOW LIVE

• Irie Wednesday: Mr. Perfect – “Ganja Spliff”

Cannabis Science with Dr. Mitch Earleywine

Radical Rant

• Arizona employers unfounded panic about medical marijuana patients in the workplace

The Oakland city council last week approved an application process for commercial-scale medical marijuana grow ops.

Read more here:
Oakland Approves Commercial-Scale Medical Marijuana Grows

Download Link: Secret Stash - Register to access

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2010-09-24.mp3)

Hemp Headlines

1. Nature’s Way collective, one of the raided dispensaries in Las Vegas, describes cops taking their bottled water and snacks
2. Massachusetts Republican Senate candidate Craig Spadafora supports marijuana legalization, Democratic opponent Katherine Clark attacking him for that stance
3. California patient facing ten years in Alabama for being caught with one gram of marijuana while visiting family

Daily Toker Tunes

Brought to you by Eric Smokesbud

• Rockin’ Friday: Soul Coughing – “Woolly Imbibe”

High Times Magazine preview with Senior Editor Dave Bienenstock, author of The Official Pot Smoker’s Handbook

Cultivator’s Corner with High Times’ Sr. Cultivation Editor Danny Danko

Just how many of these big ladies do you really need, anyway?

California’s Prop 19 specifies that any adult would be allowed to cultivate a 25 square foot garden for personal consumption.  So how much marijuana is that?

Some have been confused by the wording of Prop 19 that allows one to carry an ounce, thinking that means that they can only possess one ounce anywhere.  But that restriction has to do with you carrying cannabis away from your grow.  You allowed to possess the results of your harvest:

(iii)    Possess on the premises where grown the living and harvested plants and results of any harvest and processing of plants lawfully cultivated pursuant to section 11300(a)(ii), for personal consumption.

Which in a 25 square foot garden is going to be considerably more than an ounce.  And not only that, there is a built-in affirmative defense that what you’re possessing is for your personal use in case any law enforcer wants to press the issue.

Another frustrating mis-perception is that you’ll be limited to a 5′x5′ garden.  Nowhere in Prop 19 does it specify a 5′x5′ garden; it specifies 25 square feet:

(ii)    Cultivate, on private property by the owner, lawful occupant, or other lawful resident or guest of the private property owner or lawful occupant, cannabis plants for personal consumption only, in an area of not more than twenty-five square feet per private residence or, in the absence of any residence, the parcel.

That could mean 5′x5′, obviously, but it could also mean 1′x25′ – a long row in your garden!  This says “cultivate cannabis plants in an area…” not that what you’re cultivating has to fit in that area.  How many plants can you get in a 25′ row?  How tall and wide will they grow?  You could get six plants of 5′ diameter and 8′ height in that row, producing more than a pound apiece!  Six pounds of cannabis!

Also, must the “area” be contiguous?  Could you grow a 2′x5′ in one spot and a 3′x5′ in another?  I guess it depends on the definition of “an” area, whether than means “one single area” or “the total area”.  But suppose it means we can have multiple areas, so long as the total is less than 25 square feet.  A five-gallon bucket has a 12″ diameter – that’s a 6″ radius (r) – and ?r² tells me that’s 0.785 square feet of surface cultivation area.  That works out to 31 5-gallon buckets coming in at slightly less that 25 total square feet.  Even if we assume those plants only produce what Chris Conrad testifies is a reliable average of 4-6 ounces per plant, we’re still harvesting between 124 and 186 ounces – that’s 7 3/4 to 11 5/8 pounds of cannabis.

I bring this up because the Stoners Against Legalization keep saying that Prop 19 will reduce the amount of marijuana that Prop 215 patients could grow.  It doesn’t – Prop 19 is all about personal use and “Notwithstanding any other provision of state or local law,” which means “what we’re legalizing here has no bearing on other state laws, like Prop 215 and SB 420″.

But let’s pretend it does and suddenly patients would only be able to grow a 25 square foot garden.  Just how many patients would be needing to grow more than six pounds of marijuana for their own medical use?  Even if we lowball it and assume a 5′x5′ garden with only four plants producing minimum estimated amounts – we’re still talking about 16 to 24 ounces, a pound to a pound-and-a-half, and you could produce that four or more times per year, depending on strain and techniques.  Coincidentally, 24 ounces is how much both Oregon and Washington allow as a reasonable “60 day supply” of marijuana for medical use, and that represents the greatest allowed limit of any medical marijuana state.

(Californians might cry foul, as SB 420 sets a “floor” of 8 ounces and 6 plants, under which you are per se possessing and cultivating medically, but you are allowed greater amounts with doctor’s recommendation.  But to me, that sounds like my amounts greater than 8 ounces and 6 plants are illegal until I can prove my doctor said OK.)

So even in the worst worst-case scenario – four plants at four ounces each – as a patient I’d need to stretch my pound over three months at most or next harvest.  That works out a tad under five grams a day.  Are there really that many Prop 215 patients consuming an eighth-and-a-half a day?

I believe that the vast majority of Prop 215 patients can get by on more than an eighth a day, so even if Prop 19 did limit their gardens (again: it doesn’t; we’re supposing for argument’s sake) it’s a limit that they should be well under.

As for those few who do actually require more, say for making edibles or because of a truly desperate condition requiring more than an eighth a day, they are exactly the type of patients the public thinks of when protecting medical marijuana.  How are the cops going to find out they have too much marijuana and plants?  Everybody’s allowed to grow, so there are fewer probable causes for the cops to use to go after any grower in the first place, and much less support for going after desperately sick growers.  Everybody’s allowed to grow, so there are more friends and supporters to grow and share marijuana with the needy patients.  Everybody’s allowed to possess and unless you’re showing and telling cops how much you have, it’s impossible to determine how much marijuana you have in your home by using an infrared scanner, a drug-sniffing dog, or a knock on the door.

And even then, let’s suppose you’re the severely sick and disabled patient caught with a 10′x10′ garden or caught with a half-pound with you in your car.  Remember that built-in affirmative defense that all your plants and medicine are for personal use?  What more personal use is there than your medical use?  In a state that’s set a floor of a half-pound and six plants for medical use, how hard will it be to argue that your overage is personal?

This is all just conjecture, of course, because Prop 19 does not change Prop 215 rights.  Patients will still be able to grow, buy, and possess marijuana like they do now.  But this exercise does serve to illustrate the thinking of the “I Gots Mine” crowd.  Based on their belief that everyone would be limited to Prop 19′s regulations, they’re telling you to vote to remain a criminal, subject to a misdemeanor for possessing a single gram and a felony for growing a single plant, because five grams a day and four plants isn’t enough cannabis.  They’re telling you nine out of ten marijuana consumers need to remain criminals so that a few of the one out of ten can have massive gardens and huge stashes all to themselves.

I can think of no way in which that is reasonable or logical until you add the words “sales” and “profit” to the equation.

Download Link: Secret Stash - Register to access

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2010-08-31.mp3)

Hemp Headlines

1. 9th Circuit Court rules cops can secretly put a GPS tracking device on your car without court order or warrant
2. Denver Post editorial wants employers to have power to discriminate against medical marijuana patients
3. CBS News reports positive pot and pain study
4. Judge Shore rules Jovan Jackson cannot use medical defense in state court and that every collective member must assist in cultivation
5. Lance Armstrong’s LIVESTRONG Foundation promotes health myths about cannabis use

Daily Toker Tunes

• Electric Tuesday: Baeka – “Higher Than Before”

California Marijuana Report with Eric Brenner

• California Green Party Gubernatorial Candidate Laura Wells

Cultivator’s Corner with High Times’ Sr. Cultivation Editor Danny Danko

Download Link: Secret Stash - Register to access

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2010-07-23.mp3)

Hemp Headlines

1. Rutgers University turns down Gov. Christie’s offer for them to grow medical marijuana
2. Miami Heat’s Michael Besley gets traded to the Timberwolves because he smokes to much marijuana
3. Georgia police arrest family of three for trafficking over 30 grams and some Bob Marley posters
4. 20/20 features Dr. Lester Grinspoon on tonight’s episode on mothers using medical marijuana to treat OCD and autism
5. A fifth duffle bag of weed found in Texas believed to have fallen out of a plane

Daily Toker Tunes

• Rockin’ Friday: Slightly Stoopid – “No Cocaine”

Cultivator’s Corner with High Times’ Sr. Cultivation Editor Danny Danko

• Curing: what’s the “best way” and is there a “quick dry” method that wont ruin your herb?
• Breeding: If you take standard male pollen to a “feminized” or hermaphoridite plant will the result still be a stable seed?
• Can you please explain the difference between sea of green and screen of green?
• What is the best way to use the 12 plant max in California?
• What’s the best situation for maintaining a mother plant, i.e. lights, temp, etc.
• How big do clones have to be in order to make them flower to determine the sex of the main plant?
• Aren’t you working on a strain book? When does it come out and how can I get a copy?
• We have been cultivating the shorter, buddy, bushier strains of cannabis for indoor grows; do you think the new 5×5 restrictions (in California’s Prop 19) will make stars out of the taller, lankier strains?

NORML Newsmakers

• Oregon NORML’s Madeline Martinez announces the Grand Re-Opening of the World Famous Cannabis Café

Paul Armentano has posted the latest bill being heard in Rhode Island, HB 7275, which would repeal the current right of Rhode Island patients to grow their own medical marijuana and to freely exchange medical marijuana and plants between registered patients.

I’ve long argued that one of the dangers of putting cannabis in the “medical” frame is that once our opponents realize that they can’t fight the 75%-80% public support for medical use, they will embrace medical marijuana with “of course we support desperately sick people using marijuana!” language while making every effort to restrict that medical use as much as possible.  We continue to demand the sick be treated as “patients, not criminals”, so they will acquiesce, but make sure there are as few patients as possible.  They’ll work to see that those patients’ medicine be treated like other prescription pharmaceuticals: locked up in pharmacies, requiring strict doctor supervision and government oversight, severe limits on amount possessed, and bans on creating it yourself or buying, selling, or using it without prescription.

Since we’ve been demanding that the public see it as a medicine that helps the sickest of the sick (and no doubt it does), we create a cognitive dissonance when we ask the public to let us grow our own.  Nobody gets to grow their own Oxycontin!  We also support the outrageous price of cannabis that’s borne of prohibition by putting it in the same frame where other pharmaceuticals also cost way too much.  The beauty of medical marijuana is that it is a house plant you can cultivate for your own treatment at relatively low cost.  Why would we want it to be just another overpriced drug you can only get with a doctor’s permission through a pharmacy?

This Rhode Island bill is just the fifth attempt I’ve reported on that fits a pattern:

1. New Jersey (law) = Dispensaries and no home grow. (And the Wall St. Journal article’s headline, “New Jersey on Medical Marijuana: We’re Not California” sums up the political rationale succinctly.)
2. Arizona MPP Initiative (pending) = Dispensaries and no home grow if you’re within 25 miles of one.  (So the dispensaries can be viable, you see, because it’s so hard for someone to stay in business selling marijuana. Listen for yourself.)
3. Minnesota HF292 (vetoed) = Dispensaries and no home grow, limited to only terminal patients.  (Seriously, this medical law wouldn’t have allowed chemotherapy-using cancer patients to use cannabis!)
4. New Hampshire HB0648 (vetoed) = Dispensaries and no home grow.
5. Rhode Island HB7275 (heard yesterday) = Restrict all growing to the existing dispensaries, don’t even allow patients to exchange for no consideration.

Here in Oregon there is an effort to establish medical marijuana dispensaries in the state.  It’s a very contentious issue within our reform community.  NORML has always supported positive reforms in marijuana law, but we’ve also always stood for the importance of the right for individuals to be able to grow their own marijuana (emphasis mine):

The cultivation of cannabis for personal use is the single most important element of the NORML legalization proposal. Allowing for the legal, personal cultivation of cannabis provides consumers with the option to grow their own product should commercially available sources offer cannabis that fails to meet the consumers’ needs because it is excessively expensive, too heavily taxed, or of inferior quality. The mere threat of consumers exercising this option should be sufficient to assure that the legal market for cannabis will be responsive to the needs of consumers, and will not be exploitive.

So when any organization or any state or federal legislator proposes legalizing cannabis, either for medical use or for personal pleasure, but forbids the consumer from growing their own cannabis, those of us who lobby on this issue must insist on amendments to permit personal cultivation.

Otherwise we, cannabis law reformers, trade away our only leverage to keep the big corporations and the government honest and responsive to cannabis consumers.

(I’ve been in California, Northern and Southern, three times at different medical marijuana events last month.  The standard “special” I saw advertised from every dispensary attending was “$45 / 4 gram eighth”.  You tell me, is charging $11.25 per gram of medicine excessively expensive and exploitive?  Is $300 per ounce?)

Now it’s important to point out that the dispensary initiative proposed in Oregon maintains the current allowances for home growing or even growing by a certified grower outside the home.  But reformers better be ready to fight the legislative proposals to repeal the right to home grow should the dispensary initiative pass.  Taking away home grow would be politically impossible without the viable alternative method for acquiring medical marijuana that dispensaries would provide… and our opponents are already considering that political opportunity:

Mark McDonnell, senior deputy DA in Multnomah County (Portland) Oregon, one of the state’s most marijuana-friendly areas: “If you have dispensaries, there’s no reason to allow (individual) growers.”

Klamath County (Oregon) Sheriff Tim Evinger said the proposed expansion would be a step in the right direction.  “If, in fact, it is a needed drug, and it is providing a benefit to somebody who is ill, I frankly think it should be purchased by prescription at a pharmacy and produced by a commercial operation that is monitored, that is secured, and the quality, content and safety issues are addressed, just like any controlled substance that is prescribed,” he said.

None of this analysis should be interpreted as me saying dispensaries would be a bad thing, so long as Oregonians maintain the right to home grow.  I personally think $11.25 a gram is exploitive, but better a patient is exploited by a legal regulated fee-paying tax-paying dispensary than a black market source.  Dispensaries would provide the current growers an avenue for making a living legitimately and would provide patients (with income) a way to access medicine.  There would be fewer prosecutions of growers growing too much or accepting money (above expense reimbursement) for cannabis.  There’d be new jobs and new tax revenue, especially needed in the state with the second-highest unemployment and no sales tax.

Plus, support for outright legalization does seem to be greatest in states that have dispensaries, though that’s probably more correlation than a causal relationship (as in, supportive states have dispensaries, not that dispensaries make states more supportive.)  I’d hope that the money dispensaries generate would be plowed back into the movement to pass legalization (even for healthy people!)… though I’d note there are over 1,000 dispensaries between California and Colorado and it seems only a few are putting money into legalization efforts… and others are putting money into defeating California’s current legalization effort.

But I would be remiss not to point out the effects I anticipate and the reactions from the opposition that are sure to materialize.  Patient registration numbers would explode as they did in Montana and Colorado once dispensaries came along and opponents will add that to their growing cries of “abuse” of medical marijuana.  Some dispensary in an unfriendly county will eventually be raided and opponents will parade stacks of money and guns and cannabis all over the news.  And as I’ve mentioned, we’ll see a big push by opponents to eliminate home growing since the dispensaries can take care of all the patients.

So go forth, reformers, but carefully consider whether continuing to tinker with medical marijuana laws (in states that have them) is helping or distracting from passing legalization for the 95% of us who are still “criminals, not patients”.  In my opinion, the more “medical” marijuana becomes, the less “recreational” it becomes.  The 21st century calls for bolder reforms.  After fourteen years of letting patients in the front of the line, some of us are getting a little weary of standing and waiting back here.

Download Link: Secret Stash - Register to access

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2010-04-30.mp3)

Hemp Headlines

1. Global Cannabis March tomorrow, 300+ cities worldwide

Daily Toker Tunes

Brought to you by Eric Smokesbud

• Rockin’ Friday: Smokin’ Sunshine – “Mush in the Room”

Cultivator’s Corner with High Times’ Sr. Cultivation Editor Danny Danko

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2010-03-26.mp3)

Hemp Headlines

1. Arizona passes bill to tax medical marijuana if it becomes legal; sales tax of 5.6% and a $20 ounce luxury tax!
2. Georgia proposes drug testing recipients of unemployment compensation
3. Mexican Navy burns 35,000 lbs of cannabis

Daily Toker Tunes

Brought to you by Eric Smokesbud

• Rockin’ Friday: Qwizzl – “Trees”

Cultivator’s Corner with High Times’ Sr. Cultivation Editor Danny Danko

• akapooky: Question: Cabinet grown with fluorescents, bud comes out kinda sparse. What to do?
• RoLLaJaY: DANNY DANKO: DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT PHOSOLOAD OR BIG BUD? WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IS BETTER?
• basher420: QUESTION: best way to keep a coco (or soil) alive with new plants. JUST transplanted from rockwool to pot as well as some teens
• Dustruction: Danny Danko ? what is your prefered Method of cloning, you know like your favorite medium,Cloning solution and all that stuff ?
• wheelboard: Danny Danko? If you are late flushing, does it hurt to go 9 weeks on a 7 week strain so you can get a good flush?
• KYcannabis: Danny? When starting in a bubbleponics do you want to submerge the mesh pots , since the roots are so small and cant reach?
• prophis: I can type it again- I was wondering with autoflowering strains like Diesel Ryder should you still need to begin flushing nutes 2 weeks before harvest or is it less because of such a small plant?
• SeaWeedy: QUESTION: Allot of us dont have access to nutes… what do you reccomend for flowering besides molasses
• lennyjoie: danny mites, powerdery mildew, and other crap HOW DO WE GET RID OF THEM?

Reefer Madness!

• NipItInTheBud2010.org