Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2008-12-15

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2008-12-15.mp3)

Today’s Stash features some catch-up on stuff I was covering last week.  David Bienenstock, Senior Editor at High Times, is on to talk about his encounter with the hosts of FOX News’ “Red Eye” and the censorship of “Mr. Bill O’Reilly’s stash” from the broadcast.  David is promoting The Offical High Times Pot Smoker’s Handbook.  Then Madeline Martinez from Oregon NORML is here to discuss the results of the Seventh Annual Oregon Medical Cannabis Awards.

WWire | Stanford Rolls to Victory at Medical Cannabis Awards
Former WW coverboy Paul Stanford swept the annual Oregon Medical Cannabis Awards on Saturday night, winning the top three prizes for buds grown in his Felony Flats garden.

Stanford, who runs a growing chain of medical-marijuana clinics, took first place with his version of a strain known as Lemon Pledge, second with a strain called Train Wreck, and third with his Dynamite.

He accepted his glass trophies in front of 100 people who attended the awards banquet at the Ambridge Events Center in Northeast Portland. Stanford also won an honorable mention for best flavor with his Green Lantern.

“Felony Flats” is a local slur on a crime-besieged poor area of town.  I can’t see why there was any journalistic need to describe Stanford’s neighborhood that way.  Once again, within the first paragraph, we see medical cannabis juxtaposed with crime.

Now, I met the reporter that evening and discussed my complaints of the pun headlines Willamette Week usually gives cannabis stories (“Working Spliffs”, “King Bong”, “Support for marijuana high in Oregon”), and he told me that is Willamette Week’s style — sarcastic and irreverent.  And to be fair, many other stories in the WWeek do get these snarky headlines.

I believe the reporter to be reasonable and fair regarding this issue, so I can only assume that the “Felony Flats” description was an editorial choice or that the reporter just doesn’t see the crime bias in medical cannabis reporting because it is so prevalent in all mass media.  ”Felony Flats” wasn’t added for descriptive or contextual purposes; the location of Stanford’s garden is irrelevent to the story.  It couldn’t have been chosen to add or reduce word count; “East Portland garden” works just as well as “Felony Flats garden” and “garden” by itself would’ve sufficed.

Otherwise, good article.

Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2008-12-09

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2008-12-09.mp3)

Today’s Stash features our Government at Work segment, and joining us Ed Orlett from the Drug Policy Alliance of Ohio.  (This is a replay interview from three weeks ago, so ignore the points about “tomorrow’s” hearing.)  Ed is working to capitalize on the success of medical marijuana in Michigan by introducing a similar bill in Ohio.

I’ve been really busy getting preparing for Saturday’s Oregon Medical Cannabis Awards.  So today we take a look back to just about a year ago at last year’s OMCA, when Keith Stroup was our guest.  I interviewed Keith out on the veranda among the medical marijuana patients to get his reaction to the event.  This year’s seventh annual OMCA features Allen St. Pierre as our keynote speaker.

Oh, so sorry, dear Stashers.  Once again, that pesky thing called “the real world” has intruded upon my Stashiness.  This time I’m slammed by the deadlines for the Oregon Medical Cannabis Awards, taking place this Saturday in Portland.  Allen St. Pierre is flying out to join us at the premiere medical cannabis strain evaluation in the country, and I’m swamped with presentations, documents, graphics, and web work for the event.  (Who knew being a pothead was so much work?)

I’ll be back in your ears tomorrow.  In the meantime, feel like answering another one of my polls?

The Canadian Press: Organic growers hope to bag new federal medical marijuana contract
Organic growers from Vancouver Island hope to bag the new federal contract to grow and distribute medical marijuana across Canada with the promise of supplying better, cheaper and different varieties of weed.

Public Works Canada has extended the deadline for bids on the contract currently held by Prairie Plant Systems Inc., which operates a grow operation deep within a mine in northern Manitoba.

No reason for the extension has been given. Companies that hope to win the contract say they are waiting for more information from Ottawa to complete their bids by the new Sept. 29 deadline.

Eric Nash, co-owner of Island Harvest in British Columbia, said he is eager to submit a proposal to supply high-grade strains of sativa and indica marijuana to registered users, some of whom have been unhappy with the quality of the government-approved pot from the mine.

“We want this contract because we know that we can supply a good-quality organic product to patients,” said Nash, who has been legally supplying medicinal pot to a few registered users from his provincially inspected organic operation in the Cowichan Valley.

“What we would ideally like to do is gear up strain-specific plants for patients with different medical conditions. Many patients have tried the government product which is just one strain that may work for someone with multiple sclerosis, but it doesn’t necessarily work for someone with cancer or HIV-AIDS.”

I’ve spoken before with Philippe Lucas of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society who has described the abandoned zinc and copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba, as one of the most environmentally polluted places in Canada.  Lucas says that the Flin Flon marijuana seems to be grown to meet only the bare minimum requirements laid out in numerous court decisions.

The cynic in me says the Ottawa government does it this way on purpose to make the Canadian medical marijuana program as unattractive to patients as possible.  Supply the people with one poor strain of mineshaft marijuana, and then when it doesn’t provide much therapeutic relief you can exclaim, “See, we told you medical marijuana is a sham!”

Here in Oregon (and likewise in most medical states) patients can grow their own medicine (or have someone grow for them) and there is a bounty of different strains for different conditions.  Each December, Oregon NORML hosts the Oregon Medical Cannabis Awards and 28 different strains are judged by 28 patients with various conditions and evaluated for medical efficacy against their particular conditions, and I know of similar types of evaluations in California and Washington State (NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre will be keynoting at this year’s OMCA).  The data from the past eight OMCAs have been entered into a database and Oregon patients can learn from others which strains work best for their affliction.

Genetic diversity and self-sufficiency help explain why Oregon has one-tenth the population of Canada, but we have ten times the number of registered cardholders.