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2007 archive interview by Chris Goldstein of Rick Steves, European travel guru, author, and TV host, who will be closing the 2009 NORML National Conference.
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 3:28 pm | By: Radical Russ
(The Province) Marilyn Holsten’s last days on Earth were a living hell, according to her sister, Moira O’Neill.
In frail health, the almost-blind, diabetic double-amputee was ordered evicted from her apartment because of her need to smoke marijuana to control her pain.
Holsten, 48, died earlier this month from a heart attack.
“For a whole year, it went on. It was an unbelievable way to treat someone in her health,” said O’Neill.
Holsten lived in a building operated by Anavets Senior Citizens Housing Society in the 900-block East 8th Avenue in Vancouver.
Many of her neighbours told her they did not smell marijuana coming from her apartment, her sister said. But, even though Holsten eventually obtained legal permission to smoke marijuana to deal with excruciating phantom pains, Anavets sought her eviction because of the smell of pot.
“It was a witch hunt,” said O’Neill, who said her sister had to move from her fifth-floor apartment to a ground-floor suite two years ago, after her first leg amputation, for her own safety.
“They knew she smoked marijuana before she moved down to the other suite,” said O’Neill.
“She was in the hospital most of the time, with her amputation — she was gone five days a week, in dialysis six hours a day.”
Holsten fought her eviction at a B.C. Residential Tenancy Branch arbitration hearing in June, but lost.
The night before she died, Holsten visited her older sister.
“We resolved that she was going to stay with me in my small one-bedroom apartment,” said O’Neill.
“She couldn’t take opiates, they made her totally unable to function. Morphine made her throw up, and she was a diabetic, so she had to eat all the time.”
Holsten made every effort to contain the smell from her marijuana use from her neighbors. She originally did not have a doctor’s recommendation to use medical marijuana, so in her original eviction notice, the administrator, Mary McLeod, wrote “Marijuana use is still against the law and … [as] part of your tenancy agreement, you agreed you would not participate in illegal activities.”
She then signed an agreement that she would only medicate outdoors, but the center gave her another eviction notice after someone smelled marijuana in the public areas of the building.
Then Marc & Jodie Emery of Cannabis Culture magazine donated to her a Volcano vaporizer to help alleviate the problem. However, the arbitration hearings would hear none of that and had her evicted anyway – a double amputee who pledged to only vaporize, exhaling outdoors even, her legally recommended herbal remedy for excruciating phantom pains.
I understand that some people do not like the smell of cannabis and to be fair, we should respect their rights, too. However, will the Anavets center evict their residents for cooking that awful-smelling kimchi, sauerkraut, or menudo? Are residents allowed to smoke cigarettes (I have a call in to the Anavets center asking just that question)? Can residents keep pets, even smelly kitties who miss the litter box? Can residents douse themselves with heavy amounts of perfume or cologne? Something tells me that residents are allowed to create all sorts of offensive smells in public areas… just not the skunky sweet smell of burning cannabis.
CANNABIS CULTURE – A diabetic double-amputee who was evicted from her apartment for smoking medical marijuana has died. Protest Marilyn Holsten’s mistreatment: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2009 from 12-6pm at the Anavets Senior Citizens Housing Society building at 951 8th Ave E, Vancouver.
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 at 2:58 pm | By: Radical Russ
(MixxCelebrity) Britney Spears halted her show in Vancouver last night after just three songs because it was too smokey in the arena. The singer who is currently on the road supporting her ‘Circus’ album, walked off stage and remained backstage for over 20 minutes while an announcer told the crowd the show would not continue if people in the audience continued to smoke weed and cigarettes.
The announcer told the crowd it was “unsafe” for Spears and her dancers to continue to perform in that environment, reports Perez Hilton.
A statement released to the gossip site said: “We want to apologize to all the fans who attended our Vancouver show tonight for the brief pause in Britney’s set. Crew members above the stage became ill due to a ventilation issue.”
Production staff were reportedly worried that crew working high up would become dizzy from the smoke.
Spears herself then issued an anti-marijuana message at the end of her show, telling the audience: “Thanks Vancouver. You were wonderful. Drive safe. Don’t smoke weed!”
I’m still trying to understand weed smokers at a Britney Spears concert. I thought marijuana smoking was supposed to improve one’s appreciation of music.
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 9:20 am | By: Radical Russ
METRO VANCOUVER — Surrey saw an 80.9 per cent decrease in the number of residential marijuana growing operations between 2004 and 2008, a new study shows.
The study also showed that Surrey’s drop is far more dramatic than in other communities in the Lower Mainland or B.C.
Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts said she’s “pleasantly surprised” with the latest numbers, which she anticipated would have been around 65 per cent.
She attributed Surrey’s success to the city’s innovative electrical and fire safety inspection initiative that started in 2005, as well as the efforts of the Surrey RCMP green team, bylaws department, BC Hydro programs, and other crime-fighting initiatives under the city’s crime reduction strategy program.
“This research supports the work that we’ve been doing and confirms that we can succeed in deterring the grow-op industry from establishing itself in our cities,” Watts said. “This gives us increased confidence that we can make our streets safer and improve the lives of our residents through innovative measures that address crime through collaborative efforts.”
I think this news is mistitled. It should read “Surrey forces marijuana growing operations elsewhere” or “Surrey growers learn how to better evade detection”.
Friday, June 5th, 2009 at 4:20 pm | By: Dudemaster
Vancouver, WA. – A Southwest Washington psychology professor has received federal stimulus money to study marijuana and pain management.
WSU Vancouver Professor Michael Morgan qualified to receive $148,438 for his two-year study, which aims to determine whether the use of marijuana along with other anti-pain medications such as morphine provides better pain relief than either drug alone.
The grant from the National Institutes of Health is part of the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the economic stimulus package enacted by Congress and signed by the president in February.
“This research is innovative in the field,” Morgan said in a news release. “Currently there are no other projects that are studying this chemical relationship using these parameters.”
His project was picked because of “its potential to stimulate the economy and create or retain jobs within the community” as well as its likelihood of making scientific progress in two years, school officials said in a news release.
[You know, the NIH could just give me $148,438 to tell them, "Yes, cannabis helps other painkillers work better." I've heard it a thousand times from pain patients and I've seen other studies that have already confirmed this. -- "R"R]
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 5:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
People who smoke both tobacco and marijuana increase their risk of respiratory symptoms and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), say University of British Columbia researchers.
[Study co-author Dr. Wan] Tan and his colleagues did not find any link between smoking only marijuana and increased risk of respiratory illness, but hedged their bets on marijuana’s potential effects.
While tobacco smoking alone was associated with increased risk, smokers who reported using both tobacco and marijuana were nearly 2.5 times more likely than nonsmokers to have respiratory symptoms and almost three times more likely to have COPD.
Those who reported smoking only tobacco were 1.5 times more likely than non-smokers to have respiratory symptoms and more than 2.5 times more likely to have COPD.
The study surveyed 878 people in Vancouver who were at least 40 years old.
Previous studies have found no additional effect from the combination of marijuana and tobacco use on either chronic respiratory symptoms or abnormal lung function in younger smokers.
So, if you’re over 40, smoking cigarettes is bad for your lungs and smoking pot makes the cigarettes worse on your lungs, but smoking pot by itself doesn’t seem to be an issue in respiratory illness. Remind me again, which one of those smokes is legal?
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Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 9:49 am | By: Radical Russ
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Friday, February 20th, 2009 at 12:17 pm | By: Radical Russ
Washington, DC: Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY), along with Reps. Peter Defazio (D-OR), Jean Schmidt (R-OH) and Lee Terry (R-NE), has introduced legislation in Congress to criminalize the production and sale of any commercial products intended to influence drug test results, such as diuretic teas or chemical adulterants. The bill, H.R. 858, is now before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
As introduced, the proposal would “prohibit the manufacture, marketing, sale, or shipment in interstate commerce of products designed … to produce a false or misleading outcome of a test for the presence of a controlled substance.”
More than a dozen states have enacted similar laws.
Of the tens of millions of workplace drug tests performed annually in the United States, an estimated 90 percent are urine tests, which may be influenced by dilution or adding an adulterant to the sample. Over the past decade, numerous commercial businesses have marketed commercial products promising to influence drug test results, including herbal teas and substitute urine.
Sad to see one of my own Oregon Congressmen introducing this (sadder still to see him teaming up with “Mean Jean” Schmidt of Ohio!), but Oregon is one of the states with a similar law. This makes for brisk business across the state line in Vancouver, Washington, where a certain headshop owner advertises, “Hey, Portland, I got what you’re looking for…” on late-night mixed-martial arts TV shows.
This sort of legislation won’t have much effect, by the way. I don’t know how you criminalize a diuretic tea – even here in Oregon we have “health detoxifier” products, not meant to be used to flush your body of any detectable metabolites, no sir, but only for personal well-being, you see, wink wink, nudge nudge. Lawry’s Adolph’s Meat Tenderizer makes an excellent adulterant for carboxy-THC (THC-COOH) – will your crusade rid us of tender juicy beefsteak? Cranberry juice is a good way to flush your system – are you going to put those two guys in the cranberry bog out of work, too? Then there’s always your clean friend or relative willing to supply you with some pee. Will pee trading become criminalized?
Just do the right thing and end workplace drug testing altogether. They are doing nothing to create a truly drug-free workplace:
RevRayGreen: MASS TWEET THIS -@ChuckGrassley Truth is Chuck you follow Nixon's CSA full of reefer sadness. btw Chuck, Marijuana is not a drug.
RevRayGreen: @ChuckGrassley http://bit.ly/55Ejsi Truth is Chuck you follow Nixon's CSA full of reefer madness. btw Chuck, Marijuana is not a drug.
SneakerPimp: one last thing Puff puff pass to any one who wants it
SneakerPimp: i wanna here about the imminent MiniSpof sounds like time for some
SneakerPimp: im estatic and excited for NSL today.
SneakerPimp: mountain time wake n bake
SneakerPimp: oh yea also wake n bake
SneakerPimp: its central im high as a kite everybody
SneakerPimp: ill grab that WUD
WakeUpDead: @Russ, I dont think that wireless is going to work out for the show, it was choppy and studdered just like last week. Hardline may be the only way. Puff [...]
WakeUpDead: A MINI Spof, Lock up your Weed, in 18 years that is. Really Man congrats! Greatest days of my life when my kids were born, hell yeh, great news [...]
BenJaMin: Late night Stash!!!
SneakerPimp: heres a bong rip for spof
RevRayGreen: errr test over....
RevRayGreen: on hold..
RevRayGreen: @RR I'll try and lob a call to you.....
SneakerPimp: where is the first field of cannabis gonna be?
SneakerPimp: !
Radical Russ: Breaking News: MrSpof's wife's water just broke! A MiniSpof is imminent!
SneakerPimp: oh russ its not my fault that i dont understand choppy word:stoned:
SneakerPimp: @Mrspof congratulations tell us all about it tommrow
Radical Russ: OK, test over. Sorry. Only needed a half hour. Be back tomorrow afternoon.
slash5city: don't forget to watch CCS live on u-stream 8 pm west
thaistik: Local Crime Stoppers notice.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Pot shop burglars sought
Crime Stoppers is looking for information on the suspects who police say burglarized a medical marijuana dispensary and stole cash, drugs [...]
Marijuana-Related Health Costs Minimal Compared To Those Of Alcohol, Tobacco; California Medical Association Says Pot Prohibition Is A "Failed Public Health Policy"; Oregon: State NORML Affiliate Opens First 'Cannabis Café'. […]
American Medical Association Calls For Scientific Review Of Marijuana's Prohibitive Status; Dutch Marijuana Use Lower Than European Average, Study Says […]
"Truth In Trials Act" Reintroduced In Congress; Maine: Voters Approve Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Measure; Colorado: Breckenridge Voters Overwhelmingly Decide To End Pot Penalties. […]
Some of the nation’s top athletes discuss why today's pros are turning to cannabis — and away from alcohol and painkillers — off the field, and question why pro sports leagues are continuing to sanction those who do. Moderator: Steve Bloom, Author, Pot Culture; editor, celebstoner.com * Toby Grear, MMA fighter * Sean Neumann, Documentary Filmm […]
Cannabis Law Reform's Missing Link: Law Enforcement Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper; LEAP and NORML Advisory Board; Author of Breaking Rank Putting the Mexican Cartels Out of Business Mexican drug cartels now employ over 100,000 soldiers and are responsible for nearly ten thousand deaths per year. Their largest source of income is marijuana. […]
Stash for Wed, Aug 26, 2009
sounds like time for some 
mountain time wake n bake 
don't forget to watch CCS live on u-stream 8 pm west 
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