ReeferSmoke – A Marijuana Blog

Voters and legislators alike have asked cops to end these kinds of busts

When done properly a good article has the ability to produce anger, in addition to the much-needed awareness. Medical marijuana and weed legalization supporters are often easily perturbed when they’re high has been violated, however last week’s S.F. rag, the Bay Citizen story of a militaristic like surge in police marijuana buy-busts in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury district had them going apocalyptic.

There’s a reason why drug war opponents in San Francisco get angry when SFPD goes about busting low-level marijuana offenders: It’s supposed to be against the law. In San Francisco, voters and legislators alike have ruled that a $20 nickel sack of pot is supposed to be police officers’ “lowest priority,” and certainly not enough to warrant an investigation from a veteran cop with nearly 40 years experience (some of it spent busting the same people who made medical marijuana legal) working undercover, that results in felony charges.

The problem is, there are other laws on the books — such as the law making marijuana illegal. Guess which one wins?

The man on the street in the Haight is new Park Police Station Capt. Greg Corrales. The 64-year old Vietnam-era Marine, a former head of narcotics, has been at the police station in Golden Gate Park since June, the Bay Citizen’s Shoshana Walter reports, and has stepped up “buy-bust” operations in the area at the behest of police Chief Greg Suhr.

The crowd at Haight and Stanyan streets selling a High Sierra Music Festival-worthy pharmacopeia are nuisance to some, Haight-Ashbury landscape to others. But it appears the former perception is winning out, as residents and merchants are complaining about the young hooligans and wayward youth in greater numbers — and SFPD is responding.

Corrales and other cops dress in street clothes and seek out marijuana salesmen. When someone unlucky enough to offer the Disney-jersey-clad cop a $20 dime bag, he or she is arrested — and then charged with a felony by District Attorney George Gascón, the former chief of police.

Voters and legislators alike have asked cops to end these kinds of busts — not once, but several times over the past 20 years. The Board of Supervisors first passed a “lowest-priority” ordinance, deeming it city policy for the Police Commission and chief of police to de-prioritize low-level weed busts, in 1992. Another version of the law, authored by now Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, was passed in 2006.

SFPD listened … for a while. In 2006, then-Chief Heather Fong gave the law teeth when she issued a departmental bulletin. But under successor police chiefs Gascon and Jeff Godown, marijuana arrests increased. Statistics for arrests under Suhr’s tenure have yet to be produced.

“We put it on the ballot in San Francisco long ago and citizens wanted marijuana enforcement to be the lowest priority for police,” Ammiano said in an e-mailed statement. “Now, with Colorado and Washington going in that direction there’s one upper officer who wants to play cops and robbers instead of worrying about real problems. People in the neighborhood have some fair complaints about what’s happening there, but this is not going to solve it. We need real policy change on marijuana and shouldn’t waste resources on a minor issue.”

While many thought that lowest-priority meant marijuana was legal, others admitted at the time that it was largely symbolic. Drug-dealing — the section of criminal code makes no distinction between $20 worth of marijuana or $2,000 worth of meth for sale, it’s the same citation — is still illegal, police spokesman Sgt. Michael Andraychak pointed out. Cops perform buy-bust operations, and if it’s marijuana and not something “harder,” so be it: the law is the law.

“The department must respond to complaints of drug dealing and illegal activity and takes such complaints seriously,” Andraychak said in an e-mail. “Drug dealing is a felony and there are usually associated side effects such as, blight, deterioration of neighborhood, robbery, turf disputes, gang issues and quality of life issues that arise as a result of street sales of drugs.”

As it turns out, even when demanded by brass, these buy-bust stings aren’t a big priority: there were five arrests for marijuana sales by Park Station police over the week of Dec. 14 to 21, all on Dec. 16, according to Corrales’s most-recent station newsletter.

The real issue, as Walter reported, may be the people now in the criminal justice system for selling $20 worth of a substance that local law says is mostly benign and somewhat medical. Is a $20 sack worthy of a felony charge? Maybe, maybe not, but that is for now the law.

Source – S.F. Blog

You know your neckdeep into the 2012 holidaze season ,  as Marijuanakkah has already begun... And the department stores have already begun to fire up jingle bowls.

Here’s a tasty little Nug from Gil at weedmaps.TV and Nugporn on YouTube. Some may or may not be aware of Gil’s weed adventures, quick little video blogs of Gil as he travels throughout the country visiting various Pro 420 events.

Here’s a compilation of 2012’s dabs from abroad thanks to Gil.

The islands of the Eastern Pacific Islands tend to have stricter local marijuana laws even more so than the United States. A traveling teen from Japan is now facing the wrath of vilifying marijuana after being caught with marijuana in Bali, Indonesia. Instead of flying back to Japan after his visit to Bali for educational and recreational purposes; the 16-year-old teenager that is a student at the Taman Rama Gandhi will be facing drugs charges of illegal marijuana possession. Bali police found roughly 2.5 grams of cannabis located in his pants pocket. According to police reports, the Japanese teenage sealed the marijuana in a smell-proof baggie to trap in the odor of the aromatic herb.

Romulus Haholongan – special crimes division head of the Denpasar Prosecutor’s Office – said, “The dossier of the detained suspect has been approved and the trial will start in the near future.” The teen that enjoys smoking cannabis was arrested right in front of a gas service station on Jalan Teukur Umar Barat in Denpasar supposedly with the pot crammed in his pants. The stoner told Bali police authorities that he purchased the cannabis from an illegal drug dealer named Puto for Rp 300 thousand which is the equivalent of a little over $31 dollars. This young and naïve Japanese stoner will now face charges that have a consequence of a maximum of 12 years behind bars in federal penitentiary if found guilty.

Most teenagers get a second, third or even fourth chance to have a mulligan when it comes to stupid mistakes. This teen that smokes natural medical marijuana is now stuck in the cesspool that cannabis prohibition has cultivated. A child that is facing up to 12 years in prison for having some organic pot in his pocket while white collar criminals get a slap on the wrist for fraud and embezzlement – does it seem right?

Similar story from Indonesia with teen caught with pot…

A Pierce County jury on Monday convicted Stephen Wesley Ungerbuehler of a felony, but the former bassist for the hard rock band Metal Church was mostly smiles as he left the County-City Building in downtown Tacoma. Ungerbuehler had been charged with three felonies, including leading organized crime and money laundering with indoor hydroponic cultivation of marijuana being the lesser. A conviction for leading organized crime, the most serious count, would have carried a prison sentence of about five years. As it stands, he could face as little as no time in jail when sentenced Sept. 28 on one count of unlawful manufacture of a controlled substance which is perverse — cannabis laws being archaic. His lawyer, Jay Berneburg, said in court that Ungerbuehler likely qualifies for first-time offender status and a sentence of zero to 90 days in jail because he has no prior criminal record.

“The big ones went away,” a beaming Ungerbuehler told supporters as he left court after the reading of the verdict. Jurors deliberated for two hours after a three-week trial before rejecting the prosecution’s argument that Ungerbuehler, who’s traveled the world smoking blunts while playing music, was the leader of a ­marijuana-growing enterprise that raked in profits he laundered through his personal bank accounts.

Berneburg argued, and Ungerbuehler testified, that he helped a friend sick with cancer grow marijuana so she could use it as medicine, instead of going to medical marijuana dispensaries which aren’t even legal in her state. Ungerbuehler probably sealed his own fate on the drug charge by admitting on the stand that he raised and possessed more than the 15 cannabis plants allowed by law for those authorized to grow marijuana for medicinal purposes. It was a contentious trial, with some of that malice spilling over into the next day.

Deputy prosecutor Karen Platt argued that Ungerbuehler, who’s been out on bail pending trial for two years, should be jailed until sentencing. “I think it’s time the defendant went into custody,” Platt said. Berneburg said his client had shown up for every court date and was not a flight risk. He asked Superior Court Judge Frank Cuthbertson to release Unger­buehler on his personal recognizance. Cuthbertson said he would allow Ungerbuehler to remain free until sentencing if he could persuade a bail bond company to ensure his appearance at sentencing by adding a rider to his previous bail amount. The defendant did so and remains free until sentencing. Lucky for him, he was only indoor growing pot and wasn’t caught for being the main kingpin.

Alright my fine 420 aficionados, the time that I’ve been waiting for is at hand. I just found the new and improved marijuana.com is up and working. With their new software — Xeneforo as the replacement for VBulletin, an increased functionality and an updated experience, not to mention sweet new  appearance awaits you. Marijuana.com will be the home for all things associated with cannabis going forward. 

Stop by the new marijuana.com today and enjoy the fresh new experience — from their dank new features you will be able to search for marijuana seeds, marijuana dispensaries, marijuana doctors, marijuana news and marijuana mates … pretty much anything that you can think of within the 420 world — So stop hitting that fine glass piece — get up off the couch and slide  on over to your keyboard and check us out.

All Marijuana News and Events Posted Here….

Marijuana.com Forums Area… Talk with other’s about all things Cannabis

GUERILLA UNION PRESENTS
DR. GREENTHUMB, TOMMY CHONG AND SNOOP DOGG’S
SPRING GATHERING MUSIC FESTIVAL AND MEDICAL MARIJUANA EXPO
POWERED BY WEEDMAPS
SATURDAY, JUNE 11 AT THE NOS EVENTS CENTER IN SAN BERNARDINO, CA
TICKETS ON-SALE APRIL 9
FEATURING LIVE PERFORMANCES BY
SNOOP DOGG, CYPRESS HILL, TRAVIS BARKER with MIX MASTER MIKE,
STEPHEN MARLEY, COLLIE BUDDZ
AND MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED
SNOOP DOGG AND WEEDMAPS ANNOUNCE
OFFICIAL PARTNERSHIP WITH SPRING GATHERING
FIRST ANNUAL CANNABIS CLASSIC RECOGNIZES
EXCELLENCE IN MEDICAL MARIJUANA INDUSTRY
GUERILLA UNION IN CONJUNCTION WITH MEDICINE AND MUSIC PROJECT ANNOUNCE
SAFE AND SECURE ONSITE CONSUMPTION AREA
FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA PATIENTS
Guerilla Union has announced the return of the second annual Dr. Greenthumb, Tommy Chong and Snoop Dogg’s SPRING GATHERING Music Festival and Medical Marijuana Expo powered by Weedmaps, taking place on Saturday, June 11 at the NOS Events Center in San Bernardino, CA. In 2010, SPRING GATHERING established itself as a premier lifestyle destination celebrating music and activism. The second installment will feature a powerful line-up that continues to perfectly blend the worlds of music and cannabis culture. SPRING GATHERING 2011 will feature live performances by SNOOP DOGG, CYPRESS HILL, TRAVIS BARKER WITH MIX MASTER MIKE, STEPHEN MARLEY, COLLIE BUDDZ plus more to be announced. SPRING GATHERING’S ambassadors, Dr. Greenthumb (B Real of Cypress Hill), Tommy Chong, Snoop Dogg and special guest Shelby Chong, will host the day-long festivities.
Festival organizers have also announced an exciting partnership with music artist, Snoop Dogg and technology company, WeedMaps.com, further solidifying B Real, Tommy Chong and Guerilla Union’s mission to create a platform for compassion, activism and education for the entire medical marijuana community. B Real states, “We are thrilled to have Snoop Dogg join our partnership. He is an icon in music and medicine. His commitment to Spring Gathering solidifies our vision with Tommy Chong, and myself. You can count on us to bring innovative ideas that continue to shape this movement.” Chang Weisberg of Guerilla Union also shares his excitement, “We have been looking for a technology partner that would make an immediate impact with our music and medicine platforms. WeedMaps’ combination of web optimization, community, and content will help us power the future of this platform.”
In addition to the music portion, the festival will also offer a full day of activities and attractions to further educate and drive awareness toward the ever-changing social and political landscape surrounding medical marijuana. The WeedMaps Medical Marijuana Expo @ Spring Gathering will play host to advocates, non-profit organizations, medical marijuana collectives, eco-friendly exhibitors and more. While visiting the WeedMaps MMJ Expo, fans will be treated to a full schedule of expert discussion panels, celebrity guest appearances, speakers and meet and greets. In addition to sharing hosting duties, B Real, Tommy Chong and Snoop Dogg will also participate as special guest speakers at the WeedMaps MMJ Expo.
Guerilla Union and WeedMaps have also teamed up to launch The Spring Gathering Cannabis Classic, hosted by Tommy Chong. This new platform, which will take place at SPRING GATHERING, was created for medical marijuana patients to commemorate their favorite collectives, products and strains of the season. Patients will also be able to recognize activists and artists in their communities who have helped bring integrity, compassion and progress toward marijuana reform.
Following the unprecedented and successful implementation of onsite medical marijuana consumption at the Cypress Hill SmokeOut 2010, Guerilla Union and the Medicine and Music Project have announced the first integration of onsite consumption for medical marijuana patients at SPRING GATHERING. A complete and comprehensive list of procedures and regulations for festival attendees is available online at www.springgathering.com. Festival organizers urge all attendees to carefully review all protocols and prerequisites prior to attending the festival.
The Guerilla Union ticket pre-sale, for registered Guerilla Union newsletter subscribers, will begin on Friday, April 8 from 10:00am PST- 10:00pm PST, exclusively on Ticketfly.com. Tickets will be available to the general public online via Ticketfly.com and at key retail locations starting Saturday, April 9. SPRING GATHERING will also be streaming live courtesy of B Real TV on Saturday, June 11. The live stream will feature artist performances, exclusive backstage content and artist interviews throughout the show. Fans can sign up and log on at www.breal.tv. Visit www.springgathering.com to sign up for the Guerilla Union newsletter and receive up to date information and festival announcements.
For more information:
www.springgathering.com
www.guerillaunion.com
www.weedmaps.com
Stay connected:
www.facebook.com/springgathering
www.twitter.com/springgathering
www.twitter.com/weedmaps
www.youtube.com/nugporn

From the first day I arrived in Amsterdam I heard about The King of Cannabis and then learned about the famous Strain Hunters.

Our new leader of the 420 Army has taken up the mantle! This is the catalyst we’ve been waiting for, the blunder of one dumb cop, has gotten the ball rolling in what will become the movement to turn the tide in the battle to legalize marijuana. Take action now! This is an insurgency (peaceful, since we’re stoners) and this is your call to duty.

Willie Nelson sparked a new political effort after his arrest for marijuana, telling CelebStoner.com, “There’s a Tea Party. How about a Teapot Party?

Our motto: ‘We lean a little to the left.’ Tax it, regulate it, legalize it.“

Now it’s our chance to join together to get this Teapot Party started! We need to demand change and back candidates who want to legalize marijuana and hemp as their main issue. Get together with other Teapot supporters by joining a Meetup near you, or take action on-line by joining, and then sharing the Facebook group with your friends.

I never wanted to publish the word cocaine on this blog and always avoided writing about the dirty white flake but how could a modern-day story be told, honestly, and have pertinent details be omitted? How would I be able to honestly tell the story of the people I’ve met and the places I’ve been if I omitted the details about the substances they were abusing? Does that make me a bad person, or for that matter them? Would I be guilty just by association? Could Hollywood portray a story about a bachelor party, for example, without the characters carving-out lines on a mirror. How about the stereo type of the party-girl in the bathroom at the nightclub? Popular culture is filled with references to the white powder and how many movies have featured the inner-city black dude who rises and falls as the purveyor of the stinky rock? The reason these stories have been told over and over is because our culture is completely saturated with cocaine, if we were using cancer as a comparison we’d be diagnosed at level 4 and talking about the term metastasis, meaning that it’s beyond malignant and moved to other parts of the body.

The worst drugs are as bad as anybody’s told you.
It’s just a dumb trip, which I can’t condemn people if they get into it,
because one gets into it for one’s own personal, social, emotional reasons.
It’s something to be avoided if one can help it.
~ John Lennon

In the past few years I’ve traveled to major cities on 3 continents and seen pretty much the same signs in all of them – crack-blight. The other day I saw a photo of a pregnant woman from my city, Sao Paulo, smoking crack in an area of the city called Cracklandia – see what I mean about metastasis? The poor people here can afford to smoke the rock in the ghetto but have no shoes, what’s with that? Now I know I once stated that I didn’t want this blog to turn into a drug war rant but last night I watched the John Lennon documentary and couldn’t stop thinking about his efforts to change the way we think about peace, he definitely made a difference, even though it wasn’t overnight. I think John would have loved the Internet because it enables people to work on causes in an intellectual, peaceful way, which shouldn’t be entirely offensive to the masses, or attract radicals. Therefore I’m going to suggest we give peace a chance and try a new method of dealing with drug abuse, since war doesn’t seem to work….

One thing I believe is that cannabis can be used to solve addiction problems, of all kinds, from all substances. The magical green herb can be especially effective to combat the dirty white flake. It’s shameful how little is being spent to study this method, and yet lot’s of people know it to be true. It’s even more shameful how much money is spent on eradication or law enforcement in comparison to the amount spent on harm reduction or treatment. Well I guess I’ve had my little rant and in case you’re wondering why the expression “dirty?” it’s because of all the blood stains.

I’m back in the land of bikinis, caipirinha’s and a thousand miles of beaches. Ah Brazil, how I love her! And amongst the things I love the most about Brazil, is that the government here doesn’t need to kiss the ass of the United States government. In Brazil I feel safe to live my life, as I see fit, and chasing my dreams, no-matter how twisted they may be. I’ve been listening to Ziggy Marley‘s newest album allot lately, reminiscing about my summer in Canada (see photo) and reconnoitering my excursion to USA. It’s a partly due to Ziggy’s powerful message and also something from the Dead-sea scrolls:

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.

~ The Gnostic Christ

that combined with Ziggy’s message, have now compelled me to share details of my bizarre journey in pursuit of funding for Reefer Poker. It’s time for me to confess about Reefer Smoke – so here’s my story:
Yes it’s true that I also love the USA, as mentioned in my last post, but the reason I stopped blogging on Reefer Smoke was to protect my innocence, since I’ve been in the USA for the past five months, mostly in Los Angeles with visits to nearly every major city in California, but also in both the Carolina’s (North and South) for an intense late-summer business trip, Dallas Texas three times, then New Orleans for an interesting week which culminated with a wild Halloween party at the Maple Leaf, plus five separate trips to Las Vegas.

At the end of my North American odyssey I flew back to Vancouver, traveled up to my family home in Kelowna for a taste of autumn, just before the winter clamped her icy grip down on Western Canada. Then as the first snowflakes started to fly in BC, I knew it was time to head back to South America.

Stay tuned and get ready for the tale of an odyssey more bizarre than anything the you’ve heard in years….