The Weed Poll Station
Did You Know....
January 24, 2008
People can buy
many things in
vending machines,
from candy and
chips to sandwiches,
aspirin and now
medicinal marijuana.
Yep. Marijuana
dispensing vending
machines now exist.
In California Anytime-Vending-Machines in secure rooms dispense marijuana to anyone with a doctor's prescription for the weed that is legal in that state for anyone with a medical need to take it.
The machines are housed in standalone rooms next to two dispensaries, protected by security guards.
They will be operational on Monday and operators plan to dispense other drugs from the machines in the near future, including Viagra, Vicadin and Propecia.
Source: WayOdd
- 420 is not the number of a bill in Congress to legalize pot, though many people believe it is.
- 420 is not the police or penal code for marijuana possession in California or any other state, though many people believe that, as well.
- Nor is 420 is the number of chemical compounds in cannabis, though many authors seem fond of stating so.
- What "420" is - whether expressed in the form 4:20 (as a time of day), 4/20 (as a calendar date), or just the unadorned numeral itself (pronounced "four-twenty") - is a universal symbol, of sorts, for the use and appreciation of marijuana. In fact, 4/20 (April 20) is widely, though unofficially, known as Marijuana Appreciation Day.
Notwithstanding all the urban legends that have grown up about the 420/marijuana connection, the true story behind it is surprisingly prosaic. In the early 1970s a small group of hippie stoners at San Rafael High School in northern California used to meet at a designated location every day to smoke pot at 4:20 p.m. They did this so regularly that among members of the group "420" became a general euphemism for lighting up. The catchphrase spread beyond the immediate group, beyond the high school, and ultimately beyond California, so that within a decade or two pot smokers were using it across the country and indeed the world over.
Source: David Emery's Urban Legends Blog
Facts
It's All About the Weed!
President Obama’s political roll model, Abraham Lincoln smoked weed too. Historical documentation leaves little doubt that the 16th president of the United States was a proud pot head who praised smoking cannabis to unwind and have fun.
The legendary US leader, who was honored by Obama during his presidential inauguration, loved to play harmonica. Hohner Harmonica Company in Germany learned of this, and had sent a couple of them to Lincoln as gifts. In the thank-you note from 1855 to the harmonica builder the US president not only expresses his fondness of the instruments, but surprisingly also of (what we now know as) marijuana. Lincoln writes: "Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica."
Henry Ford's first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the car itself was constructed from hemp. On his large estate, Henry Ford was photographed among his hemp fields.
The car, "grown from the soil," had hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel. From Popular Mechanics - 1941
On October 2, 1937 the day that the Marihuana Tax Act was passed, federal agents arrested Mr. Samuel Caldwell, age 58, in Denver, CO, for selling two marihuana cigarettes.
Samuel Caldwell became the first American convicted under the new federal law. He was sentenced to 4 years in Leavenworth Penitentiary, and died a year after being released.
Famous Quotes
“I think people need to be educated to the fact that marijuana is not a drug. Marijuana is an herb and a flower. God put it here. If He put it here and He wants it to grow, what gives the government the right to say that God is wrong?”
Willie Nelson
(American Country Western Singer)
“Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn't the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit . . . unnatural?”
Bill Hicks
(American Comedian)
“They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you're high, you can do everything you normally do, just as well. You just realize that it's not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference.”
Bill Hicks
“Researchers have discovered that chocolate produces some of the same reactions in the brain as marijuana. The researchers also discovered other similarities between the two but can't remember what they are.”
Matt Lauer
(American Journalist)
“I talked to Snoop doggy dogg today. well I'm not sure if you could realy call it talked because I could hardly understand what he was saying. But i think he was trying to communicate was that he wanted to work with me in some sort of capacity and something involving marijuana.”
Marilyn Manson
“I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast.”
Ronald Reagan
(American 40th US-President)
“Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.”
William F. Buckley, Jr.
(American Writer)
“Marijuana is like Coors beer. If you could buy the damn stuff at a Georgia filling station, you'd decide you wouldn't want it.”
Billy Carter
“I tried marijuana once. I did not inhale.”
Bill Clinton
(American 42nd US-President)
“Sometimes I'm asked by kids why I condemn marijuana when I haven't tried it. The greatest obstetricians in the world have never been pregnant.”
Art Linkletter
(American radio broadcaster, television personality and author)
"I never understood that line. The point was to inhale. That was the point."
Barack Obama, US-President, When asked, "Unlike other presidents, did you inhale?"
Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use... Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marihuana.
Jimmy Carter, U.S. President in a message to the U.S. Congress (1977)
"I think that marijuana makes you stupid but sensual. I've watched many of my friends and loved ones become more erotic and dumber--just going around with a glazed expression on their faces from their last orgasms to the next--and found them really quite boring."
Timothy Leary
(American writer, psychologist, futurist)
"The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world."
Carl Sagan
(American astronomer, astrochemist)
Videos - Everything We Could Possibly Find From Barack Obama's Views on the Legalization of Drugs to Making a Device to Cover Up the Smell of Smoking Weed!
Celebrity Stoners
Amsterdam orders pot cafes to close
by Patricia Treble, Macleans
December 2008
The city of Amsterdam ordered nearly one-fifth of its cannabis cafes to close by 2011 in order to comply with national legislaton designd to protect children from drugs. The targeted "coffee shops," which sell marijuana and hashish as well as caffeinated drinks, all operate within 250m of a school. Peter Veling, a Cannabis Union spokesman, thinks it's overkill, pointing out that stiff penalties already exist for selling to under-18s: "They know a school-aged customer found on the premises would mean instant closure of the coffee shop."
One of the most famous dope hangouts affected by the law is the Bulldog cafe in the Leidseplein, a popular tourist mecca. Located in a former police headquarters, it was opened on April Fool's Day in 1985. Though Margriet Bosman, principal of the nearby high school, opposes the new rule - "We actually think it's just for show" - her underage students admit it isn't difficult to buy marijuana from the 228 coffee shops in the city.
The new rule is apparently part of a rethinking of permissive drug policies in the Netherlands, which effectively decriminalized marijuana use in 1976. At a recent "weed summit", mayors pushed for a regulated supply system to cut criminals out of the cultivation and wholesale trade. One city, Eindhoven, proposed setting up a marijuana plantation pilot project to grow pot for its coffee shops. Two towns near the Belgian border, tired of the stoner tourist trade and resultant crime, are forcing all their cannabis cafes to close. A fourth is considering restricting sales to Dutch citizens.
A government report evaluating its current drug strategy is due next year. However, given that 80 percent of Dutch citizens opposed shutting down the coffee shops in a recent poll, a total ban is unlikely.
News of Amsterdam's cafe closures came days before a nationwide halt to the sale of fresh "magic" mushrooms. That ban was announced after a number of incidents, including the death of a 17-year-old French girl, who jumped into a canal while high on the hallucinogen in March.
Duuuuuude! The world's oldest stash of marijuana has been found in far western China, according to an article in the Journal of Experimental Botany.
An ancient Caucasian people, probably the Indo-European-speaking Yuezhi whose fair-haired mummies keep turning up in Xinjiang province, seem to have buried one of their shamans with a whopping 789 grams of high-potency pot 2,700 years ago.
That's about 28 ounces of killer green bud, worth perhaps $8,000 at today's street prices, and enough to keep Harold and Kumar happy for a couple of days.
"It was common practice in burials to provide materials needed for the afterlife," lead author Ethan B. Russo, a practicing neurologist and prominent medicinal-marijuana advocate based in Missoula, Mont., tells the Canadian Press. "No hemp or seeds were provided for fabric or food. Rather, cannabis as medicine or for visionary purposes was supplied."
But the researchers couldn't tell if the weed was meant to be smoked or eaten. No pipes, bongs or rolling papers were found in the tomb.
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus relates how the Scythians, Iranian-speaking nomads who roamed the steppes to the west of the Yuezhi in the first millennium B.C., liked to throw marijuana onto bonfires to induce trancelike states. It's possible the buried shaman followed similar practices.
Arnold Schwarzenegger: it's high time to review marijuana law
by Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles , Guardian-UK
May 2009
Arnold Schwarzenegger has never apologised for smoking pot – and loving it — at the height of his bodybuilding career in the 1970s. Now, as a struggling Republican governor of California reaching a crossroads in his political career, he might yet become America's most visible advocate for legalising marijuana.
The actor-turned-politician gladdened the heart of every joint-roller and dope fiend across the Golden State earlier this week when he said it was time for a full debate on legalisation.
Schwarzenegger was careful not to say too much – he stopped shorting of saying he was in favour of legalising cannabis now – but his words broke a long-standing taboo among both Republicans and Democrats who have previously felt obliged to say marijuana must remain illegal, and marijuana users and pushers be subject to criminal prosecution.
The governor spoke in response to a new public opinion poll showing that 56% of registered voters in California favour legalising and taxing marijuana – in part to help the state out of the worst budget crisis in its history. The state faces a shortfall of billions of dollars a year because of the bad economy, and public services from schools to hospitals to fire-fighting services are under mounting threat.
Asked if he too favoured legalisation, Schwarzenegger told reporters: "Well, I think it's not time for that, but I think it's time for a debate. I think all of those ideas of creating extra revenues [are worth considering] … I think we ought to study very carefully what other countries are doing that have legalised marijuana and other drugs. What effect did it have on those countries?"
The redwood forests of northern California are famous for their marijuana cultivation, creating an underground economy that has continued to thrive despite America's decades-long war on drugs. The Golden State has been a leading rebel against the federal government's strict interdiction policies, becoming the first of 14 US states to allow marijuana for medical use as far back as 1996.
Legalisation, however, has never been a serious part of the agenda.
The most immediate effect of the governor's comments is likely to be a boost for a legalisation bill recently introduced in the state assembly by a San Francisco liberal Democrat called Tom Ammiano. Such bills pop up every few years and are almost always ignored or defeated, but this one may just be different now.
"I look forward to working with the governor and my colleagues in the effort to be the first state in the nation to enact commonsense policy on marijuana," an elated Ammiano said. His proposed system of legalising and taxing marijuana would raise an estimated $1.3bn a year in tax revenue alone, according to state legislative analysts. The savings in law enforcement and incarceration costs could be many billions more.
Schwarzenegger may feel he has little to lose. He feels out of step within an increasingly rigid, increasingly hardline conservative Republican party, and the economic crisis in California has pushed his popularity ratings below 40%.
Source: Thinkexist.com
Some Marijuana Facts and Myths
- Marijuana is recognized by over 200 slang terms.
- The most common method of ingesting marijuana is through smoking.
- It can be detected in urine tests several days after a single use, and regular users may take weeks for it to have completely cleared their system.
- There are nearly 400 individual chemicals in the hemp plant.
- Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol or THC is the one which is responsible for its psychoactive effects.
- The quantity of THC determines the strength of the drug.
- The average quantity of THC in a cannabis cigarette is 3%, which usually amounts to 5 to 150mg.
- When smoked, the drug’s effects are felt within minutes and can last for around an hour and a half, depending on its potency. When eaten, however, marijuana can take 30 minutes or so to affect the body, and its influence may last for hours.
Myth: That cannabis can cause permanent mental illness.
Fact: There is no actual scientific evidence that proves this at all.
Myth: That Marijuana causes far more lung damage than Tobacco.
Fact: Marijuana smokers typically smoke much less marijuana than tobacco smokers smoke tobacco and hence only incur very minor damage to their lungs. Also, there are absolutely no reports of lung cancer that are soley related to the use of marijuana.
Myth: Marijuana causes Crime.
Fact: Every single study of the relationship between marijuana and crime conducted has confirmed that a large majority of marijuana smokers commit no crime other than that of smoking cannabis. Furthermore studies show that marijuana actually decreases aggression instead of increasing it.
Myth: That Marijuana is highly addictive.
Fact: The fact is that most people smoke marijuana every now and then, less than 1% smoke it everyday. And of these an even smaller minority develop any kind of dependance on marijuana. There are many, many reported cases of frequent, heavy smokers stopping without any problem.
Myth: Marijuana kills brain cells.
Fact: Absolutely no medical tests used to detect human brain damage have found damage caused by marijuana - even in the cases of long term smoking.
Fact: Marijuana has been proven extremally effective in relieving the pain and nausea that is caused by diseases such as cancer. It is also able to bring back appetite for AIDS sufferers.
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The Weedman Cometh
Weed Facts & Trivia
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