Having a hard time coming up with high-concept birthday ideas for that significant stoner in your life? For the pothead who has everything, Toke of the Town presents a few good ideas to spark that next birthday celebration into the stratosphere.Lit™ Birthday CandlesHappy doobie to you!The next time a birthday rolls around, get things started on a high note. Put a new twist on lighting the candles with Lit™ birthday candles from Fred & Friends. Each package contains eight “perfectly rolled” candles which for all the world look like joints.The eight-candle packs of Lits sell for .21 at Amazon, and are also available online at Perpetual Kid, Mortimer Snodgrass, Patina, Pop Deluxe, The Spoon Sisters, Kitchen Kapers, Cool Stuff Express, and Baron Bob.

They’re getting that old time religion in northern India, as the annual Holi festival, an extravagant Hindu spring celebration of colors, is observed with potent marijuana milk shakes.The festival, celebrated in March each year (the exact date depends on the lunar calendar), is an occasion during which men, women and children play wildly with water guns and colored powder,  according to The Observers. And the fact that “bhang thandai,” an almond-flavored milk shake blended with cannabis, is a prominent part of the celebration doesn’t hurt the festive atmosphere one bit.

Ever hear that if cops really want to bust you, they can find a way? Well, maybe it’s true.Because there’s no local statute for misdemeanor level marijuana possession — under 40 grams — if you get arrested on Bainbridge Island, in Washington’s Puget Sound, you aren’t prosecuted under any law dealing with pot, reports Josh Farley at the Kitsap Sun.But that won’t keep you from being busted.”We can arrest someone for having drug paraphernalia,” said Scott Weiss, an island officer. “But not for marijuana.”Turns out “paraphernalia” can be defined pretty loosely, to say the least.”Even if they have marijuana in their pocket, then the pocket becomes the paraphernalia,” Kitsap County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Claire Bradley said.

Plants that could help an estimated 2,400 local medical marijuana patients are in danger of dying with the power cut at CannaHelp dispensary after Thursday’s lockdown of the California pot collective’s building, owner Stacy Hochanadel said Friday.”The just pulled out all the power so the plants are going to die,” Hochanadel said, reports Marcel Honore of The Desert Sun. “The heat, the lack of light, the lack of watering” puts the 400 plants “in danger of being unusable.”

Every few months, you can count on it: Another “scientific” study that attempts to draw some connection, however tenuous, between getting high and going crazy. But those outlandish claims amount to just putting a white lab coat on the “Reefer Madness” warnings of the 1930s, and it’s easy to see why.I mean, get real: Considering modern rates of usage, if cannabis really produced psychosis, the streets would be choked with a gibbering throng of burned-out potheads. It doesn’t. They aren’t.”I’ve said it for years now,” film director John Holowach, responsible for the documentary High: The True Tale of American Marijuana, told Toke of the Town. “If pot and mental illness were linked, the two should rise and fall with one another, but they don’t.”

In Denver, CO, four state lawmakers have sent a request to the Attorney General, Eric H. Holder Jr, asking that he stop raids on medical marijuana operations.  The lawmakers say the raids are discouraging dispensary operators and medical marijuana patients and growers from working with them on proposed regulations. The letter was sent by Senators Chris Romer and Nancy Spence and Representatives Tom Massey and Beth McCann.

The letter was emailed to Holder yesterday and a copy was sent to President Barack Obama plus officials at the US DEA.  A spokeswoman from the Justice Department declined to comment, although she did say the department would review the letter.

Last month, a suburban Denver man who said he was a medical marijuana provider was charged with drug possession in federal court after DEA agents raided his home and found 224 pot plants. Agents became suspicious about the size of the man’s Highlands Ranch operation after he told a Denver television station he expected to make up to 0,000 a year.

Agents also raided two Colorado laboratories that test medical marijuana for pesticides and potency after they applied for licenses from the DEA. The operator of one said he was raided on the day he showed up at the state Capitol to testify on some of the proposed medical marijuana regulations.

Democratic Sen. Chris Romer of Denver, one of four lawmakers to sign the letter, said he’s most troubled by the laboratory raids since the labs appeared to be in compliance with Colorado marijuana law. He said the Highlands Ranch case is less clear-cut.

Romer wants to pass regulations that require dispensaries to grow their marijuana in rural or industrial areas – eliminating neighborhood grows – and have the state keep a confidential database of their location. He said he’s facing resistance because growers fear that the DEA could use the database to crack down on them.

“It’s kind of hard to build trust in the environment that’s been created by these raids,” Romer said.

Sen. Nancy Spence, R-Centennial, said the federal government shouldn’t be getting involved in any possible violations of Colorado’s medical marijuana law

In our aim to become the best medical marijuana resource on the web we are building up our listings of dispensaries in all legal states.  This will obviously be an ongoing process as medical marijuana state laws and county laws aren’t always the same!  If you have useful information, don’t forget that our medical marijuana forum is designed to be a pooled resource.

1. Alaska
2. California
3. Colorado
4. Hawaii
5. Iowa
   
6. Maine
7. Maryland
8. Michigan
9. Montana
10. Nevada
11. New Jersey
    
12. New Mexico
13. Oregon
14. Rhode Island
15. Vermont
16. Washington

In Seattle there’s a move to give more health-care professionals authority to prescribe medical marijuana.

Senate Bill 5798 expands the list of licensed medical practitioners to include:

• Physicians’ assistants
• Nurse practitioners
• Naturopathic physicians

Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles, one of the bill’s sponsors, explains:

“The reason is that, especially in rural areas in the state and away from Puget Sound, because of long distances, many people do not see M.D.s. They see nurse practitioners and physicians assistants who have prescriptive authority.”

Apparently the bill passed through the House on Wednesday with ‘little debate.’ Although two amendments were added that dealt with how the prescriptions should be written.  These amendments mean that the bill will need to go back to the Senate for approval.

Medical Marijuana: Washington State

Colorado is currently a hotbed of medical marijuana action and reaction.  The latest news is that on Tuesday this week in Fort Collins an overflowing chamber met to discuss restrictions for medical marijuana dispensaries.

The proposed ordinance would prohibit medical marijuana dispensaries (MMDs) –– redefined by the council as medical marijuana businesses (MMBs) –– from operating within 1,000 feet of schools, churches and other MMBs. The ordinance would also force MMBs to restrict operating hours from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

If this ordinance is approved and enacted, all but nine of the city’s 95 registered MMBs would be in violation.  Residents operating home-based dispensaries would be forbidden from renewing their licenses after two years and prohibited from growing or keeping cannabis in their homes.

People supplying only to themselves or one other person would not be considered a dispensary, but would be limited to just one other customer and permitted only 12 plants, and six mature plants.

Current Colorado Medical Marijuana State Laws

Thirty-six citizens spoke at the event; with the pro-ordinance group expressing concern about property prices and risks to families in areas close to home dispensaries.  Alan Donagon, whose house sits across from a home dispensary, said “Who would want to buy our house with that across the street?”

Speaking against the restrictions, dispensary operator Amanda Rose said. ““We aren’t nobodies, we have degrees in horticulture. There are cultivation techniques, different strains … We know those things.”

The council voted 6-1 in favour of the ordinance and said they want more information on some key details of the regulations and how they would affect the operation of MMDs before taking the ordinances up again on March 16.

Yesterday CNN published a Report: Marijuana cultivation in Mexico rises which stated that:

Marijuana cultivation in Mexico increased 35 percent in 2008 and continues to grow, even as authorities there push forward with a large offensive against drug cartels that smuggle the product into the United States, according to a State Department report released this week.

Perhaps some of the information came from the Oxymoron group “National Drug Intelligence Center” when they should have actually just asked Ed at “Over grow your Government” and he could have explained the current situation to the State Department and broken the news to them, that the War on Drugs at the marijuana front was lost, as soon as they started fighting a plant that grows like a weed, then by making it contraband, it was made as valuable as gold and more popular than soda pop.

Once upon a time in China there were over 80 million people addicted to opium, a product that the British introduced, which was imported initially and then later smuggled in from India. The Chinese leaders came to the realization that the best way to overcome the problem, which was causing significant social problems in China, was to outgrow the suppliers and corner the market with a cheaper product. Eventually every government will come to a similar realization. Until then expect more weed from more sources and understand that Mexico can grow smugglers too, willing to risk their lives for profit, faster than the U.S. Gov can train and hire border patrols to catch them.

If you live in Europe and you’re a weed grower, cannabis seed company, hemp product manufacturer, cannabis advocate or marijuana activist the place to be today is Barcelona, Spain for Spannabis 2010 which starts today and runs through Sunday at the Cornellá’s convention center

This enormous Hemp festival is held in a 8,000 m2 expo space with over 150 exhibitioners, showing a wide variety products, ranging from industrial hemp to materials for cultivating, various paraphernalia and of course the world’s best known seed banks.  Also in attendance are the cannabis associations and various professionals of the weed world, making Spannabis an excellent place to meet cool people and network.

One of the most popular events at Spannabis is the Cannabis Champions Cup. Last year attendance reached over 18,000 people in a three day period.  DJ’s with all the best music and people in costumes parading through the isles will be present to add an extra element to the atmosphere.

Every week there’s a great bounty poker tournament on Reefer Poker on Thursday night at 20:00 Reefer Time with an entry fee of just + .30 for a No-Limit Holdem Tournament with no rebuys, where everyone begins with 1,500 starting chips then we play 15 min blinds with antes. The thrill of the game though, is winning a bounty on RPDave, or bounty on previous week’s tourney winner TheRealVVViper and bounty on any other RP staff that you knock out of the game. Guess what? There’s also a bounty on ReeferSmoke! Plus a bounty when we have a special guest/pro poker player.

NOTE: Tonight’s Special Guests will be CiaoBush and xXlimogalXx and next Thursday 3/4 the Special Guests will be reefer96822 and whitewidow9999.

There’s a place on Hollywood Boulevard founded by the marijuana activist Ed Forchain, also known as the NJ Weedman, or “Superhero to the Pot Heads” (according to the book “Public Enemy #420″), the place is called “Liberty Bell Temple,” member of the United Cannabis Ministries and a licensed Medicinal Marijuana dispensary, where they host a “Healing Hour” everyday at 4:20 PM. From what I understand, there’s a remarkable mural painted on the side of the building, plus the NJ Weedman can often be spotted driving around in a van called the “Weed Mobile” also painted with a cool mural. There’s so much more to this story that I highly recommend visiting the site Liberty Bell Temple.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says the government cannot make laws “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion. Many people use marijuana as a religious sacrament, and forcing them not to use marijuana clearly prohibits the free exercise of their religion. In order to comply with the First Amendment, our laws should allow for the religious use of marijuana.

…… it creates no impediment to the free exercise of their faith in their homes, their houses of worship, or other non-federal locations. – (Forchion Vs USA)