Budtender’s Appreciation Day July 11th!?

What Have You Done for Your BudTender Lately?

Photo by: Robyn Twoby

You tip a waitress don’t you? So why not throw a couple of extra bucks for a person that takes care of your weedy needs? As a Cali MMJ patient, I’m able to frequent any number of collectives in California. It’s nice when I’m traveling within the state to visit a collective and pick up a local strain or bud. One of  the local collectives I frequent here in Los Angeles, has had a sign behind the counter saying “Budtender’s Appreciation Day 7-11-11” forever, so I decided to ask what it was all about.

“I don’t really know” was the first answer one of them gave me. I later found out it was a day they had come up with on their own. It got me thinking. BudTenders DO provide a necessary service to MMJ patients and have to put up with a LOT of shit from patients and bosses, so why shouldn’t they have their own day?! . People may “think” a budtender’s job would be the tits having access to so much weed everyday. Wrong-O! Try waiting on people that are finicky, bitchy and abusive for 10 hours a day for pretty humble wages.

We have Secretaries Day so why not Budtender’s Appreciation Day?

If anyone can make this day a reality and a movement for all the budtenders out there, it’s Hail Mary Jane and OUR GREENIES!!

So this July 11^th, when you are at your favorite collective picking up your meds, why not surprise your Budtender with a tip, a gift, a hug or just tell them how important they are.  Make your Budtender feel special on their day! Remember 4:20 started somewhere too!

Tell them HMJ is showing the love for all Budtenders!

Let’s make “BudTender’s Appreciation Day 7-11-11” a real day!

from http://www.hailmaryjane.com

 

Support Marijuana Legalization And Get Ypur Name On A Virtual Brick

Two weeks ago, we launched our new organization, the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform (CCPR), to bring citizens together to work toward legalizing marijuana in2012.

Already, thousands of people like you have stood up and pledged their support for going back to the ballot next year.

With that kind of support, I am confident that we can win. Together, we’re going to build this organization, brick by brick, and lay the foundation for an even stronger grassroots movement — but we need your help to do it.

That’s why, today, we are launching our Founding Members program. With a contribution of $25 or more, we’ll place your name on your own personalized virtual brick on our website’s Founders Wall, publicly recognizing you as a Founding Member of the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform.

Contribute $25 to our Founding Member drive today — and have a brick added in your name to our virtual wall!

To recognize friends like you, we’re building a virtual brick wall, symbolizing the support we have for cannabis policy reform.

Each brick represents a supporter of the cause, with his or her name engraved on the front, along with a personalized comment. Our virtual wall will let the world know everyone who is a part of this new effort from the very start.

Every contribution counts. If we build our virtual wall with just 1,000 bricks, we’ll have already raised $25,000 for our cause.

Will you buy your own personalized brick right now — so we can add your name to our Founding Member wall?

Show your support for building the grassroots movement that will tax and legalize cannabis in California: Contribute $25 and get your own personalized brick added to our Founding Member wall!

Your contribution to CCPR will help us build the movement we need to end cannabis prohibition in California. Together, we can lead the nation to a more sensible drug policy — brick by brick.

We are extremely grateful for your support.

Dale Jones
Chair
Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform

P.S. Want to check out how the Founding Member wall is already shaping up? Click here to check it out — and then click here to buy your own personalized virtual brick.

Drug Warriors Won’t Play Cannabis Reformers In Softball

Photo: Anastacia Cosner

The One Hitters are already kicking the Drug War’s ass — now they want to beat the drug warriors in a softball game

Once again, the softball team representing the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has backed out of playing a softball game against the One Hitters, a team consisting of members of several drug policy reform organizations and others who want to end the “War On Drugs.”

A game between the two teams had been scheduled for May 25, but the ONDCP Czardinals chickened out shortly after scheduling the game, with ONDCP public liaison coordinator Quinn Staudt claiming an “accidental double-booking.”

This is not the first time the Czardinals have refused to play the One Hitters.

Photo: Anastacia Cosner

The One Hitters dominate the Congressional Softball League

​ In six years, the team of drug warriors has managed to find one lame reason or another to avoid taking the field against the One Hitters, made up of individuals dedicated to reforming the out-of-date and ineffectual policies promoted by the ONDCP.

This behavior is being mimicked on the national stage by the ONDCP as well, according to the reformers.

While Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske claimed he would no longer use the rhetoric of a “War On Drugs” and President Obama said he wants to treat drug abuse more as a health problem than a criminal justice issue, little has been seen in the way of action in that direction.

The President has also said he does not support the legalization of any drug — even marijuana — despite the inarguable damage marijuana prohibition does to society, individual users, medical patients that benefit from cannabis treatments, governmental budgets, and respect for the rule of law.

“It is really disappointing that the ONDCP not only refuses to have an honest debate with drug policy reformers about the absolute failure of drug prohibition, but also keeps ducking out of softball games with us,” said One Hitters team captain Jacob Berg.

“We think it would be a great opportunity to advance the discussion between drug law reformers and the people ostensibly in charge of drug policy in this country,” Berg said. “I wonder if they are afraid to have that conversation.”

“The drug czar said ‘legalization’ isn’t in his vocabulary, but it’s just a friendly softball game!” Berg said.

The One Hitters still hope that Czardinals will put aside ideological differences and accept their invitation to play a softball game this summer on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Photo: Anastacia Cosner

The mighty One Hitters strike fear into the hearts of the ONDCP Czardinals and drug warriors everywhere.

Stoner Photo of the Day: Hot Girl Rolling/Smoking Blunt

Come by Cafe Vale Tudo
24601 Raymond Way, Suite 9B
Lake Forest, CA 92630
(949) 454-9227
Open 10 am to 10 pm every day!

Stoner Photo of the Day: When Your Parents Find Out You Smoke

That sucks. Maybe she just wanted to know where you buy your marijuana? Haha.

Marijuana Advocates Sue Government Over Rescheduling Delay

Photo: MyMedicineTheBook.com

The federal government refuses to reclassify marijuana as medicine — despite the fact that it has sent Irv Rosenfeld and a handful of other patients hundreds of joints a month for close to 30 years.

A coalition of medical marijuana advocacy groups and patients filed suit Monday in D.C. Circuit Court to compel the Obama Administration to answer a nine-year-old petition to reclassify medical marijuana.

The Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis (CRC) has never received an answer to its 2002 petition, despite a formal recommendation in 2006 from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which is unfortunately the final arbiter in the rescheduling process.

As recently as July 2010, the DEA issued a 54-page “Position on Marijuana,” but failed to even mention the pending CRC petition.

Plaintiffs in the case include the CRC, Americans for Safe Access (ASA), Patients Out of Time, as well as individually named patients, one of whom is listed on the CRC petition but died in 2005.

“The federal government’s strategy has been delay, delay, delay,” said Joe Elford, chief counsel of ASA and lead counsel on the writ. “It is far past time for the government to answer our rescheduling petition, but unfortunately we’ve been forced to go to court in order to get resolution.”

Photo: ASA

Joe Elford, ASA: “The federal government’s strategy has been delay, delay, delay. It is far past time for the government to answer our rescheduling petition”

​The writ of mandamus filed on Monday accuses the government of unreasonable delay in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act. A previous cannabis (marijuana) rescheduling petition filed in 1972 were unanswered for 22 years before being denied.

The writ argues that cannabis is not a dangerous drug and that ample evidence of its therapeutic value based on scientific studies in the United States and around the world.

“Despite numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies establishing the marijuana is effective” in treating numerous medical conditions, the government “continues to deprive seriously ill persons of this needed, and often life-saving therapy by maintaining marijuana as a Schedcule I substance,” according to the writ.

The writ calls out the government for unlawfully failing to answer the petition despite an Inter-Agency Advisory issued by the Food and Drug Administration in 2006 and “almost five years after receiving a 41-page memorandum from HHS stating its scientific evaluation and recommendations.”

The federal government maintains its Schedule I classification of marijuana even as it gives out hundreds of federal joints every month to a handful of patients — which it has done since 1976, when it created the Investigational New Drug Compassionate Access Program.

Every month, the federal government still sends tins of 300 joints each to the four surviving patients of the original program, which suspended accepting new patients after President George H.W. Bush realized in the early 1990s that a wave of HIV/AIDS patients was on the way.

Photo: ASA

Steph Sherer, ASA: “Adhering to an outdated public policy that ignores science has created a war zone for doctors and their patients who are seeking to use cannabis therapeutics”

​ The two largest physician groups in the country — the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians — have both called on the federal government to review marijuana’s status as a Schedule I substance with “no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

The National Cancer Institute, a part of the National Institutes for Health, added cannabis to its website earlier this year as a Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM) and recognized that “Cannabis has been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years prior to its current status as an illegal substance.”

Medical marijuana has now been legalized in 16 states and the District of Columbia, and has an overwhelming 80 percent approval rating among Americans, according to several polls.

In an 1988 ruling on a prior rescheduling petition, the DEA’s own Administrative Law Judge Francis Young recommended in favor of reclassification, saying “Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.”

A formal rejection of the CRC petition would enable the group to challenge in court the government’s assertion that marijuana has no medical value.

“Adhering to outdated public policy that ignores science has created a war zone for doctors and their patients who are seeking to use cannabis therapeutics,” said Steph Sherer, executive director of ASA and a plaintiff in the writ.

“The Obama Administration’s refusal to act on this petition is an irresponsible stalling tactic,” added Jon Gettman, who filed the rescheduling petition on behalf of the CRC.

A synthetic form of THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in the cannabis plant, is currently classified as a Schedule III substance for its use in a prescribed pill trademarked as Marinol®. The pill goes off-patent this year and companies vying to sell generic versions are petitioning the government to also reclassify the more economical, naturally derived THC (from the plant itself) to Schedule III as well.

The rescheduling process involves federal agencies such as the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), HHS, and DEA. On average, it takes six months from HHS review to final action, but it’s been almost five years since HHS issued its recommendation on the CRC petition — more than twice as long as any other rescheduling petition reviewed since 2002.

More Information

Writ filed today [PDF]

ASA backgrounder on rescheduling [PDF]

CRC rescheduling petition [PDF]

2006 HHS recommendation [PDF]

2010 DEA “Position on Marijuana” [PDF]

Stoner Photo of The Day: Sativa Sampler Pack

While visiting friendly Dockside Cooperative in the Seattle suburb of Fremont (“the Center of the Universe”), I noticed one welcome innovation that budtender Aaron told me is very helpful in allowing patients to find the strains that work best for them: sampler packs.

Dockside has sampler packs of both sativa strains and indicas, as well as 50/50 packs with four strains of each. Seen in the photo above is a Sativa Sampler Pack I got at Dockside today.

Dude, I haven’t been this excited since my mom would bring home Variety Packs of cereal.

Sampler packs are available for $85 each, which is a bargain considering you get a gram each of eight strains; four of the eight strains go for $15 a gram and the other four go for $12 a gram — that’s $108 worth of medicine for just $85.

Additionally, they have the best selection of edibles I’ve ever seen in Seattle: not just the regular sweets like Rice Krispie treats, cupcakes and brownies, but also savory snacks like lasagna, soups, burritos and even beef jerky.

Two kinds of tinctures, in both glycerin- and alcohol-based formulas, are available, as are numerous topicals, including salve, muscle rubs, bath salts, and foot balm. It’s worthy of note that The Cure tinctures are made with Rick Simpson oil and are quite potent indeed, at $30 a bottle.

Concentrates include honey oil, bubble hash and kief. Kief pills (containing kief in a base of coconut oil) are available at $5 apiece, three for $10.

http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/05/stoner_photo_of_the_day_sativa_sampler_pack.php#more