Growing Marijuana? Get The Secrets of the West Coast Masters

Do you grow medical marijuana? Would you like to have more of it? Ounces are for amateurs, according to Dru West, author of The Secrets of the West Coast Masters. West wants to teach you how to yield a pound per plant — indoors.

The West Coast Masters are medical marijuana growers and patients from California, Oregon and Washington state. After researching the leading cannabis cultivation techniques from around the world, including bonsai and tomato horticulture, they developed what they call the “ultimate techniques” for growing medicinal marijuana.

“Throughout the mountains and valleys of the US West Coast resides a secret society of master growers who are producing marijuana of unbelievable yields and potency,” we’re told on the cover of this $34.99 hardback. “While most growers are content with a yield of two ounces per plant, these West Coast Masters consistently yield over a pound, and in some cases over two pounds, all while staying within the limits of their

medical marijuana programs.”

Legal Loopholes and How Weed Growing Can Now Be a Legal Home Occupation

Published by TRJ under Best news of the Day,Misc

http://hailmaryjane.com/legal-loopholes-and-how-weed-growing-can-now-be-a-legal-home-occupation/

Image Via Ephemeron

And all this time you were talking sh*t about your homeboy and how all he does is stay in that hot ass apartment growing his weed plants! Little did you know that your dude was actually a budding entrepreneur and weed growing is his ‘home occupation’ but only if he lives in Bingham Township, Michigan.

The Bingham Township Planning Commission is considering adopting a zoning ordinance amendment similar to one being considered by neighboring Suttons Bay Township that might allow the production and sale of medical marijuana as a “home occupation.”

This clever move was made possible by an amendment adopted by the township planners after a review of the Michigan Attorney General’s interpretation of the state’s medical marijuana law. The basis of the ordinance allows ‘growers’ to run home based businesses that provide medical cannabis to patients. The difference is that each grower must deliver the plants; no store fronts or commercial businesses are allowed to participate.

These loose ‘collectives’ can do a whole lot of good for the entire community. Having a home based business is great because it allows one to earn an income. The fact that the marijuana is being cultivated on private property and only sold to a maximum of five people and delivered door to door means there is less likelihood the police would even notice what was going on. In addition, a search of private property to cease marijuana that’s being used for medicinal purposes would seem like an invasion of privacy and a bad image for the Michigan law enforcement community.

Let’s hope other towns take advantage of city and state zoning laws to bring about access to medical marijuana that can be tolerated by both users and the citizens that love them.

California Judge Rules Medical Marijuana Not An Agricultural Product

By Steve Elliott of Toke of the Town

Yes, marijuana is a plant you grow from the ground. No, it’s not an agricultural crop. Confused yet?

In what is believed to be the first ruling of its kind in the state, a judge in California has ruled that a marijuana collective can’t operate on land zoned for agriculture, reports Lewis Griswold of the Fresno Bee.

In his ruling last week, Tulare County Superior Court Judge Paul Vortmann dismissed a property owner’s argument that a medical marijuana collective’s cultivation of marijuana is legal because it is in an agricultural zone.

“In this state, marijuana has never been classified as a crop or horticultural product,” Judge Vortmann wrote in his ruling. Marijuana is a controlled substance, the judge said.

“The court finds as a matter of law that growing marijuana … is not an agricultural use of property,” the judge wrote.

It’s the first time a court has addressed whether medical marijuana might be an agricultural crop, according to Tulare County Counsel Kathleen Bales-Lange, whose office sued a property owner and collective on behalf of the Board of Supervisors.

Marijuana plants are “agricultural in nature” because they grow like any other crop, according to lawyer Brandon Ormonde of Tulare, who represented the property owner. He acknowledged that medical marijuana has never been legally acknowledged as an “agricultural plant.”

“If it’s not a crop, I don’t know what it is,” said Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML, reports the Associated Press.

The case involved the Foothill Growers Association medical marijuana collective, which rented a building south of Ivanhoe in an agricultural zone. The collective grew plants inside the building and operated a dispensary.

Tulare County sued the collective and the property owner last year, arguing that marijuana dispensaries are only allowed in specified commercial and manufacturing zones.

The group has until Friday to stop using the building. Hanford attorney Bill Romaine, who represents Foothill Growers Association, said on Thursday that he believed the cooperative had negotiated a new site to use in unincorporated Tulare County, reports David Castellon at the Visalia Times-Delta.

Five years ago, an estimate that marijuana was the top cash crop in the United States at $35.8 billion a year made headlines nationwide. The crop’s value is more than corn and wheat combined, according to legalization advocate Jon Gettman, who prepared the 2006 report.

But never mind all that. Marijuana is not recognized by the California Department of Food and Agriculture as an “agricultural commodity.” (Maybe it’s time they catch up to reality.)

No agricultural commissioner in the state — not even in Mendocino and Humboldt counties — lists cannabis in is annual crop reports.

“We don’t regulate or track marijuana at all and regard that as a law enforcement issue,” said Steve Lyle, speaking for the state agriculture agency.

That could all change, though, under a proposed ballot initiative that plans a farming future for marijuana. Among other things, it proposes to apply “existing agricultural taxes and regulations to marijuana” and would prohibit zoning restrictions on cannabis cultivation.

It was recently approved by the Secretary of State’s office for signature gathering in an attempt to get it on the 2012 ballot.

Article From Toke of the Town and republished with special permission.

10 Years Prison Upheld In Eddy Lepp Medical Marijuana Case

http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/07/10_years_prison_upheld_in_eddy_lepp_medical_mariju.php

Photo: Salem-News

Eddy Lepp walked his last mile to federal prison as a free man.

​A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld the conviction and 10-year prison sentence of Charles “Eddy” Lepp, who grew 32,000 marijuana plants for patients and fellow Rastafarians on his land in Lake County, California.

The federal judge who sent Lepp to prison in 2009 criticized the federal law which required a 10-year prison term for growing more than 1,000 cannabis plants, reports Bob Egelko at the San Francisco Chronicle. But U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of San Francisco said she had no choice under the law, and the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.

“The statutory minimum sentence is not cruel and unusual punishment,” the three-judge panel ruled.

Federal agents arrested Rev. Lepp in 2004 after finding the marijuana plants near his home in Upper Lake, lost of them in clear view of Highway 20.

Lepp said the plants were for patients who had a right to use marijuana with their doctors’ authorization under California law. He also said he was a Rastafarian minister, for whom ganja is a sacrament, and that he was growing the plants for 2,500 members of his church who were sharecroppers.

Federal law prohibits marijuana for any purpose, even in states which have legalized its medicinal use. The appeals court upheld Patel’s refusal to allow Lepp to use his religion as a defense to the charges, ruling his prosecution was due to the government’s “compelling interest in preventing diversion of sacramental marijuana to non-religious users.”

Lepp’s attorney, Michael Hinckley, had argued that the 10-year sentence was grossly disproportionate to the “crimes.” Hinckley said he was disappointed by Wednesday’s ruling.

“The thought of him spending 10 years in prison, in circumstances like these, is tragic,” Hinckley said.

Police Shouldn’t Be Proud of Seizing Bigger Marijuana Crops Every Year

By Scott Morgan

If I didn’t know better, some of this week’s headlines might have me wondering if the American marijuana market is about to come to a crashing halt.

Record Marijuana Bust: $205 Million In Pot Plants Eradicated In Ventura County

Officials from the Venture County Sheriff’s department pulled in a record haul at a massive marijuana bust last week, the department announced today.

According to the official press release, the interoffice effort between a number of local officials and the United States Forest Service (USFS) managed to collect 68,488 marijuana plants at a large growing operation in the Los Padres National Forest just north of the city of Ojai.

The estimated street value for the record breaking bust was $205,464,000. (Huffington Post)

Meanwhile in Mexico, there’s plenty of excitement in the air as well:

Mexico Finds Large Marijuana Farm in Baja California

Mexican soldiers discovered one of the largest marijuana plantations ever found in the country, just 200 miles south of San Diego, Calif., the Mexican Defense Ministry said.

Mexican officials said on Thursday that the plantation, in Baja California, stretched as far as the eye could see—totaling some 120 hectares (296 acres). The crop would yield about 120 metric tons and be worth an estimated $160 million, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. (WSJ)

This is pretty typical stuff as far as celebratory drug prohibition press releases are concerned, but that hardly excuses the epic levels of drug war idiocy on display here. Let’s just think critically for one second and consider how you’d feel if you were tasked with the responsibility of preventing marijuana cultivation, and you just kept discovering ever more mindblowingly enormous marijuana plantations every single year.

It is a sign of progress, yes, but not on the part of the vast drug war armies dedicated to stopping people from growing staggering amounts of marijuana all over the northern hemisphere. The only discernible progress any reasonable person could observe here would have to be credited to those whose mission it is to overwhelm law-enforcement with an ever-intensifying cultivation campaign that promises to make them rich regardless of whatever percentage happens to get hauled off by the cops.

You would never find an oncologist bragging that he’s finding the biggest tumors of his career and calling it a victory in the fight against cancer. Marijuana is hardly cancer, of course, but I wouldn’t bet these pot crusaders are entirely clear on the distinction, which is why I still struggle to comprehend their ongoing and obsessive tendency to boast about something they ought to find perfectly disturbing.

At this pace, we can look forward to the day when marijuana is literally the only thing still growing in our once-majestic wilderness, and as insane as it sounds, I wouldn’t even be surprised to find law enforcement still bragging about their success as marijuana fields wind their way across every hillside from Orange Country to Olympia.

Artilcle From StoptheDrugWar.org – Creative Commons Licensing

http://www.theweedblog.com/police-shouldnt-be-proud-of-seizing-bigger-marijuana-crops-every-year/

 

Spray Allows Any Plant to Produce THC?

There is a lot of buzz about a new chemical growth supplement that is supposed to allow growers to produce THC within any plant they grow.

The product was expected to be on sale from a company called Montsaint Genie Tech. Unfortunately since the news hit the streets the product, which was supposed to be coming out earlier this year, has never been released and the company appears to be nonexistent.

Articles posted all over the internet, mostly on stoner news outlets, claimed to have received information that this product was legitimate and legal. Some sites even quote a confident statement from an alleged Montsaint Genie Tech scientist.

“We probably can put the THC segment into almost any plant in existence,” says lead scientist Rebeca Vale.

“It’s a very simple process. We are starting work on oak and maple trees now.”

The idea was that they had already produced a batch of tomatoes that produced more THC than cannabis itself. So that if you dried the tomatoes out, you could smoke them and get thoroughly baked. Unfortunately the way it looks now, the whole thing was probably just a hoax.

The name Montsaint Genie Tech is now commonly thought to be a parody of the infamous seed company Monsanto. The company featured in documentaries from the likes of Michael Moore, and are sited for creating a monopoly on the commercial produce seed industry, and ruining the lives of farmers and the stability of Americas agriculture industry.

So you can be pretty sure the idea of smoking tomatoes is just a stoner dream and nothing more. Looks like we’re all going to have to keep smoking weed. Seems okay to me.

Mexico’s Largest Marijuana Crop Ever Destroyed

Yes this is a marijuana crop in Mexico about 200 miles south of San Diego, California. It looks like some solar energy plant or something. 300-acres full of 120 tonnes marijuana worth up to $160 million. Lenny said he would love to be there when thy burn. I agree 100% with that as well. It was discovered by Mexican soldiers while patrolling the area. Only six men were arrested for this massive grow operation.  The picture below shows the decent size housing area the six men lived in. What a life that would be? Take care of 120 tonnes marijuana plants all day, everyday. Hit the jump for some amazing pictures of the bust. Spotted on MSN’s PhotoBlog.

http://hailmaryjane.com/mexicos-largest-marijuana-crop-ever-destroyed/#more-38821

The Marijuana Tipping Point Is Here

Graphic: NewsReview.com

​
By Jack Rikess

Toke of the Town

Northern California Correspondent

The writer and social critic, Malcolm Gladwell, defines the ‘Tipping Point’ as the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point; the point at which the buildup of minor changes or incidents reaches a level that triggers a more significant change or makes someone do something they had formerly resisted.

Another way of saying it would be that point in time and space when everything changes and there’s no turning back.

Every day there are more encouraging headlines appearing in newspapers and on the Web from California to Maine supporting medical marijuana legislation suggesting the tide is turning.

Even when the cynics call medical marijuana a joke and claim the real goal of this smokescreen movement is legalization of pot, there are medi-jane supporters with valid and logical arguments to counter-balance any archaic rhetoric with which the anti-pot forces continue to misinform.

New Jersey passed one of the most restrictive medical marijuana rights and benefits program on the books so far. The state with a very conservative governor will soon have medical marijuana. Why? Because the people wanted it.

 It does seem like Time is marching on, but when is it gonna get there?

We’re zeroing in on something but when is the Tipping Point going to kick in fully regarding medical marijuana?

What possible signs do we need to see before we believe that it works?!

Here are some small recent events that may prove someday to have influenced the way we think, tipping the scales our way towards a bigger picture…

Photo: KSL.com

Utah Atty. Gen. Mark Shurtleff opposed medical marijuana — then he got cancer.

​

1) Okay, this guy never ever got high and he’s for Medical Marijuana!

June 12th: How much straighter do they have to come? 

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff approves of medical marijuana after battling cancer.

Shurtleff said he would support the legalization of medical marijuana after experiencing months of intensive cancer treatment.

Shurtleff said never used marijuana himself, but had talked to other patients who had traveled out-of-state to receive marijuana treatment.

Photo: 99Post

Miss USA Alyssa Campanella: “Medical marijuana is very important to help those who need it medically”

​
2) Not innocent enough. Okay, as they say, from the mouth of babes…

June 26: Miss USA and medical marijuana

During the question-and-answer part of the competition, Miss California Alyssa Campanella was asked about her perspective on the medicinal cannabis.

“Well, I understand why that question would be asked, especially with today’s economy, but I also understand that medical marijuana is very important to help those who need it medically,” Alyssa said.

“I’m not sure if it should be legalized, if it would really affect, with the drug war,” she said. “I mean, it’s abused today, unfortunately, so that’s the only reason why I would kind of be a little bit against it, but medically it’s OK.”

She got Miss USA.

When’s the last time you had the crown on the line and you spoke the truth?

I actually can understand why someone could dismiss a beauty queen and a cancer patient as being not scientific enough. They’re just regular people.

​3) What about Big Business. They have scientists? They have economists? They understand the world…? Don’t they?

June 13: Good Weeds, Bad Weeds - High Hopes at Miracle-Gro In Medical Marijuana Field

Scott’s Miracle-Gro Company has long sold weed killer. Now, it’s hoping to help people grow killer weed.

In an unlikely move for the head of a major company, Scott’s Chief Executive Jim Hagedorn said he is exploring targeting medical marijuana as well as other niches to help boost sales at his lawn and garden company.

“I want to target the pot market,” Mr. Hagedorn said in an interview.

“There’s no good reason we haven’t.”

​4) We’ve heard from the People, Big Business, and now from across the aisle comes…

June 22: Ron Paul, Barney Frank to jointly offer bill to end war on weed

Congressmen Ron Paul, Barney Frank and others will introduce legislature Thursday that aims to end a major part of the war on drugs — namely the battle against marijuana.

Reps. Paul (R-Texas) and Frank (D-Mass.), though technically on opposite sides of the aisle, have often spoken out against the war on drugs and will propose a bill “tomorrow ending the federal war on marijuana and letting states legalize, regulate, tax, and control marijuana without federal interference,” according to a statement from the Marijuana Policy Project via Reason.

The bill would allow the individual states to decide how they want to deal with pot.

The legislation, co-sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), is the first of its kind to be proposed in Congress that would end the 73-year-old federal marijuana prohibition that began with the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937.

…….

These four events that just transpired in the last month couldn’t be more current, more ‘now.’ What is it going to take in order for that cosmic plate to tilt to our side? And stay that way!

Entrepreneurs and forward thinkers are testing the waters of the medical marijuana Industry with venture capitalists abroad throwing dollars into edible research think-tanks and other esoteric ganja-related enterprises.

Politicians and law enforcement from all walks and talks of life are coming forward, decrying that the time is now to lose the campaigns that have never worked and to embrace a new way of thinking. To challenge the uncommon wisdom and to end the wars on law abiding citizens who because they ingest a specific weed, they could have their lives ruin because we, as a nation and a society refuse to change.

Sixteen states support medical marijuana. Every poll taken shows public support for medical marijuana. GW Pharma (Weed) and Novartis (Ritalin, Excedrin) have become partners in Sativex (medical marijuana spray) licensing pact overseas and now, in America.

“My professional view of cannabis as a substance is that it appears to be a remarkably safe substance in comparison to most medicines prescribed today,” said Dr. Geoffrey Guy, chairman of GW Pharmaceuticals. “The more I learn about this plant the more fascinated I become. It has through its various constituents multiple effects of therapeutic interest, many of which are now being validated by the enormous growth in basic cannabinoid research.”

What is it about marijuana that makes us afraid to go forward and embrace a new safer tomorrow? Pharmaceutical giants are moving forward with patents and marketing. You would think that the data from research geeks would be refutable, they’re the same people who give us our aspirin, for gosh sakes.

The data’s coming in like a Haboob through Phoenix. Unstoppable. Marijuana has applications that can help certain people. That’s it. It can’t be changed.

Marijuana does some good. It’s proven.

You can’t go backwards with that. Only thing you can do is not open your eyes to what’s in front of them.

Why aren’t we coming together as a nation over this issue when people with perspectives as different as those of Miss USA to the Mormon Attorney General of Utah support medical marijuana?

When law enforcement officials and Ex-President Jimmy Carter come forward to say the War on Drugs not only doesn’t work, it’s unwinnable. A waste of money.

Speaking of money, when Wall Street, Main Street and Home Depot all say the time is right to build the future fields of dreams of medical marijuana that only Weed-Gro can protect. What more do we need to hear?

Do we need Nancy Reagan in her Chanel housecoat to come forward to say she was wrong? Would that be the final straw? Would that be our national Tipping Point? To have someone other than ourselves say it is okay for us to have this weed? Mommy, please say its okay because in 1937, someone said it was bad.

Right now President Obama has alienated the Ganja Nation with his reversal on leaving the medical marijuana community alone. More and more his obtrusive agenda is forcing the hand of medical marijuana to take a stand, one way or another in various localities. Howard Zinn said you can’t be neutral on a moving train.

Opinion is sliding to the side where the weed grows green and high. Mendocino County is aggressively constructing a platform that is workable for growers and law enforcement alike. Not perfect, but a start.

Growers are paying taxes in exchange for their right to grow medical marijuana. They pay just like anyone else.

The Tipping Point is already here. Embrace it.

Marijuana Prohibition Comic Strip

California Releases Confiscated Marijuana Plant Statistics

I received this very interesting e-mail from CA NORML, and I thought others might be interested to see it:

California’s CAMP marijuana eradication reported 4,320,314 plant seizures in 2010, slightly less than last year’s all-time record of 4,463,917.

CAMP estimates the wholesale value of the destroyed crop at $17.2 billion – enough to qualify for agricultural disaster aid for any other crop.  This works out to $4,000 per plant, or over 1 lb per plant.   At this rate, the total amount of marijuana destroyed by CAMP works out to over four times the estimated consumption of the entire state of California (1 million lb/year).  CAMP’s harvest has soared tenfold since 2002-3.

The leading counties this year were Mendocino (572,680), Tuolumne (411,004), Lake (374,958), Shasta (325,480), Tehama (312,574, Sonoma (311,147), Tulare (227,002), San Bernardino (171,258), Riverside (155,209) and Humboldt (140,911).

- Cal NORML Release, Oct 30, 2010

Thank you calnorml & theweedblog.com for this!