These days it seems easy to lose track of what’s going on with the marijuana industry while you’re trying to keep up with the chaos coming from the White House. We get it. However, we’re still keeping track, and we have some fascinating marijuana news stories to show you. Enjoy…
Smoke weed for science
Researchers at Washington State University are working on a marijuana breathalyzer project, and they need volunteers to smoke weed for the study. You heard that right: Smoking weed for science. As I’ve explained in other venues, a marijuana breathalyzer might be an impossible goal, and current laws surrounding how much THC there has to be in someone’s blood to say they’re intoxicated put the levels so low that pretty much any marijuana user is considered to be constantly intoxicated. It’s a mess. Washington State says anything over 5 nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood is intoxication, and pretty much ever medical marijuana users always has that much in their blood. So while you may be getting to smoke weed for science, the cause might not be a valiant one.
To volunteer for the study, you have to be at least 21 years old, and they’ll mostly be drawing your blood and swabbing your mouth a lot, after you’ve done your smoking. The researchers are having participants come to the facility in taxi cabs so no one is driving high to their marijuana breathalyzer research area. That would be pretty ironic, huh?
The Silicon Valley of weed
Adelanto, Calif. is a town of around 30,000 people almost 100 miles from Los Angeles. It’s in the desert, and it’s a town that doesn’t see a lot of money coming through. That will soon be changing.
A man named James Previti is building a colossal warehouse in Adelanto, where he plans to cultivate a ton of marijuana as California gears up for recreational marijuana sales. The Los Angeles Times reports he’s building a 30-acre industrial park where 21 cultivators will be able to buy spaces for $7.5 million each. The mayor of Adelanto said he wants his town to become the “Silicon Valley of medical marijuana,” and this development puts them on a path to do that. If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, this kind of thing feels like the beginning of “Big Marijuana,” but let’s hope they do it right.
Veterans don’t want weed to be Schedule I
American Legion is the country’s largest veteran organization, and they don’t like that marijuana is a Schedule I drug.
“On one hand the government claims that there is no federally approved scientific evidence to support cannabis being used in a medical environment, so they refuse to consider reclassifying it,” a representative told The Cannabist. “And on the other hand they refuse to permit scientific research because it’s a Schedule 1 substance.”
The organization believes that veterans who have had brain injuries or who have PTSD may benefit from marijuana use, and they want cannabis to be rescheduled so more research can be done.
“It’s time the federal government took action to remove barriers to scientific research on this very important subject,” Joe Plenzler, American Legion Director of Media Relations, told The Cannabist.
credit:the420times.com
