Facebook

GK_SocialMedia · Jul 12, 2013

This thread is for content we post onto our social media,feel free to comment on any posts

GK_SocialMedia · Jul 11, 2013

Marc Emery.Guys im going to start posting in this thread every day with some content from our facebook and from that of our friends. I'll do the same with the Twitter and Youtube threads too. Todays pick of the facebook news feed is the story about Marc Emery aka Prince of Pot being granted a transfer back to Canada. A lot of people might not blink at this story. But when you consider hes an activist who sold seeds to fund activism and is serving 5 years in US jail for doing do. Then this is significant. Espcially in light of how rapid the MJ laws have changed since his arrest. People shouldnt be in jail for passing on seeds to other people.Its not right. Heres hoping Marc gets back to Canada and gets an early release. Hes one of our own and his plight shouldnt be forgotten:bong2:http://www.theweedblog.com/prince-of-pot-marc-emery-gets-prison-transfer-approved-by-us-government/

theweedblog said:

Canadian marijuana activist Marc Emery has been serving his prison sentence in America for several years now. This has made it very difficult for his friends and family, and especially his wife, to come and visit him. It was with great joy that I saw his transfer to Canada approved by the US Government yesterday on Twitter. According to the Vancouver Sun:“On July 9, the U.S. Department of Justice determined the pot activist can spend the rest of his five-year sentence in Canada. His Canadian lawyer, Kirk Tousaw, obtained a copy of the decision, which was also sent to the federal Public Safety department for approval.“I can confirm the U.S. side has approved Marc’s transfer,” Tousaw said Wednesday. “The next step is to have the minister of public safety here in Canada — whomever that is — approve the transfer from the Canadian side.”This is a huge victory for Marc and his family. It’s my hope that when he gets to Canada his sentence is reduced and that he can finally walk out of prison and get back to the work he was doing before he was incarcerated in 2010. For readers that don’t know the story behind Marc Emery, below is information taken from the Free Marc Emery sitelease send a polite letter to the Canadian Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, requesting that Canadian citizen Marc Emery be approved for transfer home to Canada from the United States federal prison system. ContactPostage not required within Canada) Minister of Public Safety  House of Commons Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6 CanadaTelephone: (613) 944-4875 or 1-800-830-3118Fax: (613) 954-5186For some points to include in your letter, please review the facts of Marc and his case:FACTS ABOUT MARC EMERY:• Marc Emery is a Canadian citizen who never went to the USA as a seed seller.• Marc Emery operated his seed business in Canada at all times, with no American branches or employees.• Marc Emery declared his income from marijuana seed sales on his income tax, and paid over $580,000 to the Federal and Provincial governments from 1999 to 2005.• Marc Emery is the leader of the British Columbia Marijuana Party, a registered political party that has regularly participated in elections.• Marc Emery has never been arrested or convicted of manufacturing or distributing marijuana in Canada, as he only sold seeds.• Marc Emery gave away all of the profits from his seed business to drug law reform lobbyists, political parties, global protests and rallies, court litigation, medical marijuana initiatives, drug rehabilitation clinics, and other legitimate legal activities and organizations.• Marc Emery helped found the United States Marijuana Party, state-level political parties, and international political parties in countries such as Israel and New Zealand.• Marc Emery has been known as a book seller and activist in Canada for 30 years, fighting against censorship laws and other social issues long before he became a drug law reform activist.• Marc Emery has been a media figure for 20 years with regards to marijuana and drug law reform. He is very well-known to Canadian, American and international news media organizations.• Marc Emery operated his business in full transparency and honesty since its inception in 1994, even sending his marijuana seed catalogue inside his magazine “Cannabis Culture” to each Member of Parliament in Canada every two months for years.What did Marc do? Marc openly ran “Marc Emery Direct Marijuana Seeds” from a store in downtown Vancouver and through mail-order from 1994 to 2005, with the goal to fund anti-prohibition and pro-marijuana activists and organizations across North America and the world.Marc always paid all provincial and federal taxes on his income and made no secret to anyone of his seed-selling business. Marc was raided by police for selling seeds and bongs in 1996 and again in 1997 and 1998, but despite the seizure of his stock by police, the Canadian courts sentenced Emery only to fines and no jail time.Canadian police then pressured the American Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to launch a cross-border attack against Marc. They arranged to have him charged under America’s much more severe laws against seeds.Marc was arrested in Canada by American agents in 2005, and originally faced a minimum 30-year sentence in the US, with the possibility of life behind bars. After years of legal efforts, and ensuring his two co-accused received no prison time, Marc made a plea-bargain for a five-year sentence in the US. Marc had originally secured a deal with US officials to serve his five-year sentence in Canada, but the Conservative Government of Canada refused to allow this, and forced him to be extradited to the US.The US Drug Enforcement Administration admitted on the day of Marc Emery’s arrest that his investigation and extradition were politically motivated, designed to target the marijuana legalization efforts and organizations that Emery spearheaded and financed for over a decade.Here is the original text of DEA Administrator Karen Tandy’s statement released on July 29th, 2005 (also available in its original letterhead form by clicking here):“Today’s DEA arrest of Marc Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture Magazine, and the founder of a marijuana legalization group — is a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement.His marijuana trade and propagandist marijuana magazine have generated nearly $5 million a year in profits that bolstered his trafficking efforts, but those have gone up in smoke today.Emery and his organization had been designated as one of the Attorney General’s most wanted international drug trafficking organizational targets — one of only 46 in the world and the only one from Canada.Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery’s illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on.”On May 10th, 2010, Marc was ordered extradited by Justice Minister Rob Nicholson. He was taken to the USA on May 20th, 2010 and has been serving his sentence in a private for-profit prison in Georgia from late 2010 to April 2011. He was moved to Yazoo City medium security federal prison in Mississippi in April 2011 and has been detained there since.
Click to expand...

Theres a good blog he does on cannabisculture ( http://www.cannabisculture.com/blogs/2013/07/05/Marcs-Blog-About-Being-Put-Solitary-Confinement ) about life in prison,i enjoy it. Theres also much news,videos and updates from Jodie on cannabis culture too.Its worth checking out:thumbsup: A good speech he made on his "farewell tour" before going to prisonassit:[YOUTUBE]qp0jAb4mj1I[/YOUTUBE]

/monthly_2013_07/marc.jpg.8a777a1d4cb2c1887f18172a54690802.jpg

GK_SocialMedia · Jul 12, 2013

Washington V Colorado . Which state has chosen the best way forward?So now that the two legal States have drafted regulations.Who do we think has the best approach?One thing i see that BOTH states have chosen to avoid is Amsterdam style cafes. I think this is a mistake personally but thats just my opinion. The benefits of having specific areas for useage ,just like bars for alchohol ,shouldnt have been ignored. Theres a more responsible outlook and approach from users who frequent cafes.Most of them know the laws and respect them. I also find it very interesting that Colorado permits home cultivation and insists any person who retails weed must have grown 70% of it themselves,while Washington permits Outdoor cultivation but the has seperate regulations for distribution, cultivation & Sales as opposed to Colorado who have merged all 3 areas under one set of regulations. Colorado enable you to give away up to an ounce of weed to someone also. Both states have prohibited public smoking of weed though which i feel is a mistake. Cafe smokers are responsible users and i agree with the sentiment expressed in the article below. Interesting Times:bong2:

Time said:

If you want to get stoned legally — at least under state law— in Washington or Colorado next year, you’ll have to do it at home.Amsterdam-style “coffee shops”— where the Dutch typically smoke weed— were banned by both states in their draft regulations released last week. But that doesn’t mean that the Dutch model, which separates marijuana from other illegal drugs, won’t still provide lessons for what these states can expect when their new laws on recreational toking take effect next year.While the Netherlands has never formally legalized any type of sales or growing, since 1976, it has allowed marijuana “coffee shops” to sell small amounts that can be smoked on the premises, as long as no sales of other drugs or public nuisance occurred. And, according to a report from the Open Society Foundation, to be released next week, the policy has been highly successful. Marijuana consumption in Holland is about average for Europe — and far less than that in the U.S.In 2011, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, 23% of Dutch people aged 15 to 64 had ever tried marijuana and 7% had used it recently. In the U.S., those rates are 42% and 24%— nearly double Holland’s for lifetime use and more than triple for recent use.The lead author of the Open Society report, Jean Paul Grund, senior research associate at the Addiction Research Center in Utrecht, says that the Dutch also have fewer problem drug users than is typical in Europe and that heroin use has dramatically declined over the last several decades, with fewer young people starting to take the drug. “The average age of people using heroin [here] is now 50 years,” he says.Because the new laws in Washington and Colorado will permit both growing and some distribution of marijuana, they will actually be more liberal than regulations in the Netherlands, which has never legalized cannabis growing or large-scale distribution and still prosecutes those crimes.But there are some local differences. Colorado will ban outdoor cultivation, while Washington will permit it. Washington will also separate growing, distribution and sales, providing specific regulations for each type of business, while Colorado will integrate them, requiring that sellers grow 70% of what they sell themselves. Only Colorado will allow home growing— of up to six plants— and it will allow people to share or give away up to an ounce to friends. Both states will restrict advertising, tax sales (Washington’s taxes will be higher, at least initially), ban selling to people under 21, require health warning labels and permit retail selling of only an ounce or less.It’s not clear yet what impact these differences will have on the market. The Dutch experience suggests that commercial availability of marijuana does increase use; as coffee shops proliferated, toking rates rose, although they never reached levels seen in the U.S.Dutch policy also demonstrates that it is possible to separate markets for marijuana and other drugs, minimizing any “gateway” effect that might be caused by marijuana dealers introducing users to other substances. “We argue that coffee shops and tolerance of cannabis played an important role in pacifying the heroin epidemic and keeping young people away from that,” says Grund. And there’s evidence for that. In a 1999 report, the Institute of Medicine reviewed the data and concluded that there was little support for the idea that marijuana, which is often the first drug used by heroin and cocaine addicts, specifically leads users to others drugs.A less straightforward issue that Colorado and Washington regulators face is the relationship between marijuana and alcohol. Will people who use marijuana smoke while drinking— potentially adding to overall drug-related harm — or smoke instead of drinking? The Netherlands’ story, unfortunately, provides little insight into this question and research has produced conflicting results. The most recent data [PDF] suggests that users tend to choose one or the other. That study, published in 2011, found that when people reached legal drinking age, alcohol use rose while marijuana use fell.So which state’s model will be better at reducing drug-related harm? “I wouldn’t do either,” says Mark Kleiman, professor of public policy at the University of California in Los Angeles, who served as Washington’s “pot czar” and consulted on its regulations.He argues that sales would be best handled by the government, rather than commercial enterprises that may be more incentivized by profits. But that can’t happen while the drug remains illegal on the federal level.And by banning public use, Grund says both states may be missing an opportunity to promote responsible behavior. Although coffee houses appear to condone smoking, banning them might keep the weed market underground where smokers may not find the best role models for moderation. “[That’s] always been an important part of the whole coffee shop experience,” Grund says, “This is where people would talk about cannabis and also where younger users would be educated on how to use marijuana. There’s a self regulation feature to it.”Eddy Engelsman, a major architect of Dutch drug policy in his former position as director of alcohol, drugs and tobacco policies for the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports, says regulations should “be pragmatic and base[d] … on facts. The aim of regulating should be the minimizing of risks [from] drug use.”Whether Colorado or Washington will apply those lessons — and whether the federal government will allow them to do so — remains to be seen.Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2013/07/11/learning-from-the-netherlands-colorado-and-washington-lay-out-rules-for-legal-toking/#ixzz2YpBZxtun
Click to expand...

After reading briefly through the regulation proposals one thing becomes evident,to me at least. Amendment 64 called for Marijuana to be legally treated like alcohol in age restrictions and taxation methods.While Amendment 64 allowed for regulation and “rational policies,” the “emergency regulations” released on 1st July dont actually treat MJ the same as the booze and theres a lot of obstacles and red tape for MJ users to navigate. Still,progress.Colorado to me seems to have drafted the least forward looking regulations. In fact their new regulations still require that recreational dispensaries grow 70 percent of their product in house,and may only sell 30 percent of their product to other dispensaries.This will make overheads higher for smalltime businesses. Washingtons regulations seem far less restricting IMO.If your going to think of entering the recreational MJ arena then your gonna be paying FIVE times more than dispensaries who are already out there existing. This seems to be another method of shutting the door on Budding entrepreneurs cos the dispensaries are alrwady set up with facilities and licenses and the new guy is gonna have to buy all the same stuff but at 5 times the price,doesnt seem right does it?So Colorado have banned outdoor cultivation altogether and if you grow indoors its a maximum of 6 plants at any one time. Almost feels as though Colorado are trying to curb peoples enthusiasm for a "Green Rush". You can buy an ounce in Colorado but if your from out of state you'll only be allowed to buy a maximum of a quarter ounce at a time and it will be illegal to consume your MJ where its bought. Theres without doubt some protectionist polices being implemented in Colorado and from briefly reading their draft it seems like the last thing they are actually doing is making Marijuana in the same status and bracket of alcohol. The fact Colorado is keeping medical and recreational seperate is gonna be financially constricting to new businesses and the fact they need to be able to grow 70% of their sales. It kinda seems to be set up to keep the small time grower out of the network. Thoughts?Washingtons proposals seem a lot less protectionist and in fact promote the free market usage and economy.For this reason i prefer Washngtons regulations. Washington are allowing outside cultivation,allowing new residents to participate in the industry and most important they dont seem to be trying to shut out the budding entrepreneur. Their applications and licenses are FIFTEEN times cheaper than Colorado. Colorado local Govt can ( & already have) BANNED MJ businesses whereas Washington have adopted more of a ring fence approach to protect their MJ businesses. They have banned vertical integration instead of requiring it like in Colorado. Basically it looks as though Washington are looking to create a stable MJ economy and help fledgling MJ businesses in a way Colorado arent prepared to and their regulations resembles alcohol regulation as opposed to Colorado.It seems that Washington are following through on the promises made to Colorado while Colorado are going back on what they have said and promised. Theres an air of protectionism and the bureaucracy is surely gonna stifle budding entrepreneurs?Iv read a few sites opinions on the regulations and iv had a brief scan of the regulations and from an outsider point of view.If i wanted to live where MJ is treated almost the same as booze and if i wanted to make a living out of weed then id be Washinton bound. Kinda weird cos when amendment 64 was first passed everyone assumed form the tone of things that Colorado would be the closest to Holland. I still think BOTH states have missed a trick by not permitting public cafes to smoke in and frequent but all the same it is progress. But Washington seems to me to have took the biggest strides in the right direction.Anyone concur Very good info and worth a watch>>[YOUTUBE]G2-uI4wLCW0[/YOUTUBE][YOUTUBE]qBTwNKr68UM[/YOUTUBE]

/monthly_2013_07/Marijuana-Laws-In-Washington-State-1.jpg.b6ed7c705c235e946ca7ac831896a662.jpg

/monthly_2013_07/washington-colorado-and-mexico_1.jpg.5a4526d3d5bc990e92485c105dea3b30.jpg

TheApprentice · Jul 12, 2013

Anyone on here from Colorado disappointed in the way they have backtracked from what they originally set out to do? Anyone agree that Washington is making it easier for the small time budding businessman to earn a dollar

Psycho D · Jul 17, 2013

Facebook

All righty folks! Thanks to everyone that entered!

You have three votes, make 'em count!

Without further ado..

The nominees are...

TheApprentice · Jul 17, 2013

Anyone wanting to vote from our social media feeds then register to join and click here>> http://forum.growkind.com/showthread.php?p=552423#post552423

Log in or Sign up

Facebook

GK_SocialMedia Moderator

GK_SocialMedia Moderator

GK_SocialMedia Moderator

TheApprentice Retired.

Psycho D LEE VAN SPLEEF

TheApprentice Retired.

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

Facebook

GK_SocialMedia Moderator

GK_SocialMedia Moderator

GK_SocialMedia Moderator

TheApprentice Retired.

Psycho D LEE VAN SPLEEF

TheApprentice Retired.

Share This Page

Useful Searches