Some footage and interviews of the crowd during the 420 shooting in Colorado.
2013.4.22 Shooting On Weed Festival Denver (MOSTLY GERMAN BUT UNIQUE FOOTAGE) (Martin Hendriks, youtube.com):
On a cannabis festival in the u.s. city of Denver. Suddenly, there were three people in the audience shot.
2013.4.20 Denver 420 Rally Shooting From Near The Stage (showdownmedia, youtube.com):
Footage shot from a camera recording the stage performance.
Update: Two People Shot, One minor grazed by gunfire
At approximately [edit]5PM MST shots were fired at Civic Center Park In Denver Colorado During the annual April 20th cannabis legalization rally. Estimates of 80,000 people were in the park at the time of the shooting.
2013.4.20 2 Injured In Shooting During 420 Rally (7NewsDenver, youtube.com):
4/20/13 – 5:40pm – Shots are fired in Denver’s Civic Center Park during the 420 Rally, resulting in injuries to two people.
For what it’s worth… I cannot substantiate these bizarre claims… this story just keeps getting more and more unbelievable.
He also wrote about 9/11 and may have been a truther: “Idk why it’s hard for many of you to accept that 9/11 was an inside job, I mean I guess fuck the facts y’all are some real #patriots #gethip”.
2013.4.19 Boston Marathon Suspect Twitter Account; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev From Chechnya Writes 911 Truther Conspiracy, Bombing, Chechnya, Marijuana Use As Friends Shocked (sportsworldreport.com):
Thousand of houses in the United Kingdom are being sent marijuana-scented “scratch and sniff” cards in a new bid to track down marijuana growers.
In a press release, the charity group Crimestoppers explained the cards were designed to educate residents about the smell of marijuana. They hope once people can recognize the smell of cannabis plants, they will be able to help law enforcement officials identify illegal growing operations.
“The Crimestoppers campaign will help members of the public to recognize the signs and smell of a cannabis farm. The police will use the intelligence generated by the campaign to help build on recent successes in tackling this issue,” said Andy Bliss of the Association of Chief Police Officers.
Maybe in hindsight it was inevitable: Ron Paul has been banned from Washington, DC! (The personalized license plate that bears his name, that is.)
A Freedom of Information Act request from GovernmentAttic.org, has yielded a hilariously infuriating 68-page list of vanity plates banned by Washington, DC’s DMV. In the list you’ll find everything from sexual innuendos (including nearly 2000 variations of the number “69″) to calls for “LSSGOVT” and, of course, countless references to marijuana, from the obvious (POTHEAD) to the clever (POTOMAC).
But this time the Nanny of the Month comes to us from Watertown, New York, where the city council has banned roommates from residential neighborhoods (which would include everyone from unmarried couples to domestic partners and soldiers sharing a home).
Seems that a local woman named Deborah Cavallario wasn’t keen on her neighbor living with his fiance and two friends, so she persuaded three out of five council members to zone away unrelated roommates. (She insists it wasn’t a “dirtbag” move.)
And you thought you got to say who stays under your roof! That rumble you hear is the sound of a thousand lawyers heading to this Empire State town.
1 minute, 45 seconds.
“Nanny of the Month” is written and produced by Ted Balaker (follow him on Twitter @tedbalaker and submit nanny noms). Research by Matt Edwards. Opening animation by Meredith Bragg.
Flanked by more than 150 advocates from around the country, Oregon Democrat Earl Blumenauer on Monday put forward his legislation allowing states to legalize medical marijuana in an effort to end the confusion surrounding federal pot policy.
Blumenauer’s legislation, which has 13 co-sponsors — including GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California — would create a framework for the FDA to eventually legalize medicinal marijuana. It would also block the feds from interfering in any of the 19 states where medical marijuana is legal.
At a press conference outside the Capitol, Blumenauer didn’t attack the Drug Enforcement Administration for targeting marijuana dispensaries or blame the Justice Department for forcing marijuana businesses to operate in a legal gray zone. Instead, he pitched his legislation as a solution to the confusion surrounding federal marijuana policy.
“Frankly, the people in the federal hierarchy are in an impossible position,” Blumenauer said, adding: “It gets the federal government and the Department of Justice out of this never-never land.”
On the heels of successful referendums legalizing marijuana in both Colorado and Washington state, Blumenauer and Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) introduced legislation to end federal marijuana prohibition and set up a scheme to tax the drug.
The activists surrounding Blumenauer had just come from a four-day conference on medical marijuana, and many of them were veterans of campaigns to legalize the treatment in their home states. Some held a sign that wouldn’t be out of place at a tea party rally against the Affordable Care Act — “GET POLITICS OUT OF MY MEDICINE.”
Karen Munkacy, a doctor who helped lead the pro-medical marijuana side of a successful referendum in Massachusetts, said her breast cancer diagnosis forced her to “choose between breaking the law and suffering terribly. And I chose to suffer terribly.”
Scott Murphy, an Iraq War vet, said medical marijuana could help returning soldiers handle post-traumatic stress disorder or physical injuries. Murphy noted 22 veterans killed themselves each day in 2012.
“If medical marijuana could help just one veteran, it would be worthwhile,” he said.
Blumenauer’s bill isn’t likely to pass, but Americans for Safe Access Policy Director Mike Liszewski said bills in four states — New Hampshire, Illinois, New York and Maryland — have a chance of becoming law this year. In New Hampshire, where backers fell just a few votes short of overriding a governor’s veto last year, advocates are “really confident.” The state’s new governor, Democrat Maggie Hassan, supported medical marijuana as a state legislator.
ANNAPOLIS, Md. -A Maryland lawmaker has introduced a bill to legalize marijuana.
Delegate Curt Anderson introduced the measure in the House of Delegates on Thursday.
It would make marijuana legal for adults 21 and over and create a system to regulate and tax it like alcohol.
The measure introduced by the Baltimore Democrat also would direct the Maryland comptroller to license marijuana retail stores, wholesale facilities and testing facilities.
The bill would create an excise tax of $50 per ounce on wholesale sales and direct proceeds to fund treatment programs to prevent alcohol, tobacco and drug abuse.
Last November, voters in Colorado and Washington state approved measures to make marijuana legal for adults 21 and older.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly was right to ease arrests for small amounts of pot
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has wisely clarified NYPD policy for charging New Yorkers who are found to be in possession of small amounts of marijuana.
That should end an unfair practice that has driven the number of pot arrests sky-high.
In an all-too-typical situation, cops stop a young man for questioning and possibly subject him to a frisk. When they ask him to empty his pockets, he produces a small bag of marijuana. Cops bust him for the misdemeanor offense of possessing less than 25 grams of the drug in public view.
The injustice is obvious. The subject in question brought the pot into public view, committing the misdemeanor, only because he had been ordered to do so by the police. Otherwise, he would have been guilty only of a noncriminal possession violation, meriting the equivalent of a traffic ticket.
Kelly’s directive should ease criticisms of the NYPD’s policy of stopping, questioning and sometimes frisking people.
The department makes some 50,000 arrests for pot possession annually, an unknown number of which happen after police order people to reveal what they are carrying on their persons. Some drug-legalization advocates predict Kelly’s clarification will cut pot busts by tens of thousands.
Foes of the tactic of stopping, questioning and sometimes frisking individuals deemed suspicious are cheering Kelly’s move. These include Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries and City Councilman Jumaane Williams, both of Brooklyn. They point to studies by Queens College sociologist Harry Levine indicating that black and Latino men have borne the brunt of pot arrests.
This is not to say the NYPD should abandon marijuana enforcement. The law is the law, but it must be applied fairly.
Just a day after Democratic Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado introduced legislation to decriminalize marijuana, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky introduced another bill Thursday in support of industrial hemp, currently illegal in the U.S. because it comes from the same plant as marijuana.
And now, Sen. Rand Paul’s office tells Whispers it could introduce companion legislation in the Senate “as soon as next week.”
In late January, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he’d throw his support behind industrial hemp, a surprise endorsement from the long-time opponent of marijuana. McConnell cited conversations he’d had with Paul, and the Huffington Post’sRyan Grim points out the change came after the Kentucky senator hired Jesse Benton to run his 2014 re-election campaign. Benton is the former campaign manager of Paul’s father, former Texas congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul.
On July 13 and 14, stoners across Southern California will flock to the Anaheim Convention Center for the Kush Expo, a $20-per-ticket pot-stravaganza of all things cannabis. Vendors will display their wares—everything from bongs and hookahs to hydroponic growing equipment and nutrients—and doctors will be on hand to write medical-marijuana recommendations for folks in the mood to smoke weed in the tented “medication area.” There will even be a “hot girl” contest for patients with presumably sore eyes.
But don’t let this event let you think Anaheim is pot-friendly. Despite allowing the Kush Expo to operate annually since 2010, the city banned medical-marijuana dispensaries in 2007 and has extended the prohibition every year since. Last year, the city also called in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to help crack down on pot clubs. In August, the DEA sent threatening letters to dozens of landlords and filed three asset-forfeiture lawsuits, including one against the owner of a $1.5 million building on Ball Road.
A Vancouver Island man who won an all-expenses-paid trip to the Super Bowl in New Orleans has been refused entry into the U.S. because of a marijuana possession conviction dating back to 1981.
Victoria resident Myles Wilkinson won the trip in a fantasy football league contest, competing against nearly four million other players for the chance to attend the National Football League championship, featuring the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers.
But when he got to Pearson International Airport in Toronto on Thursday, U.S. customs agents learned of a marijuana possession conviction in Vancouver in 1981 and told him he was not allowed to enter the country.
“I had two grams of cannabis. I paid a $50 fine,” Wilkinson told CBC news.
Wilkinson said he was 19 when he was busted.
“I can’t believe that this is happening, for something that happened 32 years ago.”
Wilkinson’s denial of entry into the U.S. is a common story, according to Dana Larsen, director of the Sensible B.C. campaign, a group advocating for the decriminalization of marijuana.
“There’s hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have these criminal records for small amounts of cannabis and that results in a lifetime ban for accessing the U.S.”
