Is marijuana use an unspoken rule for posting on WATMM?

[milkface]

hashish is the way forward. haven't smoked weed in about 6 months - only the CACA

[zero]

^ the number of times I've run into hash out in the wild is incredibly slim. I think this was discussed in here at some point, that America's hash problem is we can't find the shit

[Rubin Farr]

Started RSO treatment today, it’s going to be pricey  

[zlemflolia]

10 hours ago, milkface said:

hashish is the way forward. haven't smoked weed in about 6 months - only the CACA

have you tried eating it?

[milkface]

13 hours ago, zero said:

^ the number of times I've run into hash out in the wild is incredibly slim. I think this was discussed in here at some point, that America's hash problem is we can't find the shit

Living in a big city in the south of France makes it ridiculously easy to find and is cheaper than weed.

3 hours ago, ilqx hermolia xpli said:

have you tried eating it?

Does that work?

[zlemflolia]

8 hours ago, milkface said:

Living in a big city in the south of France makes it ridiculously easy to find and is cheaper than weed.

Does that work?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hasheesh_Eater

I think you have to cook it like edibles to activate it

Edited January 22, 2022 by ilqx hermolia xpli

[milkface]

34 minutes ago, ilqx hermolia xpli said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hasheesh_Eater

I think you have to cook it like edibles to activate it

Nice, I don't have an oven in my 16m2 place so I'll have to stick to smoking ;(

[YEK]

14 hours ago, Rubin Farr said:

Started RSO treatment today, it’s going to be pricey  

What's wrong with you?

[logakght]

1 hour ago, ilqx hermolia xpli said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hasheesh_Eater

I think you have to cook it like edibles to activate it

yeah you need to burn them a bit, tho its tricky.

[zkom]

 

 

 

[Rubin Farr]

[iococoi]

[milkface]

[diatoms]

                                   must feel like a fever dream to those that had their lives ruined

                                                        from cannabis prohibition

                                         for most it was probably only a joint or low level bust from a stop and search

 

 

New York

Move over, Giuliani: how loopholes sparked a golden age of cannabis in New York

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/19/cannabis-weed-legalization-new-york-gray-market

With possession legalized, weed trucks and pop-ups are everywhere. But that could all change when the state swoops in

New York has the country’s most permissive cannabis legalization law. Photograph: View press/Corbis/Getty Images

 

Chris Roberts in New York

April 20, 2022 06.00 BST

For the past few months, anyone visiting Katz’s Deli in the Lower East Side of Manhattan – as famous for its role in When Harry Met Sally as it is for pastrami – has queued near a green-painted food truck, strategically parked on Houston Street to capture Katz’s foot traffic, adorned with multi-colored LED signage advertising the city’s latest hot delicacy: cannabis.

Passersby can stroll up to the truck’s sales window and peek at a menu written in marker on a white dry-erase board and ask to see and smell a sample before forking over $60 cash for 3.5 grams, the cannabis industry’s standard serving size.

Business is so good that in addition to the truck here and the others outside a Trader Joe’s in Brooklyn and a major subway transfer in the Upper West Side, the Green Truck recently opened an eighth location, a block away from Grand Central. Though none of this is technically legal – even if the $60 is legally a “donation”, as the bored-looking man running the truck explains – nobody cares enough to intervene. On a recent visit to Katz’s, an NYPD police car was parked behind the Green Truck, where “donations” or sales, whichever, continued as if police did not exist.

Marijuana possession and consumption is legal in New York state for adults 21 and over and has been for almost a year. But the way New York has gone about legalization has been very different from states like California. There are strong social-justice provisions and guarantees to reserve cannabis retail opportunities for minorities and others most harmed by the country’s decades-long drug war.

People visit the Weed World store in New York last year. Photograph: Kena Betancur/AFP/Getty Images

New York’s legalization law, the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, or MRTA, is one of the most progressive legalization laws in the country. New York is also considered the next big prize for the country’s fledgling cannabis industry, which recorded $40bn in legal sales in 2021, according to BofA Securities research. Projections vary, but New York’s appetite for cannabis is projected to be worth between $3.7bn and $5.8bn within five years.

Since New Yorkers are allowed to smoke cannabis anywhere tobacco can be smoked – a privilege not enjoyed by Californians, who risk a ticket for that act – it’s also the most permissive legalization law in the country. This all adds up to a nearly unthinkable transformation for New York, a city that under Mayor Rudy Giuliani became the worldwide capital for petty marijuana arrests.

The state won’t issue the first sales licenses until this fall but in the meantime, an enormous, unregulated, and technically illegal “gray market” has emerged to fulfill demand.

In short, it’s never been easier to find and purchase weed in New York City – and it has never been less risky to sell it.

“It’s crazy. It’s a dream,” said Milton Washington, who has sold cannabis for most of the past 15 years and lives in Washington Heights in upper Manhattan, where he plans to transition his current “if you know, you know”-style cannabis speakeasy to a legal, licensed consumption lounge. Along with sommelier-level curation, the lounge will host a cannabis-centric and “unapologetically Black” fitness-and-wellness exercise he calls “Rokmil”.

The Green Truck, parked near Katz’s. Photograph: Pacific Press/LightRocket/Getty Images

But, for the moment, running his business as-is – out of a beautiful 19th-century brownstone where, the night before our interview, he hosted a fundraiser for the Louisiana US Senate candidate Gary Chambers, Jr – is “nearly risk free”, he added in between puffs of a sativa-dominant preroll he described as “perfect for conversation”.

Increasingly competitive delivery services paste QR-code activated menus on bus stops, bike-shares, and subway ads, with discounted and even free weed to entice new customers or referrals. There are cannabis pop-up events or “seshes” almost every night of the week. Upscale restaurants advertise cannabis-infused dinners or brunches. Members-only clubs and lounges advertise memberships and screen applicants on Instagram. “Smoke shops” openly selling cannabis are popping up to fill previously empty retail space in the outer boroughs. And a few extremely outré merchants, such as the Green Truck and Empire Cannabis Clubs, the latter of which operates two well-advertised storefronts, in Chelsea and in the Lower East Side, advertise online and solicit walk-in customers.

Many of these entrepreneurs started cannabis brands or resorted to selling it during the pandemic. Some are refugees from other states, squeezed out by limited licensing, high taxes and permit fees, and the plunging price of wholesale cannabis, giving it another go in Gotham.

---

During the week, Jackie Conroy works as a nutritionist in a charter school. On Sundays and on Wednesday evenings, she puts on a flattering black dress and adopts her alter ego, the Cannawitch, to work the dab bar at High Garden, a brunch-and-lounge event that serves cannabis-infused cocktails and food, of which she is a founding partner.

Legalization hit New York at an ideal time. “People stopped getting scared, and at the end of Covid [restrictions], they wanted to be out,” Conroy said on a recent Sunday in High Garden’s bright and airy space. In Harlem, where Conroy lives, almost overnight, “it went from cop presence all the time to no cop presence,” she said.

People collect free cannabis during a ‘Joints for Jabs’ vaccination event. Photograph: Mark Lennihan/AP

Though this libertarian fantasy is preferable to authoritarian drug-war hard-lining, “we don’t want weed trucks on every corner”, she said. Regulations and the law will correct that within two or three years, she guessed. Still, Conroy can’t fault the gray marketeers’ hustle. “There’s no ceiling at the moment” to the cannabis industry in New York, she noted.

The state is well aware of what’s going on and is not happy about it. But absent a draconian police crackdown that observers agree would be profoundly unpopular, there isn’t much that can be done. Sales of three ounces or less is a violation akin to a traffic ticket, punishable only by a $250 fine, stakes so low that the New York police department is not bothering to get involved. Asked for comment or data on how many violations have been issued, a police spokesperson cut and pasted the text of the legalization law into an email and did not respond to further questions.

The state office of cannabis management has sent out 52 cease-and-desist letters to sellers violating the law, according to the OCM spokesperson Freeman Klopott. It’s understood that letter recipients jeopardize their chances of securing a license.

“We encourage New Yorkers not to partake in illicit sales,” said Klopott, who stressed that sales are “illegal … and we will work with our partners to enforce the law”.

If that isn’t deterrent enough, Klopott struck a social-responsibility note and offered a reminder that the $200m in state funding promised by Governor Kathy Hochul to Black and brown “equity” business applicants is paid for by legal cannabis licenses. “Illegal operations,” he wrote in an email, “undermine our ability to do that.”

Klopott declined to say who had received a letter or where the letters have been sent, but it’s clear they have had a limited effect.

Police officers direct an unlicensed cannabis vendor to remove his vending stand in Washington Square Park last month. Photograph: David Dee Delgado/Reuters

Several people interviewed for this article asked not to have their last names used or to reveal the name or location of their business; after giving interviews to Forbes, neither the Green Truck nor Empire Cannabis Club responded to requests for comment.

But according to my interviews with more than a dozen growers, bakers, sellers and other underground entrepreneurs, many others feel stuck. Either you risk a future license by building a brand and a following now, or you sit back and wait for a permit – and risk losing everything to the “Chads and Brads”, or the well-capitalized white entrepreneurs with no cannabis background but traditional business acumen and political connections, who have executed what amounts to a hostile takeover of the cannabis industry in other states, according to Luis Cantillo and Byron Bronson, the co-founders of Buddy’s Bodega.

“That’s exactly what happened in Washington: all these ex-Microsoft executives, who didn’t put any energy in during the medical [cannabis] period, as soon as they had the capability, jumped in to go heavy and killed off a lot of peoples’ income,” Bronson said.

Not everyone currently selling weed is happy with the gray market. Born in Guyana and raised in Canarsie, a predominantly West Indian neighborhood in far south- western Brooklyn – and one of the Black areas of New York that helped elect Mayor Eric Adams, a former police officer – Floyd Jarvis was arrested for marijuana and did time in state prison before studying critical theory, specifically a discipline he calls Black masculinist studies, at the New School.

Now, Jarvis is starting a non-profit, Ganja War Veterans for Equity, and is planning to pursue a license in the legal market. Jarvis and other legacy market operators “look at this gray market a little bit different”, he says.

In the past, as scholars like the former John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor Ansley Hamid have documented, people from marginalized communities such as Rastafari in Canarsie would sell cannabis out of economic necessity. The profits were reinvested back into their communities, funding schools, health-food restaurants, and other community-serving businesses.

Since legalization, those legacy sellers have been displaced by outsiders, such as the strangers opening up “smoke shops” that sell sketchy weed to anyone, including children, Jarvis said, and export whatever proceeds are made somewhere else.

An activist holds a plant during the NYC Cannabis Parade & Rally in support of the legalization of marijuana last year.. Photograph: Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images

“I want to make a clear distinction between the legacy market operators and the Johnny-come-latelies who are using predatory tactics,” Jarvis said. “That’s who’s opening up these smoke shops: people who have never sold weed a day in their lives.” If they went out of business tomorrow, Jarvis would celebrate. “Fuck out of here,” he said.

The disdain and tension in Canarsie is felt elsewhere in the city. There is a feeling that this is a fleeting moment in time, and that the other shoe is going to drop before too long – a sort of post-Prohibition “Roaring 20s” of weed.

“It is fascinating, and it’s very trippy for a lot of New Yorkers that have been here a long time,” Ryan Lepore, who works as the director of business development for PrestoDoctor, a company that arranges medical-cannabis recommendations online. Lepore sold cannabis in his teens and 20s and has been arrested for it.

“You’re seeing people who aren’t from New York coming into New York to make as much money as possible,” he said, predicting that once licenses are handed out, the state would crack down on those that don’t have them. Weed trucks and weed-selling smoke shops couldn’t last for ever. “The law’s not on their side to do that,” he said. “This is a blip in time.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/19/cannabis-weed-legalization-new-york-gray-market

 

[toaoaoad]

13 hours ago, diatoms said:

$60 cash for 3.5 grams

This is obscene  

[diatoms]

8 hours ago, toaoaoad said:

22 hours ago, diatoms said:

$60 cash for 3.5 grams

This is obscene 

                           better than rikers

[diatoms]

Rhode Island Becomes 19th State to Legalize Marijuana for Adults

• by NORML
• Posted on May 25, 2022
• https://norml.org/blog/2022/05/25/rhode-island-becomes-19th-state-to-legalize-marijuana-for-adults/

• Democratic Governor Dan McKee signed legislation into law this afternoon legalizing the personal use and licensed retail sale of marijuana to those age 21 or older. Provisions in the law permitting adults to possess and home cultivate marijuana took effect upon signing.  

  “Rhode Island now joins the growing list of states that have prioritized common sense and justice over the status quo of a failed and nonsensical prohibition,” said NORML Executive Director Erik Altieri. “The approval of legalization in Rhode Island is just the latest sign that the overwhelming majority of Americans want marijuana to be legalized and that their lawmakers are becoming more responsive to this growing public sentiment.”

  Added NORML’s State Policy Manager Jax James: “We are pleased that Governor McKee moved swiftly to sign this common-sense legislation into law. The overwhelming support for this bill exhibited by lawmakers and the expeditious nature with which it was signed into law is indicative of the strong level of public support that exists in favor of legalization not only in Rhode Island, but also nationwide. This new law will work to rectify past wrongs while also moving Rhode Island forward toward a brighter and more prosperous future.”

  The Rhode Island Cannabis Act allows adult Rhode Islanders age 21 and up to possess (up to one ounce in public or up to 10 ounces at home), home-cultivate (up to six plants, no more than three mature), and purchase limited amounts of cannabis. It also facilitates the automatic review and expungement of past criminal records. Under the measure, records must be vacated no later than by July 1, 2024. The Act also includes provisions for re-investing tax revenue from cannabis sales into those communities that were previously most harmed by prohibition, as well as programs to aid social equity applicants seeking to enter the market. 

  The law provides for 33 cannabis retail facilities to operate within the state. The state’s existing medical cannabis providers also will be able to apply for licenses to sell cannabis products to adults. It is anticipated that some of those dispensaries may begin providing marijuana to the adult-use market as soon as this December.

  Rhode Island is the 19th state to legalize marijuana for adults. Voters in several additional states, including Maryland and Missouri, will decide on the issue in November.

• https://norml.org/blog/2022/05/25/rhode-island-becomes-19th-state-to-legalize-marijuana-for-adults/

[cwmbrancity]

https://thecannabispages.co.uk/

[diatoms]

1 hour ago, cwmbrancity said:

https://thecannabispages.co.uk/

                   hadn't heard of this, thanks cwmbrancity:)

                          hse here in ireland is reviewing the qualifying conditions for medical cannabis

                      hopefully expanding that list soon cause right now its too restrictive

                                       i feel its gonna change:)

[iococoi]

[Rubin Farr]

 

[cruising for burgers]

[diatoms]

How cannabis-fed chickens may help cut Thai farmers’ antibiotic use

Scientists observed fewer cases of avian bronchitis and superior meat after chickens given cannabis

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/15/cannabis-fed-chickens-may-help-cut-farmers-antibiotic-use-thai-study-shows

 

A chicken and rice restaurant in Bangkok. The cannabis-fed chickens will sell for a higher price at the farm’s restaurant in Lampang. Photograph: Diego Azubel/EPA

 

Rebecca Ratcliffe in Bangkok

Wed 15 Jun 2022 15.32 BSTFirst published on Wed 15 Jun 2022 15.28 B

 

It all began when Ong-ard Panyachatiraksa, a farm owner in the north of Thailand who is licensed to grow medicinal cannabis, was wondering what to do with the many excess leaves he had amassed. He asked: could his brood of chickens benefit from the leftovers?

Academics at Chiang Mai University were also curious. Since last January they have studied 1,000 chickens at Ong-ard’s Pethlanna organic farm, in Lampang, to see how the animals responded when cannabis was mixed into their feed or water.

The results are promising and suggest that cannabis could help reduce farmers’ dependence on antibiotics, according to Chompunut Lumsangkul, an assistant professor at Chiang Mai University’s department of animal and aquatic sciences, who led the study.

Chompunut observed the chickens to see what impact cannabis had on their growth, vulnerability to disease, and to see if their meat and eggs were different in quality, or if they contained cannabinoids. The animals were given the plant in varying intensities and in different forms – some were given water that had been boiled with cannabis leaves, while others ate feed that was mixed with crushed leaves.

No abnormal behaviour was observed in the chickens, Chompunut said: “At the level of intensity we gave them, it wouldn’t get the chickens high.”

The levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the plant’s psychoactive substance which makes people feel high, and cannabidiol (CBD), a compound that does not give users a high, in the leaves ranged from 0.2 to 0.4%. “I try to find the suitable level for them that could help them to improve immunity and performance without any bad effects,” said Chompunut.

The results are yet to be published but Chompunut has observed positive signs. Cannabis-supplemented chickens tended to experience fewer cases of avian bronchitis, and the quality of their meat – judged by the composition of protein, fat and moisture, as well as its tenderness – was also superior.

The medicinal and cooking benefits of cannabis have long been recognised in Thai tradition, said Chompunut: “It is the local wisdom of Thai people to use cannabis [leaves] as a food additive – mixing it as an ingredient to make chicken noodles. People put it in the soup to make it taste better.” She wanted to investigate the science behind such practices.

Villagers eat marijuana-infused chicken Tom Yum soup in Nakhon Pathom province, Thailand. Photograph: Rungroj Yongrit/EPA

Thailand has relaxed its laws on cannabis over recent years, first legalising marijuana for medical purposes and later allowing companies to sell products infused with hemp and CBD. This month, the Thai government removed cannabis and hemp plants from its narcotics list, although the public has been warned not to smoke in public. Extracts that contain more than 0.2% of tetrahydrocannabinol remain illegal.

Officials say they want to boost agriculture and tourism by tapping into a growing interest in infused food and drinks, and medical treatments.

It is not clear why the cannabis had positive effects on the chickens, said Chompunut. It’s possible the bioactive compounds in cannabis may have stimulated the chickens’ gut health, immunity and thereby enhanced their performance elsewhere.

Further investigation is needed to observe if cannabis could replace antibiotics in chicken farming, Chompunut said. She is planning a second study that will use cannabis extracts with a higher intensity to observe what impact this has on disease and fatality rates among the chickens.

“The trend of [rearing] chicken these days is going forwards to cleaner, more organic growing with less antibiotic usage,” she said. There is also a desire to make use of byproducts and to produce less waste. Using cannabis in chicken farms could help achieve such goals, said Chompunut.

Ong-ard said the price of cannabis is still too high in Thailand for farms to easily incorporate it into chicken feed, but that recent legal reforms may change that. “As time goes by and we can grow more, it’s going to get better,” he said.

The chickens that have been fed with cannabis will sell for a higher price at the farm’s restaurant, he added. Chicken generally sells for 60 baht (£1.40) per kg, he said, but his chicken would go for double.

There are no traces of cannabinoids in the chicken meat or its eggs, however, according to Chompunut’s findings.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/15/cannabis-fed-chickens-may-help-cut-farmers-antibiotic-use-thai-study-shows

[Rubin Farr]

[diatoms]

Germany’s move to legalise cannabis expected to create ‘domino effect’

Coalition government consults health experts, economists and growers in race to clear legal hurdles within two years

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/01/germanys-move-to-legalise-cannabis-expected-to-create-domino-effect

Philip Oltermann in Berlin

Fri 1 Jul 2022 10.36 BST

Germany is mulling over the consequences of soon becoming the world’s largest potential market for legally sold cannabis, as the country’s left-liberal government presses ahead with plans to allow the controlled distribution of the drug among adults.

Olaf Scholz’s coalition government has in recent weeks reiterated its 2021 coalition-deal vow to legalise for recreational use what its Green and liberal party minister have taken to referring to as Bubatz, a slang word for weed popular among German rappers.

A consultation process consisting of five public hearings with health experts, economists and cannabis growers concluded this week, firing the starting gun for a race to clear legal and regulatory hurdles within one to two years. A draft bill is expected within the second half of 2022.

Europe’s largest economy joining Canada and California in legalising cannabis for recreational use could create momentum to change the UN convention that restricts the cultivation of the plant and also puts pressure on neighbouring European states to follow Germany’s lead.

“There will be a domino effect, for sure,” said Justus Haucap, the director of the Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics. “European countries that have a much bigger problem with illegal cannabis use, like France, are watching very closely what Germany is doing at the moment.”

The country would also stand to reap significant economic benefits: with an estimated annual domestic demand of 400 tonnes of cannabis, Haucap’s institute predicts Germany stands to gain about €4.7bn (£4bn) a year through additional tax intakes as well as cost savings from no longer prosecuting those who enjoy a spliff or two.

The government’s official motivation for legalisation is to break up the illegal cannabis trade, thus gain control of the quality of cannabis on sale, prevent the circulation of contaminated substances and protect minors.

“We are talking about a regulation of the market,” said Burkhardt Bienert, the German commissioner on narcotic drugs on Thursday. “If we do it well, we can prevent adolescents from entering into intensive use. We don’t want to repeat the mistakes we made with alcohol.”

Thursday’s consultation event, with public officials from countries that have already legalised cannabis, also crystallised some of the tough choices the German government faces to achieve its stated aim.

In Uruguay, where recreational use of cannabis has been legal since 2013, only 25 pharmacies are licensed to sell the drug and 70% of consumers still buy off the black market.

In California, which legalised recreational cannabis use in 2016, the legal weed industry has struggled to compete with the illicit market, while Canada has made some progress since legalisation in 2018, but through a regionally varied patchwork of free-market and state-controlled supply systems that makes it hard to draw broad lessons.

In the Netherlands, which is known for its relaxed attitude to smoking weed but still technically criminalises recreational use, possession and trade, the government is experimenting with a closed supply chain scheme and a track-and-trace system in order to cut the black market out of its coffee shop culture.

The hemp industry is lobbying the German government to tax cannabis products at no more than €10 a gramme of bud, with a lower rate for plants with lower tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content. A higher rate of taxation would give an advantage to illicit dealers, they argue, as would a wholesale ban on advertising state-offered weed.

Niklas Kouparanis, CEO of Bloomwell, a startup founded after Germany legalised the medical use of cannabis in 2017, also called on the government to legalise the sale of cannabis through online vendors. Authorising only pharmacies or licensed shops to sell cannabis would limit distribution to cities and push dealers to the countryside, he argued.

“Legalisation will only be a success if we manage to drain the black market, and we will only be able to do that if we can provide a comprehensive nationwide supply of legal cannabis,” said Kouparanis. “If you only have a handful of supply stations in Bavaria, for example, the black market will survive and Germany will become a model to emulate for precisely no one.”

However, youth welfare and child protection groups are highly critical of selling cannabis via e-commerce channels. At Thursday’s hearing, they argued if the government wants to live up to its stated aim of protecting minors, it needs to ensure cannabis is only sold over the counter by trained and licensed staff.

If the German state were to put itself in charge of supplying adult users with cannabis, it would in the short term be reliant on imports. Five years into the legalisation of medical use, Germany still relies on imports from Canada, Portugal, Spain or the Netherlands for 85% of its annual use.

Entering the business of trading and selling cannabis would also put Germany in violation of the UN 1961 single convention on narcotic drugs. The country could follow Canada and Uruguay’s lead and try to ignore the convention, or find a way around it. It would be more likely that legalising cannabis in Germany could trigger a movement to change the agreement entirely, said Haucap.

He said: “In theory, Germany could exit the UN single convention and rejoin only specific parts of it. But I am fairly optimistic that with changes happening in Canada, the US and now Germany, we could also be looking at a reform of the convention in regards to the cannabis trade.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/01/germanys-move-to-legalise-cannabis-expected-to-create-domino-effect