Lobsters at a restaurant in Maine are getting baked, not in the oven but with medical marijuana.

Charlotte Gill, the owner of Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound in Southwest Harbor, Maine, has been experimenting with getting her lobsters stoned as a way to ease their distress, pain, and suffering.

Boston.com:

After reading about cannabinoid receptors in invertebrates, Gill and her staff took a leftover cardboard box from a vendor and filled it with an inch of water, then covered the box and inserted a straw. They put their first test subject, named Roscoe, into the box and blew marijuana smoke through the straw. The result? Roscoe became very, very chill, she said.

“There was no desire to pinch or grab,” Gill said, noting that in the subsequent three weeks after she moved him back to the tank with his lobster friends, Roscoe remained relaxed, and she observed the other lobsters in the tank “calm down.” (Roscoe was eventually released back into the ocean as an appreciation for his service in her experiment.)

Before serving them to customers, the restaurant is still experimenting with a process where the crustacean is steamed for six minutes, then cooking the body and tail under an additional 420 degrees. Gill’s 82-year-old father is the test subject, and so far he hasn’t tested positive for THC after consuming the body and tail. He still needs to be tested after eating the claws, which did not undergo additional cooking.

Gill is a licensed medical marijuana caregiver and hopes to start serving her hot-boxed lobsters to customers as soon as next week. Read the rest

As you're probably aware, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is against the legalization of cannabis. At a Senate drug hearing in 2016, he even said, "Good people don’t smoke marijuana."

Now some enterprising folks are selling General Jeff's "Old Rebel" Session Papers, $5 packs of rolling papers that feature a cartoon image of Sessions smoking a fat joint. It started out as a joke but now they report they are close to selling out.

They write:

#JeffSesh is a campaign to tell Jeff Sessions:

We’re not criminals, junkies or idiots. Regular Jeffs all over the country—good, responsible, patriotic Americans—have a sesh now and then… and it's OK!

(The World's Best Ever) Read the rest

U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions keeps hinting that he's going to wage war against marijuana in states that have legalized it, and he probably would have started it by now if he wasn't so busy trying to weasel out of the Russia/perjury bind he got himself into. Meanwhile a 12-year-old girl, Alexis Bortell, who says her epileptic seizures have gone away since she started using cannabis oil, has filed a lawsuit against Sessions over the federal classification of marijuana as a Schedule One drug, which is reserved for drugs that have no medical value.

From KDVR:

"As the seizures got worse, we had to move to Colorado to get cannabis because it's illegal in Texas," said Bortell, who was diagnosed with epilepsy as a young child.

The sixth-grader said traditional medicine wasn't helping her seizures and doctors in her home state were recommending invasive brain surgery.

But a pediatrician did mention an out-of-state option: Medical marijuana.

Shortly after moving to Larkspur [Colorado], Bortell's family began using a strain of cannabis oil called Haleigh's Hope.

A drop of liquid THC in the morning and at night has kept her seizure-free for 2 1/2 years.

"I'd say it`s a lot better than brain surgery," Bortell said.

Other people joining Bortell in the lawsuit include a former pro football player, another minor, and a military veteran. The federal government moved to have the case dismissed, but lost.

Never give up! I won't! #alexisbortell

A post shared by Alexis Bortell (@alexisbortell) on Sep 14, 2017 at 8:33am PDT

Image: Wikipedia/Alexis Bortell Read the rest

The fellow who posted this video said, "I wanted to get medicated, so I asked the driver if I could smoke. He clearly said 'yes,' so I did. In New Orleans, marijuana has been decriminalized, so I didn't see the problem. But he did, so I got ejected." Read the rest

Two medical marijuana product companies are offering free weed to folks impacted by the catastrophic Valley fire. Recipients must present a valid medical marijuana prescription at one of 5 dispensaries in San Francisco, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol or Lake County.

SFist shares:

The giveaway has been going on since Thursday and runs through October 7, and the two companies, Care By Design and AbsoluteXtracts, will be giving out the products via five dispensaries in San Francisco, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, and Lake County, according to a joint statement.

Read the rest

My herb grinder collects a lot of pollen, and I had forgotten it was there. This handy pollen press lets me efficiently store and use it! Read the rest

The suit charges Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido with soliciting bribes for preferential treatment.

Although marijuana is legal to purchase – both for medical and recreational use –  in Colorado under state law, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled today that marijuana users can be fired from their jobs for using marijuana - even for medical reasons and outside of work hours. The case went to court nine months ago after Brandon Coats, a quadriplegic with a medical marijuana card, was fired by Dish Network in 2010 for using marijuana outside of work to control his seizures. His attorney, Michael Evans, says Coats' has no other options.

"For people like Brandon Coats, there really isn't a 'choice,' as MMJ is the only substance both he and his (Colorado-licensed) physicians know of to control his seizures due to his quadriplegia," Evans said. "He has to have it. "

But until marijuana laws are changed on the federal level, the federal ban on marijuana will always trump state laws, and in Colorado it is up each company to come up with their own policy on marijuana use after hours. For more details on the ruling, click here.

Image: "A medical cannabis patient's supply of medicine in their home." Sonya Yruel/Drug Policy Alliance Read the rest

National Geographic shares the stories of children who seek relief from cancer and epilepsy through the use of cannabidiol (CBD) oil with little to none of marijuana's psychoactive component THC. Read the rest

A cannabis extract containing non-psychoactive cannabidiol tested on hard-to-treat epileptic patients cut seizures in half. Read the rest

In December, Obama signed a bill containing a provision that prevents the federal government from interfering with states' medical marijuana activities. Yet, two weeks later, Obama’s Department of Justice filed "a strenuous defense of the drug’s Schedule I classification — the same category reserved for heroin."

This isn’t an abstract issue relevant only to constitutional obsessives. It’s a basic principle of ordered liberty that arises from even deeper foundations than our founding document. When the laws are in such discord and conflict as our drug laws are now, the enforcement of the law becomes of necessity an exercise in executive whim—compounding the capriciousness of arbitrary, selective application that Obama has made so conspicuous in his approach to governance.

At a time when the legitimacy and uniformity of government coercion has come into deep question among urban blacks in addition to suburban whites, the president needs to realize that in dithering on marijuana law he is playing with fire. His haphazard and contradictory mismanagement of America’s shift toward pot reform lends dangerous credence to the growing sense that our government no longer cares to guarantee our equal protection under the law.

Daily Beast: Obama’s Pot Policy Is Refer Madness Read the rest

The federal spending measure passed this weekend, and one of the provisions in it "effectively ends the federal government's prohibition on medical marijuana and signals a major shift in drug policy," reports the LA Times. The provision forbids federal drug agents from raiding retail operations.

I asked Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, if this was as big of a deal as it seems to be. He said, “It’s an historic vote in the annals of marijuana law reform. The disconnect between Congress and the vast majority of Americans regarding federal interference with state medical marijuana laws at last is over.”

Image: Shutterstock Read the rest

With the holiday season approaching, travelers likely have lots of questions about the rules set out by the TSA. Is mascara a liquid? Does a cane count as a personal item? Are ice skates allowed on a plane? And most importantly: Can I fly with my legally obtained marijuana? By Caroline Siede.

Beginning in 2015 medical marijuana cardholders throughout the US will be legally allowed to buy weed from Nevada dispensaries.

When you consider that Nevada has fewer than 7,000 medical marijuana patients, it’s not a very large base. But when you factor in MMJ patients from other states who might take advantage of Nevada’s system — another 110,000 from Colorado, 570,000 from California and 100,000 from Washington — suddenly those numbers are looking a lot better.

Image: View Apart / Shutterstock.com Read the rest

A primer on the healing power of weed, and how to vaporize correctly, for cancer patients and others who truly have a medical need for marijuana. Sponsored by Ascent by DaVinci, a vaporizer we think works really well.

Twenty-three-year-old Daniel Price wants to use his prescribed medicine in an Atlantic City casino. He takes medical marijuana to treat seizures and irritable bowel disease. The casino wont let him, and he has hired a lawyer to press the issue.

Northfield-based attorney Michelle Douglass is now representing Price in what she says could be a ground-breaking legal battle clarifying whether patients like Price must be accommodated by private businesses. “Our position is ... that they are required to provide people with disabilities an accommodation,” Douglass said. “It is legal. He is legally permitted to use medical marijuana.”

(Image: Laurie Avocado) Read the rest

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon and CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, used to be an opponent of medical marijuana. Last year. after looking into the research, he changed his mind. Now he is "doubling down" on his position that marijuana is effective medicine.

Since our documentary "Weed" aired in August, I have continued to travel the world, investigating and asking tough questions about marijuana.

I have met with hundreds of patients, dozens of scientists and the curious majority who simply want a deeper understanding of this ancient plant. I have sat in labs and personally analyzed the molecules in marijuana that have such potential but are also a source of intense controversy. I have seen those molecules turned into medicine that has quelled epilepsy in a child and pain in a grown adult. I've seen it help a woman at the peak of her life to overcome the ravages of multiple sclerosis.

I am more convinced than ever that it is irresponsible to not provide the best care we can, care that often may involve marijuana.

I am not backing down on medical marijuana; I am doubling down.

Gupta: 'I am doubling down' on medical marijuana Read the rest