Category: Marijuana

What’s the buzz? Pot-growing lights vex ham radio operators

Retired Coast Guard officer Roger Johnson sometimes notices a harsh buzz when he turns on his amateur radio, and he blames high-powered lighting used to grow pot. Amateur radio operators say the legalization of marijuana is creating a chronic nuisance thanks to interference caused by electrical ballasts that regulate indoor lamps used to grow pot.

Growing problem: Pot lights give ham radio operators a buzz

In this Feb. 21, 2017 photo, lifelong ham radio operator and expert tinkerer Tom Thompson poses for a photo inside his basement home office, where he operates a ham radio and other devices in Boulder, Colo. After discovering that radio interference was being caused by high-powered lights from home marijuana growers, Thompson built an electronic filter and has given them to nearby growers.

Sean Spicer compared marijuana to opioids – but there’s…

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer relayed the Trump administration’s first official comments on legal cannabis this past Thursday. Unfortunately, his remarks involved zero scientific consideration when he compared adult-use cannabis to the ongoing opioid epidemic: “When you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people,” Spicer said.

This Cutting-Edge Marijuana Bill Could Keep Pot Users From Losing Their Jobs

Marijuana had an incredible 2016, and the hope for pro-legalization enthusiasts is that momentum will continue to carry into 2017 and beyond. As it currently stands, just 21 years after California became the first state to legalize cannabis for medical purposes, 28 states have now legalized medicinal pot, while residents in eight states have voted in favor of legalizing recreational, adult-use weed.

Weed 101: Colorado agriculture office shares pot know-how

In this Jan. 31, 2017 photo, agriculture regulators from seven different states and Guam tour a Denver marijuana growing warehouse on a tour organized by the Colorado Department of Agriculture in Denver. The department is opening up its marijuana … knowledge to other states and encouraging them to plan now for the possibility of regulating farmers growing a plant that violates federal law.

Alaska rejects marijuana consumption at retail pot stores

Alaska Marijuana Control Board member Loren Jones speaks during a board meeting on Thursday, Feb. 2, 2017, in Juneau, Alaska. The board is expected to consider rules for allowing authorized retail pot shops to have areas where customers can consume … Sara Chambers, acting director of Alaska’s Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office, speaks during a Marijuana Control Board meeting on Thursday, Feb. 2, 2017, in Juneau, Alaska.

California looks to build $7 billion legal pot economy

The future of California’s legal marijuana industry is being shaped in a warren of cubicles tucked inside a retired basketball arena, where a garden of paper cannabis leaves sprouts on file cabinets and a burlap sack advertising “USA Home Grown” dangles from a wall. Here, in the outskirts of Sacramento, a handful of government workers face a daunting task: By next year, craft regulations and rules that will govern the state’s emerging legal pot market, from where and how plants can be grown to setting guidelines to track the buds from fields to stores.

Just 2 Groups of People Now Oppose Legalizing Marijuana

With the exception of Arizona, which narrowly voted against an initiative that would have legalized recreational pot, residents in eight other states voted in favor of legalizing medical or recreational cannabis in the November election. The year ended with 28 states having approved medical cannabis, and twice as many recreation-legal states as at the end of 2015 .

Trump has two paths he can take on marijuana legalization – …

After his inauguration on January 20, Trump signed an executive order that directs federal agencies to start rolling back the Affordable Care Act, revived two controversial oil pipelines, staged a war on the media, and played a game of chicken with the president of Mexico. But we still don’t know much about Trump’s plans for marijuana legalization.

This Would Be a First for the Marijuana Industry

Heading into 2016, there were 23 states that had legalized medical cannabis and four that had legalized recreational pot. This in itself was impressive considering that, just two decades prior , California became the first state to legalize any form of marijuana with its Compassionate Use Act for a select few medical patients.

The definitive guide to what experts know about the effects of marijuana use

Cannabis plants grow in the greenhouse at Vireo Health’s medical marijuana cultivation facility, August 19, 2016 in Johnstown, New York. As eight states plus the District of Columbia have moved to fully legalize recreational marijuana, debates on the merits of legalization have focused on the effects of marijuana use on individuals and society: is marijuana bad for your lungs, or for your brain? Does it have therapeutic applications? Is it safer than alcohol or tobacco? Marijuana is one of the most studied substances in scientific literature, but the answers are scattered across tens of thousands of scientific papers.

Is Marijuana Dangerous? These New Stats Suggest So

You could certainly argue that 1996, the first year that California approved medical cannabis, or 2012, the first year that Colorado and Washington approved recreational weed, were marijuana’s breakout years. But 2016 saw five states approve medical cannabis , while four additional states legalized recreational pot, doubling the number of adult-use states to eight.

3 Myths About Marijuana Stocks

What do Hercules, Thor, centaurs, and marijuana stocks have in common? They’re all the subjects of myths. Most myths have at least a little bit of truth interspersed with a lot that is false.

California aims to take lead in giving marijuana industry access to financial services

In this Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2016 photo, Rolie Gonzalez III displays a branch of marijuana buds taken for a plant on the farm of grower Laura Costa, near Garberville. California hopes to take the lead in giving the cannabis industry access to banking services in 2017, with a new working group focused on finding a solution to ongoing conflicts between state and federal laws that force marijuana businesses to operate largely in cash.

Wanting, expecting good cell coverage

Being in the two-way radio business for a number of years, I have been engaged in the process of securing “tower sites” for commercial, industrial and municipalities throughout the state. The concerns and complaints regarding the proposed Lafayette cell tower I have heard a number of times, and each time they can be explained away.

Year in Review: Marijuana’s Green 2016

As we look back on the year, 2016 may very well go down as the greatest year ever for marijuana and the cannabis industry. Over the past 12 months we’ve watched the industry evolve before our eyes, and in some cases seen legal marijuana spread to new states.

Aging baby boomers increasingly embrace marijuana, heavy alcohol use

I wrote earlier this week on how fewer teens are using drugs or alcohol than at any point in the past few decades. Indeed, while anti-drug PSAs still encourage parents to talk to their teens about drugs before someone else does, two recent studies suggest there’s another high-risk population we should be worried about: our kids’ grandparents.