By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The normally anti-marijuana DEA officially recommended that the federal government triple its production of almost 900 pounds of pot for research in 2015. The proposal, endorsed by DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart, is intended to provide a sufficient amount of marijuana to conduct research on the dangers and the medical benefits of…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The DEA continues to seize and destroy less marijuana under the Obama administration, the Washington Post reports. Last year the DEA destroyed 4.3 million marijuana plants, compared to 10.4 million in 2009. The “cannabis eradication program” provides money to local and state law enforcement agencies to destroy marijuana plants. But those…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The DEA has proposed numerous reasons to oppose medical marijuana – health effects, lack of motivation, dependency. But the latest reason given by a DEA agent may be the most memorable. Speaking to a Utah Senate panel about a bill that would allow certain patients to consume edible cannabis, Special Agent Matt…
Ross Parker was chief of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit for 8 years and worked as an AUSA for 28 in that office. By Ross Parker ticklethewire.com A British study found recently that the risk of first time psychosis among users of high THC cannabis was three times greater than…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com All nine of the DEA’s former administrators signed an amicus brief that was filed Thursday in support of a Supreme Court petition challenging Colorado’s recreational marijuana laws, Politico reports. The directors are siding with Oklahoma and Nebraska’s Supreme Court petition that challenges legalization. The law in Colorado “gravely menace[s]…[t]he health, comfort…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner surprised many people this week when he issued licenses to 70 medical marijuana businesses before they would have to undergo criminal background checks as required by state law, The Associated Press reports. Rauner said he began issuing the licenses because patients shouldn’t have to wait any longer…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A federal appeals court wants to know why the Justice Department was targeting a popular marijuana dispensary after the federal government said it would not intervene in states’ medicinal pot laws, The Associated Press reports. “The United States government, the president and the attorney general and the justice department is largely…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A lot less marijuana was seized this fiscal year by the U.S. Border Patrol in San Diego, but the agency has seen a sizable increase in the amount of cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin confiscated, KPBS reports. Leaders at the San Diego sector said the seizures represent a tighter security. “I am…
