The 420 Times, Southern California’s magazine of medical marijuana and natural healing, has recently announced their 420 Jar Giveaway.

On each day for the next thirty days, one subscriber of The Smoke Signal, The 420 Times’s eNewsletter, will be selected to receive a free 420 jar made by 420 Science (http://www.420science.com). To enter the giveaway, interested readers simply have to sign up for The Smoke Signal at http://www.the420times.com.

420 jars are simple, yet incredibly useful—they are specially designed to keep your marijuana as fresh as possible.

“The 420 Science jars are the perfect gift to give away, since they’re definitely the best way of storing marijuana—far better than Ziploc bags and even prescription bottles,” noted Dave Brian, editor of The 420 Times. “Especially at times like now when the economy is a bit tight, you want to get the most out of your medicine.”

420 jars are available for purchase at: http://www.420science.com.

The 420 Times reports monthly on the latest legal, medical, and business trends in the emerging field of medical marijuana and natural healing. The free monthly publication is available at most 7-Eleven stores in the Southern California area. The 420 Times can also be found online at http://www.the420times.com.

The 420 Times Announces 420 Jar Giveaway is a post from: The 420 Times

THE 420 TIMES, Southern California’s premiere magazine of medical marijuana and natural healing has introduced the industry’s most comprehensive online listing of dispensaries, physicians and related resources.

Available free at www.the420times.com, the geographically-organized listing provides regularly-updated information on nearly 600 businesses that cater to users and practitioners of medical marijuana. Find a doctor, dispensary or co-op nearby and check back often for updates on many exciting new businesses that are opening every week.

“With so many patients searching for reliable information, THE 420 TIMES provides a forum for intelligent, informed discussion about medical marijuana,” says Editor Brian Lancer of THE 420 TIMES. In print and online, we’re committed to providing our readers with the most up-to-date facts about medical marijuana treatments and availability.”

While you’re visiting www.the420times.com, be sure to sign up for email updates, including vendor specials and breaking news that every medical marijuana user needs to know.

“As this year has shown, the field of medical marijuana is quickly evolving,” says Lancer. From changes in the legal landscape to breakthroughs in medicine, there’s a lot to keep track of. We’re proud to offer THE 420 TIMES as a trusted resource.”

Each month, THE 420 TIMES™ is packed with high-quality journalism on the latest legal, medical and business trends in the emerging field of medical marijuana. With its focus on the needs of consumers in Southern California, THE 420 TIMES and its companion web site, www.the420times.com, are also among the most effective ways for businesses to reach the millions of existing and potential customers in Los Angeles County and Ventura County.

Find your local dispensary or collective by entering your address below

The 420 Times Goes Live With Medical Marijuana Locator is a post from: The 420 Times

FROM THE MAGAZINE

Despite numerous studies that have shown that marijuana could potentially aid in treating various types of cancer, the United States government has yet to embrace the drug’s medical applications. Instead, the government’s strict regulations have unfortunately acted as a barrier that has suppressed insight into cannabis’s medical applications.

Guillermo Velasco and his colleagues at the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain have recently found that THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, caused brain cancer cells to undergo self-digestion, a process known as autophagy, thus suppressing the growth of cancerous tumors.

Velasco’s study, titled “Cannabinoid action induces autophagy-mediated cell death through stimulation of ER stress in human glioma cells,” was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation in April 2009.

“These results may help to design new cancer therapies based on the use of medicines containing the active principle of marijuana and/or in the activation of autophagy,” Velasco told US News.

The findings of Velasco’s study were promising. However, it was not the first of its kind – some of the earliest tests showing THC’s useful medical applications were funded by the U.S. government itself.

In 1974, scientists at the Medical College of Virginia, at the request of the U.S. government, undertook a study that concluded that THC slowed the growth of lung and breast cancers in laboratory mice and even prolonged their lives by as much as thirty six percent.

Although the conclusions looked hopeful, the U.S. government did not fund any more similar studies until 1996. The study, conducted by the U.S. National Toxicology program, found that mice and rats that were administered high doses of THC over extended periods of time showed greater protection against malignant tumors than untreated mice and rats.

But despite its own findings and currently emerging evidence that THC could effectively help in treating various types of cancer, the government has failed to make any continued effort to exploit marijuana’s medical applications. After the conclusion of the study in 1996, the government ceased to fund any further research.

It is unfortunate that the government has not made any substantial effort to seriously look into marijuana’s medical benefits; however, the problem does not end there: tight regulations on studying marijuana have done much to prevent investigation of the drug.

The crux of the problem revolves around the Drug Enforcement Administration’s classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 substance, which lumps it into the same category as drugs such as LSD, heroine, and PCP.

Obtaining permission to study Schedule 1 drugs is exceedingly hard to do. Researchers have to gain approval from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a special Public Health Service panel, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Food and Drug Administration.

And for those brave researchers who apply, federal officials have often failed to respond to requests in a timely manner or have otherwise denied them.

Lyle E. Craker, a professor of plant sciences at the University of Massachusetts, has been trying, for nine years, to obtain permission from federal authorities to grow his own supply of marijuana for the sake of research. Unfortunately, DEA has refused to grant Professor Craker permission to do so.

“All I want to be able to do is grow it so that it can be tested,” Professor Craker told the New York Times.

But bureaucratic nightmares and nonsensical categorizations aside, there is reason to remain optimistic.

In an effort to facilitate studies of marijuana, The American Medical Association has, late last year, asked the federal government to reconsider their classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 substance.

The federal government has long found a useful ally in the AMA, whom the justice department often relies upon for medical justification when enforcing marijuana policy. Thus, the AMA’s reversal of its longstanding marijuana policy came as a surprise, to say the least.

Unfortunately, it is hard to say if the government will take the AMA up on its request. The government has been well aware of the prospective medical benefits of cannabis for over three decades and has yet to change its stance with respect to the drug – it is questionable whether or not a mere request by the AMA would do much to change the status quo.

But given that the AMA reversed its pot policy after seventy-two years, we can take solace in the fact that things are changing slowly, but surely.

- Larry Lechuga

The Government and Cancer Research: A Tumultuous Relationship is a post from: The 420 Times

FROM THE MAGAZINE

Clean Green medical cannabis certification helps regulate an industry that is still defining itself.

Don’t bother looking to the United States Department of Agriculture for help in finding the best, safest medical cannabis; that agency already has been asked to certify growers as ‘organic,’ the federal standard for fruits and vegetables – and it declined to do so. But help is out there, both for patients – some of whom may be so ill that purity and safety are paramount concerns – and for growers, many of whom are looking forward to a day in the future when cannabis will be just another medication.

It’s called Clean Green–a certification program that is specifically designed to mirror U.S.D.A. standards, against the day when that body decides to finally start certifying medical cannabis as organic. Will someone be out of a job when that day comes? Clean Green founder Chris Van Hook doesn’t think so.

“I’m an attorney as well. Which is nice, because that allows people to talk freely and everything’s covered under attorney-client privilege,” says Van Hook, who–in a sign of the times – certified just one grower as Clean Green in 2008, a number that rose to 30 last year, and which he expects to rise as high as 100 this year.

“I’m also a U.S.D.A.-credited organic inspector,” says Van Hook, who has a 43-year career in agriculture. “We have about 115 crops that we certify every year, from Los Angeles to Seattle – everything from apples to zucchini.”

So he’s covered. But what do Clean Green standards offer medical cannabis users? Van Hook’s inspections target the same areas of concern as those conducted by the U.S.D.A. at organic fruit and vegetable plots.

In order to pass certification, he mandates that when growers do utilize pesticides or insecticides, they use so-called safe versions like Nim Oil, derived from the seeds of the Neem tree; or Safer Insecticidal Soap – or that they fight pests the natural way, by introducing good insects which kill the bad ones. As for fertilizers, Van Hook
requires growers bypass manmade examples which are high in chemical salts, and instead use natural examples such as bat guano or chicken manure.

“I think it goes a long way toward reducing the liability for the grower and for the dispensary,” Van Hook says. Despite its relative newness, others in the medical cannabis industry appear to be welcoming Clean Green.

“What it did for me personally that’s so exciting is, we’ve been standing for so long at the door of these health care facilities – hospices, residential care facilities, hospitals. It’s very hard to bring medical care to the people who are in those facilities,” says Liz McDuffie, director of Medical Cannabis Caregivers Directory, a public service website of physicians, caregivers and training programs that is based in Pasadena.

Clean Green’s certification makes that easier.

“When we go to the facility operators, we can say ‘Here it is and it’s labeled organic, it’s labeled Clean Green,’ ” McDuffie says. “Clean Green opened that door. The real market, after it’s legalized, is going to be the seriously ill. And where are they? They’re not running in and out of collectives. They’re in hospices.”

Growers – who are understandably reticent toward revealing things like personal identity and the location of their grows – are a bit harder to survey about their feelings toward Clean Green. But one man who raises medical cannabis says he’s wholeheartedly behind the certification.

“If you can use organic stuff, especially if it’s natural organic, it’s actually fun,” says a grower named Truman from Santa Barbara County, who declines to provide his own last name, or his city of origin for fear of his own safety and that of his crop. “It’s a good deal. It’s not hard to learn how to use organic you just have to change your mindset.”

“I mean how do you claim credibility? Because you pay some taxes? At least in California, it’s a medical product, and so you have the guidelines and the standards,” says Truman, who has also been an inspector for the National Organic Program since 2004, and became an inspector for Clean Green just this year. “It’s going to scoot this along to becoming more accepted. The legal dialogue will change – it’s like a high and low tide, and right now it’s high tide for medical cannabis. Having someone who goes around and says ‘This is certified,’ legitimizes it, helps it along.”

Ironically, authorities – some of whom have been traditionally at odds with the medical cannabis industry – may find Clean Green soothes their jangled nerves too. “It also helps law enforcement,” Truman says. “Anything they can look at with documentation is going to make them feel better when they have to walk away.”

- Theo Douglas

Organic Matters is a post from: The 420 Times

Slowly, States Across America are Lessening Limits on Marijuana
By William M. Welchand Donna Leinwand, USA TODAY

March 9, 2010 – LOS ANGELES — James Gray once saw himself as a drug warrior, a former federal prosecutor and county judge who sent people to prison for dealing pot and other drug offenses. Gradually, though, he became convinced that the ban on marijuana was making it more accessible to young people, not less.

“I ask kids all the time, and they’ll tell you it is easier to get marijuana than a six-pack of beer because that is controlled by the government,” he said, noting that drug dealers don’t ask for IDs or honor minimum age requirements.

Read the full story at USAToday.com.

Led By California, States Lessen Limits On Marijuana is a post from: The 420 Times

Colorado asks US to halt medical marijuana raids

DENVER—Colorado lawmakers trying to regulate marijuana dispensaries are asking the U.S. attorney general to stop raids of medical marijuana operations.

The group e-mailed the request to Eric Holder on Monday, following up on a letter sent last week.

The lawmakers say the raids are discouraging dispensary operators and medical marijuana patients and growers from working with them on the proposed regulations.

Read the full story at Denverpost.com.

Colorado Lawmakers Ask Attorney General To Stop Raids is a post from: The 420 Times

Few on either side happy with proposed medical-marijuana licensing rules
By John Ingold
The Denver Post

Marijuana activists and law enforcement officials sparred Thursday as the bell rang on the fight over medical-marijuana dispensary regulations at the state Capitol.

The first committee hearing on House Bill 1284 — which would require dispensaries to be licensed by both state and local governments and is the more controversial of the two medical-marijuana bills at the Capitol — stretched into the evening. Lawmakers said late Thursday that they would not vote on the measure until another date.

Read the full story at Denverpost.com.

Debate Over Dispensary Regulations Continues In Colorado is a post from: The 420 Times

[VIDEO] Why Marijuana Should Be Legalized: An Expert’s Perspective is a post from: The 420 Times

Medical marijuana advocates sue Los Angeles
Plaintiffs say the city’s new ordinance, which hasn’t yet taken effect, is too restrictive and violates California law. They seek a court injunction and restraining order to stop it from being enforced.

By Tony Barboza

March 3, 2010

Medical marijuana advocates upped the ante in the legal battle over Los Angeles’ pot dispensaries by suing the city Tuesday, saying the recently adopted ordinance is so restrictive it will cause even law-abiding businesses to shut down.

Americans for Safe Access, the nation’s main medical marijuana advocacy nonprofit group, filed the lawsuit along with the Venice Beach Care Center and Pure Life Alternative Wellness Center, two dispensaries that have operated in Los Angeles since 2006 — before the city’s moratorium on dispensaries took effect.

Read the full story at LATimes.com.

Medical Marijuana Advocates Sue Los Angeles is a post from: The 420 Times

New pot dispensary rules considered in Boulder
The Associated Press
Posted: 03/02/2010 04:00:52 AM MST
Updated: 03/02/2010 06:20:24 AM MST

BOULDER, Colo.—Boulder officials are voting on new rules to govern medical marijuana dispensaries.

The Boulder City Council will take a vote on new licensing requirements for the dispensaries and whether to set hours of operation. The new rules would also limit how many dispensaries can operate in certain areas.

Read the full story at Denverpost.com.

Boulder, CO Considers Dispensary Regulations is a post from: The 420 Times

DEA Marijuana Seizures Nearly Double

By Ryan J. Reilly | March 1, 2010

The total amount of marijuana seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration nearly doubled from 1,539 metric tons in fiscal 2008 to 2,980 metric tons in last year.

The numbers were disclosed as part of the DEA’s budget request for fiscal 2011.

A spokesman for the DEA declined to elaborate on the reason for such a dramatic rise in seizures of marijuana.

Read the full story at Mainjustice.com.

DEA Marijuana Seizures Nearly Doubled In 2009 is a post from: The 420 Times

Colorado senator wants tax on medical marijuana
By John Ingold
The Denver Post
Posted: 02/26/2010 01:00:00 AM MST
Updated: 02/26/2010 01:43:04 AM MST

A state senator said Thursday he wants to ask voters to impose a special tax on medical marijuana.

Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, said he intends to amend a bill that creates regulations for medical-marijuana dispensaries to include a provision that places an excise tax on medical marijuana, similar to the special excise tax that already exists for alcohol. Because of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, that provision — if first approved by lawmakers — must be put before the voters before the tax could be imposed.

Read the full story at Denverpost.com.

Colorado Senator Wants To Tax Medical Marijuana is a post from: The 420 Times

Medical marijuana advocates ask L.A. prosecutor to drop lawsuits

Americans for Safe Access says City Atty. Carmen Trutanich is misreading California law and court decisions, but he has not budged on his legal assault over sales at dispensaries.

By John Hoeffel

February 24, 2010

The nation’s main advocacy group for medical marijuana threatened Tuesday to challenge Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich’s legal assault on dispensaries, saying it is “unlawful, unconstitutional, and contravenes the spirit and letter of the governing laws.”

The city prosecutor’s office filed three lawsuits last week seeking court injunctions to force Organica in the Venice area and two Holistic Caregivers stores in South Los Angeles to stop all sales. Trutanich maintains that state law authorizes collectives only to grow marijuana and recover their actual costs, not to sell it.

Read the full story at LATimes.com.

Medical Marijuana Advocacy Group Asks LA City Attorney To Drop Lawsuits is a post from: The 420 Times

L.A. County charges medical marijuana distributor with 24 felonies

Bail is set at $520,000 for Jeff Joseph, owner of a popular Venice-area dispensary. His attorney says the prosecution is politically motivated and disputes the D.A.’s claim that state law bans sales.

By John Hoeffel

February 23, 2010

More than four months ago, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley warned that state law does not allow dispensaries to sell medical marijuana and zeroed in on Organica, a popular Venice-area outlet, as one possible target.

On Monday, Cooley delivered on that promise.

Read the full story at LATimes.com.

L.A. Dispensary Owner Charged With 24 Felonies, Bail Set At An “Outrageous” $520,000 is a post from: The 420 Times

FROM THE MAGAZINE

It’s probably hard for some people to believe, but by Thanksgiving, medical cannabis could be legalized in California. That’s assuming Oakland advocates have indeed obtained enough signatures to put a measure legalizing it on the Nov. 2 ballot – and assuming that voters agree. But already, some longtime political observers are wondering whether 2010 could be the year.

“Two years ago you couldn’t have done this,” says Aaron Smith, director of the Marijuana Policy Project, the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the country. “It’s a combination of everything. A perfect storm of events occurred last year, beginning with Michael Phelps – the bong hit seen around the world; the economy is in ruins at a time when marijuana arrests are at an all-time high. I think all these things together have really made people consider whether they want to continue this nonsense.”

Not everyone thinks it’s nonsense, however. Los Angeles City Council recently passed a medical cannabis ordinance that restricts dispensaries from operating nearer than 1,000 feet from schools, libraries, parks, or other dispensaries. Smaller cities, like Long Beach, immediately to the south, are fidgeting with their own ordinances. And, in late January, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled that a dispensary in Eagle Rock had to stop selling medical cannabis – a decision city prosecutors immediately said was most likely the first to find that state law does not give collectives the right to sell medical cannabis.

Yet even as local authorities try to narrowly define our access to medical cannabis, many of our cultural attitudes toward it have broadened, and become perhaps more progressive than our media – and other societal institutions – realize. This is even true among seniors, and especially true among ailing seniors, the segment of our population which uses it, and probably needs it most – despite the fact that some of them are old enough to have seen “Reefer Madness” in its original release.

“I don’t think people are ashamed about using it; I think they’re worried about the repercussions,” says Jackie, an employee at Woodland Hills Treatment Center in Woodland Hills. (Full disclosure: W.H.T.C. is an advertiser in The 420 Times.) Case in point: Jackie – who has another, full-time career – asks that her last name not be used, to avoid jeopardizing her other job.

Open just more than three years, W.H.T.C. – under new management this year – fits the profile for hundreds of similar concerns across the state, whose owners are reinventing the traditional image of the medical cannabis outlet, and in the process are gaining seniors as patients.

Like the census, statistics on senior use of medical cannabis are in dire need of updating; but Chris Hermes, spokesman for advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, refers a reporter to a December 2004 study by the American Association of Retired Persons which found that 72 percent of those surveyed who were ages 45 and older thought that adults should be allowed to “use marijuana for medical purposes” if it were recommended by a physician.

The same study also found that 59 percent of everyone the AARP surveyed – not just seniors – believed marijuana has medical benefits; and 55 percent of those surveyed said they would provide it to “a suffering loved one.”

“What I’m surprised about is how many women in their 60s come in, because you would think there’s still a taboo associated with it,” Jackie says. “They look like the grandmas you see walking around Gelson’s and taking care of their grandkids.”

Using cannabis may no longer be quite the taboo it once was, but Jackie admits that seniors are cautious about using it medically – even though, for some of them, it has meant the difference between life and death.

“I still don’t think it’s something that the 63-year-old grandmother talks about,” Jackie says. “Maybe she’s not ashamed of it, but she’s not going around saying ‘This is how I treat it.’ I think in time that will lower, because I
think right now, it’s looked at as a drug where you smoke it or consume it, and you get the giggles.”

However slight the shift, perceptions of medical cannabis are changing, and 84-year old cannabis user John Donohue of Long Beach is thankful he’s here to see it. “I was out in a rainstorm and I jumped over a puddle, and I fell over and hit my knee. I go to the Veteran’s Administration for my doctor, and I had arthroscopic surgery,” says Donohue, a World War II veteran who credits medical cannabis with reducing the pain in his knee following surgery – and eliminating his stress.

“One thing I am absolutely certain of is that it’s a substance that reduces your stress, and a great cause of a lot of illnesses now is stress,” Donohue says. “That’s my claim – that it has helped my stress. People still refuse to believe it is what it is. I want to get bumper stickers that say ‘Show Me the Crime.’ ”

Not everyone is so vocal. One W.H.T.C. client, a Los Angeles resident and cancer survivor named Dora, is 67, and had never used cannabis – medically or otherwise – until two years ago, when she found herself nauseous and unable to eat during chemotherapy.

“I never used drugs in my life. For me, this is strictly a medical treatment,” says Dora, who underwent a double mastectomy. She declined to use her last name because she is not entirely comfortable with others knowing she has brewed medical cannabis into tea, and eaten it in pastries.

“I couldn’t get up from the bed. This makes me feel much better – I have appetite again,” Dora says. “When you have a little bit of help, it’s good. I feel much better doing this than with [using] prescription drugs. I don’t know if I’m part of something big or not. I think people who go through a lot of pain. they have to consider [medical cannabis].”

In Orange County – traditionally considered one of Southern California’s most conservative regions – many people are doing just that. At Laguna Woods Village, a gated retirement community that is part of the city of Laguna Woods, ailing residents formed their own collective last summer. More than a hundred residents regularly attend meetings to discuss everything from medical cannabis’s benefits, to the ever-changing laws that govern it, to cultivation tips.

“The average age of our resident is 78, so the city council believes that here we probably do have people here with end-of-life illnesses,” says Laguna Woods City Manager Leslie Keane. “They came right out and said, ‘We want to do this if this is something our residents want.’ ”

Residents do; Laguna Woods resident Barbara Reinig, who attended a recent collective meeting with husband Ed–and with their son–said pointedly that medical cannabis has changed her life for the better.

“You write that I’ve tried everything else in the world, and nothing else works but the brownies,” says Reinig, who suffers from crippling arthritis, and found that epidural injections were ineffective and soon wore off. One of the most difficult issues to resolve before she used medical cannabis, Reinig says, was telling her son:

“When my son was 16 in the ’60s, we gave him the lecture about it leading to other [drug use],” Reinig says. Then when she told him she was using it – “We laughed for an hour,” she says. “I couldn’t get him to stop.”

And even with her son’s blessing, Reinig – like other Laguna Woods residents; and, one suspects, seniors across California – was careful to go through the proper channels to obtain medical cannabis.

“We’ve all got the letter of recommendation from the doctor, so it’s all legal,” she says. “We wouldn’t want to set a bad example for our kids.”

- Theo Douglas

Proceeding, With Caution: Seniors increasingly, though not entirely, comfortable using medical cannabis is a post from: The 420 Times