"The San Francisco-based company is out to make the Nespresso of vaporizers, complete with a sleek, Made in California aesthetic and proprietary pods filled with all-natural tobacco. If vaporizers are going to get anywhere near the mainstream, they need to dispatch the silly glowing tips, finicky and flawed hardware, and horribly named 'e-juice.' They need class and sophistication, and the Ploom Model Two delivers." Continue reading →
"All 26 of Finley's referrals had stage 4 cancers — brain tumors, colon cancers, lung cancers — which means the malignant growths had metastasized to other organs. Most had prognoses of a few months to live, some had less than six weeks. All complemented modern Western medicine treatments such as chemotherapy with the concentrated oil — and all but one have survived, she says. A patient's prognosis can very widely depending on the type of cancer, but the disease is a reliable killer at stage 4, meaning Finley's patients' 96 percent survival rate is unheard-of. Most maddening to some is the fact that none of this is new." Continue reading →
"'The plant hasn't changed, the consumers haven't changed,' says Auburn University's Mark Thornton, 'it's prohibition and the difficulties and risks of getting it from the growing stage to the consumer.' Thornton, author of The Economics of Prohibtion, sat down with ReasonTV's Tracy Oppenheimer to discuss how prohibition distorts the market for marijuana, and why potency levels are on the rise. He says that the potency of other illegal drugs has also increased and that this even included alcohol during prohibition. 'It's a phenomenon that exists anytime government tries to prevent the consumption of something.'" Continue reading →
"Gold smuggling has gone up several notches in India. According to customs officials, after banks stopped selling gold coins and following the hike in import duty, there has been a spurt in demand for the metal prompting people to smuggle. Officials pointed out that smugglers and buyers of smuggled gold tend to save on import duty as well as other taxes like value added tax and income tax. Given the severe curbs on gold buying and selling, other sources are trying to pitch in and take advantage of the situation, by selling gold through illegal means, they added." Continue reading →
"The Houston Chronicle reported that the suit names Trooper Nathaniel Turner, who claimed he smelled marijuana in the car and called a female trooper even though a 'search and seizure was highly unreasonable.' The suit also names the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, responding officer Brazoria County Sheriff’s Deputy Aaron Kindred and the Brazoria County sheriff. In dashcam footage, Hamilton can be heard saying 'Do you know how violated I feel?' to Trooper Jennie Bui as she was searched. Randle said that the she only had one glove that was used to search both of them." Continue reading →
"A medical marijuana dispensary billed as the world’s largest cannabis store may stay open while the city of Oakland fights a U.S. government effort to shut it down or seize the property, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday. There has been a tug-of-war in California between federal and local authorities over cannabis sold for purported health reasons. In February, Magistrate Maria-Elena James, the same judge who ruled on Wednesday, said the city had no right to intervene in a federal prosecutor’s civil-forfeiture action against the Harborside Health Center, which was featured on the Discovery Channel reality TV show 'Weed Wars.'" Continue reading →
"The emergence of services that mingle bitcoin for the purpose of returning bitcoin not associated with the original input address has had a somewhat spotty history. Also called bitcoin laundries, these web-based services charge bitcoin holders a nominal fee to receive different bitcoins than the ones initially transferred. The largest such service operating today is the Blockchain.info mixing service which has a maximum transaction size of 250 bitcoins and a 0.5% transaction fee. Other services include BitLaundry and The Bitcoin Laundry operated by Mike Gogulski." Continue reading →
"Officers from the State Police special response team and DEA agents knocked on the door of Kohler's home at 6:05am. to serve a federal warrant. The newspaper described the special response team as 'akin to a SWAT team.' Officers knocked on the door, State Police spokesman Sgt. Michael Baylous said, but no one answered, so police 'had to break down the door or forcefully open it somehow.' When police break down the door, they saw Kohler pointing a rifle at them, Baylous said. The troopers opened fire, shooting multiple rounds and killing Kohler. Baylous said he did not think Kohler had fired his weapon, but it was still unclear." Continue reading →
"A Pennsylvania woman whose infant daughter was taken away from her by state authorities when she was just three days old, all due to a false positive on a drug test, won a $143,500 settlement Tuesday. The lawsuit alleged that a drug test she and her child were unknowingly subjected came back positive for opiates because she ate an 'Everything' bagel hours before giving birth. That carb-heavy treat turned into a genuine nightmare for Elizabeth Mort, who had her infant daughter Isabella literally taken out of her arms at her home days after returning from the hospital, all authorized by an emergency protective custody order." Continue reading →
"The U.S. government's policy of drug prohibition, like alcohol prohibition before it, is a failure. The economic analysis of fighting a supply-side drug war predicts that the war will enhance drug suppliers' revenues, enabling them to continuously ratchet up their efforts to supply drugs in response to greater enforcement. The result is a drug war that escalates in cost and violence. The drug war causes drugs to be more potent and their quality less predictable than if drugs were legal, leaving the remaining users at greater risk and, in the face of higher prices, more likely to commit crimes to support their habit." Continue reading →