July 31, 2010 – It’s always 4:20 somewhere, and two Grande Prairie women figure the best way to celebrate is with a nice, cold shot of hemp-infused vodka.

Yes, someone has figured out how to put two of the world’s most popular vices — alcohol and cannabis — together.

“We think that this is definitely the best thing we’ve come up with so far,” says Stephanie Keough. The former bartender and her friend Brenda Magnusson are the creators of Stoked Vodka, an 80-proof infused with hemp extract. The liquor will be officially introduced at a launch party in Grande Prairie Friday (July 23).

“The response,” Keough says, “has been overwhelming.” They are, of course, selling a winning combo; the only surprise is that no one else had thought of it earlier. While other “cannabis vodkas” exist in other parts of the world, “there’s nothing else in North America currently other than us,” Keough says.

Keough and Magnusson, former colleagues at an engineering firm, landed on the idea over after-work drinks about a year ago. They were experimenting with mixes and Magnusson pulled out some hemp seed oil from her fridge. Hemp seed is a health product that contains essential amino and fatty acids and is said to improve circulation and blood pressure and nourish hair and nails. While derived from the same plant as marijuana, it does not have the same psychoactive properties.

The Liquid Chicks, as the two women have branded themselves, eventually took their concoction to Calgary’s Highwood Distillery to see how their idea could be refined.

The result is a quadruple-distilled vodka with a slight hint of hemp’s nutty flavour. “It just tastes like regular vodka, with a little bit of an extra kick to it,” Magnusson says. And because it’s been distilled once more than typical vodkas, she adds, it’s ultrasmooth.

“It goes well with anything,” Magnusson says. “I’ve given it out to a bunch of people and they’ve tried it. All of them said that they didn’t have a hangover next day and it didn’t make them feel nauseated the next day. So it’s really good vodka.”

Now, the women are working to get Stoked behind the bar and in liquor stores across Alberta. “It’s getting to the fun stuff,” says Magnusson, after a long haul riddled with roadblocks.

“Hemp is new; it’s controversial; you’re breaking barriers,” Keough explains. “Getting our label passed was really hard. It’s just the taboo behind it that makes it a little bit harder to get out there. And being the first too, of course.”

Throughout the production process, the women were often told: “It sounds like a great idea, but I’m sure if it hasn’t been done, it’s probably because it couldn’t be done.” But, says Keough, “we found out that we could do it so we just kept pursuing it.”

OPTIONAL END

Stoked goes for about $27 to $30 for a 750-mL bottle, a mid-to top-shelf vodka that Keough says will likely appeal to 18-to 25-year-olds. But because hemp is known for being environmentally cultivated, she adds, its reach will likely be even broader.

The vodka market is tough, and Stoked will be sharing shelf space with dozens of varieties that offer flavours from acai to espresso. But the two Alberta entrepreneurs are confident that what they have is unique.

“There’s nothing else out there that can compare,” Keough says.

“It’s not really a flavour. It’s not a raspberry flavour. It’s completely unique and completely different, and it stands out when you see a bottle on the shelf, I think.” Source.

July 25, 2010 – California voters have a chance on this November’s ballot to bring common sense to law enforcement by legalizing marijuana for adults. As San Jose’s retired chief of police and a cop with 35 years experience on the front lines in the war on marijuana, I’m voting yes.

I’ve seen the prohibition’s terrible impact at close range.

Like an increasing number of law enforcers, I have learned that most bad things about marijuana – especially the violence made inevitable by an obscenely profitable black market – are caused by the prohibition, not by the plant. Legal marijuana is long overdue, but leading up to November, wrongheaded opponents will implore Californians with the same old mistaken arguments to stay the course. Prohibition advocates will promote fear, and they will ignore the vast bulk of law enforcement and medical experience on marijuana. People should not be fooled by cannabis opponents’ appeal to prejudices and emotions when they argue:

– Regulating cannabis will result in an explosion of use by young people –

On the contrary, pot smoking may decrease. Experience and research show that the United States has among the world’s harshest marijuana laws, yet our consumption rate leads the world and is twice that of the Netherlands, where cannabis sales to adults have been allowed for decades. Prohibition doesn’t keep marijuana away from young people. Annual U.S. government surveys consistently show that more than 80 percent of teenagers say that marijuana is “easy” or “very easy” to obtain. In a recent study from Columbia University, teenagers said it is easier to get illegal marijuana than age-regulated alcohol. Under today’s laws, pot-dealing criminals getting rich on marijuana Prohibition don’t ask for ID, but licensed dealers selling alcohol do.

– Legalizing marijuana will just add one more harmful legal substance to the mix —

Marijuana is already in the mix. No one can dispute that marijuana already is widely available. At least 1 in 10 Californians consumed it in the past year, despite expensive government efforts. The November ballot’s Proposition 19: The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 acknowledges this reality and enables us to manage the cannabis market. Furthermore, taxing legal cannabis sales will provide steady funding for local governments that may help avoid layoffs of police and teachers.

– Drug gangs will keep selling marijuana even under legalization —

Silly. Who would buy pot on dangerous streets if they could get it at regulated stores without unsafe impurities? Al Capone and his rivals made machine-gun battles a staple of 1920s city street life when they fought to control the illegal alcohol market. No one today shoots up the local neighborhood to compete in the beer market. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that Mexican cartels derive more than 60 percent of their profits from marijuana. How much did the cartels make last year dealing in Budweiser, Corona or Dos Equis? Legalization would seriously cripple their operations. With more than 20,000 people in Mexico killed in the past three years in drug turf battles, which are spreading north of the border, undercutting the cartels is an urgent priority for both Mexicans’ and Americans’ safety.

– More people will drive stoned and will go to work high –

The initiative makes clear that driving while impaired will remain illegal and punishable. Plus, after we end prohibition, law enforcers like me will no longer be distracted making small-time busts. Communities aren’t terrified by pot smokers. When we stop wasting resources on processing hundreds of thousands of low-level possession cases, we’ll be able to focus on keeping impaired drivers off the road, to concentrate on violent crime and on making people feel they and their children are safe from random gang and drug-related shootings. At work, employers will retain their rights to fire employees whose drug or alcohol use affects their productivity.

The same professional politicians who recklessly caused huge budget deficits predictably are taking an irresponsible position of opposing the “evil” of cannabis legalization, just as they opposed California voters’ decision a decade ago to legalize medical marijuana. The California Police Chiefs Association, of which I have been a member for 34 years, is also in opposition. Personally, I have never even smoked a cigarette, let alone taken a hit from a bong, and while I have great respect for the police chiefs, I wouldn’t want to live in a country where it is a crime to behave contrary to the way cops think we should.

That perhaps brings up the most significant and least considered cost of criminalizing marijuana – turning people into criminals for behavior of which we disapprove, even though it doesn’t take others’ property or endanger their safety. It is worth remembering that our last three presidents, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, would have been stigmatized for life and never would have become presidents if they had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and been busted for pot during their reckless youthful days. Countless other Americans weren’t so lucky. California voters have an opportunity in November to return reason to our state by decriminalizing adult use of marijuana. Source.

By Joseph D. McNamara, a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition ( www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com), who also served as San Jose’s chief of police for 15 years. He is a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.