September 28, 2010 – At precisely 4:20 PM last Saturday, proponents and foes of legalizing marijuana in California were scheduled to hold a debate at the International Cannabis and Hemp Expo (abbreviated as INTCHE—TCH being pot’s most popular active ingredient) inside the Cow Palace arena just outside San Francisco. Things didn’t go as planned. “The whole debate thing was just a disaster,” organizer Susan Soares later told me. For one thing, the debate’s starting time posed a logistical problem. While 20 past 4 is stoner culture’s designated hour to light up, the debate room was not within the official pot smoking area where anyone with a medical marijuana card—which meant just about everybody in attendance—could freely sample marijuana-infused fruit smoothies, lollipops, and beef jerky, in addition to joints proffered by busty cigarette girls in tight-fitting nurses outfits.

But no matter: While everyone was still partaking, Dennis Peron, a fervent medical marijuana activist who opposes legalization on arcane legal grounds, held the stage hostage for several minutes in an effort to be added to the speakers list. The actual debate didn’t start until 4:48, at which point the crowd of red-eyed pot growers, suppliers, and smokers was standing-room only.

At the center of the heated showdown was Proposition 19, a November ballot initiative that would decriminalize possession of small amounts of weed for recreational use. As an emcee tried to introduce the first speaker, Prop. 19 architect Richard Lee, he was overwhelmed by boos and jeers. Some pot farmers, doctors, and pot-dispensary owners fear that legalizing the drug will eliminate their jobs or expose them to competition from industrial-scale growers. “I need everyone in the crowd to act like an adult. Right now!” the emcee yelled fruitlessly. He then asked “the adults” in the crowd to raise their hands. The room grew quieter.

But not for long. Lee, the founder of Oaksterdam University, a marijuana cultivation school in Oakland (“Quality traning for the cannibis industry”), wore aviator sunglasses that made him look like a fighter pilot about to strafe the crowd. “We’re all for legalization here, right?” he began, mildly enough, before exploding: “We’re all for fucking legalization! So fuck these guys who want to keep fucking up out of Mexico!” He went on, a bit cryptically, “Thirty thousand people are dead! We’ve got to move to legalization, it’s that simple. This is the best we can do right now.” Applause and cheers clashed with cries of “You suck!”

“I’m hiding behind you if a fight breaks out,” Derek Oppedisano, a Prop. 19 supporter and co-owner of weGrow, an Oakland hydroponics store, told me. “I’m too stoned to throw punches.” I pointed out that pot smokers are supposed to be peaceful. “I’m telling you, man, when economics gets involved, it changes everything,” Oppedisano said. A year from now, he predicted, the pot business “is gonna be as ruthless as Wall Street.”

The No on 19 side was represented by George Mull, an attorney for cannabis companies. He agreed that “we are all in favor of legalization” but argued that Prop. 19 is so brazen that it could provoke the federal government to bust California’s entire marijuana industry. “I don’t know which ones of you want to step up and risk not going home to your families for the next 20 years,” he said. “But I never tell my clients to and I’d never wish it on any one of you.”

Next up, Chris Conrad, the publisher of West Coast Leaf, argued that everyone should stop being paranoid and vote yes on legalization. He was loudly booed. “Oh wow, listen to the little children crying!” Conrad sneered as he curled up in his chair and made as if to suck his thumb. “They are so afraid to hear the truth.” “Prop. 19 kicks ass over Prop. 215,” he said, referring to the 1996 voter initiative that legalized medical marijuana. “If you are so stupid to vote no on Prop. 19, you are taking that message around the world.”

Nobody in the hemp expo crowd seemed upset when Bishop Ron Allen, head of the International Faith Based Coalition and the final No on 19 speaker, cited a study that legalizing pot in California would increase usage by 100 to 150 percent. But he soon alienated both sides of the crowd when he equated pot dealers with snake handlers. The decision to smoke pot, he explained, is like saying, “So why don’t we go get a rattlesnake or a cobra?”

“You’re the rattlesnake!” chanted Steve DeAngelo, the founder of the Harborside Health Center, an Oakland medical marijuana dispensary. Several others joined him. It might have been the only thing said during the entire debate that everyone seemed to agree on. Source.

September 27, 2010 – One of the best kept secrets in New Mexico has to do with the medical marijuana program. Who are the growers and what do they have inside their facilities?

We take a look at how one nonprofit group takes a controversial drug from a seedling and grows the medicine that many New Mexicans depend on.

Southwest Organic Producers (SWOP) is one of 11 licensed medical marijuana producers in New Mexico. The group takes huge steps in ensuring their high-grade medical cannabis is not only safe, but effective.

One room holds multiple potent strains of the drug, some eight feel tall and every one of them bulky with fragrant buds.

Jacob White shows us SWOP’s flowering room and explains the process of taking these plants which out put flowers to attract pollen and then denying them pollen which in turn produces a more potent product, as well as a higher quality one.

SWOP takes every step necessary to guarantee everything from the PH balance to the nutrient levels are closely measured and monitored. Plants get a strict 12 hours of light and 12 hours of complete darkness.

“They are essentially getting a whole summer’s and late fall’s worth of growth, in just a few short months by the manipulation of the light cycles and the light spectrum,” White tells us.

The clients of SWOP must be licensed to receive medical cannabis. Many have weakened immune systems.

“This is medicine, so it needs to be treated like medicine,” White explains.

Trichomes, tiny crystals that grow on the plant’s buds, determine the potency of the product. These trichomes contain THC which is where most of the active ingredients in cannabis are found.

SWOP sorts, prices and sells their product based on these trichomes.

In taking those steps necessary to stay efficient SWOP uses the leftover leaves from other cannabis products, such as oils and muscle salves.

A local bakery also assists the producer in making edible products from those leftover leaves. Goodies like cookies and brownies are also sold to clients who maybe err on the sweet tooth side.

SWOP also sells clones to those clients who have a license to grow cannabis at home.

Amidst the medical marijuana controversy, SWOP’s mission is simple: To help licensed patients by providing safe access to high-grade medical marijuana. And their work doesn’t go unnoticed, at least to their patients.

“I’ve gotten the exact same phone call multiple times, some from patients, some from family members. But saying, thank you so much, you’ve given me my husband back, or my daughter has her father back,” White says.

It should be noted, the process of getting licensed isn’t easy for patients. They must qualify as having an medical condition that would benefit from medical marijuana, then get a recommendation from their doctor, and in some cases, they need a second recommendation from a medical specialist. From there, they must pass a review by the state. If all conditions are met, the patient is given a medical cannabis card along with a list of rules and growers.

“People that really need it are getting it and the steps are there that prevent people that don’t really need it from getting it,” White explains.

New Mexico currently has only five medical marijuana producers actively producing cannabis. Six others are still in the start up stages.

SWOP has 634 clients.

White worries that there are not enough facilities available to help patients, who have been enrolling in the program at a record rate.

Doctors have slowly become more willing to sign off on these prescriptions upon learning they’re not legally responsible for a patients marijuana use. Legally they can’t lose their license for recommending a patient to the program.

Growers throughout the state are continuing to take precautions to both protect themselves and their product. 9 of the 11 medical cannabis producers have formed a guild, which allows them to work together to better meet demand. Source.