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Florida Cops Kill Man After Smelling Weed and Won’t Release Videos

On July 5th, a Pensacola, Florida police officer—the department won’t release the officer’s name—thought he smelled weed coming from a car. In some parts of Florida, where possessing up to 20 grams of cannabis is decriminalized, that officer might have just continued on his way. But this Pensacola cop made a traffic stop. The man behind the wheel was Tymar Crawford, a father of four. That traffic stop ended up costing Crawford his life. Police shot Crawford five times in front of his family, killing him.

At the time, Crawford’s shooting sparked protests and marches. Local residents gathered outside the Pensacola Police Department demanding justice for Crawford and the firing of the officer that killed him. Now, a layer representing Crawford’s family is fighting for the release of the dashboard and body camera footage of the killing. But Pensacola police are fighting to keep the video out of the public eye.

Family of Man Killed After Police Smelled Weed Demand Video of the Shooting

Pensacola police say they shot Tymar Crawford to death because he took an officer’s gun during a scuffle. That’s all it would take for the justice system to justify Crawford’s killing. But the Pensacola Police Department won’t release any dashboard or body camera footage from the fatal July 5th incident. Footage that would support their version of events.

But so far, police haven’t offered any evidence to support any part of their version of what happened. They just allege they smelled weed coming from Crawford’s car, that Crawford “fled at low-speed” then struggled with the cops trying arrest him outside of his family’s home. During that struggle, the police allege that Crawford tried to disarm one of the officers by grabbing his gun. That’s when officers shot him five times.

The gunshots and the aftermath were all caught on cell phone videos taken by witnesses. But cars and other objects blocked the bystanders’ view from the alleged “scuffle” that lead to Crawford’s killing. Those same witnesses, five of them, in fact, have challenged the officers’ version of events. They say police shot Crawford for no reason.

Joe Zarzaur, the attorney representing Crawford’s family, is demanding Pensacola police release the police footage of the incident. Zarzaur says the videos are part of officers’ routine duties and should be part of the public record. But the department says the videos are part of an ongoing investigation and are classified.

Pot Politics in Pensacola

Last November, Pensacola held a mayoral election. At least a couple candidates spoke openly about local changes to marijuana laws, but only one made decriminalization part of his platform. Drew Buchanan, a Pensacola businessman, proposed making Pensacola follow the more than a dozen other Florida municipalities that had decriminalized simple possession. On the campaign trail, Buchanan’s proposal “shocked” then-Comissioner Grover Robinson, who ultimately won the bid for mayor.

Another 2018 candidate for mayor also issued a prophetic response to Buchanan’s decriminalization proposal. While saying that it wasn’t “a campaign fight of mine,” candidate Lawrence Powell admitted that “granted, it does affect people.”

“If you get pulled over and in possession of, depending on how much and what your historical criminal record may look like, it can be a game changer — a life changer,” Powell said.

In Tymar Crawford’s case, it was a life ender.

The post Florida Cops Kill Man After Smelling Weed and Won’t Release Videos appeared first on Green Rush Daily.

Drop the Price of Legal Cannabis, Green Party Says

Dropping the price of legal cannabis would take a bite out of illicit sales, argues the federal Green Party, and is a promise the party would make, according to a press release issued Thursday. The Green Party of Canada is calling for big changes to the regulatory framework governing the production and sale of cannabis in Canada. “A year after the passage of the cannabis legislation, it’s clear that many of the government’s approaches are…

Chicago Mayor Proposes Zoning Law Blocking Dispensaries from Downtown

Legal recreational cannabis sales begin on New Year’s Day in Illinois for everyone 21 and over. Just in time to help work off that likely hangover. But if you try to find a recreational dispensary in downtown Chicago, you might be out of luck. On Wednesday, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot unveiled a set of zoning rules laying out where dispensaries will be allowed to open their doors. And those zoning rules include an area, right in the heart of downtown Chicago, where no dispensaries will be able to set up shop.

Proponents of the zoning proposal say it ensures equal geographic distribution of retail cannabis shops, so no one area becomes too concentrated or reaps all the benefits of legalization. Those opposed to the plan to block dispensaries from downtown Chicago say the zoning restrictions will cost the city needed revenue.

Dispensary “Exclusion Zone” Includes Popular Tourist Destinations and Consumer Areas

The city of Chicago is preparing for legal retail to begin on January 1, 2020. And part of those preparations includes setting up regulatory measures to “establish the safe and responsible implementation of legalized cannabis next year,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a statement. And the first step in the process has been determining how many dispensaries to approve and where to locate them.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s cannabis dispensary zoning plan would divvy Chicago up into seven zones, and each zone would get seven dispensaries. In May, the dispensary limit will double, allowing each zone to have 14 dispensaries. City officials are working to distribute each zone’s dispensaries evenly with distancing requirements. They’re also keeping them away from schools and residential districts.

But Lightfoot’s plan also includes an “exclusion zone” where retail cannabis shops would not be permitted. The no-dispensary area is right in the middle of the downtown’s central business district, and includes much of the Loop and the Magnificent Mile. The densely commercial area is a top destination for tourists and visitors, a fact that has made the area attractive real estate for cannabis companies.

But Mayor Lightfoot and city officials behind the zoning proposal say that the high-traffic central corridor isn’t the best spot for selling legal weed. “This is about inclusive, equitable growth of a new industry,” said Samir Mayekar, deputy mayor for economic and neighborhood development. “From a public safety standpoint as the industry develops, it was best to exclude that from operations.”

Blocking Dispensaries Could Cut Chicago Out of Cannabis Revenue

But Chicago Alderman Brendan Reilly, along many in the cannabis industry, worry that the exclusion zone will cause the city to lose out on an important revenue opportunity. “In order for this to be a successful revenue play for the city, we have to have some dispensaries located downtown,” Reilly told the Chicago Tribune.

Mayor Lightfoot’s zoning proposal has already garnered praise from groups advocating for inclusiveness and equity in Illinois’ emerging legal cannabis industry. Even cannabis business owners and industry spokespersons recognize the need to support economic and neighborhood development, especially given how extensively the war on drugs has ravaged Chicago communities.

Still, companies that had eyed downtown Chicago’s critical mass of consumers would like to see some tweaking to the plan to allow dispensaries closer to the downtown core. Lightfoot’s zoning proposal still has to clear City Council. And even if it gets through, downtown visitors and residents in the dispensary exclusion zone won’t have to walk far to find a place to legally purchase cannabis. And come next May, they’ll have twice as many options.

The post Chicago Mayor Proposes Zoning Law Blocking Dispensaries from Downtown appeared first on Green Rush Daily.

LGBTQ Women Consume More Cannabis Than Straight Women, Study Shows

LGBTQ women consume
more cannabis than straight women do, according to a recent study.

Published in the
journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence
last month, the study dives into the differences in how
frequently lesbian, gay, and bisexual people consume pot. This study is one of
the first to explore the weed habits of the LGBTQ community versus straight
people. It relies on data from the 2015-2017 National Survey on Drug Use and
Health—which includes information from 126,463 individuals—to reach its
conclusions. The authors, who hail from the Columbia Univesity Mailman School
of Public Health, divided the survey’s data by gender and sexuality. The
findings speak for themselves.

While about 10
percent of straight women surveyed used cannabis in the last year, about 40
percent of women did the same. Lesbian women didn’t seem to smoke as much
cannabis as bisexual women, but they still consumed more than double that of
straight women: 26 percent. If you look at daily use, the percentage of use
among all women decreased significantly, but bisexual women still consume the most.
The same goes for medical cannabis use. The study found similar trends among
gay men. Bisexual and gay men used cannabis in the last year nearly twice the
rate that straight men did, per the study.

“We further extended
these findings to estimate daily/near-daily prevalence, which
was seven times higher among bisexual women than heterosexual women and 2.3
times as high for bisexual men compared to heterosexual men,” said senior
author Silvia Martins, an associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia
University, in a press release.

The study looks at this usage to analyze “marijuana use disorder” specifically, noting that the LGBTQ community may be self-medicating the stress that comes with the stigma of, well, not being straight with cannabis in states where medical laws don’t yet exist. Bisexual women, in particular, may be impacted by medical cannabis laws given their high usage of the plant.

“Our results support
existing literature by demonstrating that bisexual women have higher marijuana
use disorder compared to heterosexual women,” said study author Morgan Philbin,
an assistant professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia, in a press
release. “This is part of a larger health burden, as bisexual women are twice
as likely to have co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders yet
often have little contact with service providers.”

Bisexual women do suffer high mental health and substance
abuse rates, but cannabis is a much smaller threat than, say, prescription
drugs or alcohol, which can lead to actual overdoses. The study also doesn’t
include any information on transgender individuals, who are among the most
at-risk within the LGBTQ community. Further research on this population could
better help inform these findings. Plus, people can always lie when they answer
these surveys.

Could it be that fewer
straight men and women are being honest about their love of pot?

Maybe.

While this study
helps us better understand how different members of our society are exploring
with cannabis, it does appear to raise the alarm about something that may be a
non-issue. It doesn’t try to find out whether there’s any actual dependence on
cannabis yet describes the usage as a disorder.

When members of the
LGBTQ community are suffering deaths at the hands of violence and drugs that
can actually kill, alarmist language around the smoking of a joint or ripping
of a bong feels strangely inappropriate.

The post LGBTQ Women Consume More Cannabis Than Straight Women, Study Shows appeared first on Green Rush Daily.

Cannabis 2.0 Legalization: Canada is Ready

Federally, cannabis legalization saw daylight in Canada in 2018. The Cannabis Act legalized recreational marijuana in October 2018. Now, the country is all set for the second wave of legalization, Cannabis 2.0, which includes cannabis edibles, cannabis-infused beverages, extracts, and various other products. Let’s dig into this more. Canada’s second wave of legalization Next month, Canada will legalize cannabis-infused edibles for recreational use. The Canadian market will see a limited selection of products in retail…

5 of the Most Cash-Rich Cannabis Stocks

Over the long run, the marijuana industry is expected to show a lot of promise. Various Wall Street forecasts suggest that worldwide legal weed sales can grow from $10.9 billion in 2018 to anywhere between $50 billion and $200 billion in about a decade’s time. That’s growth that Wall Street and investors would be foolish (with a small “f”) to overlook. But the thing is, all next-big-thing investments need time to mature and find their…
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