Cannabis Ambassador Anakka Hartwell

Modern technology and a handful of motivated scientists may just make factory farms and slaughterhouses a thing of the past.

Would you eat a hamburger if it were made without killing a cow? Can you imagine a world where cruelty-free applies not just to shoes and shampoos but also to sausages and chicken nuggets?

Jason Matheny can. He’s not only a vegetarian, he’s a doctoral student and scientist at the University of Maryland in College Park, and he’s committed to changing the way meat gets to the dinner table. Last July, he and an international team of researchers announced a new method for “making” meat. Instead of slaughtering farm animals, they’re growing meat in the laboratory. “In theory, technology could produce the world’s entire supply of meat without ever killing a single animal,” says Matheny.

The technique involves a relatively painless process of removing muscle cells from a live animal through a thin needle, then letting the cells grow and divide in a sort of giant petri dish—a vat kept at the same temperature as the animal’s body and filled with glucose, amino acids and minerals. This nutritional soup is then poured onto large plastic sheets that are continually stretched to “exercise” the cells and keep them growing. After a few weeks, a millimeter-thick sheet of meat can be peeled off, rolled up and minced into hamburger.

“There are all sorts of ethical and health advantages to this technology,” Matheny says. “First, no animals have to be killed. In theory, we could collect cells from one of every type of animal now raised for food, rather than slaughtering 40 billion creatures each year.” Reducing the number of factory farm animals would also mean a tremendous reduction in land and water pollution caused by animal waste. According to the Department of Agriculture, food animals currently produce 1.6 billion tons of manure each year.

Vat-grown meat would also be safer and more healthful than today’s meat, Matheny says. “There are so many health problems associated with farmed meat. In addition to worrying about antibiotics, steroids and contamination, meat has a very high saturated fat content. But with tissue culture, we can reduce that or even replace it with a healthier fat,” he says. And people wouldn’t have to worry about mad cow disease or avian flu.

Will it sell?
Is lab-grown meat too weird or too sci-fi to ever become marketable? The Dutch don’t think so. They’ve invested nearly $5 million in research to cultivate pork from stem cells. The lead researcher, Henk Haagsman, PhD, a scientist at the University of Utrecht, believes they could have a ground meat product in as little as six years.“Of course there are people who think this is Frankenstein food,” says Vladimir Mironov, MD, PhD, director of the Medical University of South Carolina Shared Tissue Engineering Laboratory in Charleston. “They see it as unnatural, but there is nothing unnatural here. We use animal cells and grow them in a cultured media. The only difference is that we don’t kill any animals.

Matheny takes it a step further. “We’ve already accepted plenty of bioengineered foods, such as wine, cheese, tofu and tempeh. None of them are found in nature.”

Also, contrary to what some might think, the process is completely different from cloning. “The kind of cell replication taking place is the same kind that occurs in our muscles when we exercise,” explains Matheny. “Cloning, on the other hand, involves reproducing an entire animal from a germ line cell, which is a highly artificial process.”

Even so, how realistic is this brave new world of murderless meat outside of The Netherlands? “If there is demand, it can be available and on the market in the next five to 10 years,” says Mironov. In fact, he sees a future where people will have countertop devices similar to breadmakers that could produce meat overnight. “It’s not a question of time, it’s a question of money. With a well-funded program, this could become a reality in the next decade,” he says. Cost is one of the biggest stumbling blocks. Scientists have yet to figure out how to get cells to proliferate inexpensively enough for lab-grown meat to be mass-produced and economical.

“Just like any new technology, it will be very, very expensive to produce at first,” says Mironov, “at least $5,000 per pound. But eventually, the price will go down dramatically—1,000 times. The Dutch wouldn’t be forging ahead if they didn’t believe that. Besides, they recognize that they don’t have enough land and they’re very concerned about the environment. They want to lead the way in this technology.”

What will vegetarians do?
Not surprisingly, animal rights activists and vegetarians support the idea of murderless meat. “This is one of the most exciting developments ever,” says Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the world’s largest animal rights organization. “It removes the suffering of billions of animals and still gives people the opportunity to eat what they want, minus the cruelty.”

John Cunningham, consumer research manager of The Vegetarian Resource Group in Baltimore, says he’s been hearing similar thoughts. “While most vegetarians wouldn’t consider going back to eating meat no matter how it was produced, many of them think this is a good idea for nonvegetarians,” he says.

But is it?
“Meat is not a necessary or healthy food. We don’t need to eat it,” says Amy Lanou, PhD, senior nutrition scientist for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington, DC. “If we as a country don’t take the big steps in avoiding animal-based foods, we are not going to see healthier people or a decline in chronic diseases.”

There are other key things to consider, says Gregory Jaffe, director of biotechnology at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a food-safety advocacy group in Washington, DC, “including safety, nutrition, cost, taste and ultimately our culture and our connection to food. Even though we often eat highly processed foods—far removed from what’s grown in a field or produced on a farm—the bottom line will be whether people actually want to buy meat that’s grown in a vat. I don’t know if they will.”

Where the hell did that go. As you can see, once again those with money will rule those without and not leave a chance for anyone to have the opportunity to be involved for the first time in my lifetime in a new and dawning industry.

As more and more people are blind to poop 19 (prop 19) they will unknowinly vote away any opportunity they would have had in this new industry.  Soon pot will only be in cigerette packs that will contain whatever the government feels we need, and you will not be allowed to grow your own, just like tobacco.  Wine making was finally allowed in the 80’s after years of prohibiion.  Will we ever get our rights back…not if history tells it correctly.  We will end up with the same type of regulations that as alcohol.

AND FINALLY, WHY IS IT that the folks who broke the law, and grow more than allowed and have made millions, criminals really, are now the ones being allowed the big corporations, while those of us that waited peacefull and legally are left behind…where is the incentive to be law abiding?  If all it takes to keep freedom is payoffs, then we truly live in a third world county, as this latest report shows that americans are the least happy, and the worst heath insurance, and no hope:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latest-news/worlds-happiest-countries Oakland Pot-Growing Plan Worries Small Bud Tenders

 Sunday, 18 Jul 2010 03:32 PM

After weathering the fear of federal prosecution and competition from drug cartels, California’s medical marijuana growers see a new threat to their tenuous existence: the “Wal-Marting” of weed.

The Oakland City Council on Tuesday will look at licensing four production plants where pot would be grown, packaged and processed into items ranging from baked goods to body oil. Winning applicants would have to pay $211,000 in annual permit fees, carry $2 million worth of liability insurance and be prepared to devote up to 8 percent of gross sales to taxes.

The move, and fledgling efforts in other California cities to sanction cannabis cultivation for the first time, has some marijuana advocates worried that regulations intended to bring order to the outlaw industry and new revenues to cash-strapped local governments could drive small “mom and pop” growers out of business. They complain that industrial-scale gardens would harm the environment, reduce quality and leave consumers with fewer strains from which to choose.

“Nobody wants to see the McDonald’s-ization of cannabis,” Dan Scully, one of the 400 “patient-growers” who supply Oakland’s largest retail medical marijuana dispensary, Harborside Health Center, grumbled after a City Council committee gave the blueprint preliminary approval last week. “I would compare it to how a small business feels about shutting down its business and going to work at Wal-Mart. Who would be attracted to that?”

The proposal’s supporters, including entrepreneurs more disposed to neckties than tie-dye, counter that unregulated growers working in covert warehouses or houses are tax scofflaws more likely to wreak environmental havoc, be motivated purely by profit and produce inferior products.

“The large-scale grow facilities that are being proposed with this ordinance will create hundreds of jobs for the city,” said Ryan Indigo Warman, who teaches pot-growing techniques at iGrow, a hydroponics store whose owners plan to apply for one of the four permits. “The ordinance is good for Oakland, and anyone who says otherwise is only protecting their own interests.”

Council members Rebecca Kaplan and Larry Reid, who introduced the plan, have pitched it largely as a public safety measure.

The Oakland fire department blames a dramatic rise in the number of electrical fires between 2006 and 2009 in part to marijuana being grown indoors with improperly wired fans and lights. The police department says eight robberies, seven burglaries and two murders have been linked to marijuana grows in the last two years.

Reid and Kaplan also are open about their desire to have the city, which last week laid off 80 police officers to save money, cash in on the medical marijuana industry it has allowed to thrive.

Oakland’s four retail marijuana stores did $28 million in business last year, and if sales remain constant, the city would get $1.5 million this year from a dispensary business tax that voters adopted last summer. A similar tax on wholesale pot sales from the permitted grow sites to the dispensaries would bring in more than twice that amount, the city administrator’s office has estimated.

“Allowing medical cannabis and medical cannabis products to be produced in a responsible, aboveboard and legitimate way will be a benefit to the patients, to the workers and to the people of Oakland,” Kaplan said.

Adding to the anxiety of growers — and the impetus Oakland officials have to get the grow tax in place — is a November state ballot measure to legalize marijuana possession for adult recreational use and authorize local governments to license and tax non-medical pot sales.

If it passes, Proposition 19 is expected to feed the state’s hearty appetite for marijuana. Backers of creating the four big indoor gardens say the plan is not dependent on legalization, but would benefit from it.

“The reality is, this is an issue that is going to grow. I would like it to grow here. I would like it to be Oakland business and not the tobacco industry,” Councilwoman Jean Quan said.

Regulating the supply side of the business would represent another turning point in California’s complicated, 14-year-old relationship with medical marijuana. Although Maine, New Mexico and Rhode Island license nonprofit groups to produce and distribute cannabis, California’s law is silent on cultivation other than for individual use.

Even as hundreds of storefront pot dispensaries, marijuana delivery services and THC-laced food products have flourished, the question of where they get their stashes remains murky: Inquiring is considered as impolite as asking someone’s income or age.

Industry insiders usually say they rely on a variety of sources, including farmers who grow outdoors in the far northern end of the state, contractors who run sophisticated indoor operations, and customers who grow their own and sell the surplus.

Officials in Berkeley and Long Beach also are moving take the mystery out of medical marijuana production.

The Berkeley City Council last week approved a measure for the November ballot that would authorize the city to license and tax six pot cultivation sites. Companies running the facilities must agree to give away some pot to low-income users, employ organic gardening methods to the extent possible and offset in some way the large amount of electricity needed to grow weed.

Long Beach officials want to reduce the amount of medical marijuana being sold in the city that isn’t grown there.

The city is in the process of trying to whittle its more than 90 dispensaries down to no more than 35 marijuana collectives through a lottery. License winners will be required to grow either at their retail sites or elsewhere in Long Beach and to open their books to prove they aren’t growing more than enough to supply their members, said Lori Ann Farrell, Long Beach’s director of financial management.

The cost of marijuana would drop as much as 80% and consumption would rise if Californians vote for Proposition 19, the legalization measure on the November ballot, researchers at Rand’s Drug Policy Research Center have concluded in a detailed analysis of the issue.

The Santa Monica-based, nonprofit research institute predicted the cost of marijuana, which runs between $300 and $450 per ounce, could plunge to about $38 by eliminating the expense of compensating suppliers for the challenges of operating in the black market.

Altered State?

Assessing How Marijuana Legalization in California Could Influence Marijuana Consumption and Public Budgets

By: Beau Kilmer, Jonathan P. Caulkins, Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, Robert J. MacCoun, Peter H. Reuter

To learn more about the possible outcomes of marijuana legalization in California, RAND researchers constructed a model based on a series of estimates of current consumption, current and future prices, how responsive use is to price changes, taxes levied and possibly evaded, and the aggregation of nonprice effects (such as a change in stigma). Key findings include the following: (1) The pretax retail price of marijuana will substantially decline, likely by more than 80 percent. The price the consumers face will depend heavily on taxes, the structure of the regulatory regime, and how taxes and regulations are enforced. (2) Consumption will increase, but it is unclear how much because we know neither the shape of the demand curve nor the level of tax evasion (which reduces revenues and prices that consumers face). (3) Tax revenues could be dramatically lower or higher than $1.4 billion; for example, uncertainty surrounds potential tax revenues California might derive from taxing marijuana used by residents of other states (e.g., from “drug tourism”). (4) Previous studies find that the annual costs of enforcing marijuana laws in California range from around $200 million to nearly $1.9 billion; our estimates show that the costs are probably less than $300 million. (5) There is considerable uncertainty about the impact of legalizing marijuana in California on public budgets and consumption, with even minor changes in assumptions leading to major differences in outcomes.

Chicago Sun-Times | March 16, 1997 | ROBERT A. ROSENBLATT | 700+ words | Copyright (c) 2009 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through ProQuest Information and Learning Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to ProQuest Information and Learning Company. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

 WASHINGTON People in the United States’ hospice programs are not dying fast enough to satisfy federal government auditors.

Washington is conducting special reviews of hospice records and calling for repayment of money spent under Medicare for patients who lived beyond the expected six months after they had enrolled for hospice care.

The get-tough policy is part of the government’s Operation Restore Trust, a program designed to combat waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare. A dozen hospice programs have been notified by the inspector general’s office of the Health and Human …

So lets look at what Hospice does for society…..since the government has seen that funds here need to be monitored and reduced….

By Steve Elliott in Legislation, News

Tuesday, Jun. 15 2010 @ 3:14PM

Californians protest a DEA medical marijuana dispensary raid

California may soon urge the federal government to end medicinal cannabis raids and to “create a comprehensive federal medical marijuana policy that ensures safe and legal access to any patient that would benefit from it.”The California State Assembly Committee on Health voted 10-3 Tuesday to pass the resolution, which urges the federal government to change its pot policy. The full state Senate already passed the measure in August 2009 by a vote of 23-15.

Photo: Political Blotter

California State Senator Mark Leno: “Patients and providers in California remain at risk of arrest and prosecution by federal law enforcement”

State Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) introduced Senate Joint Resolution 14 last year, and despite a Justice Department policy issued in October 2009 which discourages federal enforcement in medical marijuana states, advocates and state lawmakers are still pushing for a binding change to federal law.

“This legislation is needed now more than ever,” said Don Duncan of Americans for Safe Access (ASA), a medical marijuana patient advocacy group and a sponsor of the legislatioin.

“Lest federal officials think their job is done, they need to know their work addressing medical marijuana as a public health issue has only just begun,” Duncan said.

Duncan testified on behalf of patients Tuesday before the Assembly Health Committee.

“Patients and providers in California remain at risk of arrest and prosecution by federal law enforcement, and legally established medical marijuana cooperatives continue to be the subjects of federal raids and prosecutions,” said Sen. Leno.

Federal raids reached a peak during the Bush Administration, with more than 200 Drug Enforcement Administration raids in California alone, but some raids have still continued under the Obama Administration.

More than two dozen patients and providers are currently being prosecuted under federal law and face decades in prison, according to ASA.

One such medical marijuana provider, James Stacy, whose dispensary was raided by the DEA in September 2009 — just a month before the new Justice Department policy was issued — is scheduled to go on trial next month.

“Not only do patients in California deserve to be free from federal intrusion,” Duncan said, “but, patients across the country would benefit from a sensible and comprehensive federal medical marijuana policy.”

SJR 14 urges President Obama and Congress to “move quickly to end federal raids, intimidation, and interference with state medical marijuana law.”

But it goes further by asking the government to establish “an affirmative defense to medical marijuana charges in federal court and establish federal legal protection for individuals authorized by state and local law…”

Because of a U.S. Supreme Court decision, defendants in medical marijuana cases are prohibited from using a medical or state law defense in federal court. The Truth ibn Trials Act, HR 3939, which would correct this problem, is currently before Congress.

SJR 14 now proceeds to the California Assembly floor and, if passed, the non-binding resolution will be enacted without Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s signature or approval.

The resolution will then be sent to the President, Vice President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and to each Senator and Representative of the California Congressional delegation.

L.A. Police Officer Charged With Distributing Meth

By Steve Elliott in News

Thursday, Jun. 10 2010 @ 4:12PM

Photo: David Dust

A Los Angeles police officer has been charged with selling methamphetamine, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego announced Wednesday.Yoshio Romero, 28, was arraigned Tuesday in federal court on the charge of distributing meth, reports Andrew Blankstein of the Los Angeles Times.

The five-year LAPD veteran faces up to 10 years in federal prison if convicted.

The arrest followed a months-long investigation, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Romero arranged to sell 111 grams of meth in December 2009 for $4,200, according to the federal criminal complaint from U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents.

The police officer allegedly told an undercover agent that he “could supply him with any quantity of methamphetamine that he wanted,” according to the affidavit.

The two arranged to meet at a shopping mall in Temecula two weeks later, and during the meeting, Romero gave the agent a “small baggie containing a small amount of a white crystalline substance, which he (called) a ‘free sample,”‘ the affidavit claims.

Tests verified the substance was meth, the DEA said.

Afterward, the undercover agent arranged to make the larger, 111-gram purchase, which Romero allegedly agreed to do at the North County Fair in Escondido on Dec. 21, according to court papers.

The policeman allegedly placed the meth inside a candy box on the front seat of a Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck with a paper dealer placard, and then told a buyer he could find it at the North County Fair in Escondido, according to the DEA.

The buyer was told to leave the money in the center console, take the candy box containing the drugs and lock the vehicle’s door.

“A few minutes later, Romero was observed going to the … pickup, using a key to gain entry and then driving off,” the affidavit says.

Romero was arrested Monday without incident at his Corona, California home.

He is due to appear before Magistrate Judge Cathy A. Bencivengo in court Thursday.

Now that the Raid has Happened, Patients have no option but to turn to the black market…why is the government encouraging and forcing us to buy from the black market which they claim are forieng gangs?  WHO REALLY RUNS THE BLACK MARKET?

 By Steve Elliott in Dispensaries, Global, Medical

Wednesday, Jun. 9 2010 @ 12:52PM

Photo: The Maple Three

A Canadian crackdown on compassion clubs in Quebec has backfired, according to some doctors and medical marijuana patients. Many have been forced to turn to the black market to get their cannabis after police last week in Montreal and Quebec City raided and shut down five compassion clubs and arrested 35 people.Canada’s federal government offers only one strain of medical marijuana, and the only legal way to purchase government pot is through Health Canada, reports CBC News.

Not only is government cannabis of questionable quality; the process is complicated and the wait is often lengthy, according to some patients.

As a result, more and more Canadian medical marijuana patients are now buying their cannabis illegally.

Photo: CBC

Medical marijuana patient Janet McDougal said she will have to return to a cocktail of harsh pharmaceutical drugs to treat her multiple sclerosis

Janet McDougal of Montreal has depended on her compassion club for cannabis to help her treat her multiple sclerosis.

The club where McDougal obtained pot for more than a decade has now been closed, due to last week’s police raids. When her current supply of marijuana runs out, she will have to return to a cocktail of harsh pharmaceutical drugs that leave her feeling like a “zombie,” McDougal said.

McDougal said the compassion club she used had stringent measures in place, and would only accept doctors’ prescriptions.

“I cant even go in there with a friend, that is how secure it is,” she said.

It will take several months for her to get approval for a medical marijuana license from Health Canada to start using pot legally, she said.

The marijuana helped relieve her MS pain to the point that she no longer is forced to use a wheelchair, McDougal said. Cannabis also helped restore her appetite.

“It is like I have a new lease on life,” McDougal said. “I feel like I’m coming out of a coma.”

Photo: CBC

Dr. Mark Ware: “There are going to be a lot of patients suffering as a result of this”

Dr. Mark Ware, associate medical director of McGill University Health Centre Pain Clinic, said McDougal is just one of hundreds of patients affected by the raids.

“My first real gut reaction was, ‘My God, there are going to be a lot of patients suffering as a result of this,’” Dr. Ware said.

While Dr. Ware said he tells all his patients that the only legal way to get pot is through Health Canadas, some of his patients find their symptoms respond better to certain strains of the drug which aren’t available through the government.

“I hope that Health Canada will go back and rethink this program of having a single supply and a single strain [of marijuana],” Dr. Ware said.

The clubs also provide patients with better service and information than they could obtain through Health Canada, the doctor said.

Police claim last week’s raids were undertaken because some of the clients at the compassion clubs were getting marijuana without federal authorization from Health Canada, which constitutes illegal drug

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