When cold weather arrives, or any time you want a ganja vacation, you probably want to go to Jamaica. Land of Bob Marley, with marijuana growing an agricultural livelihood for many islanders, cannabis lovers across the world flock to the Caribbean to get reggae ganja fun in the sun.

Jamaica has a lot going for it, and you find lots to love there, but It’s also a third world country plagued by poverty, income inequality and crime. If you want a safe and fun Jamaican ganja vacation, you need to read this carefully.

I’ve visited Jamaica three times ,and I’m giving you a very stern look at Jamaica as a vacation destination. Here’s the first thing to remember: you can’t just go anywhere and do anything you want in Jamaica as if you were on a tourist trip to Holland.

Even though marijuana is illegal on the island, lots of people will try to sell you ganja there. You get offered ganja deals before you even got out of the airport, by taxi drivers who pick you up from the airport, by street vendors, and even by children and police officers.

2. Amsterdam, Netherlands

Hundreds of coffee shops where marijuana and hashish can be purchased over the counter and consumer. Amsterdam is the home of the Annual High Times Cannabis Cup, which is held ever November and boasts incredible museums and parks.

Info about 2012 ban:

A law that would have banned foreigners from using Amsterdam’s famous cannabis cafes has been dropped by the city’s mayor just mere months after the Netherlands first began enforcing the restriction.

The tourist drug ban went into effect in three of the country’s southern provinces earlier this year and was due to expand to the rest of the country — including Amsterdam — by 2013, the Associated Press reported.

Mayor Eberhard van der Laan said that Amsterdam’s 220 coffee shops, where marijuana and hashish are openly sold and consumed, will remain open to all next year.

3. Toronto, Canada

“Canada’s Eastern regions boast some excellent marijuana and many businesses, especially those located on Yonge St. Although it is against the law to possess marijuana in Canada, enforcement agencies are primarily focused on individuals guilty of trafficking the drug. Marijuana users in Toronto report that police officers are lenient to those who are discreet.

But just as Colorado and Washington loosened up, Canada tightened its drug laws in November of 2012.

On the very same day as the U.S. election, the Canadian federal Safe Streets and Communities Act went into effect, producing a mandatory minimum penalty for marijuana possession and production: one year in jail for more than 3 kg, and six months for between six and 200 plants.

Carl Valle, Press Secretary for Prime Minister Stephen Harper says that these drugs are illegal because of the harmful effect they have on users and on society, including violent crimes. The government therefore has no interest in seeing any of these drugs legalized or to make them more easily available to youth.

A new poll done in 2012 showed that a majority of Canadians support loosening the country’s marijuana laws, a stance that’s starkly out of sync with the federal government’s pot policy.

According to the poll, released Tuesday by Toronto’s Forum Research, 65 per cent of Canadians favour either the legalization and taxation of the drug, or decriminalizing it in small amounts.

Although the laws have been tightened, the streets and some of the cafes are still puffing.

4. Manama, Bahrain:

If you get caught you will probably spend 2 to 4 weeks in prison and will be interrogated harshly and then released on bail until your case goes to court. the judge might sentence you to 6 months in prison minimum and 10 years maximum – so be careful

There is no marijuana in Bahrain available but high quality hashish is always an option. It is hard to buy it off the streets with no connections but you could always try going to bars in exhibition road and a Thai hooker might fix u up if she doesn’t she will know someone who will. everybody smokes hash in Bahrain but are really serious about keeping it quiet.

Prices do differ with every dealer in Bahrain and dealers don’t sell the drug in grams. You could get a piece as big as your thumb for 20 bd – 50 $.

5. Barcelona, Spain:

Smoking in public in Spain isn’t 100% tolerated, but you can possess up to 40 grams legally and major cannabis events such as Spannabis are the talk of town.
There are many major cannabis seed breeders based there, so it certainly has its place. In my experience, as long as you don’t make a scene you can smoke it pretty much anywhere.
Barcelona is a stunning city to visit, Guadi architecture is everywhere and nice beaches!

6. Prague, Czech Republic

It was a big surprise for me to find out that the Czech Republic is such a cannabis-tolerant country. You can keep up to five plants in your home and carry up to 15 grams.
Liberal criminal justice bills have made it one of the most tolerant places in Europe, and Prague, in particular, is a beautiful city to visit.

7. Lima, Peru

In the Peruvian Amazon’s breathtaking rainforest are the Urarania, indigenous peoples whose religious sacrament includes a shaman-guided ayahuasca experience. Taking ayahuasca is not like taking LSD or mushrooms: It means handing your consciousness over to the “spirit vine,” and the fear-ridden path it lays out for you. Experiencing, or coming to terms with death, is often reported.
Ayahuasca is a psychedelic South American brew, often loosely defined as any combination of the psychedelic DMT with a MAOI, an enzyme inhibitor that allows DMT to be active when swallowed. Adding P. viridis, or other DMT-containing plants, to the MAOI-rich B. caapi vine can induce a profound hallucinogenic journey often accompanied by vomiting, aka “the purge.” Ayahuasca users report two to six hours of peak effects with one to eight hours of lingering effects, depending on dosage and the person.
The region is also famous for its mescaline-rich San Pedro cactus, which, once ingested, can completely alter the user’s reality. A mostly visual experience, the San Pedro is reported to change your perception of your environment, causing tunnel vision, chessboard or honeycomb sensations, and spirals. Four to eight hours after ingestion, the world’s patterns and lines return to their natural state.
Drug laws in Peru are pretty relaxed. Individuals are permitted to have up to 8 grams of cannabis in their possession as long as they do not possess any other drug.

8. Buenos Aires, Argentina

Argentina is the South American country with the highest rate of marijuana (7.2%) and cocaine (2.7%) use among 15- and 64-year-olds, according to the World Drug Report 2010 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Chile and Uruguay rank second and third in both categories
In Argentina, the pattern of drug use among high school students generally begins with alcohol, a gateway drug that leads to marijuana and then to cocaine, said Landini, whose institution treats about 150 addicts annually. The average age of his patients is 23.
One gram (0.03 ounces) of cocaine on the local black market costs about US$9, whereas one gram of marijuana (0.03 ounces) goes for about US$1, according to the National Gendarmerie of Argentina.

9. Seattle, USA

Now that marijuana is legal in Washington, the state is going to start collecting taxes on the new drug. The state hopes to collect some $500 million a year from marijuana users. But there is one catch: marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That does not prevent people from flocking the streets trying to smoke some weed – legally that is. Although it is legal to buy it, it is still not legal to sell it in Washington.

10. Berlin, Germany

The possession of marijuana for personal use in Berlin is tolerated, as long as the amount does not exceed a quantity of 10 grams. Nonetheless, I would not suggest traveling around the city with 10 one gram baggies in your pocket.
As long as you don’t indulge in the herb in public, you have nothing to worry about. If you do decide to, you still have almost nothing to worry about. Just don’t go making a big deal out of it and you’ll be fine.

Content from:

http://top-10-list.org

The CSC ruled that local governments even retain the right to use
zoning laws and other bureaucratic tactics to wipe care centers out of
existence within their respected jurisdictions.

“While some counties and cities might consider themselves well-suited
to accommodating medical marijuana dispensaries, conditions in other
communities might lead to the reasonable decision that such facilities
within their borders, even if carefully sited, well managed, and
closely monitored, would present unacceptable local risks and
burdens,” Justice Marvin Baxter wrote on behalf of the CSC.

The case before the CSC that triggered the decision stemmed from the
city Riverside unilaterally banning cannabis care centers in 2010. 200
other localities also passed local ordinances banning cannabis centers
mostly for dubious reasons.

“Today’s decision allowing localities to ban will likely lead to
reduced patient access in California unless the state finally steps up
to provide regulatory oversight and guidance,” said Tamar Todd, senior
staff attorney for the Drug Policy Alliance told the Associated Press.
“Localities will stop enacting bans once the state has stepped up and
assumed its responsibility to regulate.”

Meanwhile in Sacramento, two bills moving are forward that would
impose regulation standards for the entire state, which some on both
sides of the issue agree is needed.

“The irony in California is that we regulate everything that consumers
purchase and consume, and somehow this has been allowed to be a
complete free-for-all,” said Jeffrey Dunn, the lawyer who represented
Riverside in the successful defense of its ban. “Cities and counties
looked at this and said, `Wait a minute. We can’t expose the public to
these kind of risks,’ and the court recognized that when it comes to
public safety, we have independent authority.”

The crackdown at the local level has diminished the number of care
centers throughout the state.

Cannabis activists are currently gearing up for a ballot initiative
that legalizes cannabis recreational as Colorado and Washington State
did last November.

Larry Swerdlow, a nurse who co-founded the Inland Empire center said
banning care centers would push patients back on the streets.

Swerdlow believes activists must realize the struggle to legalize
cannabis will fought for years to come.

“I kind of look at the gay community. I mean, they had lost all these
elections on gay marriage, 40 states and this kind of stuff, but they
didn’t give up,” Swerdlow said as medical marijuana activists gathered
at the state Capitol to lobby lawmakers on the two proposed bills.
“We’re not going to give up either.”

Cannabis activists have from San Diego to Los Angeles and San
Francisco have vowed to vote out any politicians who attempt to ban
care centers.

By Toby Rogers

Cannabis reform activists in New York walked out of Albany last month, as usual, with nothing this legislative session. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who made cannabis reform his top priority, was also handed his second cannabis reform defeat in less than 12 months. Activists were dismayed that cannabis reform was removed from the overall state budget package.

“This is ugly. There’s no other way to call this,” said Gabriel Sayegh, New York director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “It’s ugly and it’s embarrassing to be a New Yorker when they can’t pass this one simple fix. They just kicked this can down the field before they go on vacation.”  Cuomo announced Wednesday night that he had made a budget deal with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and joint state Senate leaders Dean Skelos and Jeffrey Klein on a state budget.

Andrew Cuomo 56th Governor of New York

A convection of small amounts cannabis possession is punishable up to $100, but if a police officer orders someone to empty their pockets and cannabis is “public view” it then becomes a crime. The “public view” loophole is one of the most wildly criticized cannabis laws on the books. Cuomo has publicly called the loophole “the dumbest drug law ever.”

Critics also point to the NYPD controversial and statistically racist “Stop and Frisk” procedure, where police randomly search mostly minorities and order the contents of a suspect’s pockets in “public view.
After the budget is officially passed on Sunday, lawmakers in Albany will begin a three week vacation.
Activists speculate during that three week break, over 3000 citizens will be arrested for cannabis possession in New York, most of them minorities.

“If it’s low-income, black or Latino young people, they’re always told to wait,” Sayegh said.
Sayegh did not know who was to blame, but at this stage, believes everybody in Albany is suspect.
“We’re asking everybody and nobody seems to know what’s going on. The only ones who seem to know are Gov. Cuomo, Speaker Silver, Senator Skelos and Senator Klein,” Sayegh said. “It’s like watching the Three Stooges, except there’s essentially four. Everybody points at everybody else.”

Sayegh was not hopeful that cannabis reform would be resolved at all this year.
“What they’re saying is that they’re going to come back after their vacation and work on this issue,” Sayegh said. “So it’s not dead for the year, that’s what they say. But if they can’t get it done now, why are we supposed to believe that we can get it done later?”

The Bloom Room is dedicated to providing premium,
medical-grade cannabis to its members. They strive to educate Their patient community about the medical science of cannabis, and to offer a comfortable, clean, and safe environment for them to access their chosen medicine. Bloom Room embraces the will of the people, and hope to stand as proof that a professional medical cannabis collective is not just good for the health of its patients, but for the community in which it serves.

Find out more about The Bloom Room at: www.bloomroomsf.com

By Toby Rogers

A joint report by the Drug Policy Alliance and the Marijuana Arrest Research Project released yesterday indicates that the New York Police Department has spent 1 million hours on 440,000 low level cannabis possession arrests between 2002 and 2012.

The report’s findings, released while lawmakers in Albany debate passing a bill reforming the Empire State’s cannabis laws, demonstrate a “huge waste” of monetary resources in a state already cash-strapped.

“We cannot afford to continue arresting tens of thousands of youth every year for low-level marijuana possession,” Alfredo Carrasquillo, a community organizer with VOCAL-NY, said in a press release. “We can’t afford it in terms of the negative effect it has on the future prospects of our youth and we can’t afford in terms of police hours.”

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has unsuccessfully pushed cannabis reform in past, is again asking lawmakers in Albany to decriminalize small amounts of cannabis. Currently in New York, any amount of cannabis under 25 grams is subject to a $100 fine.

The majority of these arrests are made under the NYPD’s controversial “Stop and Frisk” program, which statistics over the years have proven that the NYPD has deliberately targeted minorities with random searches.

On Tuesday, witnesses in federal lawsuit against the NYPD, testified in court. Nicholas Peart, 24, said he has been unjustly harassed by the NYPD several times, but it 2011, the NYPD crossed the line.

Peart described under oath that one evening while going to pick up milk at a corner bodega- as he was walking home- police approached him, slammed him into the back of a squad car, stole his house keys and entered his building, where his mentally challenged siblings were inside.

Peart panicked, not knowing how is sister would react to a cop entering the apartment.
“I was afraid he would go into my apartment, and I wasn’t there to take care of the situation,” Peart testified, “to be treated like that, by someone who works for New York City, I felt degraded and helpless,”
Peart was eventually released.
David Floyd spearheaded the lawsuit, along with the The Center for Constitutional Rights, legal a non-profit.
Floyd said that he too was harassed several times by the NYPD, but in February 2008, he did not feel safe even in his own apartment building.
While helping a neighbor open his door, the NYPD swarmed around him.
“Before we could go in, we were stopped,” Floyd said.
“It was again the humiliation,” Floyd said. But the last time, “it wasn’t down the block, it wasn’t in another neighborhood. It was on the property that I lived on.”
“I felt that I was being told I shouldn’t leave my home,” Floyd said.

Ironically, it is Stop and Frisk’s focus on race that actually enables drug dealers of all trades. As reported in Cannabis Now Magazine issue #5, the Mafia in New York significantly benefit from Stop and Frisk.

“The only thing Stop and Frisk does is prevent us from hiring minorities”, one mob insider told Cannabis Now Magazine.*

Cannabis reform is quickly becoming Cuomo’s top 2013 legislative priority as he carefully positions himself for a 2016 presidential run, hoping to win the hearts of the powerful cannabis reform movement currently sweeping the country.

* For the complete story on the Marijuana Mafia- aka the “Ganja Godfather”- and the underground cannabis market in New York City, pick up a copy of Cannabis Now Magazine issue # 6, available now.

Maryland’s medical cannabis bill has a clause within it that criminalizes synthetic cannabis, otherwise known as “incense” or “spice,” while allowing medical cannabis to researched academically and prescribed to patients by a doctor or a nurse.

The measure, part of a move to stem public outcry over synthetics, is aimed to lure in more legislator’s votes for the medical cannabis bill from politicians who would not normally support cannabis reform.

“The big distinction is that it (cannabis) is not causing psychosis ,” GOP Senator David Brinkly told the Fredrick News Post.

The augment against synthetics is that consumers never know what they are digesting, since chemical derivatives in synthetics are constantly altered to stay legal.

Meanwhile, cannabis is a completely organic substance.

“One is a weed, and the other is fabricated. … The fabrication is not at all controlled. It just runs rampant. They just keep devising one thing after another. That, I think, is very dangerous,” said Delegate Galen Clagett representing District 3A.

Some lawmakers still remain skeptical.

“The hypocrisy of it is overwhelming,” GOP Delegate Micheal Hough of District 3B said. “What kind of message are we as leaders of the state and lawmakers sending to the young people?”
Currently in Maryland, cannabis possession is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
While Joshua Sharfstein, Maryland’s secretary of health and mental hygiene, supports the medical cannabis bill, other Maryland politicians without any medical experience remain skeptical.
“What happens is that the high becomes mundane to them after a while, and they move on to a better high,” Frederick County State’s Attorney Charlie Smith said. “It’s just a shame that there’s a movement afoot to legalize it.”
The bill recently got a major boost, when Governor Martin O’Malley said he would not veto the current medical cannabis bill if it ever reached his desk.

By Toby Rogers

It was a chronicle of a downfall in progress.  As public attitudes regarding cannabis began to shift in Montana, Republican legislators in the state house saw an opportunity to shut down the state’s dispensary system. With the apparent collusion of high-ranking state officials, the DEA coordinated a state-wide raid which targeted most of the cannabis clubs in the state – including Montana Cannabis, where partners Chris Williams and Richard Flor saw their dreams go up in smoke.

While the film’s initial release met with great success, events outside of the filmmakers’ control soon upped the stakes so dramatically for the film’s subjects that Cohen decided to cut a new version.  The result is a story even more riveting – and a plea for ending the drug war more compelling – than before, positioning “Code of West” as one of the must-see documentaries of 2013.

Catch the brand new trailer here:

In the November 2012 elections, Massachusetts voters passed a ballot question that would legalize marijuana in Massachusetts for medical purposes. The measure passed with over 63 per cent of voters supporting it, and the new law went into effect January 1, 2013, but the state has not issued official regulations yet, and they will not allow dispensaries to operate until the regulations are passed.

On April 10, 2013, the Department of Public Health issued a 45-page list of proposed regulations 105 CMR 725.000 Implementation Of An Act For The Humanitarian Medical Use of Marijuana, giving the public until April 20 to comment. On May 8, 2013 they will vote on the measure, which would go into effect May 28. No dispensaries will open until 2014.

There are several key provisions that medical marijuana advocates find troubling, and they will have the effect of wiping out the caregiver industry, making it extremely difficult to grow your own marijuana, and limiting who can own a dispensary.

The state will allow 35 Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers (MMTCs) to cultivate and sell marijuana. Each treatment center will be required to grow its own marijuana, either at the facility itself or at one off-site location. Wholesale marijuana manufacturing will be banned. All seeds will be tracked and Massachusetts will be adopting the “seed to sale” method of control. Patients will have to choose one of the 35 MMTCs and enter into an exclusive contract with it, and not be allowed to frequent any other MMTC.

Caregivers will only be allowed to have one patient, and patients may have two caregivers. Caregivers must purchase the marijuana or the “MIP” (marijuana infused products, meaning medibles) at an MMTC to provide to the patient, unless a hardship license is granted. If that happens, home growing will be allowed. Home ‘hardship’ cultivation is frowned upon and seen as a last resort only. Testing samples of marijuana at an MMTC would be banned. MMTCs would be required to sell vaporizers, presumably for health reasons.

To get a card, a patient must have a bona fide relationship with a Massachusetts doctor, who can issue a card that will be valid for from between 15 days and 1 year. Patients must have a “debilitating” condition that is not specifically defined but would require constant pain and/or nausea. Patients will be allowed to possess up to two months worth of marijuana, which the state estimates to be 10 ounces. However, a doctor may specify that certain patients require in excess of 10 ounces every two months.

Any MMTC will be required to keep $500,000 in an escrow account, and no one will be allowed to have an ownership interest in more than 3 of the 35 centers. When the state issues licenses, it will look at a number of factors in making a decision. One of these is previous experience operating a medical marijuana facility in another state. The effect of this is to create a bias against local Massachusetts corporations, as no Massachusetts entity could possibly have experience, as well as creating a bias against corporations with less money. Very few corporations can just set aside a half million dollars to place into an escrow account. Also, after receiving a license, the MMTC must be open and be operational in 120 days or risk being shut down.

Advertising will be extremely restricted and the use of the marijuana leaf or the depiction of minors would be banned. There can be no sales via the internet.
As of right now, having a Massachusetts card has little effect. No one can even apply for an application to own a MMTC until these regulations are finalized. There will be no dispensaries in Massachusetts until 2014 at the earliest, Until then, patients must rely on caregivers, who are allowed to grow for themselves during this interim period.

Since caregivers can only have one patient they can’t afford to invest a lot in advertising with the result that it is not easy to find a caregiver at the moment. The only other option is going to a dispensary In Rhode Island, which recognizes Massachusetts law. Maine law states that they shall honor out of state patients with a card but the dispensary owners have decided not to honor any Massachusetts cards, and to not honor Maine cards issued to Massachusetts residents, until everything is straightened out.

Other proposed regulations relate to security, surveillance, record-keeping, and MMTC maintenance.

It is a slow process, but we are getting there. The tides have turned and the people will have their say!