Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2014 i High Times

The Negatives of Testing Positive I’m a board-certified physician’s assistant (a.k.a. midlevel provider) who was recently terminated by a large medical group in New Mexico, despite having a medical cannabis card! I have filed a lawsuit for illegal termination and have done a couple of interviews, most recently with KOB Channel 4 here in Albuquerque, NM. In a nutshell, I’m a disabled vet. I served in the US Air Force for six years and use cannabis for my PTSD. I am enrolled in the New Mexico medical cannabis program, but the Presbyterian Medical Group has terminated me for “failing a drug screen.” The only substance found in my blood was THC—but despite providing them with a copy of my medical cannabis card and ID, I was still terminated. I am…

Colorado Front Range Amsterdam is no longer the planet’s marijuana mecca. Denver is! A recent Movoto Blog review calculated that there’s one Mile High dispensary for every 3,780 residents—to say nothing of the recreational pot shops that have opened since then. Neighboring Colorado Springs and Aurora are also high on the list in terms of dispensaries per capita and headshops. And don’t forget Boulder. It’s been pot-friendly since long before it was legal! San Francisco Bay Area Home to arguably the world’s best weed, this region is where the medical marijuana revolution started in the 1980s, leading to Prop. 215’s landmark approval in 1996. San Fran voters also passed Proposition W, designating pot as the lowest law-enforcement priority, way back in 1978. Across the bay, Oakland makes the top 10…

Remember the urban legend that Big Tobacco had plans in place to sell packs of joints like cigarettes? Guess what? That was no myth! Newly uncovered archives at the University of California in San Francisco reveal that in the ’60s and ’70s, tobacco corporations did explore marketing weed. Published in the health-policy journal Mil-bank Quarterly, the documents include a 1969 letter from a Philip Morris VP asking the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (the forerunner of the DEA) for a clandestine sample of pot for the company to study. The FBN’s drug sciences chief, Milton Joffee, replied that Philip Morris—the maker of Marlboro, Merit and other famous brands—could bypass a standard application review by the Food and Drug Administration for obtaining the ganja. (No documents exist to indicate that the research…

Despite an election-year pledge by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, the Big Apple’s racist war on marijuana users continues undisturbed. After a decline in the number of petty pot arrests in the harsh winter months of January and February 2014, low-level weed busts increased in March and April compared to the same months in 2013—mostly in low-income minority neighborhoods. According to the latest report from the Marijuana Arrest Research Project, during the first four months of 2014, the NYPD made an average of 80 minor pot arrests per day, which puts the city on pace to equal the 28,000-plus people popped for petty possession in 2013 under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Breaking down the busts demographically further reveals the racial and class bias. Through April, poor minority neighborhoods…

Cannabis Basics Naked Lip Butter 15 oz (4.25 g) Naked Lip Butter isn’t just a soothing salve that helps heal cold sores and chapped lips; it also keeps your kisser so smooth and supple that you won’t be able to live without it. It’s great for treating skin issues, too: Smooth it over your new ink to help that tattoo heal! Count Naked Lip Butter as a new necessity when you update your cosmetic routine. Its blend of cannabis and echinacea with restorative hempseed oil glides on like the smoothest hit you ever took, but it contains less than 0.3% THC, so you get lip therapy without getting lit. Available at several locations in Washington State. cannabisbasics.com…

Square-Enix proves it is the reigning king of RPGs with the release of Bravely Default. Brilliant visuals and complex gameplay make this title a potential candidate for Game of the Year. The player will spend hours level-grinding both their characters and their specific job to come up with shockingly powerful attacks, running through immensely detailed landscapes, and crawling in and out of bizarre dungeons. The plot is thought-provoking and often demented in the classic style of Japanese RPGs. A must-have for fans of the genre, or for the gamer who seeks a real challenge. Mike Caiazzo…

1 Pax for Flowers $249.99 ploom.com Vaporizer technology took a giant leap forward when the folks at Ploom got into the game. The design and functionality of the Pax makes it the best handheld vaporizer for flowers, bar none. Simple, innovative and discreet, this vaporizer has it all. Charge it up and your Pax is ready to travel, giving you hit after tasty hit of vapor set to your desired temperature. 2 Blissful Plants 1 oz, $56; 4 oz, $179; 8 oz, $309 organibliss.com Marijuana growers interested in improving their plants’ health and yields should look no further than the Organibliss natural plant supplement. This OMRI-listed and highly concentrated liquid consists of pure neem extract in addition to the essence of robust plants from sub-Saharan Africa.…

Send your cannabis cultivation questions to @deardanko or deardanko@hightimes.com. SUBJECT: Ripe for Harvest? FROM: Kron Burgundy When checking with a microscope for ripeness, should you check multiple sites on the same plant? Or can you get all the info you need from a nice top cola? Dear Kron, It’s a good idea to check various parts of the plant if you plan on harvesting all at once. Because the top buds ripen more quickly, you can clip them off first and then let the lower branches continue to finish flowering. If you can’t stagger your harvest this way, use the microscope to examine the glandular trichomes. For most growers, the point when the majority of trichomes have gone from clear to cloudy but have not turned amber is the best…

Anyone who’s been to the Lone Star State knows that its unofficial motto, “Don’t mess with Texas,” is no joke—especially to the cops there. But what happens when the law in Texas messes with you? That was the frightening situation faced by my dread-headed activist pal Minister Mike, his lady Shoreline Sheena and their young son this past April after their trip to the U.S. Cannabis Cup in Denver. The couple had just had the time of their lives and had even gotten engaged at the Cup. But shortly after returning to their hometown of Copperas Cove, two plainclothes officers approached Sheena asking to search their house, claiming they’d heard that the pair had brought marijuana home with them. How did the authorities know they’d just returned from Colorado? Most…

E-mail your hi-res digital photographs to mailbag@hightimes.com. FLOWERS OF THE MONTH Purple Amazingness How ya doing? I’m a resident of the Grasscity forums and I’ve been growing for a little over three years. These plants are from a breeder in Oregon named SG1 who started Sanctuary Gardens. I’ve grown out a few crosses that he made and they’ve all turned out really nice. This one is something special though. He crossed The Purps from BC Bud Depot with Ken’s Grand Daddy Purps and man, has this plant delivered! Ironhead CLOSE-UP OF THE MONTH Chemtastic I’m a longtime reader and medically compliant grower in Maine. I wanted to show you my Chem 91 from the Cali Connection. She was vegged for five weeks until she was a bush about 14" tall…

For most Americans, buying pot isn’t like buying a quart of milk. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s so-so and sometimes who knows? We asked a burning question: How’s your stash right now? A third of the 2,200-plus respondents say they’re smoking great weed. But a lot of you are dry. Sadly, nine said they’re not sure what they’re smoking. Our advice: don’t! Cast your vote in our latest poll online! Outstanding/Top grade Very good/Not complaining OK, gets me high Not good, but it’s all I got Why am I smoking this? I’m out of pot…

Legal can’ take all the credit, but Denver International Airport had a record number of passengers in April—over 4 million, up 130,275 from the same time last year. April, of course, is the month of 4/20. Along with the High Times Cannabis Cup in Denver and a citywide celebration culminating in a downtown rally that drew thousands of people, it’s only natural that pot tourism would contribute to the spike in Colorado travel—especially since legal retail pot shops have been open since January. The total number of passengers to Denver International Airport is up 2.1 percent from last year. Furthermore, international travel has risen 24 percent.…

“I’m trying to help Greg die with dignity and peace.” That’s the reason given by Deb Ploetz, 63, for moving from Texas to Colorado so that her husband can use medical cannabis to treat his serious mental illness. Greg Ploetz played defensive tackle for the University of Texas Longhorns. An artist and art teacher, he now suffers from “mixed dementia” and frontal brain-lobe damage. Greg’s behavioral changes resulted in hostility toward treatment, including the medical professionals who assisted him and administered his five prescription drugs. After he was booted from his third Texas care-giving center, Deb couldn’t bring herself to commit him to a state psychiatric hospital. But she did recall giving Greg a joint earlier in the year, which visibly calmed him. She decided to relocate to Colorado, where…

When the Canadian government ran the country’s medical marijuana program, Health Canada’s performance was abysmal—inferior cannabis products, backlogged patient applications and badly written cultivation laws. The agency completely revamped the program as of April 1, barring patients and caregivers from cultivation and allowing licensed cannabis companies to handle the action. Unfortunately, the bureaucracy hasn’t improved. Thus far, Health Canada has approved only 13 licensed suppliers. The agency attributes the delay to the overwhelming number of applications (858 as of late May) and an extensive vetting process. Supplier license applications continue to pour in at an average of 25 per week, putting Health Canada further behind the eight-ball. To ease the pain, a March injunction by a British Columbia judge allows previously registered patients and caregivers to continue ganja gardening until…

Adventuresome stoners will love the latest performance trend popping up all over the US: Immersive theater. The movement was pioneered by the wildly popular Sleep No More, set in a NYC warehouse transformed into an “abandoned” hotel. Audience members follow performers up stairs, down corridors and into gorgeously appointed rooms. It requires good balance and depth perception to keep up with the action, so being just a teensy bit toasted is ideal. Ditto for Queen of the Night, an over-the-top feast for the senses in an ancient ballroom under Times Square. The roast pig on a spit and boiled lobsters served to attendees as the performers cavort above and around the them would be perfectly complemented by a puff before the show. This summer in Denver, Champa Street was transformed…

The third installment of this Swedish punkstuff’s quest for cosmic clarification further transcends the noise/experimental underground that spawned it. Ex-Lungfish shaman Daniel Higgs intones oblique poetics while the brutally minimalist band sneaks in some aural insurgency via the clanging motodrive of “Pattern of Thoughts” and the artcore riffsludge of “The Known Unknown.” A riff-laden set that simmers with surreal electronic FX, Dances in Dreams is an enigmatic yet curiously tasty elixir that turns rock inside out to reveal its hidden wonders. John Payne In the studio, High Spirits is a man named Professor Black. Live onstage, High Spirits is a five-headed monster providing a real invitation to travel skyward. At the height of their powers, they’re chuggin’ like Priest, soarin’ like Scorps, tuggin’ on your heartstrings like Def Lep. On…

I first found out about avocado cake via an old recipe book of my mother’s. This particular recipe’s sinful combination of ingredients is as old-school as Wonder Bread, but it yields a modern-day stoner delight. Though there’s plenty of butter to play with in this cake, when I recently discovered that green dragon sugar can be made in two hours, I had to go that route. For an extra boost of green to this already super-green cake, mix an eighth of shake or ground bud with the butter and heat in a double boiler for 40 minutes. Strain out the weed and let the butter come to room temperature. You can speed up the thickening process by sticking it in the fridge. Remember, getting überbaked is optional: Know thy tolerance…

East of Oakland, and overlooking Mount Diablo, a hobbit-hole has been dug into the side of Pleasant Hill. It’s a modest structure, gilded with a patina of rust and rot, swallowed by years of English ivy. But inside this humble cottage, a great White Wizard has crafted his alchemical hideaway. On most evenings, the Wizard could be found there hunched over bubblers and boilers, listening to string quartets, condensing spirits from aromatic wisps and vapors, occasionally releasing a plume of steam and stench. Around him was a cathedral of colored jars, bottles, flasks and vials, each one holding a potion or powder of unimaginable power, labeled with glyphs that only another alchemist could decipher. A bottle of sweet-smelling oil might be a deadly poison or a powerful aphrodisiac; a jar…

Trellising 101 After writing at length about the myriad grow systems (see p. 64) available on the market today, I figured I’d throw out a more advanced concept to aid you in maximizing your system of choice. Trellising is an excellent cultivation technique that not only helps to develop strong, healthy plants but can also increase your yields significantly. This can be a huge plus for indoor or home growers dealing with limited space and/or plant counts, who’d like to make it from one harvest to the next without having to hit the road to find some extra stash. Simply put, trellising relies on a system of latticework that supports and directs growth in a manner that allows plants to deliver on their potential. The support comes directly from the…

Got a question for Dr. Mitch? Email him at 420research@gmail.com. Are women more sensitive to the plant’s effects than men? Viv LA Difference Hi Viv, Generally, yes. In one study, women and men—matched for how much they usually smoked—were given a standard dose in the laboratory. The women gave the plant higher ratings for potency as well as for how much they’d like to use it again. That being said, the women did tend to be smaller in terms of body size, which might have contributed. Nevertheless, especially for women, less might very well be more. Why aren’t we using hemp to make fuel more often? Bo String Hi Bo, Haven’t you heard? Growing hemp is illegal in the US (though these days, a number of states are being allowed…

If there’s someone in America who’s watched more cannabis-related documentaries than me, I sorely want to meet them. Frankly, most of these have been unwatchable, low-quality polemics. Many others are dated, serviceable only for the brief period of time they were conceived and broadcast. Few are gems for the ages. I recommend Evergreen: The Road to Legalization to all High Times readers: It’s an outstanding chronicle of Washington State’s successful cannabis legalization campaign, worthy of every stoner’s home library. The filmmakers enjoyed unfettered access to the behind-the-scenes efforts of the New Approach Washington campaign for nearly a year, providing the viewer with an enthralling David vs. Goliath narrative: Activists finally win a legalization ballot initiative, and the behemoth of national cannabis prohibition begins to fall. Alison Holcomb is the central…

• 40 Years and Still Growing! Happy birthday to us! High Times was started in 1974 by our founder and patron saint Tom Forçade, and next month we are celebrating our 40th anniversary. (And you better believe we know how to celebrate.) We’ll take you on a trip backwards through history and send you on a soaring high into the future. We will tell you the wild outlaw tale of how High Times came to be, plus bring you some of the most beautiful cannabis pictures ever taken. Nico Escondido is going to name the greatest strains of all time, while Danny Danko is compiling a list of the most magnificent gardens High Times has ever seen. Plus: Marijuana microscope pics, an interview with Lester Grinspoon, the history of marijuana…

Browse our full selection of products at headshop.hightimes.com Order direct from the website or call 1-866-Pot-Shop Featured Products HIGH TIMES Cultivation Editors’ Combo Pack Set includes Jorge Cervantes’ Ultimate Grow Box Set, Nico Escondido’s Grow Like a Pro, and Danny Danko’s Field Guide to Marijuana Strains. An $85 value for only $69.99! HIGH TIMES Presents Nico Escondido’s Grow Like a Pro DVD Featuring over two hours of comprehensive cultivation coverage and bonus material, this HD-film features footage of America’s top medical grow facilities, indoor and outdoor-growing and greenhouse techniques. $19.95 Official HIGH TIMES Bonghitters Jersey Show your pot pride by sporting the same shirts worn by the legendary High Times Bonghitters Softball team. Sizes: S-XXL. $19.95 Ready Set Grow 1 & 2 DVD Set The ONLY DVDs you NEED to…

Ultimate Grow DVD Complete Box Set Three-disc DVD box set includes Ultimate Grow: Indoor Marijuana Horticulture, and Ultimate Grow 2: Hydroponic Cannabis Indoors & Organic Marijuana Outdoors, Plus a full disc of bonus features! $49.95 Marijuana Horticulture The Fifth Edition of Jorge Cervantes’ best-selling book, completely rewritten, updated and expanded! $29.95 Marijuana Grow Basics This informative guide is packed with illustrations and photos of more than 150 affordable marijuana grow setups. $21.95…

Let’s kill another myth: Legal pot doesn’t lead to increased teen use. Despite medical marijuana’s legality in nearly half of the US, pot use among high-school students is essentially unchanged, according to the latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey issued by the Centers for Disease Control. The students fill out the research questionnaires anonymously, self-reporting their own pot and other drug use. Last year, 23.4 percent of teens reported getting high one or more times a month, compared to 23.1 percent in 2011. What’s more, pot use is down by more than 3 percent from its peak in 1999, when 26.7 percent of the teens participating in the survey said they toked. Alcohol and tobacco use are also in decline, suggesting that pot legalization might actually reduce teen usage by eliminating…

Pot is addictive and harms its users’ health. How do we know that? Because Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, says so. In June, she was cited as the lead author of “Adverse Health Effects of Marijuana Use,” published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The NIDA report maintains that pot is indeed addictive and that 9 percent of its users become hooked. We’re hardly surprised by NIDA’s anti-pot bias; it’s a federally funded research institute that echoes the US government’s longstanding prohibitionist policies. But seriously now … addiction? The NIDA report also cites the problems associated with tobacco and booze as examples of why pot should remain criminalized, proclaiming: “We don’t need a third legal drug.” Third? Legal prescription drugs don't qualify? They…

Ex-Vigilantes Register Weapons in Michoacán On May 10, the Mexican government began to swear in members of Michoacán state’s “community police” vigilante network as a new rural police force, part of an effort to bring the self-defense militias under state control. An initial 240 “community police” members gathered for the ceremony in the village of Tepacaltepec, a stronghold of the movement, where they received new blue uniforms and registered their rifles (or turned them in for state-issued AR-15s). The ceremony was overseen by the federal point man for Michoacán, Alfredo Castillo, who waxed florid for the occasion: “Those who, 15 months ago, said ‘Enough!’ and decided to confront those who did them harm—because of them, today we have the Rural Defense Force, which carries the same conviction of justice, of…

Art refuses to be suppressed. With little training and zero gallery interest, the graffiti artists of the 1970s sprayed their visions across the New York City transit system and into the eyes of millions of captive commuters. Stalking the train yards of Queens, with a can of Rust-Oleum in one hand and a spliff of Acapulco Gold in the other, DON1 became a master of the form while still in high school. Though his career was cut short by an accidental PCP overdose, his touching story is recounted here in a wonderful book by his contemporaries and protégés. Chris Simunek…

It’s often the case that when tragedy occurs, a nation will take advantage of the subsequent outrage and confusion to grab land, resources or power, much like looters emptying out an electronics store in the middle of a riot. Such was the case after 9/11, when America enacted the Patriot Act, began illegally eavesdropping on millions of its citizens, and started two ill-conceived and intractable wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iraq was probably the larger debacle, a conflict that America lied its way into, citing Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent nuclear- and chemical-weapons programs and phantom links to 9/11. We can condemn Saddam’s brutal reign all we like, but the obvious fact is that the United States attacked that country without any plan for keeping the peace among its disparate ethnic and…

Blue Dream has been around for a few years now, but her popularity keeps growing as marijuana becomes more mainstream by the day. Aside from winning numerous accolades at our Cannabis Cups, both for flowers and hash (she happens to produce excellent concentrates, by the way), Blue Dream is also a top seller at dispensaries across the US. Known mostly for her distinctive sativa high and overwhelming flavor profile, Blue Dream is a connoisseur’s … well, dream. A sativa-dominant hybrid, she’s the offspring of Blueberry and Haze parents. Most cannabis cognoscenti believe that Super Silver Haze was the Haze parent, while some maintain that it was Strawberry Cough (which is only half-Haze, but this argument seems to make sense after smoking Blue Dream, which is fairly reminiscent of the Cough…

We’ve all heard the many terms for BHO—shatter, earwax, budder, crumble, taffy, honey oil—and if you’ve been dabbing for a while now, you probably have your favorite form. Perhaps you prefer earwax or crumble because it’s easier to work with. Or maybe shatter is your dab of choice because of its clarity and smooth texture. While these slang terms have their purpose in the industry, they give consumers only a vague idea of the processes used and the quality of the product in the end. The good news is that BHO extractors are relying on scientific approaches and looking to the essential-oils industry for insights and language to help them produce the highest-quality extracts, and communicate that information to the consumer. The essential-oils industry has been using solvents in extractions…

After watching many people who were close to him suffer from conditions that could have been treated with medical marijuana, Troy Smit decided to become involved in the fight to reform the marijuana laws in New York State. “I saw the amazing healing qualities of cannabis through friends and family who have MS, fibromyalgia, breast and brain cancer,” Troy says. “I saw that cannabis was no more dangerous than Advil or Red Bull. Most importantly, I saw that our cannabis policies in New York and the US hurt my friends and my family.” He volunteered with Empire State NORML in 2008 and earned a seat on the chapter’s board of directors. In 2011, Troy founded the Long Island sub-chapter of Empire State NORML and expanded NORML’s presence in the region.…