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Departed Brazil on the evening of May 18 and arrived in Vancouver the next day, cleared customs, hit the cash machine for some shiny new Canadian money, then proceeded to the brand new Skytrain (completed for the 2010 Winter Olympics) which leaves the platform, an easy stroll from VYR airport, every 10 minutes. I rode in the front of the front car, with the kids, so I could marvel at the new metro rail train line, which is part elevated above ground, hence the name Skytrain, but the new train goes underground after it crosses the Frazer River and becomes a subway, transporting the passengers under the bust city streets and get you to your destination in half the time and a fraction of the price of a taxi. From the terminus station of Waterfront you walk about 3 blocks to reach the BC Marijuana Party (BCMP) Headquarters, or as one staff put it: Welcome to the Palace of the Prince of Pot (Marc Emery).

The mood around Cannabis Culture Head Shop and BCMP (upstairs) was a little somber, since Marc had just been extradited to the USA just the day before but the people were still very nice as they made me feel totally comfortable by explaining the rules, number one of which is that you must bring your own weed in order to use the Volcano Vaporizor placed in the center of each of low coffee tables placed between ulta-comfy leather couches or low rider style bean-bag chairs. The spacious second floor facility is super-cool, with excellent views, out huge windows, of the tree-lined West Hastings Street and across to the park where most of the BC Bud merchants tend to hang out.

On my first visit to BCMP the weather was cool and rainy but inside the Cannabis Culture café everything was cozy and chillaxed, so I reacquainted myself with BC Bud, and since it's been such a long time without smoking Kryp, after 15 minutes I found myself laying flat on my back on one of the leather sofas, staring straight up through the wonderful huge skylight built into the room's ceiling and captivated by the rain coming down on a cool old gothic style heritage building down the block, probably the most unusual view in all of Vancouver because you're looking straight-up through the roof of the building and if you tilt your head you can look straight out the big windows and down Hastings Street. Meanwhile , there's all great chill music on a great sound system and the main room has a huge flat screen TV playing a loop of the documentary "The Prince of Pot" and everywhere on the walls there's interesting art and information.

You can almost feel the presence of Marc and Jody, even when they're not there and being in that great establishment of marijuana legalization, you get a real sense of the passion that these two people have for the movement, but also the enduring love that they have for each other. These two Canadians make a powerful team and it's hard to not feel sad for Jody since Marc will be gone for another 5 years or so, that's a really long time apart for partners who spent nearly every minute together.

Now I've been back more than a month and visited Vancouver and BCMP again, this time it was full-blown summer, bright, warm and sunny. This trip included a visit to a small island and some excellent trail hiking, over a suspension bridge and around Lynn Canyon. Even after a month the smell and taste of the air never ceases to amaze me and the views and vibes of the city seem to re-energize the soul and spark the spirit, everywhere the Pacific paints her touch on the landscape and sometimes the panorama of it all just makes you stop what you're doing a say; "Oh Canada!"

It seems that the Bloom Dude over at Celebstoner.com has cleared up a lot of mystery about the genesis of the term 4:20 and for older reefer smokers that's a good thing, since I also thought the term was related to a police code, borrowed from the TV show Adam 12 (ie. "marijuana smoking in progress") which makes me chuckle to think that once upon a time a police dispatcher would actually put out a call saying something like that, now a days the cops would just laugh and think it was a joke. However, apparently that's where the students from San Rafael High School got the idea, so I wasn't all wrong, thanks to Steve Waldo of San Rafael for clearing that up.

According to the Celebstoner - Everything you ever wanted to know about 420 but were too stoned to ask it was the Grateful Dead that adopted 4:20 (the time) to turn it into 4/20 (the date) and the rest as they say, is history. The "Four Twenty" significance has long ago gone global. One of the my favorite café's in Amsterdam is called the "420 Café" it's been there for at least a half dozen years, and all throughout the cannabis culture there's tons of 420 artwork emblazoned on a myriad of products sold from a wide array of shops. Perhaps it's the most well known symbol of the cannabis counter culture, and will likely remain so until well after the last law has been changed, to make smoking weed completely legal everywhere, until then it's our own symbol of unity, recognized around the world.

The list of 420 events has grown huge, some of the most notable are at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of California at Santa Cruz, plus my home city Vancouver, Canada hosts a huge smoke-out downtown outside the art gallery. Many artists and performers plan concerts and special events to commemorate the date, I think the best list can be found on Celebstoner here:

I'll take this opportunity to wish everyone reading this message, who plans on celebrating 420 in style tomorrow, a groovy good time. Partake in 420 with love and peace and remember the words of Freewheelin Frankin:

Dope will get you through times of no money, Better than Money will get you through times of no dope. ~ Freewheelin Franklin

On April fools day the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime released the Afghanistan Cannabis Survey just to let the world know, or at least anyone paying attention, that there's more than just Opium flowing out of Afghanistan. Every day since the survey was released there's been stories in the media about the bumper crop of cannabis grown in Afghanistan this year. Now people are realizing that the world's top producer of opium is also handy at growing weed and making great hash. Since 2006 they've bumped Morocco out of that top spot for Hash production. Well they should be good hash makers, since they've been practicing for hundreds of years, it's sad and shameful that they can't proudly compete in the Amsterdam Cannabis Cup with their great products, instead they get bullied.

The Afghanistan Cannabis Survey estimates the amount of Hash to be 3,500 tons worth approximately $94 Million USD. First off, just for conversation sake, that's just under $13.50 per pound which is very lousy for the producer considering the best discount price to be $10 per gram with over 453 grams in a pound for the equivalent of $4,530 on the street in Europe or America, this makes one of the best profit margins of any commodity grown anywhere. However, $27,000 is allot of cake for a ton of hash, is there a commodity exchange? Do they hire brokers? Can it be bought FOB?

The thought of all that hashish being created inside a war-zone has made me curious about how it get's to market and if history has repeated itself where the U.S. Military has gotten involved in the transportation and black-market trading of all that non-taxable, non-traceable cash generating commodity? Guess we'll just have to wait for the Hollywood mockumentary "Air Afghanistan" by the spin doctors at the department of mis-information, hopefully Oliver North can make a cameo. It's always easier to make a movie of any serious criminal allegations involving the military or U.S. Government.

Humboldt County along with Mendocino and Trinity Counties make up the "Emerald Triangle" famous for the cultivation of awesome weed. In an article by David Samuels of The New Yorker called "Dr. Kush ~ How medical marijuana is transforming the pot industry," he described Humboldt County as:

"the heartland of high-grade marijuana farming in California".

A 2009 report estimates that $35.8 billion of pot was grown in the United States in 2006, with California being the top producing state. The same report said California produced $13.6 billion in marijuana in 2006. It has been estimated that 30,000 residents in Humboldt County are involved in some aspect of the marijuana industry. Prohibition has been the key financial factor in the success of cannabis cultivation in the Emerald triangle, due to more lenient law enforcement and a symbiotic relationship between the citizen/growers and the governing establishment. For decades this was the best place in America for marijuana growers to learn and practice their vocation, this is where the great hybrid cannabis strains were first born and bred, and this knowledge has transferred to all corners of the earth.

In a post financial crisis economy where jobs and good opportunities are increasingly difficult to find, it makes perfect sense that cannabis cultivation will become a growth industry in California. Once it becomes legal there could be an explosion of grass growers all over the state of California. Consider this year's opening of iGrow in Oakland the 15,000-square-foot Costco of grow stores; it has everything you could possibly need for medical marijuana cultivation under one roof, even things you did not know you needed, like bat fertilizer. Members of the "Grow Squad" are there to help and the only membership card required is a pot card which is easier to get than a library card.

Yesterday CNN published a Report: Marijuana cultivation in Mexico rises which stated that:

Marijuana cultivation in Mexico increased 35 percent in 2008 and continues to grow, even as authorities there push forward with a large offensive against drug cartels that smuggle the product into the United States, according to a State Department report released this week.

Perhaps some of the information came from the Oxymoron group "National Drug Intelligence Center" when they should have actually just asked Ed at "Over grow your Government" and he could have explained the current situation to the State Department and broken the news to them, that the War on Drugs at the marijuana front was lost, as soon as they started fighting a plant that grows like a weed, then by making it contraband, it was made as valuable as gold and more popular than soda pop.

Once upon a time in China there were over 80 million people addicted to opium, a product that the British introduced, which was imported initially and then later smuggled in from India. The Chinese leaders came to the realization that the best way to overcome the problem, which was causing significant social problems in China, was to outgrow the suppliers and corner the market with a cheaper product. Eventually every government will come to a similar realization. Until then expect more weed from more sources and understand that Mexico can grow smugglers too, willing to risk their lives for profit, faster than the U.S. Gov can train and hire border patrols to catch them.

There's a place on Hollywood Boulevard founded by the marijuana activist Ed Forchain, also known as the NJ Weedman, or "Superhero to the Pot Heads" (according to the book "Public Enemy #420"), the place is called "Liberty Bell Temple," member of the United Cannabis Ministries and a licensed Medicinal Marijuana dispensary, where they host a "Healing Hour" everyday at 4:20 PM. From what I understand, there's a remarkable mural painted on the side of the building, plus the NJ Weedman can often be spotted driving around in a van called the "Weed Mobile" also painted with a cool mural. There's so much more to this story that I highly recommend visiting the site Liberty Bell Temple.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says the government cannot make laws "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion. Many people use marijuana as a religious sacrament, and forcing them not to use marijuana clearly prohibits the free exercise of their religion. In order to comply with the First Amendment, our laws should allow for the religious use of marijuana.

...... it creates no impediment to the free exercise of their faith in their homes, their houses of worship, or other non-federal locations. - (Forchion Vs USA)

With the Winter Olympics firing-up in Vancouver, British Columbia, February 12, the most marijuana-friendly host city in Olympic history, a place where restrictions on pot are loose enough to allow "consumption lounges," some of which are extending their hours to accommodate a wave of jet-lagged international visitors, partly explains why this has been nicknamed the "Pot Olympics". Many of the winter sports enthusiasts attending are also ganja lovers who will be pining to score some of the legendary BC Bud, to take with them to the slopes. Since I'm somewhat of an expert at scoring weed in Vancouver, my city of birth, I felt it only hospitable and kind to offer a few suggestions and tips.

If you're heading to Whistler, where most of the Alpine action is, don't take the risk of being able to find a steady supply of weed there, also because you won't want to drive the "Sea to Sky" highway without blowing a nice fatty along the way, preferably as you drive out of the city limits but also because the chances of finding some bud to smoke at Whistler is not always a sure thing, however if your stash runs out cruise the outside area of Moguls Cafe, around the liquor store and the little grocery store, just ask people sitting around and most of the time you'll be able to find some dank BC Bud.

One thing to remember about buying good herb in Vancouver is to look in the right places, discreetly ask the right people and you'll be hooked up with BC Bud at it's best because there is so much good grass grown locally that the street market always has fresh crop at fair prices and even a small sack of pot from the back of a bar parking lot, rolled into nice reefers, will keep you pleasantly buzzed and the stash last for days of watching winter sports, skiing, snowboarding and/or whatever other recreation. To get some ideas where to look for BC Bud just start by heading for W. Hastings Street and walk around, to get a feel for the city. Just relax and walk around the city and feel comfortable about your rights related to weed, follow your instincts and ask for advice. There are many people who will point you in the right direction, even the cab drivers.

Recently I joined the Daily Buds Community online and have been really impressed with the activity that's happened since I got started. I'm very stoked to meet so many interesting people from a broad spectrum of the Cannabis Culture, many of whom are experts in the Canna Biz, as growers, medical marijuana dispensary owners, managers, doctors and patients etc... Two things we all share in common 1) we all love the love ganja 2) we all want legal marijuana. It's very encouraging to be a part of the Daily Buds Community, to meet and communicate with so many cool people in the 4:20 army. Please Join Us!

If you have it in your heart and your pocket to help, please give to the American Red Cross International Response Fund, which provides immediate relief and long-term support through supplies, technical assistance and other support. Also, Doctors Without Borders is in Haiti and is seeking volunteers and donations. Every dollar will help, so donate whatever your heart tells you that you can afford to give.

For a more complete list of organizations helping with the Haiti relief click here.

As if Weedmaps and Nugporn wasn't enough, on the first day of this new year those clever (and crazy) folks from the Marijuana News Network launched another new website: Medical Marijuana Bootcamp.

Tang the creator of WeedMaps.com (medical marijuana dispensary finder website) is the brainchild of this new killer project. As (one) of the owners of WeedMaps, he's in a unique position to speak about the medical marijuana business in general, especially in California, because the site is a meeting place for both patients and collectives and Tang is on first-name basis with many of them, plus has an understanding of the cannabis strains that they purvey, which goes way beyond expert.

To not be outdone on the intake and creative output of Tang, a seasoned nug expert was needed, so the dev team recruited the expertise of Chubbs, the founder and connoisseur/weed critic extraordinaire of MarijuanaReviews.com as well as NUGGETRY SD, the premier cannabis collective located in east San Diego. Chubbs has been actively involved in the marijuana movement since 1989, when he started to;experiment with hydroponics. He started the NUGGETRY delivery service based out of Orange County, CA in June of 2009 and became an overnight success.

What's cool about Medical Marijuana Bootcamp is that unlike their earlier projects the primary form of media is video via YouTube and it's light-hearted but serious content about the medicinal cannabis strains and the cannabis collectives of California. These videos are not just a couple of stoners quaffing back huge bong hits, although they do, and then mumbling the first random thoughts to the top of their minds, this content is coherent and interesting. The episodes are fairly improv, so their not scripted, they do have meaning and you will gain value in watching. I'm very impressed with this effort and give the Tang and Chubbs to enthusiastic bongs up!

Legal weed in the Big Easy? What a genius idea! One of the 12 candidates running for mayor of New Orleans is Jerry Jacobs, running on a platform of Social Change, and some say a long-shot to win but he's put forward a great plan: Legalize Marijuana, to reduce crime and increase sales tax, in an attempt to triage the city's budget crisis. During an interview with WDSU Jacobs said:

Legalizing marijuana will do for the city of New Orleans what ending Prohibition did for the country in 1933, it put the gangsters and bootleggers out of business and increased sales tax revenue.

Imagine the positive impact that Amsterdam type regulations could have on New Orleans? Tourism, which some predict will never come back to pre-Katrina levels, would grow faster than an indica plant in a hydroponic grow-op. New cannabis coffee-shops would spring-up all over the city to create new jobs and commerce. Industrious citizens would be able to apply for a license to grow weed at home and supply to the shops and/or medical marijuana patients. New Universities would open their doors, like Oaksterdam to teach students bud-tending and cannabusiness management. The increase of weed would even cause a greater demand for food to help the restaurants get back to where they once were. The Big Easy would become popular once again.

Just discovered "Toke of the Town - Cannabis Culture News and Views" which is a member of the Village Voice Media network. Within a few minutes of perusing the tongue in cheek Toke of the Town I really liked what I was reading and then realized why, the editor is Steve Elliott my online friend from Seattle, aka 'alapoet' and maybe the most prolific blogger (see: Reality Catcher) and active social net-worker online that I know. Aside from being a great writer Steve is a true activist and not just for marijuana law reform, as he's the kind of guy who will speak his mind, write letters to politicians, march in protests, or get in the face of any aggressor of any sort of injustice. There couldn't be a better editor for the Village Voice's "Toke of the Town".

Follow the tweets of "Toke of the Town" or join Steve Elliott on any of these following social networks: Delicious, FaceBook, Friend Feed, Linked In, Stumble Upon, or YouTube

Well if it wasn't enough for the coolest poker site online the good folks at the Reefer Group had to go and development a new social network for marijuana enthusiasts and cannabis lovers, called Reefer People.

Although Reefer People is still in Beta this unique community and social network already has 4,950 members, 9 active groups, dozens of discussions and hundreds of photos and videos, all related - yeah you guessed it "Reefer". So take a few minutes a join this new social network at www.reeferpeople.com then pass it on to your friends.

Some people say that European's are more conservative than us Americans, well that may be so but they still love to smoke weed according to a recent report, which was featured in the Economist as: "Pot Luck" - Cannabis Use in Europe.

Which Europeans are most likely to have tried cannabis?

OVER a fifth of Europeans have taken cannabis at some point in their lives, according to new report on illegal drug use from the EMCDDA, the EU's drug-monitoring arm. Over 30% of Danes, French and Italians aged between 15 and 64 have puffed on a joint. But perhaps for Danes it is just a phase: the Italians, Spanish, French and Czechs are most likely to have dabbled with cannabis in the recent past. Levels of cannabis use are still high but may be declining, says the report. Recent studies suggest that the drug's popularity is waning among the younger generation.

The obvious glaring statistics in this report is that Netherlands and Portugal, the two counties that have decriminalized marijuana have less smokers than many of the countries that have not decriminalized. Another really interesting finding is that Denmark, by far, leads as the highest percentage of European people who have smoked cannabis during their lifetimes. No wonder they call them the "Great Danes".

According to WeBeHigh.com - A traveler's guide to getting high. It's really easy to score weed in Copenhagen and many of the other cities in Denmark. Travelers have written that the varieties of weed include skunk, white widow and hash, so apparently these folks know their gear, oh and the prices are decent too, at 5 to 15 Euros per gram. Interestingly, the tolerance from law enforcement is listed as quite low but check this:

Copenhagen police do not look for smokers, or as one of our reporters noted: "several times I have walked right past 5-6 police officers while smoking a blunt... most of the times they won't try anything because that will cause a sort of riot and lots of flying bricks".

Our conservative cousins in Europe are just having some fun and hypocrisy of "the dangers of marijuana" has been dispelled. The world is becoming more conscious.

Having lived in South Florida for 12 years and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, I became a fan of the University of Miami Hurricanes and always liked their Mascot for the sheer look of determination but also since he was often portrayed smoking a pipe. What's in the pipe, we can only guess? So a story caught my eye today, from the student newspaper for the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, called Marijuana: our dirty little secret in which the staff columnist, Timothy Heacock really hit the nail on the head with this statement:

Everyone in the media seems to have a good laugh when politicians reminisce about the times they "toked a little herb." What seems to go unnoticed is the blatant hypocrisy shown when these same people continue to support the prosecution and jailing of people whose only offense was getting high or helping others get high.

Well put Mr. Heacock! Hey, furthermore, I think it was an appropriate choice of quotes from Nate Dogg, to emphasize your point about the "best remedy for hypocrites" in your succinct and direct article:

.... smoke weed every day. ~ Nate Dogg

Timothy Heacock is a senior majoring in finance and economics. He may be contacted at theacock@themiamihurricane.com.

Whilst cruising the marijuana videos on YouTube looking at cannabis culture material and admiring peoples Channels I came across the most remarkable young woman web publisher named Angel Macdonald on COMarijuana and editor of the Reefer Report.

Her site has the following appropriate quote underneath, to give you a hint of her cool mindset:

"Most [marijuana smokers] are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers... Their satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others."

-Harry Anslinger's (first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics)1938 testimony to Congress

Angela is also a contributor to the NORML / Examiner and has a great social netowrk on the following sites.
- YouTube
- Facebook
- Myspace
- Twitter

Most importantly make sure you check out her site www.reeferreport.com

New policy guidelines issued yesterday by the Obama administration (claim they won't arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers, as long as they conform to state laws), spread across the web faster than rumor of a pop star sex scandal. The news was based on a report from two Justice Department officials saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws.

The new policy is a major step towards marijuana legalization, especially compared to the Bush policy which said it would continue to bust marijuana dispensaries and enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of the will of the people.

How much longer it will take to completely legalize marijuana is anyone's guess, as the people of America have been aware of hypocrisy of marijuana for decades and still been unable to make any significant changes, in laws that continue to incarcerate their own citizens for marijuana related offenses and fill prisons at an alarming rate.

Before the masses of pro-pot supporters get their hopes up too high, consider the Life Magazine issue of October 31, 1969, which must have been a trick 'or treat special issue and now is a piece of pop-culture, almost in the same category as reefer madness. If history were to repeat itself, it wouldn't matter about popular consensus, public sentiment, medical miracle breakthroughs or even plain old truth because the powers that-be have a vested interest to keep the prohibition in lock-down mode for as long as possible. It's a truly David and Goliath scenario and Goliath still has a strong-hold on the majority of people in the places of power.

by Nol van Schaik

The Dutch Model has proven to be the best possible way of approaching a world wide problem, the control of drug use and abuse. This report was written in 2002 which was also the year of the 30th anniversary of the birth of a Dutch phenomena, the Hash-coffeeshop, where people can 'score' and smoke cannabis-resin and marijuana.

Note: According to NORML (see: Are Dutch Cannabis-Selling Cafes Going Extinct? Here's The Truth! )

- Cannabis has been for almost 30 years, is now, and will continue to be legally sold in the Netherlands at hundreds of cannabis-selling cafes to adults over 18 years of age;

-The 43 cannabis-selling cafes scheduled to close (or re-locate) in 2011 are part of citywide effort to gentrify parts of Amsterdam's 'Old City' that are prime for urban and tourist redevelopment;

- Cannabis tourists from Germany and Belgium can no longer readily purchase cannabis at nearby cross border cannabis-selling cafes or in the center of Maastricht;

-The Dutch still have the best, most effective and humane cannabis policy in the world.

Wernard Bruining, Weed and the Weesperzijde.

The first 'official' teahouse or coffeeshop in Holland was opened by Wernard Bruining and some friends, at the Weesperzijde 53 in Amsterdam, in a squatted bakeryshop, in 1972. It was actually a logical follow-up of the friend to friend service that was going on in the place before that, but the group of friends extended rapidly, smoking hash, drinking tea and relaxing together.

"That gave us the idea to open a teahouse or a coffeeshop, that was easy, since there was no permit required. The name was inspired by the Donovan hit in those days : Mellow Yellow. "If you do not have anything to smoke, you can always get a little high of a baked bananapeel !" as Wernard explains it.

There were other adresses to get hash or weed, like Paradiso and Kashba, both youth-centers, and in the Melkweg and Famos, for instance. Besides these public places the city had some housedealers, two of them above the former policestations at the Overtoom and Stadionweg, where the customers were informed not to throw their roaches out of the window, on the doorstep of the Police, do not wake up a sleeping cop!