How Far We've Come: Follow Up Opinion

This piece is a follow up to Opinions and Oppositions Week 5 on “Why Your Voice Matters” Check it out here before continuing. https://bit.ly/2HlDXl5

Hi readers, I hope everyone is having a fantastic week now that we’re past hump day! In this piece, I want to talk about how far we, as a state and a country have come in the illegalization and legalization of marijuana. I’ve previously talked about how close the vote was but how did it get to a point where we needed to vote to legalize it. Let’s take a trip back in time, and look at some that caused it.

In 1911, a change was happening in the U.S. with the progressive movement. Massachusetts became the first state to outlaw marijuana in 1911. This was also a time where questions on the ballot included the use of alcohol, gambling, and prostitution to name a few. After that many states closely followed, including Colorado in 1917. In 19125, the League of Nations (which the U.S. was not a part of) signed a treaty, restricting the use to medical and scientific only. In 1937, marijuana was taxed by Congress as a way to lower the use.

Fast forward to 1971, President Richard Nixon declared the “War on Drugs” and a few years later the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was created. In 1978 however, New Mexico became the first state to recognize the medical uses for marijuana! Over the years the need for medical was a defense used on many occasions in court. In 1991, the first medical marijuana initiates passed in San Francisco, CA! The vote passed with 79% of the vote. California also became the first state to pass medical use in 1996, with 56% of the vote. In 1998, Alaska (58%), Oregon (55%), and Washington State (59%) join them. Maine (61%), Hawaii (13-12 Senate Vote), Colorado (54%), and Nevada (65%) joined in the following years.

Massachusetts didn’t legalize marijuana medically till 2012, with a vote of 63% - 37%, a much higher percentage than many other states. The actual legalization vote was much closer being 53.7% - 46.3%. I hope this follow up helped show why your voice matters and even a few votes can make a difference.


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"Good People Don't Smoke Marijuana"

“Good people don’t smoke marijuana”, a quote by our authoritative United States Attorney General, Jeff Sessions.  Last week I mentioned how Mr. Sessions put forth a document reversing legislation by the Obama Administration on its guidelines on recreational marijuana use/growth/sales.  President Obama’s stance on marijuana was to keep it on a state-by-state level.  Last week, Conor (http://regulated-weed-culture.blogspot.com/2018/04/donald-trump-and-weed-opinions-and.html) reminded us that President Trump’s stance is pretty much the same, but his Attorney General’s stance is much different.   That quote listed above says everything we need to know about Jeff Sessions’ view on marijuana legislation.  He will continue to fight legalized marijuana and tried to sanction all marijuana industries that were in states where marijuana is already legal. 

How does this affect us in MA? Will this slow down the process of getting retail stores in the state?  The answer is no.  Interestingly enough, despite Jeff Sessions’ attempts to enforce federal regulation over the industry, it has had no effect states.  The reason for this is our Federal Prosecutors.  There aren’t enough Federal Prosecutors to overlook “small” drug sales and growth. A quote by the Washington post, “they should use their prosecutorial discretion to focus not on businesses that comply with state regulations, but on illicit enterprises that create harms like selling drugs to children, operating with criminal gangs, selling across state lines and so on. In other words, prosecutors could still fight the drug trade, but if a state has legalized marijuana and put in place its own regulatory system, they should leave those operating within that system alone.”  Summarizing, the prosecutors are there for big scale criminals such as massive drug rings and importation, not to fight against people who follow the rules set forth by their state.

CHECK THIS OUT:

https://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/3052013829132756857467.pdf

That is the documentation on marijuana by the Obama Administration that Jeff Sessions is trying to abolish.

Thanks for reading!

Cannabis Infused Beverages?

Greetings all and welcome back to another week with RWCBoston! If you have not already, check out our previous posts on our interesting topics of discussion! Today I want to shift your attention and would like for you all to imagine a beverage that is infused with weed! Would you try it? 

For those who aren't aware, Keith Villa the brewer who is in connection with Blue Moon Belgian beer, is interested in creating a "hangover-free beer!" Now for those stoners who enjoy sipping as well, he plans on having three different options. "A wheat beer, light beer, and either a barrel aged stout or an Imperial." Unfortunately this beer will only be available for purchase in Colorado to start but as other legalized states start to get in the action one may start to see them at their local dispensaries soon. There are some state laws that are restrictive of alcohol and cannabis being distributed in the same product or at the same location therefore it will be interesting to see what his approach will be! But expected to encounter a beer that will have you feeling both stoned and buzzed in the near future! 

This might make playing beer pong a bit more interesting now and might even influence non drinkers to start drinking! For those who'd like to learn more about this visit here! 

Plant Problems by Mrs. Brown-Thumb

There are many issues that may arise during your cannabis cultivation experiences. Growing indoors helps to alleviate some of the common problems, like pests, bugs, and environmental inconsistencies. By creating a clean and enclosed space, such as a tent kept in a spare room, growers are able to control the externalities that could possibly damage their plants. For our grow room, we have 2 tents with filtered fans for air circulation. To see a list of what we used to set up our hydro-system, please refer back to my older post, http://bit.ly/HomeHydroSystem.

Above are some pictures of an issue that our plants in our smaller tent are currently experiencing. There are many places online that explain common issues as well as books such as The Cannabis Encyclopedia by Jorge Cervantes, a great book if you wish to learn all aspects of the cannabis plant and its cultivation processes. My favorite online site to visit when looking up issues that I've personally encountered over the last 5 months is hosted by Robert Bergman, with excerpts from his book, Marijuana Grow Bible, which can be visited at http://www.ilovegrowingmarijuana.com/identify-marijuana-plant-problems/.

Common issues include nutrient deficiencies or excess, improper water PH and temperature levels, light burn, root rot, and wind burn. I'm not a professional, and there are many things that can go wrong during cultivation, so the above resources, and many others like it, are there for us to use as guidance.

Today we've come across 2 issues. First, our plants in the smaller tent have burning displayed on many of their newer fan leaves, as well as browning along their veins and yellow sporadic specks. Due to the location of the problem, we have theorized that this is an immobile nutrient issue, and by the looks of it one of excess potassium, which has caused a calcium deficiency. We treated our plants with fresh nutrient water and hopefully corrected this nutritional imbalance by decreasing the amount of  FloraGro and increasing the amount of Cal-Mag we added to our water. I also trimmed away some of the worse leave so that I can more easily see if the issue continues with the new growth. Do you think we made the right call? Or do you think this could be a different issue, based on the photos above?

Next, we found many leaves in the big tent were curling. Pictures of curling leaves are noted as either being heat related or a sign of a severe infestation of hemp russet mites. However, since those mites cannot be seen with the naked eye and since we don't own a magnifier, we are treating the plant for heat issues. The temperature has warmed up a bit, so the outside air we have cooling down the room isn't as cool as it was before. The big tent was sitting at 79 degrees Fahrenheit, so we increased the current airflow and added an extra fan to circulate air inside the tent. This will either spread the mites to the rest of the plants (crossing fingers that this is NOT the case) or our plants should cool off and stop showing these signs of heat stress. I also rose our lights since only the top fan leaves closets to the light were curling. Have you read of something else it might be? Have you ever had to deal with pests in your indoor garden?

The last issue that came to our attention, actually as we were reviewing these other issues, was that the plant with most of the curling leaves and the other Purple Trainwreck next to her are both showing a purple-reddish color in their stems. Online and books agree that this is either genetic or could be signs of a phosphorous deficiency. Since the two plants showing these color characteristics are purple strains, we are going to not take any brash actions for now and keep an eye out for any other signs that this could be anything other than a genetic coloration. 

We've encountered various issues, like these, throughout our growing process. Usually, we treat the issues by changing their water with fresh water that's been treated with the proper nutrients to counteract any plant problems perceived. Once, when we encountered root rot in the early vegetation stage of our THC Bomb (pictured above), we cut off all its bad roots and let it start the process again. It may be a bit dwarfed compared to the other plants, but she has mostly recovered and is flowering. She is in the small tent, so she has also been experiencing the possible calcium deficiency issue discussed earlier. Hopefully these issues too shall pass. 

Wishing everyone else pleasantly smooth cultivating!