Featured guests: Kushmoji creator Ben Tyson and Danny Sloat co-founder of AlpinStash.
[podcast]LOTS TO TALK ABOUT
• Entering the cannabis industry as a patient, after crediting medical marijuana with saving your life.
• Weed emoji; the tech industry looking for a spot in the marijuana space.
• Marker-assisted breeding; sequencing the cannabis plant’s dominant genetic traits.
TOP MARIJUANA NEWS
Richard Kirk, Colorado man accused in slaying of his wife, pleads guilty to second-degree murder: A man who claimed that eating marijuana candy led him to shoot his wife to death in their Observatory Park home pleaded guilty Friday to second-degree murder, ending a years-long debate surrounding pot and its possible influence on the slaying. Richard Kirk, 50, agreed to serve 25 to 30 years in prison as part of his plea, and to relinquish custody of his three children. Kirk killed his terrified wife, Kristine, as she pleaded with a Denver 911 operator for help, saying over a 13-minute phone call April 14, 2014, that her husband was ranting about the end of the world and asking her to kill him. Kirk is set to be sentenced April 7. –Report by The Denver Post’s Jesse Paul
Grand theft marijuana: Carjackers in California steal truck hauling half-ton of cannabis: Authorities have arrested three men they say carjacked a big-rig hauling half a ton of marijuana and led them to a pot-growing operation at a Pomona home. Authorities say the whole thing may have been a drug deal gone wrong. –Report by The Associated Press
Colorado data: Fresh report looks at cannabis health effects, trends: Monitoring potential public-health outcomes was a top priority for state health officials after Colorado implemented its recreational marijuana law in 2014. Three years into regulated sales of recreational cannabis, the Retail Marijuana Public Health Advisory Committee says calls to poison control and marijuana-related emergency room visits are down, even though overall consumption of pot remains steady — signs that existing policy and education efforts may be working. “I think that speaks to a learning effect,” Mike Van Dyke, chief of Colorado’s Environmental Epidemiology, Occupational Health and Toxicology branch, said referring to the decline in ER visits and poison center calls. “The public is really learning the message, if not from us, from their own experience.” –Report by The Cannabist’s Alicia Wallace
QUICK HIT
Sessions sesh: A new lawman has come to town, and the marijuana industry could be in for major upheaval. But just how much change Attorney General Jeff Sessions might impart — and how quickly he’ll address federal marijuana enforcement — remain the multibillion-dollar question. “It’s not like you could see agents come into every storefront in the United States tomorrow and deal with this. That’s not a reality,” drug policy expert John Hudak said Wednesday. But if Sessions rescinds the 2013 Cole Memo that established federal guidelines for marijuana enforcement, “It’s difficult for policy makers. It’s difficult for elected officials.” –Report by The Cannabist’s Alicia Wallace
POT QUIZ
Test your current-events knowledge on: California Senate Bill 175, Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg weed puns, midwestern medical marijuana legislation.
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