Results tagged “marijuana”

More than 25,248 marijuana plants have been confiscated from their home on the nicely irrigated land in Issaquah, known as Taylor Mountain. With a helicopter overhead and a SWAT team on the ground, in total the Eastside Narcotics Task Force spotted and removed three outdoor pot-growing operations, worth an estimated $5 million yesterday. In addition, drug enforcement agents also located a deserted camp, believed to house up to four people tending to the weed along the slopes of the Department of Natural Resources state-owned land. It's not every day that police reports end in such irony.

Every dog has its day. You may remember Jack, a black lab/Dalmatian mix who ate a marijuana stash in Seward Park a month ago, and became super-famous, with his story featured in on the local news, as well as in the Huffington Post, the New York Times, CNN, and the Chicago Tribune.

On a recent trip to Seward Park, Jen Nestor took her dog Jack, an 11-year-old Labrador mix, out for a run. Jack, clearly a free spirit, dashed off into the woods for about three minutes, only to return a little dazed and confused. The Lab mix was high as a kite. His eyes were glassy, he was stumbling and staggering, and shortly after he started throwing-up liquid marijuana (gross!). So $1,500 in veterinary bills later, Jack is okay and is believed to have discovered some of the marijuana remnants from a five-and-a-half pound stash found in the park in April.

The owner of Eastlake pizzeria Pazzo's, David Mendoza, was charged on Monday for smuggling more than a ton of marijuana into the U.S. from Canada. Hmmm...and here we've never seen pot on the pizza topping menu before. Mendoza--who pled not guilty--has a long history of drug trafficking in Seattle, dating back to the early '90s, with cocaine and hashish convictions.

A man arrested for growing thousands of dollars worth of marijuana in five Snohomish County grow-houses every month has entered a guilty plea to the charges. That's big business--4,000 plants over the last five years--and he'll face up to nine years in prison for the charges.

Alaska Airlines says they are independent and proud, thereby confirming everyone's suspicions that they are open to a merger. Olympia lawmakers are considering making marijuana a civil infraction, so you'd get a ticket for your weed. Of course, you'd also get the munchies. Good thing Gates is giving $48 million to help African farmers grow cocoa and cashews.

So progressive-for-a-police-chief Gil Kerlikowske has been tapped to be our nation's new drug czar and you can bet questions will be asked about I-75. Meanwhile, a Federal Way lawmaker wants to tax your porn, reports the Seattle Times: "Democratic Rep. Mark Miloscia said an 18 ½ percent sales tax should be levied against Playboy and other adult magazines, as well as pornographic photographs, movies, videos, cable-television services, telephone services, audiotapes, computer programs and paraphernalia." This kind of thing is why we're likely to burn for all eternity.

BAILAMOS: Yes, yes, today is bright and sunny and lovely outside. But, the rains are coming, we're certain of it. And, if you want to beat the winter bummers this year, there are few things that could light up your life more than dancing all about. So, why not take a dance class through the UW's Experimental College? Tonight kicks off a nine-week class at the Fremont Abbey Arts Center, where you can learn Cuban folkloric dance. Fun!

The Times ran a story today about how Yakima Valley potheads wineries are hiding their pot plants among the grapes. More than four thousand plants were pulled up in a single day this summer when a poor vintner was found out. What cracks us up is that, among the various types of law enforcement officials sent to crack the case, they brought in the National Guard to pull out the plants. Maybe if they told National Guard recruits they'd be working with thousands of pot plants, recruiting would be up a bit. There have been 21 arrests, and probably more on the way.

We're not afraid to admit it, we kinda have a thing for Rick Steves. Steves has gone beyond local travel guru and bespectacled PBS travel host to become an outspoken advocate against the criminalization of marijuana and the U.S.'s "War on Drugs." He has done so while still coming across as sensible and trustworthy. Steves is the antithesis of every stoner stereotype in mainstream culture, but much more like the responsible adults we know that choose to smoke a bowl in their free time.

...Comes courtesy of the Seattle P-I:

Well, now, we're not going to try to put this up at exactly 4:20 because that would be, you know, predictable.

SUNNYSIDE – For the fifth time, a drug task force has raided a vineyard in the lower Yakima Valley, this time seizing more than 4,400 plants.

Continue reading "No Pot, Please. We're British."

After a possibly illegal Tuesday raid on an office providing care, resources, and referrals to medicinal marijuana patients, Seattle Police have agreed to return patient files and a computer hard drive that were taken during the incident. The SPD does, however, refuse to return 12 ounces of dried marijuana and two bongs they seized Tuesday. Police have told Martin Martinez, owner of the office that was raided, that he will not be facing criminal charges and that the investigation was closed.

The state Supreme Court unanimously overturned a 30 year-old precedent which allowed Washington State Police to arrest an entire car-load of people if the officer even smelled marijuana. Now, if a police officer pulls you over and approaches you because they smell chronic, they have the right to search your car for proof of the drugs. But, they can no longer just arrest you based on a cop's sensitive sniffer. Considering the continued aggression the SPD and WSP have shown towards marijuana users—even to those who have a pot prescription for medicine—this ruling is a bright spot in dark times.

There has to be a better was to do this, guys. Border patrol agents are reporting another huge bust at the Lynden border crossing into Canada. Agents followed footprints they found on the Canadian side of the border into some bushes, where they found three individuals and two duffel bags filled with 115 pounds of marijuana. Despite the stoner stereotype of smoke-induced dimwittedness, these type of stories and the frequency which they are reported astonishes us. If you are dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of marijuana, surely you can come up with a better idea of getting it across the border than by foot, and hiding in some bushes. Or not, obviously. Since October of last year border agents in Blaine, Wash. have seized over 2100 pounds of marijuana in busts.

Add this to the list of "another reason to consider moving to Portland." A statewide initiative is being launched in Oregon this week to legalize marijuana and to sell it as a taxable, controlled substance at Oregon stores, similar to alcohol.

Despite Seattle's herb-friendly reputation, there sure have been a lot of highly publicized marijuana arrests lately. Every time we refresh the local news sites it seems there is a new headline about an even larger scale bust. KIRO 7 has even started calling them "marijuana raids"--which is so Prohibition Era of them.

The Oregon Supreme Court ruled today that helping a pal move their pot plants is indeed illegal. To which we have to say: it took the Oregon State Supreme Court to decide that? Surely a lower court could have easily ruled on this decision, ending it with a "duh."

While Seattle may have made marijuana possession its lowest legal priority, the latest figures from a statewide conference of sheriffs and police chiefs indicate the prosecution of marijuana in Washington State is anything but decreasing. In 2007, the state of Washington more than doubled its seizures of marijuana plants. 296,111 marijuana plants were seized in Washington alone last year.

Timothy Garon is 56 years old and dying of liver failure. Without a liver transplant, he will die in a matter of days, but the University of Washington Medical Center has decided he is not a fit candidate for a possibly life-saving transplant. The reason? Garon used physician-prescribed medical marijuana to treat the symptoms of hepatitis C, the disease that is killing him.

Either that or they have hired the stoners they are busting to come up with operation names.

The first caller claimed they "weren't looking to buy marijuana" (uh-huh), they were just curious if they could. Wilson claims he simply replied, "No, we're not selling dope." But we wonder if he also added a little p.s. with that statement, such as, "I do happen to arrest people for doing so." We always suspected buying drugs off Craigslist could lead only to the local police finding out, but this wasn't how we imagined it would happen.

parody of a musical in the first place, with enough cheesy lines, bawdy humor and exposed flesh to sate more or less any appetite.

The Washington State Chapter of the ACLU and local travel guide guru Rick Steves have joined forces to reform marijuana laws in the United States. Steves has long been an outspoken advocate of marijuana reformation. He sits on the board of the National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws (NORML), and has been a featured speaker at Seattle's annual Hempfest. Steves and The ACLU are comparing the criminalization of marijuana to the failed prohibition of alcohol in the 1920's and say it's time to have a national conversation about marijuana.

Seattle Police, or the Washington State Ferry system, or the FBI, or whatever shadowy anti-terrorist unit is in charge of this particular investigation hasn't contacted Seattlest at this time. They haven't asked us into the evidence room in the basement of some nondescript building and opened the box containing the suspicious device they found in a Seattle/Bainbridge ferry bathroom and asked us to identify it. We can identify it, however, and you probably can too if you ever smoked pot in a college dorm.

Ten Sheriff's deputies were found by rescuers Sunday after a spending a night in the woods of southwest Washington. The officers were reportedly "removing" marijuana plants from an operation they'd busted when they suddenly became "disoriented."

While reading the Seattle Times's front-page story on grow houses in the Seattle area a few thoughts entered Seattlest's addled mind: