More whoopee (and babies) follow medical marijuana… and other stories – Boulder Weekly

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Legalizing medical marijuana leads people to make more whoopee -— and more babies… Researchers at the Universities of Connecticut and Georgia State did an analysis of survey data on sexual activity and substance use collected between 1997 and 2011, and found that there was a 4.3% increase in the likelihood of having sex once or more “in the past month” after a state legalized medical marijuana and a 2% hike in births for women of child-rearing age… They also found that along with the increase in whoopee there was a decrease in the use of contraceptives, which they speculated might be due to having sex while high… The study appeared in the Journal of Health Economics

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We don’t need no stinkin’ lab tests, said the Texas Department of Public Safety in so many words. We know marijuana when we smell it…  Your bust doesn’t pass the smell test, said the judge; the lab tests said that was 3,350 pounds of hemp you morons seized… Under both federal and Texas law, the difference between marijuana and hemp is that the THC content of the latter is 0.3% or less… Last month a Texas Department of Public Safety officer arrested 39-year-old Aneudy Gonzalez, a contract driver who was hauling the load of California-grown hemp to a buyer in New York state… Gonzalez had a lab report showing that his cargo was hemp… The trooper wasn’t impressed and said that based on his “training and experience,” which included the smell of the cargo, he believed Gonzalez was hauling marijuana… The trooper’s training evidently didn’t include the fact that pot and hemp smell alike… Gonzalez was jailed for a month before a federal lab test confirmed the results of his own lab test… His lawyer smells a big payday…

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Speaking of hauling, an Arizona ABC-TV station is reporting that running weed across the border is falling out of favor with drug cartels… These days they’re into THC concentrate, the stuff used in vapes… Said Maricopa County Sheriff’s Detective Matthew Shay, “I started to see the people that would usually backpack marijuana through the desert were now backpacking up crude oil…” More like black gold. It takes about 250 pounds of commercial pot with 6% THC to produce a five-gallon bucket of concentrated 80% THC cannabis oil. Each bucket could produce more than $500,000 in vaping cartridges, Shay said… Continuing the hallowed narc tradition of hyping up the value of drug seizures… The price of the crude concentrate is going to be only a fraction of the street price of the vapes it ends up in… Still cannabis crude oil will be orders of magnitude more pricey than the crude that comes out of a hole in the ground…

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This just in: New smuggling routes are opening up across the Great River… That’s the Mississippi, not the Rio Grande… Legal marijuana sales began in Illinois on January 1, and according to KCRG News in Cedar Rapids, Iowans lost no time in driving over to a newly opened dispensary in Milan, Illinois, to (legally) buy marijuana and (illegally) take it home… Dispensary clerks report a lot of the purchasers say they want to use their purchases for medical conditions not recognized under Iowa’s medical marijuana program… Stay tuned for reports from dispensaries on the Land of Lincoln’s borders with Wisconsin, Missouri, Kentucky and Indiana…

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Should the “Agony of Defeat” be a qualifying condition for medical marijuana? A long-suffering Ohio football fan thinks so… And, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer, has petitioned the State Medical Board of Ohio to make being “Bengals/Browns Fans” an official medical marijuana qualifying condition… The NFL Cincinnati Bengals finished the season with a 2-14 record; the Cleveland Browns finished 6-10, including a particularly painful last-game-of-season loss to the Bengals… The Denver Broncos finished 7-9, so Broncos fans should feel their pain, but — since recreational pot is legal in Colorado — probably don’t.