– The two individuals indicted along with Marc Emery for selling marijuana seeds to American customers came down to Seattle from B.C. this week to enter a plea of guilty after reaching an agreement that would keep them from having to serve jail time. The formal sentencing will be on July 17. Hopefully, we’ll see a new U.S. Attorney for Western Washington who will have the sense to finally drop the charges against Emery and his partners and focus our limited resources on real criminals.
– Jacob Sullum looks at the potential for disaster as we plan to step up our efforts in Afghanistan.
– The Obama Administration moves to end the disparity between crack and powder cocaine penalties.
– The Cannabis Defense Coalition has posted its calendar of court dates. Over the next two months, there will be hearings in King, Snohomish, Mason, Okanagan, Grant, Stevens, and Kitsap Counties. I don’t know much about any of these cases, and some of them may be against individuals who were doing things outside of the medical marijuana law, but having observers in each of these courtrooms has been a tremendous help in making sure that any valid patients don’t get railroaded. If you have any interest in being an observer, please contact the CDC to find out about carpooling with others.
– If you thought that Obama was serious about not staffing his administration with any anti-science ideologues, you might want to think again.
– I almost missed the news of Pontiac’s demise. My dad, who has reliably bought only American cars since 1970, gave me his 1989 Grand Prix (manual transmission!) while I was in college. The Ann Arbor winters were rough on that thing, and within two years, much of the gray paint had peeled off the roof. I took it into a dealership in Lansing (where I was living for a summer) where I was told, “sorry, the car’s more than 5 years old, it’s not covered anymore”. My next car was a used BMW.
– And even more off-topic for this blog, my wife is a huge fan of Jon and Kate Plus 8, so I’ve been hearing a lot about this all week. All I know is that I’m looking forward to the episode where all hell breaks loose at a Pennsylvania Chuck E Cheese.