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On August 17^th was official opened the twenty-first Hempfest in Seattle, the biggest event in the marijuana industry! More than 300.000 persons attended what is now the biggest hemp fair in the USA. Many hemp products were on presentation and lectures were held.
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ENCOD BULLETIN ON DRUG POLICIES IN EUROPE

AUGUST 2012

The last major change in Dutch drug policy was in 1976, when new legislation established a distinction between soft and hard drugs, and decriminalised possession and sales of small amounts of cannabis by and to adults. At first cannabis only became available on special occasions and in popular youth centres like Paradiso and the Milky Way in Amsterdam. Later, cannabis promotors understood that the new legislation allowed for the sales of small quantities for personal use in caf?-like places: the “coffeeshops” emerged. In the course of the years the government installed a system of regulation, with most of the day to day decisions taken by local authorities, nicknamed the Triangle: mayor, district attorney and chief of police.
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9.00am, Monday 24 July 1967 (45 years ago)

A full-page advertisement appeared in The Times newspaper on this day, signed by 64 of the most prominent members of British society, which called for the legalisation of marijuana. Among the signatories were The Beatles and Brian Epstein.
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Cannabis Culture Award winner 2012 Thorvald Stoltenberg:

‘Hope is almost as important as life itself’

During a festive and moving ceremony, the Cannabis Culture Awards 2012 were awarded on April 26th in Amsterdam. Two former statesmen, Mr. Thorvald Stoltenberg, former minister of Defense of Norway and Mr. Dries van Agt, former Prime minister of the Netherlands, expressed their hope for a future without cannabis prohibition. ‘Hope is almost as important as life itself’, said Stoltenberg, after accepting the Cannabis Culture Award on behalf of the Global Commission on Drug Policy.
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Amsterdam, 26 April 2012. Norway’s Former Foreign Minister Thorvald Stoltenberg receives the award on behalf of the Global Commission on Drug Policy. Other winners are: Dr. Lester Grinspoon (extraordinary Professor of Psychiatry of the Harvard Medical School) and Dr. Frederick Polak (one of the most experienced and respected Dutch psychiatrists in the area of drug use). The Cannabis Culture Awards 2012 are presented by  former Dutch Prime minister Dries van Agt. After the Awards ceremony, former Dutch Minister of Science, Public Health and Culture, Hedy d’Ancona will open the renewed Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum.
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Here’s a chart that puts into simple words and figures a system that shows no benefits:
Click on image to enlarge. Created by: Medical Billing and Coding Online
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The policy of ‘soft drug tolerance’ in the Netherlands is probably the most well-known example of a country attempting to regulate the use and sale of cannabis. Recognising that marijuana and hashish consumption cause very little social or personal harm, Holland’s laws were changed to differentiate relatively benign soft drugs from genuinely harmful hard drugs.
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Switzerland and Denmark are considering measures which could lead to the return of decriminalised cannabis in 2012. In both cases, the main reason for the proposed change is to reduce the harm caused by pushing cannabis onto the black market. The simple, inarguable fact is that cannabis will continue to be consumed for its medicinal and recreational properties, so allowing otherwise law-abiding people to grow or purchase it legally is the best way to prevent cannabis sales enriching criminals.
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The recent history of cannabis in California  demonstrates a split between state and federal law that is rapidly widening. The first U.S. state to have, in 1913, prohibited the use of the devil’s herb imported by Mexican immigrants that was “marijuana”, California was also the first to legalize the medicinal use of cannabis in 1996.

15 years of legal ambiguity on medicinal marijuana
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Monday, November 20, at the Executive Airport in Houston, Texas, a small aircraft failed to answer calls from the control tower, leaving them in the fog…

After landing with the wind behind it, the small twin-engine plane skidded off the track ending up with its nose in the grass.

The plane that landed full of marijuana at Houston Executive Airport