I spend a lot of time following marijuana related stories. Readers send me some and others I follow online.  A lot more than I write about are interesting.  Here are a few links that I think you might find worthwhile.

  1. DENVER — It is being called the green rush. With more states moving to legalize medical marijuana, the business of growing and dispensing it is booming, even as much of the rest of the economy struggles.  Now, flush with financial clout, and with their eyes on pushing Congress to further loosen laws, medical marijuana industry leaders are forming a national trade association. While there are smaller, local trade groups, organizers around the country say this will be the first business organization working on the national level.

  2. SIERRA BLANCA, Texas (AP) — A U.S. Border Patrol spokesman says country singer Willie Nelson was charged with marijuana possession after 6 ounces was found aboard his tour bus in Texas.

  3. San Diego, California—More than 20 tons of marijuana have been seized after the feds discovered a sophisticated, drug-smuggling tunnel measuring more than seven football fields in length between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico.

  4. SPRINGFIELD, Ky. (AP) — With authorities closing in to seize 2,400 marijuana plants on John Robert Boone’s farm two years ago, the legendary Kentucky outlaw vanished like a puff of smoke. The prolific grower has been dodging the law ever since, his folk-hero status growing with every sale of a “Run, Johnny, Run” T-shirt and click on his Facebook fan page.  Tracking down the fugitive who resembles a tattooed Santa Claus has proven as hard as “trying to catch a ghost” for the federal authorities canvassing tightlipped residents among the small farms in a rural area southeast of Louisville. Boone, who’s trying to avoid the life sentence he would get if convicted a third time of growing pot, has plenty of sympathizers in an area where many farmers down on their luck have planted marijuana.

 

Thanks to Emerald Triangle News for some of these and to readers (who I would be glad to name if you tell me its okay by email) for others.