From the Publisher

Welcome to the Fall issue of Cannabis by the Sea magazine!

Fall?! How did that happen?! Be that as it may, here we are with another year almost gone and another year waiting on our elected officials to federally legalize cannabis. And from the looks of things, this isn’t going to happen anytime soon. President Biden has been pretty clear how he feels about legalization . . . and given the divisiveness of the Senate, federal legalization is going nowhere fast.

Maybe you’re asking yourself, why should it? I mean, here in California we’ve got it pretty good! You’re right, we do . . . but I am compelled to remind you that we live in quite the little happy cannabis bubble here. Here’s an example:

According to a story by Moira Donegan in the Guardian UK, on May 25th of this year, Ashley Banks was arrested in Etowah County, Alabama for possession of “a small amount of marijuana” and a pistol that she was licensed to carry. She admitted to having smoked marijuana on the day she found out she was pregnant, which lead to her being charged with the “chemical endangerment” of her fetus. Despite having a high-risk pregnancy and the fact that she had admitted to smoking marijuana while pregnant landed Ms. Banks in jail.

Under Alabama state law, women arrested for drug use who are pregnant or have recently given birth can be charged with chemical endangerment, which requires them to post a $10,000 bond and go to rehab to regain their freedom. Ms. Banks was locked up for THREE MONTHS without being convicted of a crime. During this time she experienced hunger, fainting spells and bleeding, all the while sleeping on the floor because they didn’t have enough beds in the jail. Investigators told her to claim she had a drug addiction so she could get into treatment and be bailed out of jail.

Now . . . I’m curious, if Alabama police had found her in possession of a pack of cigarettes, would she have been given the same treatment? My intuition says no.

According to an investigation done by Amy Yurkanin, a reporter for AL.com (Alabama online news agency), more than 150 Etowah County women have been charged with “chemical endangerment,” even when their children are born healthy or do not test positive for drugs.

Does this story make you squirm a bit? Good, it should. It’s disgusting. And this kind of thing is happening all across our country. So don’t get too comfortable in your California cannabis cocoon.

As always, thank you for your support of Cannabis by the Sea magazine . . . just by reading, you are supporting. We look forward to continuing to introduce you to more amazing people, and, of course, providing you with more information on this amazing plant that we call cannabis.

Keep in touch!

- Melinda Bie