y a D s ’ e n Valenti Fever
February 2013
Our yearly tradition to celebrate all the love in the world. This celebration is called Valentine’s Day
Roses are not the only things that bud... Give her the flower that gives more!
Also in this issue: Hawaii Stands to Gain from Marijuana Legalization, Marijuana and Chronic Pain, Growers Tips, Bud-o-Scopes, Huh, That’s Weird, Edible Review, Recipe and More!
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Valentine’s Day Fever
Our yearly tradition celebrate all the love in the world. And this tradition is called Valentine’s Day By: Lacewing
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IN This Issue Cooking With Cannabis Page 4 Sudoku Page 4 Valentine’s Day Fever
Page 6
MMJ-What’s It Good For? Page 7 Marijuana and Chronic Pain
Edibles in Review
Page 10
Bud-O-Scopes Page 11 WonderWord Page 11 Grow Tips
Page 12
News of The Weird
Page 14
Advantages of Propagation
Foreign Correspondent Page 15 The Ganja Gazette is a monthly publication. The first copy of each Ganja Gazette is free. Each additional copy is $4.20. For more information call 970-353-1170. ©2013 Natures Gazette, LLC
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2/2013
How to make:
Canna Sugar Cookies
Ingredients Needed: 3 ½ cups flour 1 tsp baking powder ½ tsp salt
1 cup canna butter, softened 1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs 2 tsp vanilla
Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 350°F. 2. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in medium bowl and set aside. 3. In a separate bowl, cream together canna butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, one at a time, and then add vanilla. 4. Gradually add flour mixture from first bowl until well blended. Cover and keep in the refrigerator for about 2 hours. 5. Roll out dough onto a lightly floured surface. Cut out into shapes (like hearts for Valentine’s Day) and place on greased cookie sheets. 6. Bake 8-10 minutes or until very lightly browned. Remove from cookie sheets and cool. Cooking time may vary slightly, so keep an eye on them. Enjoy!
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Valentine’s Day Fever It is our yearly tradition to celebrate all the love in the world and this celebration is called Valentine’s Day. By: Lacewing Continued from page 2 It could be argued that Valentine’s Day is nothing but a consumer’s holiday. Some even contend that it was invented by the card and candy companies. While it makes little sense to name the holiday for a Christian martyr who died a vicious, horrible death; and it cannot be denied that for Hallmark Card Inc. Valentine’s Day is the second most profitable holiday of the year (over 144 million Hallmark cards were sent out for the holiday in 2010, according to Statistic Brain); we choose to look at it from a more human light. What could be better than being in love? Writers a n d
speakers have compared love to the most beautiful and richest feelings to be experienced. All we need is the perfect time, one day out of the year, to give some the courage they need to reveal their true feelings and for others to rekindle and enliven existing romance. It all boils down to how you want to express that love. At a time when you can be totally overwhelmed by handmade gifts and stories of overly-impressive displays of affection via the internet, it can feel like nothing you do will hold up. All you have to do is use what you know about the person you love—that will ultimately mean more than all the boxed gifts and pre-written cards in the world. If you’re with someone who likes the classics, a great restaurant can be the difference between a stale date and a passionate meeting. Denver has a magnificent assortment of restaurants happy to cater to lovebirds. From D Bar Desserts, an inexpensive locale
near City Park, to Potager, a posh place on Capitol Hill that leans more toward the costly end of the scale, you can find the dinner that will make the best impression. For that lovely daredevil in your life, check out SkyVenture Colorado for indoor skydiving. In our beautiful Colorado home, trying to plan for weather can be a challenge, which makes SkyVen-
ture the ideal location for folks who want the rush without the hypothermia. Artists deserve a date drowning in art, an experience the Center for the Performing Arts would easily provide. This location is even more ideal for the relative nearness of several great museums like the Denver Art Museum, which is only a few blocks
away. A simpler approach would be to give your love flowers. Using the language of flowers, you can express a whole book of feelings with one bouquet. Forget-me-nots, red roses, red and purple tulips, purple lilacs, and jasmines all mean true and passionate love. Flowers can be great gifts for friends, too, as gardenia, gladiolus, yellow roses and pear blossoms are imbued with the meanings of friendship. On the flip side, yellow carnations, narcissus, marigold, lettuce (that stuff you make salads with, yes), and hydrangea can all mean different forms of rejection or unrequited love. The wonders of chocolate and jewelry are not to be underestimated, either. If you are the type of person who likes to make home cooked meals and glue together miniature versions of the Taj Mahal, it is recommended that you go through a trial run before the big day. Strangely spiced lasagna and glue fumes can take an evening into the realms of legendary failure. For those folks who feel like they are so how less because there
isn’t a significant other in their lives, take heart. If Valentine’s Day is a celebration of love, it doesn’t have to celebrate only romantic love. You love your friends, your family, your dog, hopefully yourself. Find ways to express that, as well. One thing the world can never have enough of is love in every form. No matter what happens, whether it’s a Valentine’s Day to record on video and share on YouTube or the kind of day you want to forget as soon as possible, remember that it is only one day. Don’t let this day be the only day that you remember who you love, or the only day that you tell that person how you feel. There are roughly 364 other days that give you new opportunities with each sunrise to love and be loved. Happy V-Day!
MMJ — What’s It Good For? Marijuana and Cronic Pain by: Alvin Dy
Pain is our body’s way of telling us that something is wrong. It can be uncomfortable and disruptive, so much so that pain is what often leads people to seek medical treatment. In the United States alone, more than 38 million adults live with chronic pain. Out of that number, an estimated 12 million have used medical marijuana to manage it. Marijuana has been used in medicine—specifically for pain relief— as far back as history goes. In China during the 2700 BC, Emperor Shen Nung discovered that marijuana had healing properties, and used it for curing hundreds of ailments that included rheumatism, absentmindedness, gout and malaria. In India, marijuana has been used for religious activities and for healing. In fact, today’s Ayurvedic practitioners still recommend marijuana to increase appetite, promote sleep and relieve pain. Recent studies are showing the same thing. Some of the research organizations studies marijuana’s medicinal qualities include the International Cannabinoid Research Society, which currently has 500 members all around the world; the International Association for Cannabis as Medicine, which regularly holds symposia
that tackle new trends in marijuana used as medicine; the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research, which manages an $8.7-million research efforts at different University of California campuses. These studies have proven time and again the various ways that medical marijuana has become indispensable in helping patients handle pain. One study showed that daily neuropathic pains experienced by HIV patients were reduced by 30% after just five days of smoking marijuana cigarettes. The THC and other substances found in marijuana were seen to be very effective against inflammation and infections. THC has also been proven to work as well as codeine. It also helps to make other pain relief treatments, such as opioid therapies, more effective. Pain treatments involving opiates can help stop pain, but these can also induce nausea in patients who are undergoing such treatments. Without marijuana, the nausea can be so intense that patients opt to forego on the opioid therapy. The nausea can also lead to other problems: malnourishment, wasting, and anorexia. Marijuana helps alleviate nausea, dizziness, vomiting, and other symptoms that often go hand in hand
with severe pain. All such studies have led the United States Society for Neuroscience to declare that marijuana is beneficial for more than 97 million Americans suffering from pain in any given year. Marijuana can either be smoked or eaten. The cannabinoids in them can attach themselves to your brain receptors that control movement and memory. This is how it reduces the pain. A patient who suffers from pain can smoke marijuana. This leads to total relaxation and takes away the tension that the pain causes. Smoking marijuana can effectively relieve the pain as long as the marijuana’s effect lasts. If you want to be painfree for a longer period of time, you can eat marijuana. This will give you a higher dosage and the cannabinoids stay in your system longer. For arthritis, you can add marijuana to any topical creams and preparations and then rub this on your skin. This will be absorbed by your body and will help alleviate the pain. You could also vaporize marijuana with the use of a vaporizing machine. As an alternative to smoking marijuana, vaporizing is deemed to be better because it can give you THC and other chemicals in marijuana that are beneficial
to pain relief but does not have the unwanted by-products you get from burning up the marijuana. Vaporizing marijuana gives you no particulate matter or tar. It also gives you lower amounts of carbon monoxide and other noxious gases. And then you could treat marijuana just like any vegetable and juice it. Yes, juicing marijuana is a good alternative to smoking it. You can get higher concentrations of CBD by juicing. CBD works on your receptors and may increase the pain relief properties of marijuana. And because y o u juice t h e leaves a s well as the buds, you can actually save money from this method. It is not all rosy for marijuana and pain management, however. The American Society of Anesthesiologists say that moderate doses of cannabis can help reduce pain, but high doses can increase pain. The ASA also said
that very low dosages were found to be ineffective for pain management. So the trick could be in the dose. If you want optimum pain relief from marijuana, you should know what the correct dose is and do not go beyond that.
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Edibles in Review:
Your Remedy Fu-Qua Johnson Ganja Gazette
Hello everyone! I really hope the New Year is going really well for you. I don’t know if people are still making New Year’s resolutions these days, but I decided I should make one. I am trying to be healthier and drink more water throughout my day. I heard somewhere that people should try to drink at least six pints of water a day. I drink maybe two or three a day, mixed with coffee and soda. So, more water for me and less soda this year. I think it is reasonable and something I can really work on. Wish me luck. This month I am
approaching the review a little differently. I came to a realization that I can try only so many edibles before I run out of new products to try. I have seen the edible industry thrive in Colorado and there are many varieties of edibles to choose from, but I thought I might branch out a bit. The New Year brings something new for everyone, and for me it was the RemPen. I have to say I really enjoyed this product. I have heard many good things about the RemPen and I was excited to try it out. Their slogan reads on the case “Purity, Potency, Period.” I received the pen in a blue case (it comes in black also), and
inside was the pen, USB charger, and a wall outlet charger adaptor. The cartridges come in many flavors and strengths for anyone’s needs. They come in two different strength levels (250mgs or 500mgs) and also specific strains. The price is very reasonable for the pen and the cartridges. Once the cartridge and the pen in put together, it is roughly the size of a sharpie pen. This product is for the “working patients,” and it delivers. Many of the patients in Colorado are professionals and really can’t smell like medication at work. This will give you the medicine you need without the odor that comes from
smoking it. I have heard of people taking these pens into a lot of place like movie theatres, shopping, bars and even on an airplane. I wouldn’t be that brave, but I did take it up to the mountains for a day on the slopes. It was just what the doctor ordered. I didn’t need a lighter or anything else. It solved the problem of trying to medicate on the chairlift under your coat; I know, I’ve been there. I have also had some experience with over-medicating on the mountain and really couldn’t enjoy snowboarding, so this pen allowed me to medicate correctly to enjoy myself. I am not saying this
will replace the amazing “green” medicine (not by a long shot) but for discreet and odor free medicating, this pen is for you. Have a wonderful Valentine’s Day, and I would say a “RemPen” would be a nice gift. Check out the selection next time you are in Nature’s Herb and Wellness Center and the staff will help pick out the best cartridge for you needs. Remember to always medicate with care.
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Bud-o-Scopes Aries
Mar. 21 - Apr. 19
It’s time for a style change. The interchange of energetic forces between Mercury and Jupiter indicates that incorporating some German heritage in your wardrobe would liven things up. Lederhosen!
Taurus
Apr. 20-May 20
The universe is suggesting that you start to invest your money in more practical pursuits. Perhaps a PlayStation 2 (which is now a collector’s item) or an antique Italian book? Maybe even a pet peacock!
Gemini
May 21- June 20
You should look into taking a cooking class. Cooking is good for the wallet, body, and soul. Plus, you could learn to chop veggies like a ninja.
Cancer
June 21-July 22
You know what fashion statement you should single-handedly bring back? The rat’s tail. You are cool enough, confident enough to pull it off!
Leo
Libra
Sep. 23 - Oct. 22
The universe knows all about your dark past. It’s admirable that you were able to bury your activities as a super villain so deeply. But the truth must come out!
Scorpio
Oct. 23 - Nov. 21
Don’t forget to file your taxes early! The sooner you file, the sooner you get that refund. Unless you won’t be getting a refund, in which case the IRS only audits so many people per year…
Sagittarius Nov.22 -Dec.21
This is the year You’ve done reasonably well with keeping up with your New Year’s Resolutions, but it’s time to take up to the next level. Go that extra mile!
Capricorn Dec. 22 -Jan. 19
Take this month easy. Eat some comfort food, take a stroll around a nearby park, maybe just chill out and play some video games.
Aquarius
Jan. 20 - Feb. 18
Universe is challenging you to challenge July 23 - Aug. 22 yourself this month. Strong waves of solar Be it trying new food or choospower are flaring into ing to read a book instead of your life. watching TV, you have the will power!
Virgo
Aug. 23 - Sep. 22
You have a strong personality and a strong chin. Don’t let these traits go to waste! Fame and fortune are calling your name—it’s a whisper, but it’s there.
Horoscopes at a higher level
Pisces Feb.19 Mar. 20
Make a sandwich. Not just any sandwich, but the kind of sandwich even Shaggy and Scooby-Doo would admire.
1/2013
GROW TIPS Advantages of Various Propagation Methods By: Tucker Eldridge
In the horticultural industry, there are a limited number of ways to maintain a plant population for extended periods of time. The means by which you do this depend on a number of variables which you must account for in your grow: the amount of uniformity you’re looking for in the crop, how much uniformity you’re looking for from one generation to the next, whether you are searching to improve an existing crop, and an innumerable amount of other goals that can be achieved through specific propagation methods. The primary methods for accomplishing these tasks through propagation are seed, cloning, and, more recently, sterile tissue culture. Each has situations where one is more advantageous than the others, and by understanding the advantages and difficulties, as well as the steps behind each one, we can make informed decisions on which is most beneficial to our goals. When growing from seed, there are a number of factors one must take into consideration. First, the seeds will not all be identical genetically. This means that you cannot rely on them to provide you with a consistently uniform crop. This is also the propagation method that allows for a plant variety to be improved through breeding. Another benefit of seed is that genetics can be preserved
through seed with minimal care for much longer periods than with cloning or sterile tissue culture. Also, seed is more easily transported from grower to grower, allowing for sharing of superior genetics over greater distances than other propagation methods. Seed is also generally a little more simple to get started than clones, and drastically more simple to propagate from than tissue cultures. The process of growing out a plant from seed varies from plant to plant. Some seeds germinate better after a refrigeration period to simulate winter. Others do better when the hard seed coat is scoured or scratched, allowing moisture to more easily penetrate the coat and begin the enzymatic processes that allow the plantlet to begin growing. Some seeds even do better when germinated prior to planting. The basic process for planting seed is the most simple of the three propagation methods. It entails placing the seed in a finely ground planting mix and lightly covering it with a layer of the planting mix to cover it from the sun and encourage growth. This mix must be well drained and kept evenly moist to allow the seed to flourish, but seedlings are at their weakest when new and overwatering can lead to a number of diseases and insects including pythi-
um, dampening off, and fungus gnats. The first method of asexual reproduction that will be looked at is the process of cutting propagation, or cloning. This process entails removing a growing plant section, whether it is a tip, a section, or even a division of the roots or rhizomes in some plants, and you use this plant section to replicate a genetically identical copy of your original plant. This process has huge benefits to horticulturalists seeking to maintain perfectly uniform crops. A uniform crop will produce a uniform product, maintain uniform growth characteristics, and most importantly, respond identically to environmental factors from plant to plant, and generation to generation. Cloning allows for us to keep specific genetics intact for multiple generations, making planning a grow season more predictable from year to year. Imagine if every year we had to grow an entirely new batch of plants, and we have no understanding of the traits! This process can be as simple as ripping chunks off of your creeping sedum and throwing them in the dirt in other locations and watching them root. It can be as easy as dividing your irises, or separating your runners from your strawberries. Or it can be as tedious as carefully making your cut underwater to pre-
vent embolisms, cutting down into the cambium layer to ease new root formation, dipping them in rooting hormone, and finally sliding your cannabis tip cuttings into their jiffy cubes and setting them under a humidity dome on a heat mat. Plant propagation by this means varies greatly not only in method, but in ease or practice. Sterile tissue culture, or STC, is considered by some to be a more advanced process of cloning, and in some respects this could be considered the case. The process of STC still produces a genetically identical copy of the donor plant, with all of the previously explained benefits that entails, but this is where the similarity ends and the benefits of STC become more apparent. STC involves taking as little as one cell from a plant, sterilizing it, placing it into a sterile container onto an ager with various plant hormones in it, capping your container with a gas permeable lid, and allowing it to grow and differentiate into new little plantlets. This procedure relies on the fact that each plant cell has the genetic knowledge within to become any cell on the plant. A number of benefits that cloning cannot provide crop up when using this new method, and while it may be much more difficult to master than the average cloning process (working ster-
ile is a difficult practice that requires diligent attention to detail), it can be well worth the added benefits of the results. This includes the ability to save plants not normally salvageable through cloning. Pests and diseases spread from mother plant to clone and can be impossible to get rid of. The sterilization process involved with STC allows for a horticulturalist to save even plants with viral diseases such as Tobacco Mosaic Virus. STC’s are also much more portable than clones, allowing for easier transport of genetics. They also allow for a massive genetic collection to be stored in a relatively small space, with STC plantlets being nursed in jars no bigger than baby food jars on shelves under compact fluorescent lighting. The benefits of each propagation method must be taken into account when deciding your propagation route. With seed generally being the most maintenance free, cloning being slightly more difficult, and STC being scientifically tedious, it is the responsibility of a horticulturalist to determine the end goals they aim to accomplish with their grow, and decide which method most suits their needs.
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Chuck Shepard’s News
of Weird
Huh, that’s weird...
Police Report
Get Me To The Court On Time
In March, Jose Romero-Valenzuela, 34, in a hurry to get to the courthouse in Oregon City, Ore., for a hearing on drug charges, managed In March, WTNH-TV in New Haven, Conn., obtained to pick up three speeding an “internal” police memorandum referencing a challenge from state troopers in one barracks to “outperform” colleagues in another barracks -- in writing traffic tickets. The memo, from Lt. Anthony Schirillo, refers to the need William Todd arrived in “to issue at least 60 infractions/misdemeanors each shift.” Nashville, Tenn., on April 9 via Greyhound bus and “One day Troop F issued 301 tickets. Troop G responded faced a nine-hour layover. by issuing 345 ... We can do better.” “I am asking that ev- According to police, Todd eryone, myself included, contribute to this effort.” “Note: committed at least 11 felIf we happen to issue 350 tickets in one day that would be onies during that time, stellar.” (The station spoke to Lt. Paul Vance of the Con- one after another, with necticut state police, who denied that quotas are given.) more charges still possi-
Suspicions Confirmed
tickets on Interstate 84, one right after the other within the space of an hour. A sheriff ’s deputy and two different state troopers charged him with speeds in excess of
Music City Mayhem
ble. Among Todd’s alleged diversions: shooting up a restaurant, setting it on fire, robbing four people at a bar, carjacking, breaking into a law office and defecating on a desk, trolling hotel rooms seeking theft opportunities, and steal-
ing a taxicab and robbing the driver. Said a police sergeant, “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” He was finally captured at Opryland, where he had hidden by submerging himself in water up to his nose.
in April to pay “restitution,” but the amount Judge Eugene Austin settled on was $10 a month -- and only during the period of probation (three years). On the
other hand, in federal court in New York City in April, Kerry Haggard, 47, was sent to prison for 6 1/2 years on one count of selling fake movie lobby posters.
Least Competent Criminals Crime Does/Doesn’t Pay
Didn’t Think It Through: Eric King, 21, was leaving a store in Eagan, Minn., in February when a police officer in the parking lot noticed his pronounced waddle. King was arrested when the officer found a shoplifted 19-inch television set down his pants.
Convicted embezzler Antoinette Galluzzo, who admitted stealing more than $50,000 from a city youth agency in Englewood, N.J., was ordered
92 mph. (Another trooper, specifically monitoring Romero-Valenzuela after the third stop, reported that, finally, he obeyed the speed limit.)
You Can Run, But...
In March, a 34-year-old Lithuanian-born man led police in Wiltshire, England, in a nighttime foot chase after he had aroused their suspicion. Thermal imaging equipment was used from a helicopter to spot the man in the darkness. He was arrested “hiding” face-down in a manure pit. (Though he originally fled, there was little evidence against him, and he was released.)
g s
Alvin Dy
Elsewhere on Marijuana Hawaii Stands to Gain Quite a Lot from Marijuana Legalization Medical marijuana has been legal in Hawaii for more than a decade now and a recent survey from QMark Research commissioned by Drug Policy Action Group reveals that more and more people in that state want to legalize, tax, and regulate not just the medical variety, but marijuana in general. The survey shows that 57% of respondents are in favor of the legalization of all forms of marijuana in the state, with only 15% opposing the initiative. This represents a 20% increase in marijuana support in the state, based on findings from a similar poll in 2005. Could Hawaii be the third state to legalize all forms of marijuana after Washington and Colorado? Economic and social reasons suggest ‘yes!’ would be a great answer. It looks like marijuana legalization could have a positive impact on the state budget. A report from ACLU in Hawaii shows that Hawaii could earn at least $11 million from taxation alone. Taxation is a difficult subject to discuss, as there are a lot of factors involved. The legalization of marijua-
na would lead to more people buying and consuming it, but it will also bring the prices down. Earlier studies cited by the ACLU have estimated a very wide range—from $4 million to $23 million—in taxes generated by marijuana. But looking at Colorado’s experience with marijuana taxation and Hawaii’s tax receipts, ACLU estimates that the state stands to earn $11.3 million a year. That is not counting the special and sales taxes in the first years of legalized marijuana. Savings for the state is another glaring advantage of marijuana legalization. Instead of going after and prosecuting people for using a plant that has been beneficial for some sectors and considered relatively harmless in others, the state could use the budget for other things, such as infrastructure or education. In Hawaii, the state spends $9.3 million on arrests just for possessing marijuana. That’s just for the arrest. You need to factor in prosecution and imprisonment costs. Each of these would cost the state more. Then there are costs for arrest for distribution of marijuana. This would
add another $3.1 million for enforcing the relevant laws. ACLU also says that marijuana laws are largely ineffective in deterring the use of marijuana in the state. It notes that since 2004, there has been a surge of arrests for possessing or distributing marijuana, but that did not correspond to lower rates of marijuana use. In fact, marijuana use at least remained unchanged or even increased during this time. If you decriminalize marijuana, that would effectively lead to a cost reduction of at least $12.5 million. Economics is a great motivator and it is undeniable that marijuana legalization brings about income and savings that could be at least $22 million a year. That is for the state of Hawaii alone. Money, however, isn’t everything. Prevailing marijuana laws have also been tied to some social injustice. The ACLU, in its report, provides detailed marijuana-related arrests and found that these arrests skewed unnaturally towards young males. Marijuana arrests have also been heavily prejudiced
against native Hawaiians, in a pattern that could be similar to the uncanny prevalence of arrests of African Americans and Hispanics in Colorado. ACLU Hawaii also attests that increasing consumption is not the reason why there are more marijuana possession arrests. Proof is that while there is at least a 5% increase in juveniles arrested for possession of marijuana, that group actually consumed 20% less marijuana over the years. It simply begs the question, could anti-marijuana possession and distribu-
tion laws fuel racism, prejudice and social injustice? States that are looking into legalizing medical marijuana and other forms of marijuana should take a look at the Hawaii study. Legalizing medical marijuana would benefit patients who need it to manage their diseases; legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes would extend broader benefits to the state. Rather than fighting and preventing people from using a harmless plant, why not focus resources on other things?
2/2013
g e n ”
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