Girl Scouts highly unimpressed after New Jersey troop teams up with local cannabis dispensary to sell cookies

Girl Scouts highly unimpressed after New Jersey troop teams up with local cannabis dispensary to sell cookies


Girl Scout cookie season runs from January through April

Brittany Miller & Mike Bedigan

Thursday 05 March 2026 13:10 EST

Senior leaders at the Girl Scouts are reportedly displeased that a New Jersey troop teamed up with a local weed dispensary to sell their beloved cookies.

Set up near Daylite Dispensary in Mount Laurel last month, the troop’s booth offered the full line-up of treats. Dispensary owner Steve Cassidy said the partnership was a massive success and drew people both to the booth and the cannabis shop.

However, Cassidy said he had spoken to representatives from the organization about the incident, which had been intended as a positive venture, but may have landed the troop in hot water.

“It was about community,” Cassidy told The Independent. “If that means the local Girl Scout troop got in trouble, that is absolutely not what we wanted.” He declined to comment further.

The Independent has contacted the Girl Scouts of Central and Southern New Jersey, the Girl Scout council that oversees troops in the region, for comment. It is unclear which exact troop staged the event.

Protesters confront ICE during raid of cannabis farm in Carpinteria, Cal...

gr

Cannabusiness: The World's Most Lucrative Cash Crop? | ENDEVR Documentary

Cannabis REFORM Opening STATEMENT TEXAS Rep Sheila Jackson Lee! MORE ACT...

What Advocates of Legalizing Pot Don’t Want You to Know

Opinion 

What Advocates of Legalizing Pot Don’t Want You to Know


The wave toward legalization ignores the serious health risks of marijuana.


By Alex Berenson

Mr. Berenson is the author of a forthcoming book on marijuana use. 

Jan. 4, 2019

 

Credit

Annelise Capossela

Marijuana seems to be on an unstoppable march to legalization in the United States.


New York and New Jersey are racing to join the 10 states that already allow recreational use of cannabis. Some 65 percent of Americans favor legalization, and several potential Democratic candidates for president support ending federal prohibitions on marijuana.

This huge shift in public attitudes comes even though most Americans do not use the drug. Only 15 percent of people over 12 used it even once in 2017, according to a large federal survey. That year, only three million people tried it for the first time.

Instead, the change has been largely driven by decadeslong lobbying by marijuana legalization advocates and for-profit cannabis companies.

Those groups have shrewdly recast marijuana as a medicine rather than an intoxicant. Some have even claimed that marijuana can help slow the opioid epidemic, though studies show that people who use cannabis are more likely to start using opioids later.

Meanwhile, legalization advocates have squelched discussion of the serious mental health risks of marijuana and THC, the chemical responsible for the drug’s psychoactive effects. As I have seen firsthand in writing a book about cannabis, anyone who raises those concerns may be mocked as a modern-day believer in “Reefer Madness,” the notorious 1936 movie that portrays young people descending into insanity and violence after smoking marijuana.


A strange disconnect has resulted.

With large studies in peer-reviewed journals showing that marijuana increases the risk of psychosis and schizophrenia, the scientific literature around the drug is far more negative than it was 20 years ago. Comparing two major reports from the National Academy of Medicine, the nonprofit group that advises the federal government on health and medicine, makes the difference clear.

In a report in 1999, the academy (then called the Institute of Medicine) reported that “the association between marijuana and schizophrenia is not well understood.” It even suggested the drug might help some people with schizophrenia. But in its next major report on marijuana, released in 2017, the academy reached a very different conclusion: “Cannabis use is likely to increase the risk of schizophrenia and other psychoses; the higher the use, the greater the risk.”

Former Speaker of the House John Boehner to Host First-Ever National Cannabis Event

The American Cannabis Summit: Countdown to Legalization will go live on Tuesday, October 23 at 1:00PM EST from Washington DC at ACS2018.com

NEWS PROVIDED BY

National Institute for Cannabis Investing

08:49 ET


WASHINGTON, Oct. 18, 2018/PRNewswire/ -- Marijuana has unleashed a "green gold rush" across our nation, creating $10.8 billion in new wealth a year. Every day it's transforming more and more Americans into millionaires and now, John Boehner and a team of experts are bringing the invaluable information and resources to the masses.

John Boehner, Former Speaker of the House


In an historic free event, hosted by the National Institute for Cannabis Investing, former Speaker of the House John Boehner, and leaders in the cannabis business Danny Brody and Mike Ward, will present the first online event to introduce THE authoritative source for cannabis investing - Cannabis Investors Network.

Mr. Boehner shares, "The next generation of billion-dollar cannabis companies are ripe for the picking, you just have to make smart moves. Don't go blindly investing in this sector because it's exciting and you don't want to miss the boat. Cannabis is here to stay, the industry is only getting bigger, and I am all in. With the information we are sharing on Tuesday, one can stake a claim for fractions of what they could be worth weeks or months from now."

'Weed Apocalypse' dawns for California pot dealers on Sunday

By Rollo Ross, Reuters • June 29, 2018





FILE PHOTO: Customers queue for recreational marijuana outside the MedMen store in West Hollywood, California U.S. January 2, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File PhotoMore


By Rollo Ross

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Six months after California made recreational marijuana use legal, the so-called "Weed Apocalypse" arrives this weekend, as tight state regulations going into effect on Sunday have dispensaries scrambling to unload non-compliant product.

But while the deadline is giving pot shop owners headaches, it is creating an opportunity for consumers. They are already anticipating deep discounts on their favorite marijuana products on what has been dubbed "Green Saturday" - for the color of cannabis - and for black market dealers.

"There's going to be a lot of massive sales, a lot of retails fire-selling a lot of products," said Nick Danias, manager of The Pottery cannabis dispensary in mid-city Los Angeles.

"It's about getting rid of a lot of older product that doesn't meet city and state requirements and getting through that old inventory and moving on to the next steps after July 1," he said.

The state Bureau of Cannabis Control regulations require shops to sell only marijuana that has been tested for pesticides, potency and microbiological contaminants.

The government-approved pot will be marked with a harvest and "best use by" date and sealed in child-resistant packaging. The rules were designed to take effect on July 1, six months after legalization approved by voters in November formally took effect on Jan. 1.

Business owners say they have struggled to meet the deadline because of a lack of approved testing facilities in California, which has created a bottleneck in the supply of compliant marijuana that could drive customers to the black market.

The Bureau of Cannabis Control lists 31 labs for testing on its website but says only 19 are operational.

"We issued our emergency regulations back in November, and at that time, we were pretty clear about the fact that there would be a six-month transition period for retailers to use up their existing supply," said Alex Traverso, a spokesman for the bureau. "We felt that was a sufficient amount of time to deplete stock on hand and adapt to California’s new rules."

All eyes on Canada as first G7 nation prepares to make marijuana legal

From crime to health to business, Canada’s decision to legalize marijuana is a grand progressive experiment that promises to answer a host of questions


Selena Ross in Montreal

Wed 6 Jun 2018 02.00 EDT Last modified on Wed 6 Jun 2018 17.00 EDT

Marijuana legalization could affect Canada’s crime patterns, health and countless other factors. Photograph: Bernard Weil/Toronto Star via Getty Images

When Canopy Growth opened its first cannabis factory in an old chocolate plant near Ottawa four years ago, it did so predicting a bright future. Canada had already legalized medical marijuana, and Canopy predicted full legalization for recreational use to be next.

What the company hadn’t predicted, however, was the sudden flood of foreign visitors. Politicians and police authorities from Jamaica, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Greece and Australia have all come knocking, as well as doctors from New Zealand, Brazil and Chile, along with groups of corporate investors and bankers – so many that Canopy now sometimes splits up the groups according to their birthdays.

“We knew we’d have to give a lot of tours, so we just cut a window into the wall,” said the company spokesman, Jordan Sinclair. “We put windows in all of the doors.” 

Canada will be thrust even more directly under the international microscope on Thursday, when a vote in the Senate is expected to ratify Bill C-45, effectively making Canada the first G20 nation to legalize recreational marijuana.

At 'pot churches,' marijuana is the sacrament

At 'pot churches,' marijuana is the sacrament

Author: Barbara Feder Ostrov, unknown

Published: 12:49 PM EST December 22, 2017




SAN JOSE, Calif. — Services at the Coachella Valley Church begin and end with the Lord’s Prayer.

In between, there is the sacrament.

“Breathe deep and blow harder,” intoned Pastor Grant Atwell after distributing marijuana joints to 20 worshipers on a recent Sunday. “Nail the insight down, whether you get it from marijuana or prayer. Consider what in your own life you are thankful for.”

Despite its mainstream Christian trappings, the Coachella Valley Church in San Jose, California, describes itself as a Rastafarian church.
Kaiser Health News

A man wearing a “Jesus Loves You” baseball cap and toting a shofar, piped up. “Thank you, God, for the weed,” he called out. “I’m thankful for the spirit of cannabis,” a woman echoed from the back. “I am grateful to be alive,” said another young woman, adding that she had recently overdosed — on what, she did not say — for the third time.

The small room, painted black and gold and decorated with crosses and Rastafarian symbols, filled with pungent smoke after an hour-long service of Christian prayers, self-help slogans and inspirational quotes led by Atwell, a Campbell, Calif., massage therapist and photographer.

Despite its mainstream Christian trappings, the Coachella Valley Church describes itself as a Rastafarian church, which is tough to define. Originating in Jamaica and combining elements of Christianity, pan-Africanism and mysticism, Rastafari is a political and religious movement with no central authority. Adherents use marijuana in their rituals.

The church’s leaders claim that religious freedom laws give them the right to offer marijuana to visitors without a doctor’s recommendation or abiding by regulations. Some authorities beg to differ.

As more states ease access to marijuana, churches that offer pot as a sacrament are proliferating, competing with medical marijuana dispensaries and pot shops in the few states that have legalized recreational weed. While some claim Rastafari affiliation, others link themselves to Native American religious traditions.

Thousands Light Up On Boston Common To Push For Legal Marijuana « CBS Boston

Thousands Light Up On Boston Common To Push For Legal Marijuana « CBS Boston

The event almost didn’t take place as the city tried to block the festival, but a Superior Court judge granted an emergency order on Friday allowing the rally.

“Every year the city does whatever it can to try and stop us,” said William Downing of the Massachusetts Cannibas Reform Coalition (MassCann).

With a puff of smoke, Cannabis Church debuts in Lansing

LANSING - A cannabis congregation.


A parish of pot supporters.

Robert Killips | Lansing State Journal

Kevin Kesseler from East Lansing wants to start a biotec company that tests the more

Marijuana missionaries.

Approximately 50 people gathered Sunday in south Lansing for the debut of a new church: The First Cannabis Church of Logic and Reason.

The gathering was a kick-off for what organizer Jeremy Hall hopes will become monthly meetings celebrating cannabis' spiritual properties.

He chooses the word spirituality intentionally. The church has no specific ideology, no texts or prophets to speak of.

"The biggest question I get is, 'How can this be a church if we don't subscribe to a religious theology?'" he told attendees.

"Well, the reality is it sounded better than a cannabis cult."

Those sitting in the worship room laughed.


Read more