By Anthony Johnson

Political victories are easy to see, but there are often underlying cultural events that shape our progress.  Spannabis, one of the world’s leading cannabis festivals, is an example in Spain. Most of the cannabis community is likely unaware that tens of thousands of revelers attend the event every year, making the event one of the largest cannabis festivals in the world. Spannabis helps bring the European cannabis community together and help promote tolerant, progressive attitude across the continent.

Amy has long blonde hair. She wears a pink leopard-print top and blue jeans with deep pockets. One blue cloth rosary hangs around her neck, a brown one wraps around her wrist. She's shoeless, and her feet are grimy. Blood has crusted around the rim of one of her big toenails. She has a deep cut above her left eye that's still healing. Instead of a scab, a small ball of dead skin has formed abnormally in the middle of the wound. 

Amy is homeless, and she's trying to sell me synthetic marijuana outside the Pik Nik Foods convenience store on Commerce Street. The going rate is about $5 for a joint or $40 for a bag, which is roughly enough for five joints. Our potential transaction ends when I tell her I don't have any cash. 

It’s becoming an all too familiar occurrence, Instagram deleting accounts related to the cannabis industry. This week’s victim, Dixie Brands, manufacturer of premium cannabis-infused products.

“This is just one more example of the daily injustices and discriminations we face as an industry,” said Dixie Brands CEO, Tripp Keber.

According to Chief Marketing Officer, Joe Hodas, Instagram deleted the company’s account and gave no explanation or responses to their repeated inquiries.

Changes to marijuana policies may extend much deeper than popularly publicized medicinal and economic benefits, according to a new UW study.

Katarina Guttmannova, Ph.D. in experimental and developmental psychology and principal investigator in the Social Development Research Group at the UW, along with fellow researchers and the Center for the Study of Health and Risk Behaviors, recently published a study titled “Impacts of Changing Marijuana Policies on Alcohol Use in the United States.”

A Washington state House bill wants to create a pilot program for a legal marijuana home-delivery service in Seattle. 

Here’s how it would work. 

The pilot program proposed by state legislators would allow five existing licensed recreational marijuana stores in Seattle to offer delivery services to Washington state residents over the age of 21, according to Mayor Ed Murray’s office. The pilot program would also provide a framework for delivery requirements, employee training and enforcement. 

The bill’s first reading was January 12.

Here’s the reason behind it, according to the mayor.  

More than 250 lawmakers from across the political scale have shown support to a proposed decriminalization of producing, distributing, selling and consuming marijuana in Italy. If this will be pushed through, Italy will become the biggest European country to legalize marijuana. The new proposal also allows people to cultivate marijuana inside their house.

Nearly two dozen states have legalized marijuana for medical use; four states, as well as Washington, D.C., now allow the sale of recreational cannabis to adults – and many more states are considering doing the same. Nevada already has a measure that would legalize pot on its November ballot, California is in the process of crafting its own initiative, and Vermont's governor may allow legislators to make the move without even taking a vote to the people.

This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "marijuana movement."

There have been plentiful anecdotal reports about people pulling up stakes to head to where the grass is greener, and now there is polling data to back up the contention that marijuana legalization or liberalization is a pull factor in people's decisions about where they want to live—especially for young people.

A new study from the University of Cambridge reveals that e-cigarettes that are bubble gum or chocolate flavored attract children into trying and buying them. The vapor sticks are now the most widely used nicotine product for children in countries with strict tobacco control policies.

The Use of E-cigarettes by High Schoolers Tripled Between 2013 and 2014

The exact figures declare that the rate of high schoolers using e-cigarettes in the United States went up from 4.5% to over 13%. Middle school students using e-cigarettes using e-cigarettes went up from 1% to 4%. In England, use of these sticks in people between the ages of 11-18 went from 5% to 8%.

Luckily, the mental image most people have of someone who smokes weed has changed significantly over the past few years. We used to only associate marijuana with the dopey stoner dude who sleeps in until noon and only eats things that come out of a crinkly bag, but our view has definitely expanded. For one, we're now more used to the fact that many women like to get high, too.