WeedMaps Media buys Marijuana.com for $4.20 million

English: Leaf of Cannabis עברית: עלה של קנביס

by Michael del Castillo

Imagine if Yelp acquired Facebook, except for potheads. Well, that just happened.

General Cannabis, Inc., the current owner of WeedMaps.com, just paid $4.20 million for Marijuana.com and the contents of the site, according to TechCrunch.

“By integrating Marijuana.com with WeedMaps.com, we can monetize both properties more efficiently,” said Justin Hartfield, chief Web officer of WeedMaps.

Marijuana.com is currently a bulletin board forum for everything ranging from how not to get caught to “420 Dating,” and, according to a statement released by General Cannabis, it attracts 3.5 million page views per month, on average. Launched in 1995, the site now boasts 300,000 users.

WeedMaps.com, on the other hand, claims to offer a database of “legal”marijuana dispensaries. Per the release, the site receives 10 million page views per month and earns as much as $400,000 monthly, according to TechCrunch.

Doug Francis, president of General Cannabis, must have been thinking of the effects of the site’s namesake when he said, “Well-established, premium top-level-domains such as Marijuana.com are easy to remember.” He said the site’s high ranking in Google searches will attract “thousands of visitors per day in type-in traffic alone.”

General Cannabis says the merger is scheduled to take place in early January 2012.

The company currently trades on the OTCQX market. They declined to comment for this article due to restrictions related to their pending S-1 filing with the SEC. The company reported consolidated gross revenues of $7,699,634 for 2010, up from $2,670,721 in 2009.

Read more: http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/the-tech-observer/2011/11/29/general-cannabis-inc-purchases-marijuana-dot-com-for-over-4-million-dollars#ixzz1fCjkHjnX

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(VIDEO) – Must-Watch Documentaries

This is a list of 28 documentaries that I consider ‘must-watches’ for any documentary fan. Its a good place for anyone new to documentaries to start.
Click on the name of the documentary or the poster for the video and click on the description for a longer plot summary.
Enjoy.
Must-Watch List

  1. In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.
  2. Imagine a home that heats itself, that provides its own water, hat grows its own food. Imagine that it needs no expensive technology, that it recycles its own waste, that it has its own power source. And now imagine that it can be built anywhere, by anyone, out of the things society throws away. Thirty years ago, architect Michael Reynolds imagined just such a home – then set out to build it. A visionary in the classic American mode, Reynolds has been fighting ever since to bring his concept to the public. He believes that in an age of ecological instability and impending natural disaster, his buildings can – and will – change the way we live. Shot over three years in the USA, India and Mexico, Garbage Warrior is a feature-length documentary film telling the epic story of maverick architect Michael Reynolds, his crew of renegade house builders from New Mexico, and their fight to introduce radically different ways of living. A snapshot of contemporary geo-politics and an inspirational tale of triumph over bureaucracy, Garbage Warrior is above all an intimate portrait of an extraordinary individual and his dream of changing the world.

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  3. The film argues that American presidents since the 1960s have served as “front men” for entities such as the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group, Wall Street banks, the Federal Reserve, the Military-industrial complex and others, arguing that multinational corporations and powerful elite families, such as the Rothschild family and Rockefeller family hold the real “power behind the throne.” The documentary claims the main motive of these groups is to set up a New World Order where offshore banks subversively engage in the looting of the wealth of the American people. The documentary primarily focuses on American president Barack Obama and his actions during his young presidency. However, it also discusses John F. Kennedy, George H. W. Bush, and the George W. Bush administration.
  4. Orwell Rolls in his Grave conducts a critical examination of the Fourth Estate, once the bastion of American democracy. Asking whether America has entered an Orwellian world of doublespeak where outright lies can pass for the truth, Pappas explores what the media doesn’t like to talk about: itself. Meticulously tracing the process by which media has distorted and often dismissed actual news events, Pappas presents a riveting and eloquent mix of media professionals and leading intellectual voices on the media. Among the cast of characters in Orwell Rolls in his Grave are Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity, Vincent Bugliosi, former L.A. prosecutor and legal scholar, film director and author Michael Moore, Rep. Bernie Sanders, Danny Schecter, author and former producer for ABC and CNN, and Tony Benn, former member of the British Parliament.
  5. The American biotechnology firm, Monsanto, has applied for a patent for pig breeding in 160 countries. Farmers and breeders are naturally alarmed because these genes have long existed in the great majority of their pigs. Using DNA tests they can prove that there is no new invention in the patent applications but that, instead, granting this patent would be to allow a part of nature to fall into the hands of a single company. Monsanto’s influence on the patent offices is huge. If the patent is approved, money will have to be paid to Monsanto for every pig in the world carrying this genetic marker. This has long been the case for certain feedstuffs, such as genetically modified maize. Many farmers in the US have already become dependent on the company. It is not merely a question of money, however, but also a question of the risk posed to consumers. In America, as in Europe, cases of infertility in animals fed with genetically modified maize are becoming increasingly common. No-one yet knows what effects such products are having on humans.
  6. On the 40th anniversary of the Internet, We Live in Public tells the story of the effect the web is having on our society as seen through the eyes of “the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of”, visionary Josh Harris. Award-winning director, Ondi Timoner (“DIG!”), documented his tumultuous life for more than a decade, to create a riveting, cautionary tale of what to expect as the virtual world inevitably takes control of our lives. Josh Harris, often called the “Warhol of the Web” through the infamous dot.com boom of the 1990′s, founded Pseudo.com, the first Internet television network and created his vision of the future, an underground bunker in NYC where 100 people lived together on camera for 30 days over the millennium. He proved how in the not-so-distant future of life online, we will willingly trade our privacy for the connection and recognition we all deeply desire.

  7. With gasoline prices approaching $4/gallon, fossil fuel shortages, unrest in oil producing regions around the globe and mainstream consumer adoption and adoption of the hybrid electric car (more than 140,000 Prius’ sold this year), this story couldn’t be more relevant or important. The foremost goal in making this movie is to educate and enlighten audiences with the story of this car, its place in history and in the larger story of our car culture and how it enables our continuing addiction to foreign oil. This is an important film with an important message that not only calls to task the officials who squelched the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate, but all of the other accomplices, government, the car companies, Big Oil, even Eco-darling Hydrogen as well as consumers, who turned their backs on the car and embrace embracing instead the SUV. Our documentary investigates the death and resurrection of the electric car.
  8. Explores corporate giant Monsanto’s long history of producing toxic chemicals, such as PCBs and dioxin-laced Agent Orange, and interviews victims of the company’s chemical operations. But the film devotes more attention to Monsanto’s 20-year old genetically engineered seed empire. Hitherto unpublished documents and candid interviews with scientists, farmers and former U.S. government officials reveal a disturbing pattern of deceit, impunity and corruption. Robin reveals Monsanto’s astonishing influence on the U.S. government’s rubber-stamp regulatory process for GMOs, as well as its attempt to bribe Canadian government regulators to approve its bovine growth hormone product. The film also features interviews of U.S. farmers sued by Monsanto for the newly-minted “crime” of seed-saving, Indian farmers victimized by the company’s expensive Bt cotton seed, and South American farmers marginalized by massive expansion of Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” soybeans.

(VIDEO) – Plan Colombia: Cashing In on the Drug War Failure

Directed by Gerard Ungerman, Plan Colombia: Cashing in on the Drug War Failure documents what many believe to be dangerous hypocrisy on the part of the American government. The film gives particular attention to the reasons behind the drug trade (Colombia is the world’s biggest cocaine exporter), which include illegal trade funded by radicals, the corrupt government, and the simple fact that most farmers harvest coca because they can’t survive on the profits of legitimate food crops. Ungerman also explores the link to America’s notorious School of the Americas in Georgia and how targeted aerial fumigation has destroyed perfectly legal natural resources in the mission to eradicate drug crops. The film concludes that the U.S. military-industrial complex is cashing in on the violence they themselves perpetrate, while doing little to actually stem cocaine production.

Making Hash in Oklahoma is NOT OK

Yummy hash

Image via Wikipedia

Get caught making hash in Oklahoma and you could go to prison for life…In related news, many prisons are privately owned. It’s sort of like a landlord who forces you to live in his shitty building for the rest of your life because you did something in Oklahoma that others get paid to do in California.

Oklahoma is the giant rodeo belt buckle on America’s Bible belt.

A bill that mandates a sentence of up to life in prison for converting marijuana or marijuana oil into hashish is heading to Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin’s (R) desk after being passed by the state Legislature on Monday.

House Bill 1798 makes the conviction of a first time offense of manufacturing hashish a felony with a prison mandatory minimum sentence of two years and a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Hashish is made by compressing and heating glandular hairs from marijuana plants known as “kief.” Chemical solvents can also be used to extract the psychoactive components of the marijuana plant, resulting in hash oil.

Under a second offense, sentences would be doubled and those convicted would be unable to receive a suspended sentence or probation.

Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs spokesman Mark Woodward told The Associated Press [1] that the bill is meant to “send a message” that illegal drugs won’t be tolerated in the state.

The Oklahoma Senate approved the legislation in a 44 to 2 vote and the state House approved the legislation 75 to 18.

Under current Oklahoma law, being convicted of cultivating or selling marijuana can result in sentence of up to life in prison. In February, 25-year-old Oklahoma mother of four was sentenced to 10 years in prison [2] for a $31 marijuana sale.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons [3]

URL to article: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/26/oklahoma-lawmakers-approve-life-sentence-for-cooking-hashish/

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