It all boils down to one of the first rules of business: know your customer.

Girl Scout Danielle Lei, 13, knew exactly what her customers wanted when she set up her cookie table outside of the Green Cross, a medical marijuana dispensary in San Francisco’s Excelsior neighborhood.

“They get very hungry after!” she told the East Bay Express.

Very hungry indeed. Within 45 minutes, Danielle sold out of cookies.

http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2014/02/20/genius-girl-scout-sells-cookies-outside-pot-club/

One of the more popular strains in the bay area is "girl scout cookies".

It has been seven weeks since Colorado made history becoming the first state in the country to legalize recreational marijuana, but the demand is greater than expected and while above-board, the drug itself could contain surprises.

“As we know of today, you cannot die from cannabis,” said expert Genifer Murray. “What you can die from is contaminated cannabis.”
Four years ago Murray turned a degree in microbiology into a career testing cannabis and started CannLabs. Their equipment looks like it could be found in any testing facility, but the machines are testing legal marijuana for contamination.

Murray told CBS News’ Barry Petersen that her labs have found mold, mildew, E. coli and Salmonella.

CannLabs is one of three laboratories approved by Colorado, but so far, testing is voluntary. Murray told Petersen that shops are just starting to test their products.

Read More: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/some-legal-pot-could-have-contaminated-cannabis/

Abdou Rais was still a teenager in August 2011, when he joined other young men in Tripoli excitedly taking up arms against dictator Muammar Qaddafi. 

Today, Mr. Rais is jobless. This morning, as voting for a constitutional drafting committee began, he was slouched against a wall in Libya's capital, listlessly watching the bustle in the alleys with a pair of friends.

“We young men, we did many things in the revolution, and now we have no work,” he says.

Just three days ago, Libyans celebrated the start of the revolt that toppled Mr. Qaddafi in 2011. But today, as cold wind and rain tossed the strings of flags left over from the festivities, all but a trickle of residents ignored the vote.

Read More: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2014/0220/Feeble-turnout-by-Libyan-voters-points-to-deep-disillusionment

Colorado is one of 20 states where medical marijuana is legal and one of two states where recreational pot is legal for adults. Texas is not one of those states, but some people who live there claim they are getting high thanks to family and friends shipping the drug to them.

One woman living in San Antonio, who didn’t want her identity revealed, told CBS station KEYE-TV she smokes pot every day.

“I have friends and other acquaintances who know people there,” said the woman.

Her hookup isn’t the dealer down the street but lives in Colorado and sends it to her.

Since marijuana was legalized in Colorado, pot smokers in other states claim they can get better quality marijuana since there is more competition.

“All they have to do is make a phone call, tell them what they want,” said the woman.

She said the marijuana coming from Colorado is stronger.

Read More: http://denver.cbslocal.com/2014/02/19/people-in-other-states-say-colorado-pot-is-better-stronger/

One of the biggest changes with legalization is having a selection and not being stuck with your dealers weed du jour...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) offered a full-throated defense of the government's collection of data on billions of American phone calls, saying Wednesday that the National Security Agency’s practices have safeguarded the nation without trampling on civil liberties.

“What keeps me up at night, candidly, is another attack against the United States. And I see enough of the threat stream to know that is possible,” Feinstein said at a Pacific Council on International Policy dinner in Century City.

She pointed to a warning Wednesday about potential bombs hidden in the shoes of passengers on flights bound for the United States.

“But the way we prevent another attack – and this is tricky – is intelligence," she said. "You have to know what’s going to happen, because it’s too late otherwise.”

Feinstein’s firm support for the NSA’s tracking program has divided some of her most ardent backers, and in recent months her popularity in California has plunged to a historic low.

Read More: http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-feinstein-nsa-foreign-policy-20140219,0,7661713.story

More than a month since she was moved from Children’s Hospital in Oakland, Jahi McMath — who was declared dead in December — is “much better physically” and “not suffering,” according to her family.

In her first post since the 13-year-old Oakland girl was taken to an undisclosed facility and given feeding and tracheostomy tubes, Nailah Winkfield, Jahi McMath’s mother, wrote on Facebook Wednesday that she sees in her daughter “changes that give me hope.” 

“I know people are concerned and I want to make sure you know that Jahi is not suffering, she is surrounded by love,” she said. “I will never let her suffer.”

Three different doctors declared Jahi dead due to brain death following complications from a surgery to remove her tonsils, adenoids and other tissue as a treatment for sleep apnea.

Read More: http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2014/02/19/jahi-mcmath-much-better-mom-says/

l work environment, but employees at the Superior Court are getting dressed down - and written up - for not wearing the appropriate "professional" attire.

Hoodies, T-shirts and sneakers are out - coats and ties for the men are in, and for women, it's business suits.

"They're overstepping their bounds," Chris Daly, the former city supervisor who is now a union organizer, said of the court's crackdown on more than 400 employees who work in the Hall of Justice and the Civic Center courthouse.

"We had people wearing the same outfits they were wearing last year that were fine - only now, they're being written up," said Peter Masiak of Service Employees International Union Local 1021, which represents many of the workers, most of them clerical employees.

Read More: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/S-F-Superior-Court-employees-written-up-for-5250590.php

Newly released records show that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's campaign partnered with a Republican lieutenant governor candidate in 2010 to tap wealthy donors who had already given all they could to Walker, a move designed to bolster their potential ticket.

The behind-the-scenes navigating of Wisconsin's campaign finance laws by Walker staffers was revealed Wednesday as part of the release of 28,000 pages of documents collected during a criminal investigation into one of the governor's aides.

Walker, who faces re-election this year and is considering a run for president in 2016, was not charged with any wrongdoing in the investigation that closed last year with convictions against six of his former aides and associates.

Democrats are hoping Walker could be sunk by the investigation, which has shadowed him for years. But it was unsuccessfully used against him in his 2010 run for governor and recall attempts in 2012 — and it hasn't hurt his fundraising ability. That gubernatorial race broke state spending records at $36 million, and the recall hit $81 million, largely because state laws limiting donations don't apply until a recall election is officially set. That allowed Walker to collect checks as large as $500,000 from backers.

Read More: http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/Records-show-fundraising-tactics-of-Wis-governor-5250566.php

Source: CBS Local

California’s health care exchange promised potential customers they would have enough physicians to choose from. But some new enrollees, including an Alameda County woman, are discovering that their doctor choices are extremely limited.

Julia Turner is surprised that she even has to search for a doctor. When she signed up for a policy through Covered California late last year, her long-time physician was listed as participating in her Blue Shield plan. It turned out; however, that he is not accepting patients with her Blue Shield policy, purchased on the Covered California exchange.

When Turner called around to find someone else to treat her, she got more frustration. “The only doctors accepting new patients are urgent care clinics,” Turner told KPIX 5 ConsumerWatch.

snip

When KPIX 5 contacted all of the 41 doctors on the list Blue Shield provided to Julia, it found only four of the doctors were actually accepting new adult patients, and only one of them was board certified.



Read more: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/02/19/covered-california-enrollees-complain-about-limited-doctor-choices-nearby/

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