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Cakespy’s Chick-A-Dee Sugar Cookie Bars

Jessie Moore
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Cakespy’s Chick-A-Dee Sugar Cookie Bars

While recently wandering aimlessly in the candy aisle in the drug store, I noticed an item that was on extreme sale: the Palmer Chick-a-Dee chocolate crispie candy. Like seriously — they were 39 cents each or something and Easter was coming. Needless to say, I bought a bushel of these sweet chicks, and maybe one or two more items. And now I am making Cakespy’s Chick-A-Dee sugar cookie bars.

Easter Candy

On the way home, I pondered how they might taste all melted on top of a layer of sugar cookie bars. Would the faces melt off of the chicks? Would it all melt into a layer of chocolatey goo on top? Either way, it sounded tasty, so I set myself to this delicious task.

Ingredients

To hasten the process, I used Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix. I mixed it according to the instructions, adding a stick of butter and an egg to the mix, and stirring it until it was a soft, sticky dough.

RELATED: Move Over, Easter Bunny: Cadbury Creme Egg Rolls Exist And We Have The Recipe

Then I pressed it into a well greased pie plate (because I couldn’t find a square pan).

And then on top of that, I placed several of the Chick-A-Dee candies. And, for fun and visual appeal, I dotted the negative space areas (can you tell I went to art school?) with Robin’s Egg candies. Why not?

Then I put it in the oven. Goodnight, sweet chicks.

Chick A Dee Sugar Cookie Bars

Now, to bake the cookies according to the package instructions, you bake them 5-7 minutes. But since I was baking bars, I set the timer for 12 minutes. At 12 minutes here’s what I saw:

Cookie bars

So I kept ’em in for 20 minutes or so. At that point I felt confident that they’d baked through, and the edges were golden.

Chick A Dee Sugar Cookie Bars

Weirdly, the chocolate candies never actually…melted. They just kind of got melt-y. I guess that’s not so different from what happens to chocolate chips while baking in cookies. But still, the baking process altered them just enough to be sort of strange and pockmarked looking.

RELATED: Beer Sales Flatten Thanks To Marijuana

But they were still highly delicious. Those little crispies tasted great against the melty chocolate and sugar cookie mixture. I went ahead and ate it with a spoon because let’s be honest, this wasn’t what I’d call a high-class baking experiment.

Eating it

And oh, how satisfying it was.

Hoppy Easter, friends. If you want to do this at home, it’s easy: just prepare a batch of Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix per the instructions on the bag, press it into a greased pan, top with the chocolate Easter candies of your choice, and bake at 375 til nice and toasty around the edges and set in the middle (20 minutes or so).

Enjoy!

What Drug Czar Nominee Tom Marino Means For The Future Of Marijuana In America

Drug Policy Alliance
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What Drug Czar Nominee Tom Marino Means For The Future Of Marijuana In America

President Trump is expected to soon nominate Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA/10th) to be Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (colloquially referred to as the “drug czar”). Marino, a former prosecutor with no background in health or treatment, supports a punitive, 1980’s style approach to drugs, including mass incarceration and coerced treatment, even for medical and non-medical marijuana.

Drug Policy Action, the political arm of the Drug Policy Alliance, gave him an “F” in their 2016 congressional voter guide.

“Rep. Tom Marino is a disastrous choice for drug czar and needs to be opposed,” said Bill Piper, senior director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance. “America can do much better. Our nation needs a drug czar that wants to treat drug use as a health issue, not someone who wants to double down on mass incarceration.”

As a U.S. Attorney Marino showed preferential treatment for a friend convicted of cocaine offenses, while showing little mercy for others caught up in the criminal justice system. In Congress Marino voted against the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, which prohibits the Department of Justice from undermining state medical marijuana laws. He has called for “hospital-slash-prison” facilities where people caught possessing marijuana or other drugs would be forcibly detained.

Studies show that coerced treatment rarely works. Treatment works best when it is voluntary and meets the individual needs of the person struggling with substance-related issues.  A Human Rights Watch report found that hospital-prison policies in China, Cambodia and other Southeast Asia countries led to enormous human rights violations. An evaluation by the Drug Policy Alliance of existing coercive drug courts in the U.S. found enormous problems with little positive impact. Combined with Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s support for executing drug traffickers the Trump Administration could move U.S. drug policy in horrific, un-American directions.

The nomination of Marino would represent yet another about-face by President Trump. Earlier this year the Administration signaled that it would seek to eliminate the drug czar’s office, determining that it was wasteful. On the campaign trail Trump said that marijuana should be a state issue and that he supports medical marijuana “100 percent,” positions that Marino holds the opposite views on.

The nomination of Marino for drug czar would also come at a critical time in U.S. drug policy. 29 states have legalized marijuana for medical use. Eight states have legalized marijuana for non-medical use. Polls show a majority of voters believe marijuana should be legalized like alcohol; a super-majority believes the federal government should let states set their own marijuana policies without federal interference.  Dozens of states have passed drug-sentencing reform, and a bipartisan coalition in Congress came close to reforming federal drug sentencing laws last year.

“The American people are moving in one direction and the Trump Administration is moving in another,” Piper said. “There are few hard-core supporters of the failed war on drugs left, but those that are left seem to all be getting jobs in the Administration.”

An Australian Rapper Dove Into The Ocean To Avoid Paying Seafood Bill

Brendan Bures
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An Australian Rapper Dove Into The Ocean To Avoid Paying Seafood Bill

An Australian rapper, real name Terry Peck, rapper name 2Pec, did something that everyone wishes they could, but often cannot afford to do: he enjoyed himself a really fancy dinner. Like $621 worth fancy dinner, a meal that included—allegedly—two lobsters, a baby octopus, 17 vodka oyster shooters, and a “number of Coronas.” That’s good eating.

But 2pec did not pay for this meal. Instead he dined and dashed in a way you probably won’t believe. He took off, running down the beach and diving into the ocean, swimming as far away as possible to get away. The wait staff chased after him. Eventually, two police hopped aboard jet skis and arrested Peck in the middle of the ocean.

Peck appeared in court Monday, charged with stealing and two counts of serious assault on a police officer. He was ordered by an Australian magistrate to never return to the restaurant and remain in his home while the case is being heard.

Peck disputed the claims to Australia’s ABC News and complained that the lobsters were “overcooked.”

“They should be apologising to me for the shell … [and] the overpriced food,” he said.

In addition, Peck stated he’d run away from the restaurant to find and help a friend who was giving birth on the beach. The problem was he was arrested before locating her.

Because this story isn’t ridiculous enough, here is 2pac “Hail Mary” re-imagined to fit this alleged crime:

Run with me!
Hail Mary, swim quick, Aussie
Do you wanna dash and dine?
Na na-na-na na na na

Next time you want to dash and dine from an expensive seafood restaurant, now you have your runaway music. You’re welcome.

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Watch A Daydreaming News Anchor Panic After She Realizes She’s On The Air

TFT Editors
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Watch A Daydreaming News Anchor Panic After She Realizes She’s On The Air

Who hasn’t been lost deep in a mesmerizing daydream, thinking about the past weekend or an upcoming vacation or anything at all, when a coworker or teacher rudely interrupts you to bring you back to reality? No one, I’d argue. But not everyone has this happen to them while they’re live on the air as a news anchor.

The clip below shows just such a thing happening to Australian ABC News 24 anchor Natasha Exelby last week. When a segment ends and the shot returns to Exelby, viewers can see her intently fiddling with her pen, thinking of who knows what. A second or two pass before she realizes she’s back on the air, at which point she makes the most shocked face any of us have ever seen.

She soon composes herself and tries to return to the broadcast. “Now to sport with Meredith Sheehan,” she says.

By that time, of course, it was too late—her fate as an viral moment on the internet was sealed.

Making matters somewhat worse for Exelby is the fact that the clip was tweeted out by her own company, ABC News.

“That feeling when you’re caught daydreaming at work :)” @ABCmediawatch wrote in a tweet that’s since been retweeted over 6,100 times.

Watch the incredible clip below:

This Woman Hosts Super Bowl Parties And Food Trucks For Squirrels

Brendan Bures
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This Woman Hosts Super Bowl Parties And Food Trucks For Squirrels

These squirrels receive more love than you have ever given your pet. At least that’s the consensus regarding these squirrels lucky enough to live next to Ashley Deskins. Because like any good neighbor, Deskins hosts local get-togethers like Super Bowl parties, inviting community food trucks, and hosting a drive-in movie night.

Here’s the twist: All these are custom-made for the squirrels. That’s right. Deskins custom builds miniature dining sets that would make hipsters in Williamsburg jealous.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRO0080jmj7/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQJpX_wF8f2/?taken-by=squirrels_party_of_two

Her soft spot for the furry creatures started when Deskins and her husband returned home one day to find two injured squirrels. They hurried the poor guys to the vet, but apparently it was too late. The event inspired her into creating this safe spot for the squirrels to interact and play.

The move has been one of trial and error. “By observing the squirrels, I can determine what they feel comfortable jumping on,” she told Bored Panda.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRGjq7ajdiN/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQbZbQfFCEA/

“I will usually set up a scene and it could be hours before any visitors come by,” she said. “It can take several more hours before I can accomplish some finished images as they usually come, take their almonds and run.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSBpJ6dj69N/?taken-by=squirrels_party_of_two

 

4 Marijuana Companies That Have Scored Mainstream Investors

Brendan Bures
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4 Marijuana Companies That Have Scored Mainstream Investors

This week we’ve been discussing a lot how cannabis continues to go mainstream in refreshing ways. In most cases this involves celebrities embracing the green, and either endorsing a product with their name on it, or building an entire niche enterprise from the ground up.

But now it appears the investing side in cannabis is going mainstream, too, at least according to this latest Variety feature. That a trade magazine like Variety would publish an in-depth cannabis features is also a statement in and of itself about marijuana’s continued push into the mainstream. (Major kudos to this line for Variety’s audience: “Much like the independent movie biz, the cannabis industry attracts investors looking for high-risk, high-reward investments…”)

However, Variety pinpointed a number of investment firms, old and new, that are pushing the cannabis industry forward in fresh and exciting ways. Here are just some of the firms they decided to profile.

CW Hemp

The Colorado-based and family-owned company is known around the nation as the exclusive provider of one of the most trusted hemp extracts “Charlotte’s Web.” (If you haven’t, you should read Kathryn Gurley’s touching story how Charlotte’s Web helped her son.) CBD-enriched products continue to be a significant opening in the pathway toward raising cannabis awareness and its possible health benefits.

“We produce a product that’s considered a ‘whole plant extract,’ so we can legally market our products in all 50 states,” CW Hemp’s chief marketing officer Ashley Grace told Variety.

That Glass Jar

Bonita “Bo” Money is the creative and driving force behind the popular topical cream That Glass Jar. She is also known as the founder of Women Abuv Ground, a networking organization aimed at “cannapreneurs.”

Money’s ventures are primarily self-funded, though she has accepted funds from private sources. “I’ve had the chance to work with some very like-minded people who believe in this cause. I’ve been courted by major companies, but I didn’t want to give up control,” Money told Varitey.

The OG Collective and P&S Ventures Holding Co.

Patrick McMahon and Scott Lambert base their company in Cathedral City but are looking to expand to Los Angeles. They’re enthusiastic about marijuana reform as they try to grow their business to include more specialty products like edibles and vape pens.

As McMahon told Variety: “The industry is too big to turn back on now, and the amount of potential tax revenue cannot be ignored. Investments are tough because we’re still dealing with a cash business, which is a big obstacle, but we’re getting there.”

Casa Verde Capital

The venture capital and investment firm boasts possibly the most well-known cannabis entrepreneurs in Snoop Dogg, in addition to Ted Chung, Evan Eneman and Karan Wadhera. As Casa Verde writes on their website, the firm “makes early stage investments in innovative and fast-growing ancillary businesses in the emerging cannabis industry.”

You can head over to Variety for the full list and breakdown, where they discuss Beboe, the high profile product company we previously wrote about and is labeling themselves as the “Hermès of marijuana,” and MedMen, a strategic marketing group in key markets that also offers “turnkey services” to cannabis license holders.

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This Bill Could Make California A Marijuana Sanctuary State

Sam Jones
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This Bill Could Make California A Marijuana Sanctuary State

As businesses and activists for legal weed wonder how the cannabis industry will fare in the new administration, California legislators are proposing a bill, called Assembly Bill 1578, to essentially keep the state’s control over marijuana law enforcement.

Huffington Post reports:

The proposed legislation would prohibit state and local agencies — unless served with a court order — from using local money, facilities or personnel to assist a federal agency to “investigate, detain, report, or arrest” any person for commercial or noncommercial marijuana or medical cannabis activity that is authorized by law in the State of California — and transferring an individual to federal law enforcement authorities for purposes of marijuana enforcement.” California authorities would also be barred from responding to requests by federal authorities for the personal information of anyone issued state licenses for a marijuana operation.

“This is the equivalent of noncooperation on deportation and environmental laws, part of the larger California resistance to federal intrusion,” Dale Gieringer, state coordinator of California NORML, told LA Weekly.

Not all cannabis advocate groups are on board with the idea, however. “Cherry-picking when to respect states’ rights and arbitrarily doing so is inconsistent at best and confusing at most,” Adam Spiker, the executive director of Southern California Coalition, a lobbying group for Greater L.A. pot enterprises, said. “We are looking forward to making sure the intent of AB 1578 becomes law.”

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Think You Know A Thing Or Two About Marijuana? Wikipedia Launches 420 Project

Al Olson
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Think You Know A Thing Or Two About Marijuana? Wikipedia Launches 420 Project

If you think you have expertise in the wide word or cannabis, here’s your chance to share your knowledge. Beginning on Saturday and ending April 30, a group of Wikipedia editors will dive deep into the weeds and “create and improve cannabis-related content at Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in a variety of fields, including: culture, health, hemp, history, medicine, politics, and religion.”

The massive undertaking, organized by WikiProject Cannabis, is being dubbed a 420 collaboration. According to the project’s coordinators, there are three overarching goals to the endeavor :

  • The purpose of this project is for experienced Wikipedia editors, who may or may not edit cannabis articles often, and people who are familiar with cannabis topics, but do not edit Wikipedia regularly, to create and improve related content on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Bringing these two groups together, even for a short period of time, has the potential to improve many articles on the Internet’s largest and most popular general reference work.
  • We seek the inclusion of neutral, appropriately sourced facts. We want Wikipedia to have accurate, reliable information about cannabis, just like we want there to be trustworthy content about astronauts, butterflies, and your favorite episode of South Park.
  • We have no political agenda. We are not activists advocating for legalization. If you want to edit an article about an anti-drug program, or expand a section about the negative health effects of smoking, great! We welcome your participation. All we’re promoting here is free knowledge.

As is clear from the invitation, this is not the forum for aficionados to pontificate on why the color orange is much brighter after toking on a joint of Mango Kush.  Nor is it an invitation for you to tell the story about that time your Aunt Midge ate a marijuana-laced brownie and thought she was a pole dancer.

The mission, should you be willing to accept it, is to provide accurate, sourced information on the various segments of cannabis.

Here is more from the project’s organizers:

Cannabis has long been used for hemp fibre, for hemp oils, for medicinal purposes, and for personal use. The plant has a history of medicinal use dating back thousands of years across many cultures, and touches on many different fields of study. This collaboration is being organized by WikiProject Cannabis.

For more information, visit the invitation.

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Dear Dot: Etiquette Advice For Everyday Life

Dot
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Dear Dot: Etiquette Advice For Everyday Life

Dear Dot: Three days before Christmas I was invited to dinner at my cousin “Doreen”…she wanted to do a “family” dinner since a few of us live in the same city.  We grew up two hours away in a very small town, but a few of us moved for better job opportunities.   We rarely see the family in our same city so my boyfriend and I decided to attend.   I emailed her to say how fun and what could I bring. She said she had it all covered. We showed up with a bottle of wine…there were 6 of us and my other cousin also brought wine. Doreen made a yummy pot roast with veggies and we had a great meal and it was fun catching up. Immediately after we finished dinner, Doreen brought in the desert and announced she was going to do the dishes…I offered to help after dessert but she insisted she do them right them “to get them out of the way”. We sat at the table for 20 minutes, then ate dessert…honestly, she was gone for almost an hour…when she came back, we were ready to leave. She got huffy that we didn’t want to stay and talk, but we had said we had to leave by 10:30. She sent me an email afterwards complaining we up and left after dinner. I think if she wanted to visit, she should have waited to do the dishes…I offered to help! What could have been a fun time now has turned into a sour memory…am I wrong?

Oh, honey. Isn’t that what we all want? A nice family dinner followed by the racket of clinking dishes and picked-over pot roast being scraped into the compost? Isn’t dessert best accompanied by the sounds of water turning on and off and the sight of an empty hostess chair? And the snippy email? The perfect finish.

My mother always said that the best way to get rid of guests was to start doing dishes: The dinner ones, the dog’s … didn’t matter.

But why do that when your guests are people you invited in the first place and they brought wine?

Clearing the dishes and then leaving them in the sink to soak leaves you free to soak up the compliments on your cooking, drink a little more, gossip a lot more and maybe even slip outside for a cigarette with the granddaughter.

Wanna know why God made dishwashers? Dinner guests, gossip, wine and Camel-carrying granddaughters. According to my mom, anyway.

The only thing to do here is understand that your cousin Doreen is a clean freak, or one of those people who hates to wake up to a dirty kitchen. You can’t change that. What you can do the next time — and there should be one, since you’re family, which is all that matters — is insist that she stay put.

This, like most things, can be easily done with love: Tell Doreen you want to spend a little more time with her before you have to leave. “Sit, honey. Tell me how you are.”

If she gets up to clean anyway, well, you should just help clear and then clear out yourselves, no dummies you.

Don’t be mad; just send her some rubber gloves for Christmas. Stuffed with Hershey’s kisses.

Dear Dot, A casual friend invited me to a dinner party she was hosting. She is supposed to be a great cook and we have a few interesting friends in common so I said yes. After asking, I showed up with a good bottle of prosecco to be a good guest. There were eight of us and I only knew the host and one other person. I had a blast in the first 45 minutes… two people were really interesting and there was chemistry between me and another guest. The host moved us to a beautiful table next to the kitchen and explained how she had spent two days prepping for the dinner and really thought we were going to enjoy it. We all expressed our appreciation as we enjoyed three courses. The food was delicious…but once we sat down, the hostess got irritated when we talked about anything other than the food. She assembled the food for each course and we had to watch and listen…she would shush us if we wanted to talk to another guests. Honestly, it felt like I had signed up for a cooking class not a dinner party. After dessert, we were dismissed as she had to “clean up”… she was clearly annoyed. I ran into her at our spin class a few days later and she commented that having 8 to dinner was a total waste as people wound up talking to each other and not focusing on the food! I thought that was what a dinner party was about the people.

Oh, honey. Was her name Julia Child? No? Giada deLaurentis? No? Then why hold a cooking class, and hold your guests hostage? Girl needs to chill out.

Even Martha Stewart, the Nazi-est kitchen queen to ever roast a rump knew when to shut her gob and let people just enjoy the food — and each other. (You little minx.)

Clearly, this woman has a self-esteem tureen that will never be filled. There is something missing there, and cooking for a crowd seems to fill it. She should be working in a prison cafeteria if she wants a captive audience.

Almost every hostess wants to know how the food is, if it needs anything, is it hot enough. But when you have a table of wonderful, interesting people, all you need to do is ask once and trust that they will know enough to pass the salt. Even better if they make a pass at each other.

All you needed was one happy guest a drink or two ahead of everyone else (you know the type) to tell Chef Lady that everything was wonderful and there was NO WAY they would ever be able to recreate her skills. And what was the worst thing anyone here has every cooked?

In other words, start a conversation that she will never get back.

Tureen filled, she might have cracked open that Prosecco you brought, poured herself a glass, looked around the table and seen that she had assembled the finest feast of all: Friends. Hot ones, too, it sounds like. (You little minx.)

What Legal Marijuana Looks Like Around The World

Mike Adams
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What Legal Marijuana Looks Like Around The World

The Canadian government revealed a piece of legislation earlier this week aimed at eliminating marijuana prohibition nationwide. It was a move that the world has been expecting for the past year, ever since Prime Mister Justin Trudeau took the reins of the northern nation from Stephen Harper, based somewhat on the promise that he would establish a taxed and regulated pot market to prevent kids from getting their hands on weed.

Although Canada’s concept of legal weed is not exactly legalization in the eyes of some cannabis advocates, the goal of the measure is to give adults 18 and older the freedom to purchase weed in a manner for which they presently do with beer.

Some argue the bill is nothing more than “decriminalization,” or “Prohibition 2.0,” because it carries restrictions on possession limits.

Nevertheless, Trudeau’s plan will make Canada the second country in the world to legalize marijuana in an effort to curb black market activity. It is a common sense approach that a number of other nations have sided with, at least to some degree, throughout the years.

In 2014, Uruguay announced that it would be the first country to create a fully legal marijuana market – one that would allow residents to purchase recreational reefer from their local pharmacy. Although it has taken the South American country some time to get the wheels turning, some of the latest reports show the country is set to begin legal sales by July. What’s even better is the weed will be inexpensive – around $1.30 per gram.

Another country that understands that throwing pot offenders in jail is, in no way, a solution to black market problems is the Netherlands. Although marijuana is not technically legal in the country responsible for bringing the concept of the cannabis cafe to life, the system simply does not consider weed to be an issue worth much concern. In fact, for the past four decades, the possession and sale of small amounts of pot has been decriminalized, which has given Amsterdam’s famous coffee shops the freedom to sell weed to customers. However, these establishments must still get their weed from the black market sources. This is the reason Dutch officials are now trying to legalize commercial growers.

It is a similar situation in Spain. Although marijuana is illegal, there are countless cannabis clubs all over the country. It’s a situation very close to what has happened in the United States in some legal jurisdictions that continue to prohibit any kind of social use. Basically, clubs are established on private property and members pay dues in order to be a part of the fun. Technically, there are no laws being broken because marijuana is not being sold.

Portugal does not have a legal pot market either. Instead, the country made the decision back in 2001 to decriminalize the possession of all illegal drugs. This means while it is still against the law to cultivate and sell marijuana, anyone caught in possession of the substance receives no punishment. This progressive policy has been effective in controlling the nation’s problem with harder drugs, like heroin. In fact, since decriminalization, Portugal health officials say they have seen no increase in overall drug use, and more people are seeking treatment for addiction issues than ever before.

In other parts of the world, marijuana has either been decriminalized or it is simply tolerated in some way because it is part of religious culture.

Then there is the United States… where the federal government still considers anything derived from the cannabis plant to be one of the most dangerous illicit substances in the world, yet over half the states have legalized it for medicinal and recreational purposes. This schizophrenic policy has created a wealth of issues – too many to even begin to go into in this column — the biggest of which is the lack of a concrete policy to protect legal marijuana states from being shutdown by the federal government. Although Obama’s Justice Department issued a temporary memo a few years back, indicating that it would take a hands off approach to states that have legalized the leaf, it is distinctly possibly, at this juncture, that Trump’s leading law enforcement hammer, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is the process of formulating a devious plan to drop the “Mother of All Bombs” on the cannabis industry.

The entire cannabis community is simply waiting to see what happens next.

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