Omnibus Spending Bill ★ 018

***This episode of Bowl After Bowl was originally published December 20, 2014. The title and notes have been republished as originally written***

Show-Me Cannabis hosts Repeal Day Party in St. Louis
Last Friday, Spencer and Laurien attended the Show-Me Cannabis Repeal Day party (http://show-mecannabis.com/2014/12/repeal-day-celebration-enjoyed-by-over-100-attendees/) in St. Louis. The party was hosted at the Mad Art Gallery (http://www.madart.com/), an old police station turned into a picturesque joint with plenty of photo opportunities.

More than 100 people attended the event  including 420 POW (https://www.facebook.com/POW420) creator Adela Falk, who has created and maintains a state-by-state list of all inmates currently locked up for cannabis (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Aow-cJlOJUTNdFpDYWpYeS1nSXZZeEFjZ3Rtc2ZqU3c&gid=1). Falk encourages everyone to write to these inmates and brought greeting cards for the Repeal Day party attendees to sign. She believes no one deserves jail time over a plant.

Another notable guest was Mike Adams, a certified badass-motherfucker who writes for High Times, Playboy and Hustler. You can follow him on Twitter @adamssoup (https://twitter.com/adamssoup). He attended the event to get a feel for the legalization movement in Missouri and wrote about the event for High Times in an article that featured Spencer, Laurien and Bowl After Bowl (https://web.archive.org/web/20150406021812/https://hightimes.com/read/show-me-cannabis-celebrates-repeal-prohibition).
There's one bucket-list item to check off:
BE IN HIGH TIMES ✔

 Also, Bowl After Bowl has also been submitted to iTunes and is awaiting approval!
In this episode, Spencer and Laurien give a quick re-cap of the Journalism & Democracy capstone seminar entitled #CoverYourGap. The live stream video will be available on YouTube sometime around December 19.

Native Americans can now grow and sell cannabis
The Department of Justice is now allowing Native American tribes to grow and sell cannabis on their sovereign land, as long as they abide the federal guidelines laid out in the "Cole Memo."  (http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/3052013829132756857467.pdf) This information was released in a memo published yesterday (http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/tribal/pages/attachments/2014/12/11/policystatementregardingmarijuanaissuesinindiancountry2.pdf), although the memo was dated "Oct. 28, 2014."
In short, there are eight triggers for federal law enforcement involvement:
I. Distribution to minors
II. Revenue for criminal enterprise
III. Transferring cannabis from legal to illegal states
IV. Selling substances other than cannabis
V. Violent crime related to cultivation or distribution
VI. Drugged driving
VII. Growing cannabis on public lands
VIII. Possession or use of cannabis on federal property
Of course, these aren't the only reasons for cannabis-related investigations conducted by federal law enforcement.

How does the Omnibus Spending Bill affect cannabis?
Laurien and Spencer also discuss what the Omnibus Spending Bill means for cannabis. This fiscal year, the bill plans for $1.1 trillion dollars in spending.
Written out, that number looks like this:
$1,100,000,000,000
You can read the full text of the Omnibus Spending Bill here (%20http://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20141208/CPRT-113-HPRT-RU00-HR83sa.xml) — all 1,600+ pages of it. Let's refresh ourselves on some American government terminology, shall we?
Omnibus spending bill — a type of bill in the United States that encompasses many smaller appropriations bills into on single, large bill that can be passed with only one vote in each house.
Appropriations bill — a legislative motion authorizing the government to spend money. This bill sets aside money for specific spending during the federal fiscal year, which runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 of the following year.