A Greek billionaire and heir to the Coca-Cola fortune was arrested on the Caribbean Island of St. Kitts after a search of his private jet uncovered more than $1.3 million worth of cannabis on board, according to multiple reports.
Alkiviades “Alki” David, 50, was arrested by the Anti-Narcotics Unit at the Robert L. Bradshaw International Airport after customs officials found approximately 5,000 cannabis plants in addition to seeds and a variety of other cannabis products, according to the Vancouver Sun. He was charged with intent to supply, possession of controlled drugs and importation of a controlled drug into the federation, officials from the St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force confirmed to the Daily Express.
David claimed the plants on board were “all hemp” and were related to a new venture to start a legal cannabis business in the region. He and Chase Ergen, the heir to the satellite fortune, announced in April that they formed a consortium aimed at developing the cannabis business in Eastern Caribbean nations such as St. Kitts-Nevis, Dominica and Antigua.
Plans included purchasing agricultural land and partnering with farmers to create a cooperative entity modeled after the ones in Switzerland. David and Ergen will create thousands of jobs and also tap into the rich cultural history and cannabis know-how of the strengthening Rastafarian movement in the region. The consortium has already had its first meetings with business and government leaders across the region and will be expanding its outreach during the month of May.
David is an heir of the Leventis-David Group, which holds the majority share in Coca-Cola Helenic, Europe’s largest bottling company. The Leventis family is worth more than $388 million, according to 2018’s The Sunday Times Rich List. The UK-based publication estimates David is independently worth more than $2.8 billion.
He resides on the Isle of Man and arrived to St. Kitts on a plane with Ergen and Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Mogaznews En reported. David owns SwissX, a medical marijuana company that produces luxury CBD oils that have been endorsed by Snoop Dog.
His hologram company was responsible for digitally recreating Tupac in 2012 for Coachella performances and Michael Jackson for the 2014 Billboard Music Awards. The billionaire ran into legal trouble in April after a former female employee was allegedly fired for refusing to have sex with him, People reported. David paid $11.1 million in a harassment settlement.
David was released after paying $30,000 cash bail. He is scheduled to appear at Basseterre Magistrate Court on May 14. He’s required to surrender all travel documents and report to the Frigate Bay Police Station for daily check-ins.
John Flickner, 78, waits for word on where he can go after being evicted from his Niagara Towers apartment for his use of medical marijuana. (Robert Kirkham/Buffalo News)
For hours Tuesday, John Flickner sat in his wheelchair in a Niagara Falls apartment building lobby – clutching his medical marijuana and worried about where he would go for the night.
The prescribed drug eases his chronic pain from a skydiving accident 50 years ago.
It also got the 78-year-old man evicted from Niagara Towers, sparking a debate about a tenant’s rights to medical marijuana in a federally subsidized facility.
Flickner uses the drug with a doctor’s prescription, and he has carried a New York medical marijuana card since a run-in with managers last summer at the senior low-income housing facility subsidized by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“It’s a vaporizer,” Flickner said of his prescription. “It’s got a battery and a cartridge fits on it. The oil’s in it. You don’t smoke it. There’s no odor to it.”
The vapor relaxes the muscle spasms that make it hard for him to breathe, he said.
“Just a minute or two after using it, it starts to take effect,” Flickner said.
But while state law allows Flickner to use prescribed medical marijuana, federal law allowed his landlord to evict him for drug possession.78-year-old evicted for medical marijuana
As the use of medical marijuana spreads in New York State, more people could find themselves in the same position as Flickner: Use the prescribed drug and risk eviction from a HUD apartment, or steer clear of medical marijuana and stay in the apartment, but live with pain or take potentially addictive pills to kill pain.
Federal law did not require Niagara Towers to evict Flickner. Indeed, the law gives HUD building managers the flexibility to allow residents to take the prescribed drug. But the company that owns the 201-unit high-rise on Cedar Avenue was not willing to let Flickner do so.
“We don’t allow marijuana of any kind – liquid, smoking, whatever,” said Amy Styles, a spokeswoman for LHP Capital, the Tennessee company that operates the Niagara Falls facility and 56 others around the nation, including Tonawanda Towers and Urban Park Towers in Lockport.
Doctor’s prescription or not, LHP enforced its policy on Flickner, persuading a Niagara Falls judge to sign an eviction order because of Flickner’s marijuana possession.
On Tuesday, a city marshal came to Flickner’s apartment and read aloud the eviction notice. Then Flickner left the apartment and took the elevator down to the lobby holding a plastic bag with his medical marijuana and some other prescriptions.
He waited as others tried to find a place for him to go and a ride to get there. They found a place, but no one could find him a ride in a vehicle large enough to accommodate his wheelchair. So in 28-degree weather, Flickner steered his motorized wheelchair from Niagara Towers, across a Tops Market parking lot, then across Portage Road, and rolled down the sidewalk to his new temporary home: the Niagara Gospel Rescue Mission.
Calling the cops
Flickner’s troubles began June 11, when staffers at Niagara Towers making a monthly inspection found a small amount of marijuana on the living room table in his fourth-floor apartment.
“Any type of marijuana that is found, our managers are required to call the police,” Styles said.
Two Niagara Falls police detectives arrived, met with assistant office manager Wendy Brosius and confiscated the marijuana.
He had smoked the marijuana buds in his room.
“I didn’t think anything of it. It’s legal,” Flickner said. “I was getting it in Canada. I was getting it through a doctor there.”
One of the detectives told Flickner he needed a script from a New York State doctor to possess the marijuana, according to a police report. The police chose not to charge him.
The assistant office manager said Flickner would be evicted due to “their rules and regulations of the facility,” according to the police report.
Two days later Flickner obtained a New York medical marijuana card and lined up a new supply source.
But LHP began the eviction process. Flickner had lived in his apartment for two years. He had signed a lease that made it clear no drugs were allowed.
Smoking pot in his room before the inspection became a key issue in court, said Jason J. Cafarella, a Niagara Falls attorney hired to represent LHP.
Niagara Towers hoped to reach an agreement for Flickner to leave without need for a formal eviction. That didn’t happen, so a Nov. 1 trial was held, Cafarella said.
The trial lasted about an hour before City Judge Danielle M. Restaino. Flickner was represented by Kevin Quinn of the Center for Elder Law and Justice in Buffalo, who did not respond to a request for comment.
On Nov. 29, Restaino signed the eviction order, and a 72-hour notice was taped to the door of Flickner’s apartment.
At 2 p.m. Tuesday, Brosius and Rocco Zendano Jr. of the Niagara Falls City Marshal’s Office showed up to evict Flickner, while a Niagara Towers custodian changed the locks on the apartment door.
A marshal reads aloud an eviction notice in John Flickner’s apartment Tuesday. The 78-year-old was evicted for using medical marijuana. (Thomas Prohaska/Buffalo News)
Brosius told Flickner arrangements would be made for him to return and get his belongings.
Flickner, already wearing a coat, put on his hat, rounded up his marijuana inhaler and some cigarette butts, and wheeled himself to the elevator.
Search for relief
Getting around in a wheelchair is a far cry from what Flickner did as a young man when skydiving was his hobby. He made more than 50 jumps, but in 1968, near Boise, Idaho, he crashed to the ground.
“The parachute hit the ground about the same time I did, from a couple hundred feet in the air,” he recalled. “It was an error on my part.”
As a result of his injuries, he has five fused vertebrae and has undergone four surgeries on his spine and hips.
He worked for many years as a toolmaker and lived around the country before eventually moving to Niagara Falls. He was married twice and has four children, all out of state.
“It’s gotten steadily more painful,” he said of his condition.
Doctors at Complete Senior Care in Amherst sent Flickner to get medical marijuana from Dr. Barry Crawford, who is licensed to prescribe it.
John Flickner shows his medical marijuana device that provides him with his doses. (Robert Kirkham/Buffalo News)
A policy dilemma
In 1998, then-President Bill Clinton signed a law requiring landlords of federally assisted housing facilities to deny admission to anyone whom they believe to be using illegal drug, including marijuana.
But with the trend toward legalization of marijuana, landlords began to ask HUD for guidance on the issue.
As of last month, 23 states, including New York, had legalized medical marijuana, and 10 other states had legalized recreational use of the drug.
During the Obama administration, HUD issued memos to landlords that told them the 1998 law allows them to use their own judgment in whether to allow tenants to use medical marijuana in government-subsidized housing. The Trump administration has not altered that policy.
A 2014 memo reminded landlords that marijuana is still listed as an illegal substance under the federal Controlled Substances Act, and prospective tenants who use controlled substances are to be barred from public housing. But the 1998 law “affords owners the discretion to evict or not evict current tenants for their use of marijuana.”
A 2011 memo said, “State laws that legalize medical marijuana directly conflict with the admission requirements set forth in (the 1998 law) and are thus subject to federal pre-emption.”
In other words, those who want to move into public housing are barred from using medical marijuana. Those already in public housing who want the drug under a state medical marijuana law need a landlord willing to let them use the drug.
Flickner’s landlord isn’t willing.
“Our policy is that we have a drug-free community,” said Styles of LHP. “Our policies and procedures do say ‘no drugs whatsoever.’ “
“They have a policy, and they have every right to that policy,” said Cafarella, LHP’s attorney. “It’s just unfortunate, the end result.”
Search for shelter
After his eviction, Brosius advised him he could go to the Niagara Falls Family YMCA or to Community Missions. Flickner wasn’t enthusiastic about either option.
About 3 p.m., Brosius called for an ambulance and asked the crew to take him to Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center. The ambulance crew refused to take him because he didn’t have a medical reason to go to the hospital.
At about 5 p.m., Robyn L. Krueger, executive director of Community Missions of the Niagara Frontier, tried to find a van that could bring Flickner and his wheelchair to the Buffalo Avenue shelter.
No company, however, could be found with an available vehicle. So Krueger contacted the Niagara Gospel Rescue Mission, located in the former YMCA a short distance from Niagara Towers.
By then, Flickner had changed his mind and was willing to go to the shelter. So he made the trip using his wheelchair.
Waiting for word and shivering, John Flickner parks his wheelchair in a back storage room as he waits for a bed at the Niagara Gospel Rescue Mission. (Robert Kirkham/Buffalo News)
The day after his eviction, Andree Levesque, a friend of Flickner’s, picked him up at the shelter.
“We knew he was going to be evicted but there was no time to find anything,” said Levesque, 71.
He spent most of the day at the county Social Services Department and then moved into a motel room with Levesque, who was allowed to claim some of his belongings at Niagara Towers.
Long-term living arrangements are still being sought. On Thursday, Flickner was staying at Community Missions. Flickner said he didn’t mind the Gospel Rescue Mission.
“They’re nice people doing nice things,” he said. “If I have to stay somewhere, I’d like to stay there.”
With buzz building across the globe, the momentum is sure to continue into 2019, when the combined North American market is expected to exceed $16 billion.
A depiction of a cannabis bud drops from the ceiling at Leafly’s in Toronto, as midnight passes and marks the first day of the legalization of cannabis across Canada on Oct. 17, 2018.Chris Young / AP
PORTLAND, Ore. — The last year was a 12-month champagne toast for the legal marijuana industry as the global market exploded and cannabis pushed its way further into the financial and cultural mainstream.
Liberal California became the largest legal U.S. marketplace, while conservative Utah and Oklahoma embraced medical marijuana. Canada ushered in broad legalization, and Mexico’s Supreme Court set the stage for that country to follow.
U.S. drug regulators approved the first marijuana-based pharmaceutical to treat kids with a form of epilepsy, and billions of investment dollars poured into cannabis companies. Even main street brands like Coca-Cola said they are considering joining the party.
“I have been working on this for decades, and this was the year that the movement crested,” said U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat working to overturn the federal ban on pot. “It’s clear that this is all coming to a head.”
With buzz building across the globe, the momentum will continue into 2019.
Luxembourg is poised to become the first European country to legalize recreational marijuana, and South Africa is moving in that direction. Thailand legalized medicinal use of marijuana on Tuesday, and other Southeastern Asian countries may follow South Korea’s lead in legalizing cannabidiol, or CBD. It’s a non-psychoactive compound found in marijuana and hemp plants and used for treatment of certain medical problems.
“It’s not just the U.S. now. It’s spreading,” said Ben Curren, CEO of Green Bits, a San Jose, California, company that develops software for marijuana retailers and businesses.
Curren’s firm is one of many that blossomed as the industry grew. He started the company in 2014 with two friends. Now, he has 85 employees, and the company’s software processes $2.5 billion in sales transactions a year for more than 1,000 U.S. retail stores and dispensaries.
Green Bits raised $17 million in April, pulling in money from investment firms including Snoop Dogg’s Casa Verde Capital. Curren hopes to expand internationally by 2020.
“A lot of the problem is keeping up with growth,” he said.
Legal marijuana was a $10.4 billion industry in the U.S. in 2018 with a quarter-million jobs devoted just to the handling of marijuana plants, said Beau Whitney, vice president and senior economist at New Frontier Data, a leading cannabis market research and data analysis firm. There are many other jobs that don’t involve direct work with the plants but they are harder to quantify, Whitney said.
Investors poured $10 billion into cannabis in North America in 2018, twice what was invested in the last three years combined, he said, and the combined North American market is expected to reach more than $16 billion in 2019.
“Investors are getting much savvier when it comes to this space because even just a couple of years ago, you’d throw money at it and hope that something would stick,” he said. “But now investors are much more discerning.”
Increasingly, U.S. lawmakers see that success and want it for their states.
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. states now have legalized some form of medical marijuana.
Voters in November made Michigan the 10th state — and first in the Midwest — to legalize recreational marijuana. Governors in New Yorkand New Jersey are pushing for a similar law in their states next year, and momentum for broad legalization is building in Pennsylvania and Illinois.
“Let’s legalize the adult use of recreational marijuana once and for all,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said last week.
Marijuana clone plants are displayed for sale by Interstate 5 Farms at the cannabis-themed Kushstock Festival at Adelanto, Calif., on Oct. 20, 2018.Richard Vogel / AP
State lawmakers in Nebraska just formed a campaign committee to put a medical cannabis initiative to voters in 2020. Nebraska shares a border with Colorado, one of the first two states to legalize recreational marijuana, and Iowa, which recently started a limited medical marijuana program.
“Attitudes have been rapidly evolving and changing. I know that my attitude toward it has also changed,” said Nebraska state Sen. Adam Morfeld, a Democrat. “Seeing the medical benefits and seeing other states implement it … has convinced me that it’s not the dangerous drug it’s made out to be.”
With all its success, the U.S. marijuana industry continues to be undercut by a robust black market and federal law that treats marijuana as a controlled substance like heroin. Financial institutions are skittish about cannabis businesses, even in U.S. states where they are legal, and investors until recently have been reluctant to put their money behind pot.
Marijuana businesses can’t deduct their business expenses on their federal taxes and face huge challenges getting insurance and finding real estate for their brick-and-mortar operations.
“Until you have complete federal legalization, you’re going to be living with that structure,” said Marc Press, a New Jersey attorney who advises cannabis businesses.
Brokaw’s legendary probity makes his public admission a landmark in erasing marijuana’s fading stigma.
Add Tom Brokaw to the growing number of public celebrities embracing medical marijuana. Long an American symbol of stalwart and at times fussy newsmen, Brokaw is in remission from multiple myeloma (a cancer that grows in bone marrow). However, the pain sustained in his bones from the cancer has turned Brokaw to medical marijuana.
“I’m now on medical marijuana for my back, for the first time,” Brokaw told SurvivorNet, a cancer information site. “I’ve not done that before.”
Brokaw admits that he’s no less ambitious a journalist and currently working on a book about Richard Nixon. “Politics keep me distracted from cancer,” he says. But when he’s not working on that, trying to acquire medical marijuana in Florida, where he resides, is “complicated” and almost a full-time job in itself.
In coming out as a marijuana advocate, Brokaw engenders himself to a growing number of cancer patients using medical marijuana in treatment. According to SurvivorNet’s CEO Steve Alperin, more people are trying to learn more about medical marijuana and having someone like Brokaw open up about his experience will “help people understand there are alternative approaches to pain management.”
That said, Brokaw says he’s “keenly aware” how fortunate his cancer battle has been. When he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma back in August 2013, he was immediately medevacked to the Mayo Clinic with a room already available for him. He went through years of treatment — including chemotherapy and spinal operations — but all that cost tons of money.
“An extraordinary amount of progress has been made with drugs and treatment. We haven’t gotten the cost thing worked out yet,” he told SurvivorNetOpens a New Window.. “At one point, I counted up the price and it was something like $10,000 a day, you know, that I was spending on drugs. I have the blessing of having a great program through first RCA, then GE, and now Comcast. So the checks that I write for pharmacy are very, very small. And it makes — every time I do that, it makes me aware of the people who are not in the same position that I am, and how I think about them.”
High THC Cannabis Oil has been used by numerous people for centuries, but it was banned in the second half of the 20th century, as a result of the rise of the billion-dollar pharmaceutical industry.
Mike Wise is a retired professional skateboarder and national champion athlete with The University of Texas where he graduated with a degree in Radio-Television-Film in 2009. He has never been a fan of doctors, so when he got diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in 2014 he decided to take his health into his own hands.
Nowadays, he is one of the most well known activists in the world fighting for the legalization of cannabis oil. Using this treatment, he has cured over 2,000 people from a variety of diseases including terminal ones such as Cancer and Glioblastoma (brain tumors).
Since moving to Europe in 2017, he has spoken at over 30 different countries all over the world on this topic. He is also currently filming a documentary with Rick Simpson to tell his story and help to get this information out to the public.
He states that cannabis oil can cure a vast variety of serious health issues, like diabetes, arteriosclerosis, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, asthma, psoriasis, as well as some of the deadliest forms of cancer.
Mike recently recounted his story to a magazine in the Czech Republic: “I always tell people – Cannabis will cure you, and you will see that at present, it is the best cure there is in the world!”
He began his story: “It was 2014. I had been dealing with symptoms related to Crohn’s disease since 2000. As an athlete, I was always busy traveling and competing. Doing so caused much damage to build up in my body after years of this abuse. The symptoms got worse and worse until I began vomiting blood every morning at 4am when I would wake up, and several times throughout the day; every day.
I had been studying plants as a hobby for years, and had been growing cannabis illegally since 2005 to smoke and occasionally make into edibles. After moving to Colorado in 2014, I began to learn a lot more about growing from other local growers and about cannabis as a medication from other local activists, caregivers, and enlightened doctors. I was filming a movie about families who had to move and relocate from another state to access medical cannabis in Colorado for their children entitled: ‘Illegally Alive’, which you can watch for free with this link. www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOn142GAjsU
During the production of the film, I got in touch with Rick Simpson and flew out to Zagreb, Croatia to interview with him in person. While I was out there, we attended a conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia where Rick was speaking. I had to run outside in the middle of the conference to vomit. Rick saw me and said: ‘Mike, you really need to get on this oil brother’.
After getting the kick in the butt I needed from the godfather of cannabis oil himself, I ingested 90 grams in 120 days of high THC oil and cured all my symptoms relating to Crohn’s disease. This first 45 grams I ingested orally, the second 45 grams I took via suppository. Now I only take 1 gram per month as a maintenance dose.
It’s important to note that I never elected to undergo any surgeries. I did not let the doctors mutilate me and remove any organs or other body parts. I also completely changed my diet eliminating all processed foods, sugars, and carbohydrates. If I ingest any of these substances, I will need to take oil to prevent any new symptoms from showing up. I also eliminated as many sources of stress from my life I possibly could.
After curing myself, I decided to share my story publicly on social media. I immediately began to receive hundreds of messages a week from friends and acquaintances of friends. Everybody needed cannabis oil for their brother, mother, sister, daughter, father, grandmother, grandfather, etc…
I decided to get my Caregiver License in Colorado and immediately planted 500 seeds in my basement and began to supply the oil to anyone who asked. I have never turned anyone away since I started making the oil for myself and others started asking for it. I even used to make it for free. I would tell patients if they could bring me the materials and solvent needed to make the oil, then I would make it for them for free and would not charge them for my time or labor.
To take my activism a step further, I created an activist run and oriented company called: ‘OG Labs’. On my website (www.oglabsgenetics.com/oil.html) anybody in the world can now reach me and have the oil made and sent discreetly to their doorstep to any state or country in the world. I believe, as the great Thomas Jefferson did, that ‘if a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.’ I am hoping that by openly offering the oil for sale publicly, that other activists around the world will see what I am doing and feel empowered to stand up and make the oil for patients in need as well.”
Cannabis oil therapy is equally effective in all cases, for it knows no age limit. It can even be given to babies. People who publicly claim to cure cancer are threatened with 5 – 40 years imprisonment, according to laws in North America. Mike says the preparation of this miraculous oil is extremely easy. The standard protocol starts with several drops of cannabis oil three times a day.
“The usual dose I start cancer patients on is 60 grams within 90 days. If the patient has undergone any chemotherapy or radiation they will need much more than 60 grams”, he explains.
“Cannabis is not a miracle drug in the sense that most people think. The cannabis itself doesn’t necessarily cure you; your body heals and cures itself. Cannabis simply triggers this reaction to occur. You see, cannabis works like a key inserted into a lock. Your bodies contain what is known scientifically as CB1 and CB2 receptors spread throughout it’s entire system and on every organ. When cannabis gets into the body and into these CB1 and CB2 receptors it works like a key opening a lock, the receptors then began firing correctly and any imperfections or illnesses which are contained within your body will immediately begin to get healed because these receptors are literally located everywhere within your body.”
“This is significant for 2
reasons,” he continues “cannabis can help to heal or cure nearly any illness or
disease because these receptors send signs to your body and organs to begin functioning
correctly and to stop misfiring. In the case of cancer, these receptors will
tell the body how to identify cancer cells and can help to specifically target
and kill them without the use of any harmful or invasive treatments.
The second reason this is important is regarding chemotherapy and radiation specifically. I personally believe that these treatments do more harm than good. There are numerous studies out there stating that more people die from cancer treatments than from the cancer itself. To put it plainly, chemotherapy kills more people than it heals. After treating so many patients with cannabis oil, I began to notice a pattern. Patients who have taken chemotherapy or radiation always require more oil than the standard 60 grams in 90 days.
I know some patients who have taken dozens of chemo sessions, and have now consumed over 350+ grams of oil. They have consumed a lot of oil, and continue to take it today; but they are still alive. They often come to me after the doctors have given up on them, with only weeks to live. Their bodies are extremely frail and damaged. I believe that this is from the chemotherapy.
It is not a targeted treatment. It kills all cells in your body, unlike THC cannabis oil which helps to identify and kill only the cancer cells. This is why patients who are diagnosed with cancer and have not done any chemotherapy or radiation typically need 60 grams in 90 days before switching to a maintenance dose, as opposed to those who have done chemotherapy or radiation. They need more oil because their bodies are far more damaged from both the cancer, and the chemotherapy; as opposed to being damaged by just the cancer itself. Your body needs more oil, and more time to rest and heal from all the damage incurred.”
And, it is never too late for the patient to start cannabis oil therapy. He believes that every country in the world should allow their citizens to cultivate and use cannabis for medical purposes. He also points out that pharmacies should be opened for those who can’t cultivate it if they can supply it at fair rate for all people, not just the rich.
“Little is known that cannabis has been used as one of the most
healing remedies for hundreds of years before Christ.
In the ancient Persian religious scripts, which among other
things describe the most healing herbs, cannabis takes the first place,”
concludes Mike.
His biggest wish and goal is to live in a world without cancer
where every person can legally cultivate as many cannabis plants as they would
like on their property or in their home, and where every person in the world
can legally and openly consume cannabis (like smoking it) in every place where
you can legally smoke tobacco or cigarettes. Until that day comes he tells us
that he will continue fighting for our rights to do so.
If you have access to materials and would like to watch his detailed video on how to make it yourself, you can do so here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKT9tRcA-RU
He also hosts a page completely dedicated to cannabis patients on YouTube which can be found here: www.youtube.com/TheMikeWiseShow
