In the recent light of marijuana legalization throughout much of the United States, more and more individuals are experiencing the medicinal benefits, medicinal benefits that can be had from the use of marijuana and all of its processed derivatives. In spite of the current legal status of cannabis in the U. S., and its growing use as an alternative to most pharmaceutical drugs, there are still a large number of people who believe inhaling marijuana is detrimental to your lungs.
One of the prevalent methods for partaking of either medicinal marijuana or recreational marijuana is by smoking the dried herb, although vaping cannabis is very popular today.
Marijuana’s Benefits
Flaunted by a growing number of people, it is considered a miraculous cure-all that not only helps to combat cancer and other degenerative diseases, but cannabis is also known for its ability to promote a sense of peacefulness and calm. Recent clinical trials on the medicinal benefits of smoked or vaporized cannabis has shown that it not only helps in the relief of chronic and debilitating pain, it is also helpful for neuropathic pain, and spasticity caused by multiple sclerosis.
It is of significant interest to cancer and AIDS therapy, as marijuana not only helps to improve one’s appetite, but it also greatly reduces the discomfort associated with chemotherapy.
Most detractors of marijuana would have people believe that smoking cannabis is no different from smoking tobacco, or worse. But, exactly what does marijuana do to your lungs? Here’s a quick look at the current known facts on the subject.
Smoking Marijuana and Lung Health – A Quick Look
While there is an undeniably long list of adverse effects associated with the inhalation of tobacco smoke, and the general consumption of tobacco through combustion and inhalation (i. e. smoking), a surprising body of evidence revealed that smoking cannabis is actually much safer than smoking tobacco. Further studies have shown that the regular, albeit moderate smoking of cannabis and all of its derivatives, help to actually decrease the risk of lung cancer. And, it may even help to treat cancer already present in the lungs.
A study conducted Dr. Donald Tashkin, a professor emeritus of medicine at UCLA, has even revealed that cannabis smoke, when compared to tobacco smoke, contains powerful anti-inflammatory qualities that help it to combat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – one of the main complications that arise from prolonged tobacco smoking.
So, what does marijuana do to your lungs? Basically, casual or moderate use of marijuana does not damage, hinder or impair lungs’ function, according to a 2012 study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association. Another study which supports that marijuana smoke does not negatively affect lung health was published by Annals of The American Thoracic Society.
Rapidly rising to stardom emerges a powerful, yet soulful and melodic voice - a voice belonging to Steph Lecor, a Haitian beauty, and one third of Poe Boy Music Group's trio Kulture Shock.
Raised in Miami, FL this spunky songstress began her music career singing in her church choir, and at local talent shows. After graduating high school, Stephie was able to take her musical aspirations to the next level. Her professional music career as a back up singer for the Van Halen tour, a gig booked for her by Ky-Mani Marley. She toured over 20 states on the Van Halen tour, and quickly rose from a back up singer to a center stage songstress." I had an opportunity to have a solo part. It was very exciting to get in front of thousands of people and have a moment to step out from the back and shine," reflects Steph.
As a lover of music and writing her own songs, Steph sees the writing process as a form of therapy. She creates concepts and uses that as an opportunity to write about life, love, and experiences. Stephie has always been inspired to create and share stories. She describes her music as "honest, with a mixture of hip hop, rock, house, and sometimes even reggae."
Influenced by many great artists, including Etta James, Steph hopes to have a long and prosperous career. "I just love people that make the music they love and love the music they make," admits Stephie. If you were to listen to Steph Lecor's iPod right now, you'd experience a variety of music. From Mariah Carey to Alanis Morissette, even Jay Z and Madonna would be featured artists on her play list.
Her day-to-day schedule consists of exercising, writing spending time with family, and rehearsing. " I rehearse for an hour a day," explains Steph. "Some days I'm recording, some days it's media training or interviews, either way, my days are very productive."
Be sure to follow Steph on her continuous journey to dominate the music industry, while entertaining the world.
Be part of the journey follow Steph on twitter and instagram @StephLecor
"I'm From QB"
by Ruc ft. Nature & Capone off the 'I Am QB' Album coming July 2015
This song was mixed by "Q Banga - The B. C. E." at Q's Dungeon Studios
June 8, 2015 — 4:25 PM EDTUpdated on June 8, 2015 — 6:04 PM EDT
Apple CEO Tim Cook, right, greets Johnny Iovine during the keynote address during Apple WWDC on June 8, 2015 in San Francisco.
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Apple announced a massive new initiative on Monday to take back from myriad competitors what it seems to consider the company's to own: music.
Everyone looked to be in the crosshairs at Apple's annual WWDC event in San Francisco, including streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora—but even Sirius XM satellite radio and social Web services like Tumblr might be feeling a little zeroed-in on. Apple's new service, called Apple Music, combines continuous, streaming playback of music from its iTunes library, just like Rdio or Spotify, as well as custom playlist creation and autonomous deejaying features such as Pandora, and it even launched its own global radio station, led by DJ Zane Lowe.
On the streaming side of things, startups like Spotify should be very worried about Apple's ability to reach a large audience quickly while cutting better deals with labels than a newcomer to the space might be able to find. Apple says its streaming service will have more than 30 million songs. However, the company is still negotiating deals, and currently has the rights to Taylor Swift (sorry, Spotify), but not The Beatles, for example, according to a person familiar with the discussions. If Apple manages to recreate the full iTunes catalog for its streaming service, it could be a game-changing moment for how average users get their entertainment. And thanks to the recent acquisition of Beats, Apple gets to rely on the music-industry savvy of Dr. Dre, Jimmy Iovine, and Trent Reznor to help prove its street cred when necessary.
It also introduced an additional feature, dubbed Connect, that seemingly aims to take on how artists (both established and new) connect with their fans, putting it squarely in the space of Tumblr, Twitter, and SoundCloud. That sounds like a nice idea, but Apple has been historically tragic in this space—recall the company's ill-fated Ping “social network for music”—and Apple still hasn't fully embraced the open Internet as a core piece of its offerings. In fact, it went to great lengths to talk about how it would keep your data anonymous and never use it the way Google and Facebook will.
If you assume there's no upside in having your services know who you are and what you like, that's a pretty good argument to make. The businesses that are thriving on the Web and in apps right now seem to take a different view.
Most interesting, perhaps, is the subtle move to enter a space currently dominated by one company: satellite radio. At present, Sirius XM comes standard on just about every radio in every car you can buy. But as Apple moves into the automotive space with such offerings as CarPlay (“The car is theultimate mobile device,” Apple Operations Chief Jeff Williams said recently), a clearer picture begins to take shape. If the company can combine its in-car experience with the multi-channel, human-programmed new set of stations in Apple Music's Beats One radio, Sirius's trip in the car might be shorter than it thinks.
Even music videos—a business that has been massive for YouTube—are in Apple's sights They're included as part of the Apple Music package.
In fact, the theme on Monday could have been: Apple on the attack. The company lashed out several times against competitors that seem to be eating up small plots of land around its kingdom. If it wasn't iOS updates that make the iPad work more like a Microsoft Surface, then it was soft attacks on other companies' privacy and security issues, or improvements to its mapping software that bring it somewhat closer to parity with Google's very dominant service. Apple even introduced a whole new connective layer in the next version of iOS called Intelligence, which basically replicates the functionality of Google Now, a service Google has made a central part of its future.
Apple doesn't necessarily need to bring these features to its products in order to succeed—that much is clear. But the company has historically been masterful at taking what the competition is doing and making it Apple's—a legacy that was on full display today.
Apple's Pushing to Complete Streaming Music Deal Before Event by Lucas ShawTim Higgins June 4, 2015 — 7:27 PM EDT Just days before Apple Inc. plans to reveal a music streaming service, the company is still negotiating with record labels over terms. The labels are pushing to get a larger chunk of revenue than they receive under their current deals with Spotify Ltd., a competing streaming service, people familiar with the negotiations said. Both sides want to complete a deal before Apple’s June 8 annual event in San Francisco for more than 5,000 developers, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the talks are continuing. The rapid rise of streaming music and television has raised the stakes for media companies, as record labels and TV networks try to forge deals that ensure they share in that growth. Apple wants to remain the entertainment industry’s most important partner despite the popularity of services like Spotify, Netflix Inc. and others. “Who is going to get the majority share of the profit from the content?” saidTamara Gaffney, principal of Adobe Digital Index, which analyzes consumers digital media consumption. “Apple has always wanted to get a lot of the share and they’re now in a negotiating situation with content manufacturers who want more of the share for themselves -- it’s a really tough space.” In talks with Apple, the music labels are seeking a benchmark for negotiations with other services, including Spotify. The labels take 55 percent of Spotify’s monthly $9.99 rate, and publishers take about 15 percent. Labels are pushing for closer to 60 percent from Apple, the people said. Apple, Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group, Sony Corp.’s music entertainment unit and Access Industries Holdings’ Warner Music Group declined to comment on the negotiations. TV Talks Apple also has been in talks with broadcasters ABC, CBS and Fox to be part of a Web-based service that would include about 25 channels, people have said. Those negotiations are moving slowly and Apple TV announcements aren’t expected at next week’s conference, people familiar with the plans said. Apple, which upended the music business more than a decade ago by selling individual songs online, has helped push artists to new levels of stardom through its iTunes service and by featuring them in commercials or promotions. Though Apple remains the largest music retailer in the world, its place as an industry tastemaker is being challenged by Google Inc.’s YouTube and Spotify. Competing Services Spotify has more than 60 million users -- with a quarter of them buying the $9.99-a-month ad-free subscription. Music is the most popular genre on YouTube’s video service, which attracts more than 1 billion users a month. YouTube also has a new ad-free streaming program called Music Key for $9.99. Pandora Media Inc., the largest online radio service, finished the first quarter with 79.2 million monthly active listeners, with most using its free ad-supported service. These streaming services have yet to offset losses from the decline in sales of downloaded music and physical records, and the labels say YouTube and Spotify need to do a better job of getting their users to pay. Yet if trends continue, revenue from streaming music is expected to exceed sales from downloads, according to MusicWatch. The growth in time and dollars spent on streaming music was a big reason for Apple’s $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics last year. Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine, former chairman of the record label Interscope Geffen A&M, and the rapper and producer Dr. Dre joined Apple to help revamp the tech company’s music business alongside other prominent musicians and DJs. Music App Apple’s new music app will be home to the subscription service, downloads and a revamped version of iTunes radio, the people said. It will include some exclusive, behind the scenes video. Artists often welcome videographers and photographers into the studio with them, and Apple has hired executives to help shoot and produce video from recording sessions with willing musicians. The app will also feature artist pages -- mostly seen as being promotional -- that they can use to host videos, songs and other things for free. This is part of a program called Apple Connect. Apple will compensate the artists and labels for songs it gives away, as it has done with iTunes’ “Free Song of the Week” feature. Apple’s negotiations with record labels have drawn the scrutiny of U.S. antitrust officials. The Federal Trade Commission has been looking at whether Apple is using its position as the largest seller of music downloads to put rival music services at a disadvantage, a person familiar with the FTC’s actions has said.
Going to the Ends of the Earth to Get the Most Out of Music
Photo
Employees at Kobalt, a music publisher, in London. The company tracks music on major to obscure digital outlets.CreditLuke Wolagiewicz for The New York Times
In the music industry’s hunt for royalties, no digital nook or cranny is too small to scour for income — even for the biggest hits.
The songwriting royalties of one song that reached No. 1 around the world two years ago totaled $4.76 million, most of which came from the usual places: iTunes, Spotify and radio stations.
Yet among the 900,000 sources of income counted by Kobalt, one of the song’s publishers — which provided a detailed accounting summary but declined to identify the track, to protect the privacy of its client’s financial information — there are plenty of obscure outlets likeSwedebeat, a provider of fitness media programs. Its 2,400 streams of the track in Norway resulted in payments to Kobalt of just $8.
In the sprawling world of online music, every dollar from every place like Swedebeat counts.
“These days it’s essential to collect every income stream one can,” said Mark Beaven, the manager of Dr. Luke, a Kobalt client who writes hits for stars like Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus and Kesha.
Since its founding in 2000, Kobalt has carved out an influential position in the music industry by tracking even the most minute points of data.
Now the company, whose roster also includes Beck, Gwen Stefani and Thom Yorke of Radiohead, believes it can corral even more money for its clients by simplifying the way that money flows around the world from every click, download and stream.
The company is taking aim at the lucrative but byzantine world of international copyright collection societies — the patchwork of organizations that, country by country, gathers money from radio, television and digital outlets and funnels it back to songwriters and publishers.
This structure, in place for decades, controls the flow of billions of dollars in royalties each year. But Kobalt’s founder, Willard Ahdritz, thinks that when it comes to the digital market, the system is rife with inefficiencies, delays and hidden costs.
So last year Kobalt bought its own collections group, theAmerican Mechanical Rights Agency, better known as AMRA. After renaming it the American Music Rights Association, Kobalt plans to start using the agency this summer as a central clearinghouse for digital licensing around the world, a change that Mr. Ahdritz believes could double or triple the amount that songwriters receive from digital outlets like Spotify. (Songwriters’ royalties are separate from the income that may be made by a song’s performers.)
Kobalt, a music publisher, tracks music royalties. Whenever a song is played or bought on services like YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, Google Play or Amazon, Kobalt tracks it. For this (unidentified) hit song, millions of such transactions were ultimately divided into 900,000 distinct income sources the company calls royalty lines. Here is how they break down.
REST OF
WORLD
9,800
Broadcast TV
40,000
REST OF
WORLD
U.S.
10,000
EUROPE
20,000
Radio plays
55,250
Streaming
780,000
EUROPE
EUROPE
85,000
Physical albums
3,000
REST
EUROPE
Eur.
REST OF
WORLD
Other
6,750
EUR.
REST
UNITED STATES
670,000
U.S.
Boxes are sized according the number of royalty lines tracked among type and geography
Downloads
15,000
NOR-
WAY
“It is very clear that the music industry was not in good shape predigital,” Mr. Ahdritz said. “It was opaque, with old systems, a very territorial business. It needs a new structure to handle this new digital world.”
Publishers rely on national collection societies, like Sacem in France and GEMA in Germany, to compensate writers when their songs are played outside their home country.
But problems can easily arise, music executives say. A company like Spotify, for example, can represent thousands of sources of income, differentiated by country, account type and other factors. And each society maintains its own database of songs, making errors and conflicts almost inevitable. With accounting delays, it can take up to two years for a writer to be paid. And when money passes from one society to another, each takes a cut in the form of various taxes and fees, slicing away at the amount the writer ultimately receives.
Mr. Ahdritz said these costs can strip up to 75 percent of the royalty originally paid for music, including the share taken by a publisher; others in the industry estimated the total at 50 to 60 percent.
Kobalt’s attention to data has helped it become one of the fastest-growing music publishers. In a recent Billboard magazine survey, the company had stakes in 17.3 percent of the songs played on pop radio stations, putting it second only to Sony/ATV, the industry giant.
In 2012, Kobalt struck an administration deal with Paul McCartney’s company, MPL Communications, and last week Lee Eastman, Mr. McCartney’s lawyer, said the results were quickly apparent. “Within the first 12 months of switching, we had the benefit of a 25 percent uplift in collections and a faster and more transparent payment system,” Mr. Eastman said.
Moby, another longtime client, was more blunt: “Kobalt is more like a tech company than a music company. As a result, no one ever told them to steal from their artists.”
Through June 2014, the most recent fiscal year for which data is available, Kobalt reported a net loss of $19 million and about $203 million in revenue. Mr. Ahdritz said its publishing division turned a profit of $3.9 million but other investments resulted in the loss.
In the clubby world of music publishing, Kobalt is often dismissed as a company made up of efficient number crunchers rather than music specialists.
“I think music publishing is about more than collecting data,” said Martin N. Bandier, chief executive of Sony/ATV, whose catalog includes Beatles and Motown hits. “I think it’s about signing songwriters; working with those songwriters; maximizing, exploiting, creating opportunities for the songwriters; finding opportunities to createBroadway shows.”
Photo
Willard Ahdritz, founder of Kobalt. The company plans to use its collections group as a central clearinghouse for digital licensing.CreditLuke Wolagiewicz for The New York Times
In its early days, Kobalt challenged the music publishing world with a radical business model. While most publishers take ownership of song copyrights and split income 50-50 with their writers, Kobalt lets its writers keep those copyrights and charges administration fees of about 10 percent.
“When I started, I was like the guy who told the wife about all the mistresses,” said Mr. Ahdritz, a hard-charging Swede whose otherwise plain corner office contains a Viking helmet and a sword.
As digital music has spread, a clutch of new companies like Kobalt has emerged to analyze and process the vast amounts of resulting data. But all that data has also created complex new problems for the music industry.
According to Mr. Ahdritz and others, one result is that some countries’ collecting societies have been unable to handle the flood of information, leading to whole areas of the world where little or no money makes its way back to composers. Kobalt, Mr. Ahdritz said, receives “almost nothing” from digital streams in places like Russia, the Middle East, Latin America and Southeast Asia.
Defenders of the international system point to the societies’ deep knowledge of their local territories and the strength they provide through collective licensing agreements, which protect all musicians, from stars to unknowns.
“The truth is that the strength of collective management has never been so robust and so necessary for creators than it is today,” said Jean-Noël Tronc, chief executive of Sacem, the French agency.
For its next move, Kobalt wants to transform AMRA into a collection society for digital music outside the United States. Once registered through AMRA, songs could bypass the old system and be accounted for quickly and at much lower rates. Mr. Ahdritz said that for Kobalt’s clients, AMRA’s administration fee would be just 7.5 percent.
The accounting delays and absence of clear information have also contributed to the controversy about how much money musicians make from streaming, said Will Page, Spotify’s director of economics and a former chief economist at PRS for Music, the British collection society.
“Imagine a songwriter had a million-streams-a-day hit during Christmas last year and receives a check in June this year which doesn’t reflect the value, and then decides to criticize our model on blogs,” Mr. Page said. “The reality is that we paid in for that hit a month after its exploitation, yet the songwriter may well get paid out a year later.”
With AMRA, Kobalt says, that problem would largely be solved because major digital outlets like YouTube and Spotify could link their data logs with just one collection service — rather than the dozens of societies around the world — so greater royalties would be paid in a matter of weeks, instead of months or years.
“Part of the problem is that the music industry has been focused on the music,” Mr. Ahdritz said. “And that is what a lot of people in music have a passion for.”
“But my point,” he continued, “is that there is a day when you’re not on tour, when you are off the hits, and it is then that you think, ‘Where is the money?’ ”
Hocus 45th drops off his latest single ‘Ooh Na’ produced by Laizer Hits. In the world premier of ‘Ooh Nah’ Hocus reminisces over his life, sharing his story all while harmonizing on a melodic hook. Check out the special guest appearances by Love and Hip Hop’s Mendeecees, Dolla, Bills Raw, Jeemy, Sha Sha, Wavey K, Lazier and Ty Skrilla.
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