Laws and attitudes toward marijuana are changing throughout the state, and Santa Cruz is no exception. The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors formally expressed a policy Sept. 26, which addresses medical marijuana dispensaries that have sprung up in past years. The policy allows and regulates the facilities, as well as places a moratorium on new medical marijuana dispensaries until the board finalizes the new policies. Supervisor John Leopold said the board plans to have a rough draft of the new policies by Nov. 9. [continues 744 words]
By his count, Don Ivey, 56, should have been dead six times by now. The artisan and former competitive in-line skater survived both a stabbing and a scuba diving accident as a young man. Fifteen years ago, he was diagnosed with AIDS and hepatitis C. Five years ago, he crashed a motorcycle, landing facedown, partially paralyzed, in an ocean bay. Recently, just 30 days removed from his second emergency room visit for internal bleeding and vomiting blood, Ivey walked up a terraced marijuana garden that is a medicinal and spiritual refuge for the sick, injured and dying. [continues 1682 words]
SANTA CRUZ - After the last several WAMMFests encountered challenges, organizers of Santa Cruz's annual medical marijuana awareness event appear to be in for an easier time getting the city's nod of approval. Today, the City Council will consider lifting a smoking ban at San Lorenzo Park for five hours Sept. 25 to allow authorized pot users to medicate inside open-air tents designed to create privacy. The item is on the council's consent agenda, indicating that it may not be as controversial as in years past. [continues 556 words]
Seven years after gun-toting DEA agents raided a Santa Cruz medical marijuana farm and rousted several patients from bed, founders of the collective that runs the farm agreed Friday to settle a lawsuit against the federal government that will enable them to continue helping the terminally and critically ill. Valerie and Mike Corral, who founded Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in the early 1990s, cheered the settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, and the provision that if federal agents attempt to raid WAMM again, the lawsuit can resume where it left off. [continues 754 words]
Why Women Have Signed Onto Marijuana Reform -- and Why They Could Be the Movement's Game-Changers. In September, ladymag Marieclaire ruffled some feathers when it published a piece about women who smoke weed. But its most interesting effect was not the "marijuana moms" chatter it unleashed, and instead the fact that it brought to the mainstream media a more open discussion of the fact that women can be avid tokers, too. Public acceptance of pot is at an all-time high, and the fact that women have drastically changed their attitudes may be what is most fascinating about the sea change in public opinion -- and policy -- regarding marijuana. In 2005, only 32 percent of polled women told Gallup they approved legalizing pot, but this year 44 percent of them were for it, compared to 45 percent of men. In effect, women have narrowed what had been a 12-point gender gap. [continues 3210 words]
At the Peace in Medicine Healing Center in Sebastopol, the wares on display include dried marijuana -- featuring brands like Kryptonite, Voodoo Daddy and Train Wreck -- and medicinal cookies arrayed below a sign saying, "Keep Out of Reach of Your Mother." The warning tells a story of its own: some of the center's clients are too young to buy themselves a beer. Several Bay Area doctors who recommend medical marijuana for their patients said in recent interviews that their client base had expanded to include teenagers with psychiatric conditions including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. [continues 1204 words]
On balance, the Obama administration did the right thing in living up to a pledge to end the crackdown on the medical use of marijuana. We say "on balance," because the potential for going beyond this -- de facto legalization of pot -- remains a concern and very much unresolved. Of course, in many areas of California including Santa Cruz, personal use of marijuana is already tolerated. We have strong doubts that the "war on drugs" can be won. One major problem is the selective enforcement of laws, since a rapidly declining minority of Americans believe someone smoking marijuana should face criminal charges. [continues 298 words]
SWANTON -- Between the raining ash and lack of sleep, Valerie Corral struggled to keep her eyes open Saturday afternoon, as she watched flames continue to burn on her Swanton Road property. "I haven't slept since Thursday," Corral said. All the food in her home is depleted, but even if she had any there would be no way to cook it because all of the propane tanks have been removed from her property. She and her husband, Mike, cooked their breakfast on a dual-sided hot plate. [continues 599 words]
On Tuesday, July 28, the Santa Cruz City Council voted unanimously to extend a moratorium on all new medical marijuana dispensaries for the next six months. The council originally passed a 45-day moratorium on June 23; this extended emergency moratorium is meant to enable the Council to re-examine the current dispensary laws, regulations, and building codes, all of which were initially drafted nearly 10 years ago. see full story... The move follows a wave of legislative discussion, both area-wide and across the nation, about the practical issues surrounding medical marijuana and the dispensaries (also referred to as "buyers' clubs") that sell it. Although medical marijuana remains illegal under federal law, the Obama administration announced in March that it would no longer continue the Bush-era practice of raiding dispensaries, choosing instead to focus only on penalizing illegal traffickers. Elsewhere in the Bay Area, Oakland residents voted overwhelmingly last week to approve a new tax on medical marijuana sold at one of the city's four dispensaries. Measure F, which passed with about 72 percent of the vote, is expected to garner up to $315,000 in the 2010 calendar year. [continues 690 words]
SANTA CRUZ -- A state appeals court in Sacramento this week ruled that medical marijuana patients can sue over raids by local law enforcement, but county authorities aren't too worried as local rules spell out when and where such raids are allowed. "It's the sheriff's department's policy to protect medical marijuana patients," said Sgt. Mark Yanez with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office. However, he said, when patients break rules or use their medical cards to cover up illegal drug sales, his department still cracks down. [continues 328 words]
SANTA CRUZ - Almost every day, someone calls the city's Planning Department for information on how to open a medical marijuana dispensary. Since the Obama administration announced in February that federal medical marijuana raids were over, Santa Cruz entrepreneurs have come to view dispensing the prescription drug - which is legal under state laws but illegal under federal ones - as a potentially safe and profitable business, said Assistant Planning Director Alex Khoury. Two applications have been filed for dispensaries on the Westside. [continues 431 words]
For at least the past six years, one of the fiercest struggles in the federal government's war with the states over medical marijuana has been waged from a nondescript Santa Cruz warehouse, tucked between an auto repair shop and an electrical contractor. These days, there is unprecedented optimism inside that warehouse, where the feisty Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana appears to be on the brink of outlasting the feds and winning the most important legal fight still left in the courts over California's nearly 13-year-old voter approved medical pot law. [continues 703 words]
SANTA CRUZ -- After the Obama administration announced last week that it would only prosecute medical marijuana cases if they violate state and federal law, a Santa Cruz collective is still taking a wait-and-see approach to its own lawsuits and operations. "We're not exactly sure what's going to happen with the feds," said Michael Corral, co-founder of Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Santa Cruz. However, "I feel in all likelihood we will be probably be left alone." [continues 320 words]
Amid Hints From Attorney General, Medical Marijuana Dispensor Hopes Federal Fight Near End For at least the past six years, one of the fiercest struggles in the federal government's war with the states over medical marijuana has been waged from a nondescript Santa Cruz warehouse, tucked between an auto repair shop and an electrical contractor. These days, there is unprecedented optimism inside that warehouse, where the feisty Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana appears to be on the brink of outlasting the feds and winning the most important legal fight still left in the courts over California's nearly 13-year-old voter approved medical pot law. [continues 702 words]
Medicinal marijuana caregivers may be prosecuted as drug dealers, according to a state Supreme Court ruling issued Monday. The ruling upholds a Santa Cruz County Superior Court jury decision that found medicinal marijuana user Roger Mentch, 53, guilty of cultivating and possessing marijuana for sale. Mentch, who was arrested by sheriff's deputies in 2003, claimed he was a caregiver for five medicinal marijuana patients. He also opened the Hemporium, a medicinal marijuana collective in Felton, where he sometimes sold the pot he grew. [continues 481 words]
Buddhist prayer flags lined the walls and a German shepherd slept at the foot of a mint-green couch as Valerie Leveroni Corral considered life and loss from her office chair. She spoke about the impending loss of a home and garden that has provided medicine to the sick for over 15 years as she discussed the impact her work as co-founder of Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM) has had on her life. "The best thing about WAMM is this community of heroes. We are courageous and generous and wacky," Corral said. "We're everything. We see each other's frailties and each other's strengths. And during the hardships, and the hardest thing of all - death and illness - we still manage to find the way to survive." [continues 790 words]
After 15 Years of Devotion to the Medical Marijuana Movement in Santa Cruz, WAMM Founders Michael and Valerie Corral Face the Loss of Their Land and the End of a Dream. On Friday, Oct. 10, one of the final days of the marijuana harvest in her garden, Valerie Leveroni Corral feels the first real chill of fall on the deck of the home she built in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Stepping around her geriatric dog Ebo and over a deaf cat lying supine in a pool of morning sunlight, she pulls a coat on over her tiny frame and gets into her old Volvo station wagon to drive the gravel road to the garden. [continues 4187 words]
Santa Cruz v. Ashcroft
