Professional reformers, longtime activists, and stakeholders in the marijuana industry attended an invitation-only meeting at the Waterfront Hotel in Oakland January 9 to discuss plans for a marijuana 'legalization' initiative to be on the ballot in California in 2016. The invitations came from the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform (CCPR), a group led by Dale Sky Jones that was formed after the defeat of a legalization measure in 2010, and the Drug Policy Alliance, represented by lobbyist Jim Gonzales The keynote speaker was Bill Zimmerman, a Los Angeles campaign consultant who is widely credited with masterminding the 1996 Proposition 215 campaign, which legalized marijuana for medical use in California. [continues 3333 words]
Measure Z Designates Oakland Pot Crime As the Police Department's "Lowest Enforcement Priority" - Yet Raids and Arrests Persist. Oakland's marijuana speakeasies - dispensaries that do not have a license to operate from the city - are facing renewed heat despite the fact that we're in the waning days of the war on pot. The Oakland Police Department has raided at least three unlicensed cannabis shops since December. Police rousted so-called "Measure Z" clubs in North Oakland and Uptown in December and January. And last week, authorities raided "Herbal Wellness Center" at 1921 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. [continues 922 words]
OAKLAND Multiple federal agencies unleashed raids Monday on the home and businesses of one of California's most famous marijuana advocates, Richard Lee, founder of the renowned cannabis industry trade school known as Oaksterdam University. Lee, who spent $1.6 million to bankroll Proposition 19, an unsuccessful 2010 measure to legalize marijuana for recreational use, was neither arrested nor charged. But federal authorities from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Marshals Service swooped in early Monday, targeting five locations, including the school on this city's Broadway that has trained 15,000 people in marijuana cultivation and careers since opening in 2007. [continues 678 words]
US Agents Seize Files From Oakland Trade School and Dispensary Run by Proposition 19 Backer Richard Lee. OAKLAND - Federal agents struck at the heart of California's medical marijuana movement, raiding the nation's first pot trade school and a popular dispensary, both run by one of the state's most prominent and provocative activists, Richard Lee. The raids in Oakland by the Internal Revenue Service and Drug Enforcement Administration sent a shudder through the medical cannabis trade and angered the plant's devotees, who believe the federal government is trampling on California law and the wishes of voters who approved medical marijuana use nearly 16 years ago. [continues 1378 words]
Once again, Oakland is barreling into the pot frontier on its own. Federal officials have forced the shutdown of more than 200 medical marijuana dispensaries throughout California since fall, and the state Supreme Court agreed last week to hear a case that could throw the industry into chaos - but is that discouraging the city of Oaksterdam? Hardly. Oakland officials are planning to issue permits for four new dispensaries in early February, doubling the number the city has already granted. The four existing cannabis shops and other pot businesses bring in about $1 million a year in fees and taxes to the deficit-hammered city, and officials are so eager for the extra cash promised by four new outlets they're practically willing to nail in the shelves themselves. [continues 995 words]
SAN BERNARDINO - Get out in the community and work with others to legalize marijuana was the message at Saturday's Spring Gathering, a music festival and medical marijuana expo featuring such artists as Snoop Dog and Cypress Hill. The event also featured a panel discussion where speakers urged those attending to get involved politically and tell nonsmoking friends about the benefits of the marijuana. "Everything you can do," said Stephen Guiltier, state director of the California Drug Policy Alliance, including supporting cannabis movement organizations, sympathetic elected officials, giving money and "coming out," Guiltier said. [continues 409 words]
Prop. 19 Lost Support of Some Pro-Marijuana Groups. Its Backers Aim to Write an Initiative With Wider Appeal. The drive to put another marijuana legalization initiative on the California ballot took a step forward Saturday when activists from across the state squeezed into a crowded conference center here to launch the debate over writing the next ballot measure. The campaign for Proposition 19, which lost 54% to 46% in November, wants to start drafting a new initiative in the spring and to complete it by July, turning then to the expensive and time-consuming task of building support and qualifying it for the November 2012 ballot. [continues 734 words]
California's Pot-Legalization Initiative Went Down to Defeat Last Night, but 46 Percent of the Vote Tells Advocates Like Richard Lee That the Future Is Bright. OAKLAND--California's pot-legalization initiative went down to defeat last night, but supporters say it came close enough to try again. The Proposition 19 ballot initiative won 46 percent of the vote. It would have regulated and taxed marijuana under rules similar to those for alcohol, albeit with a lot more dry counties and odd blue laws. [continues 1516 words]
What Underground Mom-And-Pop Growers Did While We Debated Legalization OAKLAND, Calif. --Jeremy Ramsay leads me through the back corridor of the nondescript one-story building that is Harborside Health Center. His bright little office is windowless but cheery, its white walls reflecting the glow of fluorescent lights, banks of them. Layer on layer of shop lights are feeding dozens -- hundreds -- of six-inch rooted cuttings of marijuana. Ramsay is manager, clones, a title straight out of "Brave New World." His babies are weeks away from bulking up and setting the bizarre clusters of mind-altering flower buds, but even in youth the lobed leaves, slender and saw-toothed, are distinctive, iconic, ominous. [continues 3658 words]
U.S. Will Enforce Drug Laws Even If State Measure Passes, Attorney General Says. Stepping up the Obama administration's opposition to Proposition 19, the nation's top law enforcement official promised to "vigorously enforce" federal drug laws against Californians who grow or sell marijuana for recreational use even if voters pass the legalization measure. U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder's response to the initiative comes as the administration has been under pressure to campaign against it more forcefully. Last week, Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon, chided the Obama administration for not doing enough to defeat it. And last month, nine former heads of the Drug Enforcement Administration publicly urged Holder to speak out. [continues 1042 words]
On Nov. 2, Oakland voters will be asked to decide whether medicinal cannabis businesses in the city should pay $50 in tax for every $1,000 in gross receipts. That is nearly three times the supplemental sales tax rate they already pay and could contribute more than $1 million to Oakland's general fund. The measure would also create a new "Non-Medical Cannabis Business Tax" of $100 per $1,000 of gross receipts if voters approve the California-wide Proposition 19, which would legalize recreational marijuana use. [continues 424 words]
Amid a Hazy Maze of Federal, State and Local Rules, Richard Lee Has Become a Marijuana Millionaire and Major Voice for Legalization. Richard Lee rolled his wheelchair up the ramp and glided onstage, steering himself to a table draped in a green cloth with "Oaksterdam University" spelled out in gold, varsity-sweater letters. The founder of the nation's first marijuana trade school was there to deliver a few inspirational words to about 70 students hoping to become the next Richard Lee, an entrepreneur who says his medical marijuana dispensary, nursery and other pot-related businesses bring in as much as $7 million a year. [continues 2117 words]
As Marijuana Dispensaries Close, Some Patients Take Up a New Kind of Gardening. Joanne Clarke, a legal secretary in her late 50s, leads the way down a pale green hallway in her modest Costa Mesa home, past a small guest room on the right and a blue tiled bathroom on the left. At the end of the hall, she opens a door, pushes aside a thick black curtain and ducks inside. "Isn't this wild?" she says, gesturing to the high-tech marijuana grow room she and her husband recently installed. "This used to be my daughter's bedroom." [continues 1431 words]
OAKLAND -- Signaling a break from staunch opposition from law enforcement groups, Oakland City Attorney John Russo on Monday joined about two dozen officials from across California to show support for Proposition 19, the measure allowing recreational marijuana that will appear on November's ballot. Another group gathered in West Hollywood near Los Angeles with the same message. Their public stance goes against the majority of law enforcement agencies in California, which are dead-set against the measure. "It's very difficult for them to change," Russo said Monday in front of Oakland City Hall. Standing next to him was a former police officer and several longtime advocates including Jeff Jones; Harborside Health Center medicinal cannabis dispensary attorney James Anthony; and "Yes on 19" campaign director Mauricio Garzon. [continues 475 words]
OAKLAND, CALIF. - For those who have long argued that smoking marijuana should not be a crime, a potentially historic turning point is just weeks away. Voters in California will decide Nov. 2 whether to make their state the first to legalize the growing, selling and recreational use of marijuana. And polls here - the nation's most populous state - suggest that residents are about evenly split on the issue. Proposition 19, as it is known, would take away criminal penalties for people 21 and older for possession of one ounce or less of marijuana. [continues 989 words]
A proposal to create four large-scale marijuana factories in Oakland has touched off a turf war in the lucrative market for medicinal marijuana. Established local merchants are trying to hold their ground against entrepreneurs who are seeking to gain a foothold in the rapidly evolving industry. Under the proposal, which will be debated by the City Council on Tuesday, Oakland would issue four permits to operate the factories, which are currently not limited in size or scale. One would-be applicant is planning a 7.4-acre complex that could produce over 21,000 pounds of marijuana a year. [continues 1106 words]
In his nondescript San Francisco flat, Kevin Reed operates a sleek, efficient marijuana delivery service. Five drivers deliver the product -- glistening green buds in white paper bags -- to neighborhoods throughout the city. Two operators work the phones. Flat-screen TVs display security feeds of the surrounding neighborhood. Mr. Reed, who had a clean-shaven head and wore a pinstriped shirt, calls his business the Green Cross. It is the only pot delivery service in San Francisco with a city permit, for which Mr. Reed paid $15,000. [continues 1452 words]
A major California labor union is organizing medical cannabis workers in Oakland, a move that analysts say will help efforts to legalize marijuana and open the door for the union to organize thousands more workers if state voters pass a measure in November to allow recreational marijuana use by adults. The 26,000-member United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5 in San Jose is believed to be the first union in the country to organize workers in a marijuana-related business. It is considering new job classifications including "bud tender" - a sommelier of sorts who helps medical marijuana users choose the right strain for their ailment. [continues 535 words]
For much of his life, Richard Lee needed neither liberation nor a cause. The Oakland medical pot entrepreneur, who spent $1.3 million to qualify this November's initiative to make recreational pot use legal in California, once lived for thundering his Harley-Davidson motorcycle down Texas highways. His father, Bob Lee, said his son used to ride to a Houston airport, climb into an ultralight airplane and soar above the rice fields, "playing tag with the seagulls." Lee's close friend Kurt Calivoda, with whom he worked in a Houston stage lighting business, remembers a wiry, athletic man "who could climb on anything." [continues 1410 words]
For marijuana to be consumed legally in California, the law we pass has to rise above rhetoric. There must be meat on those bones, specifics for how cities and counties would regulate recreational use of marijuana. In November, Californians will vote up or down on the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010. The ballot measure would expand legal use of marijuana in the state from those with medical conditions to pretty much any adult who has a hankering. For true pot believers, this is a passionate issue. Others see the issue as no big deal. [continues 415 words]
