A growing number of medical marijuana users whose backyard pot plants were stolen by thieves or commandeered by police have succeeded in getting insurance companies to reimburse them for the loss.

The dollar amounts aren't huge: The pot is supposed to keep one person healthy not sold on the street, where high-grade marijuana is more expensive than gold. However, one insurer paid $12,375 to a man who lost three pounds of pot to an armed intruder.

But just as medical marijuana was beginning to gain acceptance as an insurable good, a recent ruling by the Supreme Court in an Oakland, Calif., case has cast doubt on the future of such payments.

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UKIAH, Calif. (AP) - A growing number of medical marijuana users whose backyard pot plants were stolen by thieves or commandeered by police have succeeded in getting insurance companies to reimburse them for the loss.

But just as medical marijuana was beginning to gain acceptance as an insurable belonging, the Supreme Court's recent ruling in an Oakland, Calif., case has cast doubt on the future of such payments.

The dollar amounts aren't huge - after all, the missing pot is supposed to keep one person healthy, rather than be sold on the street, where high-grade marijuana is more expensive than gold. But it's real money to a sickly policyholder. One insurer paid $12,375 to a man who lost 3 pounds of pot to an armed intruder.

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UKIAH -- A growing number of medical marijuana users whose backyard marijuana plants were stolen by thieves or commandeered by police have succeeded in getting insurance companies to reimburse them for the loss.

But just as medical marijuana was beginning to gain acceptance as an insurable belonging, the Supreme Court's recent ruling in an Oakland case has cast doubt on the future of such payments.

The dollar amounts aren't huge -- after all, the missing marijuana is supposed to keep one person healthy, rather than be sold on the street, where high-grade marijuana is more expensive than gold. But it's real money to a sickly policyholder. One insurer paid $12,375 to a man who lost 3 pounds of marijuana to an armed intruder.

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Homeowner Policies Are Covering Thefts Or Losses Of Marijuana Confiscated By Police

UKIAH -- A growing number of medicinal marijuana users whose backyard pot plants were stolen by thieves or commandeered by police have succeeded in getting insurance companies to reimburse them for the loss.

The dollar amounts aren't huge: The pot is supposed to keep one person healthy, and not be sold on the street where high-grade marijuana is more expensive than gold. However, one insurer paid $12,375 to a man who lost three pounds of pot to an armed intruder.

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UKIAH, Calif. (AP) -- A growing number of medical marijuana users whose backyard pot plants were stolen by thieves or commandeered by police have succeeded in getting insurance companies to reimburse them for the loss.

The dollar amounts aren't huge: The pot is supposed to keep one person healthy not sold on the street, where high-grade marijuana is more expensive than gold. However, one insurer paid $12,375 to a man who lost three pounds of pot to an armed intruder.

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OAKLAND -- The two young officers who shot and killed an undercover colleague last week may have been new to the street, but theirs was not a rookie mistake, an Oakland police investigation has concluded.

Officers Tim Scarrott, 23, and Andrew Koponen, 29, acted properly when they fired 11 shots early Friday morning and killed Officer William "Willie" Wilkins, 29, homicide commander Lt. Paul Berlin said Monday.

"These officers discharged their weapons in a manner that they were trained to do," Berlin said. "These officers are good officers."

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Mendocino County is first in nation to legalize marijuana growing; each resident can raise 25 plants

UKIAH -- Voters in Mendocino County decided it's high time to partially decriminalize their most valuable cash crop -- marijuana -- in the first such ballot measure in the nation.

Measure G allows residents of the verdant county on the North Coast to cultivate up to 25 marijuana plants apiece. The initiative faced no organized opposition and passed Tuesday with 58 percent of the vote.

A handful of liberal college towns such as Berkeley; Ann Arbor, Mich.; and Amherst, Mass., have decriminalized smoking marijuana, Mendocino becomes the first community to sanction growing it, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

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Mendocino County Proposition Adopted With 25-plant Limitation

UKIAH -- Voters in Mendocino County, where the chief cash crop is marijuana, decided it's high time to let people grow their own pot.

It's the first such ballot measure in the nation to pass.

The measure, which faced no organized opposition and passed Tuesday with 58 percent of the vote, would allow residents of this verdant county on California's northern coast to cultivate up to 25 marijuana plants each.

While a few liberal college towns such as Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Mich., and Amherst, Mass., have decriminalized smoking marijuana, Mendocino is the first community to vote to allow the growing of pot, said the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

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The lure of illicit pleasure spreads a web that entangles Laos

VANG VIENG, Laos-Western travelers of every ilk are whispering about the latest Shangri-la, a remote hamlet shrouded by sawtoothed mountains and dotted with enough opium dens to satisfy an army of drug-seeking tourists.

Indeed, if not for opium, Peter Wu would probably never have come to Vang Vieng, 250 miles over a mountain road from the capital city of Vientiane.

A was hoping for a place where a bunch of old-timers lay out on mats puffing away," said Wu, 32, who travels to Southeast Asia when not writing advertising copy in Lo Angeles.

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