The year in which many people thought they'd see the county's first medical marijuana dispensary selected and on its way to opening ended with no dispensary or drug in sight.

City staff spent the early part of the year reviewing applications in-house from six would-be dispensaries vying to be the chosen one. The city had estimated it would announce a preferred dispensary applicant in January or February, but that decision did not come until late summer.

The delay was reportedly caused by the close detail with which staff reviewed the applicants, city officials said.

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Gilbert's Green Cross Patient Center Assists Applicants With Recommendations, Filing

Although the status of medical marijuana remains a bit hazy in Arizona, facilities that help people apply for patient cards continue to spring up, including in Gilbert.

The Green Cross Patient Center opened in town nearly two months ago in a small strip mall on the southern side of Baseline Road, between Gilbert and Lindsay roads.

Owner and Director Charles "Chuck" Hall made it clear that the facility is not a dispensary and that there is no marijuana on site.

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The Ravalli County Attorney's Office is pressing charges against the owners of a Stevensville marijuana operation that was raided in July.

Deputy County Attorney Ryan Weldon has filed four felony charges against the partners who ran Banana Belt Caregivers just east of the Stevensville Wye. The partners are being summoned to justice court to answer the charges on Jan. 13.

Thomas Fenton Patterson, Kelly Robin Goosey, Tony Stuart Smith and Edward Leonard Smartt are all charged with drug production, distribution, possession with intent to distribute, and possession of property subject to forfeiture based upon evidence seized in a July 20 raid conducted by Ravalli County sheriff's deputies.

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Veterans Affairs Allows It in Some States While Justice Department Cracks Down

For two years, John Riccio worried that smoking marijuana to relieve his chronic back and shoulder pain would get him in trouble with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Then the department last year began allowing former service members to use medical marijuana -- in states that have laws permitting it -- in conjunction with their regular treatment. Riccio, a Navy veteran living in South Park, says he sleeps easier now that he can talk about it with his VA doctor without risking his benefits.

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The Seattle Times Editorial Board Expresses Its Support for Medical Marijuana and for the Legalization, Regulation and Taxation Of Marijuana Generally, and Hopes for Change in 2012.

LAST February this page argued that prohibiting marijuana was causing far more harm than good, and that Washington should legalize it for adult use. We hold this view still, and have strong hopes for progress in 2012.

A year ago, dispensaries were open across the state providing edible and smokable cannabis to bona fide patients. For the most part these shops were orderly and peaceful, though whether they were legal was doubtful.

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But Some Fear Plans by Portland's New Marijuana Outlet May Instead Create a Hangout.

PORTLAND - A medical marijuana dispensary that's scheduled to open in Portland next month is designed as a California-style wellness center. Its operator is promoting a free coffee and tea bar, acupuncture clinics, support groups, counseling and a "welcoming vapor lounge."

The new website of Wellness Connection of Maine says, "Patients are always welcome to relax and socialize near our fireplace, or enjoy a free cup of tea with a friend in our cafe space."

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With Feds Threatening Storefronts, Couriers Become Alternatives

Medithrive, a cannabis dispensary in San Francisco's Mission District that was forced to close last month, has re-emerged as a delivery-only service, part of a growing trend in California's billion-dollar medical marijuana industry that's recently come under attack by federal authorities.

Threats of property forfeiture,

fines, lawsuits and raids this winter have made brick-and-mortar locations less enticing to pot entrepreneurs. Hundreds of storefronts have closed amid the new federal crackdown. Delivery services remain, offering a lower-profile, albeit more dangerous, alternative.

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NAPLES -- The Palmetto Elementary School students bounded to the front of their fifth-grade classroom two-by-two, each coming under friendly questioning from Collier County sheriff's Cpl. Sandra Doria.

Cassie Figga, wearing a D.A.R.E. T-shirt and red headband, took the situation in stride.

"You're hanging out at Hollywood 20," Doria said. "After the movie, a pack of cigarettes is passed around. What do you say?"

"First," Figga said, sizing up the question, "I would tell them that's not a very good idea, and then I'd go tell a manager."

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Marijuana With Higher THC More Frequently Found On Shore

SALISBURY -- High-grade marijuana use on the Eastern Shore is one the rise, according to local authorities.

While marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the country, marijuana with higher concentrations of THC, the psychoactive chemical in the drug, started cropping up on the Shore between 2004 and 2005.

"The big one we started to see is B.C. (British Columbia) bud," said Sgt. Jason King of the Salisbury Police Department.

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BUNNELL -- A dark-haired girl wearing a sandwich board smiled and waved at passing motorists along Moody Boulevard in Bunnell.

Suzanne Garrison wasn't hawking coffee or tax services. Her message was personal -- "Drug Court Works."

"I've been addicted to oxycodone since I was 18," the 21-year-old said, standing on the shoulder of the roadway in front of the Kim C. Hammond Justice Center. "I get treatments through the courts."

Drug Court is a supervised, comprehensive treatment program for those charged with non-violent drug-related felonies, according to information provided on Flagler County's website by coordinator Mike Greenier.

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An influential South Georgia judge accused of locking up defendants indefinitely and cutting off their access to relatives and lawyers will step down from the bench and avoid a potentially explosive trial.

In a letter delivered Tuesday to Gov. Nathan Deal, Judge Amanda Williams of Brunswick said she intends to retire from the bench on Jan. 2. She also signed a consent order agreeing to never again seek or hold judicial office.

In November, the state Judicial Qualifications Commission filed a dozen ethics charges against Williams. It accused her of jailing participants in her drug court for indefinite terms, giving false statements when asked about it, behaving in a tyrannical manner on the bench and allowing family members who were attorneys appear in cases before her.

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Regarding your Dec. 18 editorial, the work of the Bay Area Drug Enforcement Team is no doubt well-intended, but ultimately counterproductive. Attempts to limit the supply of illegal drugs while demand remains constant only increase the profitability of drug trafficking. For addictive drugs like heroin, a spike in street prices leads desperate addicts to increase criminal activity to feed desperate habits. The drug war doesn't fight crime, it fuels crime.

With alcohol prohibition repealed, liquor bootleggers no longer gun each other down in drive-by shootings, nor do consumers go blind drinking unregulated bathtub gin. While U.S. politicians ignore the drug war's historical precedent, European countries are embracing harm reduction, a public health alternative based on the principle that both drug abuse and prohibition have the potential to cause harm.

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I wish to reply to Tiffany Hughes' Dec. 12 letter concerning drug testing for welfare applicants. She is of the opinion that if the state did this it would lose money. She writes, "If California were to require everyone to submit to a drug test, the state would actually lose money overall." Her strawman scenario assumes that all Californians would be tested for drug use. I know times are tough, but I don't think all Californians are going to be drug tested.

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SAN DIEGO - The Defense Department is teaming up with the National Institute on Drug Abuse to develop a department-wide method of catching service members who use synthetic marijuana, also known as spice.

The aim is to develop better urinalysis testing - either random or targeted - for all the services to use, according to a source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The services now only screen to confirm suspected use and do not test randomly.

The new spice study was initiated earlier this year by the office of the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness and the NIDA, a Pentagon spokeswoman confirmed. The goal is "to identify and address gaps in existing technology in the screening for synthetic marijuana-like products," said Cynthia Smith, the spokeswoman. "The joint DoD-NIDA study is to offer potential solutions for the possible addition of synthetic marijuana-like compounds found in 'spice' to the DoD panel of tested drugs." The study would ensure a unified effort and route spice screenings through the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System.

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I'm writing about Joanne Crouch's not-so-thoughtful letter: "Marijuana not a harmless herb," Dec. 10. If Crouch is opposed to marijuana use, medical or otherwise, I have some simple advice: don't buy it, don't grow it and don't use it. Period. What somebody does to themselves in the privacy of their own home should be their business. Not their neighbors.

It seems to me that the right to self-medicate should be a fundamental right granted to all adult citizens or legal residents.

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.

[end]

Jeremy Harris' household was winding down for the night. It was about 10 p.m., his children were getting ready for bed and he was watching TV, when a uniformed deputy and two undercover detectives knocked on the door of his Dunedin home.

Harris says the Pinellas sheriff's detectives told him they had gotten an anonymous tip that he was growing marijuana, and they asked if they could search his property.

Harris stepped outside and was astonished to see other deputies standing nearby in groups of two - 10 to 14 of them, he estimates.

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Just in time for Christmas, "Reefer Madness" is back.

Federal prosecutors are threatening to shut down California's medical pot dispensaries, which are legal under state law. California Attorney General Kamala Harris is asking the state Legislature to clarify and close loopholes in the state's medical marijuana laws, saying those laws are so confusing that users, growers, sellers, cops and even the people who work in her office have a hard time telling what's legal from what's not. Meanwhile, one group is preparing a ballot initiative for next year that would tax and regulate medical marijuana, while another group is pushing for a vote to legalize pot for any and all uses.

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Editor, Advertiser:

A coalition of Michigan parents, teachers, attorneys, physicians, health professionals, former law enforcers and many other people from all walks of life are putting together a voter ballot initiative to repeal marijuana prohibition in Michigan. The 2012 Michigan Ballot Initiative to End Marijuana Prohibition will give Michigan citizens the opportunity to vote on the repeal of Marijuana Prohibition.

We enacted the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act (MMMA) in 2008 to protect patients from criminal prosecutions. Instead of regulating the medical marijuana industry (like Colorado did) our State Attorney General, law enforcement, activist judges and our state legislators have done everything they can think of to destroy the new law.

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What began as an ordinary traffic stop in Tempe instead turned into a 15-month drug trafficking investigation and the arrest of 203 suspects linked to the notorious Sinaloa cartel.

But after seizing $7.8 million in cash and $12 million worth of drugs, police said on Tuesday that they're not done. The suspects arrested have ties to cartel operations in several other states including Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, Missouri and Kansas.

The massive drug case began with a patrol officer in Tempe who pulled over a known drug user at McClintock Drive and Elliot Road. The officer quickly realized there was more than what would have otherwise been a $100 meth deal, Tempe police said.

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A marijuana substitute has gotten the attention of police and school officials in Holly after two local teenagers landed in the emergency room after smoking it.

The substances are sold as incense or potpourri in tobacco shops, head shops, party stores and even gas stations.

In one incident, a 14-year old girl from Hartland came to a Friday night event at the First Baptist Church of Holly after smoking incense. Pastor Ed Pedley said the teen had a racing pulse, numb tongue, and was behaving erratically. He said the girl was taken to Genesys Regional Medical Center and later released.

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