Shasta County supervisors will consider extending a moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries for another year in the county's unincorporated areas at a public hearing Tuesday. In February 2010, supervisors enacted what became a series of moratoria on dispensaries, saying they wanted to wait for pending state court cases on medical marijuana regulations to settle before any new dispensaries were allowed. The first moratorium, proposed by 2nd District Supervisor Leonard Moty, prevented use permits for dispensaries in unincorporated areas for 45 days. [continues 310 words]
A steady drizzle of rain dampened the atmosphere but spirits remained high in more ways than one at the seventh annual Emerald Cup north of Laytonville. Marijuana aficionados talked shop, smoked marijuana and examined pot-related wares in a narrow canyon along Highway 101. "It's kind of wonderful," Jon Staples, of Petaluma, said, noting the openness of the event, a far cry from the days when growing and smoking marijuana were strictly covert operations. Marijuana has steadily made headway as a mainstream crop since California voters legalized its use as a medicine in 1996. Now, even local government agencies are considering marijuana production as a way to make money. [continues 653 words]
LA County supes snuff out medical marijuana dispensaries in Altadena Medical marijuana supporters decried the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors' 4-1 vote Tuesday to outlaw dispensaries in Altadena and other unincorporated areas. A crowd of protesters, some festooned with marijuana leaf-shaped tiaras, gathered outside the meeting as the supervisors voted to repeal a restrictive ordinance that regulated where dispensaries could operate in 2,600 square miles of unincorporated area in favor of an outright ban. So restrictive was the now-repealed 2006 ordinance that not a single dispensary was ever approved. [continues 238 words]
City Officials Race to Fix Legal Flaws Before New Marijuana Dispensaries Can Open. A judge handed Los Angeles a setback in its faltering drive to limit the number of medical marijuana dispensaries, granting a preliminary injunction on Friday that bars the city from enforcing key provisions in its controversial six-month-old ordinance. The decision, issued by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Anthony J. Mohr, leaves the city with limited power to control pot stores, which opened by the hundreds, angering neighborhood activists when city officials failed to enforce a 2007 moratorium. [continues 724 words]
The raid of MediLeaf pot collectives in Morgan Hill, Gilroy and San Jose Thursday has left local medicinal marijuana supporters and MediLeaf's attorney questioning the motives of Santa Clara County law enforcement in their effort to pursue alleged money laundering and illegal sales of marijuana by MediLeaf. The attorney representing MediLeaf and its founder Goyoko "Batzi" Kuburovich, Jim Roberts, said none of the seven people implicated in Thursday's raid have been charged with any crimes. In fact, Roberts said, Kuburovich wasn't even questioned Thursday despite Roberts calling to arrange a meeting with the County Special Enforcement Team. [continues 1677 words]
Sara Ambriz of Brawley couldn't enjoy her daily tasks, her children, even her life before she started using medicinal marijuana. The cancer patient went from 10 types of medicines a day that would knock her out to two, she said. It's helped her enjoy things again. She was among the crowd of medical marijuana patients and advocates who pled their case before the El Centro City Council, trying to get one of the last cities which hasn't banned the dispensaries to allow them. [continues 234 words]
Camarena, the man we honor each year with Red Ribbon Week, was working in Mexico, fighting a Mexican drug cartel. The cartel won. A quarter-century later, they're still winning. They're winning because Americans have to have their drugs. And as long as there's a demand, the drug lords will find a way to make a fortune meeting it. It's been 25 years since I became a teacher. I've seen lots of attempts at substance abuse prevention. [continues 478 words]
RED BLUFF -- Attorneys for two Red Bluff men arrested more than a year ago in connection with an indoor marijuana-growing operation plan to challenge a ruling that has the case headed for trial in Tehama County Superior Court, defense lawyer James Silva said Tuesday. Businessman Joe Froome, 48, and 27-year-old Daniel Ludwig, his son-in-law, are charged with cultivating marijuana and possession of marijuana for sale. In addition, Froome is charged with eight counts of money laundering. [continues 267 words]
Dangling from a nylon rope 100 feet below a helicopter, Rep. Wally Herger, R-Chico, was flown several miles to a remote marijuana plantation in Shasta County's forests in August. That's how law officers were flown into the site where, once it was secure, they uprooted marijuana plants worth thousands of dollars apiece, Herger said in a phone interview Thursday from Washington. The north-state congressman went on this airborne "ride-along" to witness efforts to eradicate pot plantations. [continues 357 words]
After almost a year of development, the Shasta Lake City Council this week established regulations for growing medical marijuana. Councilors voted 4-1 Tuesday to approve a first reading of the ordinance. Councilwoman Dolores Lucero dissented. A second reading is set for the Dec. 21 council meeting, said Carla L. Thompson, the city's development services director. The ordinance, which has been revised a number of times and has been the focus of several public hearings, has been in the development stage since Jan. 19 when the City Council decided to develop growing regulations, according to staff reports. [continues 526 words]
An ordinance that sets rules for how medical marijuana patients can grow their own received final approval Tuesday by the Sebastopol City Council. When voters approved Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, it allowed the cultivation and use of medical marijuana, but it didn't set standards. Under Sebastopol's ordinance, patients and caregivers can grow marijuana at their homes with the maximum number of plants limited to 100 square feet of leaf canopy. The city also will allow the creation of up to two gardens in town by medical marijuana dispensaries, with a maximum of 750 feet of leaf canopy, and two additional gardens of the same size by collectives of patients and caregivers for their own use, not for sale. [continues 75 words]
Riverside's legal efforts to close medical marijuana dispensaries have led to several operations closing in recent months, City Attorney Greg Priamos said. But other dispensaries remain open, and the operators of one facility said they'll keep trying to provide medicine to patients who need it. The city is due in court today for a hearing on whether the Inland Empire Patients Health and Wellness Center can remain open or must close immediately. Last month, Riverside County Superior Court Judge John Molloy ruled that the city can use zoning to ban pot dispensaries. He delayed enacting an injunction that would shutter the center, so its operators could file an appeal. [continues 763 words]
With time running out on their emergency moratorium preventing any and all new medical marijuana dispensaries from opening up in the unincorporated areas of the county, Santa Barbara County Supervisors voted unanimously this week to extend the de facto ban for another year. Citing the usual suspects of confusing regulatory mandates and a stark uptick in alleged dispensary related busts by the County Sheriffs Department in the past year, the supervisors - extending the moratorium they first enacted last January for the maximum amount of time possible under the law - bought themselves some much needed time as staff works to develop a draft ordinance that would officially explain what the County's policy is towards such cannabis clubs. [continues 139 words]
Mendocino National Forest will become the place for the latest showdown between growers on public lands and law enforcement with the debut of Full Court Press last week by representatives of local, state and federal agencies. The new effort to take back the public lands from drug cartels and prevent or reduce the environmental damage the indiscriminate growing of marijuana causes is scheduled to be in place by the next growing season. While full details are still being worked out, including how it will be funded, representatives from all six counties involved, as well as state and federal agencies, met last Thursday and Friday to kick off the coordinated effort. [continues 425 words]
Re "Probable cause?" (Newslines, by Meredith J. Cooper, Dec. 2): How sad that even to speak out against this bullying by our district attorney and his task force puts us at risk of being the next "target." For those of us who have gone to the extent of getting medical-marijuana licenses so that we can have some relief from pain-legally, and we use the collectives to purchase our medication-this is totally unacceptable. We've followed the law-and our law-enforcement personnel don't have to? [continues 75 words]
Note to Chico City Council: The Marijuana Ordinance Is a Land-Use Issue The Chico City Council cannot stay on track when it comes to setting up regulations for marijuana dispensaries. Instead of coming to grips with a proposal intended to keep the public safe while allowing people access to their medicine, council members appear to want to fix the problems associated with the state's ultra-vague Proposition 215. Mayor Ann Schwab started the most recent discussion on marijuana a week ago Wednesday (Dec. 1), saying her philosophy with the law is to keep it very simple. Later, however, she said the city should require collectives to run as a "closed circle" with a fixed number of members. She also wants the city to keep tabs on the co-ops by requiring them to turn in detailed records, including the names of patients. [continues 189 words]
So Let's Stop Using It As One It's happened again: Another person has been given a writing assignment as punishment. Recently, a judge in Nevada ordered a 25-year-old male drug offender to write a report on "the nonsensical character" of California's medical-marijuana program. The offender was arrested outside a Stateline casino after selling pot to an informant. Why didn't the judge have the young man read a book on medical marijuana or complete mathematical problems computing statistics pertaining to medical-marijuana users? Why should writing a report-or writing in any form-be a punishment? What does that teach people about writing? [continues 317 words]
Re "Probable cause?" (Newslines, by Meredith J. Cooper, Dec. 2): I don't use [marijuana], I never have, don't think I ever will, but I am amazed at the tactics used here. They are trying to build a case based on "clerical errors" more than anything. Those things could happen in your everyday pharmacy if someone accidentally skips a step in the process. It sounds to me like the issue is possibly inadequate training for a job that should be handled with the same protocols as your everyday pharmacy, but I can't think, with the exception of CPC selling with no script whatsoever, that any of these operations are guilty of anything other than negligence, and that's a person-to-person issue, not a problem worthy of shutting down the whole operation. [continues 56 words]
A resolution authored by U.S. Rep. Wally Herger geared toward urging federal agencies to take a more active role in getting pot growers off public lands passed the House overwhelmingly today. The Chico Republican's House Resolution 1540 calls for Congress to come up with a plan that would create a long-term solution to permanently dismantle the Mexican drug traffickers' pot growing operations on federal lands. The bill, cosponsored by six House Republicans from California, Texas and Utah, passed this morning on a 400 to 4 vote. [continues 702 words]
In the late 1990s, soon after California became the first state in the nation to legalize medical marijuana, Matt Cohen moved to Oakland and began growing pot for a local dispensary. He ran a large buyers' club for a while, got involved in a lawsuit that arose out of a federal raid and eventually made his way north to the so-called Emerald Triangle, the lush marijuana-growing haven that includes Mendocino, Trinity and Humboldt counties. These days, he lives deep in the ultra-private hills northeast of the town of Ukiah, doing what he loves best: cultivating organically grown cannabis with boutique names like Malawi Epic Blend, Purple Legend and Purple Urkle. [continues 3767 words]
Inside California
