If self-neglect is a vile sin, as described by William Shakespeare, then studied introspection is the gateway to atonement. Contrition requires courage, and the nine-member governing board of the Cow Palace deserves kudos for taking a long-awaited first step toward recognizing and righting a wrong.

In the wake of the Oct. 29 Spookfest 2010 electronic music festival, which saw some 17 attendees requiring ambulance rides to area hospitals, the Cow Palace implemented an indefinite moratorium on such concerts, "until conditions change," declared Cow Palace CEO Joseph Barkett.

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LOS ANGELES -- Federal investigators discovered a sophisticated cross-border tunnel Thursday in an industrial part of San Diego. The half-mile tunnel was the second found this month equipped with rail tracks and carts to funnel drugs to and from Tijuana, Mexico.

After getting a tip about drug activity at a warehouse in Otay Mesa, a thicket of warehouses and truck repair shops that hugs the Mexican border, agents with the San Diego Tunnel Task Force arrested three men there and discovered the tunnel. United States and Mexican authorities have seized more than 20 tons of marijuana since Thursday.

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The organizers of a Wildomar medical marijuana collective are asking for the court's help in their fight to stay open.

Wildomar Patients Compassionate Group is seeking an order to stop the city Planning Director Matthew Bassi from enforcing the city's ban on medical marijuana dispensaries.

In legal papers filed Monday in Riverside County Superior Court, lawyers for the collective argued that Bassi's legal authority to enforce the ban conflicts with state law that allows for the medicinal use of marijuana. The petition also alleges that Bassi's actions "are motivated exclusively by a desire" to eliminate collectives.

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A lawsuit against the city's medical marijuana ordinance gained some traction today (Wednesday) with a ruling from the California Second Appellate District Court.

The appeal ruling on Pack et al. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County et al. asks that all parties appear in court on Feb. 8 to "show cause" why relief requested from the law should or shouldn't be granted.

The plaintiff, Ryan Pack, had filed a lawsuit against the original Long Beach ordinance regulating medical marijuana collectives seeking an injunction because the local ordinance went against federal and state constitutional law (including the state voter approved constitutional amendment that legalized use of medical marijuana). But the Superior Court ruling said there was no basis for the suit. The appellate court overturned that ruling.

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Lassen County's Board of Supervisors banned the establishment and operation of medical marijuana dispensaries and the cultivation of medical marijuana within the county Tuesday, Nov. 23 according to a new county ordinance that takes effect Thursday, Dec. 23.

According to the newly adopted ordinance, a qualified patient with a recommendation from a physician or a county-issued medical marijuana identification card and a primary caregiver may cultivate and provide medical marijuana without violating the ordinance.

"The cultivation of marijuana aE& is prohibited in all zones and districts of the unincorporated areas of Lassen County and shall be considered a public nuisance unless said cultivation can be demonstrated to be for use only by a qualifying patient," the ordinance reads.

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Marijuana, Mary Jane, Ganja -- medicine? Perspective has everything to do with the recent events in City Council chambers as council members try to navigate the marijuana medical dispensaries ordinance that they created in recent months.

In Bixby Knolls, two collectives have been operating on either side of a bakery, within 1,000 feet of a school -- one of the disallowed areas in the original ordinance. Neighbors who share the alley with the collectives have voiced complaints of loud music late at night, trash in the alley, and an incidence of graffiti from what appears to be customers of the dispensaries.

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In her last full meeting as mayor (the torch will be passed to Vice Mayor Jan Arbuckle in December), Lisa Swarthout presented Mayor's Awards, a tradition dating back more than 10 years.

She awarded AJA Video the Community Business Award, Center for the Arts the award for nonprofits, and the Mayor's Award to Grass Valley Downtown Association Executive Director Howard Levine.

"He exemplifies community service and is the first one to step up to the plate," Swarthout said.

Grass Valley leaders decided to explore two tracks regarding medical marijuana -- creating an ordinance to allow dispensaries and another ordinance banning them outright.

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COURTS:Judge must determine if city can regulate a federally illegal drug.

The future of Long Beach's medical marijuana regulations - and potentially of medical marijuana throughout the state - is in question after an appeals court ruling Wednesday.

The 2nd District Court of Appeals ruled that a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge must reexamine his decision Nov. 2 upholding Long Beach's new medical marijuana ordinance.

At issue is whether Long Beach's issuance of permits for medical marijuana collectives is a violation of federal law, which considers marijuana an illegal drug. That is exactly what the plaintiffs, medical marijuana patients Ryan Pack and Anthony Gayle, argue in their lawsuit.

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Two More Warehouses Found, 20 Tons of Pot Seized, Eight Arrested in San Diego, Tijuana.

Federal authorities have unearthed another cross-border tunnel in a San Diego warehouse district, the second major tunnel discovery and multi-ton seizure of marijuana believed to be from Mexico's most powerful drug cartel in a month.

The tunnel, which started in a residence in Tijuana, stretched nearly half a mile and split into two passageways, with the branches emerging at separate warehouses nearly 800 feet apart.

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STOCKTON - Whether this Stockton medical marijuana dispensary will be allowed to continue doing business remains to be seen.

But one thing is certain: Central Valley Caregivers Cooperative - better known by its former moniker, Pathways - is persistent.

The dispensary is waging multiple legal fights in the months since a San Joaquin County judge ordered it to shut down at a previous Stockton location. That includes an appeals court case and a county code enforcement action over a second location opened earlier this year.

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Regarding "Practice Makes Safety: 20 Agencies Coordinate for Mock Shasta Dam Attack" on Nov. 18 by Dylan Darling:

First off, I am totally in favor of those responsible for our public safety being a highly trained cadre of professionals. To have an anti-terrorism drill at Shasta Dam is a good thing.

But the premise of this drill was just plain offensive to a large group of folks. It would appear that we of the cannabis community are seen as fair game. Much like the Office of National Drug Control Policy media campaign of a couple years ago - where a kid smoking a joint was presented as supporting terrorism.

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OROVILLE -- A 26-year-old man pleaded no contest Tuesday in Butte County Superior Court to a drug charge and gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated for causing the death of a Chico jogger.

Jimmy Candido Flores of Forest Ranch faces a maximum of 10 years and eight months in prison and a fine of as much as $27,000 for the charges, including possession of marijuana for sale.

Flores was driving under the influence of marijuana about 9 a.m. July 22* when he struck Carrie Jean Holiman, a 56-year-old Corning elementary school teacher, who was jogging on the shoulder of Oro Chico Highway near Estates Drive.

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Further restrictions on the city's medical marijuana ordinance have left some collectives frustrated by the process -- and looking at how best to move forward.

"(The collectives I represent are) distressed, upset and sort of feeling betrayed by the system," said Carl Kemp, lobbyist for three collectives. "You go through a process and so much work goes into it and so much investment is made based on the word of the council and the ordinance -- we thought this was final. You can imagine how that feels when it gets changed just before the permit was to be issued."

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Council Needs To Address Medi-Pot's Revenue Potential

One subject that did not come up during the Chico City Council's discussion last week of a proposed medical-marijuana ordinance was taxes. By crafting the proposal as a land-use matter, the council ignored an important question: If the city is going to allow medical-marijuana dispensaries and cooperatives, should it impose special taxes on them, and if so how should the taxes be structured?

This is not a new issue. One of the reasons why many dispensary operators opposed Proposition 19 on the Nov. 2 ballot was because it empowered local governments to impose new taxes on marijuana production and sales. At the same time, voters in nine California cities, including several of the state's largest, overwhelmingly approved new taxes on medical cannabis.

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RIVERSIDE - While acknowledging that this was "a troubling case for the court," a judge nevertheless ruled Wednesday that the city of Riverside is within its rights to use zoning laws to ban medical marijuana dispensaries.

"The city has acted within their authority," Superior Court Judge John Molloy said at the end of the hour-long hearing that pitted attorneys for the city of Riverside against medical marijuana activists.

Supporters of medical marijuana -- some of whom identified themselves as cancer patients -- filled the courtroom seats. Others were not allowed in because all seats were taken.

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Re "No action taken on medi-pot ordinance" (Newslines, by Melissa Daugherty, Nov. 18):

I've just gotten back from another frustrating Chico City Council meeting concerning the proposed cannabis ordinance, and I just wanna scream. Deeply rooted fear, prejudice and misinformation once again are preventing intelligent legislation.

What's most frustrating for me, as a dispensary operator who has, just like the other dispensary owners in this town, always bent over backward to comply with state attorney general guidelines, is law enforcement's stubborn fixation on their claim that we are nothing more than drug dealers.

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Re: "Prop 19 Didn't Resonate With Minority Voters," Full Disclosure, 11/9

It's only a matter of time for minorities to wake up. Cannabis (marijuana) prohibition was enacted by bigots to target minorities from the beginning. To perpetuate cannabis prohibition, government has ensnared large percentages of minorities into the legal system and prohibits many of them from even voting to end the discredited laws which unfairly harmed them. What kind of government persecutes and punishes minority humans for using what God says is good on the 1st page of the Bible?

Stan White, Dillon, Colorado

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Re: "Charting the Rise of Medical Cannabis," Legalization Nation, 11/17

Here are just some of the many studies the Feds wish they'd never commissioned:

1) MARIJUANA USE HAS NO EFFECT ON MORTALITY: A massive study of California HMO members funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) found marijuana use caused no significant increase in mortality. Tobacco use was associated with increased risk of death. Sidney, S et al. Marijuana Use and Mortality. American Journal of Public Health. Vol. 87 No. 4, April 1997. p. 585-590. Sept. 2002.

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Re: "Prop 19 Didn't Resonate With Minority Voters," Full Disclosure, 11/9I almost spit the fried rice out of my mouth reading the last paragraph. While it might be worthy to visit race and Props 8 and 19, you would have to first start with the basics and how social values and economics play in and stop overestimating how socially liberal black folks are.

There is no benefit to black people to pass prop 19, even with the "pushers" of Prop 19 trying to sell us that the black arrest rate for pot crimes vs. whites will somehow go down. Dale Gieringer from California NORML laid it out real well, "the fact is that blacks and Latinos are targeted for ALL crimes, and so marijuana just isn't different in that regard." It is also insulting to think that that is the only thing we would care about. Most blacks know that even with passage nothing would have changed, in fact, crime would have gone up and there would be MORE nickel and dime street dealers trying to "come up" selling pot, hence, more violence in our streets and more arrests. And really access is not an issue either, today anyone could pay a yearly $150 fee to the thousands of prescribing doctors, get a medical card, and grow a nice personal decent amount - EVEN IF NOTHING IS MEDICALLY WRONG WITH YOU. (Just look in the Express ads, you'll find at least 50.)

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Re: "Why Legalization Failed,' Legalization Nation, 11/10

Proposition 19's failure at the polls demonstrates that although Californians have accepted the medicinal use of marijuana, they are not ready to accept recreational use. This makes it that much more important to facilitate research into the benefits and harms of marijuana in order to properly assess the utility of cannabis. At present, researchers have to contend with a monopoly over the marijuana supply held by the National Institute on Drug Abuse whose mission is to study the harmful effects of illicit drugs. This disqualifies them as objective judges as to who to provide marijuana to for FDA approved studies.

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