Although the legalization of marijuana use, both for recreational and medical purposes, is sweeping the country, the woman who founded the nation's first locally sanctioned medical marijuana dispensary in Fairfax some 18 years ago is struggling to avoid homelessness. When Lynnette Shaw opened the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in 1996, it was the first medical marijuana dispensary in the state to operate under the auspices of Proposition 215, California's Compassionate Use Act. But in 2011, a crackdown launched by Melinda Haag, the San Francisco-based U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, shut down the Marin Alliance. [continues 882 words]
A new Field Poll shows that a majority of Californians now favor legalization of marijuana - welcome news to some Marin residents who have long sought the move. The poll, released last week, found 55 percent of Californians support legalization of marijuana, and 56 percent favor adoption of a statewide initiative proposed for the November 2014 ballot. The California Cannabis Hemp Initiative would decriminalize marijuana and hemp use for those over age 21. Sponsors of the initiative have until Feb. 24 to gather the valid signatures of 504,760 registered voters. A legalization measure on the California ballot in 2010 received the support of 46.5 percent of voters. [continues 800 words]
The Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, the oldest dispensary of its kind in the state, quietly shut down over the weekend, the victim of a federal crackdown. "They moved out of the premises just before 2 a.m. on Sunday morning," said Peter Goldstone, a Santa Rosa attorney who has represented the Alliance, and its operator, Lynnette Shaw, in an eviction proceeding that was brought by the Alliance's landlord. Shaw could not be reached for comment. The landlord, Farshid Ezazi of Orinda, initiated the eviction proceeding after Melinda Haag, the San Francisco-based U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, threatened to confiscate the building in which the Alliance operated at 6 School St. in Fairfax. The Fairfax dispensary is among dozens statewide that federal prosecutors say they have targeted due to the dispensaries' proximity to parks, schools and other facilities used by children. [continues 585 words]
The founder and director of the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax is joining a Libertarian Party-backed effort to place an initiative on the November 2012 ballot that would require marijuana to be regulated like wine. "I am pleased and honored to be asked to join the campaign and be the poster-child case for why we need to stop the legal attack," said Lynnette Shaw, chief executive of the Marin Alliance. Shaw was scheduled to participate in a press conference in Orange County on Tuesday to publicize the campaign for the so-called Regulate Marijuana Like Wine initiative. Backers of the ballot measure say they are responding to the Obama administration's recent push to close many of the state's medical marijuana dispensaries. [continues 525 words]
The Internal Revenue Service has notified the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax that it owes millions of dollars in unpaid back taxes, according to the alliance's founder and director, Lynnette Shaw. Shaw said the IRS audited the alliance's tax returns for 2008 and 2009 and disallowed all of its business deductions. She said that although dispensaries throughout the state are being audited by the IRS, the alliance is the first to be told it can't deduct business expenses. [continues 490 words]
The Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax will begin making pot deliveries to members of its collective next week now that insurance concerns have been resolved, organizers said. "Finally!" said Lynnette Shaw, founding director of the only licensed medical marijuana dispensary in the county. Fairfax's Planning Commission approved the service in mid-June. Shaw said that since then she has been working with the town attorney fine-tuning insurance coverage she is required to have before initiating the new service. [continues 436 words]
There is plenty of support for Proposition 19 in Marin County, but not among Marin's top law enforcement officials. Proposition 19, which is on the Nov. 2 ballot, would make it legal for people 21 years old or older to possess, cultivate or transport marijuana for personal use. It would allow local governments to regulate and tax commercial production and sale of marijuana. The measure prohibits people from smoking marijuana while minors are present. Three members of the Marin County Board of Supervisors -- Steve Kinsey, Hal Brown and Judy Arnold -- have endorsed the initiative. [continues 745 words]
With the state's unemployment rate topping 12 percent and government leaders desperate for jobs and tax revenue, four West Marin entrepreneurs think they have part of the answer. Their new business, Medi-Cone, employs about a dozen people in the cultivation, harvesting and packaging of medical marijuana for several Bay Area dispensaries. "This is a home business, but we're growing fast," said Matthew Witemyre, the company's chief of staff. The operation is cloaked in secrecy: The man who owns the West Marin house where the business is situated didn't want the exact location or his identity revealed due to twin security concerns: thieves and federal drug agents. He noted that even though he is abiding by the state's medical marijuana law, growing marijuana remains a federal offense. [continues 855 words]
The town of Fairfax has taken the first step necessary to slap a 45-day moratorium on the establishment of new medical marijuana dispensaries. On a first reading, the Town Council voted 4-1 Wednesday to adopt the moratorium. The council could still change its mind when the ordinance receives its second reading in October. The town became the first in the state to give the green light to a medical marijuana dispensary after passage of Proposition 215 allowing such facilities, and the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana opened in 1997 at 215 Old School Plaza. It continues to be the town's only medical marijuana dispensary. [continues 570 words]
Marin County's doyen of medical marijuana, Lynette Shaw, said she was pleased when she read recently on the Web that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had created a new trademark category for medical marijuana. But the patent office backpedaled last week and eliminated the category, which was established April 1, after an inquiry by the Wall Street Journal. Shaw, founding director of the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax, said the patent office got it right the first time, "because a lot of our medical growers have worked very hard to develop strains that are absolutely reliable for the specific type of illness they were developing the strain for." [continues 638 words]
The managers of Marin medical marijuana dispensaries welcomed the news Monday that the Obama administration intends to honor state laws that permit the sale of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Pot-smoking patients and their sanctioned suppliers should not be targeted for federal prosecution in states that allow medical marijuana, prosecutors were told in a new policy memo issued by the Justice Department. The memo advises prosecutors they "should not focus federal resources in your states on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana." [continues 555 words]
Down an alley in the back of an aging commercial building on Gate 5 Road in Sausalito, members of the county's newest marijuana collective, Gate Five Caregivers, come to pick up their "medicine." Inside the collective's steel-caged door sits Darryl Compton, a burly 22-year-old Marin City resident and collective member. Compton watches a large-screen TV monitor that connects to a closed-circuit camera trained on the alley. "Darryl's the door man. He's keeping it real safe," said Kris Scott, 24, of San Rafael, another collective member. [continues 1003 words]
The founding director of Marin's only sanctioned medical marijuana dispensary says the spokesman for a new medical marijuana delivery service is out to get her - but he says she is just blowing smoke. Lynnette Shaw, director of the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, has obtained a temporary restraining order against Jeffrey Rifkind, the spokesman for We Deliver, a new medical marijuana delivery service that began operating in Marin earlier this month. Rifkind said he was hired by a Marin couple who are managing the delivery business to help market it. He said he receives no money from sales. Rifkind said the couple want to remain anonymous because they're fearful of reprisals from the federal government. [continues 632 words]
Whether the elixir is known as "train wreck" or "Sonoma coma" or "purple kush," the advent of a new home delivery service will make it easier for Marin's more than 880 medical marijuana patients to get their medicine. "The idea is it's compassionate care. When you're sick you don't feel like getting in your car and driving out to Fairfax to get your medicine," said J. Allen Rifkind of Sonoma County, a spokesman for We Deliver. The delivery service is already operational, Rifkind said. [continues 606 words]
Margaret Schaub of Novato became frantic recently when she failed to find the chewable cold remedy that her sick 9-year-old son needed at Albertsons Food & Drug in Novato. "I thought, 'My God, they don't make it anymore.'" Schaub then went to a Longs Drug Store. She found a plastic facsimile of the product on the shelf along with a note explaining that this and other products containing the decongestant pseudoephedrine were being kept behind the pharmacy counter. "Thank God I went there when the pharmacy was open," Schaub said. "If you're a freaked-out parent with a sick child with a 103-degree temperature, you just want the medicine." [continues 637 words]
Beginning April 1, the county of Marin will begin charging a $25 annual processing fee for its medical marijuana photo ID cards. "This is the same fee that San Francisco charges. We believe that it will approximately cover the costs," Larry Meredith, Marin County's director of Health and Human Services, told county supervisors last week. The board voted 3-0, with supervisors Hal Brown and Steve Kinsey absent, to implement the fee. There are currently 403 people using the cards, Meredith said. [continues 526 words]
A Marin Superior Court jury yesterday found Marinwood resident Steven Babich innocent of charges of both cultivating marijuana and possessing marijuana for sale-a verdict that proponents of medical marijuana said was a reaffirmation of Prop 215 and compassionate use of the drug. "This is a victory for medical marijuana in Marin county," said Babich's attorney, M. Blake Wilson, a former associate of well-known Bay Area defense lawyer Tony Serra. "The jury resoundingly rejected the prosecutor's case." The jury came in with its verdict after deliberating for little more than an hour [continues 876 words]
A photo ID will be added to the cards issued by the county of Marin to each approved user of medical marijuana in an effort to provide patients with increased confidentiality, county health officials said yesterday. The user's address, listed on current cards, will be removed. "We wanted to develop a system that would make people feel more comfortable using the county system while still meeting the needs of law enforcement and patients and their caregivers to know that the cards were issued legitimately," said Frima Stewart, a county health department administrator who helps oversee the county's medical marijuana ID program. [continues 511 words]
The group responsible for forcing Marin District Attorney Paula Kamena into a May 22 recall election has filed a financial statement documenting monetary contributions - several months late. The statement indicates that from July 2000 to December 2000 the Marin Alliance Legal Defense Fund Committee raised a total of $9,870 from just five contributors. Lynnette Shaw of Fairfax, one of the leaders of recall effort, contributed $5,000 from an insurance settlement on her car. The next largest contribution was $1,500 - from Kenneth E. Hayes of San Francisco, who on Wednesday was acquitted of felony charges of marijuana cultivation and possession for sale by a Sonoma County jury. [continues 733 words]
Marin voters will have a choice between two candidates when they cast their ballots in the May 22 special recall election. Thomas Van Zandt, a 37-year-old Mill Valley patent lawyer, filed papers yesterday to appear on the recall ballot as the alternative to District Attorney Paula Kamena. Van Zandt is the brother of Carol Mardeusz, the Novato woman whose child custody case sparked the recall effort against Kamena and four Marin County Superior Court judges. Van Zandt has not returned telephone calls from the Marin Independent Journal seeking comment about his candidacy, but in a statement filed with elections officials he wrote, "We need a county government we can have confidence in. [continues 392 words]
