Brendan Kennedy and Michael Blue, private-equity financiers, settled into a downtown Seattle conference room in March to meet with a start-up. Both wore charcoal blazers and polished loafers. Kennedy, 41, is the former chief operating officer of SVB Analytics, an offshoot of Silicon Valley Bank. Blue, 35, learned his trade at the investment-banking firm de Visscher & Co. in Greenwich, Conn. Two years ago they quit comfortable posts to form Privateer Holdings, a firm that operates on the Kohlberg Kravis Roberts model: they buy companies using other people's money and try to increase their value. What sets them apart is the industry in which they invest. Privateer Holdings is the first private-equity firm to openly risk capital in the world of weed. Or as the Privateer partners prefer to call it, "the cannabis space." [continues 2798 words]
In the wake of Colorado and Washington legalizing the recreational use of marijuana, efforts to change the laws in Ohio are being debated statewide. On May 2, Democratic state Rep. Robert F. Hagan of Youngstown introduced House Bill 153, which would allow for the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. The bill did not make it very far through the state legislature, though. Simon Dunkle, director of media relations for the Ohio Rights Group, said a hearing was not scheduled for the bill, and it died in the committee stage. [continues 676 words]
The name appeared out of nowhere, unfamiliar to the players who have worked for months to influence how recreational marijuana will be regulated in Colorado. On March 28, someone named Matt Taylor hired high-powered lobbying firm Axiom Strategies to work on "marijuana issues," records show. Taylor has since expanded his lobbying team to rival that of anyone with a stake in adult-use marijuana legalized by Amendment 64 in November. "No one knows who he is, and with a name like that, no one has been able to find out much," said Joe Megyesy, who lobbies for a law firm that specializes in marijuana and for the Marijuana Policy Project, the main funder of the Amendment 64 campaign. "I haven't seen anything like it-but we've never seen anything like Amendment 64." [continues 1069 words]
Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Closed; Patients Left with Few Options At this point, it is hard to imagine, but just a handful of years ago, Santa Barbara had more medical marijuana storefronts than it did Starbucks coffeehouses. Now, after a perfect storm of local government regulation and high-profile arrests - coupled with multiple rounds of federal raids on South Coast dispensaries and threats of property seizures - this county has gone the way of so many others in California: It is now a cannabis club free zone. Whether you love them, hate them, or simply need one for help with a serious medical condition, the fact remains that there are no longer any legal dispensaries operating in Santa Barbara. [continues 2040 words]
Los Angeles - US prosecutors and other senior officials who spearheaded the "war" against drug cartels have quit their jobs to defend Colombian cocaine traffickers, saying their clients are not bad people and that United States drug policy is wrong. Senior former assistant US attorneys and Drug Enforcement Administration agents are turning years of experience in investigating, indicting and extraditing narcos to the advantage of the alleged traffickers they now represent. "I'm not embarrassed about the fact that I changed sides," said Robert Feitel, a Washington-based attorney who used to pursue traffickers and money launderers at the US department of justice. "And I'm not shy about saying that no one knows better how a prosecutor thinks. That's what people get when they come to me. There are lots of hidden things to know about these cases." [continues 1349 words]
Michael Steven Chu Seeks Pardon and Says Aiding Others Is Now His Focus Former Honolulu police officer Michael Steven Chu said in federal court Friday that he knows he betrayed the public's trust and hurt a lot of people when he helped his girlfriend grow and sell marijuana. He said he will never do it again and that he has opened a new chapter in his life dedicated to helping others. He asked members of his family to forgive him and hopes to become someone they can be proud of. [continues 236 words]
Mass Incarceration Has Gone Too Far and Helped Little, Critics Say TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Stephanie George and Judge Roger Vinson had quite different opinions about the lockbox seized by police from her home in Pensacola, Fla. She insisted she had no idea that a former boyfriend had hidden it in her attic. Vinson considered the lockbox, containing a half-kilogram of cocaine, to be evidence of her guilt. But the defendant and the judge fully agreed about the fairness of the sentence he imposed in federal court. [continues 1812 words]
In Exchange For Him Waiving Right To Appeal In a highly unusual move, federal prosecutors have agreed to drop six of eight marijuana convictions for Christopher Williams in exchange for his agreeing to waive his right to appeal. In addition, the government has agreed to ask U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen to dismiss the $1,728,000 criminal forfeiture awarded to the government by a jury earlier this year. The agreement was outlined under a settlement filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court. In the document, signed by Williams, U.S. Assistant Attorney Joe Thaggard, and federal public defender Michael Donahoe, they note that this agreement "constitutes the final and best offer to resolve this matter." [continues 580 words]
As a faithful soldier in the "War on Drugs," Tony Sexton had his hand in thousands of drug busts, beginning in the late 1960s and continuing into the early 1980s. He worked his way up the ladder of the Thurston County Sheriff's Department as a deputy, sergeant and undersheriff. Later, he served as the chief investigator for the Washington State Patrol's Drug Control Assistance Unit, helping smaller counties and cities around the state penetrate the drug culture by nurturing informants, sending civilians and police officers undercover and doing whatever it took to bust drug users and drug peddlers in high schools, nightclubs, taverns and on the street. [continues 732 words]
KINGFISHER - The four reasons Patricia Spottedcrow most wanted out of prison were back in her arms Thursday afternoon, after their mother was released on parole. Her children are 11, 6, 5 and 3 years old now. The youngest was just 1 when Spottedcrow began her prison sentence two years ago. If Gov. Mary Fallin hadn't approved Spottedcrow's parole and if the Pardon and Parole Board hadn't agreed to early consideration for her case, her children might have all been teenagers by the time she got out. [continues 631 words]
Medical marijuana grower Chris Williams is seeking a new trial after being convicted in a federal drug and weapons case that carries the potential for a prison sentence of up to 92 years. He's appealing, but his supporters aren't waiting for the justice system. They've taken his cause to the Internet, in the form of online petitions filed with the White House, with www.SignOn.org, and with www.Care2.com . Together, they've gathered close to 40,000 signatures nationwide. [continues 864 words]
Suburb's pot to be easy to find Across New Jersey, most communities approached about hosting one of the state's first legal medical marijuana dispensaries in out-of-the-way industrial zones have just said no. Montclair is a different story. The cosmopolitan suburb a half-hour train ride from Manhattan has not only allowed Greenleaf Compassion Center - which last week received the state Health Department's first license to begin providing pot to patients - but also let the not-yet-opened business set up in the middle of the town's main drag, and with no fuss. [continues 240 words]
Kemba Smith Pradia went to Tallahassee, Fla., last week to demand the right to vote. Back in the '90s, when she was just Kemba Smith, she became a poster child for the excesses of the War on Drugs. Pradia, then a college student in Virginia, became involved with, and terrorized by, a man who choked and punched her. By the impenetrable logic of battered women, she thought it was her fault. The boyfriend was a drug dealer. Pradia never handled drugs, never used drugs, never sold drugs. But she sometimes carried his gun in her purse. She flew to New York with drug money strapped to her body. [continues 409 words]
Gov. Mary Fallin has agreed to early release for inmate Patricia Spottedcrow, a young mother whose story of a lengthy sentence for a small marijuana deal was featured in a Tulsa World series on Women in Prison. Under the governor's stipulations, Spottedcrow will be required to complete 120 days at a community-level Department of Corrections facility before she is released. Spottedcrow, 27, was originally handed a 12-year sentence in a blind plea before a judge for selling $31 worth of marijuana to a police informant. It was a first-time offense, but because children were in Spottedcrow's home when she was arrested, a charge was added for possession of a dangerous substance in the presence of a minor. [continues 436 words]
ALBANY - The Democrats who control the State Assembly, many of them black or Latino residents of New York City, saw a proposal to decriminalize the open possession of small amounts of marijuana as a simple matter of justice: too many black and Latino men were being arrested because, after being stopped by the police, they were forced to empty their pockets. But the Republicans who run the State Senate, all of them white and most of them from suburban or rural districts, saw decriminalization differently: as an invitation for young people to use drugs and as a declaration that Albany was soft on crime. [continues 839 words]
War On Drugs Or On Minority Communities? Alan Bean couldn't miss the headline splashed across the top of his hometown paper one summer morning in 1999. It spoke of big news for the 5,000-person burg in West Texas: a big drug bust that landed a sizable portion of the town's black community behind bars. "Tulia streets cleared of garbage," the banner headline read. Like many aspects of the American war on drugs, the wording smacked of insidious racism. [continues 1291 words]
Prefers Ron Paul: Jailed activist is a fan of Ayn Rand and rational capitalism YAZOO CITY, Miss. - Jailed marijuana activist Marc Emery is all over the map politically. A founding member of the Marijuana Party of Canada, he's moved his support between the B.C. and federal NDP, the federal and provincial Greens and federal Liberals over the years. But Emery says that's because so few of our leaders, including Premier Christy Clark, NDP Leader Adrian Dix or Green Party Leader Jane Sterk, are inspirational in any way. [continues 581 words]
Canadian Medicinal Marijuana Producers Are Trying To Put Down U.S. Roots The sprawling copper mine that stretches deep below White Pine once employed thousands of people, helping make the remote Michigan town a thriving outpost of the state's northern hinterland. Prices for the metal started to plummet, however, forcing the facility to shut down in 1996 and leaving White Pine a virtual ghost town. Suburban bungalows that once housed copper miners and their families now sell to vacationers for as little as $10,000. [continues 1072 words]
University Enacts Closure After Legal Challenge Fails There's a visible police presence at the University of Colorado this morning as administrators roll out their well-publicized attempt to snuff out the annual 4/20 smoke-out, but, so far, students and employees seem to be coming and going without ID checks. Several students -- and one unauthorized visitor -- told the Camera that they walked onto campus, sometimes past police checkpoints, this morning without being asked for ID, as CU officials had said would be the case today. [continues 571 words]
'Master Growers' Are Cultivating Potent, Smooth and Aromatic Marijuana - the Kind Expected by More Discriminating Buyers. Behind the bolted steel doors of an old brick warehouse, Big Wes meets a nutrient company scientist to see if he can increase his crop yield. Rows of hydroponic marijuana plants soak up solution flowing through plastic troughs and light blazing from high-pressure sodium lamps. Big Wes has spent more than half his life calibrating his system of growing high-grade marijuana to its utmost efficiency. At 50 years old, he harvests a crop of dozens of plants every week from five rented warehouses scattered along the rutted streets and alleys around the docks of Oakland. [continues 1765 words]
