Aug 9, 2012 | MMJ News
By DAVID OGUL
At North County Times
A U.S. attorney’s office opinion on a medical marijuana measure in Del Mar has led to a robust debate over whether the opinion was more of a threat than an impartial perspective.
At issue is a November ballot measure that would force Del Mar to allow medical marijuana dispensaries. Voters will be deciding similar measures in Solana Beach and the East County city of Lemon Grove.
U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy, in a July 17 letter addressed to Del Mar City Attorney Leslie Devaney, said city employees “who conduct activities mandated by the ordinance are not immune from liability under the (Controlled Substances Act.)
“The United States Attorney’s Office will evaluate all potential civil and criminal enforcement actions on a case-by-case basis in light of the priorities of the Department of Justice and the (U.S. Attorney’s Office’s) available resources,” the letter said.
That prompted a response last week from the ACLU’s San Diego office saying Duffy had overreached her authority.
ACLU attorneys David Loy and Novella Coleman told Duffy in an Aug. 2 letter that her action was “unprecedented and amounts to unjustified interference in local legislative matters, if not thinly veiled intimidation of city officials and thus potentially of voters.”
(more…)
Aug 7, 2012 | MMJ News
By: Matthai Kuruvila, Jaxon Van Derbeken and Demian Bulwa
At SFGate.com
On a street corner in Oakland on Monday, one man wore a T-shirt bearing the images of President Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. with the message “45 years later … at last.” Another man held a sign comparing Obama and George W. Bush, with the words “Crimes are crimes, no matter who does them.”
Obama’s fundraising visit to the politically charged city brought out the extreme views on his leadership. But the debate was not between right and left, but rather left and left, between people who see the president as a transformative figure and those who feel betrayed.
Downtown protests were led by several hundred medical marijuana advocates angered by the U.S. Justice Department crackdown on dispensaries. They were joined by antiwar demonstrators, people opposed to drilling in the Arctic and Occupy activists, among others.
But outside the 2,800-seat Fox Theater, the site of an evening campaign stop, excited supporters of the president lined up for hours. Some wore Obama T-shirts, or Obama pins on their formal wear, as they dished out at least $100 per person, or up to $7,500 per ticket if they wanted a photo with the president.
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Jul 31, 2012 | MMJ News
Unfortunately Obama isn't much better:(
Jul 29, 2012 | MMJ News
By: Eric Kelsey
At: Reuters
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Los Angeles City Council decided unanimously on Tuesday to ban all storefront medical marijuana shops, in a blow to a industry that operates in violation of federal law but has become the largest collection of pot dispensaries in California.
The 14-0 vote by the council comes after conflicting court decisions on how far local jurisdictions in California can go in cracking down on the cannabis shops. Some observers say the issue could end up before the state’s Supreme Court.
The state’s voters in 1996 became the first to allow the drug as medicine, which inspired dispensaries to open.
Seventeen states and the District of Columbia now allow medical marijuana, but the federal government holds that pot is a dangerous and illegal narcotic and has shut down dispensaries in several states.
Even in Los Angeles, where some officials support the right of patients with cancer or AIDS to have easy access to the drug, city leaders have sought for years to control dispensaries amid complaints about acrid smoke around very profitable, neon-lit storefronts that critics say supply recreational users. And parents have expressed worries their children are being drawn to pot.
(more…)
Jul 20, 2012 | MMJ News
By: Scott Morgan
Huffington Post
For over a year now, the Obama Administration has been steadily escalating its assault on medical marijuana. What was already a mess has been getting worse from one week to the next, and each new attack revives the question of whether the feds have finally taken things too far. If we aren’t there yet, we may well be getting pretty damn close. As the Huffington Post reported last week:
SAN FRANCISCO — An Oakland medical marijuana dispensary that has been billed as the largest pot shop on the planet has been targeted for closure by federal prosecutors in Northern California, suggesting that a crackdown on the state’s medical marijuana industry remains well under way. U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag has threatened to seize the Oakland property where Harborside Health Center has operated since 2006, as well as its sister shop in San Jose, executive director and co-founder Steve DeAngelo said Wednesday. His employees found court papers announcing asset forfeiture proceedings against Harborside’s landlords taped to the doors at the two locations on Tuesday. What makes this event stand out is Harborside’s unparalleled reputation for safety, security and compliance with local laws.
The decision to target them contradicts an April interview in which President Obama told Rolling Stone that enforcement efforts focused only on dispensaries that illegally sold marijuana for non-medical use. Attorney General Eric Holder reiterated that position last month, saying, “We limit our enforcement efforts to those individuals, organizations that are acting out of conformity with state law.” He added that dispensaries may also be targeted if they are too close to a school, and indeed, numerous dispensaries have been shut down for operating within 1,000 feet of a school, even in the absence of any actual problems or complaints. Yet Harborside is not located within 1,000 feet of a school, nor has the organization ever been accused of violating state or local laws. To the contrary, the group is nationally-recognized as the leading example of a well-run, well-regulated medical marijuana provider.
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Jul 19, 2012 | MMJ News
By Pete Kasperowicz
at www.theHill.com
A bipartisan group of House members has proposed legislation that would make it easier for people to defend themselves in federal cases for possessing marijuana, if they can show that they are using marijuana for medical purposes in line with relevant state laws.
The Truth in Trials Act, H.R. 6134, was introduced Tuesday by Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.), along with an eclectic mix of 15 House Democrats such as Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), and three Republicans, including GOP presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (Texas).
The bill would give people facing federal prosecution for marijuana possession the right to “introduce evidence demonstrating that the marijuana-related activities for which the person stands accused were performed in compliance with state law regarding the medical use of marijuana.” It would also create an affirmative defense under federal law for marijuana possession.
“It is an affirmative defense to a prosecution or proceeding under any federal law for marijuana-related activities, which the proponent must establish by a preponderance of the evidence, that those activities comply with state law regarding the medical use of marijuana,” the bill states.
The bill further clarifies that defendants can only be found guilty of a federal offense related to marijuana that is determined to be for non-medical purposes, and also makes it harder for the government to seize and destroy marijuana and related paraphernalia.
“No plant may be seized under any federal law otherwise permitting such seizure if the plant is being grown or stored pursuant to a recommendation by a physician or an order of a state or municipal agency in accordance with state law regarding the medical use of marijuana,” it reads.
Other Republicans on the bill are Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and Justin Amash (R-Mich.).
Jul 19, 2012 | MMJ News
By Peter Hecht
The Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — University of California medical researchers slipped an ingredient in chili peppers beneath the skin of marijuana smokers to see if pot could relieve acute pain. It could — at certain doses.
They monitored patients with AIDS and HIV as they toked on joints or placebos to determine whether marijuana could quell agonizing pain from nerve damage. It provided relief.
They tested a “Volcano Vaporizer” to see whether inhaling smokeless pot delivered healthier, low-tar cannabis. It did.
Over a dozen years, California’s historic experiment in medical marijuana research brought new science to the debate on marijuana’s place in medicine. State-funded studies — costing $8.7 million — found pot may offer broad benefits for pain from nerve damage from injuries, HIV, strokes and other conditions.
California’s famed Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research — established by the Legislature to answer the question, “Does marijuana have therapeutic value?” — has now all but completed America’s most comprehensive studies into the efficacy of pot.
The money is gone. State-commissioned clinical trials totaling more than 300 research subjects are over. The last data are being crunched for medical journals. And it is unlikely that medicinal pot research on such a scale is going to be repeated any time soon.
Headquartered at the University of California, San Diego, with work also conducted in Sacramento County and San Francisco, the Center for Medical Cannabis Research challenged medical orthodoxy by undertaking the first clinical trials in decades looking at pot as medicine.
Now it survives in name only — as an informational center and potential clearinghouse for grant applications for future cannabis studies.
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Jun 25, 2012 | MMJ News
Jun 14, 2012 | MMJ News
By Fernanda Santos
NEW YORK TIMES (6/7/12)
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Soon after health officials announced they would dole out Arizona’s first licenses for medical marijua na dispensaries, Ryan Hurley, co-chairman of the medical marijuana practice at the Rose Law Group here, noticed a common trait among some of the people most eager to enlist his services: They were already in the business in other states.
There was a family who owns dispensaries in Washington State. There was an investor from Los Angeles who has a stake in several California dispensaries. There was a disabled Navy veteran who makes a living running a medical marijuana delivery service in San Diego.
Arizona has one of the country’s strictest set of requirements governing the sale of medical marijuana — and, Mr. Hurley said, they were all looking to tap into its market because of that.
“There’s a sense of legitimacy that comes from having so many rules,” he said.
Medical marijuana programs exist in a gray area. They are legal in 17 states and the District of Columbia, but illegal under federal law, where selling and consuming marijuana, even if for therapeutic purposes, is still a crime. It is a risky undertaking: In California, where rules governing the business are particularly lax, medical marijuana ventures have been targets of raids.
(more…)
Jun 4, 2012 | MMJ News
By: Carly Schwartz
Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/san-francisco/
SAN FRANCISCO — A measure that would provide a significant boost to California’s medical marijuana industry cleared a major hurdle Thursday in the face of an increased federal crackdown on dispensaries throughout the state.
Assembly Bill 2312, sponsored by Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), aims to create a statewide system for regulating medical marijuana, including a formation of the first-ever “cannabis commission.” The proposal passed the state assembly on a 41-29 vote just one day before the deadline.
“[It’s] a really, really good day for us,” organizer Matthew Witemyre told the East Bay Express. “When AB 2312 was introduced it had a snowball’s chance in hell of passing.”
Ammiano crafted the legislation in response to the Obama administration’s aggressive crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries throughout California, which has dealt a huge blow to the state’s $1.3 billion industry. Since the Department of Justice announced in September that it would be using federal resources to target cannabis operations, hundreds of businesses have shuttered and even more jobs have been lost.
Medical pot has been legal in California since voters approved Proposition 215 in 1996, but the drug remains illegal under federal law, and authorities are citing the industry’s “explosion and proliferation” as the basis for their actions.
“[The U.S. Attorneys] are using a lack of statewide regulation as justification,” Ammiano spokesman Quintin Mecke told The Huffington Post. “If we create regulations, we’ve removed every reasonable explanation on their part to justify the crackdown.”
Mecke explained that while certain local jurisdictions carefully regulate their medical marijuana economies, other areas have yet to impose sufficient restrictions. Oakland and Santa Cruz, for example, have thriving communities that follow a strict set of rules.
But the cannabis industry in places like Los Angeles and San Diego remains relatively unregulated, with very little control over the number of dispensaries that open or the criteria for doctor recommendations. As a result, such cities have become what Mecke described as the “poster child of chaos.”
“It’s created a myth that California is out of control,” he said. AB 2312 works to dispel that myth by forcing all local jurisdictions to adhere to the same standard.
According to Mecke, San Francisco serves as a model for what a successfully-regulated medical marijuana economy should look like. But since the crackdown began, the city has not been without its casualties. Five dispensaries have been forced to shut down, and a dozen more have received threatening letters from the justice department. To the chagrin of its wide customer base, Haight Street’s beloved collective The Vapor Room warned that it may close its doors this month.
Despite the federal government’s actions, a recent poll revealed that 80 percent of California residents support medical marijuana.
Mecke remains optimistic that AB 2312 would serve as a solid weapon against the crackdown. “We have to at least be able to say that the state of California did its part,” he said.
Take a look at some of the most prominent Bay Area dispensaries that have been forced to shut down in the past year:
