Dispensary backers, foes vie for control of Eagle Rock panel. Tensions between neighborhood leaders fighting a surge in medical marijuana dispensaries and the industry's increasingly assertive supporters spilled into neighborhood politics over the weekend in a bitter contest for control of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council. The fight featured fliers that promised free medical marijuana to those who cast ballots, powerful labor union backing of pro-dispensary candidates and a flood of voters from outside the neighborhood. In the end, only two of the dispensary backers won spots on the council, which advises City Hall on local issues. [continues 571 words]
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI and IRS are conducting a criminal investigation of family members of a Mendocino County sheriff's captain, according to law enforcement sources. Officials on Thursday served a search warrant on property near Highway 20 in Potter Valley where agents reportedly found more than 500 marijuana plants. The property is owned by and is the residence of Johnny Johnson, the father of Sheriff's Capt. Randy Johnson. The captain's brother, John Johnson, also lives on the property. [continues 267 words]
Filings in Kearny Mesa Dispensary Case Reveal Uneven Interpretations of Cultivation SAN DIEGO - California's medical marijuana laws have been on the books for years, but quite a bit of dissension - and perhaps, confusion - persists among the respective groups who interpret and enforce them. Recent filings in a San Diego appellate court case show that the county's district attorney and the state's attorney general have a somewhat different understanding of the statutes. Both agree that the law allows qualified patients to obtain and use medical marijuana through "collective, cooperative cultivation projects," not retail businesses. [continues 397 words]
Jan Goldsmith's commentary ("Legalizing medical marijuana properly," Opinion, Oct. 11) is skewered with misleading facts and a "looks good on paper" federal solution to pot by requiring weed be sold to only people who are dying. Really? What about the 5,000-plus remainder of us who aren't seriously ill or hospice bound? Do you think the 5,000-plus are going to stop smoking weed? Or will they revert back to the past of the street distribution network? How could someone with an education in law enforcement and politics be so obtuse and I mean imperceptive? Really. His is no solution. There will still be have and have-nots with marijuana. Nothing will change, except crime will go up. Kirk Perry, Cardiff [end]
The Eureka City Council will hold a public hearing Tuesday to discuss an interim urgency ordinance that would extend for another year the existing moratorium on the establishment of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city. Following a public hearing, city staff will recommend the council approve the one-year extension to "preserve the status quo," while the city studies amendments to zoning regulations, a staff report said. The city's medical cannabis ordinance -- passed by a previous council in August 2010 and modified in May 2011 -- regulates personal residential marijuana grows on a land-use basis and allows for the permitting of four medical marijuana dispensaries. The dispensary portion of the ordinance came into question after city staff solicited input on the ordinance from the U.S. Attorney's Office in September 2011. [continues 350 words]
Lincoln Unified student athletes and cheerleaders now face mandatory, random drug testing under last week's 4-to-1 decision of district trustees. The first-in-the-area policy has the admirable goal of stopping drugs and alcohol use by Lincoln High's athletes and cheerleaders. Somehow these students are thought more vulnerable and indeed 21 percent of the 219 drug and alcohol-related suspensions in the last three years have involved athletes and cheerleaders, according to district officials. We're troubled, however, by government policies that infringe the rights of many because of violations of a few. If police set up a roadblock and began randomly searching vehicles most assuredly they would find contraband or evidence of some illegal activity. But at what cost to privacy and convenience would such a policy be to those just innocently and legally driving along? [continues 129 words]
LAYTONVILLE, Mendocino County - In the mountains of Mendocino County, a middleaged couple stroll into the cool morning air to plant the year's crop. Andrew grabs a shovel and begins to dig up rich black garden beds while Anna waters the seedlings, beginning a hallowed annual ritual here in marijuana's Emerald Triangle. In the past, planting day was a time of great expectations, maybe for a vacation in Hawaii or Mexico during the rainy months or a new motor home to make deliveries around the country. [continues 1336 words]
It's up to the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors to decide Tuesday afternoon whether the operational permit for a Myrtletown medical marijuana dispensary should be revoked. The board will also discuss an annual report on the general plan update, three projects recommended for Headwaters Fund grants and two appointments to the newly formed Greater Eureka Area Municipal Advisory Committee. The Humboldt County Collective opened its doors in November 2011 and was the first collective to operate in the county under a conditional use permit, according to county documents. Now it faces losing its permit after the Humboldt County Planning Commission voted 6-1 in June, with Commissioner Mel Kreb dissenting, in favor of revoking the collective's permit. [continues 571 words]
COVINA - The city is taking legal steps to shut down a medical marijuana dispensary that officials say unlawfully set up shop on San Bernardino Road and refuses to shut down. City Attorney John Higginbotham filed a complaint seeking a temporary restraining order against LPC Center, a medical marijuana collective that opened about two months ago at 839 E. San Bernardino Road. The complaint alleges that business operator Yona Mizrachi and property owner Thomas Giandomenico, who leases the property to LPC Center, did not obtain a business licence to operate the shop. It also claims that the dispensary is a public nuisance because it is in violation of the city's municipal code. [continues 314 words]
Big-Time Operators Cratering Prices Old Outdoor Growers Feel Loss of Community LAYTONVILLE, Mendocino County - In the mountains of Mendocino County, a middleaged couple stroll into the cool morning air to plant the year's crop. Andrew grabs a shovel and begins to dig up rich black garden beds while Anna waters the seedlings, beginning a hallowed annual ritual here in marijuana's Emerald Triangle. In the past, planting day was a time of great expectations, maybe for a vacation in Hawaii or Mexico during the rainy months or a new motor home to make deliveries around the country. [continues 1097 words]
LODI - The Lodi City Council on Tuesday will discuss its options for regulating the cultivation of medical marijuana and likely direct the City Attorney's Office to draft an ordinance for what isn't allowable. Deputy District Attorney Janice Magdich said the city Police Department has heard complaints from residents where neighbors have been growing marijuana in their backyards and the plant odor has caused a stench in the neighborhood. State law allows for the cultivation of marijuana in residential areas by patients or caregivers who have been prescribed marijuana for medical purposes, but cities have the ability to restrict how much is grown and define how it is grown. [continues 323 words]
GUSTINE - City leaders voted to make permanent a ban on medical marijuana dispensaries in the city, and may take further steps to curb the activities of those who hold cards authorizing their use of marijuana for medical purposes. The city has banned dispensaries the past two years through a temporary moratorium, in the hope that questions regarding the legality of the dispensaries and the city's authority to regulate them would be answered by the courts during that time. But those legalities remain cloudy, city staff said, and with the moratorium expiring local leaders moved forward with a full-fledged ordinance to ban the dispensaries. The measure was enacted last Tuesday. [continues 494 words]
APPLE VALLEY * After prescription pain medication did not bring relief to her 64-year-old mother, Sandy McKay decided it was time for her mom to try another method: cannabis. "She took a bad fall while she was a bus driver, and she was in a lot of pain from multiple surgeries," McKay said. "Conventional pain medication just wasn't effective." Inspired to help others, McKay and her friend, Carrie Erskine, opened Trojan Wellness in November, a medical marijuana dispensary located in the Village of Apple Valley. [continues 669 words]
More students carrying medical marijuana cards has led to a dramatic decline in drug-related arrests at Sonoma State University, newly released statistics show. The number of such arrests dropped from 35 in 2009 to 27 in 2010 and zero last year, the last period for which statistics are available. "Before, we could make an arrest if someone had marijuana. Now they all have medical marijuana cards. So by law we can't arrest them," campus interim Police Chief Sally Miller said on Friday. [continues 83 words]
IMPERIAL BEACH -- Libertarian Party vice presidential nominee and former California Superior Court Judge Jim Gray on Friday endorsed a ballot measure to lift Imperial Beach's ban on medical marijuana collectives. Gray, a former federal prosecutor and long-standing advocate to end the war on drugs, told U-T San Diego that drug prohibition is "the biggest failed policy in our history, second only to slavery." At a news conference in Imperial Beach Friday, Gray endorsed not only Proposition S, also known as the Safe Access Ordinance of Imperial Beach, but three other ballot initiatives seeking regulation and access for Southern California patients to medical marijuana: propositions H in Del Mar, W in Solana Beach and T in Lemon Grove. [continues 331 words]
OAKLAND, Calif.-This Northern California city is fighting to protect its biggest medical-marijuana dispensary-which generates more than a $1 million in local tax revenue annually-from a federal crackdown on pot shops. Oakland sued U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and San Francisco U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag on Wednesday in response to a Justice Department civil-forfeiture complaint aiming to seize the building where the Harborside Health Center, a medical-marijuana dispensary, rents space. The pot shop's owner says it sells more than $20 million of marijuana annually. [continues 517 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - The City of Oakland has filed a lawsuit in federal court to prevent the Department of Justice from seizing property leased to the largest medical marijuana dispensary in the country. "This lawsuit is about protecting the rights of legitimate medical patients," City Attorney Barbara Parker said in a statement on Wednesday, when the suit was filed. "I am deeply dismayed that the federal government would seek to deny these rights and deprive thousands of seriously ill Californians of access to safe, affordable and effective medicine." [continues 436 words]
City, marijuana advocates clash over whether legalized dispensaries are a 'humane' solution or a misguided one After wafting through Los Angeles, San Jose and Oakland, California's cloudy debate over marijuana law will drift into Palo Alto next month, when voters consider whether to allow three dispensaries to open shop in the city. But as the two campaigns over the Measure C make clear, the terms of the medical-marijuana debate have changed drastically since the sizzling and provocative this-is-your-brain-on-drugs days of the late 1980s. The arguments over dispensaries now focus less on the drug's effects or its possible status as a "gateway" drug (though these still pop up now and then) and more on land-use issues and the status of local, state and federal laws, which are all over the map on the subject. Recent and forthcoming court decisions add another layer of buzzkill to a Palo Alto resident looking for a little clarity in the voting booth. [continues 1019 words]
About 10 people urged the Arroyo Grande City Council on Tuesday evening to allow mobile medical marijuana dispensaries to operate in the city, saying the cannabis eases ill people's pain and gives them a safer alternative to prescription medications. The council, though, voted unanimously to prohibit such dispensaries from operating within the city. Arroyo Grande has had rules in place since 2008 prohibiting the establishment of storefront medical marijuana dispensaries. But its ordinance did not explicitly refer to mobile dispensaries, such as a delivery service. [continues 327 words]
The city of Oakland took the unusual step Wednesday of filing a suit in an attempt to stop the federal government from seizing and closing down one of the largest medical marijuana dispensaries in the city. Attorneys for Harborside Health Center said the suit against the federal government appears to be the first such action by a municipality on behalf of a marijuana dispensary. The city states that federal attempts to seize the property, which began in July, contradicted promises by officials with the Obama administration who have said that dispensaries complying with state laws would not be targeted by federal agencies. [continues 659 words]
Inside California
