PALM SPRINGS - Charges that Palm Springs Caregivers has violated California law by selling medical marijuana for profit has closed down the dispensary for the second time in a month. Agents from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and officers from the Palm Springs Police Department served a search warrant on the dispensary, at 2100 N. Palm Canyon Drive, about 10:45 a.m. Thursday. A similar search-and-seize raid closed the dispensary on Oct. 4. No arrests were made Thursday, but the agents seized a "large quantity of marijuana and marijuana edibles," according to Special Agent Sarah Pullen, a DEA spokeswoman. [continues 176 words]
Conflicting Calif., Federal Laws Confuse Physicians Who Prescribe Marijuana COOL, Calif. -- Dr. Mollie Fry never thought that telling her patients where to get the medicine she recommended for pain, depression and nausea would be a problem. Federal drug agents who raided her home and office thought otherwise, and she was indicted last year on felony charges of conspiring to distribute marijuana. "I assumed the fact that I had 'M.D.' at the end of my name gave me the right to make judgments about people's health," said Fry, who estimates that she has issued thousands of cannabis recommendations since setting up her thriving practice northeast of Sacramento in 1999. [continues 579 words]
Voters on Tuesday weighed in on a vast array of local issues, with three cities leaning toward relaxed marijuana enforcement and San Francisco on the verge of becoming the first U.S. city to require all employers -- regardless of size -- to provide paid sick leave. In San Francisco and Berkeley, voters were voicing their disapproval of the current administration in measures calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney on grounds including warrantless spying and what were presented as other wartime civil rights violations. [continues 639 words]
In a big defeat for organized labor, Santa Cruz voters tonight trashed a measure to boost the minimum wage in the city to $9.25 an hour. But another controversial initiative that would all but legalize pot smoking for adults passed easily. If the wage measure had passed, Santa Cruz's minimum wage would have been 23 percent higher than the state minimum beginning in January. While the measure drew wide support from labor unions and low-income workers, local business people said it defied the laws of economics. [continues 357 words]
SANTA CRUZ -- Measure G, the proposal to raise the minimum wage in Santa Cruz to $9.25 an hour, was shot down by city voters Tuesday in a landslide defeat. "Defeating Measure G preserves the ability of local businesses to continue to employ people and continue to do everything we can to keep the community unique and successful," said Larry Pearson, owner of Pacific Cookie Co. and a leader in the opposition to the wage increase. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, 61 percent of voters had rejected the measure. [continues 412 words]
IT SEEMS that candidates across the country are trying to run against House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and all those "San Francisco values" she represents. Unfortunately for Republicans, Nancy Pelosi is on the ballot in just one of the nation's 435 districts, and there is no doubt that San Francisco values her work in Congress. Because one of this city's values is lively political participation, she is being challenged from the left and right by two personable and articulate candidates -- the Green Party's Krissy Keefer, who wants President Bush impeached, now; and Republican Mike DeNunzio, who wants terrorism pursued as "a war, not a lawsuit" -- though neither will come close to denying Pelosi a 10th full term. [continues 254 words]
VISTA ---- As students shuffled back to class after lunch at Vista High School one day last week, several stopped to wave or say hello to deputy Mario E. Genera as he watched from his usual spot near a lunch counter called The Pit Stop. "I arrested him," Genera said, waving back toward a smiling, dark-haired teenage boy. Moments later, another young man stopped to say hi to Genera on his way back to class. "I arrested him, too," Genera said with a slight smile as the boy walked away. [continues 550 words]
More Afghan Farmers Will Turn to the Taliban If the U.S. Doesn't Stop Eradicating the Country's Poppy Crop. JAMILLA NIAZI is a 40-year-old woman with a freckly face and high cheekbones. When she arrives in a refugee camp in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan to speak to me via Internet camera phone, her features are hidden behind the blue burka she is forced to wear in the scorching summer heat. She peels back the gauze and smiles. She doesn't do this much anymore -- not since the death threats began to come every night, pledging to burn her in acid. To jihadis, Niazi has committed an intolerable offense: She is the head teacher of a school for girls. [continues 647 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - An ordinance to put marijuana infractions somewhere below spitting on the sidewalk on San Francisco's law enforcement priority list is slated for a vote after its language was changed to give police discretion to investigate marijuana offenses that may pose a risk to public safety. But a neighborhood group that cried foul over the proposed ordinance's first inception has not dropped their opposition. The ordinance, introduced by Supervisor Tom Ammiano on Aug. 15, would officially make marijuana possession, sales and cultivation San Francisco's lowest law-enforcement priority, with exceptions for driving while impaired, selling marijuana to children and endangering public safety. It would also create a seven-member advisory community oversight committee to monitor implementation. [continues 363 words]
I have owned a company for 15 years that manages corporate drug-free workplaces. Drug-testing is the cornerstone of such programs. In addition, I offer a community-service, teenage-drug testing program in which well over 1,000 parents and kids have participated. We only charge our cost for a teenage test because of the value teenage drug-testing provides in the effort to curb drug abuse. Although I have never approached schools or school administrators with my thoughts on deterring teenage use ["A choice to test," Front Page, Oct. 28], I have much experience in this arena and offer the following thoughts and opinions. [continues 394 words]
Prop. 215 Approved by Voters Decade Ago Over the years, doctors prescribed Vicodin, Valium and a medicine chest of other drugs to soothe his constant pain, but the narcotics killed his appetite and kept him awake at night. Until he started smoking marijuana, Cody could barely sit still for a movie. Ten years ago, 56 percent of California voters decided that people with medical problems like Cody's should be able to grow and smoke marijuana on their physician's recommendation. [continues 1317 words]
Medical Marijuana Stores Have Met With Resistance in the South Bay and Three California Counties Claim in a Lawsuit That the Measure Approved by Voters in 1996 Is Illegal. SAN FRANCISCO -- A decade ago, California voters were the nation's first to approve medical marijuana, and 10 other states have since followed suit. But the future of the landmark California statute is no clearer now than when voters headed to the polls Nov. 5, 1996. The federal government still refuses to recognize Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act approved by 56 percent of voters. And U.S. authorities under both the Clinton and Bush administrations have won nearly every major legal battle over the measure. [continues 735 words]
PASADENA - Claiming that it is operating illegally, officials tried late last week to shut down a recently opened medical marijuana dispensary in an unincorporated county area. "It is a high priority," Los Angeles County Counsel Rick Weiss said, "and will be pursued vigorously." In June 2005, the Board of Supervisors unanimously ap-proved a moratorium banning such dispensaries. This past June, an ordinance was passed requiring the businesses to obtain a conditional-use permit in addition to a business license to open. [continues 263 words]
Ten years after California voters approved Proposition 215, a landmark medical marijuana law, many qualified patients still run a gantlet of federal drug agents and hostile police and prosecutors. This year, DEA agents, assisted by local law enforcement agencies, have busted dozens of storefront cannabis dispensaries, while city councils across the state have voted to prohibit the facilities. Proposition 215 meant to exempt patients from prosecution for possession of medical marijuana with a doctor's approval. But elected officials have been reluctant to implement a measure that conflicts with federal law and is still largely opposed by the state's law enforcement community. [continues 1028 words]
Drug A 'Scourge' In Eureka, Says Coroner A toxicology report conducted in Fresno revealed that the 16-year-old boy shot and killed by police last week had methamphetamine in his system. Christopher Burgess was running from probation officers when Eureka Police Officer Terry Liles joined the pursuit and, after a brief confrontation in a gully off Chester Street, shot the boy twice. Police said Burgess was threatening the officer with a knife. Humboldt County Coroner Frank Jager said Friday that the amount of methamphetamine found in Burgess' system was 0.08 milligrams per liter. The amount before a person feels the effect of the drug is about 0.01 to 0.05 milligrams. A toxic amount is 0.2 milligrams. [continues 250 words]
Toxicology reports indicate Christopher Arrion Burgess had methamphetamine in his blood. Burgess, 16, of Eureka, was shot at about 2 p.m. Oct. 23 in a gulch behind the 2200 block of Chester by Eureka police Officer Terry Liles. The toxicology reports were released to the Humboldt County Coroner's Office at about 11:15 a.m. Friday, Coroner Frank Jager said. EPD Chief Dave Douglas said the blood taken for the toxicology testing -- done at a laboratory in Fresno -- was drawn while Burgess was at St. Joseph Hospital, just after the shooting. [continues 1426 words]
PASADENA - Claiming that it is operating illegally, officials tried late last week to shut down a recently opened medical marijuana dispensary in an unincorporated county area. "It is a high priority," Los Angeles County Counsel Rick Weiss said, "and will be pursued vigorously." In June 2005, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a moratorium banning such dispensaries. This past June, an ordinance was passed requiring the businesses to obtain a conditional-use permit in addition to a business license to open. [continues 351 words]
Police Recruitment Rules Draw The Line At Meth, Heroin To help alleviate concerns that the Los Angeles Police Department has loosened its drug policy for hiring recruits, the Personnel Department and the LAPD said they've committed to rejecting applicants who have tried methamphetamine, heroin and hard drugs other than cocaine. Personnel and police officials noted Wednesday that they haven't actually hired anybody who has experimented with those drugs, but they wanted to make it clear they won't consider recruits who have tried hard drugs other than cocaine. [continues 215 words]
It has been said that whatever a drug gives it will eventually take away; meth is no different. The lure is seemingly unlimited energy with a sense of euphoria included. It is easy to like, and the rapid onset of tolerance (the need for more to get the effect previously achieved by a lesser amount) and withdrawal (the discomfort when a drug wears off) creates a rapid onset of addiction. There are people who briefly experiment with meth and escape before the situation gets tragic. Statistically speaking they are in a small minority that is dominated by people who tried it and for whatever reason didn't like it. Of the ones who tried it and liked it, the vast majority will reap the wrath of this sinister substance in one way or another. [continues 382 words]
Despite Setbacks, Veterans Of California's Pioneering Movement Will Celebrate. SACRAMENTO -- With pomp and a bit of pot-inspired pageantry, the battle-tested veterans of California's medical marijuana movement will come together this weekend to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Proposition 215, the milestone ballot measure that redefined cannabis as medicine. Those planning to gather today at the Gay Community Center in San Francisco include former cannabis club impresario and Proposition 215 author Dennis Peron, celebrated medical marijuana physician Dr. Tod Mikuriya and former San Francisco Dist. Atty. Terence Hallinan. [continues 388 words]
Calaveras County Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Dave Seawell distinctly remembers an incident with a person using methamphetamine about four years ago. The man broke into Sender's Market in Mountain Ranch and began laying lumber and ladders across the road. "People under the influence can become very paranoid," Seawell said. Seawell struggled to detain the man, who he said was much smaller in size, for about five minutes. The perpetrator would not stop resisting and appeared to show no signs of pain. [continues 711 words]
Welcome to Miami Vice: The Real World. MTV-style cutting and camera tricks make you think directors Billy Corben and Alfred Spellman are trying to out-Michael Mann the original "Vice" show for a while. But soon it's clear "Cocaine Cowboys" is an alternately jazzed-up/talking-too-much-heads documentary about the Miami drug trade of the 1970s and '80s. Things settle down once all the main players are established, and a wealth of information about an extraordinary organized-crime phenomenon is imparted. [continues 376 words]
In helping to spread the "Be Drug Free" message, the City of Fontana celebrated its 11th annual Red Ribbon Breakfast on Oct. 25 at Sierra Lakes Clubhouse. More than 200 attendees filled the room, and included in the crowd were a group of middle school and high school students. Red Ribbon Week became recognized nationally in 1988, and is the nation's largest drug prevention program that reaches millions of Americans as they wear red ribbons and pledge to live a drug-free life. [continues 641 words]
The California Department of Justice said its Campaign Against Marijuana Planting resulted in the eradication of nearly 1.7 million plants this season. The number reflects the seizure of pot plants in 34 California counties, and is up more than 500,000 plants over last year. A few north state counties are generally among those with the largest number of seizures. Shasta County held the top ranking last year, with more than 214,000 plants. More than that were pulled from illegal gardens this year, but Shasta came in second to Lake County, where 314,603 plants were eradicated. [continues 208 words]
Pot Coulda Been a Contender in DeVore Race. Then the Terminator Harshed His Mellow Things were looking great for industrial hemp this summer. Thanks to the, erm, joint efforts of polar opposite state assemblymen--openly gay leftist Mark Leno (D-Baghdad by the Bay) and openly militarized right-winger Chuck DeVore (R-NewBenz Riche)--a bill to legalize the non-high-making cousin of marijuana (a.k.a. pot, grass, chronic, the Devil's Weed, Widespread Panic Parking Lot Breakfast Combo) won bipartisan support in both state houses. And then, after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's signage was considered inevitable--you've seen those Pumping Iron scenes, right?--he up and vetoed the bill in September, saying it conflicted with federal law. [continues 1120 words]
Tehama County Has Record Year RED BLUFF - With more than 118,000 marijuana plants seized this year, this has been the most productive marijuana season on record for the Tehama County Sheriff's Department. Tehama County is joining the rest of the state in setting a new record for the number of plants seized. Across the state, 1,675,681 plants were seized - up 540 from 2005, according to the California Department of Justice . Even with those high numbers, Sheriff Clay Parker said the department probably only found one third of the pot gardens in the county. [continues 744 words]
Public's health and safety is cited in the action against the Green Cross on Hawthorne Boulevard. The business can protest the decision before License Review Board. The city of Torrance has revoked the business license of a controversial medical marijuana dispensary, officials said Wednesday. Less than two weeks after federal agents raided the Green Cross of Torrance, the Hawthorne Boulevard co-op was notified shortly after 5 p.m. Tuesday that it no longer had permission to operate locally. The decision was made after Police Chief John Neu declared the establishment a detriment to public health and safety. [continues 420 words]
LAKE COUNTY - Lake County leads the way out of 34 counties in the record number of marijuana plants seized this harvest season. A grand total 314,603 plants were seized here under the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting program (CAMP), which is the largest law enforcement task force in the United States. Created in 1983, CAMP is a multi-agency law enforcement task force managed by the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement and composed of more than 110 local, state and federal agencies organized expressly to eradicate illegal cannabis cultivation and trafficking in California. [continues 366 words]
Advocates Protest Outside Conference Armed with bullhorns and posters - and seemingly the will of voters - dozens of medical marijuana activists staged a protest outside a Mission Valley hotel yesterday. The hour-long demonstration, called to counter a two-day drug-abuse prevention conference under way at the Marriott, ended in a standoff in the hotel parking lot. Police arrested seven people on suspicion of trespassing, including Kris Hermes, a lawyer for Americans for Safe Access, the Berkeley group that organized the demonstration. [continues 253 words]
SAN DIEGO - Angry medical marijuana patients were arrested Tuesday when they staged a protest at a convention of federal Drug Enforcement Agency agents at the San Diego Marriott in Mission Valley. Officials from Americans for Safe Access, an Oakland-based group that has advocated on behalf of medical marijuana patients, said seven people were arrested, and one man cited, when the protesters refused to leave the hotel after demanding to see DEA Chief Karen Tandy. A San Diego Police Department spokesman confirmed that there was an incident at the convention that involved arrests. [continues 157 words]
Rafael Perez, the disgraced LAPD officer at the center of the Rampart corruption scandal, pleaded no contest Tuesday to perjury for lying on a driver's license application. He is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 30 to three years' probation. His plea was entered in Los Angeles County Superior Court in Torrance. Perez was arrested in July for using the name Ray Perez on a license application in June 2005, the Department of Motor Vehicles said. Perez, 39, has since changed his name to Ray Lopez, according to a district attorney's office statement. [continues 60 words]
Placer County Has Several Programs to Keep Students on the Right Track There are a number of reasons why children stay off drugs and alcohol. North Tahoe Middle School eighth-grader Holly Packard thinks "it's selfish" to abuse substances, while eighth-grader Tara Turpin believes fun can be had without drugs and alcohol and doesn't want to disappoint herself. For Sandra Gallaga, it's all about family. "I want my brother and sister to look up to me," the 14-year-old Gallaga said. [continues 563 words]
Students Exposed To Consequences Of Substance Abuse OAKLAND - Shortly After peeking into a coffin, a teary-eyed Tiama Watson proclaimed she's never doing drugs. Mission accomplished. Watson and 300 other seventh-graders from San Lorenzo's Edendale Middle School participated in the Drug Store program Thursday at the Dunsmuir House and Gardens in Oakland. "Oh boy, I was scared. It was like, 'It could've been me,'" Watson said. What she and other students saw inside the coffin was a mirror. [continues 356 words]
Moreno Valley: La Jolla Elementary Pupils Hit The Sidewalk To Make A Point About Drug-Free Living. The 900 students at La Jolla Elementary stomped out of class and through the neighborhood on Tuesday, yelling, singing and carrying signs, pledging to live a drug-free life. The event, which took less than a half-hour to empty the school, is the 2-year-old school's Red Ribbon Week campaign, called Stomp Out Drugs in Our Community. "By that walking through the community and actually taking that active role, they're learning not just to make a sign or to hear about it. They're taking an active role to say, 'We don't want this in our community. We're going to stomp out drugs in our community,' " said PTA member Christine Newman. [continues 189 words]
San Diego Superior Court Rules County Is Too Late To Be Included Riverside County will not join a legal challenge to California's medical marijuana law, scheduled to be heard Nov. 16 in San Diego Superior Court. The county Board of Supervisors voted earlier this month to join the suit filed by San Diego, San Bernardino and Merced counties. But the court ruled Friday that Riverside would not be allowed to join the case. "The court felt it was too late to intervene in the pending action in San Diego," said Pam Walls, assistant county counsel. [continues 239 words]
Ballot measures in Santa Monica, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz would require that police not bother adults over the private use of marijuana. Voters in three California cities will decide Tuesday whether to require their police departments to make the private use of marijuana by adults the lowest law enforcement priority. The ballot initiatives in Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and Santa Monica are direct descendants of Oakland's Proposition Z, which passed overwhelmingly in 2004, and of a similar measure approved by voters in Seattle a year earlier. [continues 788 words]
Gallery to Display 'Marijuana Project' Through Nov. 16 SAN FRANCISCO -- The first reaction to the thriving marijuana plant encased in Plexiglas in a San Francisco art gallery is to its pungent odor. Then come the questions. "They say, 'Is it real and is it for sale?' The plant is not for sale, but the photos are," replies Wendi Norris, an owner of Frey Norris Gallery on Geary Street where the "Marijuana Project" is on display through Nov. 16. The pot plant, accompanying photos of another plant, and buds encased in resin and mounted in petri dishes, as well as Pred's grower's permit and medical marijuana identification card, are part of the "Who's Afraid of San Francisco" exhibit, which includes installations on gay marriage, immigrants, anti-war movements and racial justice by artists from Oakland and elsewhere. [continues 590 words]
Controversial Display Includes Encased Plant, Pictures SAN FRANCISCO -- The first reaction to the thriving marijuana plant encased in Plexiglas in a San Francisco art gallery is to its pungent odor. Then come the questions. "They say, 'Is it real and is it for sale?' The plant is not for sale, but the photos are," replies Wendi Norris, an owner of Frey Norris Gallery on Geary Street where the "Marijuana Project" is on display through Nov. 16. The pot plant, accompanying photos of another plant, and buds encased in resin and mounted in petri dishes, as well as Pred's grower's permit and medical marijuana identification card, are part of the "Who's Afraid of San Francisco" exhibit, which includes installations on gay marriage, immigrants, anti-war movements and racial justice by artists from Oakland and elsewhere. [continues 590 words]
Random Drug Screening at O.C. Schools Spurs Debate Over Privacy Rights and Deterrent Effect. Austin Reagan could be pulled from his seventh-grade classroom at a moment's notice and asked to take a drug test. The 12-year-old -- an avid reader and class president at Vista del Mar Middle School in San Clemente -- is one of a growing number of Capistrano Unified School District students who participate in a voluntary, confidential drug-testing program. Student drug testing, launched in San Clemente High School in 2002, is being rolled out at all of the district's 11 middle schools and six high schools this year, prompting praise from some parents and concern from others. [continues 1105 words]
SAN FRANCISCO -- The first reaction to the thriving marijuana plant encased in Plexiglas in a San Francisco art gallery is to its pungent odor. Then come the questions. "They say, 'Is it real and is it for sale?' The plant is not for sale, but the photos are," replies Wendi Norris, an owner of Frey Norris Gallery on Geary Street where the "Marijuana Project" is on display through Nov. 16. The pot plant, accompanying photos of another plant, and buds encased in resin and mounted in petri dishes, as well as Pred's grower's permit and medical marijuana identification card, are part of the "Who's Afraid of San Francisco" exhibit, which includes installations on gay marriage, immigrants, anti-war movements and racial justice by artists from Oakland and elsewhere. [continues 592 words]
The War on Drugs is over! Pretty much over. Mission accomplished, people! Pretty close to accomplished that is. Good work people. I've prepared a speech for the Decider in Chief: Good People of 'Merica. Today's a victory for freedom in our territory. Now we can start over with clean feet. In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty and for the peace of the world. I'm pretty proud of us. Because of you, our nation is more secure. Because of you, the evil hippies have fallen and former stoners are free. [continues 623 words]
The funniest things in The Bee on Oct.23 weren't in the comics, but, sadly, in the Local News section. The headlines about the pot clubs and cards would have been humorous if the stories weren't so sad. It seems our Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors and sheriff are too stupid to get a program we voted for to work. Government in the Bay Area is smarter, I guess. Maybe the people there remember their job is to represent the people, not the federal government -- which has more than enough representatives. Modesto Planning Commission Chairwoman Alita Roberts professes to really care about the people who need it; I'll gladly loan you that quarter to make the call to the Bay Area. [continues 81 words]
This letter is in response to "As the sick seek pot alternatives, questions swirl" (Oct.8, Page B-1). Proposition 215 was passed by California voters to allow the use of marijuana by those under the written recommendation of their physicians. However, the use of marijuana is illegal under federal law. Nonprofit organizations that sell medicinal marijuana are under constant watch from law enforcement to ensure that this drug is only sold to patients who have written recommendations from their doctors. [continues 59 words]
Measure K, the lowest law-enforcement priority initiative, is about setting police priorities that make sense. This November, Santa Cruz voters will have the chance to choose a local, common-sense alternative to the Bush administration's failed War on Drugs. Measure K will make adult marijuana offenses the lowest law-enforcement priority for the Santa Cruz Police Department, allowing our police to use their valuable time and resources to focus on preventing serious and violent crime. There are far more pressing issues and far more pressing drugs, like methamphetamine and heroine, affecting our city than nonviolent adult marijuana users. [continues 446 words]
I have a challenge for the advocates of marijuana use in Santa Cruz. Try telling the truth for a change. Measure K isn't meant to reallocate Santa Cruz Police Department resources to give them "more resources to fight violent crime." Like the medical-marijuana initiative, it is just one more attempt at de facto legalization through misinformation and yes, lies. Ultimately, Measure K will decrease the ability of the police to justly apply their discretion and further remove the real issue of legalization from public discussion. [continues 561 words]
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience", Martin Luther King said, "but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." By this measure, Arnold Schwarzenegger fails the test. He flexes his impressive muscles for show. But when strength and courage truly are required, he cuts and runs. In his own inimitable words, he is a girly-man. Back in June the governor stood up to the federal government for 17 days, refusing to send the California National Guard to the border in a dispute with the President over immigration policy. He finally agreed, but insisted, "I'm the commander-in-chief -- so I can take back the National Guard at any time that I want." [continues 581 words]
Kids at Leona Cox Elementary School wore their clothes backward to school on Thursday to show that they were "turning their backs on drugs." With shirts turned around, size tags tickled the chins of students and the hoods of big sweatshirts bobbed into the faces of children as they ran. The message was clear: These students supported efforts to stay away from drugs. "Your family might tell you to do drugs and you're scared," said Andrew Romo, 10. "You might find teenagers on the football field, but you shouldn't do drugs. You should just say no." [continues 289 words]
Grow Rules Haven't Solved Problems City attorney James Lance is looking into the legality of banning all marijuana growing within city limits. An alternative possibility discussed at the October 25 city council meeting is a ban on growing by "caregivers," people authorized to produce medical marijuana for others at the rate of six adult plants per patient. The second alternative could leave medical marijuana patients free to grow their own six plants each. At issue are complaints from residents and council members - that the existing city ordinance on marijuana growing, which confines the activity to fully enclosed and secured structures, isn't preventing strong odors and intoxicating resins from entering the air. Possible violence associated with marijuana theft was also discussed. [continues 755 words]
In A War In Which Anything Goes, The First Casualties Are Truth And Civil Liberties Our country is in crisis and the voices calling for us to take our country back again grow louder every day. Homeland security is a hoax. Our borders are porous, our ports are run by other nations and our planes and nuclear plants are easily accessible to potential terrorists. Our public schools are failing, and for a growing number of young people a college education is out of reach. The gap between the rich and poor is widening and the wall between church and state is eroding. [continues 649 words]
Inside California
