Re "Stop insanity of pain meds" (Letters, Oct. 27): As a nurse, I have not seen a more nonsensical rule than the one that recently took effect regarding hydrocodone-combination products. The pseudoephedrine rule of 2006 comes close, though. Once again, the needs of the very few hold more weight than the needs of the many and logic is turned on its head. Not immediately, but soon we will witness a rise in heroin use, as it will be easier to acquire than legal Norco and patients in pain will do that which is easiest. [continues 92 words]
Millions of Americans rely on hydrocodone-combination products to ease debilitating pain. Until recently, doctors could fax or phone refills to a pharmacy. Now, regardless of age or mobility, sufferers must pay a doctor for a handwritten prescription. The cost of relief has increased by the cost of an office visit. Sadly, some people may have to choose between food and pain relief. Additionally, HCP patients now must pass an annual urine test. Grandma must prove she's taking, not selling. Another increase for those who can least afford it. Recently, a Bee obituary told of a young man who'd long suffered with excruciating back pain. When his pain medications were withheld, he ended the suffering himself. The government, starting with Obama, is punishing Americans with real medical needs while easing penalties for recreational users. Stop this insanity. In November, vote for honesty, integrity and change. Forget party affiliation and special interests. Richard Isherwood, Lincoln [end]
'Pay us $400 now or get dealt with." That's the ultimatum many inmates and their loved ones face after getting involved in drug debts to prison gangs. The threat is real. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has seen the devastating effects when an inmate cannot meet those demands. These include suicides, homicides and prison violence, as well as violence inflicted on an inmate's family outside prison. Every weekend, CDCR encounters visitors who attempt to smuggle in drugs and cellphones. So far this year, we've arrested 273. Many, unfortunately, are girlfriends or wives who have been forced by gangs to carry contraband. Out of fear, these visitors risk their own freedom to comply with the gangs' vicious demands. That's why the department is ramping up efforts to stop drugs from entering prisons. [continues 584 words]
To no one's surprise, Alisa Marie McFarlin failed to show up in Yolo County court last week. McFarlin, 33, is a methamphetamine user who has a tattoo on her chest that reads "Johnny's Girl" and often is homeless, wandering the streets of Sacramento and West Sacramento. She has been passing through the courthouse doors since December 2012, when she was arrested at the Cache Creek casino for possession of meth. She was arrested in June 2013 in Davis for loitering and possessing drug paraphernalia, and again on the 4th of July, 2013, in West Sac for meth. [continues 1018 words]
When California adopted the initiative process in 1911 during an era of railroad robber barons, voters gained a vital tool to enact critically needed policy changes when recalcitrant legislators and powerful special interests stand in the way. Proposition 46 is a compelling case in point. This measure, which I helped put on the Nov. 4 ballot, seeks to overcome health industry intransigence in the face of a national patient safety problem. The need for reform is beyond dispute. Each year, 440,000 patients die from preventable medical errors, the third-leading cause of death. [continues 530 words]
I have been a pediatrician in Sacramento for more than 30 years. I chose this line of work because I believe few things are more important than keeping children healthy and keeping health care accessible and affordable for every family. That's why I oppose Proposition 46, a deceptive measure that would have real costs for all Californians. Proposition 46 was drafted by trial lawyers seeking more profit from lawsuits against doctors and hospitals. Its main provision would quadruple the limit on non-economic damages contained in California's successful Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act, which governs lawsuits if someone is injured as a result of medical treatment. Because lawyers are compensated based on a percentage of payouts from medical lawsuits, they stand to gain if those payouts increase. [continues 480 words]
The old Craftsman bungalow at 3015 H St. is directly across the street from McKinley Montessori, a quaint little nursery school and kindergarten. It's also about 200 feet from McKinley Park and not even two blocks from Sutter Middle School. That's all worth mentioning because the business inside the old bungalow sells marijuana. And so when the operators of A Therapeutic Alternative went to the City Council last week seeking a permit that would allow them to stick around, you might have expected an angry resistance. Would you want your kid going to school across the street from a pot shop? [continues 395 words]
Success has many fathers, the saying goes, but failure is an orphan. Plenty of people are responsible for the collapse of a potentially landmark bill enacting the first statewide rules for medical marijuana. While the measure would not completely fix California's medical marijuana mess, it would tackle some of the worst abuses that have undermined the original intent of "compassionate care" for seriously ill patients. It at least tries to bring some order to the confusing maze of pot rules across the state. And it was the closest the Legislature had come to a compromise. [continues 509 words]
Sacramento County supervisors are expected Tuesday to limit the indoor growth of marijuana to nine plants per house in unincorporated areas. The indoor restriction comes nearly two months after the Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to ban outdoor marijuana growth, joining a number of other California cities and counties that have targeted cultivation in response to safety and nuisance complaints. Sheriff Scott Jones said earlier this year a profusion of marijuana grows have led to burglaries and, in some cases, fatal shootings. [continues 462 words]
The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced that thousands of federal prisoners serving long sentences for drug offenses can apply for presidential clemency - the latest step by the Obama administration to ease the impact of what it sees as outdated laws that locked up too many people for too long for nonviolent offenses. California should pay attention and revisit its own laws. The White House's decision affects people in federal prisons, not those in our state prisons and jails, and California is still under federal court order to reduce crowding in its prisons. Meanwhile, many California county jails are overcrowded, often with people accused or convicted of drug and other nonviolent offenses. [continues 526 words]
With the Legislature unable to seriously regulate marijuana, SACRAMENTO COUNTY SUPERVISOR ROBERTA MACGLASHAN IS PROPOSING FLAT bans on cultivation of the weed indoors and outdoors. MacGlashan will offer two separate ordinances at today's Board of Supervisors hearing. They're understandable, if extreme, reactions to the Legislature's annual failure. They deserve serious consideration and raise significant issues. Whatever you think of marijuana, voters in 1996 approved its use for medicinal purposes. No one should quibble if an individual grows a few plants for personal use. [continues 425 words]
Sacramento County supervisors on Tuesday unanimously voted to ban outdoor marijuana crops, joining a growing number of California cities and counties that have prohibited cultivation in response to safety and nuisance complaints. Sheriff Scott Jones told supervisors that marijuana plants have increased throughout the county because of a lack of clarity in federal and state laws and inconsistent prosecution. County aides and law enforcement showed numerous aerial photos of reported grow sites, including open space near Rio Linda High School and the Cherry Island Soccer Complex. [continues 696 words]
Re "Sacramento County Supervisor Roberta MacGlashan proposes flat bans on cultivation of marijuana, understandably so" (Editorial, April 22): Almost 10 years after California voters approved medical marijuana, California legislators are still treating it like Kryptonite. Someday marijuana will be fully legal nationwide, and there will be no vestiges of prohibition. That means no more suburban basement growers with massive carbon footprints and no more environmentally damaging back country outdoor grows. Legitimate farmers will produce it by the ton under natural sunlight at a fraction of the current cost. The sooner marijuana becomes a fully legal commodity, the sooner the needless drama surrounding marijuana cultivation will go away. California legislators need to forget about medical marijuana and catch up with Colorado already. - -- Robert Sharpe, Arlington, VA [end]
Re "Debate over pot gaining steam" (Dan Morain, March 16): Don't be fooled by Smart Approaches to Marijuana. Kevin Sabet is attempting to expand the drug war by marrying the prison-industrial complex to shady for-profit treatment providers. No one benefits when scarce treatment slots are filled with casual marijuana users. Just as adults who drink an occasional glass of wine don't need substance abuse treatment, the vast majority of marijuana users don't either. Many marijuana smokers have turned their lives around by putting down the bottle and picking up the marijuana pipe. These former alcoholics no longer wake up with hangovers. Because they have chosen a safer alternative, they now lead productive lives. [continues 56 words]
Days after California voters rejected an initiative to legalize marijuana for recreational use in 2010, Oakland City Attorney John Russo got an unexpected visit from an old friend, a high-ranking official from the U.S. Department of Justice. As they chatted warmly about their children, Russo sensed what was coming. Despite the failed pot measure, Proposition 19, Oakland was spiritedly moving forward on an audacious marijuana cultivation plan. This city, long hard-bitten by crime and economic malaise and mostly left behind as other San Francisco Bay Area communities reaped the benefits of California's technology boom, was determined to become the Silicon Valley of weed. [continues 1625 words]
Two weeks ago, Gov. Jerry Brown, no fan of marijuana legalization, mused on "Meet the Press" about the world's many dangers and the need to stay alert, "if not 24 hours a day, more than some of the potheads might be able to pull together." Last week, Brown's own California Democratic Party held its annual convention and voted to fully embrace marijuana legalization. And Brown's often nettlesome understudy, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, told a convention audience that he is all-in on the side of legalization. [continues 844 words]
Given how long California has been stuck in its medical marijuana morass, the wisest move is to fix that first. With real-life laboratories in Colorado and Washington state on legal recreational marijuana, it makes sense to wait and watch closely before making pot any more available. If state legislators do their job, that can be California's course. Proponents of the best-financed initiative to legalize marijuana have pulled back from this November's ballot and have set their sights on 2016, when they believe a larger voter turnout will help their chances. While two other groups are pushing ahead for this year, neither has qualified its initiative for the ballot. [continues 555 words]
The last time lawmakers tried to regulate California's medical marijuana industry, the League of California Cities warned of "a radical expansion of existing law" and "a slippery slope to distribution of marijuana for recreational use." And police groups rushed out talking points protesting the "creation of a massive, for-profit medical marijuana model." California cities and police were long considered obstructionists to regulatory legislation they said would legitimize marijuana businesses. But now they are jumping into the marijuana-regulation effort out of fear that the state is inevitably moving toward a sanctioned cannabis industry with or without their input. [continues 902 words]
Sacramento's Canna Care dispensary, an evangelical medical marijuana provider renowned for doling out buds with Bibles, is waging a public fight with the Internal Revenue Service over an $873,167 tax penalty sought under a tax code aimed at illegal drug traffickers. On Feb. 24, the U.S. Tax Court in San Francisco is due to hear Canna Care's challenge over whether the IRS can impose the hefty tax demand under a 1982 law intended to close a loophole that allowed a Minneapolis cocaine and methamphetamine dealer to claim tax deductions for a scale, his apartment rent and telephone expenses. [continues 931 words]
Misguided anti-tobacco advocates are trying to rally Californians against an important new weapon in the war against smoking: smokeless e-cigarettes and vaporizers. Despite compelling evidence that e-cigs present no public health hazard and greatly reduce the risk of smoking-related disease, advocates have been lobbying legislators across the state to prohibit e-cig use in nonsmoking areas. E-cigarettes don't entail the health hazards of smoking because they don't produce smoke at all. Rather, they emit vapors by gently heating a nicotine solution or similar substance without burning anything. This eliminates the toxic and carcinogenic byproducts of combusted leaf that are the primary cause of smoking-related disease. It also eliminates any secondhand health risks to bystanders, the primary rationale for the state's anti-smoking laws. [continues 451 words]
Re "From pot dreams to prison for whiz kid" (Page A1, Jan. 21): Colorado and Washington legalized recreational pot, but I do not see the purpose of legalizing marijuana for recreational uses other than to generate income off of it. Although not to the extent of other drugs, it is evident that marijuana impairs our abilities to properly function. There is the idea that, like alcohol, there can be a limit set for driving while under the influence. However,it is hard to test and determine what is too much marijuana. The income that can result from legalizing recreational marijuana simply is not worth the risk of potential accidents. On top of that, it is a violation of federal law. - -- Nisa Smith, Sacramento [end]
Re "From pot dreams to prison for whiz kid" (Page A1, Jan. 21): The fact that Matthew Davies faces prison time is ridiculous. Just as illegitimate evidence can cause a case to be dismissed, Davies' case should be dropped because of California's lack of clarity on the issue of marijuana. Regardless of whether marijuana should be legalized, California needs to get its act together before federal prosecutors punish more people. - -- Carl Shelby, Sacramento [end]
In 2010, as Colorado lawmakers were creating America's first state-licensed and regulated medical marijuana industry, fellow police officers at a Colorado Drug Investigators Association conference jeered a state law enforcement official assigned to draft the legislation. Some of the sharpest barbs came from visiting narcotics officers from California. "I was told that we hadn't learned anything from California that you can't do anything to regulate marijuana," said Matt Cook, a retired Colorado Springs police officer who became the first director of Colorado's Marijuana Enforcement Division, a policing agency that now regulates state-licensed marijuana workers, pot stores and commercial cannabis producers. [continues 1352 words]
Matthew Davies, a freshly minted MBA graduate from Santa Clara University, was a fast achiever in business. He launched an online jewelry importing company, moved on to open a property management firm and then an upscale French restaurant, Le Bistro, that served fine wines and Grand Marnier souffles. On March 3, Davies, 35, of Stockton, will begin serving a five-year federal prison term for his most ambitious, and ill-fated, venture: becoming a medical marijuana entrepreneur in California. His ultimate success story - building a $10 million Central Valley medical marijuana enterprise in barely two years - became both his undoing and a cautionary tale for people who saw a green rush in California's teeming, unregulated cannabis economy. [continues 1753 words]
Marijuana legalization advocates contend that the weed is harmless. Hardly. As advocates contemplate an initiative that would further commercialize marijuana, Gov. Jerry Brown is earmarking $3.3 million to curb the environmental degradation caused by its cultivation. The effort is long past due. In his budget released last week, the governor proposes to assign 11 state water board and seven Fish and Wildlife inspectors and investigators to confront the problem. "Currently, marijuana cultivation is threatening water supply, water quality and the sensitive habitat of endangered species," the governor's budget summary says. [continues 207 words]
Like clockwork, signature gatherers mass outside supermarkets to hawk their petitions, while initiative proponents squawk about the loaded wording in the official titles and summaries given to their propositions. The wording is supposed to be neutral. But recent attorneys general, who are responsible for titles and summaries, have meddled, knowing many voters make up their minds based on the 100-word summations. Attorney General Kamala Harris has been especially freewheeling. That needs to stop. As The Bee's Jon Ortiz wrote in his State Worker column last week, Harris is preparing to release her assessment of San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed's initiative to subject public employee pensions to labor negotiations. [continues 297 words]
On New Year's Day in Colorado, state-licensed marijuana stores will begin selling pot purely for pleasurable consumption. Colorado, already home to the nation's most regulated medical marijuana industry, expects to open its first two dozen stores selling recreational cannabis users up to an ounce of pot each. Another 400 applications are pending for retail marijuana shops, commercial cultivators or pot product producers. In Washington, where voters also legalized recreational marijuana use in November 2012, the state is reviewing a flood of applications for 340 state licenses for marijuana stores expected to begin opening this spring. [continues 1065 words]
In a state that pioneered rethinking marijuana laws, a majority of voters have legalization in mind. A new Field Poll tracks the increasingly green-friendly attitude of Californians, a decades-long trend that has seen Golden State residents swing from seeking tougher enforcement to favoring the end of pot prohibition. Eight percent of voters backed allowing anyone to purchase cannabis and 47 percent said it should be available with the types of controls, like age verification, that govern alcohol sales. Those two groups combined account for 55 percent of voters surveyed, marking a breakthrough for marijuana advocates: It is the first time a Field Poll has discovered clear majority support for legalization. A combined 50 percent backed the notion in 2010, when a legalization ballot initiative went down to defeat. [continues 758 words]
Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom is a deft politician. So when he announced that he would lead the latest campaign to legalize marijuana in California, the movement gained an instant level of legitimacy. Newsom calls the war on drugs an abject failure and believes most politicians share his view, though they "say one thing publicly and another thing privately." "If it was good politics, you'd have a lot more politicians out front," Newsom told me last week. "I can't defend the status quo. I feel an obligation to make a better argument." [continues 1032 words]
Re "Lawmakers need to stop with the sneaky marijuana legislation" (Another View, Sept. 22): Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully is guilty of confusing the drug war's collateral damage with a comparatively harmless plant. Every public safety risk she describes is a direct result of marijuana's illegality. If the goal of marijuana prohibition is to subsidize violent drug cartels, prohibition is a success. The drug war distorts supply and demand dynamics so that big money grows on little trees. [continues 88 words]
Dan Morain's column on Sunday, "Drugged driving, hell on wheels: Billionaire pushing to ease access to marijuana," sheds some light on the millions of dollars spent by pro-marijuana advocates to influence legislators like Tom Ammiano, Mark Leno, and Darrell Steinberg to push legislation - such as AB 604 and SB 611 - to benefit those who believe marijuana should be legalized and sold for profit. The column did not mention the fact that these legislators tried to sneak their bills through using the "gut and amend" process. [continues 588 words]
With a moratorium on new medical marijuana dispensaries in unincorporated El Dorado County set to expire at the end of October, the county Planning Commission has called for an ordinance to allow and regulate the facilities. The commission at its Aug. 22 meeting objected to a proposed ordinance amendment, initiated by the Board of Supervisors, that would ban all medical marijuana distribution facilities. "After about four hours of listening and discussion, it was the commission's directive to allow the existing collectives that are in place today," said commission Chairman Dave Pratt. "In a second motion, we asked the board to give us a shot at coming up with rules for collectives." [continues 621 words]
It was midday on Aug. 30, and the sun blazed over two undercover law enforcement officers as they entered an illegal pot farm. Like so many in the Central Valley, this farm was hidden in plain sight, a stone's throw from Interstate 5, near Galt. The sweep revealed no humans, but enough d-CON strewn about to kill several rats. It was a classic example of the environmental degradation caused by widespread, illegal pot farming on public land. Rat poison threatens whatever species shares habitat with such grow sites, and no animal is more imperiled than the fisher, a cat-sized member of the weasel family who lives in the Sierra Nevada and its foothills. [continues 863 words]
As if California needed more impetus to tackle its marijuana morass, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder just offered one. The Justice Department announced last week that while marijuana remains illegal under federal law, it would not block Colorado and Washington state from licensing and taxing the sale of recreational pot if they police themselves. To stay free of federal interference, the two states must prevent marijuana from being sold to children, stop profits from flowing to gangs and drug cartels, crack down on driving while impaired by drugs and keep marijuana from being grown on public lands, including national forests. [continues 327 words]
Law enforcement has long relied on the cliche "we don't make the laws, we just enforce them" when called to task for their role in enforcing unjust laws. For many years this was the case, but in the last two decades the increased lobbying of law enforcement organizations - some motivated by considerations other than upholding the law or improving public safety - has undermined the role of police professionals by making them just one more special interest group. Lobbying by law enforcement organizations is big business. [continues 523 words]
As leaders in California's maturing medical cannabis industry, we are well aware of the potential environmental impacts associated with cannabis cultivation. The main question coming up in relationship to these impacts is: Why aren't cannabis cultivators held to the same guidelines and requirements as other farmers or grape growers? The short answer is: If you want cannabis cultivators to act like farmers and follow agricultural guidelines, then regulate medical cannabis production as an agricultural crop, produced for human consumption. [continues 614 words]
The Western Plant Science Association, with headquarters in Butte County, represents the interests of qualified medical marijuana patients and collectives. Recently, we were quite disappointed to read a statement in The Sacramento Bee by The Bee's Dan Morain ("Environment is going to pot," Aug. 4). Referring to medical marijuana growers, Morain made the unqualified statement that: "Growers don't obtain permits and take no steps to limit erosion." This statement impugns the character and credibility of legitimate medical marijuana growers, both qualified patients and medical marijuana collectives. [continues 326 words]
It's taken too many years. Nonetheless, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement that he has instructed federal prosecutors to stop pursuing long prison sentences for minor drug offenders is welcome. In his speech to the American Bar Association in San Francisco on Monday, Holder made public the Justice Department's new, more lenient and sensible charging policies. "Low-level nonviolent drug offenders who have no ties to large-scale organizations, gangs or cartels," Holder said, "will no longer be charged with offenses that impose draconian mandatory minimum sentences." [continues 400 words]
For decades, California lawmakers have imposed ever tighter restrictions on logging, farming, and other activities that can foul water and damage the environment. But they aren't showing the same aggressiveness about halting damage being done by marijuana farmers. That timidity needs to end. Proponents of medical marijuana and marijuana legalization want their harvest to be treated like other commercial products. However, too often they ignore the most basic rules that other farmers follow. Too many growers overuse fertilizers and pesticides, and spill the toxic chemicals into waterways. Increasingly, they denude mountainsides so they can grow their quasi-legal crops in the fullest sun, with no concern about erosion. [continues 435 words]
Re "Environment is going to pot" (Dan Morain, Aug. 4): Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg's SB 439 would do nothing to address the public safety and environmental corrosion caused by the medical marijuana trade. Instead, SB 439 would make the current problems worse. SB 439 would permit marijuana dispensaries to become virtual cash machines as they exploit the massive medical recommendation fraud that underlies California's medical marijuana industry. The bill would do nothing to address that fraud, and now we find that it passive about the environmental degradation caused by medical marijuana farmers. [continues 61 words]
It's become a daily occurrence. Customers visit Hugs Alternative Care, a medical marijuana dispensary on Stockton Boulevard, and ask for "dabs." They are referring to butane hash oil, an especially potent form of marijuana, also known as "honey," "honey oil," "wax" or "earwax" because of its sticky, amber-colored appearance. "We don't carry oils or waxes," Hugs manager Cathy Romer tells them. Nevertheless, it's clear that the demand for dabs has hit Sacramento. The marijuana industry's latest "it product," dabs has been moving from the fringe into mainstream consciousness for years, although many card-carrying medicinal marijuana users and even some law enforcement officials know little about it. [continues 967 words]
Regardless of how you may feel about marijuana, we should all be able to agree that the state's environmental laws should be applied equally to both pot and non-pot farmers. How we farm affects our quality of life and it is proper for government to enforce common-sense rules that protect public health and safety. Unfortunately, public confidence in the state agency in charge of protecting much of the Sacramento Valley's water, due to concerns for safety, is hampered by not applying these rules equally. While it enforces compliance on traditional crop farmers and timber companies for violations, this agency has been unable to go after illegal pot farmers in Butte County. [continues 530 words]
Re "Environment is going to pot" (Dan Morain, Aug. 4): If marijuana were fully legal, there would be no backyard or back country growers cashing in on inflated marijuana prices. Legitimate farmers would produce it by the ton at a fraction of the current cost. There is a reason you don't see Mexican drug cartels sneaking into national forests to cultivate tomatoes and cucumbers. They cannot compete with a legal market. Marijuana prohibition is a complete failure. The United States has higher rates of marijuana use than the Netherlands, where marijuana is legally available to adults. The only clear winners in the war on marijuana are drug cartels and shameless tough-on-drugs politicians who've built careers confusing the drug war's collateral damage with a comparatively harmless plant. - -- Robert Sharpe, Common Sense for Drug Policy, Arlington, Vir. [end]
In a state that prides itself on its environmentalist sensibilities, emboldened marijuana growers have ripped out ponderosa pines and bulldozed deep terraces into steep slopes above Lake Oroville, all so their crops can receive full sun. In an earlier era, 49ers with visions of riches used powerful water cannons to tear apart mountains in search of precious metal. The story hasn't changed much in a century and a half, except now the gold is green. Growers don't obtain permits and take no steps to limit erosion. Although they probably are breaking law governing discharges, California Regional Water Quality Control Board officials shy away from inspecting the farms, fearing for their safety. [continues 1140 words]
Re "Dr. Skype's pot exams: Quick, hazy" (Dan Morain, May 26): It is true that anyone in California who wants a medical marijuana recommendation can easily get one. The recommendation allows consumers to purchase locally grown marijuana of known quality and safety from dispensaries that generate tax revenue. Is it somehow preferable that consumers purchase untaxed, unregulated and potentially unsafe marijuana from criminals? Marijuana prohibition keeps violent drug cartels in business. When marijuana is illegal and cartels control marijuana distribution, consumers are exposed to illegal cocaine, meth and heroin. This "gateway" is a direct result of marijuana's illegal status. Marijuana may be relatively harmless, but marijuana prohibition is deadly. - -- Robert Sharpe, Washington DC, Policy Analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy [end]
The sentencing Friday of a former operator of a Sacramento marijuana dispensary brought into sharp relief the increased secrecy surrounding plea bargains and punishment of federal defendants willing to help the government in exchange for a shorter prison term. A prosecutor's attempt to seal a sentencing memorandum in the case of Bryan Smith encountered stiff resistance from U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr., who is known to be more scrupulous than most of his colleagues on the Sacramento federal bench when it comes to the evaluation of sealing requests and procedures. [continues 1219 words]
Dr. Roger J. Foster's examination room is in a seedy office next to a boarded-up Sacramento city incinerator in a scruffy Alkali Flat lot of warehouses and used car dealers. Foster's office has no stethoscope or blood pressure cuffs or, for that matter, Foster, at least not in the flesh. It does, however, have a computer with a camera mounted on the monitor. Bedraggled customers filled every seat the other morning, waiting for the receptionist to usher them into the exam room, where they would speak to the doctor via Skype. [continues 1061 words]
The nation's drug czar on Thursday released a report stating that 78 percent of adult males arrested in Sacramento County tested positive for at least one illegal drug. Gil Kerlikowske , director of national drug control policy, during an address at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., released the results of a 2012 Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring report that collected data from inmates in five cities or counties. In his address, he said more than half of adult males arrested for crimes, misdemeanors and felonies tested positive for a least one drug. [continues 226 words]
Local governments in California may ban the manufacture, distribution and sale of medical marijuana within their boundaries, even though state law allows those activities under certain circumstances, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday. The high court declared that neither of the two state statutes governing medical marijuana prohibits a city or county from invoking a total ban. Associate Justice Marvin R. Baxter, who authored the unanimous opinion, wrote that California's statutes are very limited and are careful to strike a delicate balance in a controversial area of federal and state relations. [continues 664 words]
Colorado has the nation's most meticulously regulated medical marijuana industry. Washington has the first-ever blood-level standard for driving while high. But in the birthplace of America's medical cannabis movement and home of the most robust pot economy, California lawmakers can't seem to figure out what they want to do about marijuana. The governance of marijuana in California remains hazy as many legislators are skittish over California's medical cannabis industry, over an unfolding federal crackdown and over risking disapproval of law enforcement interests. [continues 964 words]
