How does a plant become $4,000? The answer is marijuana prohibition. The illicit nature of cannabis makes the profits exceptionally attractive, ensuring that criminal gangs and drug dealers take extreme measures to make their money. The only way to end the criminal association with marijuana cultivation and reclaim our national parks is to bring the drug under government control. This can only be achieved by legalizing cannabis to some degree, adding appropriate government regulation. With this regulation, cultivators will be forced to comply with environmental laws and safety standards, making all of us safer. If we continue to pursue these criminals with law enforcement techniques, the increased risk will only increase the price of marijuana, creating more lucrative profits for producers and thus increased incentives to make a business out of it. Andy Garofalo Burbank [end]
Fourth District Court of Appeal upholds validity of state law over federal supremacy On July 31 California's Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed that California's medical marijuana laws are valid despite the fact that federal law does not make any provision for the medicinal use of marijuana. This means that state, county and local officials, whether they like the laws put in place by the people through the initiative process and later the Legislature, are duty-bound the implement those laws. [continues 489 words]
Risk: Officers Face Danger Every Day. SUGARLOAF MOUNTAIN -- A coordinated attack on illegal marijuana growers operating in nearby national forests is in full swing with today's large-scale raid on Sugarloaf Mountain. And with nearly 90 grow sites taken out thus far in Tulare County, local, state and federal law enforcement officers are showing they mean business. "We've been planning this for about three or four years, trying to get enough resources together at one time to really make an impact," Tulare County Sheriff Bill Wittman said, "not only to remove the marijuana plants, but to take out the infrastructure." [continues 907 words]
VISALIA -- Last week's drug bust involving a massive marijuana grow site above Porterville is drawing national attention with the arrival today of the nation's drug czar. Ten media outlets, including CNN and CNBC, converged on the National Guard Armory building in Visalia shortly after noon for a press conference to address the relative success of the joint operation. John Walters, director of the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, McGregor Scott, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California, and Tulare County Sheriff Bill Wittman each spent several minutes answering reporters' questions. [continues 424 words]
An anonymous tip led to Tulare County Sheriff's detectives removing $4.8 million worth of marijuana plants from a Tulare canal Tuesday afternoon, deputies reported Wednesday. Detectives from the Sheriff's Tactical Enforcement Personnel Team received the call at about 11:30 a.m., leading them to a marijuana garden along a canal west of Road 148 and a quarter mile south of Avenue 148. When the dust settled, detectives eradicated 1,203 marijuana plants from the canal. If allowed to grow to maturity, the plants would have had an estimated street value of a little more than $4.81 million, according to a department news release. Deputies are still searching for who planted the garden, and are looking to see if it is connected to recent marijuana garden busts in the Visalia area, the department said. [end]
A public hearing will be held Tuesday regarding a request from the Resource Management Agency for the Board of Supervisors to amend the Tulare County Zoning Ordinance pertaining to the location of medical marijuana dispensaries. County staff based it's recommendations for the ordinance on studies that have shown potential for multiple impact of medical marijuana dispensaries and appropriate buffer distances. The buffer zones restrict dispensaries to at least 1,000 feet from public or private schools, day-care centers, recreation facilities, any park or any other medical marijuana dispensary. [continues 250 words]
Strathmore Elementary pupils are learning not just how but why they should say no to illegal drugs in the 10-week Too Good For Drugs program, which teachers started including in their kindergarten through fifth grade classes Nov. 19. "It's gone beyond 'Just Say No,'" said Barbara Johnson, Strathmore's program coordinator. "The program helps the kids figure out why they might want to do drugs, and to think about that situation." Johnson trained teachers for the 10-week program, which gets children to think about the things that make them feel good or bad and what they can do about them in a fashion that bolsters their self-esteem. [continues 379 words]
A public hearing on extending a hold on medical marijuana dispensary permits for an additional period of 10 months and 15 days will be held at Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting. The Resource Management Agency wants more time to draft a zoning ordinance that would limit where dispensaries could be located. Currently, there are no restrictions. "We came up with it initially because we wanted to establish some kind of zoning ordinance ... with the idea that some places might be appropriate and some might not," said the county's media officer, Eric Coyne. "They are asking for more time to research and determine what they want to recommend for adoption." [continues 255 words]
A month-long project to restore natural conditions to 166 acres of wilderness damaged by illegal marijuana farming has been completed. The effort, which teamed Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks law enforcement and natural resources staff with elements of the California Conservation Corps, the California Army National Guard and the California Air National Guard, saw the removal of 4,650 pounds of garbage and hose, camp infrastructure and 5.3 miles of irrigation hose from 31 gardens and seven camps that were occupied by illegal growers in 2002. [continues 81 words]
Law enforcement agencies and statewide drug enforcement programs are reporting major strides in the war against drugs in the Central Valley. According to statistics provided by the Tulare County Sheriff's Department, the number of methamphetamine labs disassembled by county authorities dropped significantly in 2005. Meanwhile, the number of drug seizures reached new highs. The data on drug activity was collected by the California Multi-Jurisdictional Methamphetamine Enforcement Team program, or Cal-MMET. The program is run in conjunction with the Central Valley High Intensity Drug Trafficking Programs and administered by the Governor's Office of Criminal Justice Planning. [continues 271 words]
The California Assembly is poised to do something sensible - removing restrictions on an important activity, thereby opening opportunities, rather than imposing new regulations or taxes - for once. It would do well to get on with legalizing and regulating industrial hemp. A fascinating alliance across party lines has emerged behind AB1147, introduced by San Francisco Democrat Mark Leno. Irvine Republican Chuck DeVore, a military veteran and solid conservative, has joined as a principal co-author. Hemp, of course, is the cannabis plant, also known as marijuana. Although California voters authorized the medical use of marijuana, recreational use - inhaling smoke or vapors from the buds and flowers, which contain tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - is forbidden. What has been lost by prohibiting recreational use is the fact that other parts of the plant, which do not contain THC, have important uses. [continues 422 words]
Visalia - The City Council early this week unanimously approved a new ordinance that will impose restrictions in the cultivation, distribution and use of medicinal marijuana. But even though the word "restriction" implies limitations or obstacles for consumers of medicinal marijuana, for Jeff Nunes, executive director of Medicinal Marijuana Awareness and Defense, this new regulation will create a positive effect on his organization. "It gives us a better insight of how we can grow as an organization," Nunes said. "This helps us to work with the city and see what zoning we are supposed to be in." [continues 327 words]
Park rangers dug deep Tuesday to remove more than 1,000 marijuana plants from inside Sequoia National Park as law enforcement received federal funds to combat drugs in the Valley. While rangers removed plants from the parks, Tulare County Sheriff's Department deputies and personnel from the California Department of Justice's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting could be found pulling marijuana plants from nearby grow sites on Bureau of Land Management lands. Both grow sites were found in the canyon of the South Fork and Kaweah River. [continues 234 words]
ASPEN, Colo. - Hunter S. Thompson, the hard-living writer who inserted himself into his accounts of America's underbelly and popularized a first-person form of journalism in books such as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," has committed suicide. Thompson was found dead Sunday in his Aspen-area home of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, sheriff's officials said. He was 67. Thompson's wife, Anita, had gone out before the shooting and was not home at the time. [continues 794 words]
Students at Roche Avenue Elementary School and at several Porterville schools celebrated Red Ribbon Week with school-wide activities, games and theme dress days to let everyone know they will continue to "just say no" to drugs. On Thursday afternoon, dozens of children raced up and down the Roche Avenue basketball courts in the "Wet Sponge Relay." "They have to run down the court, dip their sponge in a bucket of water and run back to squeeze the water into a cup," said teacher, Guadalupe Acosta. [continues 209 words]
Local law enforcement officials remained busy midweek, finding and destroying millions of dollars worth of marijuana plants. Detectives from the Tulare County Sheriff's Department's Tactical Enforcement Personnel, Campaign Against Marijuana Production and the U.S. Forest Service began Tuesday conducting a two-day operation clearing two separate marijuana gardens in the foothills above California Hot Springs, the Sheriff's Department reports. The first garden was on Rube Creek and had a plant count of 6,414 mature plants. The second garden was on Cold Springs Creek and had a mature plant count of 12,012. Authorities report the plants seized from both sites would be worth $74 million had they made their way to the streets. [continues 240 words]
It's hard to believe Drug Abuse Resistance Education turned 20-years-old last week. I remember the hoopla that took place surrounding the birth of the program when Daryl Gates, then Los Angeles chief of police, and the Los Angeles Unified School District officials came together with the concept that was to save teen-agers from the ravages of illicit drugs. DARE's message and purpose was simple: Keep kids off of drugs, educate them, and help them have the courage to dare to say no to anyone attempting to draw them on to the dark side. [continues 405 words]
SACRAMENTO - Officials just kicked off the California Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, but authorities in Tulare County beat the start of the season by eradicating gardens at two locations in the county last week. Attorney General Bill Lockyer recently announced Tulare County placed fifth among California counties in plant seizures during the 2002 marijuana planting season, with a total of 29,271. Mendocino led with 103,104, followed by Sonoma, at 39,313, Santa Barbara, 32,698, and Tuolumne, 32,698. "This year, the CAMP team continues its efforts to rid our state of dangerous commercial grow operations," Lockyer said. [continues 316 words]
It's hard to believe Drug Abuse Resistance Education turned 20-years-old last week. I remember the hoopla that took place surrounding the birth of the program when Daryl Gates, then Los Angeles chief of police, and the Los Angeles Unified School District officials came together with the concept that was to save teenagers from the ravages of illicit drugs. DARE's message and purpose was simple: Keep kids off of drugs, educate them, and help them have the courage to dare to say no to anyone attempting to draw them on to the dark side. [continues 405 words]
