Grover Beach Wants to Find a Way to Tax Both Medical and Recreational Marijuana Sales in the City It Has Until Aug. 1 to Get the Measure to the County for the November Ballot It Would Charge Up to 10 Percent to Medical and Recreational Marijuana Businesses Grover Beach residents will likely vote on a marijuana tax measure this November, though the city still has to get past one more hurdle before it can be placed on the general election ballot. [continues 489 words]
I don't understand why medical marijuana is taxable. Other medicines are not taxable, so why is marijuana? According to the MarketWatch blog, "The case arose after the board audited Berkeley Patients Group Inc. in Northern California. The marijuana dispensary argued that the $51 million of marijuana it sold between July 1, 2004, and June 30, 2007, should be exempt from sales tax. The board disagreed because state tax code doesn't have a specific exemption for the marijuana, and said the dispensary owes more than $6.4 million in back taxes and interest." [continues 83 words]
I read with interest Lon Allan's take on banning all marijuana growing, stores and mobile sales in Atascadero ("Atascadero's ban on marijuana, celebration of wine is a double standard," Jan. 26). Him being the Luddite curmudgeon he has demonstrated and admitted to, I would expect no less. I guess he has no friends or associates who use medical marijuana for chronic pain or conditions. At least they don't admit it to him, because they fear his lecture on how using pot will lead them on to using heroin or crack cocaine for their arthritis or sciatica. [continues 66 words]
Don't allow marijuana sales here. I see that the Atascadero City Council voted unanimously to ban all marijuana cultivation in the city and to continue its ban on both dispensaries and deliveries of the drug. I'm fine with that. What bothers me, however, is that same council would jump up and down for joy and welcome a new wine-tasting room in the city. You'd see ribbon-cuttings featuring all of the council members and Chamber of Commerce folks. [continues 314 words]
With the countless problems California citizens face, struggling to use the God-given plant cannabis (marijuana) for medical reasons (Letters. "SLO County Cities Should Not Ban Patients," Dec. 29), it should be obvious that it's time to completely end cannabis prohibition. Ending cannabis prohibition in Colorado eliminated perhaps 90 percent of the controversy California citizens face. Now sick people in Colorado no longer are required to get a doctor's permission to use the plant or the state's permit to use or grow the plant. That is to say, sick citizens no longer pay the state extortion money for protection from the police in order to grow and use what God indicates He created and says is good on literally the first page of the Bible. Legalizing cannabis would also force Pismo Beach police Chief Jake Miller to return to protecting citizens instead of gardening. STAN WHITE, DILLON, COLORADO [end]
Pismo Beach's proposed all-out ban on medical marijuana cultivation is unreasonable We prefer Grover Beach's approach of allowing patients to grow the drug for personal use California's effort to regulate the cultivation and sale of medical marijuana could wind up making it even harder for patients to obtain the drug in some parts of San Luis Obispo County. That's a shame, and it's not at all what Gov. Jerry Brown intended when he signed a trio of bills to increase oversight of medical pot. [continues 481 words]
An appeal has been filed against a proposed medical marijuana dispensary in Nipomo, and the project will now go before the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors in October. The project calls for a brick-and-mortar dispensary offshoot of the mobile dispensary business, Ethnobotanica Patients Cooperative. The storefront would be at 2122 Hutton Road in Nipomo. The San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission approved plans for the dispensary in a 3-1 vote, with Commissioner Jim Harrison dissenting, on July 9. [continues 79 words]
Reversing an Earlier Vote, the City Council Will Permit Mobile Marijuana Dispensaries The Pismo Beach City Council did a 180 on mobile pot dispensaries this week after hearing from constituents who rely on medical marijuana for themselves and their loved ones. At an earlier meeting, the council had taken a preliminary vote to ban mobile dispensaries, without offering much explanation for that decision and without considering how it might affect residents. The council spent more time vetting the ban on Tuesday. Councilwoman Sheila Blake noted that she had spoken to the police chief, who said he was unaware of problems involving pot dispensaries operating in Pismo Beach. [continues 450 words]
Our City Council here in Paso Robles couldn't decide last week whether to ban the delivery of medical marijuana to people within the city. The vote was a 2-2 deadlock. One councilman was absent. The delivery ban failed, but the city may still refuse to grant business licenses for delivering medical marijuana. The city attorney was to check whether the city's license ordinance covers such services. Selling medical marijuana from fixed locations in Paso Robles was banned in 2007. [continues 348 words]
The Issue Drew One of the Largest Crowds of the Past Year to a City Council Meeting Medical marijuana advocates in San Luis Obispo triumphed Tuesday night against an ordinance that would have severely restricted their rights to grow and distribute marijuana within city limits. In front of a packed audience, the San Luis Obispo City Council voted 4-1 to table a proposed law that would have banned mobile dispensaries and prohibited marijuana plants from being grown outside. Instead, the council decided not to ban the dispensaries and directed city staff to search for ways to deal with egregious cases of marijuana cultivation that may cause a public nuisance. [continues 590 words]
Banning mobile dispensaries would be a hardship for those with a legitimate need Residents of a San Luis Obispo neighborhood are outraged over the backyard cultivation of a dozen mature marijuana plants, which is allowed under the state's voter-approved Compassionate Use Act. In response to concerns, the City Council is meeting this afternoon to consider a blanket ban on outdoor cultivation of marijuana. Limited indoor cultivation of medical marijuana would still be allowed under the city's proposed ordinance. [continues 541 words]
The San Luis Obispo City Council will consider a new law Tuesday that would put strict limits on medical marijuana users within the city. The ordinance, if passed, would prohibit qualified patients or caregivers - those people with a doctor's written recommendation - from growing marijuana outside and limit growing indoors to an area of no more than 50 square feet. The law would also ban mobile marijuana dispensaries from operating in the city. The proposed regulations stem from a complaint made to the City Council in November 2013 by neighbors living next door to a house in downtown San Luis Obispo where residents were growing 12 6-foot-tall marijuana plants in the backyard. [continues 561 words]
It swallowed people up. That's what it really did, if you want to know the truth. It swallowed them up whole, swallowed them up by the millions. In the process, it hollowed out communities, broke families, stranded hope. Politicians brayed that they were being "tough on crime" -- as if anyone is really in favor of crime -- as they imposed ever longer and more inflexible sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. But the "War on Drugs" didn't hurt drugs at all: Usage rose by 2,800 percent - -- that's not a typo -- in the 40 years after it began in 1971. The "War" also made America the biggest jailer on Earth and drained a trillion dollars -- still not a typo -- from the treasury. [continues 515 words]
New Defender Class Response Boat Would Be Used to Take Confiscated Panga Boats to Morro Bay for Disposal During the past two years the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office has recovered 12 drug-smuggling panga boats that have landed along the North Coast, yet it does not have a way to safely and quickly remove the boats from the beach. That's why it will ask county supervisors Tuesday to spend nearly $500,000 in federal grant funds to buy a new boat and other equipment to beef up the department's ability to deal with the persistent problem. [continues 509 words]
SAN DIEGO - A San Diego medical marijuana dispensary owner was sentenced Thursday to more than eight years in prison for conspiracy to distribute marijuana and other crimes, according to federal prosecutors. U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy called Joshua Hester the "poster boy" for the types of marijuana dispensary operators the federal government is targeting for criminal investigation. "He was a convicted drug trafficker making millions of dollars selling high-quality marijuana to recreational users and exploiting state laws that were meant to help the seriously ill," Duffy said after Hester was sentenced. [continues 173 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]
In response to a report issued by the county's civil grand jury earlier this year, the Arroyo Grande City Council has taken the first step toward prohibiting mobile medical marijuana dispensaries from operating within the city. The city has had rules in place since 2008 prohibiting the establishment of medical marijuana dispensaries. But its ordinance did not explicitly refer to mobile dispensaries, such as a delivery service. The council voted 4-1 on Tuesday, with Councilwoman Caren Ray dissenting, to add that language to its existing rules, said City Clerk Kelly Wetmore. [continues 270 words]
When Proposition 215, known as the Compassionate Use Act, was passed by California voters in 1996 by almost 57 percent of the electorate, only two coastal counties voted against the marijuana-based initiative: Del Norte County in the far northwest of the state, and San Luis Obispo County. In retrospect, this county's political position on a state law that allows a patient with a doctor's recommendation to legally use pot for medical reasons may have been a harbinger for the Dec. 27, 2010, bust of 12 people who were later dubbed the "Doobie Dozen." [continues 1002 words]
Rebuffing grand jury calls for reform of local medical marijuana laws, San Luis Obispo County officials say they are handcuffed until California officials sort out contradictions between state and federal law regarding cannabis. "This is an inopportune time" to amend the county ordinance, the Board of Supervisors wrote in a report they will open to public discussion at their Tuesday meeting. The civil grand jury said in a June report that the county is not properly regulating mobile marijuana distributors and has effectively halted "brick and mortar" clinics by shooting down the only three applicants over the past five years, in Nipomo, Templeton, and Oceano. [end]
Admissions for treatment, sheriff's seizures and overdose deaths are on the rise When Christa Holt last used heroin in March, she was on a three-month binge. Still, she had to spin her arm in circles to pump hard-to-find veins with blood so that she could inject the drug. The 27-year-old Arroyo Grande resident was at her nadir. She had begun using methamphetamine at age 11. By her early 20s, she had become addicted to prescription pills. She turned to heroin this year after her younger brother, Andrew, died of a heroin overdose in 2011. [continues 1310 words]
