S.F. Officers Convicted of Stealing From Drug Dealers A San Francisco police corruption scandal, triggered by surveillance videos that appeared to show officers as thieves, registered its first verdicts Friday when a federal court jury found two veteran officers guilty of stealing property and thousands of dollars in cash from drug-dealer suspects to enrich themselves and defraud the city. The jury took 31/2 days of deliberations to unanimously find Officer Edmond Robles guilty of five felony charges and Sgt. Ian Furminger guilty of four. Jurors acquitted them of four charges, including conspiracy to deprive the public of their honest services, and deadlocked on a theft charge against Furminger. [continues 781 words]
Breathing secondhand cigarette smoke damages blood and heart vessels - - and so does marijuana smoke, UCSF scientists have found. When researchers exposed lab rats to 30 minutes of secondhand marijuana smoke, they saw a 70 percent decline in the function of the animals' blood vessels. Blood vessel function was still subpar when there was no tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which gives pot its intoxicating qualities, in the marijuana. Studies have shown that blood vessels regain their normal function 30 minutes after exposure to tobacco smoke. In the new study, blood vessels hadn't returned to normal 40 minutes after exposure to marijuana smoke. [continues 90 words]
DENVER (AP) - That's not mistletoe. From new marijuana strains for the holidays to gift sets and pot-and-pumpkin pies, the burgeoning marijuana industry in Colorado is scrambling to get a piece of the holiday shopping dollar. Dispensaries in many states have been offering holiday specials for medical customers for years - but this first season of open-to-all-adults marijuana sales in some states means pot shops are using more of the tricks used by traditional retailers to attract holiday shoppers. [continues 308 words]
Pro-Pot Votes in Other States Propel the Effort After Tuesday's election, just one piece of the West Coast remained unwelcoming to recreational pot: California. But with voters in Oregon and Alaska legalizing the use and sale of marijuana-joining Washington and Colorado in inviting retail spreads of cannabis-infused tea sand brownies and joints- advocates see fresh momentum behind the slow shift in how the public regards the green stuff and those who enjoy it. California residents rejected legalization in 2010, with a 54 percent vote against it, but supporters of recreational marijuana are growing more confident about reversing that result in the 2016 election. [continues 1086 words]
After securing a guilty plea and an agreement to cooperate from one San Francisco police officer, federal prosecutors have added theft and corruption charges against two veteran officers accused of taking money and drugs from suspects. The timing of the new federal grand jury indictment against Sgt. Ian Furminger and Officer Edmond Robles suggests the additional charges resulted from statements by former Officer Reynaldo Vargas. Vargas was charged in the original indictment in February, along with Furminger and Robles, but pleaded guilty to four felonies on Oct. 21 and agreed to testify against his former colleagues. [continues 371 words]
Marijuana users and growers usually try to stay out of federal courts, which strictly enforce the nationwide laws against the drug and have rebuffed challenges to the government's classification of pot as one of the most dangerous narcotics. But that could change this week when a federal judge in Sacramento, in a criminal case against seven men charged with growing marijuana on national forest land in Trinity and Tehama counties, hears what she has described as "new scientific and medical information" that raises questions about the validity of the federal ban. [continues 872 words]
When Colorado voters in 2012 approved a ballot measure legalizing marijuana, the state did not merely break new ground in the ongoing battle over narcotics policy. It also bolstered an innovative political message that compares cannabis to alcohol. Two years later, that comparison is being deployed in key marijuana-related elections throughout the country, and drug reform advocates are so sure marijuana is safer than alcohol they are now challenging police to a "drug duel" to prove their point. The proposal for the duel from David Boyer of the Marijuana Policy Project, came after Police Chief Edward Googins of South Portland, Maine, announced his opposition to a municipal referendum to legalize marijuana possession. [continues 370 words]
Barry Hazle was paroled after a one-year prison term for methamphetamine possession in 2007 and was ordered to spend the next 90 days in a residential drug treatment program. When he arrived, officials told him it was a 12 step program, modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous, that required participants to confess their powerlessness and submit to a "higher power" through prayer. Hazle, a lifelong atheist, had asked for a secular treatment program. He said he was told this was the only state-approved facility in Shasta County, where he lived, but that it wasn't a stickler for compliance. [continues 556 words]
Practically everyone expects Attorney General Kamala Harris to win re-election handily in November. The Democrat won 53 percent of the vote in a crowded June primary. Arising star expected to ascend someday to the governorship, or perhaps a U.S. Senate seat, Harris has won the endorsement of major newspapers. She's such an attractive candidate that, even though it was true, President Obama had to apologize last year for calling her "by far the best-looking attorney general" in the country. [continues 750 words]
"Can endangered list save predator from pot-growing cartels?" (Oct. 9) clarifies another strong argument for legalizing marijuana in California. It is time for these Pacific Coast drug cartels to stop poisoning our forests and killing our wildlife. The Pacific fisher has lived along the Pacific coast for thousands of years and now faces extinction as a result of illegal marijuana farms in public forests spreading deadly rodenticides to kill pests that might ruin their plants. Legalize marijuana and destructive behavior will end. Gloria Judd, San Francisco [end]
KETTAMA, Morocco (AP) - Abdelkhalek Benabdallah strode among towering marijuana plants and checked the buds for the telltale spots of white, indicating they are ready for harvest. By September much of the crop has been picked and left to dry on the roofs of the stone-and-wood huts that dot the Rif Valley, the heart Morocco's pot-growing region. Benabdallah openly grows the crop, despite the risk: "We are regularly subject to blackmail by the gendarmes," he said as he scythed through stalks and wrapped them into a bundle. [continues 325 words]
A shy, stubby-legged creature known as a Pacific fisher was proposed this week for listing under the Endangered Species Act, giving conservationists hope that the rare and elusive predator can be returned to the forests of California, Oregon and Washington. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will spend the next year taking public comment and gathering information on the weasel-like mammal that dines on porcupine and lives in old-growth forests. Fishers, which lived along the Pacific coast for thousands of years, were nearly wiped out by hunting and loss of habitat from logging. But in an odd twist, the biggest threats now to the smooth-coated critters are cannabis cultivators. [continues 560 words]
If you wanted to nudge the courts to establish a right to use medical marijuana in states where it is legal, you couldn't pick a more sympathetic plaintiff than Brandon Coats of Colorado. As a teenager, Coats was injured in an automobile accident that left him severely disabled. Now 34, Coats is a quadriplegic who has had a state medical marijuana card since 2009. He worked as a customer service representative for Dish Network from 2007 to 2010, when Dish fired him after he tested positive for marijuana use during a random drug test. [continues 415 words]
DENVER (AP) - Pot may be legal in Colorado, but you can still be fired for using it. Now, the state's highest court is considering whether workers' off-duty medical marijuana use is protected under an obscure state law. Colorado's Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments in a case involving Brandon Coats, a quadriplegic medical marijuana patient who was fired by the Dish Network after failing a drug test in 2010, even though the company did not allege that he was impaired on the job. [continues 321 words]
The nation's largest marijuana advocacy group has taken the first step toward qualifying an initiative for the 2016 ballot to legalize the drug in California for recreational use. The Marijuana Policy Project filed papers with the secretary of state's office Wednesday saying it had formed a committee to raise money to campaign for the initiative. Marijuana advocates have wanted to take another cut at fully legalizing the drug since 54 percent of voters in 2010 rejected Proposition 19, which would have allowed non-medicinal use. Many backers are aiming for the November 2016 general election, when the presidential race is expected to draw a larger number of young voters. [continues 216 words]
Joseph D. McNamara, a former San Jose police chief who gained national attention for his progressive views on community policing, drugs and gun control, died in his sleep early Friday at his Monterey home of pancreatic cancer. He was 79. Mr. McNamara, who started his career as a Harlem beat cop in New York City and earned a doctorate from Harvard University, served as San Jose's police chief from 1976 until retiring in 1991. He worked as a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution from 1991 until his death, and wrote five novels dubbed cop noir. [continues 571 words]
DENVER- Tired of Cheech & Chong pot jokes and ominous antidrug campaigns, the marijuana industry and activists are starting an ad blitz in Colorado aimed at promoting moderation and the safe consumption of pot. To get their message across, they are skewering some of the old Drug War-era ads that focused on the fears of marijuana, including the famous "This is your brain on drugs" fried-egg ad from the 1980s. They are planning posters, brochures, billboards and magazine ads, advising people to use the drug responsibly and warning tourists and first-timers about the potential to get sick from accidentally eating too much medical-grade pot. [continues 552 words]
DENVER (AP) - Tired of Cheech & Chong pot jokes and ominous antidrug campaigns, the marijuana industry and activists are starting an ad blitz in Colorado aimed at promoting moderation and the safe consumption of pot. To get their message across, they are skewering some of the old Drug War-era ads that focused on the fears of marijuana, including the famous "This is your brain on drugs" fried-egg ad from the 1980s. They are planning posters, brochures, billboards and magazine ads to caution consumers to use the drug responsibly and warn tourists and first-timers about the potential to get sick from accidentally eating too much medical-grade pot. [continues 255 words]
I had to shake my head as I read "Illegal marijuana grow sites despoil our national forests" (Open Forum, Sept. 3). Since 2010, California voters have had the opportunity to stop this destruction by legalizing marijuana, but have chosen not to, even though polls indicated legalization was favored by a majority. Had marijuana legalization become law in our state, there would be no need for illegal grows ... anywhere. The last I heard, there will be no legalization measure on the November ballot. That's a shame, because with the way the law has been implemented in Colorado and Washington, with mostly positive results, I think voters are ready to say yes. Michael J. Haworth, Vallejo [end]
