Defending the government's classification of marijuana as one of the most dangerous drugs, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration declares on its website that pot causes mental illness and lung cancer and leads youths to heroin and cocaine. But an advocacy group says the DEA, in a legal filing in August, said it found no evidence to support any of those conclusions. The group, Americans for Safe Access, has asked the agency to remove discredited claims from its Web page. [continues 522 words]
In a potential legal breakthrough for medical marijuana, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department cannot prosecute anyone who grows, supplies or uses the drug for medical purposes under state law because Congress has barred federal intervention. The decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco was written by one of its most conservative judges, Diarmuid O'Scannlain, and was the first by any appeals court to prohibit federal prosecutions under spending restrictions enacted by Congress. First passed in 2014 and renewed through September, the budget amendment forbids the Justice Department to spend any money to prevent California and other states from "implementing their own state laws" that authorize the medical use of marijuana. [continues 698 words]
Oakland has no right to challenge the government's attempt to shut down the huge Harborside medical marijuana dispensary even though it would cost the city millions of dollars in tax revenues, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag filed suit in July 2012 to confiscate the Harborside Health Center's property along the Oakland Estuary for violating the federal ban on marijuana. Harborside, which serves 108,000 patients and is the nation's largest licensed pot dispensary, is fighting the forfeiture suit in federal court, saying it violates other federal laws and the Obama administration's stated policy of deferring to state medical marijuana laws. Its case has been on hold while the courts decide whether the city can intervene. [continues 267 words]
Justice Dept. Sidesteps Limits Set by Congress In a newly disclosed memorandum, President Obama's Justice Department has told federal prosecutors they can file criminal charges against medical marijuana users and suppliers and shut down pot dispensaries, despite a congressional ban on federal interference with medical marijuana laws in California and other states. The Justice Department had previously made its intentions clear by refusing to drop pending marijuana prosecutions and pursuing forfeiture actions against dispensaries, including Oakland's huge Harborside Health Center. But the Feb. 27 memo, made public Wednesday by Tom Angell of the advocacy group Marijuana Majority, provides the department's rationale for considering the congressional spending restrictions largely toothless. [continues 539 words]
A San Francisco federal appeals court dealt a financial setback to medical marijuana dispensaries Thursday, saying that - unlike other commercial enterprises - they can't deduct business expenses from their taxable income because their product is prohibited by federal law. The ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was also another blow to the Vapor Room, which operated as a pot-inhaling shop and social club in the Lower Haight neighborhood from 2004 until July 2012, when it shut down under pressure from U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, who said she would seek its eviction for being too close to Duboce Park. Federal law increases penalties against marijuana dispensaries that are less than 1,000 feet from a school or playground, and the Vapor Room was 597 feet from the Duboce playground. [continues 230 words]
A federal appeals court questioned the government's move to seize and shut down the huge Harborside medical marijuana dispensary, but showed no support Tuesday for Oakland's attempt to preserve the pot supplier and its bounty of tax revenue. Despite the Obama administration's repeated assertions that it would not target medical marijuana operations that comply with state laws, U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag filed suit in July 2012 to close down the city-licensed Harborside Health Center, which supplies marijuana to 108,000 patients along the Oakland Estuary at 1840 Embarcadero. City officials sued to block the forfeiture, but a federal magistrate ruled in 2013 that Oakland had no rights of its own at stake in the case. [continues 442 words]
U.S. Attorney Fights New Court Challenge Two weeks after President Obama signed legislation prohibiting federal interference with state medical marijuana laws, his administration has told a federal judge in Sacramento that pot is still a dangerous drug with no medical value. The U.S. attorney's office, representing Obama's Justice Department, made the argument in a court filing Wednesday opposing a challenge to the long-standing federal law that classifies marijuana as a Schedule One drug along with heroin, LSD and ecstasy - substances that have a high potential for abuse and no safe medical use. [continues 426 words]
Judges Seek Clarity Before Sentencing In a sharp reversal of federal drug policy, Congress has prohibited the Justice Department from interfering with laws in California and other states that allow the medical use of marijuana. And the turnabout caught the immediate attention of federal judges, who want to know its impact on some recent criminal convictions under the federal law that classifies pot as one of the most dangerous drugs. A day after President Obama signed the new law last week as part of a government spending bill, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco asked a federal prosecutor whether the change would affect the sentencing of a Mendocino County pot grower, who pleaded guilty to charges requiring at least five years in prison. [continues 696 words]
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]
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]
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]
Californians will vote in November on a measure backed by San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon - and opposed by most of his fellow prosecutors - to make possession of drugs a misdemeanor rather than a felony. Secretary of State Debra Bowen's office said Thursday that the initiative, co-sponsored by Gascon and former San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne, had more than the 504,760 valid signatures it needed to qualify for the ballot. Reducing penalties It would make possession of heroin, cocaine and several other drugs a misdemeanor, punishable by no more than a year in county jail, instead of a felony carrying up to three years in prison. It would also reduce small-time theft offenses such as shoplifting and check forgery to misdemeanors if the amount stolen was $950 or less, about twice the current limit. [continues 285 words]
House Votes to Rein in Feds Shows Times Are Changing Members of Congress whose states allow the medical use of marijuana have been trying since 2003 to stop federal prosecutors from going after state-approved pot suppliers. In one vote after another, they've been beaten back in the House - until now. Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, a lead sponsor of the latest hands-off amendment, expected to fall a few votes short of the 218-vote majority needed for passage. But a 219-189 roll call last week approved the measure, which would cut off funding for Justice Department enforcement actions that interfere with medical marijuana laws in 22 states and with laws in another 10 states that allow medical use of hemp oils. [continues 761 words]
An undercover FBI agent posing as a medical marijuana supplier met with state Sen. Leland Yee in Sacramento in June and, according to the FBI's transcript of a secret tape recording, said he was willing to make campaign contributions in exchange for support of legislation. Yee's reply, the FBI reported, was, "You can't do that, man. You go to jail for that." Yee was right. His problem, if the government's account of his actions is accurate, is that he didn't listen to his own advice. [continues 797 words]
Eighteen members of Congress, including six from Northern California, urged President Obama on Wednesday to remove marijuana from the government's list of the most dangerous drugs and allow doctors to prescribe it. "Lives and resources are wasted on enforcing harsh, unrealistic and unfair marijuana laws," the House members said in a letter to Obama. They cited Obama's recent comment that marijuana, which he smoked as a youth, was no more dangerous than alcohol. In a later interview, however, when asked if he would remove marijuana from Schedule One, the strictest prohibition for narcotics, he replied that was a "job for Congress." [continues 180 words]
When it comes to the regulation of marijuana, President Obama has had a hard time squaring his words with his actions - most notably, his campaign promise to defer to state medical marijuana laws, followed by a flurry of federal raids on state-licensed dispensaries and the closures of hundreds in California. Now Obama has discussed the subject in a national television interview, and it's hard to reconcile his words with the law. It happened Jan. 31, when CNN's Jake Tapper brought up the president's headline-making observation during a recent New Yorker magazine interview that marijuana was no more dangerous than alcohol. Could that mean, Tapper asked Obama, that he would consider removing marijuana from Schedule One of the Controlled Substances Act, reserved for dangerous drugs that have no accepted medical use? [continues 850 words]
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a San Francisco group's challenge Monday to the federal government's refusal to allow doctors to prescribe marijuana, leaving intact the government's classification of the drug as a dangerous substance with no legitimate uses. The advocacy group Americans for Safe Access contended that more than 200 studies, performed and reviewed by medical professionals, have established that marijuana is both safe and effective in relieving pain and nausea, and in relieving the effects of chemotherapy for cancer patients. But federal courts have deferred to the Drug Enforcement Administration's conclusion that the drug's effects have not been adequately studied. [continues 274 words]
A federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit over a Pittsburg police detective's fatal shooting of a man during a drug raid, saying there was evidence that the officer opened fire on the unarmed man without warning. Timothy Mitchell Jr., 29, was killed in his Antioch apartment during a 7 a.m. raid by a Contra Costa County narcotics squad in March 2011. Officers, who had a search warrant, said they had to force open a security door after a male voice shouted from inside that they were at the wrong home. Les Galer, a Pittsburg police officer, said he entered with his gun drawn and shot Mitchell after the man approached and grabbed his arm. [continues 280 words]
