Planet 13 in Las Vegas has attracted international attention since it opened perhaps the world's biggest marijuana store last fall, with 3,000 people shopping each day for newly legal cannabis products while surrounded by light shows and interactive art displays that feel natural a few miles off The Strip. Now Planet 13 has announced that its second location - and likely the largest cannabis shop in California - will open early next year. And since it's being billed as the "Disneyland of dispensaries," it's fitting that it's opening just six miles from the theme park, in an industrial stretch of Santa Ana. [continues 734 words]
Re "DEA marijuana reclassification behind schedule" [Opinion, Sept. 2]: Being screwed by the Drug Enforcement Agency is sort of like being stung by a scorpion. The scorpion can't really be blamed too much for its actions since its mindless and predictable behavior is largely motivated by instincts. With the DEA, things are essentially the same, although slightly different with the additional complicating factors of greed, prejudice and willful neglect of science. What bugs me, in light of this, is how we continue to let this insane governmental agency gone amok run and ruin our lives and have so much power over us instead of our rationally taking on more responsibility and staying clear of or abolishing it - as we might do with the scorpion. - - Gordon Wilson, Laguna Niguel [end]
On August 11, the Drug Enforcement Administration announced its rejection of petitions to reschedule marijuana, an unsurprising, but disappointing, decision. Currently designated a Schedule I substance under the federal Controlled Substances Act, the prohibition of marijuana has long been a central component of the vast web of federal, state and local government entities devoted to combating (certain) drug use. Alongside drugs like heroin and LSD, marijuana is in the most restrictive category of federal drug regulations. Officially, the DEA rejected calls to reschedule marijuana "because it does not meet the criteria for currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, there is a lack of accepted safety for its use under medical supervision and it has a high potential for abuse." [continues 492 words]
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal ban on the sale of guns to medical marijuana card holders does not violate the Second Amendment, a federal appeals court said Wednesday. The ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals applies to the nine Western states under the court's jurisdiction, including California and Washington. It came in a lawsuit filed by S. Rowan Wilson, a Nevada woman who said she tried to buy a firearm for self-defense in 2011 after obtaining a medical marijuana card. The gun store refused, citing the federal rule banning the sale of firearms to users of illegal drugs. [continues 133 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama cut short on Tuesday the sentences of 111 federal inmates in another round of commutations for those convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. Obama has long called for phasing out strict sentences for drug convictions, arguing they lead to excessive punishment and incarceration rates unseen in other developed countries. White House Counsel Neil Eggleston said the commutations underscored the president's commitment to using his clemency authority to give deserving individuals a second chance. He said that Obama has granted a total of 673 commutations, more than the previous 10 presidents combined. More than a third of the recipients were serving life sentences. [continues 374 words]
Re: "Prop. 47 giving men, women second chance" [Opinion, Aug. 21]: B. Wayne Hughes Jr. notes that Prop. 47 changes lives. I couldn't agree more. Now that we have so many more homeless drug addicts being released into our neighborhoods and cities, our life has indeed changed. What is it that supporters of this proposition don't understand? When you don't hold people accountable for their actions, they will repeat those actions over and over. And why is it now "non-serious" to steal up to $950 from me? [continues 56 words]
If Californians legalize marijuana under Proposition 64 in November, legal cannabis sales in the state likely will climb by $1.6 billion within the first year of implementation, according to a report released Tuesday. That would put the state's medical and recreational market on track to hit $6.5 billion in revenue by 2020 up from $2.8 billion in 2015, industry research firms Arcview Group and New Frontier state in the report. And the researchers argue it would serve as a "watershed moment" for the industry in and outside the United States. [continues 868 words]
On Monday, the state Assembly approved a bill aimed at curbing abuses of civil asset forfeiture, a practice by which law enforcement may seize a person's property, cash and other assets without first achieving a criminal conviction. If approved by the Senate and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, Senate Bill 443, proposed last year by Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, and Assemblyman David Hadley, R-Torrance, will require a criminal conviction before assets worth less than $40,000 can be seized. [continues 358 words]
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court Tuesday banned the Justice Department from prosecuting medical marijuana cases if no state laws were broken. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ordered the federal agency to show that 10 pending cases in California and Washington state violated medical marijuana laws in those states before continuing with prosecutions. Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, but Congress barred the Justice Department from spending money to prevent states from regulating the use or sale of medical pot under a bipartisan measure co-authored by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Costa Mesa. [continues 555 words]
Re: "DEA rules that marijuana has no medical value" [News, Aug. 12]: The Drug Enforcement Administration will not change the Schedule 1 designation for marijuana because of the strength of new pot strains compared to 1968. Perhaps one should remind the government that the strength of the THC content in marijuana was never considered or even measured before making it Schedule 1. The schedule change was done purely in the spirit of retribution. Rescheduling stems from Leary v. United States, which found the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 unconstitutional. Congress responded by placing marijuana on the Schedule 1 list the next year. [continues 180 words]
At least once a week, Steve McDonald drives from his home in Irvine to an industrial stretch of Santa Ana filled with auto shops and home-improvement wholesalers. Inside a beige storefront, McDonald consults with young budtenders about the jars of raw cannabis flowers and rows of infused edibles that fill the shelves at From the Earth medical marijuana dispensary. The 40-year-old said cannabis products help him avoid prescription medications for pain from severe burns he suffered in a fire two years ago, as well as lingering back trouble and anxiety that plague him from his days as a paratrooper in the Army's 82nd Airborne Division. [continues 1823 words]
Roadside drug tests can be a good tool for police to determine whether someone has broken law and potentially poses a threat to others, but they can also get you locked up for eating a glazed donut. A Florida man is suing the Orlando Police Department after he was arrested on officers' mistaken claims that he was in possession of crystal methamphetamine. During a traffic stop, the officers noticed a few whitish flakes on the floorboard of Daniel Rushing's car and alleged that they were crystal meth. "I recognized through my 11 years of training and experience as a law enforcement officer the substance to be some sort of narcotic," one of the officers wrote in a report. In fact, it was just some crumbs from the glaze of a Krispy Kreme doughnut Mr. Rushing had consumed. [continues 383 words]
MANILA - Samsudin Dimaukom, the mayor of a town in the southern Philippines, was watching television Sunday after midnight when he was startled to hear the country's new president call out his name. It was no honor. President Rodrigo Duterte was reading a list of more than 150 officials he said were involved in the illegal drug trade. He ordered Dimaukom and the others to turn themselves in within 24 hours or be hunted down. Since he took office six weeks ago, Duterte, 71, has roiled the nation with a violent war on drugs that has left hundreds dead, most of them poor and powerless. [continues 261 words]
Both advocates for and opponents of California's marijuana legalization measure are claiming victory after a judge determined Friday that they each made misleading statements in arguments to be included in official ballot pamphlets for the Nov. 8 election. Pro- and anti-Proposition 64 groups sued each other last week in Sacramento County Superior Court, challenging comments submitted to the secretary of state concerning how the initiative might affect pot advertising and minors, among other things. Opponents were ordered to tweak all six statements objected to by the Yes on 64 team, while proponents were instructed to change four of the six arguments challenged by the No on 64 campaign. [continues 214 words]
California appears poised to join the growing number of states that have legalized marijuana, even as the federal government is reaffirming its 46-year-old stance that pot is a top-tier illicit narcotic on par with heroin and LSD. The Drug Enforcement Administration announced Thursday that marijuana will remain classified as a Schedule I controlled substance - a designation reserved for highly addictive drugs with no proven medical use. Thousands of published studies and extensive anecdotal evidence have indicated marijuana can help with conditions such as epilepsy and chronic pain. But DEA acting Administrator Chuck Rosenberg said a thorough review of the research, with input from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, determined cannabis treatments haven't yet been proven effective by controlled clinical trials and widespread acceptance from the medical community. [continues 838 words]
At least one barrier to asset forfeiture reform has been cleared, as a compromise has been reached between law enforcement groups and state Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles. Last year, California seemed set to join a growing number of states in reforming civil asset forfeiture, a means by which law enforcement agencies can seize a person's assets without first obtaining a criminal conviction. As initially conceived, Senate Bill 443, bipartisan legislation authored by Sen. Mitchell and Assemblyman David Hadley, R-Torrance, would have required a criminal conviction before assets in excess of $25,000 could be seized, granted a right to counsel for the indigent and authorized attorney's fees for those who successfully appeal forfeiture cases, among other requirements. [continues 495 words]
Opponents of an effort to legalize marijuana for adults in California have filed a lawsuit that claims advocates made "false and misleading" statements about how the measure regulates advertising, sales and more. The suit was filed one day after backers of Proposition 64 filed a lawsuit of their own over what it called "reefer madness-style misinformation" from opponents. Both petitions aim to force the Secretary of State to throw out portions of statements that would otherwise appear in official voter information guides for the Nov. 8 election. [continues 199 words]
COSTA MESA - A lawyer for a former medical marijuana dispensary said he filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Costa Mesa Police Department, alleging that officers exceeded their legal authority when they raided the facility this year. The complaint attorney Matthew Pappas said he filed with Orange County Superior Court seeks unspecified damages and the return of marijuana, money, confidential patient records and other property seized Jan. 27 at the now-closed Costa Mesa Collective on Harbor Boulevard. "The city of Costa Mesa ... believes it is above the law," Pappas said of the suit. "No longer can cities and police departments violate people's rights based on marijuana once being part of failed drug prohibition policies." [continues 402 words]
A January guns-drawn raid in the 2000 block of Harbor Boulevard put an end to Costa Mesa Collective, a marijuana dispensary acting in contravention of that city's ban on such businesses. But while the Costa Mesa Police Department has a right to enforce its laws, it is also important for the police to follow the law in the process. While the department has insisted that it acted lawfully, and obtained a warrant, that warrant has been hard to come by. [continues 306 words]
Today's pot is typically four times stronger than the marijuana of just a couple of decades ago. That's timely to note in the current push to legalize the drug, because much of the research showing marijuana has only modest health effects on adults is based on weaker strains that have been largely bred out of the marketplace. That means that, as Californians prepare to vote this November on a recreational marijuana initiative, they'll do so without conclusive answers from the medical community on how today's pot may affect mental health and the debate over the gateway drug theory. [continues 1080 words]
