California may be going to pot -- literally. Marijuana would be grown and sold openly to adults 21 and older under legislation introduced Monday morning by a San Francisco lawmaker. Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, said the cash-starved state could generate more than a billion dollars by taxing pot growers and sellers. Ammiano predicted that the public would support loosening marijuana laws that require substantial public funds to enforce. "I think there's a mentality throughout the state and the country that this isn't the highest priority," he said. "And that maybe we should start to reassess." [continues 347 words]
The city of Alameda has issued an order revoking the Purple Elephant medical marijuana dispensary's business license. But the dispensary has appealed the decision and remains open. A date for the appeal, which will be heard by the city manager, the mayor and the city's finance director, has not yet been set. If the dispensary's owner were to lose that appeal, he could appeal directly to the City Council. Ann Marie Gallant, the city's interim finance director and the person responsible for making the decision, said in a letter to the dispensary's owner that he failed to disclose the true nature of his business on his license application as required by city codes. She also said he failed to get the required zoning clearance for the dispensary from the city's Planning and Building Department. [continues 334 words]
An Oakland-based medical marijuana advocacy group today hailed a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court not to intervene in a California case concerning the rights of a patient who used the drug. The high court this morning refused to grant a hearing on the city of Garden Grove's appeal of a state court ruling requiring it to return one-third of an ounce of marijuana to patient Felix Kha. Garden Grove police seized the marijuana from Kha during a traffic stop in 2005. [continues 197 words]
East Bay voters face a double-edged ballot on Nov 4. At the same time they pay more at the pump and the grocery store, cash-strapped local public agencies are asking for money, too. Of the 58 local ballot measures on Alameda, Contra Costa and Solano County ballots, a third propose new or extended taxes totalling more than $750 million. Nearly half the measures raise funds for schools either through bonds repaid with property taxes or parcel taxes. The largest is a $500 million parks bond for the East Bay Regional Park District. A handful of cities seek cash to pay for new police officers, street repairs and library services. [continues 693 words]
Rep. Jerry McNerney is now willing to vote for an amendment he'd opposed last year that would bar the federal government from spending money to arrest or prosecute medical-marijuana patients in the states - -- including California -- where medical marijuana is legal. "In the past year, the congressman has met several patients with debilitating illnesses that use doctor-prescribed medical marijuana," McNerney spokesman Andy Stone said Friday. "Hearing their stories, he feels that he cannot in good conscience deny doctor-prescribed treatment to a person that experiences excruciating pain on a daily basis." [continues 563 words]
Supervisors Urged to Consult With Law Enforcement OAKLAND -- Color him skeptical. Sheriff Greg Ahern on Tuesday questioned the proposed update of Alameda County's medical marijuana dispensaries ordinance and what the regulation is trying to accomplish. He wants county supervisors to call a temporary halt to a yearlong ordinance revision and sit down with law enforcement to evaluate what should be permitted. "Do the governing officials of Alameda County want to have an ordinance allowing easy access to marijuana by young adults, or do they want to work on an ordinance that may provide a small, limited amount of mariuana to elderly people who are very ill?" he asked. [continues 296 words]
Nikole Wilson-Ripsom and her son were stuffed up. Not just any stuffed up, either. They were major league, big time, plague of locusts, Bay Bridge at rush hour, congested. So she tried her usual tricks, one by one. She gave her son some Delsym. On herself she used a water-cleansing neti pot. Then a menthol and eucalyptus steam. Then a little dab of Vicks under the nose. Then a bit of Euphorbium, a homeopathic nasal spray. Then Afrin Extreme Congestion 12 Hour Spray. [continues 1260 words]
HIV patients who smoked three joints of marijuana per day for five days experienced relief from chronic foot pain associated with the disease, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, reported Monday in a rare U.S. study on medical marijuana. "These results provide evidence that there is a measurable medical benefit to smoking cannabis for these patients," said study lead author Dr. Donald Abrams, UCSF professor of clinical medicine. The study involved 50 HIV patients with sensory neuropathy, a peripheral nerve disorder that causes intense, sharp pain, numbness and tingling in the hands and feet. The condition affects about one in three HIV patients. [continues 741 words]
Controversial Display Includes Encased Plant, Pictures SAN FRANCISCO -- The first reaction to the thriving marijuana plant encased in Plexiglas in a San Francisco art gallery is to its pungent odor. Then come the questions. "They say, 'Is it real and is it for sale?' The plant is not for sale, but the photos are," replies Wendi Norris, an owner of Frey Norris Gallery on Geary Street where the "Marijuana Project" is on display through Nov. 16. The pot plant, accompanying photos of another plant, and buds encased in resin and mounted in petri dishes, as well as Pred's grower's permit and medical marijuana identification card, are part of the "Who's Afraid of San Francisco" exhibit, which includes installations on gay marriage, immigrants, anti-war movements and racial justice by artists from Oakland and elsewhere. [continues 590 words]
OAKLAND - A change to the state's treatment-not-jail law for drug users can't take effect until a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality runs its course, an Alameda County Superior Court judge ruled Thursday. After a 35-minute hearing, Judge Winifred Smith wasn't inclined to deviate from her tentative ruling that a temporary restraining order she'd issued in July should become a preliminary injunction.The plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their case, she found. [continues 350 words]
Former Berkeley Police Sergeant's Case At Issue BERKELEY -- The Berkeley Police Review Commission is investigating whether the department properly handled the internal affairs probe of a former police sergeant who admitted to stealing heroin and methamphetamine from the department's evidence locker. A police review commission subcommittee met for a third Monday to discuss the timeline for the investigation, which should be completed by December, said police commission officer Victoria Urbi. In January, the police department's internal affairs unit began investigating Sgt. Cary Kent, who was in charge of the drug evidence locker, when an audit turned up "procedural irregularities" among the evidence. [continues 413 words]
U.N. Secretary General Urges Countries To 'Step Up' Before It's Too Late UNITED NATIONS -- On the final day of a special session on the fight against HIV and AIDS, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan delivered a gloomy assessment, saying the world was losing the battle. "The epidemic continues to outpace us," he told a jam-packed session of the General Assembly on Friday. "There are more new infections than ever before; more deaths than ever before; more women and girls infected than ever before." [continues 698 words]
Consistency Ordinance Would Effectively Outlaw Medical Marijuana Dispensaries UNION CITY -- With a yearlong moratorium to expire in July, city leaders are set to slam the door on medical marijuana dispensaries for the foreseeable future. Today, the City Council will consider a law that would require any permit, authorization or license issued by the city to "be consistent with both state and federal law." Because federal drug laws prohibit medical marijuana, the city ordinance effectively would outlaw dispensaries -- the most common way licensed marijuana users obtain the drug. [continues 373 words]
BERKELEY -- The city's Copwatch group is calling on the Berkeley Police Department to tighten its drug-handling procedures and release findings of its probe into a former narcotics sergeant suspected of stealing and using heroin from an evidence locker. In January, the sergeant -- who this newspaper is not naming because he has not been arrested or charged with a crime -- was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal affairs probe and a tandem investigation by the Alameda County District Attorney's Office. [continues 346 words]
Vigliance, City Hall Help Shut Down Crime In One Fruitvale Neighborhood OAKLAND -- They had a party Saturday afternoon in front of 3025 School St. in the Fruitvale District with balloons, kids running around, barbecue donated by Everett & Jones and a lot of smiles. Drug dealers, not welcome. It was a party that no one living in the area would have believed could happen a few years ago, especially not in front of that house. This was a block dominated by drug dealers. One Christmas not long ago, a neighbor, Andrew Dibble, said he drove home to find a murder victim slumped in a car outside the drug house. [continues 398 words]
OAKLAND -- Two years ago, unincorporated areas saw a change when medical marijuana clinics began moving south after Oakland downsized the number of dispensaries allowed to operate in city limits. Almost overnight, six cannabis clubs opened in Ashland and Cherryland, joining the long-standing We Are Hemp in San Lorenzo. On Tuesday, Alameda County supervisors literally mapped the future of clinics in Ashland, Castro Valley, Cherryland and San Lorenzo. With Supervisor Scott Haggerty absent, supervisors Keith Carson, Alice Lai-Bitker, Nate Miley and Gail Steele adopted a revised map identifying where no more than three dispensaries can operate in unincorporated areas. The change will be effective in 30 days. [continues 183 words]
Oakland Cancer Patient Who Lost Last Year to Try Again With New Argument Less than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against her, Oakland medical marijuana patient and advocate Angel Raich will go back before a federal appeals court Monday with a different legal argument. Her lawyers will try to persuade a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting in Pasadena, that keeping her from using marijuana as medicine unduly burdens her fundamental rights to life and freedom from pain, as protected by the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause and the Ninth Amendment. [continues 652 words]
OAKLAND - Last summer, A Natural Source was in the headlines when a would-be robber was shot to death outside the Ashland medical marijuana clinic. On Thursday, the business's link to criminal events and its location near an elementary school prompted Alameda County supervisors to deny the cannabis club an operating permit. Club operator Billy McDonald has 30 days to close, despite support from customers who described the Foothill Boulevard sales outlet as clean and safe. Mary Lewis told supervisors marijuana eases her pain from congenital joint problems and allows her to function. Lewis said she appreciates A Natural Source because it is clean and tidy and the employees are polite. [continues 180 words]
Owner of Warehouses Used to Grow Plants Could Get 20-Year Sentence A federal jury has convicted an Oakland property owner of allowing his Market Street warehouse to be used for an expansive marijuana-growing operation. Thomas Grossi, 61, was convicted Jan. 10 after a three-week trial and will be sentenced April 26 by U.S. District Court Judge D. Lowell Jensen in Oakland. Grossi faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and $500,000 in fines. Acting on a citizen's tip, the California Highway Patrol on June 30, 2004, raided Grossi's warehouse at 2638 Market St., where they found more than 3000 plants. [continues 175 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - About 50 medical marijuana activists rallied under Wednesday's leaden skies near the United Nations Plaza farmers market, wielding a bullhorn and picket signs to demand that federal officials act on a formal request to loosen the drug's ban. This weekend, "Guru of Ganja" Ed Rosenthal of Oakland hosted a "Wonders of Cannabis" festival in Golden Gate Park featuring joint-rolling contests and an appearance by comedian and noted stoner Tommy Chong. Mixed messages, some drug policy experts say sadly. [continues 920 words]
