SAN FRANCISCO - Concerned that state workers might be charged with abetting federal crimes, California health officials announced Friday that they would no longer issue identification cards to medical marijuana patients. Sandra Shewry, the state health director, said the decision came in response to a United States Supreme Court ruling last month. In a 6-to-3 vote, the court upheld the power of the federal authorities to prosecute the possession and use of marijuana for medical purposes, even in states like California that allow such use under state law. [continues 286 words]
SAN FRANCISCO, June 23 - Federal authorities said Thursday that they had cracked the biggest case ever involving the use of medical marijuana dispensaries in California as a cover for international drug dealing and money laundering, which they said extended to Canada and countries in Asia. "This organization had been operating for over four years," Javier F. Pena, the special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration in San Francisco, said at a news conference. "It is now dismantled." In court documents unsealed here, the federal authorities accused a 33-year-old San Francisco man, Vince Ming Wan, of leading a multimillion-dollar operation in the trafficking of marijuana and Ecstasy that used three medical marijuana clubs in the city as a front. [continues 561 words]
San Francisco - Federal agents executed search warrants at three medical marijuana dispensaries on Wednesday as part of a broad investigation into marijuana trafficking in San Francisco, setting off fears among medical marijuana advocates that a federal crackdown on the drug's use by sick people was beginning. About 20 residences, businesses and growing sites were also searched, leading to multiple arrests, a law enforcement official said. Agents outside a club in the Ingleside neighborhood spent much of the afternoon dragging scores of leafy marijuana plants into an alley and stuffing them into plastic bags. [continues 649 words]
SAN FRANCISCO, June 14 - The best sellers at the Green Cross medical marijuana dispensary here are whipped up in the kitchen of Kevin Reed, the founder and president. Fresh-baked marijuana cakes. Marijuana cookies with Ghirardelli chocolate chips. Marijuana peanut butter, lollipops, peanut brittle and espresso truffles. Each comes packaged with a warning: "Please keep out of the reach of children and pets." Mr. Reed, 31, a former mobile home salesman from Alabama who moved here after being arrested twice for marijuana possession, said the warning was added to the sweets when a customer reported that "their grandma ate one of them." [continues 1446 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - The best sellers at the Green Cross medical marijuana dispensary here are whipped up in the kitchen of Kevin Reed, the founder and president. Fresh-baked marijuana cakes. Marijuana cookies with Ghirardelli chocolate chips. Marijuana peanut butter, lollipops, peanut brittle and espresso truffles. Each comes packaged with a warning: "Please keep out of the reach of children and pets." Mr. Reed, 31, a former mobile home salesman from Alabama who moved here after being arrested twice for marijuana possession, said the warning was added to the sweets when a customer reported that "their grandma ate one of them." [continues 1446 words]
SAN FRANCISCO -- The best sellers at the Green Cross medical marijuana dispensary here are whipped up in the kitchen of Kevin Reed, the founder and president. Fresh-baked marijuana cakes. Marijuana cookies with Ghirardelli chocolate chips. Marijuana peanut butter, lollipops, peanut brittle and espresso truffles. Each comes packaged with a warning: "Please keep out of the reach of children and pets." Mr. Reed, 31, a former mobile home salesman from Alabama who moved here after being arrested twice for marijuana possession, said the warning was added to the sweets when a customer reported that "their grandma ate one of them." [continues 1445 words]
OAKLAND, Calif. - Advocates of medicinal uses of marijuana suffered a legal setback on Monday in the United States Supreme Court, but there was little panic or despair amid the tears of disappointment. "Just because we lost this little battle does not mean that the war is over," Angel McClary Raich, one of the marijuana users whose case was before the Supreme Court, said at a news conference here. She added: "We're just sick. We're not criminals." Though some advocates worried that the ruling might embolden opponents of medical marijuana, as a practical matter, there are very few federal prosecutions of medical marijuana users nationwide. [continues 961 words]
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 23 - Public outrage over the murder of Polly Klaas, a 12-year-old who had been kidnapped from her bedroom by a man who had repeatedly committed violent crimes, was the driving force behind California's passage 10 years ago of the country's harshest "three strikes" sentencing law. Now the Klaas family is at the center of an election battle over an initiative that would significantly scale back parts of the 1994 law. This time, Polly's father and grandfather are on opposite sides of an impassioned campaign that criminal justice experts say reflects a broad rethinking of the nation's tough-on-crime legislation of a decade ago. [continues 1341 words]
San Francisco - The federal appeals court here has refused to reconsider its ruling that allows Californians to grow and use marijuana to treat their illnesses. The Bush administration had asked the court, for the Ninth Circuit, to hold a new hearing on that ruling, issued by a three-judge panel in December on a lawsuit filed by two women with chronic illnesses. But in an order issued Wednesday and made public on Thursday, the court denied the request. Justice Department officials declined to comment on the order or whether it would be appealed to the Supreme Court. Medicinal-marijuana advocates said it would allow tens of thousands of people in California and six other Western states with laws that permit such marijuana use to continue it without fearing federal prosecution. [continues 140 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - Ever since voters in California approved a 1996 ballot measure that legalized some medicinal uses of marijuana, the state has been locked in a legal and cultural battle with the federal government. Federal agents have raided farms where medicinal marijuana is grown, closed cooperatives where it is distributed and threatened to punish doctors who discussed it with their patients, all because federal law prohibits distribution or use of marijuana regardless of state law. Throughout it all, proponents of medicinal marijuana in California and more than a half dozen other states with similar laws have had little to celebrate. But on Tuesday, telephones were ringing and congratulatory e-mail flying as doctors, patients and other advocates of medicinal marijuana rejoiced at a major legal victory that effectively allows doctors to recommend the drug to patients. [continues 797 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - Convicted marijuana grower Ed Rosenthal was sentenced to one day in prison and fined $1,000 by a federal judge Wednesday, the most lenient sentence allowed under law. Rosenthal had faced a possible sentence of 100 years in prison and a potential fine of $4.5 million for his conviction in January on felony charges of marijuana cultivation and conspiracy. "We are all delighted with what we view as as fair and just a sentence that could be imposed under the circumstances of Ed having suffered a conviction," one of Rosenthal's lawyers, Dennis P. Riordan, said. [continues 392 words]
SAN FRANCISCO, June 4 -- A convicted marijuana grower was sentenced to one day in prison and fined $1,000 by a federal judge today, the most lenient sentence allowed under law. The defendant, Ed Rosenthal, had faced a possible sentence of 100 years in prison and a potential fine of $4.5 million for his conviction in January on felony charges of marijuana cultivation and conspiracy. "We are all delighted with what we view as as fair and just a sentence that could be imposed under the circumstances of Ed having suffered a conviction," one of Mr. Rosenthal's lawyers, Dennis P. Riordan, said. [continues 547 words]
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 4 - In an unusual show of solidarity with the man they convicted last week, five jurors in the trial of a medicinal marijuana advocate issued a public apology to him today and demanded that the judge grant him a new trial. The jurors said they had been unaware that the defendant, Ed Rosenthal, was growing marijuana for medicinal purposes, allowed since 1996 under California state law, when they convicted him on three federal counts of cultivation and conspiracy. He is to be sentenced in June and faces a minimum of five years in prison. [continues 604 words]
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 31 -- A federal jury today found the author of marijuana books and advice columns, Ed Rosenthal, guilty of marijuana cultivation and conspiracy. Under mandatory sentencing laws, Mr. Rosenthal faces a minimum of five years in prison. Mr. Rosenthal, 58, who admitted to growing the plants for distribution under California's medicinal marijuana law, known as Proposition 215, called the verdict a "terrible decision" and vowed to fight it. His lawyers said they would prepare motions for a new trial immediately. [continues 518 words]
OAKLAND, CALIF. - As a marijuana celebrity, Ed Rosenthal has been on a career high. The author of a dozen cannabis self-help books and a magazine advice column, "Ask Ed," Rosenthal is the pothead's answer to Ann Landers, Judge Judy, Martha Stewart and the Burpee Garden Wizard all in one. Can't get rid of the mildew on your cannabis seedling? Try a 20 percent skim-milk solution. The feds got you in court on charges of cultivation? Challenge their crop yield estimates. Want a high without the tar? Use a pipe that vaporizes. [continues 1410 words]
As a marijuana celebrity, Ed Rosenthal has been on a career roll. The author of a dozen cannabis self-help books and a magazine advice column, "Ask Ed," Mr. Rosenthal is the pothead's answer to Ann Landers, Judge Judy, Martha Stewart and the Burpee Garden Wizard all in one. Can't get rid of the powdery mildew on your cannabis seedling? Try a 20 percent skim-milk solution. The feds got you in court on charges of cultivation? Challenge their crop yield estimates. Want a high without the harmful tar? Use a pipe that vaporizes it. [continues 1466 words]
Federal agents arrested two prominent advocates of using marijuana for medicinal purposes in an early morning raid at their farm in Davenport, near Santa Cruz. The owners, Michael and Valerie Corral, were arrested on charges of conspiracy and suspicion of intent to distribute marijuana, Richard Meyer, a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency in San Francisco, said. Agents seized three rifles, a shotgun and more than 150 marijuana plants. The raid was a surprise to local authorities, who said the Corrals' farm complied with the state's medical marijuana law. [end]
