Local Cannabis Cultivators at the Remedy Find a Home and Safe Haven in California It is easy for cannabis-using Californians to forget how good they have it. As of January 1 this year, possessing an ounce or less of marijuana is an infraction punishable by a $100 fine and no criminal record. If you have a medical-cannabis referral, it is basically legal for you to possess, ingest and grow marijuana in California. Not true in America's south, where medieval marijuana laws can ruin a pothead's life. In Florida, 25 marijuana plants is a felony that could get you 15 years in prison. If you get caught growing one plant in the state of Virginia, you can end up in prison for five to 30 years. Any amount of weed can get you a prison term of a year in Tennessee and Alabama. [continues 311 words]
Butte County's Rules Are Too Restrictive As we report this week (see Downstroke, page 8), Butte County citizens unhappy with the Board of Supervisors' recently passed medical-cannabis ordinance are circulating a referendum petition seeking to put it on an upcoming ballot. We don't blame them. The ordinance is overly restrictive, particularly for people whose property is smaller than a half-acre in size; they're prohibited from growing any marijuana whatsoever. As the CN&R has suggested, the supervisors could have avoided this problem simply by requiring that small-parcel owners encase their plants in a greenhouse. At the board's final meeting on the ordinance, on May 24, Supervisor Maureen Kirk broached that idea, and Biggs Mayor Roger Frith testified that his town's greenhouse requirement had been working well, but the remaining supervisors were uninterested. We understand that the supervisors wanted to protect neighbors from the nuisance of having a marijuana garden next door, but the resulting regulation effectively forbids many people from doing what state law allows: growing six plants for medicinal purposes. [end]
Crazy Spice It's been known for a while that synthetic marijuana-a drug that consists of plant material coated with chemicals intended to make the user feel "stoned"-is a growing problem in the military and substance-abuse treatment programs because it cannot be detected in standard urine drug tests. But a few San Diego doctors shed some extra light on the drug at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting recently when they announced they had linked the drug to psychosis. Doctors from San Diego's Naval Medical Center reported on 10 patients who were hospitalized after using the drug, which is commonly referred to as Spice. The patients, ranging from age 21 to 25, reported varied levels of auditory and visual hallucinations, delusions and thoughts of suicide. Some patients' symptoms lasted less than a week, while others' lasted several months. Spice-also known as K2, Blaze or Red X Dawn-is listed as a Schedule 1 controlled substance. Synthetic cannabis blends were legal until the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency outlawed them in 2010. [end]
Medical-Marijuana Advocates Hope Petition Will Stop Cultivation Ordinance Medical-marijuana growers in Butte County are getting together in force to sign petitions asking for the recently approved cultivation ordinance to go to a popular vote or be repealed. Matt Larkins of the Save Butte Growers Rights group says he believes there are already enough signatures to qualify, but they're not stopping until the June 20 deadline to turn in the forms to the county. "They're coming out of the hills in droves," he said by phone. [continues 115 words]
In November 2008, a whopping 63% of Michigan's electorate affirmed that "modern medical research ... has discovered beneficial uses for marijuana in treating or alleviating the pain, nausea, and other symptoms associated with a variety of debilitating medical conditions." Since then, however, various politicians, judges, prosecutors and cops have been attempting to convince all of those voters that they were bamboozled. A prevailing argument made by these naysayers is that the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act is being abused by physicians and patients who recommend and/or use marijuana to alleviate pain. [continues 408 words]
It's official: Medical marijuana dispensaries will be allowed in a Valley city. After more than a year of discussion, the El Centro City Council approved an ordinance Tuesday night to allow dispensaries within the city limits. Up to two dispensaries will be allowed in specified areas of the city. The zones for medical marijuana are on two portions of Imperial Avenue - - from Ocotillo Drive to Ross Avenue, and from Pico Avenue to the northern city limits - and two portions of South Fourth Street - from Interstate 8 to Ross Avenue, and from Heil to Olive avenues. [continues 155 words]
The separation of bank and dank is now complete. Alpine Bank's lawsuit against Alpine Dank and its founder was quietly dismissed last month in the U.S. District Court of Denver. The dismissal comes after the Glenwood Springs-based bank, which has locations throughout the Western Slope, sued Alpine Dank and Jeffrey Lessard for trademark violation and other federal claims, alleging the marijuana dispensary had created confusion in the marketplace. "I think they just recognized it was futile to try and do anything against a registered trademark," said Bob Young, chairman of Alpine Banks, on Wednesday. "We didn't want to be identified closely with a medical-marijuana shop and they [Alpine Dank and Lessard] didn't feel like pursuing it and elected to go another way." [continues 483 words]
Because We Care In an e-mail titled "The End of Caregivers?" advocacy organization Sensible Colorado warned of an upcoming meeting by the Colorado Board of Health wherein "sweeping rules" regarding the relationship between a caregiver and their patient could be passed. So, what's the deal? "What's new about these rules, is [there are] more of the details," says outreach director Josh Kappel, adding that the organization's main worry is a broad requirement that caregivers have "significant responsibility" over their patients. [continues 350 words]
ASPEN -- Acting on advice from their attorney, who said adopting medical marijuana regulations would put county employees in the position of abetting the violation of federal drug laws, Pitkin County commissioners voted 4-0 Wednesday to reject the proposed rules. With that action, the county will have no zoning regulations specifically aimed at the medical marijuana industry, including grow sites, dispensaries and manufacturing facilities for pot-infused products. The omission left Commissioner George Newman puzzled. "You know, we don't have zoning regulations for a variety of different illegal activities," Ely assured him. [continues 591 words]
Regarding Tom Oleson's June 4 column, What are you smoking?, the Global Commission on Drug Policy's groundbreaking report criticized the U.S. government for promoting a global drug war. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy immediately rejected the commission's call for reform and defended the "balanced drug-control efforts" of the U.S. government. These "balanced" efforts have given the land of the free the highest incarceration rate in the world. Prohibition-related violence has caused upwards of 35,000 deaths in Mexico over the past four years. [continues 55 words]
Re: "Marijuana not harmful? Not true" (Gazette, May 11). There are those who view marijuana as a "soft" drug and dismiss the notion its use is a gateway to harder drugs. Drugs do not discriminate based on race, language, sex, etc., and there are many addicted kids from "good homes" living on the streets of Montreal, doing anything they have to to get through the day. Do you think these kids woke up one morning and decided to throw away their lives? No, in most cases it started with an "innocent" joint offered to them by someone they trusted. Combined with alcohol and peer pressure, this often leads to them taking the next step. We at the Saving Station will reach as many kids as possible with our message on the realities of substance abuse, and give them tools to make the right decisions about drugs and alcohol. Lorne Silcoff Montreal [end]
Garth Stevens' My Turn on Monday ("Flawed logic behind push for drug legalization") is flawed. Access to drugs is not the culprit, lack of common sense and self-control are the culprits. Stevens says the top-three drugs used by teens are alcohol, inhalants and prescription drugs. I would trade marijuana for any one of them. To his point, we should ban alcohol, inhalants and prescription drugs; problem solved. Of course, rational people can see how ridiculous this would be. Or can they? [continues 104 words]
Takes 'Baby Steps' By Limiting Number of Medical-Marijuana Outlets to Two Somehow the Chico City Council's discussion Tuesday night (June 7) of a medical-marijuana ordinance came down to a debate over "baby steps." At issue was whether the number of dispensaries should be limited to two, as several council members preferred, or be determined by the land-use restrictions governing their location, which could ultimately allow several dispensaries. To Councilwoman Mary Flynn, who preferred the former, it was a matter of taking "baby steps" at first. "This is something we've never done before," she said. "My inclination is to start small." She said the council could allow additional dispensaries in the future, if they were warranted. [continues 617 words]
