Brave, Small Start-Up Investors Move into Market SAN FRANCISCO - Some Silicon Valley venture capitalists are high on the profit potential of pot. In an ornate ballroom of the posh Fairmont Hotel atop Nob Hill, entrepreneurs of the quasilegal marijuana trade sat down for two days this week with hightech moguls looking to get in on the ground floor of the booming, multibillion-dollar business of selling marijuana in states where it is permitted. "This is the fastest-growing industry in America," says Troy Dayton, CEO of ArcView Group, an investor network focused on the cannabis business. "Despite all the stigma, people are recognizing this could be the next great American industry." [continues 571 words]
LOS ANGELES - The marijuana industry, its outlook soaring with legalization in two states and changing attitudes nationally, is showing off the latest products and celebrating its good fortune at a trade exhibition this weekend. The Los Angeles Cannabis Cup, an annual event sponsored by High Times, the magazine of stoner culture and business, is expected to see record attendance of more than 10,000 people Saturday and Sunday. That's twice any past turnout, managing editor and event coordinator Jen Bernstein says. [continues 300 words]
Alaska could be the next state to reconsider the prohibition on marijuana, following legalization votes by Colorado and Washington last year. Alaska elections officials posted data Tuesday showing that a petition for a statewide vote on marijuana legalization has gained enough signatures and met legal thresholds needed to put the issue before voters. Under Alaska law, the petition when officially certified would appear on the Aug. 19 primary ballot. No formal opposition to the initiative has emerged thus far. Taylor Bickford, spokesman for an Anchorage-based organization that is behind the ballot drive, said that though petitions are still being counted, the state has reported 31,593 signatures are qualified, more than the 30,169 needed. [continues 327 words]
Colo., Wash. Laws Key 'Experiments' President Obama says marijuana use is no more dangerous than alcohol, though he regards it as a bad habit he hopes his children will avoid. "As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked," he said in a magazine interview. "I don't think it is more dangerous than alcohol." He said marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol "in terms of its impact on the individual consumer." [continues 237 words]
Voters Consider Legalization for Recreational Use Now that medical marijuana is permitted in about one-third of the nation, advocates hope to move beyond therapeutic uses with ballot questions in three states that could legalize pot for recreational use. Voters in Colorado, Washington state and Oregon face proposals to change state laws to permit possession and regulate the sale of marijuana - though the plant with psychoactive properties remains an illegal substance under federal law. Approval in even one state would be a dramatic step that most likely would face legal challenges but could also bring pressure on the federal government to consider modifying the national prohibition that has been in place since 1937, backers say. [continues 648 words]
Some See Prop 19 As 'Law and Order' Issue LOS ANGELES - California's fall ballot battle over legalizing pot is drawing law-enforcement officials to both sides of the issue. Beer sellers want to stop legal marijuana, too, but say it's not because they fear competition. Proposition 19, which if approved by voters in November, would make marijuana legal for recreational use by those 21 and older, though possession would still be a federal violation. The first state in the USA to make marijuana legal for medical use, California would again set a new course for the nation on drug use if Prop 19 is approved. [continues 328 words]
States' Moves Reflect 'New Era' of Acceptance LOS ANGELES -- James Gray once saw himself as a drug warrior, a former federal prosecutor and county judge who sent people to prison for dealing pot and other drug offenses. Gradually, though, he became convinced that the ban on marijuana was making it more accessible to young people, not less. "I ask kids all the time, and they'll tell you it is easier to get marijuana than a six-pack of beer because that is controlled by the government," he said, noting that drug dealers don't ask for IDs or honor minimum age requirements. [continues 1808 words]
Students Learn Pot Can Be Big Business LOS ANGELES - This school doesn't have a problem with students not paying attention. "They're paying us to come, and our classes are full," says Jeff Jones, chancellor of the Los Angeles branch of Oaksterdam University, where students learn the business of marijuana from seed to ash. Attitudes are changing as 14 states now have laws allowing some form of legal marijuana use with a doctor's recommendation. And with legalization comes a growing cannabis industry. [continues 709 words]
Officials Struggle to Restrict Stores to Intent of Laws LOS ANGELES - Almost 13 years after California became the first state to allow the sale of marijuana for some medical conditions storefront purveyors of the drug are nearly as easy to find as a taco stand. Yet police and prosecutors say the law is vague on who can sell pot and in what circumstances. They worry that the state unwittingly created safe havens for drug pushers who are doping the population with immunity. [continues 809 words]
San Diego DA Cites Violations of Law Regarding Legal Sales SAN DIEGO - Local and federal investigators shut down 14 medical marijuana dispensaries and arrested 30 people after an undercover operation allegedly found widespread violation of the state's medicinal pot law by storefront sellers. The actions, announced Thursday, amount to one of the most aggressive law enforcement steps yet to thwart what has become rampant growth in California cities of storefront operations purporting to legally sell medical marijuana to qualifying patients. [continues 352 words]
Restriction Imposed Due to Violence LOS ANGELES -- For tens of thousands of U.S. Marines in Southern California, new orders from the brass amount to: Baghdad si, Tijuana no. Citing a wave of violence and murder in Mexico, the commanding officer of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Pendleton has made the popular military "R&R" destinations of Tijuana and nearby beaches effectively off-limits for his Marines. The order by Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland restricts travel into Mexico by the 44,000 members of the unit, many of whom have had multiple tours of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and other combat zones under their belts - -- or are there now. [continues 542 words]
Threatens to Seize Properties Where Medical Marijuana Sold LOS ANGELES -- The U.S. Justice Department is unleashing a potent new weapon in its battle against California's hundreds of medical pot clinics, threatening landlords with arrest and property seizures for renting to tenants who flout federal drug laws. Intensifying its crackdown on pot sales that are legal under California law but illegal under U.S. law, agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency executed search warrants Wednesday in raids on 10 marijuana dispensaries across Los Angeles. [continues 580 words]
A decade ago, the Rev. Scott Imler co-wrote and organized the ballot initiative that made California the first state to legalize marijuana for medical use. Now Imler shakes his head with dismay over what his law has wrought: scores of storefront marijuana shops across Southern California with menus of pot varieties for sale to anyone with a doctor's note. "What we set out to do was put something in the statutes that said medicine was a defense in case they got arrested using marijuana for medical reasons," Imler says. "What we got was a whole different thing, a big new industry." [continues 733 words]
LOS ANGELES -- Federal investigators said Thursday that they had broken an extensive criminal network that used fast, low-flying helicopters to smuggle a potent form of marijuana across the border from Canada through remote Western public lands. The smugglers sometimes returned to British Columbia with loads of cocaine from the USA aboard the same aircraft, authorities said. Joined by Canadian law enforcement authorities, officials with U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement and other agencies said at a news conference in Bellingham, Wash., that 45 people have been indicted in the USA and more than 40 arrested as a result of the two-year investigation. [continues 412 words]
Task Force Roots Out Passages As Lawmakers Try to Pass Legislation SAN DIEGO -- Special Agent Frank Marwood was showing a visitor the half-mile long, 80-foot deep smuggler's tunnel his agents discovered beneath the U.S.-Mexican border at Otay Mesa when his cellphone interrupted. An agent was reporting in with a startling new find: another tunnel, this one shorter and more crudely built, but big enough to provide yet another subterranean port of entry into the USA. These are busy days for the men and women who guard the nation's border -- particularly for the team of federal agents charged with rooting out border tunnels. [continues 859 words]
