A recent opinion column stated that if not for the billion-dollar marijuana industry in Nevada County, all the stores on Mill Street would have to close. The implication that the only money keeping this town alive is from illegal activities (federal law) is somewhat offensive to me. I, like many others in this county, work hard to make a living at a job that has nothing to do with pot or any other drug. Staying financially stable in this economy is a big struggle. The idea of growing a natural herb for medicinal purposes to benefit the quality of life for those suffering from a devastating illness sounds quite spiritual. A noble pursuit, indeed (not to mention making some serious money as a bonus). [continues 89 words]
A landlord in San Diego can evict a medical marijuana dispensary because under city zoning laws, pot dispensaries are not legal anywhere in the city, a Superior Court judge has ruled. San Diego County Superior Court Judge Ronald Prager, in a decision released Monday, said it was permissible for Kimber Investment Group to evict the Medibloom dispensary from the building that the investment group owns in a Rancho Bernardo shopping center. "Cities ... are the arbiter of zoning laws," Prager wrote. "There's no place in the city of San Diego, including the shopping center in Rancho Bernardo, where a medical marijuana dispensary is a permissible use. It is therefore illegal." [continues 186 words]
I was appalled at U.S. Rep. Bob Filner's lack of understanding of our laws and the negative effect the proliferation of pot shops have had on naive young people ("Filner and colleagues seek shift on medical marijuana," Nov. 3). Who has he been talking to? Certainly not parents or school officials who shockingly report the ease at which high schools students buy pot at illegal storefronts for their bumps and bruises. It's a concern that Filner has bought, line and sinker, the pro-pot propaganda over the chorus of concerns that pot use by youths has increase with their believe that pot is harmless. [continues 102 words]
With "three strikes" and the war on drugs, I find it no wonder that we're in the mess that we're in with the prison industry. These laws have been clogging up the system, and all it took was a stock market crash to really jam things up. Do we really want to prevent the accident of felons going free just the moment they arrive at the county jail? Fine, let's repeal the above laws to make room for them and maybe for scam and ripoff artists too. And repealing laws against prostitution would help as well. Otherwise, we'll continue downwards in this area with money we don't have. Timothy J. Duffy Redding [end]
America's love affair with, and warfare against, the psychoactive drug marijuana both continue in mind-blowing intensity. Marijuana is, according to one of the commentaries on the preceding Dialog page, the country's largest cash crop, indicating a whole lot of people are involved in growing, selling and smoking it. And yet, combating those growers, sellers and users is a major component of the federal government's 40-year-old war on drugs. The result of this contradiction is more contradiction. Marijuana remains a Schedule 1 drug defined as having the greatest potential for abuse and no accepted medical use and is against federal law for all purposes. But numerous states, including California, recognize a medical use for marijuana and make repeated efforts to lessen penalties or legalize it. On the statewide ballot last November, a proposition to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana drew a 46.5 percent "yes" vote 47.1 percent "yes" in San Diego County. And a new proposition is in circulation for another possible vote next November. [continues 314 words]
In response to "Filner and colleagues seek shift on medical marijuana" (Nov. 3): As the mother of a teenager, I applaud the recent action by the U.S. attorneys and the Obama administration to bring the full measure of enforcement against the illegal mass-distribution centers throughout California that profit from the outright sale of marijuana. Their enforcement has not been aimed at seriously ill individual users of marijuana, but has rightly targeted domestic drug cartels operating major marijuana retail centers. In the short term, these dispensaries are a threat to public health and safety by acting as a magnet for crime due to easy access to large amounts of drugs, cash and guns (as so often reported in the U-T). In the long-term they send the wrong message to our teens that marijuana is neither harmful nor illegal. Evelyn Hogan, La Mesa [end]
Filner and his select colleagues obviously support legalization of marijuana and seem convinced of its effectiveness. I agree with them, but I think we may disagree on the form of legalization. They seem to leave marketing as presently permitted and want only decriminalization the method of "legalization." I contend that legalization of a powerful drug that vies with opiates and is always compared with opiates for effectiveness and side effects should be legalized the same way as other painkilling, addictive drugs, and marketed through a licensed pharmacy and dispensed by a registered pharmacist upon the written prescription of a licensed medical practitioner. [continues 148 words]
Re "Feds' raid has Mendocino riled" (Page A1, Oct. 30): What a disgrace. The feds have so little to do than spend time, effort and money to destroy legally operating marijuana farms in Northern California. A farmer, attempting to operate within the framework of the law, cooperates with local officials and advocates for cooperative working agreements. The Mexican cartels must be raising a glass of wine or a toke in thanks for the government wiping out the competition. Dan Corsello, Sacramento [end]
"Medical marijuana" growers, doctors and dispensaries are a smoke screen. The doctors' waiting rooms are reminiscent of a frat party, existing only to write a recommendation for marijuana and collect a fee. No lab work or X-rays are required or even available. Medical records from your real doctor are not necessary. I agree that marijuana can be helpful for certain conditions, but if marijuana is truly intended for the ill, then why not let regular family doctors write the prescription for a specified amount and deliver that medication through real pharmacies that can track and regulate the quantity, potency and specific type of drug prescribed? Currently the pot recommendation is written for an unlimited amount of marijuana for an entire year, then filled by marijuana dispensaries really drug dealers hiding behind a perverted interpretation of a poorly written law. Bradley DeHaven, Sacramento [end]
Re "Pot's benefits, risks deserve study" (Living Here, Oct. 30): As with many good ideas in this country, if big business doesn't go along, it will probably never see the light of day. Decriminalization of pot is yet another example. The benefits of pot have been known for years, just like the ill effects of tobacco were known for years, and it took how many years and deaths before Congress would do anything about tobacco's big lie? The fact that you can replace half of your medicine chest with pot scares the big boys in the pharmaceutical business. The boys in the liquor business are worried, too, that people might come home after a hard day at work and light up instead of drink up. Meanwhile, Americans still sit in prison for pot offenses while our lawmakers are out getting drunk at fundraisers. Tim McKinnon, West Sacramento [end]
Marijuana prohibition is a policy choice, not a fact of life. With a devastating economic downturn and increasing violence associated with illicit drug syndicates, that choice makes sense to fewer people than ever. Forty years after the war on drugs started, an October Gallup poll found for the first time that 50 percent of Americans support making marijuana legal. The poll indicated that only 46 percent oppose ending marijuana prohibition. No other law is enforced so harshly and pervasively yet deemed unnecessary by so many Americans. Almost half of U.S. adults admit in government surveys to having tried marijuana at least once. Politicians on the campaign trail readily admit to being members of that group. And yet over 800,000 people are arrested every year for violating marijuana laws - the vast majority for personal possession - - at a cost of billions of taxpayer dollars. In every state, people of color are disproportionately arrested for marijuana offenses. [continues 466 words]
The California Medical Association recently adopted a white paper that is now our policy, which lays out a strong and thoughtful position on medical cannabis (marijuana). As a family physician, I want to be clear that CMA's position is not to make the substance more readily available to the general public, but actually quite the opposite. The problem is that states are decriminalizing medical cannabis on a state-by-state basis, but without any groundwork for federal regulations requiring warning labels, product consistency, purity and reliably predictable dosage. In order for there to be a robust regulatory system, we must first legalize medical cannabis on a federal level. [continues 496 words]
As a leader of a nationally prominent anti-drug coalition in San Diego County, I was thoroughly disappointed with the California Medical Association's recent report endorsing marijuana legalization as a way to speed research into medical marijuana. Unfortunately, the CMA conflated those two very different issues by recklessly supporting the risky proposition of legalization. First, it is important to discuss the disastrous impact marijuana legalization would have on our state. Marijuana is illegal because it is dangerous not dangerous because it's illegal. Recent studies link the drug with cognitive impairment (think memory loss and other brain dysfunction), motor skills impairment (think drugged driving accidents), and mental illness (like psychosis and schizophrenia). Indeed, marijuana negatively impacts the development of the adolescent brain, which is still maturing until about age 25. [continues 510 words]
Here are excerpts from a statement released by Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, in response to petitions that marijuana be legalized and regulated similarly to alcohol. When the president took office, he directed all of his policymakers to develop policies based on science and research, not ideology or politics. So our concern about marijuana is based on what the science tells us about the drug's effects. According to scientists at the National Institutes of Health the world's largest source of drug abuse research marijuana use is associated with addiction, respiratory disease and cognitive impairment. We know from an array of treatment admission information and federal data that marijuana use is a significant source for voluntary drug treatment admissions and visits to emergency rooms. Studies also reveal that marijuana potency has almost tripled over the past 20 years, raising serious concerns about what this means for public health especially among young people who use the drug, because research shows their brains continue to develop well into their 20s. Simply put, it is not a benign drug. [continues 210 words]
I think all Chicoans should ask their city councilors to file an amicus brief on behalf of Americans for Safe Access in their lawsuit charging the feds with violation of the 10th Amendment, requesting declaratory and injunctive relief from their recent attack on medical marijuana in California -briefs from the council, or as citizens, should consensus be unreachable. The council was moving toward regulated, safe access of medical marijuana, under state law, and was vetoed. The Supreme Court has opined that the feds do have the right to enforce their federal drug laws, as Diane Monson of Oroville and District Attorney Mike Ramsey can attest. [continues 59 words]
Thoughtful action should preserve intent of voters who passed Prop. 215. There is no ideal solution to get California out of its medical marijuana mess. But two steps would be a huge improvement and help fix much of what is broken with Proposition 215, approved by voters 15 years ago. If we're going to have medical marijuana, more research is needed on what diseases and conditions can be treated, what doses work best and how the drug can be most safely ingested. [continues 438 words]
Last month the California Second Appellate District threw out the city of Long Beach ordinance regulating medical marijuana dispensaries. If allowed to stand this ruling could disallow the Mendocino County zip tie program. The October 4 ruling determined the City of Long Beach ordinance regulating medical marijuana dispensaries exceeded the intent of the state's compassionate use act to protect medical users from state and local prosecution. The basis for the ruling concluded since Long Beach imposed fees and issued permits for dispensaries to operate it had gone "beyond decriminalization into authorization." This puts the ordinance into violation of federal law by obstructing federal enforcement efforts. The court stated "the CUA simply decriminalizes (under state law) the possession and cultivation of medical marijuana; it does not attempt to authorize the possession and cultivation of the drug." [continues 240 words]
Lawsuits were filed Friday in federal courts in Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego in a move to block efforts by U.S. attorneys to crack down on medical marijuana dispensaries in California. "A massive organized effort is now going to be launched to bring the issue to federal courts across the state to get some judges to look at this," said San Francisco lawyer Matt Kumin, one of the attorneys representing plaintiffs in the lawsuits. The El Camino Wellness Center, a Sacramento dispensary, is one of the plaintiffs in the suit filed in Sacramento, said P.J. Johnston, a spokesman for the statewide legal effort. California's four U.S. prosecutors, declaring that the state's medical marijuana law "has been hijacked by profiteers," last month announced investigations and prosecutions of dispensaries, growers and investors throughout the state's medical marijuana market. [end]
This recent ill-advised federal crackdown on California's (and the country's) "cannabis problem" is a heartless, brutal slap in the face of medical cannabis patients everywhere. There can be no justification for the stigmatization we are forced to suffer every day just because we have discovered, and wish to take advantage of, the many beneficial healing powers of this botanical wonder. We have lost faith in the chemical pill and are terrified of the side effects. Just because we believe in the right to decide what medicine we put in our own bodies we are being treated like second-class citizens. [continues 142 words]
Since the Obama administration's decision - about which it has since waffled - to let states go their own way when it comes to medical marijuana, California's cities have struggled to tame the still-illegal trade, to accommodate patients without letting lawbreakers run unrestrained. But a recent California Court of Appeal decision makes that effort far more difficult. Ruling in Pack vs. City of Long Beach, the court threw out a city ordinance much like Redding's that licensed and strictly regulated medical-marijuana shops. The decision, in essence, says that California authorities can decline to prosecute marijuana users or growers - can look the other way - but that actually licensing marijuana sales is a step too far, violating the federal Controlled Substances Act. [continues 231 words]
SAN BERNARDINO - Leticia Pepper won't face county representatives in court until March 2012, but she's already gearing up for a battle that may take her to the state Supreme Court. Pepper is the attorney representing Crusaders for Patients Rights, the self-proclaimed Christian organization that filed a lawsuit against San Bernardino County in April, after the Board of Supervisors banned medical marijuana dispensaries in all unincorporated areas. The ordinance, passed April 5 by the board, also prohibited patients and caregivers from growing marijuana outdoors. [continues 530 words]
Medical marijuana advocates are gathering signatures against the county's dispensary ordinance, which they say outlaws dispensaries and safe access. "We're not going to put up with the way they're handling this," said Andrew Merkel, a dispensary operator. The referendum, if certified with enough signatures, would go to the Board of Supervisors for their decision on whether to repeal the ordinance or put it on the June ballot, Merkel said. Supervisors voted unanimously Oct. 25 to ban dispensaries in all unincorporated areas of the county. [continues 390 words]
There is no ideal solution to get California out of its medical marijuana quagmire. But two steps would be a huge improvement and help fix much of what is broken with Proposition 215, approved by voters 15 years ago Saturday. If we're going to have medical marijuana, more research is needed on what diseases and conditions can be treated, what doses work best and how the drug can be most safely ingested. And that means getting marijuana off the federal government's Schedule 1 list of drugs. What's already known shows that marijuana does not belong in the same category as cocaine and heroin drugs with high potential for abuse but without any medical benefit whatsoever. [continues 585 words]
Redding police Chief Peter Hansen said he'll notify the city's 16 medical marijuana dispensaries ahead of an upcoming City Council discussion that could lead to elimination of city permits for the collectives. A ruling in a recent Southern California lawsuit seems to have found it's unlawful to permit something that's illegal under federal law and the council might have to decide whether to keep its current ordinance, change it or drop it, Hansen said. "The basic message will be there's a big issue here and you better show up," Hansen said. [continues 318 words]
The muscular young man with greasy hair, tattered clothing and a menacing demeanor sauntered into a Los Angeles fast food emporium the other day, his breath reeking of liquor and his demands very frank. "Give me some money," he demanded of a customer waiting for a breakfast burrito. "Not on your life, smelling the way you do," replied his intended mark. "No way am I paying for you to buy more booze." "That's not what I want," the young man scoffed. "I need my medical marijuana." [continues 704 words]
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- Kern County is not exactly the kind of place where you would expect a voter rebellion, what with its conservative rural residents, its live-off-the-land values and its almost unshakable devotion to the Republican Party. But over the last several months, Kern County -- located 60 miles north of Los Angeles and as far as it can get from San Francisco -- has become the scene of a civil war of sorts over an issue, medical marijuana, whose supporters are often of a more liberal stripe. At stake is a controversial new law -- passed unanimously in August by the county's all-Republican Board of Supervisors -- which would have effectively shut many of the three dozen or so medical marijuana dispensaries in the county. [continues 1134 words]
Sheriff's Deputies Bust Several High-Volume Marijuana Farms Harvest time in Butte County is winding down, and the Butte County sheriff's Special Enforcement Unit had a fruitful October, uprooting 4,056 female marijuana plants and gathering 6,654 pounds of processed marijuana. It also arrested 10 people-alleged growers, their helpers and a pot hauler. Various weapons, other drugs and 19 adult dogs and 19 puppies were also confiscated. "There is not necessarily more being grown," said sheriff's Detective Doug Patterson. "We're just really kicking ass. Last year a lot of our time was taken up policing the dispensaries," he said, referring to a sting operation that effectively closed down the eight operating dispensaries in the county. [continues 1335 words]
Re "The marijuana mess" (Editorial, Oct. 20): What is it with this marijuana mania? Everyone seems obsessed with it. I don't partake of the substance and have no intention of doing so. However, for those who do, what's the big deal? From what those who have used it say, it merely renders one quiet, calm and introspective. Unlike other drugs such as alcohol, which causes people to become violent and dangerous, it appears that marijuana is no menace to society. [continues 101 words]
Newest Petition Opposes County Ban on Dispensaries Leave it to Citizens for Compassionate Use to take their cause to the people. Last week the Butte County Board of Supervisors voted to ban dispensaries-effectively making a two-year moratorium permanent-and CCU believes local voters will think differently. "The whole dispensary ban is a sham," said the CCU's Andrew Merkel. The group, which also includes professional signature-gatherer Weston Mickey (pictured), started its petition drive Sunday (Oct. 30) and is optimistic it will easily meet its mark. [continues 87 words]
In their recent effort to shut down dispensaries in the state, the U.S. attorneys in California seem to want to drive the marijuana industry back underground. In choosing to assert the primacy of federal law, they ignore the fact that the voters of California approved Proposition 215 and deny the state the right to determine its own destiny. They also willfully ignore the fact that prohibition simply does not work. Let's state this clearly: The people who would benefit most from reinstating prohibition are, of course, the Mexican cartel bosses whose laborers grow huge illicit gardens in the forests. [continues 237 words]
In a previous letter to the E-R, I stated that selling marijuana is always illegal, regardless of Proposition 215. I was immediately assailed by the medical marijuana true believers. "How could you write that? Don't you know the feds have promised not to go after dispensaries?" Well, that illusion bit the dust recently. The recent federal belligerence will most likely drive medical marijuana back into the shadows. And maybe that's where it belongs. It does not belong in fancy glass display cases, bearing exotic labels, available for a fistful of cash. When neighbors and friends begin to supply the desperately ill with medicine, at no profit, the feds will tread very carefully. - - Dale Rasmussen, Chico [end]
Recently, the California Medical Association, representing more than 35,000 physicians, the largest statewide physician organization in America, boldly decided to adopt a different, more pragmatic approach to the polarizing issue of marijuana decriminalization. The decision the result of a carefully considered process, painstakingly researched and debated for more than one year is centered on one concern above all others: patient safety. To be clear: this was a purely medical decision. Our individual members come from every corner of California and represent every possible political philosophy and partisan leaning. But the one thing we all share is a common commitment to putting patients first. By that standard, we believe that the present system of medical cannabis is flawed, contradictory and dangerously detached from scientific evidence and that a new approach to legalization, regulation, research and enforcement is needed to protect physicians and patients alike. [continues 458 words]
Re "To win drug war, cut demand" (Letters, Oct. 28): Kristi Anderson's recommendation to win the war on drugs by cutting demand just screams for a response due to its ignorance. Since time began on earth, it has been a basic need and quest of human beings to alter their senses. Making a drug illegal or preaching to someone of its evils will make zero difference. You could fill the entire Central Valley with prisons, and you still would have no impact. [continues 82 words]
I think Kristi Anderson is a little naive in thinking a patriotic approach, in a media campaign, will convince druggies not to "buy" from Mexico. Yes, advertising is powerful, but if people want to buy drugs and most likely they are addicts they don't care how unpatriotic they are. They will buy them anywhere or how they can. Sally Peters, Elk Grove [end]
This month, the California Medical Association made news when it became the first state medical association to recommend the legalization and regulation of cannabis, better known as marijuana. The CMA's Council on Scientific and Clinical Affairs noted in its recommendations that there is an increasing body of evidence that marijuana may be useful in the treatment of a number of medical conditions, but research to determine both risks and benefits is hampered in the United States because marijuana still is classified as an illegal drug. [continues 769 words]
Thank you, John Diaz , for a most comprehensive article in Sunday's Insight section regarding medical marijuana ("Lost in the haze of law," Oct. 23). I am a pharmacist, and I agree with everything you wrote about "medical marijuana." The term itself is an oxymoron. There is nothing "medical" about it. It is merely a bastardization of the English language for its advocates to give it a warm and comfy appearance for sale and use of the drug. As you mentioned, there are no standards of purity, dosage, strength of active ingredients, or side effects of the drug. [continues 158 words]
Re "A bummer for Rand," Editorial, Oct. 26 Contrary to your editorial, there is nothing "counterintuitive" about the Rand Corp. study's finding that crime increases near recently closed marijuana dispensaries. What else would one expect when the city closes hundreds of taxpaying businesses, rendering their employees jobless, leaving behind vacant storefronts and relegating their patrons to the black market? What is truly counterintuitive is the pretense of our public officials that the criminal prohibition of marijuana, unlike that of alcohol, might somehow reduce crime. Dale Gieringer San Francisco [end]
I find it odd that the issue of medical marijuana is being distorted for political reasons as being harmful. To compare pot to cigarettes and alcohol is wrong. The number of deaths from pot are zero while the other two kill by the millions each year. Marijuana as a gateway drug has been proven wrong, too. Marijuana is unique in that it has a medical use with no known lethal limit. If you smoke too much pot, you just fall asleep. If you drink too much, you get a hangover, or worse - you can die of acute alcohol poisoning. By every measure, there's no comparing pot to killers like alcohol and cigarettes. James Masciandaro San Francisco [end]
REDWOOD VALLEY The U.S. drug agents' vehicles rumbled past vineyards and cattle ranches, traversed winding roads through oak woodlands and cleared a gate marked with a sign: "Member, Mendocino Farm Bureau." Camouflaged and heavily armed, Drug Enforcement Administration officers brought a battering ram to the door of Matthew Cohen and a chain saw to cut down his 99 marijuana plants earlier this month. The raid on Cohen's Northstone Organics garden, which boasted of "farm direct" marijuana deliveries to medical users, has stoked a fierce debate over whether federal authorities sought to nullify California's most renowned local regulatory program for medical marijuana cultivation. [continues 1404 words]
I find it interesting that San Francisco's U.S. attorney Melinda Haag is offended that "people are using the cover of medical marijuana to make extraordinary amounts of money" ("Feds urged to ease up on medical pot," Oct. 26). Exchange the words medical marijuana for the words oil, pharmaceuticals or Wall Street, and the message is apparent. It's not OK for average people to accumulate wealth - that freedom should only be for the rich. Makes one wonder if that is why the feds are going after legal marijuana sales. Marcia Hogue Elk Grove [end]
To legalize or not to legalize? The question of marijuana's safety, its impacts on society and its potential as a government revenue source has probably never been so hotly debated in the mainstream of public opinion. We've been waging war on the drug trade for decades, and what has it gotten us? Prisons full of drug users and street-corner dealers, an ever-increasing enforcement bill that cuts deeply into other services, and a murderous drug cartel to the south that threatens to turn Mexico into a full-blown narco state. Today, even "respectable" people feel the burden of those hard truths. [continues 1664 words]
Re "The marijuana mess" (Editorial, Oct. 20): Is the U.S. Department of Justice working for the drug cartels? You really have to wonder. First you have the "fast and furious" gun deals, then you have the grenade builder, and now they're going after the legal, taxpaying medical-marijuana dispensaries and forcing their clients back to the drug cartels! David Gendreau Berry Creek [end]
Re "Dispensary calls it quits" (Downstrokes, Oct. 20): I am a 215 patient who has been affected by Chico's co-op closing down, as have around some 5,999 other patients. If you have been affected or are going to be affected by this ridiculous action, please contact me! Let's mobilize and do something about this! Call me at 588-2970. I love my country and my state of California, but I hate what the government has been doing, is doing and will continue to do to our state and country! Michael Dracul Chico [end]
If the federal government, for whatever reasons, wants to eliminate cannabis from our diets, they should have filed suit in a court of law when Proposition 215 first passed. For them to wait 15 years for the industry to thrive to the point where there were more than 2,000 legal dispensaries operating, and then to pull the rug out from under them, is unconscionable. When you take into consideration President Obama's campaign promise to not devote the Justice Department's resources to bothering states that have medical-cannabis programs, and the Odgen memo saying basically the same thing, what you have is pure entrapment. This whole situation is totally unfair to all of the thousands of collectives that have poured their hearts and souls and finances into these establishments. [continues 142 words]
Your editorial pointed out that arguments can be made for both legalizing cannabis (marijuana) or cleaning up the mess resulting from Proposition 215. Actually, the only way to fix problems associated with 215 is to completely legalize the plant. Support for ending cannabis prohibition, persecution and extermination is growing at an eye-opening rate. Be patient, and voters will fix the problem at the election booth in 2012. Stan White Dillon, Colo. [end]
An advocacy group for medical marijuana users sued U.S. Justice Department officials Thursday, charging that the federal government has violated the Constitution in cracking down on California marijuana dispensaries. In seeking an injunction to curb federal raids and enforcement actions in California, Oakland-based Americans for Safe Access charged that "the federal government has instituted a policy to dismantle medical marijuana laws of the State of California." The lawsuit, naming Attorney General Eric Holder and Melinda Haag, the U.S. attorney in San Francisco, said federal prosecutors are coercing "municipalities to pass bans on medical marijuana dispensaries" and threatening "Draconian penalties" against local officials. [continues 82 words]
Federal raids, plus a county crackdown and city standstill-will Sacramento's medical-cannabis community go underground, a la Prohibition? It took only 10 days for the federal government, after California's four U.S. attorneys announced a ramped-up crackdown against the state's medical-marijuana industry, to raid a local dispensary. The operation went down a few minutes after 7 a.m. on Monday, October 17, when Drug Enforcement Agency officers showed up at north Sacramento's Medizen. DEA spokesperson Casey McHenry couldn't say what the feds seized-the court documents were already sealed, she told SN&R-but Americans for Safe Access' Kris Hermes explained that when the feds typically raid a club, "they basically seize it all." [continues 800 words]
The Obama administration's campaign against medical marijuana dispensaries in California is an unconstitutional attack on the state's authority to set its own health policies, an advocacy group charged in a lawsuit Thursday. While the federal government is entitled to enforce its laws against marijuana possession, cultivation and sale, its recent tactics - including threats to prosecute dispensaries' landlords and members of city councils that license pot suppliers - add up to an "unlawful assault on state sovereignty," Americans for Safe Access said in papers filed in San Francisco federal court. [continues 255 words]
Re "U.S. infiltrates deep into Mexico drug rings" (Page A1, Oct. 25): One thing I do not understand is why, with all the amazing power of advertising and media campaigns, the federal government fails to campaign against the real cause of the so-called war on drugs: U.S. demand for these illegal drugs. We could avoid the dangerous and exorbitantly expensive quagmire of fighting ruthless drug lords in Mexico simply by curbing the demand-driven trade on our side of the border. [continues 74 words]
So what happened to "do no harm"? Our question is prompted by a puzzling position taken by the California Medical Association. At its annual convention this month, the state's largest doctors group dismissed marijuana as little more than a folk remedy that may actually pose health risks. But, they said, let's legalize pot anyway and figure out if there are any problems later. As evidenced by the convoluted Board of Supervisors debate this week on revising Sonoma County's medicinal marijuana ordinance, California has made a mess of the issue. So it's easy to understand why doctors, among others, are frustrated. Nevertheless, we think the medical association is skipping over some basic science and jumping to a faulty conclusion. [continues 411 words]
Inside California
