Breakfast at the Compassion Flower Inn isn't always "mellow." When Ray Manzarek, keyboardist for The Doors, stayed there two weeks ago he argued that the minimum voting age should be raised to 35. It's not unusual for guests at the "bed, bud and breakfast" to debate politics into the early afternoon, but it's caffeine that fuels the morning conversation. "Pot isn't what drives the topics," says co-owner Andrea Tischler. The inn on Laurel Street opened four years ago, on 4/20, and its friendly attitude toward medical-marijuana users made front-page news across the country. Tischler and her partner Maria Mallek run the inn with the help of their two children. [continues 553 words]
Santa Cruz -- County officials are seeking doctors' advice on how much medical marijuana is enough. The county Board of Supervisors this week named George Wolfe, a former county health officer, to convene a group of doctors to develop guidelines for the quantity of pot that patients might need for treatment and how much they should be allowed to possess. The group is to report back to the board Aug. 17. A state law passed last year provides some guidelines on how much marijuana, or how many plants, patients or caregivers may keep on hand. But the law allows cities and counties to set their own limits. [continues 348 words]
SANTA CRUZ -- A leading critic of U.S. drug policy contends there is no link between the decriminalization of marijuana and increased drug use. In research published in the May issue of the American Journal of Public Health, Craig Reinarman, a UC Santa Cruz sociologist, said he found there was no difference between drug-use rates in Amsterdam, where marijuana is freely bought at licensed coffee shops, and San Francisco, where pot-smokers still can get busted. "Drug policy doesn't appear to have much relevance," Reinarman said in an interview Monday. "There is not a lot of evidence to suggest that criminalization has a deterrent effect." [continues 440 words]
Valerie Corral had just finished a conversation with an ill friend Wednesday when the phone rang. This time there was good news, unlike much of what had come over the past two years. In September 2002, her medical marijuana garden was raided by federal agents who confiscated 167 plants. This was followed by months of scrapping together marijuana for the 250-member Wo/men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana. This week's news: U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel issued the injunction that WAMM had sought barring future raids by the federal government like the one that occurred that September morning at her Davenport garden. [continues 569 words]
DEA Can't Raid Local Group's Marijuana Garden, Judge Rules A judge ordered the federal government Wednesday to keep away from a California medical marijuana group that grows and distributes cannabis for its sick members. The decision from U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose was the first interpretation of a federal appeals-court decision here last year that ordered the federal government not to prosecute a sick Oakland woman who smoked marijuana with a doctor's recommendation under a 1996 California medical-marijuana law. [continues 827 words]
SANTA CRUZ -- Members of an area medical-marijuana cooperative return to federal court today seeking an end to drug raids like the one that decimated their pot garden in September 2002. Joining the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana as plaintiffs in the suit are the city and county of Santa Cruz. They will, once more, ask U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel to outlaw future raids. "We have a lot of reason for optimism," said Mike Corral, who along with his wife, Valerie, is a co-founder of the collective. [continues 505 words]
The 2002 federal raid on the headquarters of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Santa Cruz has faded into the background, but it won't stay there for long, if HOWARD DOVER has any say in the matter. Dover, a native Canadian who is now a Los Angeles standup comic, will perform in Santa Cruz for the second time in a benefit show for WAMM. Dover has invited a number of other comics to appear with him, including ROB BRACKENRIDGE and ROBERT HAWKINS, as well as folksinger DIANE PATTERSON, all to raise awareness and funds for WAMM's ongoing legal defense. [continues 195 words]
Rejecting one front of the government's drug war, a federal appeals court ruled Friday the United States cannot ban the sale of food made with natural hemp that contains only trace amounts of the psychoactive chemical in marijuana. The decision overturns the Drug Enforcement Administration's ban on the domestic sale of hemp food products. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had suspended the prohibition so judges could hear a challenge from the hemp industry, which has been allowed to sell its products while awaiting the court's decision. [continues 683 words]
Medical Marijuana Advocates Buoyed by December Federal Appeals Court Ruling SANTA CRUZ - On a wall in the back room of her Westside office, Valerie Corral points to pictures of her deceased friends. "She died just a few months after the raid," Valerie says, pointing to a photo on the wall of a woman smoking from a glass pipe. The raid that Valerie refers to, conducted by the Drug Enforcement Agency in September of 2002, shut down the marijuana farm that she and her husband Mike had operated in Davenport. The pictures that now hang in her office, at the Wo/men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, include photos of 20 people she says have died since the raid - after the couple could no longer provide marijuana from the farm to those who smoke the drug to help relieve various medical ailments. [continues 1401 words]
San Francisco - A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a congressional act outlawing marijuana may not apply to sick people with a doctor's recommendation in states that have approved medical marijuana laws. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that prosecuting these medical marijuana users under a 1970 federal law is unconstitutional if the marijuana isn't sold, transported across state lines or used for non-medicinal purposes. "The intrastate, noncommercial cultivation, possession and use of marijuana for personal medical purposes on the advice of a physician is, in fact, different in kind from drug trafficking," Judge Harry Pregerson wrote for the majority. [continues 766 words]
SANTA CRUZ -- After the divisive recall, only one thing can heal the state's political wounds -- medical marijuana. At least that was the idea behind Light Up with the Governor. Billed as an alternative inauguration party, Monday's event on the Eastside featured costumed revelers, a grope booth and a screening of the 1977 classic bodybuilding film, "Pumping Iron." "This is the one issue that unifies people in Santa Cruz across the political spectrum," said Arnie Schwartz, organizer of the event and a member of Lefties for Arnie. "(We) support the right of doctors to meet the needs of their patients." [continues 267 words]
Attorneys for the Santa Cruz-based Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana were in court Wednesday asking a U.S. 9th Circuit Appeals panel to overturn a lower-court ruling denying the group the return of its pot. The group was seeking the return of more than 160 marijuana plants uprooted during a raid in September 2002 by federal drug agents. Joining WAMM were the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Club and the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana. The group's cases were combined because of similar constitutional arguments. [continues 63 words]
Santa Cruz - Attorneys for an area medical marijuana cooperative will be in federal appeals court Wednesday, seeking return of more than 160 pot plants seized by federal agents in a September 2002 raid. The Wo/men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana filed the suit weeks after the raid, seeking return of the plants and other personal items. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel denied the request, except for return of a computer and other personal items that belonged to WAMM co-founders Valerie and Mike Corral. [continues 372 words]
SANTA CRUZ - Medical-pot advocates say Thursday's U.S. District Court ruling against a local marijuana co-op leaves ailing members vulnerable to more federal raids and prosecution. But lawyers representing the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana say they will appeal the decision. On Thursday, the district court rebuffed the collective's attempt to bar federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents from carrying on more raids like the one last September when 160 plants in WAMM's Davenport pot garden were uprooted and its founders arrested at gunpoint. Charges were never filed against Valerie and Michael Corral. [continues 662 words]
SANTA CRUZ - Thirty-five years after the "Legalize It" movement caught fire in America, a medical pot collective is throwing a public party in a city park next month. Expect live music, a fortune teller, "Have A Hempy Day" buttons and medical marijuana patients lighting up in a tent. "I remember the music festivals in the 1960s, and even now you can't go to a music festival without a little smoke in the air," said Jean Hanamoto of the local Wo/Men's Alliance For Medical Marijuana, which is staging the Sept. 14 event. "Well, ours will have a little more." [continues 607 words]
A county-operated program to issue identification cards to medical marijuana users was launched this week, and backers hope it will ease concerns of patients and police. The effort is aimed at helping police identify patients and caregivers legitimately using marijuana. County Supervisor Mardi Wormhoudt said the cards mean patients and caregivers will have less to worry about when they possess marijuana for medical use. "People feel very vulnerable," Wormhoudt said. "To add to that burden to people who are already suffering is adding another layer of difficulty that shouldn't be there." [continues 356 words]
I am really getting tired of the so-called compassion of the Women's alliance for Medical Marijuana. In the media, WAMM claims to have compassion for terminally ill patients. This is a bogus claim. It is important to point out a few things: 1) medical marijuana is not a gender issue; 2) medical marijuana is not a sexual-preference issue. According to Prop. 215, medical marijuana was passed in California for terminally ill patients. If you check out WAMM's website. They claim that 80 percent of their members are terminally ill. I challenge that statement. I have personal knowledge of no less than four patients with AIDS who were deemed not suitable to be members of WAMM. Where is the compassion for them and their suffering? [continues 188 words]
The July 14 article about the Oakland doctor losing his medical license for prescribing medical marijuana without conducting sufficient medical exams is typical of the perverse "war on drugs" led by Ashcroft and the Bush administration. The government says its attack on the doctor is not about marijuana, but because the doctor "didn't do enough personal exam, check the medical history and do follow-up work." What a joke. Every day I get about 20 unsolicited e-mail spams inviting me to click the screen and they will send me any amount of hard, addictive drugs like Valium, Xanax, Prozac, even Vicodin, Oxycontin, etc. Their on-line doctors will sign off on the prescription and the drugs will arrive the next day. This has been going on for months and I have never heard of any of these pushers being threatened with loss of their licenses. Maybe it's because the corporate drug makers are getting a cut of the action on their products, while getting nothing from marijuana and other street drugs. Follow the money. It explains a lot. [end]
Marijuana:A Federal Suit Will Be Fascinating To Watch, But Those Who Need Medical Marijuana Don't Need The Intrusion. The legality of medical marijuana is now in the courts, and we think the matter will climb all the way to the Supreme Court before it's over. A federal court trial in San Jose is under way. The city and county of Santa Cruz have filed suit against Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Drug Enforcement Administration over a raid on a Davenport-area marijuana farm. [continues 433 words]
The best approach to fighting the abuse of drugs and alcohol by young people is to do it in a multi-faceted way. The announcement of funding for a drug and alcohol program may just seem like one more government program, but the effort is worth paying attention to. In case you're not aware of it, substance abuse by young people is one of the significant problems of Santa Cruz County. The yearly Community Assessment Report issued by the United Way details some of these issues: [continues 471 words]
