A North Coast Proposal Is Aimed at Ensuring That Marijuana Growers Are Regulated Like Any Other Sector WILLOW CREEK, Calif. - The parking lot at the golf course began filling by evening - a procession of raised trucks coated in backcountry dust, an aging red Honda with a "Forever Stoked" bumper sticker. But the 150 or so visitors hadn't come to this Humboldt County hill town to play a round. They were marijuana growers, seeking to learn how to do the right thing for watersheds increasingly strained by the state's epic drought. [continues 1556 words]
Ecosystem, Water Supply Threatened Impact on Yurok Is Worse Amid Drought WEITCHPEC, Calif. - The California National Guard on Monday joined more than a dozen other agencies to help the Yurok tribe combat rampant marijuana grows that have threatened the reservation's water supply, harmed its salmon and interfered with cultural ceremonies. Law-enforcement officers began serving search warrants at about 9 a.m. in the operation, which came at the request of Yurok officials and targeted properties in and near the reservation along the Klamath River. [continues 472 words]
Yurok Leaders Had Pleaded for Outside Help, Saying Marijuana Cultivation Was Damaging Reservation. WEITCHPEC, Calif. - First, the out-of-state license plates came to the upper reaches of the Yurok Indian Reservation, followed by dump trucks of fertilizer and heavy equipment that punched roads into tribal land. Runaway marijuana cultivation had made it unsafe to hike, pray, gather medicine and materials for baskets, or prepare sites for ceremonial dances. Chemical runoff and silt harmed the salmon, and rodenticides poisoned the rare Humboldt marten and weasel-like fisher, which the Yurok consider sacred. [continues 1160 words]
UKIAH, Calif. - When David Eyster took over as Mendocino County district attorney, felony marijuana prosecutions were overwhelming his staff and straining the public coffers. With hundreds of cases active at any one time, taking an average 15 months to resolve, there were few victories to show for all the effort. "The system hadn't broken yet," Eyster said, "but it was dangerously close." That was a little over three years ago. These days marijuana cases clear in about three months and the Sheriff 's Department is flush with cash, thanks to what some are calling "the Mendocino method." To others, it's the Mendocino shakedown. [continues 912 words]
When David Eyster took over as Mendocino County district attorney, felony marijuana prosecutions were overwhelming his staff and straining the public coffers. With hundreds of cases active at any one time, taking an average 15 months to resolve, there were few victories to show for all the effort. "The system hadn't broken yet," Eyster said, "but it was dangerously close." That was a little over three years ago. These days marijuana cases clear in about three months and the Sheriff's Department is flush with cash, thanks to what some are calling "the Mendocino model." To others, it's the Mendocino shakedown. [continues 1370 words]
San Francisco Officials Don't Want a Repeat of Last Year's Massive Party. Plus, It's Easter. SAN FRANCISCO - Golden Gate Park's Hippie Hill is famous for the wafting aroma of marijuana just about any day of the week. But Sunday is 4/20, and to those in the know that's code for "light up the ganja." It also happens to be Easter Sunday, and officials fear a repeat of last year's massive daylong party that culminated in a crowd sourced haze at 4:20 p.m. and then sent brain-fogged crowds flocking out of the park into the Haight district and as far as Hayes Valley. [continues 264 words]
Berkeley Files Suit and Oakland Wins a Court Ruling in Battle to Preserve Availability of Medical Marijuana. OAKLAND - Two Bay Area cities' battle to preserve access to medical marijuana heated up Wednesday, as Berkeley filed suit to block a federal forfeiture action against its oldest and largest dispensary, and Oakland - which filed a similar suit last year - prevailed with an important court ruling. Melinda Haag, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, last year moved to seize the Oakland and San Jose properties of Harborside Health Center, the country's largest dispensary. In May, her office filed a similar action to seize the property of Berkeley Patients Group. [continues 439 words]
Judge Throws Out City's Suit That Challenged Federal Attempts to Close the Dispensary. SAN FRANCISCO - A U.S. magistrate judge last week sided with federal prosecutors in dismissing a lawsuit by the city of Oakland that challenged as illegal federal attempts to close the nation's largest medical marijuana dispensary. In filing the suit last October, Oakland became the first city to take on federal enforcement actions that have led to the closure of hundreds of dispensaries in recent years. [continues 476 words]
A Federal Judge Will Hold the First Hearing As Oakland Seeks to Bar Store's Closure. SAN FRANCISCO - A showdown over the fate of the country's largest medical marijuana dispensary heads to federal court here Thursday, and the outcome could hint at what lies ahead as a growing number of states opt for legalization. This fall, Oakland became the first municipality to sue federal prosecutors in an attempt to block them from shuttering a medical cannabis facility. Harborside Health Center, with facilities in Oakland and San Jose, has more than 108,000 members in its patient collective. [continues 589 words]
Dispensaries Are Rejected in Several Races. Hetch Hetchy Measure Is Defeated. While voters in Colorado and Washington opted to legalize recreational marijuana use, a host of California communities moved instead to curtail the booming cannabis industry. In San Diego County on Tuesday, measures to permit and regulate medical marijuana dispensaries were rejected in Del Mar, Solana Beach, Lemon Grove and Imperial Beach. The closest of the measures was in Del Mar, supported by 44% of voters. In the Bay Area, a proposal that would have allowed up to three dispensaries in Palo Alto went down to defeat as well. Members of the City Council had argued that the stores would increase criminal activity and send children the wrong message, and 62% of voters sided with them. [continues 477 words]
A Crackdown on Pot Dispensaries Threatens to Derail a Man's Quest to Control His Son's Seizures Topamax. Depakote. Phenobarbital. The list goes on. Before Jayden David turned 5, he had tried a dozen powerful medications to tame a rare form of epilepsy. The side effects were devastating. There were grand mal seizures that lasted more than an hour. Hundreds of times a day, muscle twitches contorted his impish face. "If he wasn't sleeping, he was seizing," said Jayden's father, Jason David. [continues 1604 words]
OAKLAND - A day after federal prosecutors moved to shutter the country's largest medical marijuana dispensary, city leaders and other officials came to the defense of Harborside Health Center, warning of dire economic and social consequences if Oakland's carefully regulated industry is quashed. "We cannot afford the money, we cannot afford the waste of law enforcement resources, and we cannot afford the loss of jobs that this would entail," City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan said Thursday at a news conference as dozens of Harborside Health Center patients stood by. [continues 714 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at City Hall here Tuesday to demand federal respect for state and local marijuana laws, a day after federal agents raided the state's first pot trade school and a related dispensary across the bay in Oakland. The San Francisco rally and march to a nearby federal building was planned before Monday's raid. But the sweep on businesses owned by prominent marijuana activist Richard Lee emboldened protesters and brought denunciations from local officials and lawmakers in five states with medical cannabis laws. [continues 714 words]
US Agents Seize Files From Oakland Trade School and Dispensary Run by Proposition 19 Backer Richard Lee. OAKLAND - Federal agents struck at the heart of California's medical marijuana movement, raiding the nation's first pot trade school and a popular dispensary, both run by one of the state's most prominent and provocative activists, Richard Lee. The raids in Oakland by the Internal Revenue Service and Drug Enforcement Administration sent a shudder through the medical cannabis trade and angered the plant's devotees, who believe the federal government is trampling on California law and the wishes of voters who approved medical marijuana use nearly 16 years ago. [continues 1378 words]
Council Suspends Its Proposal for Four Large Operations After D.A.'S Warning on Liability. California's most cannabis-friendly city has temporarily suspended a plan to permit and tax four large marijuana-growing facilities because of ongoing legal concerns. The Oakland City Council voted 7 to 1 this week to send the measure back to legal staff for reworking after the city received a letter from the Alameda County district attorney. The letter suggested not only that the city's plan may violate the law, but also that elected officials could be legally liable. [continues 675 words]
Social Workers Finally Coaxed Leslie May Off the Streets of San Francisco, but She Was Abducted and Killed Over a $150 Drug Debt. SAN FRANCISCO -- Hers was a hard-won success: a chronically homeless drug addict on city streets for decades finally steered -- in baby steps -- into housing and the promise of a future. But the death of Leslie "Jill" May has now become one of the most dismaying tragedies of San Francisco's pervasive homeless culture. Known as "Jilly," the 49-year-old was beaten and stripped as warning to repay a $150 drug debt -- possibly her boyfriend's, authorities say. Then, after reporting the assault to police, the birdlike woman who had once stunned the Tenderloin sex trade with her leggy beauty was forced into a car in broad daylight, driven to the city's desolate football stadium, doused with gasoline and burned alive. [continues 1041 words]
Voters on Tuesday weighed in on a vast array of local issues, with three cities leaning toward relaxed marijuana enforcement and San Francisco on the verge of becoming the first U.S. city to require all employers -- regardless of size -- to provide paid sick leave. In San Francisco and Berkeley, voters were voicing their disapproval of the current administration in measures calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney on grounds including warrantless spying and what were presented as other wartime civil rights violations. [continues 639 words]
The Journalist and His Family Have Been Threatened Because of His Coverage of Drugs. KENSINGTON, Calif. -- Colombian journalist Daniel Coronell had been in California for nearly a full academic year before he shared the depth of his dilemma with colleagues at his Stanford University fellowship program: Death threats targeting him, his wife and small daughter had prompted the family to flee his homeland, he confided at an emotional dinner party. He feared it was not yet safe to return. The man they knew as gentle and self-effacing had built a formidable reputation as one of Colombia's most courageous journalists. He is news director of the television program "Noticias Uno," which the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists calls "one of Colombia's few independent news sources." [continues 1343 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - Buoyed by a recent federal court decision and changes in state law, this sanctuary for the medical marijuana movement might soon try to help establish nonprofit cooperatives to grow pot for the ill. "It's looking better and better," said San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano. "We've always had the inclination for the public policy and a lot of cooperation from the police, the Department of Public Health, the city attorney and district attorneys. The public sentiment is there. I think San Francisco is in a pivotal position to push this forward. .. It's up to us elected officials to find a way." [continues 718 words]
Marijuana Would Be for the Sick. U.S. Crackdown Feared. SAN FRANCISCO -- Buoyed by a recent federal court decision and changes in state law, this seaside sanctuary for the medical marijuana movement might soon try to help establish nonprofit cooperatives to grow pot for the ill. "It's looking better and better," said San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano. "We've always had the inclination for the public policy and a lot of cooperation from the police, the Department of Public Health, the city attorney and district attorneys. The public sentiment is there. I think San Francisco is in a pivotal position to push this forward.... It's up to us elected officials to find a way." [continues 861 words]
