As the top federal prosecutor in Sacramento was announcing a new focus on huge pot farms in the Central Valley on Tuesday, a U.S. district judge delivered a separate blow to efforts to thwart crackdowns on medical marijuana. U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. dismissed one of five suits that had been filed in federal courts last fall in a bid to win legal support for medical marijuana use in California and other states. Burrell's order came in a suit filed in federal court in Sacramento last November on behalf of the El Camino Wellness Center, near Arden Fair mall, and Ryan Landers, a 40-year-old Sacramento man who uses medical marijuana to alleviate suffering from AIDS and other illnesses. [continues 604 words]
Wednesday must have been a bad day to get any city business done in Isleton. The entire city government spent the day cooling their heels in a Sacramento Superior Court hallway waiting to be called before a county grand jury probing last year's approval of a massive medical marijuana farm in the Delta community. Most said they had done nothing wrong and would invoke the Fifth Amendment to refuse to answer questions in the probe, which includes allegations of kickbacks and payoffs to officials in exchange for approval of the farm. [continues 788 words]
When word comes in Isleton that officials are the subject of a grand jury probe, it hardly seems shocking. Seven times since 1995, a grand jury has probed the tiny Delta town's fiscal woes, administrative weaknesses or its police department. Make that eight. A flurry of grand jury subpoenas were delivered to city officials at a council meeting Wednesday night, ordering them to appear April 27 for secret testimony before the Sacramento County grand jury. District Attorney Jan Scully's office would not comment on the probe Thursday. [continues 643 words]
Medical Use, Seized Plants, Obama Spell an Uncertain Future Off the coast of Baja California, a Coast Guard cutter seized 137 bales of marijuana two weeks ago as they were being dumped by the crew of a speed boat. In San Francisco there are more registered pot clubs than middle schools, police stations or Taco Bells, according to the federal government. And in Sacramento, state and federal officials recently announced the eradication of 2.9 million marijuana plants being grown around California. They said it was a record haul. [continues 631 words]
Off the coast of Baja California, a Coast Guard cutter seized 137 bales of marijuana two weeks ago as they were being dumped by the crew of a speed boat. In San Francisco there are more registered pot clubs than middle schools, police stations or Taco Bells, according to the federal government. And in Sacramento, state and federal officials recently announced the eradication of 2.9 million marijuana plants being grown around California. They said it was a record haul. So, against that backdrop, how sharply does law enforcement focus on arresting marijuana users? [continues 608 words]
Gary Webb, a prize-winning investigative journalist whose star-crossed career was capped with a controversial newspaper series linking the CIA to the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles, died Friday of self-inflicted gunshot wounds, officials said. Mr. Webb, 49, was found dead in his Carmichael home Friday morning of gunshot wounds to the head, the Sacramento County Coroner's Office said Saturday. He left a note, but officials would not disclose its contents. "I'm still in a state of shock," said Tom Dresslar, who works as a spokesman for California Attorney General Bill Lockyer and had known Mr. Webb for 15 years. [continues 526 words]
EL CERRITO - With his mild manner and coifed white hair, Frank Fisher doesn't seem like a guy who killed as many as nine people, as the state once claimed. As it turns out, the doctor wasn't really part of what investigators once pronounced "a highly sophisticated drug-dealing operation." He's just a 50-year-old doctor, Harvard-trained, who has lost his practice and his assets, a man who's resorted to living in his parents' cramped home as the result of a five-year battle to prove he is not a killer, not a drug dealer, not guilty of Medi-Cal fraud. [continues 1332 words]
Two months after officials convened an extraordinary summit to plead for help from the federal government in fighting methamphetamine trafficking in the Central Valley, Sacramento's new FBI chief is reassessing efforts in the area. No final decisions have been made, but law enforcement sources say Richard Baker, acting special agent in charge of the Sacramento FBI office since February, has suggested in recent weeks that he might remove some FBI agents from the 2-year-old High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, known as HIDTA. [continues 820 words]
It was supposed to be a family outing, a deer hunt in the rugged forests of El Dorado County where Bill Hunt and his relatives have owned property for years. By the time it ended Sunday, Hunt was in serious condition and his 8-year-old son in critical condition from gunshot wounds, and authorities were trying to determine whether the pair had stumbled across a marijuana garden being grown secretly on their land. El Dorado County sheriff's officials announced Monday that they had found recently harvested marijuana plots on the property and were searching for two mysterious men who were in the area at the time of the shootings. [continues 1161 words]
Last August, the city of Sacramento granted a business license for a new Cigarettes 4 Less store on Folsom Boulevard. The clean but cramped store in a tiny strip mall on Folsom offers virtually any kind of tobacco product imaginable, including discount-priced packs of Marlboro reds for $1.87, about 60 cents less than many competitors. Business must be good, because the city issued a license for a second store in April, and the miniature tobacco empire joined numerous other similar stores in the area ranging from Cigarette Liquor Express to The Cigarette Store to Cigarettes Cheaper. [continues 1644 words]
