Richmond council tightens up dispensary rules, OKs ballot measure to tax marijuana

 Dispensaries, Legalization, Ordinances
Jul 282010
 

A week after throwing its support behind a medical marijuana ordinance that many saw as one of the most pot-friendly in the area, Richmond’s City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to scratch a number of the ordinance’s most controversial clauses. In a separate move, the council agreed to allow city voters to decide on a new pot tax. Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, along with Councilmembers Nat Bates, Jeff Ritterman and Jim Rogers, all reversed course on a number of key aspects of the pot ordinance Tuesday that they had insisted on during their July 20 meeting, [...]

South Lake Tahoe seeks medical marijuana dispensary ban

 Dispensaries, Marijuana News, Medical marijuana
Jul 282010
 

South Lake Tahoe will pursue a ban on medical marijuana dispensaries following direction from the City Council at a special meeting on Tuesday. The council is also set to approve regulations surrounding the cultivation of medical marijuana at an Aug. 19 meeting, the Tahoe Daily Tribune reports. Three medical marijuana dispensaries — Patient to Patient Collective (also known as MJ Consultants), Tahoe Wellness Collective and City of Angels 2 — have opened during the past two years. In November, the City Council enacted a moratorium on new medical marijuana dispensaries to allow staff to develop [...]

Lake County native: Thompson should back Prop. 19

 Legalization, Marijuana Law, Opinion
Jul 282010
 

Robert Schaerges is a student at UC Davis Law School and was born and raised in Lake County. His open letter to U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson appears in the Lake County News. I appreciate your time and leadership as my representative in Congress. I am currently a student at UC Davis Law School and was born and raised in Lake County. This letter is not about the military, but I noticed you were with the 173rd Airborne in Vietnam. I was with the 173rd Airborne in Afghanistan from 2005-2006 and in Iraq in 2007. It [...]

Vallejo dispensary fighting city’s shutdown effort

 Courts, Dispensaries, Marijuana Law, Medical marijuana
Jul 282010
 

The Stan the Man Collective’s operations should be up to the Vallejo Planning Commission and City Council — not the courts, the medical marijuana dispensary’s attorney has argued in a recent court filing. The dispensary is the target of a recent city lawsuit to shut it down. Attorneys are scheduled to appear Thursday before Solano County Superior Court Judge Ramona Garrett to argue the merits of a temporary cease-operations order for the collective. City Deputy Attorney Alan Cohen argued this month that the dispensary is violating city zoning codes and is working under a falsified [...]

California Watch: Bay Area leads Prop. 19 donations

 Legalization, Marijuana News
Jul 282010
 

Campaign contributions from California supporting the legalization and taxation of marijuana have largely come from the Bay Area, with the Tax Cannabis 2010 campaign sponsors leading the charge, according to state campaign finance reports. Oaksterdam University, a “cannabis educator,” and S.K. Seymour LLC, a “medical-cannabis provider” doing business as the university, have poured nearly $1.4 million worth of monetary and nonmonetary support into the initiative since 2009, placing Alameda County in front when it comes to donations in support of the initiative. San Francisco comes in second with about $22,000 donated to the campaign during [...]

Prop. 19 backer: Federal pot laws no bar to legalization

 Legalization, Marijuana Law, Opinion
Jul 282010
 

Hanna Liebman Dershowitz, an attorney in Los Angeles, is a member of the Proposition 19 legal subcommittee. Her opinion column appears in the Los Angeles Times. The law is the law. If we unquestioningly accepted that maxim, imagine where we would be today. Jim Crow would be alive and well, rivers and skies would be polluted, and women wouldn’t be allowed to vote. Yet such is the mindset of many of those who criticize Proposition 19, the marijuana regulation and taxation initiative on the November ballot. In his July 18 Times Op-Ed article, UCLA public [...]

NorCal energy spike attributed to indoor pot grows

 Cultivation, Marijuana News
Jul 282010
 

Bud’s note: High energy costs associated with indoor marijuana cultivation haven’t been covered much in the mainstream media. Glenda Anderson of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat presents a good overview here. ============= Energy use in Mendocino County has risen 27 percent — more than three times the state’s average — since medical marijuana was legalized in 1996. Humboldt County’s usage has risen 51 percent, more than six times the state’s average, according to PG&E. Growers and law enforcement officials attribute the spike to indoor pot growing, which requires energy-sucking fans, air filters and high-intensity lights. [...]

Tribune editorial: Is Oakland ready to become pot capital?

 Medical marijuana, Opinion
Jul 282010
 

In July of 2009, Oakland became the first city in the U.S. to tax the sale of medical marijuana. Now, exactly a year later, the City Council has taken another major step on the road toward outright legalization. The council has voted to license four new industrial-sized marijuana farms in the city. These so-called Walmarts of pot will be authorized to grow and process marijuana to sell to the four city-approved medical cannabis dispensaries. The ordinance must be read at a meeting a second time before it becomes law, which is expected Tuesday. For the [...]

Radical Russ: What happens in Vegas isn’t NORML

 Advocates, Marijuana News, Media, Opinion
Jul 282010
 

Bud’s note: “Fair use” of online news is a legal gray area that newspapers haven’t done much to resolve. When a Las Vegas publisher went on the warpath, a third-party post put NORML on his attorney’s radar. Speaking of Vegas, isn’t that the same place that gave Cannapalooza the boot? ========= I’m still digging through mounds of email (with a 2-bit shovel, I suppose) that I missed throughout my summer travels and vacations. I came upon this bit from early June when we were getting busy in Aspen, and even though it is old news, [...]

Mendocino County raid puts DEA nominee in spotlight

 Marijuana News, Medical marijuana
Jul 282010
 

After Mendocino County passed a new ordinance to allow medical marijuana growers to cultivate up to 99 plants, Joy Greenfield was the first to sign up. According to the Ukiah Daily Journal, she purchased 25 zip ties from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department as part of a county program to regulate local medicinal cultivation by labeling pot plants to ensure residents don’t exceed growing limits. She was in the process of purchasing 74 more ties, Peter Hecht writes in “Weed Wars.” But this month, federal drug agents swooped onto Greenfield’s property, in the Chicken Ridge [...]

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