Bud

City amends bid to uphold Redding dispensary ban

 Courts
May 072012
 

Redding today filed an amended complaint in its legal battle to shut down local medical marijuana dispensaries after a Shasta County Superior judge granted the city’s request. Retired Judge Richard McEachen granted Assistant City Attorney Barry DeWalt’s motion to amend the complaint this morning after a short hearing. Superior Court Judge Stephen Baker was out for medical reasons. The city’s motion was met with little opposition today from lawyers representing dispensaries and their managers, Sean Longoria reports in the Record Searchlight. “I felt it’s the right ruling,” said Redding attorney Michael Scheibli, who’s representing Dorothy [...]

House leader Pelosi criticizes fed dispensary raids

 Government
May 042012
 

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi has joined critics of the Obama administration’s campaign against medical marijuana suppliers in California, saying the government is endangering patients and undermining its own proclaimed policy of deferring to states on the issue. “I have strong concerns about the recent actions by the federal government that threaten the safe access of medical marijuana to alleviate the suffering of patients in California,” the San Francisco congresswoman said in a statement Wednesday. It was Pelosi’s first public criticism of the actions announced in October by U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag of San Francisco [...]

Mexican drug violence claims lives of 4 journalists

 Marijuana News
May 042012
 

Bud’s note: It’s easy to forget that life is very different outside California, especially in areas of Mexico where drug violence is pervasive. Take a moment before you spark up that next bong load to remember the Drug War’s latest victims. ======================== MEXICO CITY – Four reporters and photographers covering the perilous crime beat have been slain in less than a week in violence-torn Veracruz state, where two Mexican drug cartels are warring over control of smuggling routes and targeting sources of independent information. The brutal campaign is bleeding the media and threatens to add [...]

Yuba County OKs cannabis growing limits; suit likely

 Ordinances
May 022012
 

Medical marijuana growers in Yuba County now have 30 days to get straight, in a manner of speaking, with a newly passed ordinance stipulating when such grows are deemed a public nuisance. Despite the ordinance passing the Board of Supervisors on a 5-0 vote on Tuesday, the fact two of the first three speakers on the topic were attorneys suggested the matter will move next to a courtroom, Ben van der Meer reports in the Appeal-Democrat. “I think it’s flawed, it’s poorly written and it’s unconstitutional,” said Jeffrey Lake, a San Diego attorney who specializes [...]

S.F. Chronicle: Feds go overboard on medical marijuana

 Opinion
Apr 302012
 

The Department of Justice maintains that there has been no change in the Obama administration’s medical marijuana policy. President Obama recently told Rolling Stone, “I never made a commitment that somehow we were going to give carte blanche to large-scale producers and operators of marijuana – and the reason is, because it’s against federal law.” Yet it also was against federal law in 2008, when candidate Obama did say he would not “use Justice Department resources to try and circumvent state laws” authorizing medical marijuana. Today, the Department of Justice is waging a full-throated war [...]

Vacaville Reporter: State needs clear cannabis rules

 Opinion
Apr 302012
 

It’s bad enough that federal and state regulations regarding medical marijuana are still in conflict nearly 16 years after California became the first state to authorize its use. What’s worse is that California still hasn’t put its own rules into place, the Vacaville Reporter concludes in an unsigned editorial. That leads to seemingly bizarre situations such as occurred last week: On Monday, a Solano County jury acquitted a Vacaville businessman of operating an illegal dispensary — the only one in the city. The next day, an indictment of 25 drug suspects included a deposition that [...]

Trial delayed for man charged with killing MMJ courier

 Courts
Apr 262012
 

LONG BEACH — Trial was postponed this week for one of three men charged with the 2011 slaying of a 29-year-old medical marijuana distributor. Marcel Mackabee is charged with the March 2011 killing of Los Angeles resident Philip Victor Williamson, whose body was found in an alley in the 1500 block of Pine Avenue at about 10:26 p.m. Williamson was shot and robbed of roughly $500,000 cash and several pounds of marijuana, authorities charge. The victim delivered marijuana from growers in Chico to medical dispensaries throughout Los Angeles County, Tracy Manzer reports in the Long [...]

Santa Ana cites medical marijuana dispensaries

 Dispensaries
Apr 262012
 

SANTA ANA – Santa Ana officials issued citations against five medical marijuana dispensaries on Friday, including one that had installed an automated dispensary that looks like a vending machine. The Dispensary Store, on the 1600 block of East 17th Street, made headlines in the past few days as a result of a new marijuana vending machine unveiled there by an Aliso Viejo company, Ron Gonzalez reports in the Orange County Register. Jay M. Trevino, executive director of the city Planning and Building Agency, said the dispensary was issued a citation for $100 and advised that [...]

Bill hikes cultivation fines, allows searches on public lands

 Cultivation
Apr 212012
 

A bill that would increase penalties for growing illicit marijuana and polluting watercourses on forest land and other public land and make it easier for law enforcement officers to stop potential growers is making its way through the state Assembly. If it passes, Assembly Bill 2284 would increase fines for growing marijuana on resource land or large-scale industrial timber land, and the money would go to reimburse local law enforcement agencies’ and district attorneys’ investigation and prosecution costs, according to spokesman Andrew Bird with the office of Assemblyman Wesley Chesbro, who authored the bill. The [...]

UC Santa Cruz enjoys, endures another 4/20

 Marijuana News
Apr 212012
 

SANTA CRUZ – Throngs of red-eyed marijuana fans cheered at the strike of 4:20 p.m. Friday in celebration of the annual 420 event at UC Santa Cruz. Then a cloud of smoke billowed into the air. Music, conversation and a hot afternoon greeted more than 2,000 people at Porter College Meadow. Temperatures reached 84 degrees and sent participants searching for shade under a grove of trees, Stephen Baxter reports in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. “I think it’s a good thing, apart from just smoking,” said Ever Barraza, a senior sociology major. “Society looks down on [...]

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