Bee report: Sex sells, even in medical cannabis industry

 Marijuana News
Nov 282011
 

In 2009, as Los Angeles’ booming medical marijuana economy inspired an emerald city of weed, Vanessa Sahagun found a business opportunity as “Chacha Vavoom,” maven of the 420 Nurses. Chacha and her “nurses” became a pot culture phenomenon. They savored bong hits on YouTube, modeled skimpy outfits to promote marijuana dispensaries – and stirred young men at medical pot shows teeming with sexual imagery. “I was proud I was opening up a market creating ‘green jobs’ for these ladies,” said Sahagun, 25. But now, the sexual marketing of medical marijuana – with racy promotions that [...]

ASA, GLACA ask Prop. 215 patients to email L.A. City Council

 Dispensaries
Nov 262011
 

This advisory comes from Sarah Armstrong, legal liaison for the Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance. ============================================= Several members of the Los Angeles City Council have submitted motions to ban all collectives in the City of Los Angeles. We are desperately trying to head off a ban, and a key part of this is letting Los Angeles patients know how they can contact their council members. Americans For Safe Access has established a web page where patients can easily send an email to all 14 members on the Los Angeles City Council protesting the ban. Can [...]

Federal entrapment claimed in medical marijuana lawsuits

 Courts
Nov 082011
 

Medical marijuana advocates have filed lawsuits in California’s four federal judicial districts aimed at quickly winning court orders to halt the U.S. attorneys from closing dispensaries. The lawsuits are the second legal challenge to the stepped-up enforcement efforts that the four prosecutors announced last month at a high-profile joint news conference in Sacramento, John Hoeffel reports in the Los Angeles Times. Matt Kumin, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuits, said that Tuesday the plaintiffs plan to ask the judges assigned to the cases for temporary restraining orders halting the crackdown. “The government has [...]

California dispensaries fire back with federal lawsuits

 Courts
Nov 082011
 

Pot suppliers went to federal court Monday to try to halt the Obama administration’s campaign to close down their dispensaries, saying the survival of California’s medical marijuana law is at stake. In lawsuits filed in each of the state’s four federal districts, medical marijuana cooperatives, joined by patients and property owners, accused the Justice Department of violating an agreement to leave them alone if they complied with state law, Bob Egelko reports in the San Francisco Chronicle. The department had pledged to the courts, and to patients and their suppliers, that “those who possess, grow [...]

Protest against federal attack on medical cannabis

 Advocates, Events
Oct 182011
 

Title: Protest against federal attack on medical cannabisLocation: Federal Building, 255 E. Temple St., Los AngelesLink out: Click hereDescription: Join Californians in a peaceful and legal protest against the federal offensive against medical cannabis cooperatives and collectives. Sponsored by the Greater Los Angeles Caregivers Alliance and Americans for Safe Access. Details: 888-929-4367Start Time: 12:00Date: 2011-10-24

L.A. Times: Harris, feds need to offer cannabis guidance

 Opinion
Oct 172011
 

What is the status of medical marijuana in California? May people possess it, use it, distribute it, sell it? Those ought to be easy enough questions to answer, but because of state and local fumbling on the issue, they’re not, the Los Angeles Times notes in this editorial. And now, after last week’s announcement by federal authorities of a crackdown on dispensaries, the answers may be harder than ever to nail down. So complicated are the legal and enforcement issues surrounding medical marijuana that the attempt by California’s four U.S. attorneys to bring some clarity [...]

Judge upholds Los Angeles medical marijuana ordinance

 Courts
Oct 162011
 

A local judge had upheld the controversial medical marijuana ordinance enacted by Los Angeles, denying motions from 29 medical marijuana dispensaries for a preliminary injunction. The decision came after Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Anthony J. Mohr held a series of hearings over many months on a host of challenges raised by the collectives. It represents a major victory for the city attorney’s office, which has invested considerable time and expense in defending the city’s ordinance from a phalanx of lawyers working for dispensaries, John Hoeffel reports in the Los Angeles Times. “It has [...]

L.A. Times editorial: Research cannabis, don’t fear it

 Opinion, Pot-pourri
Jul 132011
 

What is it that makes marijuana more frightening to the federal government than cocaine or morphine? The Drug Enforcement Administration has steadfastly, over decades, listed marijuana as a Schedule I drug, meaning that it has no medical value and that the potential for abuse is high. Cocaine and morphine, far more dangerous and habit-forming, are listed as Schedule II because they have some medical value. Last week the DEA ruled once again, a decade after it made the same decision, that marijuana is a potentially dangerous drug without known medical benefits. During the intervening 10 [...]

Columnist-turned-patient has new thoughts on pot

 Medical marijuana, Opinion
May 152011
 

Bud’s note: John Bogert (not Bogart, you stoners) is a Los Angeles Daily News columnist who recently joined the ranks of Prop. 215 patients. He’s more whimsical than cynical and delivers a light-hearted Sunday read. Enjoy. ============== In an earlier age it might have been mildly interesting to sit among reprobates in a medical marijuana dispensary filling out forms and fielding a vacant “Wha?” from a middle-age guy in cargo shorts when I asked if scoring pot always involved so much paperwork. But first, I’ll own up to a small-scale pot-smoking background that began and [...]

L.A. city attorney files suit against 7 dispensaries

 Ordinances
May 042011
 

City Attorney Carmen Trutanich filed suits Tuesday seeking to shut down seven medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles. “With these lawsuits, the city of Los Angeles is sending a clear message that we will no longer allow property owners to turn a blind eye to illegal activity,” Trutanich said. “The City Attorney’s Office will continue to be proactive in shutting down these businesses that insist on operating illegally in this city.” The lawsuits also seek to require the landlords to evict the businesses, the Los Angeles Daily News reports. Among those named in the lawsuit [...]

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