Record-Searchlight: Don’t shut down Redding dispensaries

 Opinion
Nov 162011
 

Even if the city of Redding orders its many medical-marijuana “co-ops” to close their doors by the end of the month, and they comply, does anyone think fewer users will be buying marijuana under the protections of Proposition 215? That’s the question asked in this insightful Redding Record Searchlight editorial. Whether you sympathize with patients suffering severe health problems who find cannabis eases their pain or think that pot smokers are just scamming the system to avoid criminal prosecution, it’s hard to see the business going away. Not so long as state law grants near-total [...]

Walters: Legislature ducking medical marijuana mess

 Opinion
Oct 312011
 

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? That ancient philosophical – or would it be biological? – question has a political counterpart in California, Dan Walters observes in his McClatchy Newspapers column. To wit: Did California’s Legislature become dysfunctional because voters adopted too many contradictory ballot measures, or were those ballot measures merely responding to the chronic inability or unwillingness of the Legislature to deal with substantial issues? Countless academic conferences, newspaper op-ed essays and even books have been devoted to answering, or attempting to answer, the question ever since ballot measures became the [...]

Column: Nevada County’s economy runs on cannabis

 Ordinances
Oct 262011
 

The Nevada County Board of Supervisors is preparing an ordinance to restrict or ban marijuana cultivation in agricultural and residential neighborhoods. This ordinance could have unintended consequences on our quality of life and devastate the local economy. I suggest that we would be better served by taxing, limiting, and tightly regulating cannabis cultivation in Nevada County, Patricia Smith writes in a guest column for The Union. Cannabis is our state’s No. 1 cash crop, outpacing the second highest ag producer, dairy, two to one. State tax collectors estimate that $14 billion in marijuana sales remain [...]

Raich: Dispensary crackdown will cost precious jobs

 Opinion
Oct 242011
 
Raich: Dispensary crackdown will cost precious jobs

The federal government’s recent attacks on medical cannabis providers are a disgraceful waste of precious resources, writes Oakland cannabis attorney Robert Raich. Barack Obama himself said as a presidential candidate that “I’m not going to be using Justice Department resources to try and circumvent state laws on this issue.” His Administration, however, has repeatedly targeted medical cannabis providers through several agencies, with the most recent attacks coming from U.S. Attorneys in the form of letters to California landlords threatening criminal prosecution and property forfeiture if they continue to lease to dispensaries. This flood of intimidating [...]

SacBee: Attorney General Harris should offer Prop. 215 guidance

 Opinion
Oct 232011
 

It’s a good thing that some legislators are willing to take on California’s medical marijuana morass. Attorney General Kamala Harris just tossed it in their laps. It’s perhaps a safer course to stay out of the fray and issue a carefully crafted, completely inoffensive statement, as she did Thursday, that supports the “compassionate use” of medical marijuana for the ill, expresses concern about criminal enterprises exploiting the law and urges federal authorities to focus enforcement on significant traffickers. But for the state’s top law enforcement officer, that’s just not good enough, says this Sacramento Bee [...]

S.F. Chronicle: Where is Harris on medical marijuana?

 Opinion
Oct 232011
 

As the Obama administration escalates its threats to crack down on California’s medical marijuana dispensaries, two voices have been conspicuously silent: state Attorney General Kamala Harris and Gov. Jerry Brown, her predecessor. Is she going to vigorously defend the dispensaries if the feds attempt to shut them down?, this San Francisco Chronicle editorial asks. Does she agree with the U.S. attorneys that some of them are not only in violation of federal law but also are criminal enterprises that break even the state’s lax guidelines – and, if so, why hasn’t the state’s top prosecutor [...]

Mercury News: CMA shows leadership on legalizing marijuana

 Opinion
Oct 232011
 

The traditionally conservative doctors attending the California Medical Association’s annual meeting Friday weren’t high on the state’s No. 1 cash crop when they called for the legalization and regulation of marijuana. They were simply acknowledging the obvious: Our current laws and the resulting war on drugs aren’t working. The consequences of pushing pot underground, CMA docs argue, are worse than the potential problems of legal pot shops. This bold pronouncement moves the legalization debate further into the mainstream, and that is where it belongs, this San Jose Mercury News editorial declares. The professionals who run [...]

OC Register: Federal crackdown on dispensaries disturbing

 Opinion
Oct 232011
 

In the design of America’s founders, the states are supposed to be centers of democratic experiment They’re not supposed to be uniform, the Orange County Register observes in this editorial. For example, even though alcohol Prohibition ended in 1933, local laws restricting sales exist in 33 states. In Arkansas, more than half of 75 counties prohibit alcohol sales. This design is why it is disturbing to us that the Obama administration has launched a crackdown on medical marijuana, which is legal in 16 states and the District of Columbia, the home of the federal government. [...]

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 [...]

Editor: Time to clear the air on medical marijuana laws

 Opinion
Oct 112011
 

Cloud of smoke. That’s what the chaotic mess surrounding medical marijuana has become, Santa Cruz Sentinel Editor Don Miller writes in the paper’s Sunday editorial. This week, federal prosecutors began a move against a select number of dispensaries in California, warning them to either shut down or face criminal charges and possible confiscation of their property. The new crackdown so far has not hit Santa Cruz County, but creates a new climate of uncertainty in a movement almost constantly embattled in the 15 years since voters legalized medical marijuana in California. The reasons why the [...]

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