Border Patrol agents seized more than 185 pounds of marijuana Monday from a vehicle stopped at the Interstate 15 checkpoint south of Temecula, authorities said. Agents stopped a northbound GMC Yukon about 9 a.m. at the checkpoint and noticed a strong smell of cologne coming from the SUV, a Border Patrol news release said. The cologne raised agents’ suspicions because drug smugglers sometimes use cologne to mask the scent of illegal drugs, Sarah Burge of the Riverside Press-Enterprise reports. A Border Patrol sniffer dog “alerted” to drugs in the vehicle and agents discovered 59 packages [...]
Aug 302010
Would our state be better off if more Californians were stoned? We don’t think so, writes the editorial board of the Palm Springs Desert Sun. (See Bud’s quickie rebuttal below.) Legalizing marijuana would lead to more people driving under the influence. Lanny Swerdlow argues on this page that it would free up police from pursuing drug abusers and generate $1.4 billion in new state tax revenue. Police officials tell us the impact would be minimal. Swerdlow cites the state Board of Equalization on the tax projections, but we’re not convinced. Marijuana is cheap and easy [...]
Lake Elsinore voters won’t decide whether they want medical marijuana dispensaries in the city because backers of the proposal didn’t gather enough valid signatures to put the measure on the ballot, election officials said Tuesday. The group We the People gathered 870 valid signatures of registered voters, about half the 1,623 needed to qualify the measure for the Nov. 2 general election, according to the Riverside County registrar of voters. The group gathered a total of 2,678 signatures, which were sent to the registrar’s office on June 17 for verification. The Lake Elsinore city clerk’s [...]
Riverside County sheriff’s deputies uprooted about 68,000 marijuana plants Wednesday in a field southwest of Murrieta, about a mile north of the San Diego County line. No arrests were made, said Deputy Melissa Nieburger, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Department. The operation began just after 5 a.m. and continued for hours near Corona Cala Camino and Avocado Mesa Road, Nieburger said. The field was about a quarter-mile from the nearest homes, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reports. The plants were carted off and will be destroyed, Nieburger said. She had no estimate of the plants’ value.
The medical marijuana mobile that recently rolled out of Norco and into unincorporated Riverside County to sell its wares illustrates the latest in legal entanglements between federal, state and local laws. Stewart Hauptman said he and his 1985 Pace Arrow motor home are gone for good from Norco after police cited him for possessing drug paraphernalia and operating a dispensary. He has since moved to unincorporated Riverside County, where he says he feels safer because state law applies. But Hauptman and his roving pot-mobile may not be driving on any more solid legal ground, the [...]
Riverside County law enforcement agencies, similar to many across the state, are treading a more careful path with medical marijuana users since an appellate court decision this year struck down a state law that set specific limits on the amount of marijuana patients can possess. This month, Murrieta code enforcement and police officers shut down what they described as an illegal medical marijuana dispensary and warehouse growing facility. They did not arrest the operator or seize any marijuana. Instead, they cited him for code enforcement violations. In Lake Elsinore last week, code enforcement officers cited [...]
An Ontario man arrested in what Riverside County sheriff’s officials described as the largest marijuana seizure in county history has been sentenced to 5 ½ years in federal prison, authorities said. Angel Guillen Raya, 51, pleaded guilty in January to transporting about 14 tons of marijuana with the intent to distribute it, federal court records show. He was sentenced Monday in federal court in Riverside. His prison term will be followed by five years of supervised release, said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office. Guillen Raya was pulled over Aug. 26 on Interstate [...]
The first thing people see when they step into a converted 1985 Pace Arrow motorhome in Norco is a glass display case filled with chocolate-covered cannabis cookies and medical marijuana labeled “blueberry” and “cheese.” The collective has been on the road for seven months, but this month its operators were cited by Norco and Corona police for possessing drug paraphernalia and operating a dispensary, said Stewart Hauptman and his wife, Helen Cherry, who run the collective. The couple plans to contest the citations and challenge zoning laws in the two cities that ban dispensaries, the [...]
Two Riverside County cities, Norco and Corona, have passed ordinances seeking to prevent the sale of drug paraphernalia, according to this Press-Enterprise article. The idea is to send an anti-drug message, said Lt. Ross Cooper of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department’s Norco station. Cooper helped draft the ordinance passed earlier this month by the Norco City Council, the Press-Enterprise reported. “This allows Norco to make a statement … We, as a city, don’t want drug paraphernalia to be sold in our town,” he said. CalPotNews was unable to find the subject ordinance on the city’s [...]
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