Crime spree latest woe for San Jose dispensaries

 Crime, Marijuana News
Dec 172010
 

San Jose’s medical marijuana clubs are deeply concerned about being raided by narcotics officers. But in recent days, a number of them have been raided by criminals. Four dispensaries and one marijuana grower were hit by vandals, burglars or armed robbers in the past week, one just hours after a City Council meeting in which the fate of the city’s cannabis clubs was debated. In the case Wednesday night, a dispensary owner was knocked out of his wheelchair by a masked intruder and robbed. Police are investigating the possibility that some or all of the [...]

San Jose council passes dispensary tax, not ban

 Dispensaries, Marijuana News, Ordinances
Dec 142010
 

The San Jose City Manager’s Office wants to take a hard line on medical marijuana, arguing that the City Council should ban all 100 or so cannabis clubs in town and start from scratch with new regulations. However, on Monday, council members said: “Not so fast.” In an 8-2 vote, they put off for another day the burning questions of bans, caps on the number of cannabis clubs and even their basic legality. Instead, the council adopted a new 7 percent tax on dispensaries, as city voters approved last month, Sean Webby reports in the [...]

S.F. Weekly’s Snitch blog recaps the year in pot

 Cultivation, Marijuana News, Media
Dec 132010
 

How was your 2010? For the cannabis community, it was a wild flip of the calendar, with dispensaries opening and closing, police raiding, a medical cannabis luminary thrown in jail for meth charges — and we vaguely remember something about a legalization ballot measure. There’s still time yet before 2011 — who knows what the next few weeks will bring?. In any event, here’s your recap of the Year in Pot (to date), courtesy of Chris Roberts at S.F. Weekly’s Snitch blog. Regulated Edibles Means Hidden Cookies The year opened with ambitious rule changes from [...]

San Jose collectives in panic mode after raids

 Dispensaries, Law Enforcement, Marijuana News
Nov 102010
 

Medical marijuana activists pleaded Tuesday for San Jose leaders to stop drug raids they say have sent a jolt of fear through cannabis providers and patients alike. Drug agents in recent weeks have raided three local medical marijuana providers, John Woolfolk reports in the San Jose Mercury News. Several other collectives, including Harborside Health Center, one of the area’s largest and best-established, have simply closed, fearing an imminent bust. “How can you sit up there and take my rights away?” asked a tearful Aisha Alexander, 36, who told the City Council she uses marijuana to [...]

Santa Clara County agents raid San Jose Patients Group

 Dispensaries, Law Enforcement, Marijuana News
Nov 092010
 

In the latest example of selective enforcement by the Santa Clara County Special Enforcement Team (SET), the San Jose Patients Group co-op in San Jose was raided at 4 p.m. Thursday. A spokesman for MC3, a coalition of local dispensaries, said the seizure and destruction of property was dramatic and forceful, yet no arrests were made. Bearing search warrants, and claiming authority from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office, narcotics officers entered the premises and immediately disconnected all security cameras that could have recorded their activities. The same tactic has been used in dispensary [...]

Prop. 19 falls short; local medipot taxes passed

 Legalization, Marijuana News, Medical marijuana
Nov 032010
 

When Californians put an initiative on the ballot to legalize recreational marijuana smoking, the whole nation tuned in to see whether the state would lead a new marijuana law revolution. After all, California voters pioneered medical marijuana more than a decade ago. But Tuesday they doused Proposition 19, rejecting the country’s first effort to legalize marijuana. As of this morning, the no votes totaled nearly 52 percent, John Woolfolk reports in the San Jose Mercury News. The defeat came even as voters in San Jose and other Bay Area cities embraced local regulation and tax [...]

San Jose police release pics of robbery suspects

 Dispensaries, Law Enforcement, Marijuana News
Oct 272010
 
San Jose police release pics of robbery suspects

San Jose police have released a video and photos of two suspects who they say robbed a marijuana dispensary in late September. The video shows one African-American man wearing a purple backwards-facing baseball cap waving around a gun and taking what appears to be marijuana from behind a case at the Monterey Road Dispensary on Sept. 29 at 11:43 a.m. He is likely in his late 20s to early 30s, standing 6 feet 2 inches and weighing about 250 pounds. He has black short hair, a goatee and tattoos on his forearms, the San Jose [...]

Lax Prop. 215 doesn’t stop South Bay dispensary raids

 Collectives, Dispensaries, Law Enforcement, Legalization, Marijuana News
Oct 172010
 

In the year since U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced federal drug agents would stop targeting medicinal marijuana use where state law sanctioned it, Santa Clara County — like other parts of California — has become the Wild West. But suddenly, the sheriff has ridden into town, John Woolfolk and Sean Webby report in the San Jose Mercury News. California, the first of 14 states that now allow medical marijuana, has one of the loosest laws of its kind. It doesn’t limit conditions that qualify patients, nor does it require them to register with the [...]

Mercury-News editorial: Yes on legal pot, but No on 19

 Legalization, Media, Medical marijuana, Opinion, Ordinances
Oct 152010
 

The state Board of Equalization estimates that 400,000 Californians smoke marijuana every day. More than 3 million use it at least once a year. Clearly, the war on drugs is a massive failure, at least regarding pot. A well-crafted proposal to legalize and regulate marijuana for adults in California might well be a better approach, but Proposition 19 isn’t it. Voters should say “no” on Nov. 2, the San Jose Mercury News concludes in this editorial. In 1996, we supported Proposition 215, the landmark initiative legalizing marijuana for medical purposes, which some other states have [...]

‘Compassionate 22′ protest San Jose dispensary raids

 Dispensaries, Law Enforcement, Marijuana News
Oct 152010
 

Suspects nailed in an unprecedented South Bay law enforcement sting of medical marijuana delivery services protested Thursday in front of drug court in San Jose, saying their busts were invalid, punished the ill and were aimed at undermining a looming state proposition to largely legalize pot. The “Compassionate 22″ and their supporters held up signs bearing the names of medical conditions — cancer, glaucoma, lupus and insomnia — that pot is deemed to alleviate. Although charges have not yet been filed formally, they chanted “Drop the charges! Drop the charges!” and urged passing cars to [...]

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