SANTA CRUZ — Jon Castaline, a middle-aged disabled handyman, was looking for a place to store his tools and his medicinal marijuana plants. The rental units Jill Escher oversees on Beach Hill were perfect. While the one-car garage below a motel-turned-apartment complex didn’t have electricity or water, Castaline was allowed to install one power outlet so he could put up a light and do his handyman work in the storage area. For $145 a month, it was hard to beat. But two weeks into the month-to-month rental agreement, Escher learned from other tenants that Castaline [...]
Sep 012010
Can you have a weed vote without these guys? Actor-comedians Richard “Cheech” Marin and Tommy Chong will kick off the fall campaign of their Get it Legal tour Sept. 24 at the Redding Convention Center, Peter Hecht writes in “Weed Wars.” (Bud’s note: There’s also a Reno appearance Sept. 25.) The event is a continuation of the comedy tour Cheech & Chong launched in January, partnering with the Marijuana Policy Project to target pot prohibition in numerous states by unleashing the stoner humor they made famous in the 1970s and ’80s. Separate from the tour, [...]
Aug 292010
One of the men suspected in an armed home-invasion robbery near downtown Santa Cruz on Friday was arrested in Milpitas, police said. The 17-year-old Milpitas resident was arrested at his Curtner Drive home around 8:30 p.m. Friday, according to Santa Cruz Police Capt. Steve Clark. The teen — who is not being named because of his age — was identified as the owner of the black Ford Mustang with red racing stripes that was described as the robbers’ getaway car. Police reported three men stole $4,000 cash and a container with several ounces of marijuana [...]
SANTA CRUZ — Armed men stole marijuana and $4,000 cash during what may have been a planned drug deal at a home near downtown Santa Cruz on Friday afternoon, authorities reported. No one was hurt in what became an armed home-invasion robbery, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reports. The robbers stole the cash and a Tupperware-type container with several ounces of marijuana from the house, on the 300 block of Lincoln Street, according to Santa Cruz police Capt. Steve Clark. The robbers fled south on Washington Street in a black Ford Mustang with red racing stripes, [...]
One of protagonists of the modern marijuana movement in California charges that the burgeoning dispensary trade has become a cash cow aloof from the people it is meant to serve. Valarie Corral filed the state’s first known “medical necessity” defense when she challenged her arrest for cultivating five marijuana plants, arguing she had a right to use cannabis to treat seizures resulting from a car accident. After prosecutors threw out the charges in 1993, Corral co-founded the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana, a Santa Cruz pot-growing collective renowned for serving the terminally ill. She later [...]
Aug 112010
Not many people who lined up at competing booths for discount pot recommendations at last weekend’s Hempcon 2010 Medical Marijuana Show in San Jose were drawn by the bona fides of any doctor. So Deborah Malka, a Santa Cruz family medical practitioner and “mental and physical wellness” counselor, didn’t attract much attention for her MD from the University of New Mexico or her PhD in molecular biology from Columbia University or even her herbal and holistic training from the Santa Fe University of Natural Medicine. She couldn’t compete with the activity elsewhere, Peter Hecht writes [...]
SANTA CRUZ — After the last several WAMMFests encountered challenges, organizers of Santa Cruz’s annual medical marijuana awareness event appear to be in for an easier time getting the city’s nod of approval. Today, the City Council will consider lifting a smoking ban at San Lorenzo Park for five hours Sept. 25 to allow authorized pot users to medicate inside open-air tents designed to create privacy. The item is on the council’s consent agenda, indicating that it may not be as controversial as in years past. “For the city, it’s a matter of course,” Mayor [...]
Jul 032010
Cal Fire crews discovered a large marijuana grow a few hundred feet from where a small wildfire burned in the Santa Cruz Mountains on Monday. Friday, the sheriff’s narcotics enforcement team hiked into the area to cut down the garden. Sgt. Mark Yanez said they found about 3,000 plants in the area, though he said more could have gone up in smoke during the brush fire. The garden was one of four removed by deputies in Santa Cruz County this week, the Sheriff’s Office reported. All appeared to be grows affiliated with Mexican drug cartels [...]
Local governments could cash in on legal pot to the tune of $7.5 million, a new Santa Cruz County grand jury report concludes. The analysis of the financial impact of Proposition 19, a measure on the Nov. 2 statewide ballot, which seeks to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana, is one of several reports released Tuesday by the grand jury — and no doubt the most unusual, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reports. As is typical, the grand jury spent the past year studying various government agencies, and in its final report raises issues and makes recommendations [...]
SANTA CRUZ — The two medical marijuana shops in town could be allowed to stay open more than some standard pharmacies. The city Planning Commission voted 4-3 on Thursday in favor of amending the zoning ordinance related to medical marijuana dispensaries to expand operating days to include Sunday, which would permit the drug to be sold 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Commissioners Scott Daly, Rod Quartararo and Mari Tustin voted against the proposed 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday operations, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reports. “It just seems like a lot of [...]
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