SacBee profile: Compassion is still WAMM’s mission

 Advocates, Collectives, Courts, Medical marijuana
Sep 192010
 
SacBee profile: Compassion is still WAMM's mission

SANTA CRUZ – By his count, Don Ivey, 56, should have been dead six times by now. The artisan and former competitive in-line skater survived both a stabbing and a scuba diving accident as a young man. Fifteen years ago, he was diagnosed with AIDS and hepatitis C. Five years ago, he crashed a motorcycle, landing face down, partially paralyzed, in an ocean bay. Recently, just 30 days removed from his second emergency room visit for internal bleeding and vomiting blood, Ivey walked up a terraced marijuana garden that is a medicinal and spiritual refuge [...]

Landlord-tenant conflicts arise from marijuana grows

 Business, Medical marijuana
Sep 052010
 

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 [...]

‘Get It Legal’ SoCal tour dates follow Prop. 19 vote

 Legalization, Marijuana News, Media
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, [...]

Teen arrested in connection with Santa Cruz pot theft

 Crime, Law Enforcement, Marijuana News
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 [...]

Medical marijuana, cash taken in Santa Cruz robbery

 Crime, Law Enforcement
Aug 282010
 

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, [...]

Corral: Medical marijuana movement has lost its way

 Advocates, Medical marijuana
Aug 122010
 
Corral: Medical marijuana movement has lost its way

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 [...]

Santa Cruz doctor stresses medicine in cannabis evaluations

 Marijuana News, Medical marijuana
Aug 112010
 
Santa Cruz doctor stresses medicine in cannabis evaluations

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 [...]

WAMMFest won’t get slammed on park smoking ban

 Marijuana News, Medical marijuana
Jul 272010
 

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 [...]

Pot garden seized after fire in Santa Cruz Mountains

 Law Enforcement, Marijuana Law, Marijuana News
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 [...]

Santa Cruz grand jury: Legal pot could generate millions

 Legalization, Marijuana News
Jun 302010
 

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 [...]

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