California, Los Angeles

[budman]

Sep 18, 2006 5:37 pm US/Pacific

Police Release Video Of Suspects In Pot Robbery
cbs2.com

<img src=/bin/icon_video.gif> Phony Cops Rob Hollyood Pot Facility

(CBS) HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Police Monday released video of a robbery of a Hollywood medical marijuana facility where $14,000 in cash and drugs was taken.

Two men, posing as Los Angeles police officers, robbed the Hollywood Patient Collective in the 6100 block of Selma Avenue, near Gower Street, on Aug. 27 around 9:30 p.m., said Lt. Paul Vernon of the Los Angeles Police Department's Media Relations Section.

The robbery was not reported until the next day, Vernon said.

The victims told police they were reluctant to immediately report the crime because the robbers took some of the victims' identification and threatened them if they reported the crime, Vernon said.

The suspects came in through the security door and handcuffed eight people inside the facility, including the owner, an armed security guard and an employee. The others were patrons or patients who were smoking marijuana,
Vernon said.

"The robbers posed as police officers to convince the security guard to surrender his gun," Vernon said. "Several of the victims were handcuffed, others had their hands bound by plastic zip ties, similar to those used by police in mass arrest situations."

One suspect patted down the owner, binding his hand, and then took $2,000 cash from his pocket.

"The suspects knew a lot about the store's operation, Vernon said. "They looked in the safe and demanded an employee retrieve a laptop they seem to know he possessed."

While one suspect watched the victims, the other filled with trash bags with marijuana valued at $12,000, Vernon said.

The clinic had video surveillance that recorded the robbery. The still photos show the suspects' faces. One suspect wore an LAPD baseball cap and the other a Hawaiian shirt. The suspect in the Hawaiian shirt is seen holding a police scanner, Vernon said.

Anyone with additional information on the robbery was asked to call the detectives at (213) 972-2955 or on nights or weekends at (877) 529-3855.

[Midnight toker]

NBC 4

Feds Raid Another Medical Marijuana Clinic

POSTED: 6:46 am PDT September 29, 2006
UPDATED: 7:29 am PDT September 29, 2006

LOS ANGELES -- As supporters of medical marijuana planned a downtown demonstration for noon Friday, Federal drug enforcement agents raided a medical marijuana clinic and arrested three people in North Hills on Thursday afternoon.

Video

Neighbors and others in the office building at 15600 Devonshire where the arrests took place had complained about marijuana smoking in the building, hallway and bathrooms. Some neighbors claimed the drug was being resold on the street.

NBC4's Robert Kovacik said a similar raid took place at a Van Nuys facility on Aug. 30, and two other raids also took place recently in Mendocino and Riverside.

Although state voters approved medical marijuana, federal law bans marijuana for any use.

[palmspringsbum]

Oct 24, 2006 3:38 pm US/Pacific

Plan Bans Opening Of New Medical Marijuana Outlets

[url=http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_297184528.html[/url]cbs2.com[/url]

(CBS) LOS ANGELES Anyone wanting to open a new medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles within the next year might see their plans go up in smoke, under a plan approved Tuesday by a City Council committee.

The council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee asked the Planning Department, the LAPD and the City Attorney's Office to draft an ordinance calling for a one-year ban on building new medical marijuana dispensaries.

The proposed ordinance is expected to go before the full City Council by the start of next year, when authorities will begin to weed out illegal dealers from legitimate dispensaries.

Councilman Dennis Zine introduced the moratorium idea last month, saying that too many of the dispensaries were operating in the city, oftentimes illegally selling pot to those without prescriptions.

About 80 medical marijuana dispensaries currently operate in Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Don Duncan, Southern California coordinator for Americans for Safe Access, said his medical marijuana advocacy group supported the moratorium "as long as this is a step toward proper regulation."

"Our reports have shown that regulations protect patients and that they protect communities from abuses," Duncan told the three-member panel.

"Rather than have a controversial situation in the city of Los Angeles, our constituents would prefer that there be an interim control ordinance and good regulations on the books."

Medical marijuana dispensaries are defined as "facilities that provide marijuana for medical purposes to patients or primary caregivers who have a related recommendation from a physician."

Ten years ago, 56 percent of California's voters approved Proposition 215, which says marijuana should be made available to people with medical problems, including nausea from cancer and AIDS treatments.

Federal law still band marijuana use in all cases. AIDS activist Richard Kearns of Hollywood, who was diagnosed with the disease in 1987, asked the committee to adopt the motion without further stigmatizing those who would benefit from medical cannabis.

"Their chance of survival would improve because their quality of lives would improve," Kearns said. "Like me, for instance, they would be less likely to heave their pills first thing in the morning."

In May, the Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance regulating medical marijuana dispensaries in unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County, including provisions on where the drug can be consumed.

The previous Los Angeles Police Commission, appointed by former Mayor James Hahn, approved a measure in July 2005 limiting the dispensaries to commercial areas.

That plan is expected to finally go before the council's Public Safety Committee next month, when the panel will also listen to a report on how such businesses impact surrounding neighborhoods.

<hr class=postrule>
<small>(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)</small>

[palmspringsbum]

Originally published Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Updated Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Panel OKs limiting of marijuana clinics

From staff and news services
The Daily Breeze

A one-year moratorium on the issuance of permits for new medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles was approved Monday by the City Council's Public Safety Committee.

The committee asked the Planning and Police departments and the City Attorney's Office to draft the propos-ed ordinance. The council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee signed off on the idea last week.

The measure is expected to go before the full City Council early next year.

Councilman Dennis Zine proposed the moratorium last month, saying that too many of the dispensaries were operating in the city, often illegally selling pot to those without prescriptions.

About 80 medical marijuana dispensaries currently operate in Los Angeles, according to the LAPD.

Medical marijuana dispensaries are defined as "facilities that provide marijuana for medical purposes to patients or primary caregivers who have a related recommendation from a physician."

Ten years ago, 56 percent of California's voters approved Proposition 215, which says marijuana should be made available to people with medical problems, including nausea from cancer and AIDS treatments.

Federal law still bans marijuana use in all cases.

The previous Los Angeles police commission, appointed by former Mayor James Hahn, approved a measure in July 2005 limiting the dispensaries to commercial areas. That plan is expected to finally go before the Public Safety Committee next month, when the panel will also hear a report on how such businesses impact surrounding neighborhoods.

Last week, the Gardena City Council voted to shut down two dispensaries that have been operating in the city for a few months. The proprietors did not identify the businesses as marijuana dispensaries on their applications, instead claiming to be retailers of "herbal remedies." Since the council's decision, the dispensaries have reapplied for their licenses, explicitly stating that they sell marijuana. The new applications have been denied.

Several other South Bay cities, including Torrance, Lawndale, Hawthorne, Rancho Palos Verdes, Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach, have enacted temporary or permanent bans on dispensaries. A dispensary in Torrance, Green Cross, was raided two weeks ago by federal agents, who seized 70 pounds of marijuana and 100 plants.

In May, the Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance regulating medical marijuana dispensaries in unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County, including provisions on where the drug can be consumed.

[palmspringsbum]

Dope activist to smoke 1m long joint

November 26, 2006
The Australian

A MEDICAL marijuana user plans to see in the New Year on an all-time high - by rolling the world's biggest joint.

Los Angeles resident Brett Stone said he plans to usher in 2007 by building a 910 cm cigarette using around 112 grams of marijuana.

Mr Stone said he was inspired to try for a record after learning that the previous biggest joint was made with 100 grams.

"I thought the world's largest joint would have been a lot larger," said Mr Stone, 48, who runs the medical marijuana website dabronxnews.com.

Medical marijuana use has been legal in California since 1996, when voters passed a law allowing the drug to be used as a pain reliever.

Mr Stone said he would be careful to ensure that his record attempt would remain legal, indicating that the joint would be smoked in a local medical marijuana collective.

"We're probably going to do it as a fundraiser," he said. "And the mayor and police chief would be most welcome if they have a doctor's note to consume cannabis."

Mr Stone said he plans to roll an even bigger joint to mark the US football final at the Super Bowl next February - and has asked companies if they can provide custom made rolling papers to help the attempt.

[palmspringsbum]

Moratorium sought on new pot clinics

<span class=postbold>Bratton cites opening of 94 medical marijuana dispensaries in L.A. in a year and calls for rules to regulate the facilities.</span>

By Patrick McGreevy
Times Staff Writer
The Los Angeles Times
January 16, 2007

Concerned by a 2,350% increase in the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles in a one-year period, Police Chief William J. Bratton is calling for a moratorium on new facilities until strict rules can be adopted governing them.

In a report to the Police Commission, Bratton said he wants to ban existing dispensaries within 1,000 feet of schools, churches, parks and places designated exclusively for the care of children. He also advocates limiting their hours to 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The establishments are allowed under a 1996 state ballot measure and a more recent state law making marijuana available to patients by prescription to relieve pain or nausea.

Bratton said the number of dispensaries increased from four in November 2005 to 98 a year later.

"This has fostered an increase in … crime problems and caused quality-of-life issues for families and communities, as evidenced by the 110 complaints received from neighbors, business owners and concerned citizens concerning these dispensaries," Bratton's report states.

The Police Commission will consider his recommendations today.

Los Angeles Police Department officers have been called to clinics because of problems including robberies, burglaries and drug use in front of the clinics, Lt. Paul Vernon said. Without regulations, he said, officers are hamstrung.

In the absence of specific zoning rules, 12 of the medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles have opened within 1,000 feet of schools, Bratton said.

"One clinic blatantly resorted to placing fliers on the windshields of vehicles parked in and around Grant High School in an obvious effort to entice children," Bratton said.

The chief did not identify the clinic, but said its flier stated that it is legal to own, grow and smoke medical marijuana and that "qualification is simple and our experienced physicians are more than happy to help you," adding that the visit is free if the applicant does not qualify.

"This was not the intent of the voters when they passed Proposition 215," the chief said.

The clinics have proliferated elsewhere as well, although Los Angeles, as the state's largest city, has the most, said Joseph Elford of Americans for Safe Access, a group in support of the clinics. But San Francisco, with about 30 clinics, has more per capita, or about one per 25,400 residents, while Los Angeles has one dispensary for every 39,200 people.

On Monday, advocates for medical marijuana disputed that the dispensaries are magnets for crime, and expressed concerns that Los Angeles officials may reduce patients' access to the drug.

"A blanket ruling saying you can't be within a number of feet within a school or park is entirely unnecessary and overbroad," said Bruce Mirken, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, another advocacy group.

He said a lengthy moratorium on new dispensaries would have an adverse effect on medical patients who rely on marijuana in their battles with disease.

The proliferation of dispensaries followed passage of Proposition 215, called the Compassionate Use Act, and Senate Bill 420, which took effect in 2004; together, they legalized possession and cultivation of marijuana for qualified medical patients.

Marijuana is used for medical purposes by thousands of people suffering from painful and appetite-killing diseases, including cancer, AIDS, anorexia and arthritis.

"However, the spirit and intent of this act has been exploited and abused for both profit and recreational drug use by many of the medical marijuana dispensaries in the city of Los Angeles," Bratton said. "Absent stringent regulations and enforcement actions, these dispensaries have flourished throughout the city."

The chief's recommendations were welcomed Monday by Councilman Dennis Zine, who already has asked the Planning Department to draft a moratorium ordinance, banning any new outlets for six months, with an option to extend it for another six months while new rules are being formulated. "There is no regulation as far as zoning and hours of operation," Zine said. "What I want to do is bring a semblance of order and not go against the public's will in favor of these clinics."

Steve Leon, owner of the medical marijuana outlet Highland Park Patient Collective, disagreed with the allegation that the clinics spur criminal activity.

"I think it's quite the opposite," he said. "I'm in an area that is gang-infested, but there is no graffiti on my building. It is very clean. And other businesses have moved in. We have created quite a nice little artistic community."

Leon said his building is more than 1,000 feet from schools and parks, and that the LAPD has been "very gracious."

The proposed moratorium found favor with at least some owners of current dispensaries.

"The moratorium is kind of a good idea. It's getting out of control, with a new one opening every week," said Billy Astorga, manager of the Eagle Rock Herbal Collective, adding that his business already has strict operating rules.


<hr class=postrule>
patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com

[palmspringsbum]

Medical pot dealers protest

BY RACHEL URANGA, Staff Writer
LA Daily News
Article Last Updated: 01/18/2007 09:39:02 PM PST

The lifesaving treatment Jorge Ceballos undergoes three times a week, three hours a day leaves him drained and pained. And the best medicine is marijuana.

"I don't use this to just get high," he said. "It's medicine for me. It's no joke."

At just 24, Ceballos' kidney is near failure. For three years he has had to undergo dialysis to stay alive. When he can't stand the treatment, he swallows two pills filled with the plant's psychoactive chemical.

And for a few moments this week, he thought his lifeline might be cut off.

On Wednesday, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration raided 11 medical marijuana clinics, seizing 5,700 pounds of pot and shaking up the pro-cannabis community.

In a move of solidarity Thursday, more than a dozen of the San Fernando Valley's 53 dispensaries closed down for the day as dozens of patients and shopowners protested the move in West Hollywood.

"It looks like what they are trying to do is intimidate and use fear to shut down the collectives," said Don Duncan, the Southern California coordinator for Americans for Safe Access, a cannabis advocacy group.

The DEA says anyone who owns a dispensary should be worried.

"Anyone in violation of the federal drug law should be concerned, but to say that next week we are going to do raids, ... this is an ongoing investigation, and we can not say where the next phase will come from," DEA agent Sarah Pullen said.

Under a 1996 state ballot measure, the clinics can distribute doctor-prescribed marijuana. But federal officials consider all marijuana use illegal.

Though the clinic where Ceballos buys his pot remained open Thursday, Calvin Frye, the collective's owner, fielded dozens of calls from patients afraid his shop on Ventura Boulevard had been shut down.

Standing in front of a dry-erase board that listed various types of marijuana - Indica, Sativa, Hindu Kush - Frye defended his business.

"You just don't walk out of here with weed. You walk out of here with the knowledge of what you're using this for," he said, noting some strains of the plant target depression, chronic pain and other ailments.

But police say the clinics have become crime magnets, and as they proliferate - 138 opened last year alone in L.A. - they attract unscrupulous owners hungry to make a buck. Worse still, they said, the clinics are targeting teenagers, with one clinic distributing fliers at Grant High School last summer.

On Tuesday, Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton called for a moratorium on the clinics. And he is backing a proposal by City Councilman Dennis Zine banning storefronts 1,000 feet from day care centers, schools and places of worship.

"We are not going to allow them to bring crime in the area and introduce the biggest gateway drug to young people under the guise of this dispensary," LAPD Lt. Paul Vernon said.

But unlike the DEA, local police will not target the clinics unless they create other crime problems.

rachel.uranga@dailynews.com

(818) 713-3741

[palmspringsbum]

January 22, 2007

LAist Interview: A Local Medical Marijuana Card-Holder

The LAist

With all this national attention surrounding the recent DEA raids on Medical Marijuana Dispensaries, LAist found it the perfect time to get the news from the horse's mouth, so we sat down with a Medical Marijuana card-holder who has visited some of the shops that the DEA shut down. Hopefully we can answer some of the questions surrounding the rumors, the hype, and the DEA:

<span class=postbold>How does a person get a Medical Marijuana card? How did you get yours?</span>

There are certain Doctors who specialize in prescribing Medical Marijuana or "Cannabis" (as they like to call it). They advertise in the LA Weekly and some are more legit than others. I have seen a CA Medical Marijuana card before but I do not have one and that is not what legally allows you to posses Marijuana for personal use. It is the Doctors prescription and you need that before you get any cards. Most doctors don't care if you are "sick" or not. Besides, some of the legitimate reasons a person CAN be prescribed Medical Marijuana are as vague as, "Pain". So, the Doctors are trying to help sick people feel better AND they are trying to help healthy people feel better! Its a win, win. I first got my prescription about 7 years ago from a Dr. E##. He was recommended by a friend and was very professional. I had to fill out normal Doctor's Office forms and write about how I needed Cannabis for whatever medical reason I chose (They were listed on the form in case I wanted to choose one on the spot). I chose pain because of my many sk8boarding injuries and proceeded to pay his secretary $250.00 for a one year prescription for Medical Marijuana. I couldn't believe it. I asked about the dispensaries in the LA area and the secretary gave me the gas face. She asked, "Do you really have any trouble finding weed?" I thought, No and answered, "Yes." She gas faced me again and gave me a business card from the #### Wellness Center. I left with that and a signed document certifying my Medical Marijuana status.

<span class=postbold>Then what did you do? </span>

Then I called The Wellness Center from my parked car, told them I was coming and drove straight there. It was great back then. The club was importing everything from Oakland (where it originated) and everything was peaches and cream. Six months later that club started only selling weed that they grew and products made from the weed that they grew. The only problem was - They couldn't grow weed for shit! I didn't know about any other clubs and I could get way better weed "on the street". My prescription was almost expired so I said, "fuck it". Years later, my weed connects all had children and I knew that more stores had been popping up all over the place. I made some calls and got this number - (213) ###-####. It only costs $100.00. I called and made an appointment for the next week. Before the next week could come a friend of mine text messaged me about a "Prescription Party" he was having where a Doctor would be signing prescriptions (for a fee of course). I showed up late and most people had gone home or drank and smoked themselves into a stupor. Lucky for me the Doctor was included in the drunk, smoked out portion of the partygoers. I managed to get away with paying him only $50.00 and I got a prescription for Vicodins too! My point is - It is very cheap and easy to get a prescription now and no one seems to care that the majority of the people taking advantage of all this- aren't terminally ill.

<span class=postbold>Why is it better than buying pot from the neighborhood pot dealer? </span>
<ol>
<li> The best quality and variety in the world. There are over 100 "weed stores" from Long Beach to The Valley and the weather is right!</li>

<li> They accept credit. You can have no money in the bank and walk out of a weed store with an ounce of OG KUSH.</li>

<li> You can complain. If "Lil Smoker" down the street sells you a short 1/4, you're shit out of luck. But when the weed store shorts you, you can tell them and they will hook you up.</li>

<li> Less risk. Sure, these places get raided every once in a while but the customers are never arrested. At worst, you might get questioned for a short period of time, but who cares? If you are doing a drug deal at a gas station or something, that's sketchy. Or worse, sitting in the drug dealer's living room with an ounce in your pocket when he gets raided, you are going to jail.</li>

<li> Convenience. With so many stores and Internet access ( www.canorml.org ) You can find a good place, close to you that will be open when they say they are (a lot of places are open until midnight)! </li>
</ol>
<span class=postbold>Why do you think the DEA is busting these pot shops, even though the city says its ok?</span>

I don't know. The City and State say its ok. I thought the federal government was supposed to work FOR the people of the United States of America (not against them). The only explanation is - The federal government is not working for the people of the United States of America. Either that or its the Mercury Car Insurance Aliens.

<span class=postbold>How long before the Medical Marijuana Clinics typically re-open?</span>

The next day. I haven't heard about any place (that is legit) being permanently shut down. As far as I know - everyone is winning in court right now too. No one (that isn't growing big) is doing any time.

<span class=postbold>Are most of the people shopping at the Medical Marijuana Clinics legitimately sick?</span>

No. But, is anyone legitimately sick?

<span class=postbold>Are you concerned that your name has been put onto some kind of "Government Watch List"?</span>

No. I am not ashamed. I see nothing wrong with smoking weed. I tell anyone who I think will be cool with it. If it was 100% legal, I would use my real name in this interview but until then you can call me Jeb.

<span class=postbold>If marijuana were sold legally would that make more people marijuana users?</span>

I hope.

<span class=postbold>What is/was the best medical marijuana caregiver in LA, and why?</span>

The California Patients Group on S.M. Blvd. - www.californiapatientsgroup.org - They are non profit. They have a wide selection, deals on 1/2 ounces and a hash bar where you can get pre-rolled joints for $5.00 or sample the goods. They have free coffee, a big screen w/ couches, snacks and sometimes weed snacks for free! I love this place.

<span class=postbold>Do you think other drugs should be legalized for medical or recreational use? Why, or why not?</span>

I think alcohol should be illegal and weed should be legal for recreational use. As far as other drugs- keep um illegal but don't spend any money enforcing those laws. I don't know, maybe acid should be legal. Maybe acid should be mandatory, like Jury Duty.

<span class=postbold>What kinds of things do they sell at the clinics?</span>

Weed, hash, oil, kief, weed food (pastries, candy and butter), pipes and bongs.

<span class=postbold>If you could give the DEA a piece of your mind what would you say?</span>

I would tell them to spend all that money they (un-deservingly) have on the real drug problems in America like Meth, Crack, Alcohol and Heroin. That shit destroys people. I can tell you one thing for sure- Pot is not on the same level as those drugs. Smoking a joint is more comparable to drinking a cup of coffee. Sales tax on marijuana started on Jan. 2nd so leave us Alone. The people have spoken (voted). Get the fuck of our backs. You have a couple glasses of wine when you get home. I smoke a couple bong hits. Where is the victim? WHO IS THE VICTIM YOU OLD FUCKEN REPULICAN DUMB FUCKS??!!!

<span class=postbold>What is the best/worst thing about having a medical marijuana card?</span>

The best thing is always having the best weed. The worst thing is spending all my money on always having the best weed.

<span class=postbold>Why do you think the federal government has such a resistance to legalization?</span>

I think it has something to do with Nancy Regan but I was young then and I didn't pay much attention in school.

[palmspringsbum]

Panel backs moratorium on new pot dispensaries

From Times Staff and Wire Reports
The L.A. Times
January 24, 2007


A moratorium of up to one year on new medical marijuana dispensaries was endorsed Tuesday by a City Council committee, but the panel wants to see an ordinance drafted before sending it to the full council for consideration.

The council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee asked the city attorney's office to draft an interim control ordinance providing two six-month periods during which new dispensaries would be prohibited from opening.

Dozens of dispensaries have opened in L.A. since a state ballot measure and subsequent legislation were approved allowing the medical use of marijuana.

[palmspringsbum]

nbc4.tv

Committee Approves Medical Marijuana Permit Moratorium

POSTED: 10:23 am PST January 24, 2007
UPDATED: 10:30 am PST January 24, 2007

LOS ANGELES -- A Los Angeles City Council committee has approved a one-year moratorium on the issuance of permits for new medical marijuana dispensaries.

Councilman Dennis Zine proposed the moratorium in September, saying too many of the dispensaries were operating in the city, often illegally selling pot to those without prescriptions.

Although California voters approved a ballot measure in 1996 allowing the use of marijuana for medical reasons, federal law still bans marijuana use in all cases.

Approval of the permit was approved Tuesday by the City Council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee.

Last week, the Los Angeles Police Commission signed off on the plan, under which new dispensaries could not be opened until new rules governing where and when they can operate are adopted.

In a report to the Police Commission, Bratton said he wants to ban existing marijuana dispensaries within 1,000 feet of schools, churches, parks and other areas used by children.

He also recommended that the businesses operate between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Bratton's suggestions are being used as a guideline for a proposed ordinance expected to be developed by March, city staffers told the council committee.

Nearly 100 medical marijuana dispensaries currently operate in Los Angeles, according to Bratton's report.

Medical marijuana dispensaries are defined as "facilities that provide marijuana for medical purposes to patients or primary caregivers who have a related recommendation from a physician."

Ten years ago, 56 percent of California's voters approved proposition 215, which says marijuana should be made available to people with medical problems, including nausea from cancer and AIDS treatments.

In May, the county Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance regulating medical marijuana dispensaries in unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County, including provisions on where the drug can be consumed.

[palmspringsbum]

War on drugs needs new target
January 25, 2007

The LA Times

<span class=postbold>Re "Burdened U.S. military cuts role in drug war," Jan. 22</span>

If there is less patrolling on the border, more drugs will come into the U.S., and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration's resources need to be redirected accordingly — and not to West Hollywood's prescription pot smokers. California voters passed a medical marijuana proposition in 1996, only to have Washington flex its muscles by raiding these dispensaries, showing us the wonderful job the feds are doing protecting us from pot smokers.

Shame on them. Their resources belong on the southern border, stopping the flow of drugs into the United States. Only fools are impressed with the DEA's misguided efforts.

DOUG RAWSON

Santa Monica

<hr class=postrule>

During the Prohibition era, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was created to fight organized crime, which was in the business of importing alcohol and drugs. Why is it that in the 21st century the FBI, in conjunction with our military, can't work more effectively to fight drug smuggling?

Our military is not only being stretched thin by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is expected to support drug suppression efforts globally. If drug smuggling is a primary source of terrorist funding, there should be a cooperative venture between our FBI and our military to fight it. Not only would our young soldiers be fighting a worthy cause, but fewer would die needlessly.

JETHRO SINGER

Santa Monica

<hr class=postrule>

It's nice to see that our government has its priorities in order. Apparently there are insufficient funds to properly equip our soldiers fighting in Iraq, and insufficient resources to catch importers of what the government has determined to be dangerous illegal narcotics.

There are, however, plenty of resources available for the DEA to harass medical marijuana outlets on the possibility that they may be supplying marijuana to those who may not really need it. What a cruel joke.

ALVIN S. MICHAELSON

Los Angeles

[palmspringsbum]

License to Chill

<span class=postbold>SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: SMOKING MARIJUANA CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH, UNLESS YOU LIVE IN CALIFORNIA AND SUFFER FROM ANOREXIA, ARTHRITIS, CANCER, CHRONIC PAIN OR ANY OTHER ILLNESSES FOR WHICH P</span>

By Michael Goldstein, Michael Goldstein has written for the New York Daily News, Sunset and other publications. His 2004 Los Angeles Times Magazine story, "Sheer Lunacy," won a feature writing award from the Los Angeles Pr

February 11, 2007


Do you medicate? I do.

I'm not talking about Xanax or Prozac or Vicodin or their siblings. I have a "recommendation" (not a prescription, a recommendation) for pot. This puts me in a legally and socially problematic condition. The state of California says I can ingest marijuana for medicinal purposes, but the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration thinks I'm a criminal if I do. Because THC can make you feel good when you're healthy as well as feel better when you're sick, people who don't know me might see me as a big-bong punch line, in a Cheech and Chong kind of way. If you pop Viagra, you're tough and sexy; if you smoke weed, you're half-baked. I've been an occasional user of pot for 30 years. Only in the past six months have I done so without risking arrest, at least as far as Sacramento is concerned. It was very easy to become a medical user, but it raised a question: Was I better off breaking the law? In Los Angeles County a recommendation can be filled at more than 100 dispensaries, many of which have been raided by the DEA. Proposition 215, the first of its kind in the nation, went into effect in 1996 and prohibits a doctor from being punished for having recommended marijuana to a patient who is "seriously ill." A 2003 law requires the state Department of Health Services to "establish and maintain a voluntary program for the issuance of identification cards to qualified patients."

I was aware of these laws long before last summer but hadn't felt the urge to take advantage of them until someone stuck a flier under my windshield. It was from California Natural Pain Relief on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, and it informed me, misspellings and all, that "Medical cannabis can be recommended for the care and treatment of Cancer, Cronic pain, arthritis, Migraines, Diabetes, Insomnia, Anxiety, Aids Nausea, Epilepsy, Lupus, Depression, Eating Disorders, Menopause, PMS, Asthma, etc."

When I visited California Natural Pain Relief, the folks there directed me to a doctor at another office. Since I experience occasional but painful attacks of gout, a form of arthritis, as well as other foot and knee pain, I brought a load of medical records and a vial full of Vioxx that I had been too scared to take. The doctor gave me a brief physical exam and a blood pressure test, discussed how marijuana could alleviate the pain and inflammation and wrote and signed an official-looking, green-trimmed recommendation. This included the doctor's signature, a photocopy of my driver's license and a key phrase: "approve of the use of cannabis for my patient." I paid $150 cash.

Armed with my license to chill, I drove back to Ventura Boulevard, smiled at the beefy bodyguard, strolled inside and handed the recommendation to the dispensary operator. There was a faintly agricultural scent in the air. Under a glass countertop were vials labeled Master Kush, Cotton Candy and OG Kush; also on display were variants of cannabis strains known as chronic and ganga. I forked over $50 for an eighth of an ounce and received a small pipe as a new-patient gift.

Later, when I told a friend about my purchase, he laughed and delivered the ultimate insult: "You paid more than street value."

My solace was that my uncontrolled substance use was sort of legal. L.A. lawyer Allison Margolin, who calls herself "America's dopest attorney," explained that my recommendation wasn't above-board in the eyes of the feds. But could they go after me if they found physician-recommended pot in my house? They could, but "no judge is going to pursue it," she said.

Margolin represents marijuana growers as part of her criminal defense practice. They are, she told me, "the bigger risk-takers in the system," because although the DEA might not bother with the likes of me (and hopefully not with people who are terminally ill), it does bother with Californians who cultivate pot destined for dispensaries and with the dispensaries themselves.

It isn't something many medical marijuana users spend a lot of time worrying about. "People have gotten very comfortable with the level of access in Los Angeles," said Stephanie Landa, who's serving a 41-month federal prison term for cultivating marijuana. But they don't stop to think when they're consuming their medicinal pot that "it didn't just fall out of the sky. It had to come from somewhere."

Speaking of consuming, medicinal weed isn't only inhaled. There's a contingent of bakers and candy makers in the alternative pharmacy universe who produce marijuana edibles. I've tasted several varieties, including a canna-brownie with crisp vanilla icing from Cotton Mouth Confections, which was delicious and chocolaty, and a baklava that was less enjoyable, the bottom tasting like a mouthful of buds.

With edibles, I never knew how much THC I was actually putting into my system. One evening I ate half a brownie after dinner and couldn't get to sleep until 2 a.m. I felt anxious and dizzy. I got lost in the darkness, spinning in the corridor between the bedroom and the bathroom. At the movies I downed a My Kushbar (a concoction of dark chocolate, blueberries and crisp rice), and my wife had to poke me as I sat catatonically watching "Dreamgirls." I shook my head and handed her the car keys.

Then there was the Volcano Vaporizer, a stainless-steel device shaped like an Apollo space capsule. It works like this: You attach a plastic balloon to the capsule, light the device, and the THC goes into the bag. Take the bag off, push on a black valve, and vapor—not harsh smoke—blows into your mouth. There's little odor and a highly efficient high. So efficient that later at the gym (don't worry, I walked there) I almost had a Janet Jackson exposure moment as I started to whip off my cargo shorts only to discover I'd forgotten my gym shorts. My trainer muttered, "You've convinced me you're going to have a heart attack," and threatened to fire me as a client.

Marijuana did help calm my foot-pain problems. Also, my appreciation of everyday beauty was enhanced. At Balboa Park, the end-of-summer foliage and the grass, sky and late-afternoon pollution around the sun appeared in Technicolor sharpness. At the same time, I was anxious and confused. I hadn't taken so much pot in years. For six months (in the spirit of scientific inquiry) I consumed maybe one gram every two weeks; my previous marijuana purchases had been on the order of a quarter-ounce every two or three years through the usual friend-of-a-friend channels.

When I started smoking pot on the East Coast in the '70s, I remember the choices being basically Jamaican, Colombian and skunkweed. Today the strains are dizzying in variety and power, and all are available at the dispensaries. It's a real business: The Los Angeles Journal for the Education of Medical Marijuana, a free monthly, lists doctors, collectives and lawyers and covers events such as the 2006 DOESHA Cup, a tasting event in which California marijuana growers compete. It's all a bit overwhelming for a boomer.

Is Los Angeles the Amsterdam of America? Not quite. Dispensaries aren't coffee shops, as they're called in the Netherlands, where pot is sold and consumed as casually as beer is here. Dispensaries are more like cash-and-carry package stores in states that control liquor sales. Another party stopper: Sharing or reselling a patient's medical cannabis is illegal.

Some dispensaries try to make it all seem like a party, though. They advertise with slogans such as "KushMart: Where It's 4:20 Always" (4:20 being shorthand for smoking pot or getting high—and, incidentally, the number of the 2003 state Senate bill). There's also a maybe-not-so-clever propensity for employing words such as "therapeutic" and "herbal" and "compassion"—so that the initials of dispensaries, including Therapeutic Health Care and Today's Holistic Caregivers, are THC.

I found one outfit that doesn't mess with any of that: The Natural Relief Center in Canoga Park, which doesn't advertise and shuns windshield fliers. Owner Michael Levitt got into the business one year ago. "I was comfortably retired," he told me, "but my wife didn't like me around the house so much." What motivated him were myriad health problems, including diabetes and high blood pressure. "At 51 years old, it doesn't wear well to deal with street thugs to get medication. I thought I could help people and bring the game up as a businessman." He described his storefront as "a community spot." There's a hairdresser on one side and a newsstand on the other.

In L.A., City Councilman Dennis Zine of the West Valley wants dispensaries to be located in industrial, commercial or business areas, "where they're not going to have an impact on young people." I'm all for that. (By the way, the City Council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee voted in January in favor of enacting a moratorium on new dispensaries until the city devises rules governing them.)

I learned a lot during my months as a medical marijuana user and came to three conclusions: My tolerance is low; pot should be legal as a pain reliever; the distribution system in place right now has room for improvement. But it's like Winston Churchill said about democracy—it's the worst form of government, except for all the others.

[palmspringsbum]

Card-Carrying Smokers

<span class=postbold>Recent raids on medical pot dispensaries highlight</span>

~ By ANA LA O’ ~
Los Angeles CityBeat
February 15, 2007


During the last few weeks of January, masked federal drug agents rampaged through the Los Angeles area’s medical marijuana community, busting 11 licensed marijuana dispensaries, detaining 20 people, and seizing 5,700 pounds of marijuana. At issue is more than just the fact that pot is illegal under federal law; only 11 of the over 100 dispensaries in the county were targeted, leading to speculation that much more clarity is needed on the regulations and ID card systems which govern them.

California voters overwhelmingly passed 1996’s Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act, but the act says little about the way dispensaries are to be regulated. State Senate bill SB 420 sought to remedy some of these problems in 2004 by requiring counties to issue voluntary identification cards to protect cannabis patients and physicians from unnecessary arrest. But both dispensary regulations, which must be set county by county, and ID card systems have been slow to catch on. During the January raids, L.A. Police Chief William Bratton called for a moratorium on new clinics until they could be assured that basic rules were in place, like being placed at least 1,000 feet from a school.

The cost for those ID cards also skyrocketed. Starting March 1, the cost of a state ID card will leap from $13 to $142, a huge increase. Once the county fees kick in, the cards will likely add up to $250, making them the most expensive in the nation. Some states like Alaska offer cards as low as $25.

The price hike was necessary because the Medical Marijuana ID Program (MMP) has been running at a 90 percent deficit thanks to low registration numbers, according to Chris Fusco, Los Angeles field coordinator for Americans for Safe Access. In fact, the state Department of Health Services reports that only 8,703 patients are currently registered statewide, out of the estimated 150,000 to 350,000 pot patients residing in California. Cannabis supporters fear that the new price increase will bar even more patients from the ID program.

“While [California] does offer a discounted rate, there are a lot of people who have low income who aren’t on Medi-Cal,” says Bruce Mirkin, spokesperson for the Marijuana Policy Project. “For people who are too ill to work, who are on a fixed income, 140 bucks is a lot of money.”

The state health department created the MMP in 2004, but today only 24 out of California’s 58 counties have begun issuing ID cards. Los Angeles, which holds an estimated one-third-to-half of the state’s medical marijuana patients, currently does not issue the cards, though they were approved by county supervisors in May 2006.

San Diego refused to issue cards and sued the state of California on the grounds that it conflicts with federal law. Superior Court Judge William R. Nevitt ruled that the state ID program does not conflict with federal law in December 2006, but San Diego is appealing.

Like Proposition 215 itself, SB 420 also left some regulation gaps. For example, the law lets each county decide whether the county health department or a designated private company will issue medical marijuana cards. In Alameda County, Jeff Jones, a private cannabis cooperative director, issues MMP cards because Alameda’s public health department lacks the resources to do so. However, patients may not realize that his cards are MMP cards, since other private co-ops also issue non-state ID cards.

“There’s a pretty low level of awareness,” says William Dolphin, spokesperson for Americans for Safe Access. “People understand that there’s a card to get, but people aren’t clear on the difference between a county card and the card going to be issued to you by the co-op. There’s still an education process and the state can do a lot more.”

SB 420 ultimately leaves card registration up to individual marijuana patients, many of whom remain anxious over the possibility of federal prosecution.

“Some people are just reluctant to be on any government list associating them with marijuana, and raids have increased those concerns,” says Mirkin. “But as long as we have a federal government that is treating the most by-the-book provider as if they’re a drug dealer, nobody is safe.”

Indeed, the most recent marijuana clinic raids in West Hollywood, Hollywood, Venice, Sherman Oaks, and Woodland Hills were particularly shocking because the federal Drug Enforcement Administration didn’t just raid clinics causing community complaints, ranging from parking lot smoking to illegal parking. They also raided community-conscious outlets like the Farmacy, which even Fountain Day School general manager Andrew Rakos calls “a very good neighbor.” The Farmacy made sure to have a security guard in the parking lot and notify customers not to smoke outside.

By way of comment on the raids, Sarah Pullen, spokesperson for the DEA’s Los Angeles office, says, “Marijuana is illegal and we’re not going to let anyone violate the federal laws.”

So, despite a vote of the people, being a card-carrying pot smoker still has its risks. “Many people still feel discrimination and are in danger of losing their jobs or children with child protective services,” Dolphin continues. “But we do recommend that people do avail themselves [of the cards] because they are guaranteed against an arrest or seizure of your marijuana if you’re within [SB 420’s proposed 8-ounce limit].”


02-15-07

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Selective enforcement

by EDITORIAL, Los Angeles Daily News
August 20th, 2007


When federal agents busted down doors raiding medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles in July, Los Angeles Police Department officers were their comrades in arms.

The department's assistance in the raids infuriated some City Council members, who chastised them last week for cooperating with the Drug Enforcement Agency and for enforcing federal drug laws that are in conflict with California's medical marijuana law - and the will of the public. They even threatened to forbid the LAPD from cooperating with the DEA, but that would require the council to actually take an unequivocal stand.

LAPD officials just brushed off the criticism, essentially telling the council to get over it. The department will continue to help the feds bust medical marijuana dispensaries, they said, even though Chief William Bratton has declared the department supports the state law.

The explanation that officials offered was simple: The LAPD has a policy of enforcing federal laws.

That would make sense if it were a policy that the department actually followed. But the truth is that the LAPD only enforces the federal laws that it feels like enforcing.

Despite pressure from federal authorities and many residents of Los Angeles, the LAPD has refused to enforce immigration laws and officers don't ask about citizenship status except in the rarest instances.

The department has stuck to Special Order 40, which prohibits LAPD officers from asking people about their citizenship status. So much for working with the feds.

Medical marijuana dispensaries exist legally under state law, but not under federal law. In L.A., city officials are finally trying to craft regulations that will make them less flagrant for feds to bust. But the DEA doesn't care what the city or the state does.

That leaves the LAPD in an awkward situation, but selectively picking which laws it will enforce and which it will ignore does nothing to enhance the department's credibility.

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<table class=posttable width=425><tr><td class=postcell><object width="425" height="355" ><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/rG9cyFi9Pqg&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/rG9cyFi9Pqg&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object></td></tr><tr><td class=posttable valign=middle><span class=postcap>Video of the DEA Bust of the Arts District Healing Center in Los Angeles.</span>

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Produced by Dean Becker
<a class=postlink href=http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php target=_blank>Law Enforcement Against Prohibition</a>.</td></tr></table>

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Marijuana activists assemble downtown

Daily Breeze
October 12th, 2007


About 200 pro-medical marijuana activists demonstrated Thursday outside Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office in downtown Los Angeles, demanding he do more to end federal raids on cannabis clinics.

In a lively rally that lasted more than an hour, and was punctuated by the smell of pot, the protesters gathered outside the Ronald Reagan State Office Building to call on Schwarzenegger to urge the Bush administration to tell federal drug agents to back off.

Representatives from Schwarzenegger's office were not immediately available for comment.

Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine did not attend today's rally, but released a statement in support of the dispensaries.

"This year has seen a dramatic increase in federal law enforcement activity surrounding medical cannabis, including raids, confiscation of medicine and plants, and indictments," he stated.

Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairman Chris Norby, who also did not attend the rally, also expressed solidarity with the protesters via e-mail.

Norby urged Schwarzenegger to implement Proposition 215, the ballot initiative California voters approved in 1996 that legalized the sale and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Marijuana is still an illegal drug under federal law.

Opponents of medical marijuana say the dispensaries aren't regulated, attract crime and make it easier for everyone, not just those with serious illnesses like cancer and AIDS, to gain access to the drug.

The demonstrators protested what they called illegal and intrusive raids conducted by federal drug agents.

The demonstrators protested what they called illegal and intrusive raids conducted by federal drug agents.

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COLD COPY
Gone with the weed

<span class=postbigbold>How The Times' editorial board went from uptight to groovy on the issue of marijuana.</span>
December 4, 2007


It took decades for the Los Angeles Times to come to its current position on marijuana, supporting its medical use and advocating lenient enforcement and penalties for small-scale possession. Barring a 1914 editorial suggesting the legalization of opium to reap tariff revenue, The Times' editorial board acted as an unrelenting drug warrior, even using war terminology before "war on drugs" rhetoric ramped up in the 1970s and 1980s.

On Dec. 5, 1956, The Times showed no mercy for a marijuana salesman:<blockquote>A man convicted of selling dope to a minor may have 15 years in which to think it over, which should be sufficient to make others careful at least.... These were the first sentences locally under the new Federal narcotics law passed at the last session of Congress. This law considerably increases penalties and provides a death sentence for sale of heroin to a minor.

The setting of such an example should strike fear into the dope peddlers, who are not deterred by conscience. </blockquote>Three years later, on July 12, 1959, editorial board responded to a Pulitzer-Prize-winning Times series on narcotics that starkly depicted addicts in Southern California:<blockquote>[T]he temptation to treat the narcotic traffic as a feature of an otherworld underworld is very strong. The result is that most people who sincerely believe that they have a certain minimum responsibility as their brother's keeper do not think of the dope peddler or his victim, the addict, as a derelict brother but as somebody as alien from them as the primitive Patagonian.... Nothing can be done about the inveterate addict. He is as damned in this world as Judas is in the next. </blockquote>After the series ended a week later, The Times used its reportage as the basis for its fight-drugs-abroad stance. Until the 1980s, The Times would continually emphasize the need for Mexico to enforce drug laws at the border:<blockquote>Every legitimate feature of the U.S.-Mexican relationship presses for a cleanup of the miserable narcotics traffic. It has helped to make the boundary of the U.S. and Mexican Californias the dividing line between respectable prosperity and squalid depravity. There is no reason why northern good living should not overflow the frontier — no reason except the tolerance on the southern side of the most inhuman of human indecencies. </blockquote>The Times sounded that note again on May 31, 1962, broadening its call to include other countries:<blockquote>President Kennedy has announced that a White House Conference on Narcotics will at long last be held late this summer. This may be a breakthrough in the war against a terrible enemy.... The fact is that the narcotics traffic is not only a national threat, directly or indirectly affecting every citizen, but is also an international problem. Heroin and marijuana must be imported from other countries, and thus far virtually nothing has been done to cut the foreign roots of the vile commerce. </blockquote>A year later, on Nov. 6, 1963, The Times shows, between editorials filled with high-pitched anti-drug rhetoric, an early glimmer of a sense of humor on drug issues:<blockquote>That report about marijuana-hooked mice in the Hall of Justice horrifies even the unimaginative. Suppose word gets around in mousedom? Evolution would go into reverse. Hopped-up mice might take over the world. Cats would become as extinct as brontosaurus. Human beings would be half-tolerated, usually behind the woodwork, or bred for laboratory experiments.... We are frightened. </blockquote>On Aug. 18, 1966, The Times was serious again, but managed to sneak in a pun:<blockquote>A huge task force of Mexican agents backed by troops has launched a "sweep" operation along the border, aimed at curbing this evil.... Such activity on the part of our good southern neighbor, pursued vigorously and consistently, should help ease the heavy burden carried by state, local and federal authorities in the United States, by nipping the illicit traffic literally in the bud. </blockquote>By Oct. 29, 1967, The Times had to address the push to legalize marijuana. It came out swinging:<blockquote>We strongly believe…that marijuana poses a threat to society, and that legislation outlawing it should remain in force.... Experts note that marijuana smoking, though not a true addiction, quickly becomes a habit. In some cases it leads to experimentation with genuinely addictive agents, such as heroin, and from there to crime to support use of that expensive drug.... It requires little imagination to see how young people can be dared or challenged or teased into their first marijuana cigarette.... The Times strongly believes…that nothing should be done with present laws that could be construed as making more permissive, and thus encouraging, the use of marijuana. </blockquote>But within two years — and they happened to be those key late-1960s ones — The Times softened. On May 12, 1969, it wrote:<blockquote>There is a growing realization that the penalties for simple possession or use of marijuana are too harsh and unrealistic, particularly for young first-time offenders.... Why…is a second-time drunk driver — a potential killer — given only a five-day mandatory jail sentence while a student caught smoking marijuana may be subject to years in the penitentiary?.... The Times does not condone the use of marijuana. By no means. It is a dangerous thing, a dangerous habit, and every effort must be made to stamp out the ugly traffic.... Branding a youthful marijuana experimenter as a felon gives him a criminal record for life. Therein lies the fault of the present system. </blockquote>The Times continued its easy stance, mixed with a bit of its old morality, on March 26, 1972:<blockquote>The best approach would seem to be a pragmatic one, to regard private marijuana smoking essentially as one of those "victimless crimes" where social harm is slight or nonexistent, where interference by authority is not really necessitated by any demonstrable threat to the community. What an individual chooses to do in privacy is his business alone, provided no harm is done to others. That choice may not be wise, or likely to win moral approval, nor is there need to sanction it by law. But neither is there need for interference by authority.... </blockquote>But when Proposition 19 aimed to legalize the personal use and possession of marijuana, The Times said no on Sep. 13, 1972:<blockquote>We believe decisions ought to be made more carefully, and frankly, more reluctantly. The spread of drugs in America is of major concern. Perhaps marijuana can some day be separated from the terrible hard drugs, and made legal, like alcohol. But the linkage between pot smoking and hard drugs, though discounted, is not disproven. </blockquote>Despite its firm "no" on legalization, The Times did continue to advocate reducing penalties on march 5, 1975, writing in favor of a state bill to do just that:<blockquote>What the bill says, in effect, is that the use of marijuana is a crime — but only for two years. Defendants would not have to endure the lifetime stigma of a record. That seems a most humane and progressive approach. </blockquote>Two years later, on Aug. 4, 1977, The Times is still against legalization:<blockquote>If Congress follows President carter's urging and removes the federal criminal sanctions for possession of small amounts of marijuana, the action will neither reduce arrests dramatically nor end federal efforts to curtail marijuana traffic. </blockquote>On Feb. 14, 1979, The Times printed its first editorial in favor of medical marijuana — a position it continues to hold today:<blockquote>When safe and effective medicinal means are available to alleviate human pain and distress, those means ought to be made available to physicians for use by their patients. To add to the suffering often imposed by disease the cruelty of withholding therapeutic relief is inhumane and, we suggest, immoral.... Marijuana has been shown to be effective in the treatment of many patients stricken with glaucoma or suffering side effects from the therapeutic treatment of cancer.... California now has the opportunity to become the second state to sanction the controlled prescription of marijuana.... We urge the Legislature to act speedily to make that opportunity a reality. </blockquote>By Oct. 5, 1986, The Times dropped the last vestige of its tough-on-drugs past, arguing that the international drug war wasn't working:<blockquote>The Reagan Administration, pressing its luck after what it calls a successful anti-drug campaign involving U.S. troops in Bolivia, has begun to discuss similar deployments with other South American nations.... The United States may gain a little in its struggle to be drug-free with such drug raids, but they create political turmoil for poor, drug-producing nations like Bolivia that will continue long after U.S. troops are gone.... The raids are dramatic, but the war on drugs will not be won on foreign battlefields.... The real key to stopping illegal drugs is to persuade the prosperous consumers of the industrialized world not to use them. </blockquote>Even when the war was looking up, on Sept. 7, 1988, The Times stuck to its guns:<blockquote>Despite some recent highly publicized successes, the Reagan Administration's so-called War on Drugs remains at best a stalemate — especially along its most important front, in Latin America. The only conclusion we can draw is that — regardless of the time, money and manpower being devoted to attack narcotics trafficking as a police problem — the dirty business is thriving. It does so precisely because it is a business, and like any business it succeeds by responding to one of the fundamental laws of economics — supply and demand.... This is why the real answer to the problems that are posed by cocaine and other illegal drugs lies not in cutting off the supply but in limiting the demand. </blockquote>And on April 4, 1990, before the non-inhaling president took office, The Times asked everyone to layoff a baby boomer who admitted using marijuana:<blockquote>Like all too many baby boomers, T. Timothy Ryan, who is currently the Bush Administration's nominee to head the Treasury Department's Office of Thrift Supervision, smoked marijuana and tried cocaine about 20 years ago during the freer, flower-power era that stretched into the early 1970s.... Ryan's candor — and regret — concerning his casual drug use is being used against him.... Americans are far less tolerant of social drug use than they were 20 years ago, with good reason. But this kind of persecution — who used drugs and when did they use them? — should be discouraged to avoid blacklisting an entire generation. </blockquote>And when Bill Clinton was about to take office, on Jan. 4, 1993, The Times hoped his administration would refocus anti-drug efforts:<blockquote>America's drug policy — a lethal mix of dead-end positions and unfair laws — is now at a crisis state. And this is where the Clinton Administration comes in. In his choice of the new federal drug czar, President-elect Bill Clinton can redirect American policy away from its no-win position. He knows, or should know, that there is no magic bullet; but there is a very fast-growing consensus, especially among caring and committed law enforcement people as well as among health professionals, that America's drug problem is America's problem — not Bolivia's or Thailand's — and that the way out of the problem is to take on the drug habit directly here in the United States. That means America must stop practicing denial and realize that it has a serious drug problem and needs national AA-type programs to kick the habit and clean itself up. </blockquote>But on Oct. 23, 1996, The Times came out against Proposition 215, which would legalize medical marijuana use. It's reasoning? Sloppy language:<blockquote>Nobody's joking about Proposition 215, despite the laughs it got when state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren got into a flap with Zonker, the eternal hippie of the "Doonesbury" comic strip.... Proposition 215, an initiative on the November ballot, would allow marijuana to be used for medical purposes.... But while supporters of Proposition 215 insist that its "meaning and intent" is simply to allow seriously and terminally ill patients to use marijuana, the measure would in fact do far more than that. It would allow physicians to prescribe marijuana not only for life-threatening illnesses like cancer but for "arthritis, migraine, or any other illness for which marijuana provides relief." That phrase is a major, fatal flaw. </blockquote>But the proposition passed, and The Times tried to get state and federal lawmakers to clean up the law in several editorials, including this one on Nov. 29, 1998:<blockquote>Much confusion could have been avoided had Gov. Pete Wilson signed into law a bill that would have provided marijuana to seriously ill patients suffering from AIDS, cancer and multiple sclerosis. Those are much stricter definitions than Proposition 215 contained. But Wilson vetoed the bill twice. Marijuana is dangerous. It can impair defenses against bacteria and can cause neurological impairment in the long term. But properly controlled, it can reduce pain. The federal government could help clear matters up. </blockquote>And even as late as March 14, 1999, The Times wasn't ready to give into "the people's will" on that proposition:<blockquote>When Californians passed Proposition 215 in 1996 to legalize the medical use of marijuana, then-Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren pledged never to implement the measure, dismissing it as a "disaster" that will cause "an unprecedented mess." Its status has been further clouded by adamant federal refusal to recognize the California law and by the absence of any state guidance to law enforcement agencies. Now, Lungren's successor, Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, has changed the course of implementing the voter-approved initiative. Working with police chiefs, narcotics officers and medicinal marijuana advocates, he has promised to find ways to implement what he calls "the people's will." That sounds like a lot of leeway. The right path for California lies in more in the center of the debate. </blockquote>But by Aug. 31, 2000, The Times was ready to defend California's law against federal government intrusion:<blockquote>A confrontation has been escalating between the state of California and the federal government since the state legalized medicinal marijuana in 1996. The big artillery came into play Tuesday as the U.S. Supreme Court issued a temporary injunction barring distribution of marijuana in the state for any use, even for terminal cancer patients. It is an impasse that could have been predicted. It could also have been prevented if the Clinton administration had shown responsible leadership on the issue. The Clinton administration is obviously reluctant to be seen as sanctioning a drug that many Americans associate with the drug-abusing excesses of the 1960s, including those of the president who "never inhaled." In fact, moving marijuana to Schedule 2 would help rein in potential abuses.... </blockquote>The Times has kept up that defense through the Bush years, finally relenting to the shift in public opinion on July 7, 2004:<blockquote>It isn't surprising that the Bush administration clashed with California over its 1996 voter initiative that approved medical use of marijuana under remarkably liberal conditions. The Justice Department raided medical pot farms, arrested medical pot distributors and threatened to prosecute doctors for recommending or prescribing marijuana to AIDS and cancer patients and other chronically ill people. Today, however, the Justice Department's medical marijuana war seems increasingly out of step with the whole country.</blockquote>

[palmspringsbum]

knbc.com

6 Men Sought In Granada Hills Marijuana Clinic Robbery

POSTED: 6:43 am PST January 4, 2008
UPDATED: 12:16 pm PST January 4, 2008


GRANADA HILLS, Calif. -- Six men who robbed a medical marijuana clinic in Granada Hills, taking $10,000 and 11 pounds of marijuana, were still at large, police said Friday.

The robbery occurred at 10369 Balboa Blvd. around 8:30 p.m. Thursday, said Sgt. Jace Kessler of the Los Angeles Police Department's Devonshire Station.

During the heist, one shot was fired, ricocheting off the floor and breaking a window, but no one was injured, Kessler said.

People at the clinic told police 11 pounds of pot was taken, and police estimated the street value of the drug at $60,000, said Los Angeles police Lt. Tom Murrell of the LAPD's Devonshire Station.

The six robbers fled in a four-door SUV, possibly a Mercedes, police said.

During the investigation, police seized a sawed off, double-barrel, 12-gauge shotgun, he said.

Anyone with information on the robbers was urged to call detectives at the LAPD's Devonshire Station at 818-832-0609.

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5 charged in medical pot heist

The LA Daily News
By Jason Kandel, Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 01/09/2008 08:38:42 AM PST


GRANADA HILLS - Five people believed to be members of a Pacoima gang have been charged with attempted murder and other counts in connection with a takeover robbery of a San Fernando Valley medical-marijuana dispensary that sparked renewed concern about the safety of the facilities and forced the owner to shut down out of fear.

The robbery at the Golden State Collective, 10369 Balboa Blvd. in Granada Hills, occurred about 8:30 p.m. Thursday, the same day another dispensary was robbed in North Hollywood, police said.

The holdups marked at least the 12th and 13th robberies of Valley medical-marijuana dispensaries in the last two years, according to Los Angeles Police Department statistics.

The outlets have become so prevalent - there are now at least 232 citywide, 110 in the Valley - that late last year the LAPD put together a database of crimes that occur at or near them.

Besides the 13 robberies, there have been at least 63 violent or major property crimes committed at these facilities in the last two years.

"There's a lot of crime associated with these places," said Los Angeles police Lt. Tom Murrell of the Devonshire Division, which investigated the Granada Hills incident. "It's becoming more and more prominent."

During the Granada Hills heist, one shot was fired, ricocheting off the floor and breaking a window. The robbers pistol-whipped a security guard and took $10,000 in cash and up to four pounds of pot.

On Sunday, police arrested Jose Carlos Meza, 20, and Carlos Rodriguez, 21, both of Arleta, Stephanie Avila, 19, of Panorama City and Lisa Annette Gutierrez, 22, of Mission Hills. Police received information about Meza as possibly being involved and spotted him in a Chevrolet Impala pulling into a Denny's parking lot on Encinitas Avenue and Roxford Street in Sylmar where they arrested him, police said.

Meza, Rodriguez and another man identified as Bradford R. Hendricks, 24, were charged Tuesday with attempted murder, assault with a firearm, kidnap for robbery, making criminal threats, possession of marijuana and cocaine, and gun enhancements, the criminal complaint alleges. Avila and Gutierrez were charged with possession of marijuana and cocaine. If convicted of the attempted murder charge, Meza, Rodriguez and Hendricks could face a life sentence in prison.

Meza, Rodriguez, Avila and Gutierrez remained in jail. Hendrick's status was not immediately available.

The collective's owner, Jimmy Silva, said Monday that he fired Meza from his job there two weeks ago and that Gutierrez is his cousin. Because he had been robbed before but never reported it, this group figured it could get away with it, Silva said.

He said he watched the whole thing unfold from a back room, then called police. While the other robberies were nonviolent, the aggressive nature of this one has forced him to shut down, he said.

"The money and everything is not worth it," he said. "We're not planning to reopen."

On the same day as the incident at the Golden State Collective, another takeover went down at a marijuana dispensary on Cahuenga Boulevard in North Hollywood, Murrell said. It did not appear to be related to the Granada Hills case.

Four robbers hit Green Aid Pharmacy in the 34400 block of Cahuenga about 11 a.m. Nobody has been arrested.

In June, two men were arrested and another was sought in a Sunland medical marijuana dispensary robbery. In that case, the culprits made off with two pounds of pot and $3,000 in cash.

[palmspringsbum]

Buzz Killed

The Los Angeles Business Journal
By DEBORAH CROWE - 2/11/2008
Los Angeles Business Journal Staff

Los Angeles has become the unofficial capital of storefront shops that sell marijuana in recent years, and so many have sprouted that no one knows exactly how many exist.

But those freewheeling times are skidding to a halt.

The City Council has imposed a moratorium on any new pot shops and is moving to regulate the existing ones. Users are feeling a chill, too, from a recent court ruling that allows California employers to fire pot smokers – even if the marijuana is used at home and purchased under state law.

But even worse for marijuana shop owners, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which has conducted raids of medical marijuana dispensaries, recently began sending letters to some shop landlords telling them that their property could be confiscated because it is being used for illegal activity, at least under federal law. The DEA has never recognized California’s so-called compassionate use legislation and considers marijuana dispensaries as little more than drug dealers.

“It’s tough for all of us who have been trying to run a reputable business that helped a lot of sick people get their medicine,” said Michael Leavitt, who shut his Canoga Park dispensary last summer.

His landlord had received a letter from the DEA, pointing out that his property could be seized under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000.

“For the price of a postage stamp, they closed me up,” said Leavitt, who had never been raided and is himself a patient who uses medical marijuana to alleviate symptoms of several chronic diseases.

Leavitt’s former landlord, Miguel Fernandez, said he initially was leery of renting to a pot dispensary, but said Leavitt turned out to be a model tenant.

“I still have not been able to rent his space to someone as good,” said Fernandez, adding that it was Leavitt’s decision to liquidate his business rather than call the DEA’s bluff.

Los Angeles attorney William Kroger, who has seen a few of his roughly 20 dispensary clients similarly affected, said that in the current atmosphere, Leavitt probably made the right choice.

While even the DEA doesn’t have an exact figure on how many operations were shut down due to the letter campaign, advocate groups know of several cases throughout the city, with some dispensaries raided even after they informed DEA agents that they were closing.

“And what we’ve seen is that even when you fight back, you get raided anyway and lose everything,” said Kroger, who served on the advisory task force that drafted the interim ordinance now regulating the dispensaries. “You have to keep in mind, given the conflict between the federal and state law, and the inclination of the current (U.S.) administration, the DEA is just doing its job.”

Indeed, the DEA was not apologetic. “It’s just like if a car was used in the commission of a crime – it can be subject for forfeiture under federal law,” said Jose Martinez, a spokesman for the DEA’s Los Angeles office.

He also said it was unfair to imply that the DEA’s letters were a harassment campaign. “The whole goal of the letters to landlords was to educate the community.”


<span class=postbigbold>Number blossomed</span>

The initial 1996 law, Proposition 215, stated that marijuana should be made available in the state to people with medical problems, including nausea from cancer and AIDS treatments. Subsequent legislation and court rulings allowed patients and their caregivers to associate collectively to cultivate medical marijuana, which is why many dispensaries are called collectives.

Subsequent court decisions expanded that protection to retail-style dispensaries. After that, the number of dispensaries blossomed, particularly in the last couple of years. No one knows exactly how many exist, but there are at least 230 in Los Angeles alone.

The intent of lawmakers was that dispensaries be operated by the patient community more like a not-for-profit, but many became lucrative cash cows and at least some apparently sell pot improperly.

The latter approach apparently is what got Larry Roger Kristich in trouble with the DEA. Kristich ran West Hollywood’s Yellow House and six other dispensaries around the state until they were raided by the DEA in 2005.

He pleaded guilty on Feb. 1 to federal narcotics and money laundering charges, with two associates pleading to lesser charges a few days later. In the plea agreement, Kristich admitted that his facilities sold more than $95 million worth of marijuana over a three-year period, in some cases to minors, with an apparent $50 million profit.

Some cities, such as Pasadena and Torrance, moved quickly to ban dispensaries outright. Los Angeles came under intense criticism for being slow to react as the number of dispensaries skyrocketed over the last few years. An estimated four facilities operating in the city just three years ago were largely in neighborhoods with large gay populations, since marijuana is considered an effective treatment of side effects from AIDS.

“In the last few years, a lot of people got dollar signs in their eyes,” said Dr. Dean Weiss, a Venice physician who writes medical marijuana scripts, but has been troubled both by the lax local regulation and the aggressive federal law enforcement.

“Three years ago you’d have to drive to West Hollywood to pick up your medication,” Weiss said. “Today we have like six or seven dispensaries just in Venice.”


<span class=postbigbold>Moving to regulate</span>

The City Council in July passed what’s called an interim control ordinance. It slaps a moratorium on new pot shops for one year and allows for two six-month extensions.

Temporarily prohibiting new dispensaries is supposed to give city officials time to craft a process to root out bad operators, and add legitimacy to responsible purveyors who would be licensed and expected to pay taxes like any other business.

The interim ordinance also called on the marijuana dispensaries to register with the city by Nov. 13.

The Los Angeles city clerk’s office said that 230 dispensaries filed paperwork by the deadline. Of those, 183 complied with requirements to produce six documents, ranging from a state seller’s permit to a city tax registration certificate. Another 24 have filed for a hardship exemption, citing problems obtaining business insurance or the need to relocate due to the DEA’s landlord initiative.

City officials haven’t decided when they’ll start cracking down on non-compliant operators. They also are taking their time crafting a final ordinance. It’s undetermined what provisions any final ordinance may have.

Just as the City Council began debating the interim ordinance last summer, the DEA began a second round of raids that year, which riled Councilman Dennis Zine, a veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department and the interim ordinance’s sponsor.

“While we’re doing something positive to regulate the situation, the federal government was basically stepping on home rule, ignoring the will of the people of California,” Zine said. “Their arrogance is something. They show no respect for local law, yet when they want to do a raid they call on our police department to assist them.”

The DEA’s Martinez said: “What we do (to these facilities) we do to anyone who violates federal law.”


<span class=postbigbold>Vending machines</span>

Despite the ongoing battle between federal and local officials, young entrepreneurs like Vincent Mehdizadeh still have hope that they can stay in business by employing innovations that answer some of law enforcement’s concerns.

Mehdizadeh, who works in a Beverly Hills law office by day, also operates two Central L.A. dispensaries called Herbal Nutrition Center in which he is installing secure marijuana vending machines that he designed. Registered patients can use pre-paid smart cards to obtain a set amount of marijuana each week.

Mehdizadeh, whose invention has scored national media attention, also is in the process of turning his facilities into more of a traditional pharmacy, enabling patients to obtain from the same vending machine popular prescription medications, such as Viagra and the hair loss treatment Propecia.

“I’m not looking to pull the wool over the eyes of the DEA,” said Mehdizadeh. “I felt the industry serves a legitimate purpose but has a black eye that I’m working hard to correct.”

But even as dispensaries face challenges, the environment for patients themselves also has clouded. The California Supreme Court last month ruled that employers may fire workers for using medical marijuana at home even if the drug does not impair work performance.

Assembly member Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) has pledged to introduce clarifying legislation to strengthen employee rights by a Feb. 22 deadline for new bills in this session. Whether such a bill could pass and be signed by the governor in a presidential election year is uncertain.

“The Court’s decision has had a chilling effect,” said Kris Hermes, spokesman for Oakland-based Americans for Safe Access, which estimates that more than 200,000 Californians use medical marijuana. “It will deter people from being upfront with their employer. That’s not great.”

[palmspringsbum]

Thieves steal $10,000 in pot from area dispensary

The Daily Breeze
From staff reports
Article Launched: 02/27/2008 07:14:13 AM PST


Burglars broke into a medical marijuana dispensary in Harbor Gateway and made off with $10,000 worth of the drug, police said Tuesday.

The crime at Peace of Green at 228th Street and Western Avenue occurred about 4 a.m. Monday, Los Angeles police Capt. Dave Lindsay said.

According to a police report, someone pried open the door of an adjacent business, then used a hammer to make a hole through a wall into the marijuana business. Police said a blowtorch also was used to get inside.

The crime was the second in less than a week at a medical marijuana dispensary in Harbor Gateway. Thieves broke into another business on Thursday, but the owner was inside. He struggled with the thieves long enough for police to arrive.

Two of the four suspects were arrested, but they were not identified.

[palmspringsbum]

<span class=postbold>Offbeat News</span>

Fox News Joins Major News Organizations Promoting Marijuana Candidate with Air Time for Craig Rubin

Edited by Carly Zander
Wed, 18 Feb 2009, 19:00:04 EST



LOS ANGELES, Calif., Feb. 18 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Craig Rubin, candidate for mayor in the City of Los Angeles, is certainly happy that Michael Phelps is not going to be prosecuted, but is still organizing an international boycott against Kellogg's. He is even happier that marijuana seems to be the subject d'jour the month before the L.A. Mayoral election. Rubin, who recently has become a fixture on Los Angeles television and radio, is the off-beat candidate challenging the current mayor in "The City of Angels."

As can be seen on his appearance on the number one rated morning show in Southern California, "Good Day L.A." starring Steve Edwards, Dorothy Lucey and Jillian Barberie where the focus seemed to drift like smoke toward the cannabis plant.

"Finally, pot is getting more coverage than gay marriage. Marijuana affects more people than gay marriage as can be seen by the recent arrest of Michael Phelps' friends in South Carolina," Rubin quipped at a recent public event.

At the links below Rubin can be seen on Fox News' Good Day L.A. and with entertainment reporter Lisa Breckenridge.

Craig Answers Your Emails:
www.myfoxla.com/dpp/good_day_la/Craig_R ... s_20090217

Meet Craig Rubin L.A. Mayoral Candidate:
www.myfoxla.com/dpp/news/local/Meet_Cra ... e_20090217

Good Day L.A.
www.myfoxla.com/subindex/good_day_la

"I am going to win. The mayor is afraid to debate me and he is acting as if he has no challenger," says Rubin.

On Good Day L.A., both Dorothy and Jillian seemed to support the candidate and his message. Edwards, however, said to Rubin, "You don't stand a chance, so is your point to get a message about pot out there?"

Rubin disputed the assertion and referred to the Biblical King David who, as a young man, defeated Goliath the Philistine giant who taunted the enemy by bad-mouthing their deity. Young David gathered five smooth stones and with his sling in the name of the Lord killed the giant. "I too have five smooth stones and my faith in God's ability to guide me to victory."

Rubin has a busy schedule reaching out to churches, speaking at neighborhood council meetings and attending local debates with the other candidates. He and the other candidates have gotten to know each other fairly well, showing up at all the local events while the current mayor has yet to be even photographed with the other candidates. The mayor, instead, has been appearing with Bill Clinton, the world's most famous cheater, confirming his affinity for alleged adulterous behavior.

The candidate has pledged to protect medical marijuana clubs when elected mayor of the city. "I always knew we could win if medical marijuana could pass, but now we are beginning to see others who believe in my candidacy too. I think we are going to shock the mayor," say Rubin.

The candidate is urging people to watch the video, visit his web site (CraigX4Mayor.org) and contribute to his campaign. "Every little bit helps. With only 10-percent of the people showing up to vote, even prayers are helpful to me. You can hear me on KPCC with Patt Morrison tomorrow, too, and on NBC," the candidate added, doing his best to promote his campaign. "Just use Google!"

More information on Craig X Rubin for Mayor: www.craigx4mayor.org.
<small>
No endorsement by any news agency is claimed or implied.

All trademarks and service marks are the property of the respective parties.

NEWS SOURCE: Craig X Rubin for Mayor
Send2Press® is the originating wire service for this story.

Copyright © 1983-2009 by Send2Press® Newswire, a unit of Neotrope® (California, USA). All rights reserved.
</small>

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<span class=postbold>Elections and Politics News</span>

Medical Marijuana Author Endorses Craig X Rubin for Mayor

Edited by Carly Zander
Tue, 24 Feb 2009, 14:49:54 EST



LOS ANGELES, Calif., Feb. 24 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Dennis Peron, the senior citizen who wrote "Proposition P" back in 1991, says, "Vote for Craig Rubin." Proposition P was the nation's first medical marijuana legislation and has inspired national change. When it was introduced 80-percent of the voters in California's county and city supported medical use. Since then nearly two dozen states have legalized marijuana for medical purposes. Dennis Peron, the man who started the medical marijuana movement, has come out in support of Mayoral candidate Craig X Rubin.

Peron, longtime fighter for legal pot, gay-rights, candidate for the Republican nomination for governor of California, a Vietnam veteran, AIDS activist and close friend and political associate of Harvey Milk says, "Craig X Rubin is the man to lead Los Angeles." Peron, who met Rubin years ago, while fundraising for Proposition 215 added, "Seniors and Stoners can win this election for him and I am encouraging both to get out and vote March 3; Rubin for mayor."

Rubin is a controversial figure in the election because of his pro-cannabis stance, but he may have a friend in Sacramento as well as in Los Angeles' senior centers. Monday, February 23, 2009, State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-Northern California, introduced legislation that legalizes and taxes marijuana, "AB 390." The bill would require all sales of marijuana be made by licensed sellers who would be taxed. It would also forbid sales to anyone under 21. Rubin has experience with this idea because in 1996 he was the only licensed cannabis dealer to successfully sell marijuana at the Super Bowl.

Pro-business Rubin opened a chain of successful retail stores selling hemp products after graduating from UCLA in the early 1990s. When "High Times" magazine published an article stating that Arizona was issuing tax stamps and cannabis dealer's licenses, Rubin bought one. At the Big Game loaded with one hundred individually bagged grams that were each stamped, "Arizona Department of Revenue Cannabis Tax Stamp," Rubin made money and paid Arizona State taxes. Rubin wrote about the experience in his hit pot book, "9021GROW: How to Create Billions for the Economy without Destroying the American Way of Life" (2005, ISBN-10: 0974711004).

"Senior citizens can make extra money growing medical marijuana for local collectives," notes Rubin, who is looking for ways to get seniors more active. "When AB 390 passes, this bill will generate billions in much-needed revenue for the state and people know that California's number one cash crop, needs to be taxed and regulated."

Rubin promises to bring jobs to Los Angeles by ending the prohibition on hemp, "Many people don't know marijuana makes gasoline without going to war in the Middle East, paper without cutting down trees, clothing without polluting the ground water and without destroying the topsoil." Popular Mechanics reported that there were literally thousands of products that can be made from cannabis, but the hype on marijuana that has led to it being scheduled as a dangerous drug has kept farmers from being able to grow it for industrial purposes.

At Mayor Sam's community forum this past Sunday, Rubin put forth his ideas for moving the city forward. "We need water. We live near the largest body of water in the world. I will build a desalination plant. That will create jobs."

Rubin pointed out that people are not better off than they were four years ago under "Viagra La Raza," a name he affectionately calls the mayor. "The current official unemployment is over 10-percent in the City of Los Angeles, which really means it is over 20-percent because people unemployed more than six months aren't even counted." Rubin then said, "My priority is jobs, jobs and more jobs and that might mean lowering taxes and providing incentives to people so they invest their capital in our city."

Rubin who also stated that he is pro-Law Enforcement said, "I have had cops tell me they are voting for me because I will end the federal consent decree. They don't care that I am for taxing and regulating pot. Both issues are hampering our police department's ability to do their job. Neither the Chief, nor the mayor who he supports, are doing anything about either."

NEWS SOURCE: Craig X Rubin for Mayor
Send2Press® is the originating wire service for this story.


<hr class=postrule><center><small>Copyright © 1983-2009 by Send2Press® Newswire, a unit of Neotrope® (California, USA). All rights reserved.</small></center>

[palmspringsbum]

LAPD Chief: If Weed Is So Helpful, Why Not Regulate It?

NBC Los Angeles
Updated 5:00 PM PDT, Wed, Apr 1, 2009


Los Angeles Police Department Chief William Bratton called state policies regulating the sale of pot as medicine "Looney Tunes," even though the Obama administration directed federal agents to stop raids in states where medical marijuana is legal.

"I think that the policy of the federal government at this time is unfortunate. I think the policy of this state is Looney Tunes," Bratton said Wednesday at a Parker Center news conference.

Thirteen years ago, California voters approved Proposition 215, which made it legal for people with a recommendation from a doctor to grow, smoke and possess certain amounts of the normally illegal weed.

In 2003, Senate Bill 420 was signed into law, setting up system for issuing ID cards to those with "prescriptions" for pot, but there have been disputes over how to do that.

"They pass a law, then they have no regulations as to how to enforce the darn thing and, as a result, we have hundreds of these locations selling drugs to every Tom, Dick and Harry," Bratton said.

The chief urged the Los Angeles City Council to speed up the process of regulating the clinics. In September 2007, the city passed a temporary ban on new dispensaries to give police and planning officials time to draft permanent regulations for the facilities.

"While I fully support its use for medicinal purposes, why don't we regulate it like we do Lipitor or Viagra?" Bratton said. "You can't buy those two without getting it through a legitimate pharmacy. If this drug is so important and so helpful, why is it not regulated like every other drug?"

Thirteen states now have laws providing for the legal use of medical marijuana.

Copyright City News Service

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The Los Angeles Independent L.A.

L.A. City Council removes loophole from marijuana dispensary law


The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to remove a legal loophole that led to the uncontrolled proliferation of medical marijuana dispensaries, and to extend the temporary ban on new dispensaries by another six months.

Council members unanimously directed the city attorney to eliminate the hardship exemption in a 2007 ordinance which allowed nearly 500 dispensaries to open across the city. The council is expected to vote on the revised ordinance next week.

Hearings are under way for the clinics that applied for a hardship exemption. Council members voted Tuesday to deny 14 applications.

City Councilman Jose Huizar said the hardship exemption “was being used by culprits who want to make a profit.”

Councilman Greig Smith said when the council was drafting the ordinance, the city attorney told the panel that the hardship exemption was necessary.

“We made a tragic mistake: we listened to the city attorney. The city attorney is not the end-all of the discussion. They are advisers,” Smith said.

During a news conference prior to the vote, Councilman Dennis Zine said the proliferation of dispensaries was “out of control.”

Council President Eric Garcetti said it was unacceptable that a certain half-mile stretch of Atwater Village has no less than five dispensaries.

“People feel under siege. I think there are a lot of people who supported medical marijuana and want access for patients but do not want their neighborhoods taken over — to the point where there are more dispensaries than Starbucks,” he said.

Two years ago, the council approved a temporary moratorium on new medical marijuana dispensaries. The purpose of the interim ordinance — which will expire in March thanks to the six-month extension — was to give city officials time to draft regulations that limit where and how dispensaries can operate in the city.

California voters 13 years ago approved Proposition 215, which made it legal to sell marijuana to certain patients with a doctor’s prescription.

The drug is still considered illegal under federal law, and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents have raided dispensaries throughout Southern California. However, Attorney General Eric Holder recently announced those raids would end.

Clinics that were already established at the time the ban was approved had until Nov. 13, 2007, to register with the city. By submitting a business tax registration certificate, state seller’s permit, property lease and proof of insurance, those businesses were allowed to remain open.

However, a loophole in the temporary ban allowed clinics to file “hardship exemptions,” which provide dispensary owners with the opportunity to defend why they should continue to do business without fulfilling those requirements.

Hardship exemptions are considered to be a routine part of city ordinances.

A spokesman for the city attorney’s office said the ban would remain legally defensible without the loophole.

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<span class="postbold">Editorial</span>

L.A.'s reefer madness

<span class="postbigbold">The City Council's lackadaisical approach to medical marijuana has resulted in clinics sprouting like, well, weeds.</span>

October 5, 2009 | The Los Angeles Times


This is Los Angeles, where laws that seem sensible on the first quick reading turn out to be studded with exceptions or are enforced sporadically. Consider billboards. The city's porous legal barriers encourage rogue sign companies to ignore the law and then to sue when they are challenged. They often win -- because the laws were so clumsily drafted or applied as to be deemed void by the courts.

As it is with billboards, so it threatens to become with medical (ahem) marijuana and the city's attempt at a regulatory scheme to accommodate Proposition 215, the "compassionate use" act that voters adopted in 1996. The City Council called a moratorium on new clinics and denied every request for "hardship" exemptions -- yet it failed to block many of those rejected applicants from opening anyway. Hundreds of storefronts now sell the drug, adding to the impression that, in Los Angeles, the initiative is a cover for virtual legalization. Present your physician-approved card and you can buy the stuff to treat a bad day at the office.

Let's be clear: Virtual legalization is not and should not be the city's goal. There is a nationwide debate to be had over fully legalizing marijuana, but neither Proposition 215 nor city regulation of clinics is the proper vehicle for that discussion. The council should be -- and finally seems to be -- working to allow legitimate medical patients to treat their illnesses without turning the city into a new Amsterdam.

City Atty. Carmen Trutanich is recommending a very cautious approach, with outright sales banned in favor of patient cooperatives. That comes as a jolt not just to recreational users but to patients who finally have safe and convenient access to pain relief and treatment. With the drug now so widely available, it would be hard to return to the days of cannabis clubs.

But Trutanich also points out that the marijuana being sold all over the city could (and he says in at least two test cases did) contain dangerous levels of pesticides and other contaminants, and that clinics may well get their stash from the same cartels that have wreaked so much havoc -- and violence -- in Mexico. It may not be the city's role to regulate the product or its importation, but what's the value of "compassionate use" for medical purposes if the product actually is poisonous and if clinics, rather than providing safety, are supplied by criminals?

Even if his advice to disallow sales is too draconian, Trutanich makes some valid points. It may be too late for Los Angeles to move slowly on medical marijuana, because hundreds of clinics are now operating. But it's not too late to move wisely, and with the safety and health of patients and other residents at the top of the agenda.

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

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Los Angeles City Attorney | Tuesday, October 13, 2009

City Attorney Explains Medical Marijuana Issue on NBC


Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich was invited on NBC’s “Today in LA” show on Saturday morning to give his side of the hot-button Medical Marijuana issue. The show was live at 7:00 at the NBC studios in Burbank and reporter Ted Chen did the questioning.

In the couple minutes allotted, Mr. Trutanich made it very clear that from the Los Angeles City Attorney’s point of view, this is a public health and safety issue, and that the Los Angeles City Attorney will NOT prevent the legitimate and legal cultivation, distribution and use of Medical Marijuana within the city of Los Angeles.

Mr. Trutanich made the case that the users of Medical Marijuana don’t really know what is in the medicine that they are using, and that if this truly is medicine, it should be tested and examined with the same FDA scrutiny as for example Tylenol. They have a right to know what they are ingesting.

As City Attorney Trutanich explained, this position follows on the heels of three M.M. samples purchased covertly by the City Attorney’s office in CD 9 and 14, being screened for their contents by the FDA in Irvine. Two of the samples that came back had extraordinarily high levels of the insecticide Bifenthrin. One sample was found to have 1600 times the legal digestible limit of Bifenthrin, the other just over 85 times. The City Attorney used the analogy of spraying the ant-killing Raid on your salad and then eating it and that if this is indeed medicine, that these kind of ingredients pose a real health and safety risk to those patients taking the medical marijuana.

This automatically led to the on-air discussion of not really knowing the origin of the Marijuana being ingested, as Bifenthrin in those quantities would definitely NOT be used anywhere NEAR California. Prop 215 on which the cultivation, distribution and use of Medical Marijuana within the city of Los Angeles is based, clearly states that the Marijuana is to be cultivated in a collective.

Reporter Ted Chen was fair and to the point.

The issue marches on.

[palmspringsbum]

The Fine Line Between Pot Fees and Pot Prices

Reason hit & run
Jacob Sullum | October 9, 2009

As Brian Doherty noted yesterday, Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, along with L.A. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, is now maintaining that all medical marijuana dispensaries are illegal because they sell the drug over the counter. That interpretation of the law has sweeping implications, exposing virtually all of the 800 or so medical marijuana suppliers in L.A. to seizure and prosecution. But Cooley's position differs from those taken by other local officials and by California Attorney General Jerry Brown.

Under state law, patients are allowed to grow marijuana for themselves, or their "primary caregivers" can grow it for them. Last November the California Supreme Court rejected a legal fiction under which many dispensaries had been operating, whereby patients would designate the people selling them marijuana as their primary caregivers. The court said the person who grows marijuana for a patient has to be a bona fide caregiver who is substantially involved in his life and assists him in ways other than supplying the drug. That decision left the "patient collective" as the only legally viable model for dispensaries. Under the 2004 Medical Marijuana Program Act, patients may "associate within the State of California in order collectively or cooperatively to cultivate marijuana for medical purposes." In a dispensary that follows this model, the customers are members of the collective/cooperative, and the money they pay for marijuana is their contribution toward covering the operation's expenses. Cooley argues that such collectives are simply for-profit businesses in disguise. But he also seems to be saying that the only way a collective can be legal is if every member contributes time and effort, as opposed to money. That seems like an unreasonable expectation for patients who go to dispensaries precisely because they are not up to the task of growing marijuana for themselves and don't know anyone who is willing and able to do it for them.

Attorney General Brown, by contrast, agrees that medical marijuana suppliers should not be taking in money beyond what's necessary to cover their overhead and operating expenses, but he does not insist that every member of a collective roll up his sleeves and get to work. The guidelines (PDF) Brown issued in August 2008 say a collective should be nonprofit, should not purchase marijuana from illegal sources (effectively meaning the members have to grow their own supply), and should not provide marijuana to nonmembers. But in Brown's view, the marijuana may be "provided free to qualified patients...who are members of the collective or cooperative," "provided in exchange for services rendered to the entity," or "allocated based on fees that are reasonably calculated to cover overhead costs and operating expenses." That last option is essentially the same as over-the-counter sales, although a collective could take the fees in advance as "dues" rather than taking them at the same time it hands over the marijuana. It's doubtful that rearranging the transaction that way would satisfy Cooley.

Cooley, Trutanich, and other Los Angeles officials (along with officials in cannabis-intolerant jurisdictions such as San Diego) are disturbed by the proliferation of marijuana dispensaries, which they believe are largely or mostly selling pot for recreational use. But since it is notoriously easy to obtain a doctor's recommendation for marijuana in California, even insisting that patients get their pot through genuine collectives (however those are defined) will not prevent people from getting high under the cover of taking their medicine. Yet restricting the ability of doctors to recommend marijuana, aside from violating their right to free speech, would prevent some bona fide patients from obtaining the medicine that relieves their pain, nausea, or other symptoms. The situation reminds me of a conversation I had back in 1993 with Lester Grinspoon, a leading expert on the therapeutic uses of cannabis (and author, with James Bakalar, of Marihuana: The Forbidden Medicine). Grinspoon had concluded that the only way to make marijuana available to all the patients who could benefit from it would be to legalize it generally. He foresaw what would happen if marijuana were legal for medical but not recreational use:
<blockquote class="inset"> The problems connected with that are so vast that it will not work.... Everybody will be going to the doctor and saying, "Oh, I've got a backache, I've got this, I've got that." The doctors are not going to want to be gatekeepers.</blockquote>
In California, it's not the doctors so much as the cops and prosecutors who are complaining. But the freedom they fear may prove difficult to contain. When I interviewed him for that 1993 article, Richard Cowan, then director of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws, told me that allowing people to openly obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes would irrevocably change the dynamics of the debate:
<blockquote> The cat will be out of of the bag. That is going to totally change the dynamics of the issue....lf we get medical access, we're going to get legalization eventually. The narcocracy knows this; it's the reason they fight it so much.</blockquote>

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October 18, 2009

Los Angeles Prepares for Clash Over Marijuana

The New York Times | By SOLOMON MOORE


LOS ANGELES — There are more marijuana stores here than public schools. Signs emblazoned with cannabis plants or green crosses sit next to dry cleaners, gas stations and restaurants.

The dispensaries range from Hollywood-day-spa fabulous to shoddy-looking storefronts with hand-painted billboards. Absolute Herbal Pain Solutions, Grateful Meds, Farmacopeia Organica.

Cannabis advocates claim that more than 800 dispensaries have sprouted here since 2002; some law enforcement officials say it is closer to 1,000. Whatever the real number, everyone agrees it is too high.

And so this, too, is taken for granted: Crackdowns on cannabis clubs will soon come in this city, which has more dispensaries than any other.

For the first time, law enforcement officials in Los Angeles have vowed to prosecute medical marijuana dispensaries that turn a profit, with police officials saying they expect to conduct raids. Their efforts are widely seen as a campaign to sway the City Council into adopting strict regulations after two years of debate.

It appears to be working. Carmen A. Trutanich, the newly elected city attorney, recently persuaded the Council to put aside a proposed ordinance negotiated with medical marijuana supporters for one drafted by his office. The new proposal calls for dispensaries to have renewable permits, submit to criminal record checks, register the names of members with the police and operate on a nonprofit basis. If enacted, it is likely to result in the closing of hundreds of marijuana dispensaries.

Mr. Trutanich argued that state law permits the exchange of marijuana between growers and patients on a nonprofit and noncash basis only. Marijuana advocates say that interpretation would regulate dispensaries out of existence and thwart the will of voters who approved medical cannabis in 1996.

Whatever happens here will be closely watched by law enforcement officials and marijuana advocates across the country who are threading their way through federal laws that still treat marijuana as an illegal drug and state laws that are increasingly allowing medicinal use. Thirteen states have laws supporting medical marijuana, and others are considering new legislation.

No state has gone further than California, often described by drug enforcement agents as a “source nation” because of the vast quantities of marijuana grown here. And no city in the state has gone further than Los Angeles. This has alarmed local officials, who say that dispensary owners here took unfair advantage of vague state laws intended to create exceptions to marijuana prohibitions for a limited number of ill people.

“About 100 percent of dispensaries in Los Angeles County and the city are operating illegally,” said Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles County district attorney, who is up for re-election next year. “The time is right to deal with this problem.”

Mr. Cooley, speaking last week at a training luncheon for regional narcotics officers titled “The Eradication of Medical Marijuana Dispensaries in the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County,” said that state law did not allow dispensaries to be for-profit enterprises.

Mr. Trutanich, the city attorney, went further, saying dispensaries were prohibited from accepting cash even to reimburse growers for labor and supplies. He said that a recent California Supreme Court decision, People v. Mentch, banned all over-the-counter sales of marijuana; other officials and marijuana advocates disagree.

So far, prosecutions of marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles have been limited to about a dozen in the last year, said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for Mr. Cooley. But Police Department officials said they were expecting to be called on soon to raid collectives.

“I don’t think this is a law that we’ll have to enforce 800 times,” said one police official, who declined to speak on the record before the marijuana ordinance was completed. “This is just like anything else. You don’t have to arrest everyone who is speeding to make people slow down.”

Don Duncan, a spokesman for Americans for Safe Access, a leader in the medical marijuana movement, said that over-the-counter cash purchases should be permitted but that dispensaries should be nonprofit organizations. He also said marijuana collectives needed more regulation and a “thinning of the herd.”

“I am under no illusions that everyone out there is following the rules,” said Mr. Duncan, who runs his own dispensary in West Hollywood. “But just because you accept money to reimburse collectives does not mean you’re making profits.”

For marijuana advocates, Los Angeles represents a critical juncture — a symbol of the movement’s greatest success, but also its vulnerability.

More than 300,000 doctors’ referrals for medical cannabis are on file, the bulk of them from Los Angeles, according to Americans for Safe Access. The movement has had a string of successes in the Legislature and at the ballot box. In the city of Garden Grove, marijuana advocates forced the Highway Patrol to return six grams of marijuana it had confiscated from an eligible user. About 40 cities and counties have medical marijuana ordinances.

But there have also been setbacks. In June, a federal judge sentenced Charles C. Lynch, a dispensary owner north of Santa Barbara, to one year in prison for selling marijuana to a 17-year-old boy whose father had testified that they sought out medical marijuana for his son’s chronic pain. The mayor and the chief of police testified on behalf of Mr. Lynch, who was released on bail pending appeal.

And last month, San Diego police officers and sheriff’s deputies, along with agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, raided 14 marijuana dispensaries and arrested 31 people. In an interview, Bonnie Dumanis, the district attorney for San Diego County, said that state laws governing medical marijuana were unclear and that the city had not yet instituted new regulations.

Ms. Dumanis said that she approved of medical marijuana clubs where patients grow and use their own marijuana, but that none of the 60 or so dispensaries in the county operated that way.

“These guys are drug dealers,” she said of the 14 that were raided. “I said publicly, if anyone thinks we’re casting too big a net and we get a legitimate patient or a lawful collective, then show us your taxes, your business license, your incorporation papers, your filings with the Department of Corporations.”

“If they had these things, we wouldn’t prosecute,” she said.

Marijuana supporters worry that San Diego may provide a glimpse of the near future for Los Angeles if raids here become a reality. But many look to Harborside Health Center in Oakland as a model for how dispensaries could work.

“Our No. 1 task is to show that we are worthy of the public’s trust in asking to distribute medical cannabis in a safe and secure manner,” said Steve DeAngelo, the pig-tailed proprietor of Harborside, which has been in business for three years.

Harborside is one of four licensed dispensaries in Oakland run as nonprofit organizations. It is the largest, with 74 employees and revenues of about $20 million. Last summer, the Oakland City Council passed an ordinance to collect taxes from the sale of marijuana, a measure that Mr. DeAngelo supported.

Mr. DeAngelo designed Harborside to exude legitimacy, security and comfort. Visitors to the low-slung building are greeted by security guards who check the required physicians’ recommendations. Inside, the dispensary looks like a bank, except that the floor is covered with hemp carpeting and the eight tellers stand behind identical displays of marijuana and hashish.

There is a laboratory where technicians determine the potency of the marijuana and label it accordingly. (Harborside says it rejects 80 percent of the marijuana that arrives at its door for insufficient quality.) There is even a bank vault where the day’s cash is stored along with reserves of premium cannabis. An armored truck picks up deposits every evening.

City officials routinely audit the dispensary’s books. Surplus cash is rolled back into the center to pay for free counseling sessions and yoga for patients. “Oakland issued licenses and regulations, and Los Angeles did nothing and they are still unregulated,” Mr. DeAngelo said. “Cannabis is being distributed by inappropriate people.”

But even Oakland’s regulations fall short of Mr. Trutanich’s proposal that Los Angeles ban all cash sales.

“I don’t know of any collective that operates in the way that is envisioned by this ordinance,” said Mr. Duncan, of Americans for Safe Access.

Christine Gasparac, a spokeswoman for State Attorney General Jerry Brown, said that after Mr. Trutanich’s comments in Los Angeles, law enforcement officials and advocates from around the state had called seeking clarity on medical marijuana laws.

Mr. Brown has issued legal guidelines that allow for nonprofit sales of medical marijuana, she said. But, she added, with laws being interpreted differently, “the final answer will eventually come from the courts.”

[palmspringsbum]

Judge grants injunction against city's medical marijuana dispensary ban

October 19, 2009 | The Los Angeles Times


A Superior Court judge concluded today that Los Angeles' moratorium on new medical marijuana dispensaries is invalid and granted a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the ban sought by a dispensary that had sued the city.

Judge James C. Chalfant determined that the city failed to follow state law when it extended its initial moratorium. "The city cannot rely on an expired ordinance," he said.

Green Oasis and a number of other medical marijuana collectives sued the city last month, challenging its efforts to control the dispensaries. The lawsuit argued that the City Council violated state law when it extended the ban until mid-March and that it is unconstitutionally vague.

Although the injunction applies only to Green Oasis, the judge's ruling calls into question the city's power to enforce the moratorium against hundreds of dispensaries that have opened in the last two years. The ruling could inspire other dispensaries to join the lawsuit or file similar actions.

Despite the moratorium, the city has seen explosive growth in the number of dispensaries. Under the ban, the city allowed 186 outlets to remain open. Many more – the exact number is unknown – are operating in neighborhoods across the city, and more continue to open.

In its answer to the lawsuit, the city argued that the moratorium is not subject to the conditions and limitations of state law because it is not an ordinance dealing with zoning, but with public safety. Zoning ordinances cannot be extended beyond 24 months. The city adopted the first of two moratoriums on Aug. 1, 2007.

The judge rejected that argument.

The city also argued that a decision to issue an injunction would cause "grave irreparable harm." "This lawsuit is not just about one 'bad apple.' It is about illegally dealing marijuana," the city's answer said. "Hundreds of unlawful marijuana stores have cropped up throughout the City and will likely attempt to bootstrap their illegal operation on the outcome of this action."

Jeri Burge, an assistant city attorney, told the judge this morning that granting the injunction would "reward illegal conduct."

"You're going to open the floodgates," she said.

Robert A. Kahn, an attorney for Green Oasis, argued that the dispensary did nothing wrong, noting that, under state law, the moratorium expired 45 days after it was first enacted. "The did not believe they were violating the law," he said.

The L.A. City Council has struggled for more than two years to write a permanent ordinance to replace the temporary ban.

Dan Lutz, a co-owner of Green Oasis and president of the collective association, filed the lawsuit after the council voted to shut down his dispensary, which opened in May.

Lutz, like hundreds of other dispensary owners in Los Angeles, had filed a request with the council for an exemption from the moratorium so he could operate, but opened without permission. The council failed to act on these requests until June, an oversight that prevented city officials from taking legal steps to close the dispensaries.

-- John Hoeffel at L.A. Superior Court

[palmspringsbum]

LA City Attorney Dead Wrong

<span class="postbigbold">Marijuana Testing</span>

CityWatch | By Michael Backes


A City Attorney, Mr. Carmen Trutanich, has been all over the media trying to convince Los Angeles that a pesticide used to kill Mexican fire ants is evidence that medical cannabis provided by dispensaries is poisonous and supporting Mexican drug cartels.

According to Mr. Trutanich, three samples of medical marijuana from "controlled buys" by undercover LAPD were tested by an FDA laboratory. On these samples, Mr Trutanich said the lab found high concentrations of an insecticide uncommon in California that is used to kill fire ants in Mexico. Trutanich claims this Mexican fire ant insecticide is evidence that LA medical cannabis is being supplied by the Mexican drug cartels.

Except... There are no Mexican fire ants. There is the notorious red imported fire ant - solenopsis invicta - but that's from Brazil, not Mexico. Those fire ants were accidentally imported into the US in the 1930's then spread across the southern United States. Fire ants were never found in Mexico, until they crossed the Texas border into northern Mexico a few years back. The range of fire ants has not extended deeply into Mexico.

Pesticide testing is not a trivial exercise. It requires very sensitive machines that are capable of detecting just a few molecules. The FDA certainly has these machines, but were the samples provided by Mr. Trutanich sufficient?

Pesticide testing requires a large plant sample to produce precise results. EMA, one of the largest testing labs in California, requires a minimum 200 gram sample. No marijuana dispensary in LA sells cannabis in 200 gram lots. It's more likely that Mr Trutanich would have had much smaller samples tested, with a much higher risk of error in the testing.

There are no pesticide residue tolerances established for cannabis by the EPA, the FDA or The California Department of Pesticide Regulation. It takes careful research to establish these tolerances on a pesticide-by-pesticide basis, but that work has not been done. This research is important, because the acceptable ranges vary by plant species.

The insecticide that Mr Trutanich claims was found on his samples of cannabis was bifenthrin. Bifenthrin belongs to a common class of insecticides called pyrethroids.

Mr Trutanich claims that California restricts the use of bifenthrin because of its toxicity to humans. Mr. Trutanich is incorrect.

California restricts the use of bifenthrin because of its high toxicity to fish, not mammals or humans. And, according to the California Department of Pesticide Regulation, California farmers used 107,000 pounds of bifenthrin on their crops in 2007. They used it on corn, almonds, strawberries, even wine grapes. Fifty tons of it.

Mr. Trutanich stated to FOX NEWS, "it's not enough to say conclusively that this dope is coming from here (Mexico), okay. but? but, you know, if it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, you know, chances are that if you look a little closer, you may be dealing with a duck."

Well... if it makes scientific claims like a duck, it might just be the LA City Attorney.

California cannabis patients should be protected from contaminants in their medicine.

That protection comes from intelligent regulations, something that the City Attorney's office has been stalling for two years.

Perhaps it's time we stopped wasting tax money planning to raid medical marijuana facilities and start regulating them.


(Michael Backes - board member, Cornerstone Research Collective, a California nonprofit corporation, Eagle Rock.) ◘



CityWatch
Vol 7 Issue 86
Pub: Oct 20, 2009

[palmspringsbum]

Medical marijuana poll: Most L.A. voters support dispensaries

John Hoeffel | The Los Angeles Times
October 22, 2009 | 10:00 am


More than three-quarters of the voters in Los Angeles County want to see medical marijuana dispensaries regulated, rather than prosecuted and forced to close, according to a poll released today by a national organization that supports marijuana legalization.

The poll, completed Monday and Tuesday, also found that 74% support the state's medical marijuana law, while 54% want to see marijuana legalized, regulated and taxed.

The Marijuana Policy Project, based in Washington, D.C., commissioned the poll by an independent firm, Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, after Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley threatened all dispensaries in the county with prosecution.

Cooley and Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich argue that the stores, which now number in the hundreds, are selling marijuana for profit in violation of state law.

"I think the take-home message here is voters in L.A. County overwhelmingly support the state's medical marijuana law. They think dispensaries, properly regulated, can be a part of that, and Mr. Cooley's really out of step," said Bruce Mirken, the California-based spokesman for the organization.

The poll of 625 voters found that 77% of voters want to regulate dispensaries, while 14% want them closed. Both Democrats (83%-7%) and Republicans (62%-30%) support regulation over prosecution. The Los Angeles City Council is on the verge of adopting regulations after two years of debate and almost 13 years after voters passed Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act.

The proposed law would ban sales of marijuana. Dispensary operators say they do not sell it, but collect donations to recoup their costs, but they fear the ordinance will be used against them.

Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the district attorney, said that Cooley merely intends to enforce state law. "Selling marijuana over the counter for profit is a violation of the law," she said. "Mr. Cooley has said that, if it is found that the marijuana is being supplied in accord with the Compassionate Use Act, then those operations are not targets."

The poll found support for treating marijuana similarly to alcohol among county voters across most demographics, except voters who are 65 or older and Republicans. Both groups oppose it by about a 10-point margin. Young people, voters between 18 and 34, strongly support legalization, 72%-18%.

Legalization supporters are collecting signatures for four different initiatives that could be on the ballot next year. The Marijuana Policy Project has reservations about moving forward, noting that younger voters typically turn out more heavily in presidential election years.

The poll underscores the growing support for legalization, but the majority is not a large one. "It's a sign of huge progress," Mirken said. "It's not a sign that you are going to win."

Mason-Dixon randomly selected voters from the county's registration list and interviewed those who said they voted regularly. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

-- John Hoeffel

[palmspringsbum]

Pot crackdown flies in the face of law and sense

LA Daily News | By Allison B. Margolin
Updated: 10/21/2009 07:52:50 PM PDT


AS the Obama administration attempts to steer federal agents away from prosecuting marijuana dispensaries, the Los Angeles county district attorney and city attorney are attempting to undermine that shift by articulating a deceitfully narrow view of the state law.

Despite reports of trillion dollar deficits nationally and a collapsing state economy, District Attorney Steve Cooley says his office is committed to closing down revenue-generating dispensaries and continuing to take prisoners of war in the fight against safe access to medical marijuana.

In doing so, L.A. is threatening to plunge the state's economy into further collapse by taking potential tax revenues that could be going to the state treasury. Moreover, the city's position threatens to generate crime by forcing the huge demand for marijuana back to the street. If the free market has allowed for the proliferation of dispensaries, that demand is not going away. The avenue for its fulfillment will simply change and could go from safe to entrenched in the poly-drug trafficking black market economy.

Most alarming, perhaps, is that the district attorney seeks not only to thwart the proliferation of these establishments but seeks to create a whole new class of felons in medical marijuana operators. And the D.A.'s view of the state law - that it does not allow for the operation of dispensaries - is not just shocking. It flies in the face of case law handed down by the California courts.

Just this past August, the Fourth Circuit of the California Court of Appeals (in People v. Hochanadel) affirmed what Attorney General Jerry Brown announced last year: that storefront dispensaries that receive money in exchange for marijuana, may qualify as legal cooperatives.

Furthermore, in that case, the California judiciary upheld a 2005 interpretation of the marijuana sales law allowing for cash for marijuana transactions. As the court said in the 2005 Urziceanu case, speaking about the state Legislature's expansion of the 1996 medical marijuana referendum: "Its specific itemization of the marijuana sales law indicates it contemplates the formation and operation of medicinal marijuana cooperatives that would receive reimbursement for marijuana and the services provided in conjunction with the provision of that marijuana."

These two decisions also affirmed the notion that simply because some of the marijuana being sold at cooperatives may have been purchased from people who are not members of the cooperative does not invalidate the medical defense, or make the possession of that marijuana illegal. Yet, the District Attorney's Office prosecutes people simply on the basis that some of the marijuana at a dispensary allegedly came from nonmembers, or that the marijuana is sold for more than that for which it is bought. The fact that a dispensary has gross profits does not mean that the owners are making profits.

The district attorney's policy and deliberate misinterpretation of the law begs the question of why. Perhaps law enforcement enjoys marijuana dispensary busts more than others because the defendants are generally civil, non-gun-toting, law-abiding civilians. Perhaps it's the money. But strangely enough, in cases I have represented recently, the state does not always keep the proceeds from dispensaries.

Whatever the perverse reasons motivating the district attorney's position, the issue is not why but how to stop this alarming waste of resources. The media has focused on the fact that the amount of dispensaries in L.A. has mushroomed over the past year and on the ease with which marijuana users are obtaining recommendations. No one has focused on the fact that the war against dispensaries is another chapter in the escalation of the drug war, another excuse to send people to state prison, another mechanism to disenfranchise people whose medicine is not respected by law enforcement as legitimate.

This has to stop. In the wake of prison overcrowding and budget crisis, sending more people away and depriving the state of taxes they are currently reaping from dispensaries is not the answer.

This week, the LAPD is expected to crack down on medical marijuana dispensaries across Los Angeles. The time for action is now - before more people are caught up in the system, before more resources are wasted and before more lives are ruined.

Allison Margolin is a criminal defense attorney practicing state and federal criminal law in Los Angeles.

[palmspringsbum]

Medical Pot Is Bringing L.A. Together

<span class="postbigbold">In the increasingly acrimonious pot wars, all sides agree City Hall is incompetent</span>

LA Weekly | By PATRICK RANGE MCDONALD AND JILL STEWART
Published on October 21, 2009 at 5:04pm

When Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant ruled on October 19 that the Los Angeles City Council’s two-year moratorium on medical-marijuana dispensaries was illegal, invalidating the ban, few legal experts seemed surprised — including City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, whose aide promptly admitted that the City Council had indeed been in the wrong.

The judge issued an injunction banning L.A. from enforcing its moratorium against Green Oasis, a popular pot shop in Playa Vista. That decision is widely expected to prevent City Hall from enforcing its ban throughout Los Angeles.

Now the 15-member City Council and the Villaraigosa administration are struggling to explain why L.A., apparently alone among big California cities, failed to follow state law by approving local medicinal-pot regulations, and then adopted an illegal moratorium that badly backfired, feeding a proliferation of pot stores citywide.

The controversy has split Los Angeles’ citizenry roughly into three camps, with pot advocates applauding the situation as an apparent backdoor legalization of marijuana, even as medical-marijuana advocates for the seriously ill voice anger that the flamboyant drug dealers openly selling pot for profit in L.A. are ruining their legitimate, hard-fought medical-marijuana movement.

A third group is angry about the crime and sleazy trappings that for-profit pot shops bring to its neighborhoods. The mostly Latino members of the Panorama City Neighborhood Council, representing a working-class area of the San Fernando Valley, for example, voted last month to oppose pot shops, while the Mid-Wilshire Neighborhood Council demanded last May that the city enforce its failing moratorium. The Melrose-Fairfax Neighborhood Watch and Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council have been vocal in insisting that city officials control pot-shop proliferation.

But these disparate groups in the pot debate agree on one thing: Los Angeles City Hall has been almost comically inept at complying with simple state deadlines for municipalities to create rules for medicinal marijuana — unmet deadlines that Villaraigosa, City Council President Eric Garcetti and former City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo had known for years were approaching.

Instead, a gridlocked Council adopted an illegal two-year moratorium to buy more time. During the moratorium, more than 800 pot sellers used a city-provided form to claim they would face a “hardship” if they could not open for business, and then hundreds of those applicants opened without permission — many of them not even bothering to get the certificate of occupancy required of all businesses.

The maneuver blind-sided Villaraigosa, Garcetti and the now-departed Delgadillo. Now, with recently elected City Attorney Trutanich and Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley threatening to go after stores that operate for profit or otherwise break state medicinal-marijuana laws, the pot wars are providing fuel to critics who see L.A. as a failed government.

As the activist Joseph Mailander argues on the CityWatch Web site, L.A. “now resembles New York City in the [1970s]: a nearly bankrupt, fully corrupt, failing city-state.” After listing numerous City Hall blunders and miscues, Mailander declares: “The council has even attempted to raise fees on farmers markets even while letting medical-marijuana dispensaries skate without fees. And through it all, travesties like developer doormat Gail Goldberg, an amateur from San Diego whose Planning Department actually publishes how-to brochures for zoning easements, are still found in top city slots.”

Now, as the celebrants and critics of L.A.’s rapidly expanding pot industry weigh in on the court ruling, Los Angeles City Council is preparing to meet once again. Its goal: to adopt local rules for medical marijuana.

[palmspringsbum]

LA City Attorney Blows Smoke

<span class="postbigbold">Med Marijuana Patient Speaks Out</span>
By Cheryl Aichele | LA CityWatch | 27 Oct 09


Active ImageCity Attorney, Carmen Trutanich has been deceitful about medical cannabis. He has been lying about the law, court precedence, the State Attorney General's Medical Cannabis Guidelines and about pesticides. His dishonesty hurts more than just medical cannabis patients, it hurts the city and beyond.

According to the New York Times "Mr. Trutanich argued that state law permits the exchange of marijuana between growers and patients on a nonprofit and non-cash basis only."

"The law says, if you are selling marijuana, it's illegal." The Los Angeles City Attorney told ABC Channel 7 News reporters.

Trutanich falsely claims that both case law and state law prohibit any sales of medical cannabis in any situation, even among patients in a collective/cooperative setting. To prove his point he and members of his office have been arguing that the People vs. Mentch decision outlaws sales of cannabis in storefront dispensing collectives.

What Trutanich and his crew fail to mention is that Mentch did not provide medical cannabis in a storefront collective; he provided it from his home, where he grew cannabis for a handful of patients and claimed to be their caregiver.

On November 24, 2008 the Supreme Court decided that Mentch was not a caregiver to these patients just because he provided them with medical cannabis and took them to some doctor’s appointments. There was nothing in the Mentch decision about storefront collectives with cash transactions.

Trutanich either does not understand the difference between a caregiver and a collective or he is purposely tricking people into being confused about the distinction.

As defined by law, a caregiver consistently, over a period of time, provides for a patient’s housing, health and or safety. Collectives and cooperatives are non-profit organizations made up of patients and their caregivers to ensure safe access to medical cannabis for the patient members.

In the same article the New York Times by Solomon Moore it says: "Christine Gasparac, a spokeswoman for State Attorney General Jerry Brown, said that after Mr. Trutanich’s comments in Los Angeles, law enforcement officials and advocates from around the state had called for seeking clarity on medical marijuana laws.

‘Mr. Brown has issued legal guidelines that allow for nonprofit sales of medical marijuana,’ she said.”

However, Assistant Deputy City Attorney, David Berger has made statements to the media contradicting the State Attorney General’s interpretation of the law.

“We still believe that the only legal way to do that is to enforce against the selling of marijuana, as opposed to giving it away as a collective,” Mr. Berger said.

Nothing in state law or case law has determined that collectives have to “give” away their medicine. In fact, both State and Case law indicate that providers can be reimbursed for their expenses. Something the California State Attorney General makes clear.

Jerry Brown, the Attorney General is the highest ranking legal employee of the state of California. His office released guidelines in August of 2008 to help patients, caregivers, collectives/cooperatives and law enforcement determine the law: "Guidelines for the Security and Non-Diversion of Marijuana Grown for Medical Purposes".

The most important quote from that text appears on the last page (pg. 11):

"It is the opinion of this [State of California, Department of Justice, Attorney General’s] Office that a properly organized and operated collective or cooperative that dispenses medical marijuana through a storefront may be lawful under California law"

The guidelines also mentions "sales", "individual transactions", "purchase marijuana", "transactions between members", "cash", "accepted cash handling practices", "cash transactions", "monetary reimbursement", "dispensing collective or cooperative" and "consumer collectives".

According to the New York Times: Trutanich has argued that over-the-counter sales of medical cannabis are illegal. Guidelines published by the state attorney general say that the law allows for nonprofit sales of medical cannabis.

Trutanich either confuses non-profit sales with cash sales or he makes these statements to deceive people into confusing the two. There is a difference between revenue –money coming into an organization—and profit—money left over after all expenses are paid. A properly-run nonprofit medical cannabis dispensing collective can legally take currency (revenue) in exchange for cannabis as long as any profits from those proceeds get used for the mutual benefit of the collective (or cooperative).

Harborside Healthcare Center in Oakland, CA takes their profits and reinvests them into patient services such as massage therapy, chiropractic services, acupuncture and more—free of charge to the collective patient members. Not only that but they also offer analytical testing of their cannabis, including pesticide testing.

Trutanich has also been making false statements about pesticides in medical cannabis coming from LA. He claims undercover officers made control buys from a couple of locations in LA which he had sent to the Food and Drug Administration for testing. He claims the samples came back with unacceptable amounts of insecticides on them.

Let it be noted that, Trutanich has yet to make public these findings, so his word is all we have to go off of. Second, the amount of cannabis that would be required to test for pesticides is 200 grams. Most patients buy in 3.5 grams increments.

According to M. Backes, a medical cannabis analytical tester and provider, the pesticide Trutanich found is called Bifenthrin which belongs to a very common class of insecticides called pyrethroids. The most common pyrethroid is pyrethrum, which is made from chrysanthemums. Pyrethrum is considered safe enough for use on organic fruits, herbs and vegetables throughout the world, including cannabis.

Backes points out, According to pesticideinfo.org, [LINK] California farmers used 107,000 pounds of bifenthrim on their crops in 2007. They used it on corn, almonds, strawberries, even wine grapes. Fifty tons of it.

So either Trutanich truly does not know the difference between organic pesticides and harmful insecticides or he’s conning others into confusing them. Trutanich is purposefully or unintentionally mistaking the issues.

Either way, his statements cause more confusion and harm than help the city of Los Angeles adopt sensible medical cannabis policies to regulate medical cannabis dispensing collectives which is proving expensive and dangerous to not only medical cannabis patients but the city as a whole.

These statements lead medical cannabis patients and supporters to believe Trutanich is just blowing smoke up their backsides about medical cannabis. That's why the medical cannabis community has nicknamed Trutanich, FALSEtanich!

(Cheryl Aichele is a Senior at UCLA studying English Literature and is a medical marijuana patient and activist who suffers chronic pain from Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. She has been as actively involved in local politics surrounding medical cannabis in LA for over a year now. She can be reached through her website www.waronme.blogspot.com )