Search Results: drug enforcement administration (413)

Photo: Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review
Scott Shupe is shown sitting in Change, the Spokane marijuana dispensary that he co-owned, in this 2009 file photo. Shupe was convicted on March 17, 2011, on felony drug charges after a jury rejected his argument that Washington’s medical marijuana law allows dispensaries to operate.

​How long now until more raids?

In a case closely watched by both the medical marijuana community and law enforcement, a Spokane, Washington jury rejected arguments Thursday that the state’s medical marijuana law should be interpreted broadly to allow for commercial dispensaries, convicting a provider of multiple drug trafficking charges.

Scott Q. Shupe, who co-owned one of the first medical marijuana dispensaries in Spokane, argued that a broad interpretation of the state’s medical marijuana law means that dispensaries can supply authorized patients, provided they serve just one patient at a time, reports Thomas Clouse at The Spokane Spokesman-Review.

Photo: Los Angeles Times
Federal agents carry away stolen merchandise, I mean “evidence,” March 15, 2010

​Drug Enforcement Agency agents, with the help of the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, raided two medical marijuana dispensaries in West Hollywood, California on Tuesday. It was the first such action in the city since the Obama Administration decided two years ago to take a hands-off approach to dispensaries in compliance with state laws.

The federal warrants were served on the Zen Healing Collective and on Alternative Herbal Health Services, and one individual was taken into custody, which may result in arrest. Both shops were among the four dispensaries the city had authorized to operate, reports John Hoeffel at The Los Angeles Times.


Photo: The White House
President Obama: “I think this is an entirely legitimate topic for debate”


President Says We Need To Shift To Public Health Focus, But His Budgets Haven’t Done That

​President Barack Obama on Thursday called drug legalization “an entirely legitimate topic for debate,” but quickly added “I am not in favor of legalization.”
The President then went on to say that he sees “drug abuse” as a public health issue and that a shifting of resources is required, away from the traditional approach of incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders.
Obama’s remarks are the first time in history that a U.S. president has called drug legalization a topic “worthy of debate.”
The president made the remarks during the YouTube-hosted “Your Interview With the President,” for which at least the top 100 vote-getting questions dealt with marijuana laws or drug policy.
It was evident that Obama had heard the chorus of protest which greeted his last response to YouTube viewers on marijuana legalization, in which he had laughed off the issue and dismissively said “I don’t know what that says about our online audience.”
Many activists had expected the president would continue his practice of blithely ignoring the marijuana policy questions, despite their overwhelming and enduring popularity with the very demographic which voted him into office.
“The President talks a good game about shifting resources and having a balanced, public health-oriented approach, but it doesn’t square with the budgets he’s submitted to Congress,” said Neill Franklin, a retired Baltimore narcotics cop and executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a group of cops, judges, and prosecutors who support legalizing and regulating drugs.

Photo: britannica.com/Salem News

​Can Police Can Kick Down Your Door If They Smell Pot? Some Justices Think So

Police smelling marijuana coming from behind an apartment door can enter the home without a warrant if they believe the evidence is being destroyed, some U.S. Supreme Court Justices said on Wednesday.
More than 60 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police couldn’t enter a residence without a warrant just because they smelled burning opium, reports Adam Liptak at The New York Times.
On Wednesday, during the argument of a case about what police were entitled to do upon smelling marijuana outside the door of a Kentucky apartment, two justices were concerned that the Court may be ready to eviscerate the 1948 ruling which stemmed from a Seattle case.

Photo: ACLU-WA
Famed travel writer and TV host Rick Steves will be among the panelists at “Where Is Marijuana Reform Heading?”, a public forum in Seattle on September 12 sponsored by the WA ACLU.

Sure, it seems that the wind is at our backs. The tantalizing possibility of marijuana legalization looks more possible than it ever has before. But what comes next?

The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington on September 12 will present a discussion on the history, current status, and future of marijuana-law reform in Washington and the United States.
The event will be Sunday, September 12, 2010, 7 pm – pm (doors open at 6:30 pm), at the Great Hall at Town Hall Seattle, 1119 8th Avenue at Seneca Street. Enter on 8th Avenue. (Directions and Parking)
Local and national panelists include travel writer Rick StevesKeith Stroup, founder of and legal counsel to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML); Washington state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-WellesRob Kampia, co-founder and executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP); and Ethan Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA).

Photo: Michael Montgomery
Garberville’s KMUD is a bastion of free speech

​Marijuana growers in Northern California’s Emerald Triangle have for decades received reports of pending police raids from a local radio station. Now the police, citing a boom in pot production and “armed illegal drug traffickers,” want the broadcasts to stop.

As pot growers in Humboldt and Mendocino counties launch another growing season, local, state and federal law enforcement agents are preparing for their part of the annual ritual — deploying helicopters, trucks and armed agents to seize marijuana plants, reports Michael Montgomery at NPR.
​”According to a citizen’s observation, at 8:45 a.m., three helicopters were seen heading from Laytonville to Bell Spring Road,” Garberville radio station KMUD recently broadcast.

Chamot’s “Round Up Of Usual Suspects”
Federal Judge George H. Wu: “Much of the problems could be ameliorated… by the reclassification of marijuana from Schedule I.”

​A federal judge issued a sentencing order Thursday stating that medical marijuana provider Charles C. Lynch was “caught in the middle of the shifting positions” on the issue. “Much of the problems could be ameliorated… by the reclassification of marijuana from Schedule I,” the judge wrote.

Lynch gained notoriety as a federal medical marijuana defendant who was prosecuted and convicted in 2008 under the Bush Administration, then sentenced after President Obama signaled a change in federal enforcement policy.
“Yet another federal judge has called on the government to reconsider the current status of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no medical value,” said Joe Elford, chief counsel with Americans for Safe Access, of Judge George H. Wu’s 41-page sentencing order.
“Judge Wu’s sentencing order also begs the question of why the federal government is still prosecuting medical marijuana cases,” Elford said.


Photo: Eugene Davidovich
Medical marijuana patient, provider and activist Eugene Davidovich was victorious in court today.

​San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis’s war on medical marijuana patients and providers suffered another crushing defeat Thursday afternoon, as activist Eugene Davidovich was acquitted by a jury of all charges stemming from his arrest last year as part of Operation Endless Summer.

Davidovich was facing four felony charges and the very real possibility of a long prison sentence.

A Navy veteran with an honorable discharge, Davidovich started a legal medical marijuana collective in San Diego, carefully abiding by state law.
Eugene was arrested in February 2009 by San Diego narcotics officers for providing another legal patient with medical marijuana.
He told Toke of the Town that the chief investigative officer in his case testified on the stand that the officer based his expert testimony on “medical marijuana training” on a handout from something called the Narcotic Educational Foundation of America, “Drug Abuse Education Provider of the California Narcotic Officers’ Association.”
In these “training” materials, titled Use of Marijuana As A “Medicine” (PDF) (the quotes are theirs), we learn immediately — in the first sentence! — how these guys roll.

Graphic: Radical Rags

​Hey Golden State, are you ready to legalize weed?

Here’s your chance! California will be voting this November on whether to legalize and tax marijuana.

On Wednesday, Los Angeles County election officials must turn in their count of valid signatures collected in the county for the Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act, reports John Hoeffel at the Los Angeles Times.
And that number is virtually sure to be enough to put the initiative over the top, qualifying it for the November ballot, according to a tally kept by state election officials.

Photo: Emerald Herb

​“It’s an idea whose time has come,” said Douglas Hiatt, co-author of Initiative 1068, which would legalize marijuana in Washington State.

And now it’s time for voters to take matters into their own hands, according to Hiatt. “This year, one in six legislators sponsored marijuana reform legislation,” the activist attorney said Tuesday at a press conference on the steps of the Capitol Building in Olympia.
“And again this year, major reform did not get out of committee,” Hiatt said. “So we formed Sensible Washington and wrote an initiative that removes the criminal and civil penalties for adults.”
Every poll taken shows that if I-1068 gets on the ballot, it will win. Washington voters support sensible marijuana laws.
Tuesday’s press conference detailed a wide and diverse array of endorsements, from former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper to Republican legislator Toby Nixon.
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