Photo: Huffington Post
Michele Leonhart, acting administrator of the DEA, is a Bush-era drug warrior who has overseen raids of legal medical marijuana dispensaries — yet Obama is keeping her on.

​The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a confirmation hearing tomorrow for Michele Leonhart to serve as administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), a post Leonhart has held on an interim basis for two years after serving as deputy administrator under the Bush Administration from 2003 to 2007.

During her tenure, Leonhart has presided over hundreds of paramilitary DEA raids on medical marijuana patients and providers in states where medical marijuana is legal.
Even after the Department of Justice, in an October 2009 memo, instructed federal prosecutors to no longer target medical marijuana providers “whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with state laws,” the DEA, under Leonhart’s “leadership,” has continued to raid individuals and collectives operating under state law.
DEA agents in July flouted a pioneering Mendocino County, California ordinance to regulate medical marijuana cultivation by raiding the very first grower to register with the sheriff.

Photo: Jack Rikess
Our guy gets the story: Toke of the Town Northern California Correspondent Jack Rikess hard at work doing his research at the 4th Annual S.F. Medical Cannabis Competition on Sunday. By the way, Jack reports there was half a pound of pot in that joint.

​San Francisco’s 4th Annual S.F. Medical Cannabis Competition, The Patient’s Choice, was held Sunday.
Now that Toke of the Town‘s Northern California correspondent, Jack Rikess, has sufficiently recovered from the festivities, here’s his report.
Don’t be too hard on Mr. Rikess. Judges at the competition — including our hard-working correspondent — had to sample more than 50 cannabis strains and products.
Way to take one for the team, Jack! ~ Steve Elliott, Editor
…….
By Jack Rikess
Toke of the Town
Northern California Correspondent
It’s always a good sign when you can smell the party from blocks away.
The day and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect for San Francisco’s 4th Annual S.F. Medical Cannabis Competition, The Patient’s Choice. After some delays including moving the cannabis flavored festivities to a new location at the last moment (due to law enforcement objections), the Bacchanal of Buds went off without a hitch for the red-eyed competition goers.

Photo: The Weed Business
That looks a lot better than slot machines to me.

​A study funded by casino developers says that a large-scale marijuana farm is the only other economically viable option for a hard-luck San Francisco Bay area town, as officials consider the fate of a major strip of waterfront property.

Environmental consultants evaluated 28 different proposed uses submitted by the public for the land. They determined that only a medical marijuana cultivation facility could generate enough revenue to pay market price for the 422-acre property in Richmond, California, reports Katherine Tam of the Contra Costa Times.
The plan calls for medical marijuana to be grown, packaged, stored and sold within the century-old buildings where the Winehaven winery operated in the pre-Prohibition days of the early 1900s. According to the study, city coffers would swell with $3.2 million a year in additional tax revenue, under a five percent tax rate, depending on how much the cannabis is worth.

Photo: CNN
U.S. agents seized the 6,700 pounds of marijuana, compressed into about 500 bricks, near Falfurrias, Texas on Friday

​U.S. law enforcement seized more than three tons of marijuana from a tanker trailer traveling in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, according to a spokesman from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Special agents seized the cannabis Friday near Falfurrias, Texas, said Ross Feinstein, spokesman for the customs agency, reports Leslie Tripp at CNN.
The pot was packaged in about 500 bricks wrapped in clear cellophane and duct table, Feinstein said. 

Photo: KSDK
These three active duty soldiers were arrested after their robbery attempt at a medical marijuana dispensary.

​Surveillance Footage Shows Hapless Pot Thieves “Running Around Like Rats Trapped in a Maze” 

Three active duty soldiers from Fort Carson, Colorado, were arrested early Saturday morning after allegedly trying to rob a medical marijuana dispensary in Colorado Springs, according to the police.

Security cameras caught the three bumbling burglars on tape breaking into the Rocky Road Remedies cannabis dispensary, reports Kevin Dolak at ABC News. The three, who wore ski masks and carried crowbars, found themselves trapped inside the pot shop when the automatic security system locked all the doors.
Surveillance footage shows the hapless pot thieves “running around like rats trapped in a maze,” according to the manager of the dispensary, reports Ayinde O. Chase at AHN News.

Photo: Omaha World-Herald

​It’s been awhile since Omaha, Nebraska police began an investigation into allegations that two officers talked of framing a targeted alleged “gang member” by putting marijuana in his trash. So long, in fact, that one of the officers applied for a disability pension, had two hearings on the matter and retired — three months ago.

Two officers — the second one under investigation and the purported whistle-blower — have collected six months’ salary while not being allowed to work, reports Todd Cooper at the Omaha World-Herald. The City of Omaha has paid more than $50,000 to the two officers while they have been on administrative leave — $29,000 and $22,000, respectively, the World-Herald reports.
Meanwhile, a couple of drug possession cases have stalled in court while attorneys await reports on the internal affairs investigation.
With six months having passed since the investigation was launched by the Omaha Police Department and the officers were placed on paid leave, questions are being asked.

Photo: DEA
Michele Leonhart, acting administrator of the DEA, is a Bush-era drug warrior who has overseen raids of legal medical marijuana dispensaries — yet Obama is keeping her on.

​After more than two years as acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Michele Leonhart, who served as deputy DEA administrator during George W. Bush’s presidency, is scheduled to be confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, November 17.

No friends to medical marijuana patients, Leonhart and her former boss, DEA Administrator Karen Tandy, were responsible for more than 200 paramilitary-style raids on patients and their providers.
As acting DEA administrator, Leonhart has continued to raid dispensaries, growers and medical marijuana testing labs despite a change in federal policy under President Obama.

Photo: Ken Lambert/The Seattle Times
“I am a wolf”: Emiel Kandi, 34, has made hundreds of thousands of dollars in a lending industry with few consumer protections. Now he’s in the medical marijuana business.

​Operating Cobra Medical Group, a medical marijuana dispensary in Tacoma, Washington, isn’t Emiel Kandi’s only business. The former mini-casino operator also charges desperate people as much as he can get away with — up to 45 percent interest, in one case — in deals set up so that he can quickly take borrowers’ homes, and in some cases, flip them for a profit.

Unsophisticated borrowers trying to avoid financial collapse or foreclosure then lose their property, reports Christine Williamson of The Seattle Times. “I am a wolf,” Kandi, 34, said to the paper.
“He’s in the business of taking people’s property,” said Martin Burns, a lawyer who sued Kandi on behalf of an unemployed mechanic. “He finds vulnerable people and exploits them.”
“I’m not your friend,” Kandi said. “If you step off the tightrope, I’ll take your house.”
A Seattle Times examination of numerous Kandi loan deals showed that they take advantage of lax regulations in the lending industry, which provide little protection for consumers.
Kandi knows this, and skirts mortgage requirements and disclosures by writing up his loans as “commercial,” the Times reports. Mortgages have interest-rate caps, consumer protections and full disclosure of all costs, while commercial loans do not.

ABC15

​After a tally of late provisional ballots, Arizona voters have approved Proposition 203, a state ballot measure that will allow patients suffering from cancer, AIDS, and other life-threatening illnesses to use medical marijuana with authorization from their doctor. Arizona now joins the list of 14 other states, along with the District of Columbia, that have passed medicinal cannabis laws since 1996.

“Voters in Arizona have sided with science and compassion while dealing yet another blow to our nation’s cruel and irrational prohibition on marijuana,” said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. MPP provided funding and support to the Arizona Medical Marijuana Project, a local group that ran the Prop 203 campaign.

Graphic: Reality Catcher
Victory in Arizona: Safe access to medical marijuana is coming for patients in the Grand Canyon State

​Arizona’s Proposition 203, which legalizes medical marijuana in the state, has passed.

The measure had trailed until Friday afternoon, but is now leading by about 4,400 votes, reports Ray Stern at Phoenix New Times. The margin appears certain to be enough that remaining ballots will not reverse the trend.

“Although there are still about 10,000 votes left to be counted, our lead of more than 4,000 votes makes us 100 percent confident in announcing Arizona is now the 15th medical marijuana state!” said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP).

About 8,000 early ballots and 2,000 provisional ballots from Maricopa County remained to be counted at 5:35 p.m., but the pro-Prop 203 trend seen in the last few tens of thousands of ballots “bodes extremely well for the measure,” New Times reports.
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