Berkeley Patients Group |
Berkeley Patients Group |
City governments in Oakland and Berkeley are putting their lawyers to work defending medical marijuana dispensaries in those towns.
Earlier this week, the city of Oakland won a court order preventing the federal government from seizing a building occupied by Harborside Health Center, one of the nations largest dispensaries. Meanwhile, their neighbor to the north, Berkeley, has filed a claim against the feds saying seizing and shutting down marijuana businesses in that town will adversely affect the town’s tax coffers.
While the cannabis communities of Colorado and Washington await a response to recently-passed marijuana laws from Attorney General Eric Holder, it seems he’s busy writing other speeches: graduation remarks for the University of California at Berkeley law school commencement, which as held over the weekend.
Ganja activists took the opportunity to swarm the campus and even went so far as to fly a custom banner over the outdoor Greek Theater that read: “Holder: End Rx Cannabis War #peace4patients,” according to the Huffington Post.
Berkeley Patients Group, the largest medical marijuana dispensary in Berkeley, California, was sued by the federal government on Friday in an attempt to shut down the cornerstone collective and seize the property, according to a press release delivered today by Americans for Safe Access.
The feds accuse Berkeley Patients Group of breaking federal law by selling herb. And in a move that has been used with undeniable effect up and down the state of California, they’ve targeted BPG’s landlord and threatened her with asset and property seizure if she does not immediately evict her tenants.
The Patients Care Collective (PCC) in Berkeley, California, has been helping medical marijuana patients for more than 10 years now, having originally opened their doors back in 2001. They’re a festive group; during the holidays they help patients celebrate the season with yummy, cannabis “Christmas Trees” augmented with potent concentrates.
Graphic: California NORML |
In the aftermath of Proposition 19, California NORML will host a statewide conference to discuss the future of marijuana reform efforts in California on January 29 in Berkeley.
Opposing Views |
Did the Feds think of the impact that their letters and raids have had on the patients who depend on places like the Berkeley Patients Group? |
Photo: Jeff Totten/The Daily Californian |
Berkeley Patients Group called the police when they discovered a customer had an outstanding warrant. |
It’s safe to say that a bunch of cops swarming into a marijuana dispensary is usually not good news. But when police came into Berkeley Patients Group on Friday, it was because the pot club’s management had alerted them that a woman wanted on a parental abduction warrant had entered the building.
It follows an infamous raid..
Here’s your daily round-up of pot-news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Download WeedWeek’s free 2016 election guide here.
Santa Ana, Calif. paid $100,000 to a the dispensary raided by police in 2015, and agreed to drop misdemeanor charges against employees, in exchange for them agreeing not to sue. Three officers face charges after surveillance footage recorded them mocking an amputee and playing darts during the raid. They argued that they shouldn’t be charged since they believed they had disabled all of the dispensary’s video cameras.
Ohio Medical Marijuana |