Search Results: berkeley patients group (26)

Berkeley Patients Group

By Jack Rikess
Toke of the Town
Northern California Correspondent
That crazy cannabis carousel continues to spin as the C. Hag (as in Kali U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, who sees a working dispensary and has the irascible need to close it) sends out another letter. Berkeley Patients Group is the victim of being too close to where kids could possibly be.
This time is a double-whammy, the Center for Early Intervention on Deafness, which also houses a preschool, and Ecole Bilingue de Berkeley, a French bilingual grade school, are within the 1,000 feet no-no zone. 
Berkeley Patients Group took over an old car dealership and with the wrought-iron fence and has a visible security patrolling, when I went there, it felt like an island. A huge building with very little foot traffic, very secure and seemingly alone in a converted strip-mall that many patients have pass it by thinking it was a church or some other municipal building.

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.

Presenting the first Christmas Trees that are supposed to catch on fire

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.

“Making our PCC Medicinal Christmas Trees has become a popular tradition for our patients and staff,” Marina Musielak of Berkeley PCC told Toke of the Town Thursday afternoon.

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.

The conference, at the David Brower Center, will feature a public discussion with drug reform leaders, legislators, attorneys, physicians, medical marijuana groups and the press.
The first part of the conference will cover lessons from the Prop 19 campaign; where to go from here, and what changes in wording and tactics should be adopted in future legalization efforts.

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?

By Bob Starrett
He looked a bit suspicious, standing in front of the Blockbuster kiosk at the 7-11 talking on his cell phone. He wasn’t renting a movie so I asked him to move to the side. As I was perusing the latest releases, he walked into the store.
Just seconds later he was out and gone. As he streaked past me, I could hear the jingling of coins in a jar but by the time I realized what was happening he was too far gone for me to do anything about it.
An approaching woman told me that there was a car idling in the alley, apparently the getaway car. It was over so quickly. It was only then that I realized that all I would have had to do was lift up my right leg as he was accelerating by me and he would have done a faceplant onto the concrete.
A common thief. A street thief. Steal anything from anyone, without regret, without thought of consequence. He probably did not pick a particular charity jar to take. He likely took whatever was closest to the door. And then he was gone, just like that. No thought to the charity, no thought at all.

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.

The Berkeley Police Department confirmed the arrest of a local woman at the dispensary.
Berkeley Patients Group marketing manager Brad Senesac said his dispensary has “a really good relationship” with the police.
Bear in mind that if you have any outstanding warrants, you may not want to get your medicine at BPG.
For some feel-good reading from our sister blog SF Weekly in the Village Voice Media empire, check out Joe Eskenazi’s story here.

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

President Obama seeks campaign contributions from Oakland community after federal interference causes hundreds to lose jobs and healthcare benefits

News conference scheduled in conjunction with presidential visit: Monday, July 23, 2012 at 1:45 p.m.
Oaksterdam University, 1600 Broadway, Oakland, CA
President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit the heart of America’s medical marijuana community just days after his appointed U.S. Attorney, Melinda Haag, intentionally and admittedly targeted Harborside Health Center – a state-legal medical cannabis facility – in violation of administration policy.
On July 23, President Obama is scheduled to give a speech at the Fox Theater in Oakland. To coincide with this event, advocates are planning a permitted, peaceful protest originating at Oakland’s City Hall; a press conference at Oaksterdam University; and concurrent actions in Oregon, Washington, and Colorado.
Multiple businesses in the vicinity of the Fox Theater are also expected to display green flags on their storefronts in solidarity with local medical cannabis collectives targeted by the administration.
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