Search Results: crackdown/ (8)

Alfie420_2006/Photobucket

By Jack Rikess
Toke of the Town
Northern California Correspondent

I think it’s essential at Thanksgiving that we remember what’s important and yes, what we are thankful for, as we lay out our fat pants in anticipation for a day of complete stuffage. Before we begin the mental preparation needed for enduring the forced march that is Uncle Bill and the onslaught of his incredibly misguided and alcohol-scented opinions, before it gets crazy, this is what I’m thankful for. 
I’m thankful that every day, marijuana becomes more accepted.
I’m thankful for the people who celebrate 4/20 as a holiday. It is a flame for the rest of the world to smell.

The Native Angeleno

The U.S. federal government on Tuesday took action to shut down 71 medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles, where the city council recently voted to ban the cannabis access points altogether.

The U.S. Attorney’s office for Southern California sued three property owners that rent to dispensaries, raided three shops, and sent warning letters to 68 more, enforcing federal law, which doesn’t recognize the 1996 California voter initiative that legalized marijuana for medicinal uses, reports Greg Risling of the Associated Press.
Federal authorities started targeting L.A.’s pot shops almost a year ago; the city council’s own dispensary ban is being challenged in court, and could be overturned by popular vote if a referendum appears on a future ballot. The latest round of letters targets all the dispensaries in downtown Los Angeles and in the Eagle Rock neighborhood, according to an announcement from the U.S. Attorney’s office in L.A., reports Dennis Romero of LA Weekly.

Nick Bhardwaj/The Fiscal Times

​​In a development that should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone with even a passing familiarity with drug policy and its effects, black-market marijuana growers and dealers are profiting greatly from the federal crackdown on legal medicinal cannabis dispensaries.

It’s Economics 101, after all: When the market demand exceeds the legal supply, people turn to illegal sources of a desired product. And there aren’t many products more desired than cannabis, both by patients who need the stuff for quality of life issues, to the recreational tokers who want their albums to sound as good as possible.
According to a recent report from California Watch, a division of the Center for Investigative Reporting, prices for black-market, high-grade, outdoor-grown Cali weed — after plummeting in 2010 — have risen by 20 to 40 percent since the state’s four U.S. Attorneys announced a crackdown on medical marijuana growers and dispensaries, reports the Chico News Review.

Medical marijuana advocates protest outside the U.S. Attorney’s office in Sacramento on October 7 as officials inside held a press conference on their plans to crack down on medical marijuana dispensaries in California

​Welcome to Room 420, where your instructor is Mr. Ron Marczyk and your subjects are wellness, disease prevention, self actualization, and chillin’.


Worth Repeating

By Ron Marczyk, R.N.

Health Education Teacher (Retired)

Once again, you are witnessing medical cannabis history. Starting with California, and then nationwide, Obama’s goal is to shut down every state’s medical cannabis care facilities across the country.
So far, President Obama’s cannabis policy appears to be the “shut them up, and shut them down” strategy.
Why? Because medical cannabis culture is winning! The 75-year-old war on cannabis is a failure and is over and cannabis has won the day!  Straight up. How unhinged are they? Our freedom of the press is also being threatened.

Lance Iverson/San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Board of Supervisors President David Chiu: “With its recently announced ‘crack down’ on these dispensaries, the federal government has proposed a solution in search of a problem”

​San Francisco Board of Supervisors President David Chiu responded this week to the Obama Administration’s crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries in California, calling the action “a solution in search of a problem.”

“Medical marijuana dispensaries are providing safe access to treatment options that many Californians depend on to live a comfortable, pain-free life,” Chiu wrote in a Wednesday email to Shona Gochenaur of the Axis of Love, a San Francisco dispensary.
“With its recently announced ‘crack down’ on these dispensaries, the federal government has proposed a solution in search of a problem, while California law supports allowing these distribution centers to give patients the medicine they need,” Chiu said.
“I am very disappointed in Attorney General Holder’s decision and hope that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco focuses on more important issues than restricting access to a legal medical treatment,” Chiu said.

Phot: news.com.au

​One out of every three police officers in New South Wales, Australia will be tested for illegal drugs over the coming year.

The NSW Police Force’s Professional Standards Command has more than doubled the number of random drug tests, from about 2,000 to 5,000 for this fiscal year, reports 702 ABC Sydney.
The decision was taken after two senior officers and a constable were recently caught snorting cocaine, according to Assistant Commissioner Paul Carey.
“In July there were five recall targeted tests on people who we had reasonably good intelligence to say that they may have been using drugs,” Assistant Commissioner Carey said.

Photo: Harborside Health Center
Steve DeAngelo’s Harborside Health Center, the biggest dispensary in the Bay Area, brought in about $20 million this year.

City’s Medical Pot Sales Reach $35 Million In 2010 
Most sectors of the economy are pretty grim right now, but that assessment doesn’t include the medical marijuana business in Oakland, California.

The city is projecting that Oakland’s three dispensaries will sell between $35 million and $38 million worth of cannabis this year, reports Zusha Elinson at The Bay Citizen. That means about three and a quarter tons of marijuana — 104,000 ounces, or 4.2 million joints.
The total has been getting higher and higher since Oakland started keeping track in 2004, when the dispensaries paid taxes on $4.2 million worth of sales. The figures are derived from the business tax paid to the city by dispensaries on their gross receipts.