Search Results: pappas (8)

From the pits of hell comes…

As the OC Weekly has previously reported, the DEA is attempting to seize a $1.5 million Anaheim business complex from a computer engineer and his dentist wife over a $37 pot sale by a former marijuana dispensary tenant. The engineer, Tony Jalali, is being represented by attorney Matthew Pappas, as well as a team from the libertarian law firm Institute For Justice. The case is rapidly turning into a major showdown over the Obama administration’s heavy-handed crackdown on California’s medical marijuana industry.

Check out the Weekly for the local angle from reporter Nick Schou.

The Daily Chronic

Nine medical marijuana collectives are claiming in court that the Long Beach Police Department is using illegal, unconstitutional tactics to put them out of business.

The nine collectives and two men are seeking an injunction and damages for Fourth Amendment violations and “judicial deception,” reports Matt Reynolds at Courthouse News Service.

Lead plaintiff Green Earth Center sued the city of Long Beach and five of its police officers — David Strohman, Oscar Valanzuela, Aldo Decarvalho, Chris Valdez and Douglas Luther — in federal court.

WeedMaps
In happier days: The bud room at Long Beach’s NatureCann

​Plainclothes officers not providing identification as members of the Long Beach Police Department, along with Long Beach Department of Finance employees, initiated what attorney Matthew Pappas called an “illegal raid” against NatureCann Non-Profit Patient Group last week.

On March 21 at 4:41 p.m., acting without a warrant or a court order, the officers forcefully broke into the collective where three patient volunteers were assisting fellow patients. An observer recording the raid outside of the collective was knocked down by an officer, who told him the police “can do whatever they want.”

Scores of businesses along the Atlantic Avenue Corridor were disrupted by the heavily armed police presence and activity.

The Weed Blog

In a case that could change everything, a hearing has been ordered in the voting rights case brought by medical marijuana patients against the federal government.

U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Guilford set March 26 to hear arguments regarding whether federal authorities should be enjoined from sending letters ordering the closure of medical marijuana collectives in Costa Mesa, California.

The patients in the case allege they have been denied the right to vote on medical marijuana legalization despite Congress’s December 2009 decision to grant that right to Washington, D.C., voters. A team of likeminded attorneys has now started working cooperatively to defend disabled patients’ rights on this case and additional suits.
“It is anomalous for the U.S. Attorney to claim that marijuana has no medical value based on the more than 40-year-old Controlled Substances Act considering Congress allowed the District of Columbia to vote on and implement its ‘Legalization of Marijuana for Medical Purposes Act’ in 2009,” Matthew Pappas, an attorney on the case, told Toke of the Town Wednesday morning.

theskunk.org

If one prominent attorney is right about the legal ramifications of the District of Columbia’s marijuana law — specifically, that it was approved by the U.S. Congress — then it could be a game-changer nationwide.


D.C.’s medical marijuana law was the first time that the United States Congress had ever given its explicit assent to any state or local law that permits the medicinal use of marijuana — and, according to a California attorney who specializes in health care compliance, that is enormously significant under the Equal Protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.

In 2009, noting that it was “allowing” the voters of Washington, D.C., to vote on and implement that city’s Legalization of Marijuana for Medical Treatment law, Congress approved medicinal cannabis in the federal District of Columbia, over which it has all governmental power.

Photo: Paul Rodriguez, The Orange County Register

​​A federal judge has rejected a request by four Orange County, California medical marijuana patients for a temporary injunction preventing the cities of Lake Forest and Costa Mesa from shutting down marijuana dispensaries.

The four patients — Marla James, Wayne Washington, James Armantrout and Charles Daniel — argued through their lawyer, Matthew Pappas, that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) gives disabled people a federally protected right to use medical marijuana if such use is legal under state law, report Erika I. Ritchie and Ellyn Pak at The Orange County Register.
The patients were asking the judge to temporarily stop the cities from taking further action against dispensaries; bar the cities from violating the rights of qualified patients under the ADA; avoid damages for past actions in violation of the ADA; and award attorneys’ fees.

Photo: Michael Goulding/The Orange County Register
A woman leaves the Evergreen Holistic Collective in Lake Forest, California. The collective is one of 11 remaining in the city, which is trying to shut them all down

​A federal judge is expected on Monday to hear arguments on whether four marijuana patients can use the Americans with Disabilities Act to prevent two Orange County, California cities from closing medical pot dispensaries.

The lawsuit, being filed against Lake Forest and Costa Mesa on behalf of Orange County residents Marla James, Wayne Washington, James Armantrout and Charles Daniel DeJong, alleges the cities’ efforts to shut down dispensaries deny them access to public services, reports Erika I. Ritchie at The Orange County Register.

Photo: Christopher Victorio/OC Weekly
Medical marijuana advocates protest at a Lake Forest City Council meeting

​Four medical marijuana patients have filed a federal lawsuit attempting to stop the recent crackdowns on cannabis dispensaries in the cities of Costa Mesa and Lake Forest, California.

In the lawsuit, which was filed Friday, Orange County residents Marla James, Wayne Washington, James Armantrout and Charles Daniel DeJong allege that the cities’ efforts to close down medical marijuana dispensaries deny them the access to public services, reports Ellyn Pak at The Orange County Register.