Yearly Archives: 2011
| Yahoo! Local |
| Nature’s Way, a medical marijuana dispensary in Colorado Springs, had an attempted robbery by two men Saturday night. The would-be robbers left empty handed. |
Two would-be robbers were foiled Saturday night at a Colorado Springs medical marijuana dispensary when the cops arrived faster than expected.
The employees at Nature’s Way said two men broke into their store by going into the coin laundry next door, then using their bathroom to gain access to the dispensary’s ceiling, reports Catherine Bilkey at KKTV. From there the would-be robbers were able to climb over the tiles and break into Nature’s Way.
But that’s about all that went according to plan for the two bumbling crooks.
“It was almost like a movie scene,” said Nature’s Way employee Mark Cebula. “The alarms are going off; because that alarm is pretty loud … they must have started panicking.”
Most of the cannabis at the dispensary is locked up in a safe at night, so Cebula believes the frustrated pot-rustlers tried to leave through the front door, but probably saw the cops pulling up. With locked doors all around, they were stuck in the lobby.
| Brittney Lohmiller/The Saginaw News |
| Dr. Bob Townsend meets with a patient in Saginaw, Michigan. “My patients didn’t tell me it helped them; they showed me by getting rid of narcotics,” Townsend said. |
One Michigan physician says that counter to what he was told in medical school, his patients have shown him that medical marijuana produces results.
“I, like most physicians, was taught that ‘medical marijuana’ was a political movement and marijuana has no medical use,” wrote Dr. Robert Townsend in the Lansing State Journal on Saturday. “But we were also taught to listen to our patients and base our decisions on evidence, not dogma.”
“Take chronic, severe pain — a qualifying condition for medical marijuana,” Dr. Townsend wrote. “IF my professors in medical school were correct, if marijuana is a Schedule I narcotic because it has no medical value, I would not expect marijuana use to result in a decreased need for pain medication.
| High Country Caregiver |
Colorado patients whose medical marijuana authorizations were signed by physician’s assistants have been told by the state’s public health department that they should have been examined by doctors, not assistants. And as punishment, patients will have to wait six months before they can apply again for medicinal cannabis.
Yes, really!
“This delay will undoubtedly anger many patients who’ve already been waiting for months to get their red card renewed,” reports Michael Roberts at Denver Westword, “and all because a number of doctors are accused of failing to conduct examinations themselves, thereby rendering their recommendations ‘fraudulent.’ “
| Joe Grumbine |
| Joe Grumbine addresses supporters outside the courtroom |
The out-of-control antics of an octogenarian, rabidly anti-marijuana judge continued to appall activists in Long Beach, California this week. Superior Court Judge Charles Sheldon, the 79-year-old judge in the trial of Joe Grumbine and Joe Byron, former operators of a pair of Long Beach cannabis collectives, didn’t even bother to conceal his obvious bias against the defendants, according to observers.
“We got pounded this week and especially the last half of today,” Grumbine posted on Facebook Friday night. “In spite of three motions for a mistrial due to bias, we move forward in this landmark case.”
Right at the outset of the trial, Judge Sheldon denied the two Joes their right to mention medical marijuana in their defense — upon which, of course, the whole case hinges. This prevented their attorneys from calling it witnesses who could testify that they were following California state law. But after a ruling last week by the California Court of Appeal, Sheldon was left with no choice but to allow such witnesses to testify.
On Monday, when confronted with this ruling, Sheldon refused a follow-up motion by the defense to delay the trial for a week so defense attorneys Alison Margolin and Christopher Glew could get ahold of the previously off-limits witnesses. But Judge Sheldon insisted the trial start right away.
| U.S. Forest Service |
| A federal drug agent prepares to destroy a marijuana crop in Northern California |
You too, Mendo? Say it ain’t so! The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors has voted 3-2 to support the use of federal intelligence agencies in the war against marijuana.
The most liberal member of the board of supervisors, Green Party member Dan Hamburg, joined the most libertarian member, Supervisor John Pinches of the American Independent Party to cast the two votes against the “consent calendar” item at Tuesday’s board meeting, reports Jennifer Poole at The Willits News.
Both opposed the item asking the board to support California Congressman Mike Thompson’s attempts to involve federal spy agencies in the fight against illegal marijuana cultivation by so-called “international drug trafficking organizations” on public lands.
| Ronald Martinez |
| LeBron James can’t be bummed out about the news: No testing for pot in the NBA’s off-season |
Just because you’re seven feet tall doesn’t have to mean you can’t get higher. The National Basketball Association’s new labor agreement will not test players for marijuana during the off-season. Players will only be tested for performance-enhancing drugs.
The walk-out is all behind us now. And it seems the players were able to get an even better deal under the new NBA labor contract, reports Rena Karefa-Johnson of Buzz:60.
“You’d think after all the walk-out, the last thing the players would want in the off-season is something that would make it go even slower,” Karefa-Johnson said.
| David Downs/East Bay Express |
| Kevin Reed, The Green Cross: “It’s high time Governor Brown take action to advance meaningful policies” |
The Green Cross, San Francisco’s first licensed medical cannabis dispensary, is urging California Governor Jerry Brown to join a federal petition to reschedule marijuana filed by Governors Christine Gregoire (D-WA) and Lincoln Chafee (I-RI).
Since the petition was filed on November 30, Governor Peter Shumlin (D-VT) has signaled he also supports it. All three governors represent states that have adopted laws allowing the use of medical marijuana by qualified patients.
Under the federal Controlled Substances Act, the U.S. government considers marijuana a Schedule I substance, a category reserved for dangerous drugs with a high potential for addiction and no medical value.
| YouTube |
| Attorney General Eric Holder: “If in fact people are not using he policy decision that we have made to use marijuana in a way that’s not consistent with the state statute, we will not use our limited resources in that way.” Or something. |
It’s easy to get whiplash trying to keep up with federal medical marijuana policy, and my neck’s hurting again after hearing the latest from Attorney General Eric Holder. Holder on Thursday repeated the support of the Department of Justice for the Ogden Memo, the 2009 policy statement which deprioritized the prosecution of medical marijuana providers who are following state law.
“What we said in the memo we still intend, which is that given the limited resources that we have, and if there are states that have medical marijuana provisions … if in fact people are not using the policy decision that we have made to use marijuana in a way that’s not consistent with the state statute, we will not use our limited resources in that way,” Holder said in his usual convoluted (dare I say tortured?) fashion, reports Lucia Graves at Huffington Post.
| bkusler |
| California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano: “This is a crisis, and it’s putting patients at risk” |
We’re two months into a confusing crackdown by the federal Department of Justice on medical marijuana dispensaries, and California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano is expected to meet soon with the U.S. Attorney’s office.
The private meeting is expected to take place next week between Ammiano (D-S.F.) and federal prosecutor Melinda Haag, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California, reports Dan Aiello at The Bar Area Reporter.
The decision by Haag to meet with Ammiano comes just a week after U.S. District Court Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong ruled against three Bay Area medical marijuana dispensaries, one of the dispensary’s patients, and another’s landlord.
“U.S. Attorney Haag’s office has responded to our request and Assemblyman Ammiano will be meeting her sometime next week,” said Quintin Mecke, Ammiano’s communications director.
Participants at the meeting have not been confirmed; “no other elected official[s]” will be there, according to Mecke. “This meeting is on behalf of our office,” he said.
Federal prosecutors have threatened dispensaries with eviction, landlords with property seizures, and both with imprisonment. Scattered raids have been reported, with patient records being seized at one dispensary in Sacramento.