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It was a Tuesday morning in San Diego, just over a month ago on November 7th, when SDPD received reports of broken glass at a local business, with a possible burglary having had occurred overnight. Police investigators arriving on the scene quickly determined that the business in question was a medical marijuana dispensary, and the focus of their investigation quickly shifted from aiding possible burglary victims, to persecuting law abiding citizens and shuttering a legitimate business.
You see, San Diego was home to nearly 300 storefront medical marijuana dispensaries as recently as two years ago, but an intense crackdown by joint task forces, combining the might of local and federal authorities, led to nearly every single brick and mortar storefront being closed by the end of 2011.

Wikimedia commons/Robert W. Gordon.

Former NFL wide receiver Sam Hurd was sentenced yesterday to 15 years in federal prison, accused by the feds of being the kingpin behind a start up cocaine smuggling operation. The sentence is much lower than most expected.
Federal sentencing guidelines stipulated somewhere between 27 and 34 years. But U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis says Hurd was charged more with talking about being a cocaine dealer than ever actually being one.

Update – 2:55 p.m. 7/25/2013: According to the Associated Press, four dispensaries were targeted in raids yesterday, despite claims by one Washington attorney that as many as 18 were on the chopping block.
So far, Seattle Cross, Tacoma Cross, Key Peninsula Cross and Bayside Collective (formerly Lacey Cross) are the four dispensaries identified. All four were also parts of raids in 2011. The feds haven’t officially commented on it, but employees at Bayside Collective say agents told them that the raids were part of a two-year investigation.

Wikipedia commons.

Eleven Seattle-area medical marijuana shops were told to shut down by the Drug Enforcement Administration for being within 1,000 feet of schools. The letters take a similar tactic to one federal agents used in 2011 and 2012 in Washington and other states.
“The DEA enforces federal drug laws and these letters have nothing to do with any pending legislation or state law,” a DEA spokeswoman told the Seattle Times .

Cannabis users across the state of Washington sparked up to celebrate the passage of Initiative 502 last year, which legalized the personal use and possession of up to one ounce of marijuana for anyone over the age of 21. I-502 still prohibits the consumption of marijuana in public places, and driving under the influence of marijuana, but along with the state of Colorado, Washington seems poised to blaze a new trail for marijuana legalization.

Drugfree.org

No Grey Sky, a medical marijuana dispensary in California, has sued the United States Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration, claiming that the federal crackdown is an illegal crusade that threatens to prevent thousands of patients from having safe access.

The collective and its members are seeking an injunction agains the DoJ, Attorney General Eric Holder, and the DEA, whose agents raided its downtown storefront this month,j reports Matt Reynolds at Courthouse News.

MyNorthwest.com
Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes: Did he pull the trigger on Thursday’s DEA letters? Our source says yes.

Were medical marijuana dispensaries targeted for opposing I-502, which is sponsored by Seattle’s city attorney?

The Drug Enforcement Administration letters sent out to 23 Seattle-area medical marijuana access points on Thursday are already stinking to high heaven, just over 24 hours later, as allegations of improper influence cloud the air.

According to Toke of the Town‘s well-placed source in the Washington cannabis community, Seattle Attorney Pete Holmes saw, at Hempfest, the strong opposition to Washington state Initiative 502, the “legalization” measure with a strict and unscientific DUI provision that has torn the community asunder. And, according to this version of events, Pete decided he really didn’t like the medical marijuana industry very much.
Our source tells us that when Holmes got home from Hempfest, still smarting from public relations drubbing the No On 502 folks handed the Yes team at the protestival, he allegedly influenced his good friend U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan to send the letters which went out to dispensaries on Thursday.

MMJ Truth

The Obama Administration’s medical marijuana crackdown came to Seattle in a big way today.

On Thursday, the Drug Enforcement Administration sent notification letters to the operators and property owners of 23 “marijuana store fronts,” as they called them, “located in school zones.” The letters informed the owner/operators that such enterprises “operating as ‘dispensaries’ ” within 1,000 feet of a school, playground or “other prohibited area,” “could result in the seizure and forfeiture of assets, as well as criminal prosecution.”

The seizure could include the property where the dispensary operates, any money received from the business, and potential criminal prosecution. The letter orders dispensary operators and property owners to cease the sale and distribution of marijuana “within 30 days.”
“We all work hard to create a safe zone for kids in school,” claimed U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan of the Western District of Washington. “There is a reason that both federal and state laws prohibit the sale of marijuana in school zones. We need to enforce one message for our students: drugs have no place in or near our schools.”

NORML UK
Des Humphrey (right) with Dutch coffeeshop entrepreneur, Nol Van Schaik
 

By Chris Bovey
NORML UK
Frequent travelers are used to heightened security at airports these days. It’s standard practice for hand luggage to be x-rayed and to have to walk through a metal detector. But British army veteran and medicinal cannabis activist Des Humphrey, got more than he bargained for last weekend when he arrived at Bristol Airport in England to fly to Amsterdam to attend the 25th anniversary of the Birdy Coffeeshop in Haarlem, invited by owner Wilco Sijm.
After Des’ bags had been x-rayed, the UK border staff then emptied their entire contents, rummaging through all his clothes, checking the pockets and performing swab tests on them. His wheelchair was given a full once over: checking the wheels, under his seat, every square inch. Des himself was fully patted down and his pockets were emptied.
When they had finished and Des thought he was finally on his way, he was then stopped again by a British policeman who informed him the border agency staff were looking for cannabis and proceeded to question him on his cannabis usage. Well, those who know Des Humphrey also know that he is more than happy to talk about cannabis and, as you might expect, ended up having a nice chat with the police officer.

Phantom Report
U.S. DEA agents were involved in the shooting deaths of four innocent people, including two pregnant women, and the injury of at least three others in Honduras last week

Killings Scrutinized in Light of Growing Calls from Latin American Leaders for Alternatives to Drug Criminalization and Prohibition
 
Protesters in Honduras’ Mosquito Coast area have burned down government offices and demanded that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration leave the area, after an incident last Friday when DEA agents were involved in a drug interdiction effort with the Honduran national police that left four innocent people dead – two of whom were pregnant – at least three others seriously injured, and two children missing, according to local Honduran authorities.
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