Search Results: moratorium (98)


By next year, there may be as many as a thousand medical cannabis patients in northern Minnesota, though it’s seeming less and less likely that any of them will pick up their supplies in Duluth. Earlier this month, the city’s planning committee proposed a six-month moratorium on cannabis manufacturers or distributors, giving city officials time to consider how a facility would affect the homestead.
On Monday, city council president Linda Krug cited zoning concerns and asked, “Where would it have the least amount of destruction to neighborhoods and people’s lives?” But the city might not be having this discussion at all if it weren’t for Jim Carlson, owner of the Last Place on Earth, a downtown headship. He was sentenced recently to 17 and a half years in prison for allegedly selling synthetic drugs. Carlson maintains that he did nothing wrong: He sold incense and bath salts, some of which came with a warning not to consume. But consume people did — causing the city establishment to gasp.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health on Thursday heard an earful from some wicked-pissed prospective dispensary owners who say that they can’t find a place to do business in the medical marijuana-legal state.
More than 400 people packed the boardroom of a Holiday Inn in Somerville, Mass. yesterday for the first and only public hearing regarding state licensing.

Eureka Times-Standard
The one-year moratorium extension includes an exemption designed to allow Hummingbird Healing Center, a Eureka dispensary closed in September under federal pressure, to reopen

The Board of Supervisors in Humboldt County, California — famed worldwide for the quality of its cannabis — on Tuesday, for the second time, unanimously extended a moratorium in new medical marijuana dispensaries.

The one-year extension included an exemption designed to allow Hummingbird Healing Center, a Eureka dispensary closed in September, to reopen, reports Grant Scott-Goforth at the Eureka Times-Standard.
Humboldt County first enacted the medical marijuana dispensary moratorium in December 2011, after the Obama Administration started threatening local governments, including the cities of Eureka and Arcata, with legal action for having ordinances which allow dispensaries.

Photo: Shroomery.org

The people of Eliot, Maine, have just said “yes” to dispensaries by saying “no” to a moratorium on the pot shops.


Organizers behind an effort to open a nonprofit medical marijuana dispensary in Eliot cleared a big hurdle Saturday when voters at a town meeting turned down a proposed moratorium that would have stopped the pot shop until local elected officials had “more time to study the issue.”

After a “substantial” debate on the topic, a simple hand vote saw the proposed moratorium failing to pass, with some voters saying they didn’t want to support a “temporary” ban that seemed too open-ended. One resident argued the moratorium would let selectmen study the issue “in perpetuity,” reports Geoff Cunningham Jr at Foster’s Daily Democrat.
About 100 Town Meeting voters were gathered at Marshwood Middle School on Saturday to vote on 40-plus articles. The most heavily debated and discussed item was the proposed marijuana dispensary moratorium, which was a reaction to inquiries from organizers looking to establish a pot shop in Eliot.

Photo: KRDO

​Medical marijuana is legal under the Colorado Constitution, but newly passed regulations allow cities to ban the dispensaries that sell it. Now cannabis advocates are planning lawsuits if cities choose to ban the shops, reports Mireya Garcia of KRDO.

“They are missing the most important part of this — the patients,” said Michael Stetler, a dispensary owner in Pueblo.
The Colorado Springs Medical Cannabis Council works with local communities in Southern Colorado that have moratoriums in place. CSMCC officials said the longer communities take to figure out how to regulate dispensaries, the worse patients will suffer.

Photo: Carol Hirata/Windsor Beacon
MediGrow owner Lazarus Pino said he’s ignoring Windsor’s moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries. “I’m here for the patients. I provide medical care.”

​MediGrow, one of three medical marijuana dispensaries operating in Windsor, Colorado, has been ordered to close in compliance with a 75-day moratorium the town board passed on Dec. 16. But MediGrow’s owner, Lazarus Pino, said Tuesday he plans to stay open.

“I’m here for the patients,” Pino said, reports Lisa Mehring of the Windsor Beacon. “I provide medical care. What’s so bad about helping people medically? I’ve invested a lot of money in this place. I wish they would let me operate.”
Since the moratorium on Dec. 16, the Windsor Police Department has issued a citation every single day the business has remained open. Every citation comes with an appearance in Windsor Municipal Court.
If a judge finds MediGrow in violation, the dispensary could face a $293 fine with a $7 surcharge for every day the business remains open.
Chief of Police John Michaels said there’d been no problem in issuing the daily citations. “We go in, we issue our citation, and we make a little small talk,” Michaels said.

Artwork: Jim Wheeler
Safe access to marijuana remains a distant dream to many patients — even in states which have legalized medical use

​One by one, the lights are winking out. In city after city, town after town, in states where medical marijuana is now legal, patients who had dared hope they would at last have safe access to the medicine recommended by their doctors are having those hopes dashed.
The problem? Political cowardice and the panicked reaction of the status quo.
Every week brings more news of freaked out city councils and county boards of supervisors who desperately want to appear to be “doing something” — anything — about the proliferation of marijuana dispensaries.
This phenomenon is so far mostly confined to California and to a lesser extent Colorado, but it’s unfortunately also starting to happen in Michigan, Montana and even Maine — where voters specifically approved dispensaries in November.
Rather than showing true leadership by showing genuine concern for patients and communities, too many local government officials are going for the easy, knee-jerk reaction. The level of disregard for the intentions of the voters — who clearly expressed their will by legalizing medical marijuana — is breathtaking.

Graphic: Jim Wheeler
Safe access to marijuana remains a distant dream to many patients — even in states which have legalized medical use

​One by one, the lights are winking out. In city after city, town after town, in states where medical marijuana is now legal, patients who had dared hope they would at last have safe access to the medicine recommended by their doctors are having those hopes dashed.

The problem? Political cowardice and the panicked reaction of the status quo.

Every week brings more news of freaked out city councils and county boards of supervisors who desperately want to appear to be “doing something” — anything — about the proliferation of marijuana dispensaries.

This phenomenon is so far mostly confined to California and to a lesser extent Colorado, but it’s unfortunately also starting to happen in Michigan and Montana.
Rather than showing true leadership by showing genuine concern for patients and communities, too many local government officials are going for the easy, knee-jerk reaction. The level of disregard for the intentions of the voters — who clearly expressed their will by legalizing medical marijuana — is breathtaking.

Three days after state lawmakers failed to pass a bill establishing rules for medical marijuana, Miami Springs Vice Mayor Bob Best shook his head at a council meeting Monday night as the city attorney explained it was time to extend the city’s moratorium on dispensaries.

“The purpose of the moratorium was for us to have something ready when that hit, and, apparently, based on the legislative session, nothing’s gonna happen,” Best complained.

Thornton is finally getting a recreational dispensary. On March 23, the Thornton City Council approved a license for its first retail pot store, but not without some hesitation from councilmembers.

The Marijuana Local Licensing Authority had convened a meeting with Mayor Heidi K. Williams and the council to hear testimony from each of the four dispensaries requesting a license from the city, which had previously had a moratorium on recreational marijuana. That ban was lifted last August, and the applicants all came armed with community-engagement plans to explain what each business would bring to the town.

The evening began with a PowerPoint presentation by Rocky Road Remedies, outlining a $12,000 restorative-justice program the company would like to introduce in schools. After that, Stephanie Hull, director of operations for Rocky Road, was questioned for over an hour by councilmembers.

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