Toke of the Town

Search Results: snitch/ (81)

Internet deputy attempts to sabotage medical marijuana Facebook group

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By on Medical, News, Say what?


The narks of the social media have reared their ugly heads and set their crossed-eyed sights on purging Americans’ newsfeeds of vital information regarding the medicinal properties of marijuana. To be more specific, there is some meathead Ivy Leaguer who considers himself an “Internet Deputy,” fighting from behind his computer to shutdown an established Facebook group dedicated to spreading the good word of patients medicating with cannabis oil.

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Medical Marijuana Patients Can Get Booted From Public Housing

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By on Medical, News

SF Weekly

Medical marijuana patients in California enjoy protection from criminal prosecution under state law, but that’s about it.

Patients can be fired at any time for legally using cannabis as authorized by a physician, and patients living in public housing can be evicted at any time, reports Chris Roberts at SF Weekly. The likelihood of actually becoming homeless due to being a medicinal cannabis patient depends on exactly where you live, according to activists and tenants.
Municipal government units such as the San Francisco Housing Authority hire private companies to manage, as well as to build, some of the units, Roberts reports.
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Three Years, Man! Toke Of The Town Born On This Day In 2009

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By on Culture

~ alapoet ~
Toke of the Town editor Steve Elliott celebrating three years of high points and big hits

Three years ago today — actually, three years ago tonight, at 7:08 p.m. Pacific time — my THC-stained fingers hit the “Post” button for the first-ever story on Toke of the Town.

“The good thing about a free marketplace of ideas is,” I wrote, in the first sentence ever to appear on this site, “despite the best efforts of prohibitionists and their fear-mongering propaganda, the truth eventually prevails.”
More than 3,600 stories later — and with hundreds of joints, medibles, and bongloads littering my path — I’m still loving this gig, and judging by pageviews, so are close to half a million of you every month.
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Federal Appeal By Marijuana Dispensary Attracts Support

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By on Dispensaries, Legislation, News

S.E. Miller/SLO New Times
Though Charles Lynch and his dispensary were supported by local officials and the Chamber of Commerce in Morro Bay, where Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers was located, the DEA raided and shut down CCCC in 2007

Widely supported former dispensary operator appeals conviction to 9th Circuit amidst ongoing federal crackdown
Medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) filed an amicus ‘friend of the court’ brief on Monday in a federal appeal brought by California dispensary operator Charlie C. Lynch. Lynch’s case drew a lot of attention during his 2008 trial and June 2009 sentencing under an Obama Justice Department.
Though Lynch was supported by local officials and the Chamber of Commerce in Morro Bay, where his state-compliant dispensary Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers (CCCC) was located, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raided and shut down CCCC in 2007 anyway, much like the DEA is doing today. A hearing in the Lynch appeal is expected this winter.
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Credit Cards No Longer Accepted In Cali Marijuana Dispensaries

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By on Dispensaries, News, Products

Hail Mary Jane

There’s no longer any need to carry your plastic into medicinal cannabis dispensaries in California, because they don’t want it. Credit cards are no longer being accepted at the collectives, whose accounts with credit card processors have been canceled, thanks to heavy pressure from the federal government.

The intermediaries between retailers and credit card companies — the merchant services providers who process customer payments — have told dispensaries that credit card transactions for cannabis will no longer be processed after July 1, according to Stephen DeAngelo, executive director of Oakland’s Harborside Health Center, reports Chris Roberts at SF Weekly.
So which government agency forced medical marijuana to become a cash-only business? None has stepped forward so far to claim the “credit.”
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Exclusive: Assemblyman Ammiano Speaks On Medical Marijuana

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By on Dispensaries, Legislation, Medical

SF Weekly
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano: “The voters spoke clearly in 1996”

By Jack Rikess
Toke of the Town
Northern California Correspondent
When California Assembly Bill 2312 was pulled out of committee last week, local cannabis organizations and activists began a heated debate, theorizing why the bill was removed before having a chance to be voted on by the legislature. Toke of the Town was able to interview Assemblyman Tom Ammiano late Thursday afternoon.
We appreciate that Assemblyman Ammiano was able to talk to us during a very busy day. Some of the interview questions have been edited for clarity. All of Mr. Ammiano’s statements are verbatim. 
Toke: Is there any truth to the rumor that Americans for Safe Access and other groups were strongly opposed to the clause in AB 2312 allowing Board of Supervisors or town council members of any California town to ban dispensaries in their towns if they felt compelled to instead of allowing the voters to decide? Is there any truth to the rumor that ASA convinced you to remove the bill or was it the other way around? 
Ammiano: There has always been a clause in AB 2312 that permits local jurisdictions to opt-out of the state standard proposed in AB 2312, what changed coming out of the Assembly Appropriations committee is the threshold which was lowered from a vote of the people in that local jurisdiction, to an ordinance enacted by the local government. I understand that there are concerns regarding bans by local governments, and wish there would have been more opposition to AB 1300 which passed last year with me as the only “NO” vote on the floor. I support a vote threshold to enact bans, but AB 1300 allows local jurisdiction to enact ordinances without going to the voters, which is why I opposed it. 
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Pelosi Condemns Federal Crackdown On Medical Marijuana

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By on Dispensaries, Medical, News

source
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi: “I have strong concerns about the recent actions by the federal government that threaten the safe access of medicinal marijuana”

U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Wednesday released a statement pushing back against the Obama Administration’s escalated interference with medical marijuana laws in California and other states, which is threatening safe access to medicinal cannabis for patients.

“Crucially, she pointed to the stark contrast between the administration’s current actions and its previous written policy that ‘did not pursue individuals whose actions complied with state laws,’ remarked media relations director Tom Angell of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP).
“Access to medicinal marijuana for individuals who are ill or enduing difficult and painful therapies is both a medical and a states’ rights issue,” Pelosi said. “Sixteen states, including our home state of California, and the District of Columbia have adopted medicinal marijuana laws — most by a vote of the people.
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4/20 and 5: Five Minutes To Change Your World

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By on Culture

GoldenGatePark.com
San Francisco’s 4/20 celebration typically culminates in Golden Gate Park at Hippie Hill


By Jack Rikess
Toke of the Town

Northern California Correspondent

“People are coming to Haight-Ashbury like the Grateful Dead is back in town,” said longtime resident Jack Rikess. “They’re walking down the street and smoking joints. It’s going to be unreal. This could be the last illegal 4/20 in San Francisco.”
That was the quote I gave to the Sacramento Bee way back in 2010 when asked about living next to Golden Gate Park where San Francisco holds one of the biggest smoke-outs in the nation celebrating April 20th, the traditional marijuana smoker’s holiday.
Back then, I actually thought the marijuana wars were over. The public was having a change of heart and mind, and I thought that marijuana, if not legalized soon, would be decriminalized to the point of equating smoking a joint to the same enforceable penalty as pulling the “Do Not Remove” tag off of a pillow.
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S.F. Mayor: Medical Marijuana A ‘Nuisance’ Like Strip Clubs

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By on Dispensaries, News

Garry Sun
Roughly equivalent to a medical marijuana dispensary? The Mayor’s Office in San Francisco seems to think so.

Nobody in the office of San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee seems willing to take responsibility for a city document which refers to medical marijuana dispensaries as “nuisance retail” and likens them to strip clubs and liquor stores.

That’s the terminology used in a document released last year by the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, and that document is now being used by the Planning Department as a reason to deny a permit to a medicinal cannabis collective proposed for a vacant building in an alley off Sixth Street, reports Chris Roberts at SF Weekly.
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Richard Lee Quits After Pot Raid; Turning Over Oaksterdam

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By on Culture, News

Jack Rikess
Oaksterdam founder Richard Lee at Tuesday’s protest in San Francisco against Monday’s federal raids in Oakland

Less than a week after federal agents raided cannabis training center Oaksterdam University, seizing property, marijuana plants, bank accounts, student records and computers, legendary founder Richard Lee has decided to quit the business.

Lee, 49, who the SF Weekly‘s Erin Sherbert calls “the most visible pot legalization advocate in the state,” told John Hoeffel of the Los Angeles Times that after 20 years, he decided it’s time for others to take over. He added that he’s concerned he could be facing federal drug charges after Monday’s raids of his university, his dispensary (Blue Sky Coffee Shop) and his home.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Lee said on Thursday. “Over 20 years … I kind of feel like I’ve done my time. It’s time for others to take over.”
“I never wanted to be the quote unquote leader of the legalization movement,” Lee told the Times. “I saw myself as just one small soldier in a big war. But I look at it as a battlefield promotion.”
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