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L.A. voters to decide fate of dispensaries with proposals

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By on Dispensaries, News

L.A. Weekly/Susan Slade
L.A.’s famous KFC collective.

Medical marijuana measures D, E and F on L.A.’s May 21 ballot are incredibly high-stakes, and we do mean high. More than 1,000 dispensaries exist in L.A., taking in tens of millions of dollars annually and attracting 100,000-plus clients. Success at the polls will determine which of them get to stay open — and which must close their doors.
There are three rival measures. To win, a measure must get more yes than no votes. But if more than one reaches that level of support, the one with the highest total of yes votes wins. If no votes outweigh the positives for all three measures, nothing changes — we continue in the current limbo.
L.A. Weekly has the rest.

Seattle Police Change Hiring Policy Due To Pot Legalization

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By on Culture, Legislation, News

Complex
Sure smells good up in this squad car, officer.

The Seattle Police Department on Tuesday announced that due to the recent legalization of marijuana in Washington state, job applicants will no longer be disqualified for using cannabis in the last three years — now it’s just a one-year period in which you are required not to have gotten high.

This is a big change; it makes the SPD the first police department in Washington to modify its hiring process due to marijuana legalization, reports Matt Driscoll at the Seattle Weekly.
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Former 502 Backer Now Says New Pot Law Too Restrictive

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By on Legislation, News

Drug War Odyssey

“I now question whether Washington state’s initiative needed to be as restrictive as it is.”

~ Norm Stamper, former police chief of Seattle
Norm Stamper — the former police chief of Seattle and current member of legalization group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) who was one of the biggest supporters of I-502 in Washington state — now says that the measure is probably too restrictive.

While it’s a real shame that Norm couldn’t have taken a closer look at the restrictive and downright scary portions of I-502 before giving countless interviews and writing dozens of letters to the editor in support of the measure, the former cop’s about-face does highlight the glaring flaws in Washington’s “legalization” law, and serves to temper the euphoria which has gripped many in the Evergreen State’s cannabis community.
Just a month after the election, Stamper told the Seattle Weekly‘s Nina Shapiro, “I now question whether Washington state’s initiative needed to be as restrictive as it is.”
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With Legal Marijuana Near, Zoning Concerns Researcher

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By on Dispensaries, News

Center For Legal Cannabis
Under Washington state’s I-502, the Liquor Control Board will not license cannabis businesses that are within 1,000 feet of schools, parks, playgrounds, libraries, child care centers, recreation centers, public transit centers, and game arcades

Tuesday Lecture In Seattle Will Cover I-502 Prohibited Zones
In the wake of the historic voter decision to legalize cannabis in Washington state, licensed marijuana retailers may become a reality by December 2013. But good luck getting such a license in Seattle, said one researcher, with the zoning requirements put in place by Initiative 502.
“Nowhere will it be more difficult to site a licensed cannabis business than in urban areas, particularly in the Seattle metropolitan area,” said Ben Livingston with the Center for Legal Cannabis, a newly formed “think tank and project incubator.”
Livingston started mapping federal “school zones” two months ago after the DEA sent letters to dozens of medical cannabis businesses and their landlords, warning them to shut down.
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DEA Sends 3 More Letters To Seattle Marijuana Dispensaries

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By on Dispensaries, News

Opposing Views

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration sent three more letters to Seattle-area medical marijuana dispensaries last week, agency spokesperson Jodie Underwood has confirmed. The letters “strongly advised” the dispensaries to pay “prompt attention” that they are in violation of federal law, and directed them to close down with 30 days.

That brings the total to 29 Washington dispensaries which have received threatening letters so far from the feds, reports Nina Shapiro at Seattle Weekly. This includes 23 facilities which got letters sent on August 18, three more sent out on August 30, and three last week, according to Dr. Decrim of WA CANN, the Washington Cannabis Alert and News Network.
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Free Weed! Maine Group To Give Away Marijuana Saturday

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By on Dispensaries, Medical, News

Seattle Weekly

If you’re a low income medical marijuana patient in the state of Maine, you definitely want to be in Portland on Saturday.

According to the Maine Patients Coalition, based in Portland, Maine, low income patients have been priced right out of using the state-run medical marijuana program in the Pine Tree State. “And these are the sick Maine patients who need this program the most!” said Chris Kenoyer, director of the MPC.

Kenoyer said that Maine’s low income patients have been “completely abandoned” by Maine’s state-run program, administered by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and by the legal Maine dispensaries. “There has to be ‘compassionate caregiving’ here in Maine for ALL sick patients!” he said.
The Patients Coalition invites legal medical marijuana patients in Maine to come watch history being made at noon this Saturday, September 1, at the Atlantic CannaFest in Deering Oaks Park, Portland. “Maine law allows us to donate excess medical marijuana to other sick legal Maine patients,” Kenoyer said.
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Is I-502 Marijuana Legalization? Is It Good For Washington?

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By on Legislation, News

The Marijuana Project

By John Novak
The Washington State Office of Financial Management has finally released its much anticipated report on the marijuana “legalization” initiative, I-502. (See link to the report at the end of this article)
While it claims that the state could see a financial windfall in the billions from the taxation and regulation of cannabis, it also warns of some very serious consequences and the possibility of zero revenue.
Steve Sarich, a well known Seattle area medical marijuana personality and anti-I-502 activist, sued the Office last month, stating the early numbers being used “are so far off it’s incredulous.”
He and the other activists that joined the lawsuit demanding a new report that included all the risks, including possible results from federal lawsuits.
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Medical Marijuana Access Point Has Drive-Thru Window

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By on Dispensaries, Medical

Steve Elliott ~alapoet~
This collective, in Olympia, Washington, is a real innovator among medical marijuana access points

Washington’s Sonshine Organics Also Features A Marijuana Farmer’s Market Twice A Month

A medical marijuana access point in Olympia, Washington, has taken convenience to the next level, opening a drive-through window for patients.

Having visited about 70 collectives now in my capacity as “Toke Signals” marijuana/dispensaries reviewer for the Seattle Weekly, the drive-through window at Sonshine Organics is a feature I’ve never seen before. To my knowledge, this is the first one in the Pacific Northwest.
According to Sonshine’s Sarena Haskins, the drive-through window is open on Fridays and Saturdays for the convenience of patients. “For example, busy mothers who don’t want to leave their kids in the car,” she told me.
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Washington Town To Ban Safe Access to Medical Cannabis

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By on Dispensaries, Legislation

Steve Hunter/Kent Reporter
A woman opposes the Kent City Council’s proposed ban on medical marijuana dispensaries and collective gardens prior to a May 14 Council committee meeting. The full council votes June 5 on the ban, which is expected to pass.


By Anthony Martinelli
Sensible Washington

“We’re getting dozens and dozens of phone calls and emails and most are from medical marijuana patients…. The number in favor [of the ban]I can count on one finger.”
This is a quote from Kent City Council President Dennis Higgins, in an interview with the Kent Reporter,  in regards to the council’s plan to ban all medical cannabis safe access points within the city. 
The vote is scheduled for Tuesday, June 5, and the ban is seen as a sure thing: The vote is planned to fall at 4-3, according to Higgins in the same interview. 
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An Open Letter To I-502 Supporters: The Perfect vs. The Good

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By on Culture, Dispensaries, Legislation

The Weed Blog

By Bryan Punyon
Special to Toke of the Town
To all of my friends and associates who support I-502,
Hi there. You may know me as a cannabis activist, you may simply know me as a guy on Facebook who keeps asking critical questions about I-502. You may not know me at all.
Whatever the case, I am still genuinely undecided on Initiative 502. Some of you seem to take that to mean that I’m secretly against it, on account of all those pesky questions I keep asking.  That saddens me; it pains me that I would be arbitrarily assigned to the Opposition simply because I choose to ask questions and request clarification, especially when so much of the cannabis legalization movement and Drug War has centered around the control and interpretation of information and knowledge.
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