Browsing: Dispensaries

Photo: Marcel van den Bergh/de Volkskrant
Customers queue up to place their cannabis orders at Coffeeshop Checkpoint

​A Dutch court fined the owner of the Netherlands’ largest marijuana-dispensing “coffee shop” 10 million euros Thursday, after police seized more than 200 kilograms of cannabis on the premises.

According to the court, the owner of Coffeeshop Checkpoint would have had to pay a larger penalty if it had not been for the role of the local government.
“Checkpoint could not have expanded as much as it did without collaboration from the municipality of Terneuzen,” near the Belgian border, the court said.

Photo: Jim Spellman/CNN

​A bill has been introduced in the Kansas Legislature which would legalize the use of medical marijuana by seriously ill individuals with certain debilitating medical conditions.

House Bill 2610, titled the Medical Marijuana Act, would create registered marijuana dispensaries known as compassion centers. These are defined as a non-profit organization “that acquires, possesses, cultivates, manufactures, delivers, transfers, transports, supplies or dispenses marijuana or related supplies and educational material to cardholders,” reports Lauren Garrison at the Kansas State Collegian.

Photo: V. Richard Haro/The Coloradoan
Donnie Hayes of Fort Collins, Colorado, is a blind medical marijuana patient who was initially denied a ride to the dispensary in a county vehicle for disabled people.

​Larimer County, Colorado officials have given the go-ahead for a disabled medical marijuana patient to resume catching a ride to get his medicine at a dispensary in a county-owned vehicle.

The Larimer Lift, a paratransit service for disabled people living outside city limits, will now take clients to medical marijuana dispensaries “and anywhere else they wish to go,” according to Gary Darling, director of criminal justice services for the county, reports Kevin Dugan at the Fort Collins Coloradoan.
Larimer Lift officials had previously stopped taking Donnie Hayes, a blind medical marijuana patient, to a dispensary in Fort Collins, blaming their uncertainty over whether doing so could jeopardize federal funding for the program.

Graphic: L.A. Weekly

​It’s the beginning of the end for hundreds of Los Angeles medical marijuana dispensaries.

Most of the pot shops are about to be wiped out by L.A.’s new dispensary ordinance, which severely limits where they can be located, reports Dennis Romero at L.A. Weekly.
Councilman Ed Reyes is predicting that “noncompliant” shops — which means all of them, other than the 187 that were in business before the city imposed a moratorium — will start being shut down in May.
About 545 dispensaries are operating in Los Angeles, according to a comprehensive county by the L.A. Weekly (PDF). The City Council voted to winnow those down to 187 by declaring all the shops that opened after the moratorium — exploiting a boilerplate “hardship” exemption included in its language — noncompliant.
The number will eventually, through attrition, be reduced to 70 shops. Until that time, when any of the 187 permitted dispensaries go out of business, they won’t be replaced.

Photo: ZieZoZuid
Coffee shop owner Said Faggouss was kidnapped by masked gunmen from his business on Dec. 8.

​A Dutch man who was kidnapped from his cannabis-dispensing coffee shop in Amsterdam last December, escaped from his captors in Belgium on Tuesday, according to Dutch police.

“Despite the cuffs around his ankles, he managed to escape and alert the police at a petrol station,” Amsterdam police said in a statement, according to IOL.
Said Faggouss had been held since December against his will at a building in Maasmechelen in northeast Belgium.

Photo: Merchant Circle
Dave Warden displays his wares at a Los Angeles medical marijuana dispensary

​Two Los Angeles City Council committees were poised Tuesday to take a major step towards enforcing a new ordinance that would shut down hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries around the city within months.

The City Council passed the ordinance in February, but it can’t take effect until registration fees for the pot shops have been established, reports KPCC Wire Services.
The Planning and Land Use Management Committee and Budget and Finance Committee are both expected to take a vote on the registration fees Tuesday.
A manager of an existing collective with no significant issues or construction will have to pay the city about $1,595 in registration fees, according to a report submitted to both committees by City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana.
“My goal for the joint committee meeting is to move forward with the medical marijuana collective fees and final draft ordinance,” said Councilman Ed Reyes, chairman of the Planning and Land Use Management Committee.
“I continue to work closely with the affected city departments and review public testimony to ensure that the collective fees are fair, reasonable and prioritize the health and safety of our communities,” Reyes said.

Photo: David Walter Banks
Boulder County Caregivers employees Randy (left) and Peter Kurzawski, behind the counter, help customers at the dispensary in Boulder, Colorado.

​A Colorado House committee wants to bar communities in the state from banning medical marijuana dispensaries.

The House Judiciary Committee said Monday that communities already have the power to license and zone the dispensaries, making a ban unnecessary.
Lawmakers aren’t sure if the laws apply to home rule communities like Denver, reports The Associated Press.
The committee rejected a proposal that would have allowed veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to use medical marijuana, saying lawmakers “shouldn’t be making medical decisions.”

Graphic: 300zxFreak

​Two zealously anti-pot Los Angeles police officers on Wednesday warned Hawaii it could “see an increase in crime” if it legalizes medical marijuana dispensaries and softens its marijuana laws.

“It’s so bad in L.A.,” claimed Sgt. Eric Bixler of the Narcotics Division of Los Angeles Police Department. Bixler said law enforcement officers there “deal daily with the effects” of California’s Proposition 215, which allows patients and caregivers to possess and cultivate marijuana for personal medical use, reports Melissa Tanji at The Maui News.
People driving while smoking, and teens buying marijuana at dispensaries to resell on the street are just some of the problems caused by California’s medical marijuana law, the officers claimed.
Of course, since they’re good honest cops, we have to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they really believe nobody in California history ever drove a car while high until the medical marijuana law passed in 1996. Maybe they’re just a little slow in getting around to actually reading the language of the law, which prohibits sales to anyone without a doctor’s recommendation to use pot.

Graphic: Marijuana Policy Project

​On Thursday, March 18, the Maryland State Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee will receive testimony on SB 627, a bill that would make Maryland the 15th state in the nation to have an effective medical marijuana law.

Sponsored by Frederick County Republican Sen. David Brinkley, the bill would allow state-regulated outlets to to dispense medical marijuana to patients who receive a recommendation from their doctor.
The bipartisan bill is sponsored by Senate President Mike Miller, Minority Leader Allan Kittleman, Minority Whip Nancy Jacobs, and Deputy Majority Leader Robert Garigiola, among others.

Photo: Bachrach44
Pick Up The Pieces, one of the many “coffee shops” in Amsterdam

​Dutch “coffee shops,” a euphemism for outlets selling cannabis, are in danger, and have announced they are going “on strike” on June 9, the day the Netherlands will hold parliamentary elections.

“The idea behind closing for the day is to encourage all those who like to smoke a joint to get out and vote for the parties which will ensure that coffee shops will not be banned in the Netherlands,” reports Johan van Slooten at Radio Netherlands Worldwide.
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