Dispensaries

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Maine Likely To Have First Marijuana Dispensary In New England

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 24, 2010 Dispensaries, Medical

Safe Harbor Maine is expected to open early next year in Biddeford, becoming New England’s first medical marijuana dispensary.

Until two weeks ago, it appeared that Rhode Island would open New England’s first marijuana dispensary. Now it looks as if Maine will be doing the honors.

One of the two will be the first state in New England to open a compassion center to sell cannabis to patients registered in state-authorized programs.

“It appears our neighbor to the north will beat Rhode Island to the punch,” concedes W. Zachary Malinowski of The Providence Journal.

A spokesman for the Maine Health Department said the first of eight dispensaries across the state should open for business soon after January 1, 2011. Licenses have been awarded over the past two months to operate dispensaries in each of the state’s eight public health districts, according to the Health Department’s Division of Licensing and Regulatory Services.

Safe Harbor Maine Inc., a nonprofit organization, hopes to be the first to open early next year in Biddeford, Maine, not far from the New Hampshire state line. The business will probably serve fewer than 100 patients in the first year, according to Glenn Peterson, Safe Harbor’s CEO.

ASA Tells California Cities: Federal Law Can’t Stop Pot Shops

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 23, 2010 Dispensaries, News

Photo: LAKush.com

An advocacy group for medical marijuana patients is warning California cities and counties that they cannot ban cannabis dispensaries on grounds that state and federal marijuana laws are in conflict.

Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the Oakland-based organization representing marijuana patients, has sent letters to 134 California cities and nine counties, urging them to lift local bans on marijuana dispensaries as a result of an August state appeals court ruling. The letter hints at potential legal actions to come, reports Peter Hecht of The Sacramento Bee.

32 Marijuana Dispensaries Still Eligible In Long Beach, CA

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 22, 2010 Dispensaries, News

Photo: Jonathan Van Dyke

Long Beach senior city auditor Scott Gardiner uses a pen to push a lottery ping pong ball through a special lottery machine during a test run on Monday. City officials ending up ditching the lottery machine — through which the balls wouldn’t fit — and pulled the numbers by hand from a “We Recycle” bin.

Another 11 Long Beach, California marijuana dispensaries will have to close their doors after being eliminated from the permit application process during a lottery on Monday, leaving 32 still eligible for final permits.

The lottery was set up because Long Beach Municipal Code 5.87 does not allow for any collective to operate within 1,000 feet of another, reports Jonathan Van Dyke of Gazettes.com.

Dispensaries whose lottery number was pulled first were accepted over other sites that conflicted with them.

First Marijuana Farmer’s Market Held In Washington

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 20, 2010 Dispensaries, News

Photo: Lui Kit Wong/Tacoma News-Tribune

A medical marijuana patient exchanges a plant for a donation at what was billed as Washington’s first cannabis farmer’s market at the Conquering Lion in Tacoma on Sunday

Farmer’s markets usually don’t require bouncers. But this wasn’t your usual farmer’s market.

A smiling guy in a skull and crossbones sweatshirt guarded the door Sunday to a rented room where the sweet smell of marijuana was heavy in the air, with the pulsing rhythms of reggae providing a soundtrack, reports Stacia Glenn of the Tacoma News-Tribune.

Only authorized medical marijuana patients were allowed inside the event, billed as Washington state’s first cannabis farmer’s market.

Michigan Town To Charge Marijuana Dispensaries $2,000 Fee

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 20, 2010 Dispensaries, News

Photo: David Guralnick/The Detroit News

Co-owner Matt Curtis talks about the 15 to 20 varieties of marijuana sold at Clinical Relief LLC, a medical marijuana dispensary in Ferndale, Mich. The business’s client base grew to more than 1,000, according to owners, before police raids shut the place down last month. Now the City Council wants to charge a $2K per year “licensing fee.”

So, Ferndale, what’s it gonna be — raid ’em or tax ’em? Because it’s a little unseemly to do both.

Owners of any new medical marijuana dispensaries that want to open in the city of Ferndale, Michigan will have to pay a $2,000 fee for their license and annual renewals. That may not sound like the best of news, but could taxation mean an end to police raids like the one which closed down the city’s only dispensary last month?

The City Council enacted the “licensing fee” last week, and officials claimed they did so to “recover the costs” associated with inspections and other duties city workers and police conduct for licensing, reports Michael P. McConnell of the Oakland County Daily Tribune.

Marijuana Dispensaries Don’t Seem Like Big Threat: WA Paper

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 17, 2010 Dispensaries, News

Photo: GrassCity.com

“It’s time to de-stupidify medical marijuana,” begins a Friday editorial by Shawn Vestal in The Spokane Spokesman-Review, which then proceeds to do exactly that.

Vestal’s excellent editorial pointed out the considerable time, effort and money spent on bringing down a local medical marijuana dispensary in Washington state.

“If someone breaks into your garage, don’t hold your breath waiting for an officer,” the paper editorialized. “But if you’re growing medical marijuana in that garage, they’ll find a way to send a car.”

“Simple folk might do something simple, like legalize it,” the editorial said. “Medical or not: Who cares?”

Washington Dispensary Asks Cops To Check Pot; Gets Raided

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 17, 2010 Dispensaries, News

Photo: Jesse Tinsley/Spokesman-Review

Paul Ellis sold medical marijuana from this Spokane Valley strip mall until he was raided by the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office — days after giving them a tour of the place and of his home marijuana grow operation. In the window is reflected a Washington State Patrol office.

Paul Ellis thought he wasn’t doing anything wrong when he opened a medical marijuana dispensary in Spokane, Washington last December. He located the operation, called Med Mar Dis, across the street from a Washington State Patrol office, and asked the sergeant who worked there if Ellis could use law enforcement labs to test his cannabis for contaminants.

But Spokane County Sheriff’s detectives didn’t see things that way, reports Nina Shapiro at our sister Village Voice Media blog, Seattle Weekly. The Spokane County Prosecutor’s office is considering filing drug charges against Ellis after detectives raided his dispensary and home on September 2, reports Meghann M. Cuniff at the Spokane Spokesman-Review.

Libertarian Party Decries Nevada Medical Marijuana Raids

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 15, 2010 Dispensaries, Medical

Graphic: Las Vegas City Life

The Libertarian Party of Clark County, Nevada has issued a statement which says it is “outraged” at the recent medical marijuana raids in the county. “Voters spoke some time ago about this issue and agree that medical marijuana should be legal in our state,” the statement said.

“We support the rights of citizens of Nevada to decide and in conjunction with the Constitution of the United States; we hold emphatically this supersedes any federal law on this matter,” the statement said, according to the Independent Political Report.

“As a reminder, President Obama promised that states’ laws concerning this matter would be respected and that the federal attacks would end,” the statement said. “However, it seems that resources are still being wasted targeting patients and law-abiding Americans.”

“What occurred was nothing less than government-sponsored theft,” the statement said. “The fact that no arrests were made adds to the reasoning that no crimes have been committed. These businesses have been given no answers or reasons for the seizures and the Libertarian Party is stating that these raids are illegal and that the targets are innocent of any wrongdoing.”

Pot Shop Raided Hours After Broadcast Criticizing City Attorney

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 14, 2010 Dispensaries, News

Photo: KTLA

Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich: Is this hothead serving up quick revenge to dispensaries that dare criticize him?

A Los Angeles police raid of a Venice medical marijuana dispensary last week — which occurred at a time when L.A. has said it will hold off on pot shop enforcement — happened just hours after an activist criticized the City Attorney on a radio broadcast from the store.

Host Zuma Dogg played audio of his Thursday web radio show for the LA Weekly, reports Dennis Romero. He said, in part, “I’d like to send this one out to Carmen Trutanich” and called the City Attorney “incompetent” and a “moron” for his handling of the city’s medical marijuana ordinance.

Zuma Dogg described his “broadcasting live” location as a Venice collective with “Green” in its title.

Police Say Marijuana Shops Not Magnets For Crime

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 14, 2010 Dispensaries, News

Photo: Kevin Kreck/Colorado Springs Gazette

The Green House, a medical marijuana dispensary in Colorado Springs. Marijuana dispensaries don’t attract crime, according to the Colorado Springs Police Department.

Colorado Springs police have yet to find a correlation between the city’s growing medical marijuana industry and increased crime, according to department spokesman Sgt. Darrin Abbinki. There’s no evidence that the industry, which has about 175 businesses in Colorado Springs, attracts robberies and break-ins, according to the cops.

In the 18-month period ending August 31, Colorado Springs police recorded 41 criminal incidents at medical marijuana dispensaries and grow operations, according to Abbink, reports Jakob Rodgers of the Colorado Springs Gazette.

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