Los Angeles is okay with medical marijuana dispensaries, but not at the overwhelming level at which they populate the city currently.
Voters in L.A. yesterday overwhelmingly supported a measure that allows for medical marijuana dispensaries to operate in the city, but drops the number of shops down from somewhere between 800 to 1,000 to just 135 – the number of shops before L.A.’s original 2007 dispensary moratorium. Dispensaries opened after 2007 will have to shut their doors.
According to the Michigan Supreme Court, medical marijuana patients who drive after using cannabis are not automatically breaking the law reversing a lower court decision that barred medical patients from driving with any amounts of THC in their system.
The unanimous ruling issued Tuesday, centers around Rodney Koon, who was pulled over for going nearly 30 mph over the limit back in 2010. Koon admitted to drinking a beer and taking his meds earlier in the day and a blood test for active THC proved he had about 10 nanograms per milliliter of blood, but he contends that wasn’t why he was speeding. After being shot down in lower courts, he appealed his way to the Supreme Court.
| Gilberto Santiesteban, Jr. |
The family that grew ganja together is now the family that pleaded guilty together. In the spring of last year, federal agents and Miami-Dade narcotics detectives dismantled a clan of marijuana growers that distributed thousands of pounds of high-grade weed from South Florida to New York City. Gilberto Santiesteban Jr., his dad, and his three brothers operated 21 grow houses for nearly seven years. Heck, even their significant others participated in the green conspiracy. It all unraveled when the Santiestebans decided to kidnap and murder a man who stole close to 50 pounds of their herb.
Miami New Times has the rest.
In an attempt to add clarity to California’s oft misconstrued medical marijuana laws, the state Senate voted 22-12 yesterday in favor of Senate Bill 439, which aims to provide protection for dispensary owners in exchange for much more strict regulation.
The new legislation cuts through any previous confusion on compensation, making it clear that dispensaries cannot operate at a profit. Owners of dispensaries would be allowed to receive reasonable compensation and reimbursement of certain expenses, and would also be able to offer pay and benefits to their employees.
When it comes to performance-enhancing drugs, the World Anti-Doping Agency has a hard line: keep it clean.
And like a growing surge of people across the world, they understand that marijuana is not a performance-enhancing drug and that a few recreational (or medical) puffs of ganja when not in competition aren’t going to harm anyone.
An alleged marijuana grower in upscale Ranchos Palos Verdes (a suburb of L.A.) has to have the worst luck ever.
Cops searching for a burglar from a case several blocks to the north came across a suspicious man in a car parked outside the alleged grower’s house, and that prompted authorities to search the home: It all started Thursday afternoon when deputies went to the 27800 block of Alaflora Drive in the Rancho Palos Verdes based on a report of burglary suspects in the area, according to a sheriff’s statement released over the weekend.
Nearly 80 percent of Kentuckians approve of legalizing medical marijuana and roughly a quarter of the state would be open to outright legalization, according to a poll released last week.
How to go about that, though, seems to be up in the air.
The Illinois senate Friday approved House Bill 1, which would create a state-regulated medical marijuana patient program as well as authorize state-regulated medical marijuana dispensaries. Lawmakers say they have created one of the strictest programs in the nation.
But Governor Pat Quinn says he’s still considering the bill, though he told reporters earlier today that he remains “open minded” on the issue. Lt. Gov. Shelia Simon has publicly expressed her support for the bill.
| Adam Kokesh. |
Every month for the last five months, cannabis activists, advocates, and supporters gather together in downtown Philadelphia in a pro-marijuana protest they have dubbed Smoke Down Prohibition”.
It’s been peaceful for the last four rallies, but that changed last Saturday. Philly police waited for the crowd to spark their ceremonial spliffs, then rushed the mic and pulled guest speaker and Libertarian talk show host Adam Kokesh from the stage, arresting him in front of his supporters on charges of resisting arrest.
| Wikipedia. |
Pot by itself was not much of a factor in injury and fatal crashes probed last year by the Arizona Department of Public Safety. Fewer than 1 percent of suspected impaired drivers involved in such crashes tested positive for nothing but marijuana.
Drivers suspected of impairment in crashes that hurt or killed people in Phoenix, Chandler, and Scottsdale were rarely found to be impaired by marijuana, according to research from the Phoenix New Times. Meanwhile, alcohol is believed responsible for five to 10 times the number of crashes caused by drivers impaired by all other illegal drugs combined. The New Times has the rest.