News

Browsing: News

Police Stage Botched Pot Raid After Smelling Skunk Under Home

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on January 8, 2011 Global, News

Pawcuff that skunk! He smells like weed!

A Canadian man is demanding an apology after his home was raided at gunpoint Thursday by police who thought the scent of a skunk living under his home meant he was growing marijuana.

Oliver MacQuat of Gatineau, Quebec, said a team of armed police officers barged into his rural home with guns drawn, on the assumption they were busting a marijuana grow, reports CBC News.

“I opened the door and they all had their guns drawn,” MacQuat said. “I was terrified, my heart was probably going 150 miles an hour.”

Around 10 police officers swept through his house, MacQuat said, during which time his teenaged son returned home to flashing police lights.

Boulder Removes 2nd, Even More Exact Map Of Secret Pot Farms

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on January 7, 2011 Growing, News

Photo: Marty Calvano/Daily Camera

Todd Young, owner of the medical marijuana cultivation site the Therapeutic Compassion Center, tends his plants in this November 2009 file photo.

Just one day after Boulder, Colorado city officials removed a map from its website that showed the locations of 60 medical marijuana cultivation centers in the city — sites that were supposed to be kept secret, due to robbery concerns — a city spokesman admitted Friday that a second, even more detailed map was also accidentally made public.

The new map, removed from the city’s website on Friday, January 7, showed the locations of more than a dozen marijuana-growing operations. It also gave the exact addresses of two sites just east of downtown Boulder, reports Heath Urie at the Boulder Daily Camera.

“There was a second map on the online version [of a packet created for the Boulder City Council]and that has been removed from the website,” said Patrick von Keyserling, Boulder’s communication manager.

Oakland Could Lose Millions In Tax By Nixing Marijuana Farms

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on January 7, 2011 Growing, News

Photo: Gearfuse

Don’t start counting the money just yet, Brokeland.

Don’t start counting the money just yet — Brokeland, I mean Oakland, may not get that pot tax bonanza, after all.

Fiscally-challenged Oakland, California could lose millions of dollars in potential tax revenue if the city bows to pressure to scale back or cancel controversial plans to license four large-scale commercial medical marijuana farms.

Supporters say the measure approved by the city council last July could provide the city with a tax windfall of $10 million or more each year by authorizing four city-licensed cannabis cultivation facilities, reports Michael Montgomery at California Watch.

Boulder, CO Accidentally Discloses Secret Marijuana Grow Sites

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on January 7, 2011 Growing, Medical, News

Photo: Mark Leffingwell/Daily Camera

Dustin Shroyer, owner of the dispensary Root Organic MMC, Thursday afternoon at his growing facility in Boulder. The city accidentally made public the secret locations of 60 cultivation sites.

A map showing what were supposed to be the secret locations of 60 warehouses and other structures where medical marijuana is being grown in Boulder, Colorado has accidentally been made public by the city.

Colorado state law prohibits local governments from disclosing the locations of “cultivation centers,” out of fear that would-be thieves might target the operations, reports Heath Urie at the Boulder Daily Camera.

City officials claim an “oversight” led them to publish the map on the city’s website, bouldercolorado.gov, last week as part of an agenda briefing sent to the City Council. Shown on the formerly secret map are 60 cultivation centers, 45 dispensaries and 12 product manufacturing sites that have applied for medical marijuana business licenses.

Drug War Now Killing More People Than Afghanistan War

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on January 6, 2011 News

Photo: Alejandro Bringas

People mourn the death of victims of a Drug War shootout in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico

More people were killed in Drug War-related violence in Mexico last year than died in the war in Afghanistan, according to year-end reports from both countries.

In Afghanistan, about 10,000 people — 2,043 of them civilians — died in the fighting last year.

Although that conflict involves air power, heavy weapons, and numerous roadside bombs, it was less deadly last year than the Mexican Drug War, with a death toll estimated at around 13,000 by CNN.

In mid-December, the Mexican attorney general’s office reported that 12,456 people had been killed through the end of November, reports Phillip Smith at AlterNet. With a death toll of more than 1,000 per month in 2010, a year-end figure of more than 13,000 looks to be accurate.

Pot-Hating Bush Holdover Unanimously Confirmed To Head DEA

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on January 6, 2011 News

Photo: Huffington Post

Michele Leonhart, just confirmed by the Senate as administrator of the DEA, is a Bush-era drug warrior who has overseen raids of legal medical marijuana dispensaries

The U.S. Senate has unanimously confirmed Michele Leonhart, a Bush-era holdover who has overseen dozens of federal raids on medical marijuana providers and producers, to head the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

“Ms. Leonhart’s actions and ambitions are incompatible with state law, public opinion, and with the policies of this administration,” said Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). “It is unlikely that we will see any serious change in the DEA’s direction under Ms. Leonhart’s leadership.”

Leonhart had served as interim director of the agency since November 2007. President Barack Obama nominated Leonhart in February 2010 to serve as the agency’s permanent director, NORML reports.

Numerous drug policy reform groups, including NORML, Marijuana Policy Project, the Drug Policy Alliance, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and others had opposed Leonhart’s confirmation, arguing that her actions as interim DEA administrator violated the Obama Administration’s pledge to allow science, rather than politics, rhetoric and ideology, to guide public policy.

6-Year-Old Expelled From First Grade For Marijuana Possession

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on January 6, 2011 News

Photo: The Independent

The mother of a six-year-old formerly in the Richmond Public Schools said she’s appealing the one-year expulsion of her first grade son for possession of marijuana.

The student, enrolled at G.H. Reid Elementary in Richmond, Virginia, approached the physical education teacher in November on the playground and pulled out a bag of pot, according to his mother, reports Vernal Coleman at Style Weekly.

“Look at this,” the boy said. “This is weed. My mother gave it to me.”

The P.E. instructor and another teacher questioned the boy and escorted him to the school’s front office, where he was questioned again by a school security officer.

Treatment Of Medical Marijuana Arrestees ‘Appalling’: Attorney

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on January 5, 2011 Medical, News

Artwork by Jimmy Wheeler (R.I.P.)

An attorney representing a majority of the 12 San Luis Obispo County, California residents arrested last week for allegedly operating mobile medical marijuana delivery services said Tuesday that they received “appalling treatment” when task force officers arrested them at their homes.

According to one report of the raids, the police kept people, including a grandmother and two children, handcuffed facedown on the ground. The children were later hauled off to CPS after their parents were thrown in jail.

The arrests were made on December 27. Three other people from around Southern California were also arrested, reports Cynthia Lambert at The San Luis Obispo Tribune.

Two of the arrestees, Valerie Hosking, 41, and David Hosking, 46, both of Pismo Beach, were arraigned December 30 and each charged with two counts or selling or furnishing marijuana or hashish. A pre-preliminary hearing is set for January 20 for the two.

Judge To Hear DEA Call For Medical Marijuana Patient Records

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on January 5, 2011 Medical, News

Photo: Grand Rapids Press

A hearing is set next week in the federal government’s fight to access medical marijuana patient records from the state of Michigan.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents are asking Michigan to turn over the patient records as part of an investigation in the Lansing area. The request is a sign that voter approval won’t stop the DEA from enforcing federal drug laws. Sixty-three percent of Michigan voters approved medical marijuana in 2008.

In June, the DEA served a subpoena on the Michigan Department of Community Health, but the state refused to turn over the records, citing confidentiality laws, reports John Agar at The Grand Rapids Press.

Montel Williams Fined For Possession Of Pot Pipe At Airport

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on January 5, 2011 Culture, News

Photo: The Daily Voice

Montel Williams uses marijuana to ease the symptoms of MS, but Wisconsin doesn’t recognize the medicinal uses of cannabis — yet.

Former talk-show host Montel Williams, a medical marijuana advocate, has reportedly been fined for possession of a pipe of the sort “commonly used to smoke pot,” according to the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office.

The pipe was found Tuesday at a routine security checkpoint by Transportation Security Administration agents at the General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, reports Jennifer LaRue Huget at the Washington Post.

Williams paid his $484 fine and went on his way, according to the sheriff’s office.

Williams, 54, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999. Laws in the 15 states which allow medical marijuana typically include MS among the conditions which qualify. But neither New York state, where Montel lives, nor Wisconsin, where he was fined, allows medicinal cannabis.

Previous 1 … 395 396 397 398 399 … 490 Next