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Oakland Suspends Plan For Huge Marijuana Farms

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By on Growing, News

Photo: Boots & Sabers
When told they could go to jail for Oakland’s new ordinance allowing large-scale marijuana farming, city council members voted to suspend and revise it.

​The Oakland City Council voted 7-1 in closed session on Tuesday to suspend its program to permit and tax four industrial-sized medical marijuana farms and increase the number of dispensaries, at least until the new cultivation plan can be amended to address objections voiced by law enforcement.

The decision came after Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley warned earlier this month that the large-scale commercial growing operations envisioned by city officials could be illegal under state law. O’Malley also said members of the City Council could be prosecuted by her office if they approved the plan, reports Cecily Burt at the Oakland Tribune.
The City Council had voted in July to license and regulate large cultivation operations which would grow and produce medical marijuana. The council also recently voted to double the number of cannabis dispensaries from four to eight.
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Former Police Officer Gets 27 Years For Drug Trafficking

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By on News

America’s Most Wanted
Former McAllen, Texas police officer Francisco Meza-Rojas was sentenced to 27 years for dealing drugs.

​A former police officer in McAllen, Texas, was sentenced to serve 324 months in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons as punishment for his involvement in a drug trafficking conspiracy which spanned a period of at least eight years starting in 1996, U.S. Attorney José Angel Moreno announced on Tuesday.

Francisco Meza-Rojas, 45, was identified as a leader of a smuggling organization which operated on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande River between Granjeno and Penitas, a rural area south of Mission, Texas, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
Meza-Rojas and an associate, Jose Moncerrat Narvaez, led the part of a larger organization which specialized in the transportation of controlled substances from the edge of the Rio Grande River to locations in the Mission and McAllen areas where they would be held until the owners of the drugs picked them up.
Meza-Rojas used his brothers, as well as other individuals, to act as lookouts during the smuggling operations, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office. He would strategically place his workers along the smuggling route to call out the locations and movements of law enforcement vehicles throughout the area, the office said.
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Canada Lets Pot Grower’s License Expire, Raids, Cuts Off Power

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By on Global, Growing, News

Graphic: Magickal Graphics
David Hodgkinson got the equivalent of a lump of coal in his Christmas stocking from the RCMP.

​B.C. Man May Be Spending Christmas In The Dark

Medical marijuana grower David Hodgkinson may be having a dark Christmas after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police swooped in on his home Friday, busted up his grow operation and cut off his power, reports Robert Barron at the Nanaimo Daily News.
Hodgkinson has been growing medicinal cannabis for about a year under a government license from Health Canada, and was licensed to grow up to 49 plants. But his license expired in August, despite the fact that he applied for its renewal eight full weeks before its expiration date, as stipulated by the government.
But since Health Canada over the past year has experienced a “sharp rise” of applications to grow medical marijuana that have “slowed the process down,” according to a spokeswoman, Hodgkinson’s license wasn’t renewed in a timely manner.
Did that delay result in an apology for laggardliness from the government or its health ministry, especially since their slowness could impact the health of patients?
No, it got Hodgkinson, of Cedar, British Columbia, an armed police raid and his electrical power cut off.
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Israel’s Terminally Ill To Cops: Keep Hands Off Medical Marijuana

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By on Global, Medical, News

Photo: Reuters
A patient sits in a wheelchair as a Tikkun Olam worker in Tel Aviv helps him smoke cannabis from a bong.

​Dozens of disabled and terminally ill Israelis protested outside a Tel Aviv medical marijuana clinic on Sunday, responding to a recent police raid of the clinic.

The protest came four days after police raided a storefront dispensary run by the group Tikkun Olam, the nonprofit where patients came to get medicinal cannabis. During the raid, police arrested two managers and held them for questioning for several hours, supposedly on suspicion of “drug trafficking,” reports Ben Hartman at The Jerusalem Post.
Police actions against the storefront and its patients mainly harm gravely ill persons seeking medical treatment, said Shai Meir, spokesman for Tikkun Olam, Israel’s largest supplier of medical marijuana.
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Ads Supporting Medical Marijuana Bill Hit Airwaves In Illinois

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By on Culture, News

Photo: Marijuana Policy Project
Julie Falco, a multiple sclerosis patient from Illinois whose doctor has recommended medical marijuana, is featured in a new radio ad.

​How will pot play in Peoria? We’re about to find out. Supporters of a medical marijuana law in Illinois on Monday announced the release of radio ads calling on Illinois residents to urge their state representatives to support Senate Bill 1381, which would allow doctors to recommend marijuana to qualified patients suffering from cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and other debilitating diseases.

The ad — which will be broadcast in the Chicago, Peoria, Quad Cities, and Rockford media markets — features Chicago resident and multiple sclerosis patient Julie Falco, who has used medical cannabis to ease the pain and muscle spasms associated with her condition.
“I’ve tried many prescription drugs to control the extreme pain I’ve lived with every day,” Falco says in the ad. “However, most of them caused terrible side effects that left me flattened and nonfunctional. I’ve found that cannabis works best for me. It allows better control of my symptoms so I can lead a fulfilling, healthier quality of life.
“In Illinois, though, it’s a crime for me to use my medicine — even though my doctor recommends it,” Falco says in the ad. “Thankfully the Legislature can change that in early January.”
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Jury Pool In Marijuana Case Stages Mutiny; Won’t Convict

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By on News

Graphic: The Bilerico Project
In a move sure to sweep the land, a jury pool has refused to convict the defendant of a marijuana charge

​​In what could grow into something much bigger in future cases, potential jurors in Missoula County District Court staged a revolt Thursday, taking the law into their own hands and making it clear they would not convict anybody for having less than 2 grams of marijuana.

The tiny amount of marijuana police found in Touray Cornell’s Missoula, Montana home on April 23 became a big point of contention for some members of the jury panel, reports Gwen Florio of The Missoulian. One juror after another said there was no way they would convict somebody for having 1/16 of an ounce of pot.
One juror wondered aloud why the county was wasting time and money prosecuting the case at all, according to a “flummoxed” Deputy Missoula County Attorney Andrew Paul, who called it “a mutiny,” Florio reports.
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Marijuana Legalization Billboard Greets I-5 Drivers In Washington

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By on Culture, News

Photo: Sensible Washington
More than a quarter-million vehicles a day will pass this billboard on I-5 near Seattle.

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The group Sensible Washington, which is working to legalize marijuana for adults in Washington state, became a lot more visible on Saturday.

Specifically, the group’s huge pro-legalization billboard went up in Fife, Washington, on Interstate 5 North and South, entering and leaving Seattle. The group said the billboard would remain up through the November 2011 election.
“Because drug dealers don’t ID. Legalize In 2011” the bright yellow billboard reads.
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Oakland Dispensaries Sold 4.2 Million Joints This Year

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By on Dispensaries, Medical, News

Photo: Harborside Health Center
Steve DeAngelo’s Harborside Health Center, the biggest dispensary in the Bay Area, brought in about $20 million this year.

City’s Medical Pot Sales Reach $35 Million In 2010 
Most sectors of the economy are pretty grim right now, but that assessment doesn’t include the medical marijuana business in Oakland, California.

The city is projecting that Oakland’s three dispensaries will sell between $35 million and $38 million worth of cannabis this year, reports Zusha Elinson at The Bay Citizen. That means about three and a quarter tons of marijuana — 104,000 ounces, or 4.2 million joints.
The total has been getting higher and higher since Oakland started keeping track in 2004, when the dispensaries paid taxes on $4.2 million worth of sales. The figures are derived from the business tax paid to the city by dispensaries on their gross receipts.
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Colorado Springs Marijuana Dispensary Raided For Second Time

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By on Dispensaries, News

Photo: KKTV
Police detectives raided Cannabis Therapy Center in Colorado Springs on Thursday.

​Detectives raided Cannabis Therapy Center (CTC), a medical marijuana dispensary in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Thursday.

The Metro Vice, Narcotics and Intelligence Unit got a search warrant because they have “probable cause to believe there was criminal activity going on there,” claimed Sgt. Steve Noblitt, reports KKTV.
“The officer in charge told me we’re being raided because we don’t have state approval to be open here, and they were issuing a warrant based on that information,” said CTC owner Don Liles.
Police refused to say what the “alleged criminal activity” was that led them to execute the raid.
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New Orleans Police No Longer Have To Arrest You For Marijuana

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By on News

Photo: Jennifer Zdon/The Times-Picayune
The New Orleans City Council on Thursday decided that people accused of marijuana possession and three other misdemeanors will receive a summons instead of being arrested and brought to the Orleans Parish Prison.

​If you get picked up for marijuana possession or prostitution in New Orleans, police no longer have to arrest you and take you to jail.

In a move designed to reduce the dockets in Criminal District Court and give police more time to deal with major crimes, the New Orleans City Council voted unanimously Thursday to designate marijuana possession and three other relatively minor crimes as municipal offenses, giving police the option to issue a summons rather than make an arrest, reports Bruce Eggler at The New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Until now, the crimes have been illegal only under Louisiana state laws, meaning police had to arrest offenders and take them to Central Lockup for booking.
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