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Police Release Photos, Video Of Marijuana Dispensary Robbers

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 27, 2010 Dispensaries, News

Suspect 1

The San Jose Police Department has released photos and video of the two unknown males who robbed the Monterey Road Dispensary, a medical marijuana club in San Jose, California, at gunpoint on September 29, 2010.

During the robbery, which took place at 11:54 a.m., the first suspect pulled out a handgun and ordered the two dispensary employees to the ground. The suspects tied the employees’ hands and robbed them of personal effects, along with cash and cannabis from the business.

The suspects fled in a green Honda four-door and remain at large. They did not discharge their weapons, and the employees were not injured.

The same two suspects are believed to have been involved in a similar dispensary robbery than happened 11 days earlier, on September 18, also in San Jose.

Washington: New Marijuana Legalization Drive In February

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 27, 2010 Legislation, News

Photo: Sensible Washington

New cannabis legalization petitions should start circulating in February 2011 in Washington state.

By William Budz, Guest Author

While a marijuana decriminalization initiative does not appear on the 2010 Washington state ballot, issue supporters say 2011 is a whole new bag. The Sensible Washington campaign plans to file its new initiative, which was recently endorsed by NORML, in January 2011 and circulate it in February.

Many pro-cannabis voters were disheartened earlier this year when they heard that I-1068, an initiative that would have removed state civil and criminal penalties for persons 18 years or older who cultivate, possess, transport, sell, or use marijuana, had failed to generate enough signatures to make it onto the 2010 ballot.

Philip Dawdy, vice-chair of Sensible Washington, the organization which backed I-1068, said while the campaign anticipated that money and volunteers would be challenges, they never expected to have to battle Mother Nature.

“It was the weather that was truly our biggest obstacle,” Dawdy said. “We had a very wet May and June (the months when most signatures get gathered by any campaign) and it became a struggle to turn out signature gatherers in tough weather.”

Mexican Town’s Entire Police Force Quits After Attack

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 27, 2010 Global, News

Photo: Tomas Bravo/Reuters

Bullet-riddled patrol trucks and a pockmarked building are the aftermath of an attack at a police station in Los Ramones, about 43 miles from Monterrey, Mexico.

Every cop in a small northern Mexican town quit Tuesday after gunmen heavily sprayed their brand new police headquarters Monday night.

All 14 members of the Los Ramones police force reportedly resigned, according to MSNBC. Nobody was answering the phone at the office of Mayor Santos Salinas, The Associated Press reported.

Gunmen fired more than 1,000 rounds at the building’s facade, reports Noroeste. Six grenades, three of which detonated, were also thrown at the building, according to the the newspaper.

Machine-Gun Toting Cops Raid Legal Pot Patient For Two Plants

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 27, 2010 Growing, News

Photo: Voice It Out

Seattle Police officers knocked a legal patient’s door down, charged in brandishing machine guns, and forced him face down to the floor. He had two legal plants.

Seattle Police officers brandishing submachine guns broke down the door of a 50-year-old medical marijuana patient Monday night and pushed him face down to the floor. His offense? He was legally growing two tiny cannabis plants.

Will Laudanski, a military veteran who was an Airborne Ranger in Desert Shield, wasn’t even breaking the law. As an authorized medical marijuana patient in the state of Washington, he’s allowed to grow up to 15 plants and possess 24 ounces of cannabis.

But Seattle Police have shown they are willing to treat the smallest of pot cases — even in cases where the marijuana is legal — as if they were raiding the biggest crack house or meth lab in town.

Just before 9 p.m. Monday officers at SPD’s East Precinct held a briefing about a complaint of marijuana at a four-unit apartment building in the Leschi neighborhood, reports Dominic Holden at The Stranger.

President: Prop 19 Could Change Colombia’s Drug Policy

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 27, 2010 Global, Legislation, News

Photo: follow the money

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos: “Tell me if there is a way to explain to a Colombian peasant that if he produces marijuana we are going to put him in jail… [while]the same product is legal [in California]”

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has said that if Proposition 19 passes next week in California, legalizing marijuana in the state, it could force his country to rethink its drug policies.

“Tell me if there is a way to explain to a Colombian peasant that if he produces marijuana we are going to put him in jail… [while]the same product is legal [in California],” President Santos said, reports All Headline News. “That’s going to produce a comprehensive discussion on the approach we have taken on the fight against drug trafficking.”

Just a couple of months ago, Santos endorsed the call for a debate on drug legalization made by Mexican President Felipe Calderon, reports Juan Carlos Hidalgo at Cato @ Liberty. However, Santos also said he believes legalization would increase consumption of drugs, despite the fact that it hasn’t happened in countries with liberal drug policies such as Portugal.

Santos brought up the subject again on Tuesday at a Latin American presidential summit in Cartagena, Colombia. “If we don’t act in a consistent way on this issue, if all we are doing is to send our fellow citizens to jail while in other latitudes the market is being legalized, then we have to ask ourselves: Isn’t it time to review the global strategy against drugs?” he asked.

Billionaire Soros Gives $1 Million To Prop 19 Pot Legalization

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 26, 2010 Culture, News

Photo: Business Week

George Soros: “Police could focus on serious crime instead”

Billionaire financier George Soros on Tuesday donated $1 million to support Proposition 19, the California ballot initiative to legalize, tax and regulate recreational cannabis use.

The cash from Soros, a longtime supporter of marijuana law reform, should allow a much more intense media blitz in the final week before Election Day.

Prop 19, which has had some trouble raising money, had only just rolled out its first television ad in the Los Angeles area on Monday, eight days before the election, reports Josh Richman of the Oakland Tribune.

He Should Switch To Pot: Sheen Found Drunk, Naked In Hotel

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 26, 2010 Culture, News

Photo: Coed Magazine

Charlie! It’s not too late to switch to cannabis!

Boys and girls, it’s time for another story to remind us why cannabis is preferable to alcohol.

Celebrity and party boy Charlie Sheen was hospitalized early Tuesday morning after he was found drunk and naked in a trashed New York City hotel suite.

Just two months out of rehab, Sheen, 45, in the company of a call girl, reportedly trashed his suite after learning he’d lost his wallet and cellphone, report Larry Celona and Jamie Schram at the New York Post.

Security officers at The Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue called the cops just after 2 a.m. Tuesday after finding Sheen and his suite both trashed, sources told the Post.

Tables and chairs had reportedly been thrown around the room, and a chandelier was also damaged, according to reports. You don’t suppose he (or the hooker) had been swingin’ from the chandelier, do you?

Sheen, star of the hit sitcom Two And A Half Men (you really should watch it if you enjoy well-done filthy innuendoes) was accompanied by his ex-wife Denise Richards, who was staying in a separate room at the hotel, according to sources.

Yes On 19 Releases Pro-Legalization TV Ad [Video]

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 25, 2010 Culture, News

Graphic: Yes On 19

Former San Jose Police Chief Says Marijuana Initiative Will Improve Public Safety

The campaign to pass Proposition 19, the California ballot measure to legalize, control and tax cannabis, released a television ad on Monday featuring former San Jose Police Chief Joseph McNamara, who makes a strong public safety case for ending the current prohibition on marijuana.

“Let’s be honest: The war against marijuana has failed,” Chief McNamara says in the ad.

Police Called To Check Out ‘Nasty’ Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 25, 2010 News

Graphic: thebmillerexperience

Dude, maybe you should wait until it’s legal. A Pennsylvania man is facing possible charges after he called 911 to complain about some “bad marijuana” he had just bought, which turned out not to be pot at all.

Police did not identify the 21-year-old Uniontown man, who called a Fayette County emergency dispatcher Wednesday and said he had bought some questionable cannabis, reports the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

He asked police to check the pot out for him, according to authorities.

After responding to the man’s Millview Street residence, cops noticed, you guessed it, a “leafy green substance” on the couch. The man whined to the officers that he had bought the stuff earlier that day, and when he smoked it, “It was nasty.”

Detective Donald Gmitter said a field test determined the substance was not marijuana, but did not reveal anything else — as in, what the hell it was. Preliminary results showed it was not a controlled substance, according to the police report.

Man Busted After Pot Text To Old Friend… Who’s Now A Cop

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 22, 2010 Culture, News

Photo: CBS/AP

Ah, nothing like getting back in touch with old friends. But one of the first questions you ask, when you’ve got years of catching up to do, led to an arrest after the recipient of a “So do you smoke weed?” text message turned out to now be a cop.

Amanda Williams, a reserve officer with the Early Police Department in Texas, was not amused when she received the text message Tuesday, asking about getting together to smoke some marijuana with her old friend, Steve Nash at The Brownwood Bulletin reported on Friday.

Williams, who is apparently quite gung-ho about her job and evidently lacks a sense of humor, said she had not spoken to the man in some time, and he did not know that she’s now a police officer.

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