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Photo: The Fresh Scent

​Could it be all that medical marijuana tax money starting to flow into city coffers?

Oakland City Attorney John Russo last week endorsed the California ballot initiative to legalize marijuana, and the City Council seems ready to join him, reports Kelly Rayburn at The Oakland Tribune.
Russo called the legalization initiative, Tax Cannabis 2010, an overdue change in California’s marijuana policy.
“What we’ve been trying to do is fight a raging fire with a watering can,” Russo said. “The better way is to cut off the oxygen.”

Photo: A Greener Country

​A bill regulating Colorado’s medical marijuana dispensaries is almost ready for the governor’s desk after legislators Thursday decided to keep the location of licensed cannabis-growing operations confidential.

The change would require the addresses of growing facilities to be blacked out on copies of their licensing documents requested by the public, reports John Ingold of The Denver Post.
It would mean that Colorado residents couldn’t learn from public records if there are legal marijuana-growing operations in their neighborhoods.

It would be comical, if these morons weren’t wasting millions of dollars of your tax money as they hump each others’ legs.

​Local, state and federal law enforcement officers will gather May 10-13 at the U.S. Grant Hotel in San Diego to begin “organizing” this year’s Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP), which has failed annually since 1983 to achieve its stated goal: reducing cannabis use and availability by “eradicating” illegal grow sites.

Yes, every single year — all 27 of them, so far — CAMP has failed miserably in its quixotic quest as marijuana became more and more available.
The waste, arrogance and abuse associated with the program — which has unfortunately become the largest law enforcement task force in the United States, with more than 110 agencies taking part — have become legendary.
Ordinary families have been terrorized by paramilitary units, peaceful homeowners have been repeatedly buzzed by low-flying helicopters, and community relations between citizens and law enforcement have suffered almost everywhere CAMP has laid its heavy hand.
Good thing all of this foolishness is done at taxpayer expense, to the tune of millions and millions of dollars. Good thing California’s treasury is in healthy shape, flush with all that extra cash. Oh, wait…

Photo: 9News
Chris Bartkowicz’s TV appearance led to the loss of his freedom and all his plants

​Chris Bartkowicz is facing 10 years to life in federal prison — and up to a $4 million fine — for growing more than 100 medical marijuana plants in his Highlands Ranch, Colorado basement.

Bartkowicz was indicted Tuesday by a U.S. District Court grand jury on three felony counts, and he appeared in court Wednesday, waiving a reading of the charges against him, reports Felisa Cardona at The Denver Post.
According to the federal indictment, Bartkowicz grew more than 100 plants with the intent to distribute marijuana, maintained a “drug-involved premise” and conducted that business near a school — all, mind you, for growing medical cannabis legal under Colorado law.

Photo: Marcin Szczepanski/Detroit Free Press
Tim Beck, from left, and Matt Abel present petitions for a ballot proposal to legalize marijuana to Detroit Director of Elections Daniel Baxter and City Clerk Janice Winfrey on Wednesday

​A push to legalize marijuana in Detroit, Michigan, is being led by a city resident who also helped lead the drive to allow medical marijuana in the state.

“You’ve done a great job” meeting the filing requirements, City Clerk Janice Winfrey said Wednesday to Tim Beck as he handed over more than 6,100 petition signatures, reports Bill Laitner of the Detroit Free Press.
Beck, 58, spent the last five weeks supervising the collection of signatures to get on Detroit’s November ballot. The proposal, which needed only 3,700 signatures to qualify for the ballot, would legalize possession of up to an ounce of cannabis on private property by adults 21 and older.
A registered medical marijuana patient, Beck said enforcing marijuana laws is a waste of the city’s money.

What is it

Photo: Bruce Chambers/The Orange County Register

​ with pot and big screen TVs this week? Toke of the Town already reported on a Georgia man growing pot in his hollowed out big screen TV. Now, a 22-year-old man was arrested Tuesday evening after customs officers found 112 pounds of marijuana stashed inside a big screen TV he was driving into the United States from Mexico.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers arrested the man, a United States citizen from Chula Vista, California, at the San Ysidro border station, reports KTLA News.


Graphic: The Conceptualist

​This footage is disturbing — even sickening. But it’s time to stop hiding our heads in the sand.
This is what the war on marijuana looks like.
Militarized, gung-ho SWAT team cops playing Rambo, kicking in a door, slaughtering the family dogs as they howl in pain, terrifying and scarring for life an innocent, seven-year-old child… for what?
To confiscate a small, misdemeanor amount of marijuana from Jonathan Whitworth.
Mission accomplished, eh?


Photo: The Baltimore Spectator

​California is collecting between $50 million and $100 million a year in sales taxes from medical marijuana, according to the California Board of Equalization, confirming an estimate previously published in an economic analysis by California NORML.

The numbers were also independently confirmed by patient advocacy group Americans for Safe Access.

The state’s retail market for medical marijuana has surpassed $1 billion per year, according to California NORML estimates, with a total adult use market of $6 billion.

Graphic: Reality Catcher

​The Nielsen ratings were really high, man. A Georgia man is cooling his heels in jail after marijuana was found growing in his TV.

Gwinnett County Sheriff’s deputies found the pot and the television while evicting Warren English from his home Wednesday, reports Mashaun D. Simon at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Six marijuana plants were discovered growing from the back of a hollowed out big screen TV, police claimed.
English and his family, including two children under 6 years old, were evicted from their home in Snellville, Ga.

Graphic: Cannabis Defense Coalition

​At first glance Seattle would seem a pot patient’s paradise, with abundant, potent marijuana, a thriving dispensary scene, and $10 a gram prices for medicine. But this week, some ugly internecine strife has become very public, with three pot-related websites being commandeered and rumors swirling as to who’s responsible and why.

Persons affiliated with all three of the sites affected — Compassion In Action, Seattle Green Cross, and the personal site of Seattle marijuana attorney/activist Douglas Hiatt, who heads the statewide I-1068 marijuana legalization initiative — allege that the person responsible is the head of Green Buddha Patient Network, Muraco Kyashna-tocha.
On Sunday, patients attempting to visit the Compassion In Action site were first treated to a profanity-laced telephone message from an understandably upset Dale Rogers (who leads Compassion In Action) to Steve Sarich (who runs local patient collective CannaCare). Visitors are then redirected to competing organization CannaCare’s website.
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