Browsing: Say what?

An Anaheim Hills-based doctor who practices out of a medical marijuana clinic and goes by “Dr. J” (get it?) has been court-ordered to stop practicing medicine while he is out on bail for the alleged sexual assault of a female patient. But here’s the deal with Dr. Sri Jayantha Wijegunaratne: He’s already out on a bail in a separate case that accuses him of having defrauded Medicare by prescribing powered wheelchairs to patients who did not need them.
Let’s back this puppy way up: Federal prosecutors claim Wijegunaratne prescribed powered wheelchairs, at a cost of about $2,800 each, to six patients who did not need them. His chosen medical equipment supplier billed Medicare, got reimbursed and paid the physician kickbacks, according to the feds. Bong Blotter has more.

A passenger on a flight out of Phoenix’s Sky Harbor airport tried to check luggage containing 92 pounds of marijuana, according to the TSA. A TSA spokesman says the Phoenix Police Department was contacted once agents made the discovery.
According to court documents obtained by New Times, 39-year-old Lauretta Blanton had actually spread the load among three checked bags, and two of the bags actually made it onto the plane.

Photos and more below.

USA Today set out to discover if the racially lopsided arrest statistics in Ferguson, Missouri, where unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was shot to death by a police officer, were an anomaly. Sadly, no: A fascinating new report reveals a racial gap in arrest stats in many locations across the country, including at least twenty in Colorado.
Westword broke out USA Today‘s Colorado numbers and ranked the twenty agencies according to how many blacks were arrested per 1,000 residents — and the results are startling. Check them out here, and to see the complete USA Today piece, click here.

The Marley Naturals logo.

Members of the Marley family have granted a Seattle-based equity firm the rights to use Bob Marley’s name in conjunction with a line of cannabis, cannabis-infused products and smoking accessories dubbed Marley Naturals, they announced this week
In an interview on NBC TODAY, Bob’s wife Rita, his son Rohan and daughter Cedella say that the brand will represent true “heirloom Jamaican cannabis” in the American market and that they’ll bring a corporate sensibility to the world of legal pot.

Back in June of 2013, local law enforcement officers in Junction City, Kansas stopped a 2002 GMC Sierra pickup truck for speeding.
Approaching the vehicle, the officers noted that the bed of the truck was full of junk and debris, including an old fridge. But once they identified the elderly driver behind the wheel, they quickly realized that there might be more to the old rambling man than meets the eye.

Denver Police have issued 668 tickets since marijuana sales were made legal for adults 21 and up, an increase of 551 tickets from the same timeframe last year or 471 percent.
According to data pulled by Colorado Public Radio, the most tickets were written during the second quarter of 2014, with 330 issued. The last three months were the second busiest for pot cops in Denver, with 224 tickets written.

We told you last week about Tannie “T-Man” Burke. He says that he’s used to being hassled by cops even though he’s never been convicted of a crime. He’s been arrested twice and detained several other times, he believes, simply because he’s a young black man.
“I feel they stop me because they see a black man walking down the street,” he tells Jim Defede. “I don’t know what to say about it. I just feel bad about it. That’s it.”
But his arrest on August 27 seemed particularly cruel and strange. Burke is blind, and after police arrested him on suspicion of marijuana possession they put him in the back of a cop car. They never took him in to be booked, he says, and then dropped him at night in a desolate area nearly a mile from his home and didn’t offer help getting home. Miami New Times has the local angle.

This week’s asshole prohibitionist award goes to Kent County (Michigan) Prosecutor William Forsyth, who single-handedly has challenged the will of voters in Grand Rapids after they decided in 2012 to decriminalize up to 2.5 ounces of pot.
He’s failed so far, but now the case is in the hands of the state Court of Appeals.
Forsyth first challenged the law in 2013, saying voters have no right to pass a measure that makes city laws conflict with state laws. But his challenge was shut down when a county circuit court judge said voters did have the authority.

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