| U.S. Forest Service |
| A federal drug agent prepares to destroy a marijuana crop in Northern California |
You too, Mendo? Say it ain’t so! The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors has voted 3-2 to support the use of federal intelligence agencies in the war against marijuana.
| Ronald Martinez |
| LeBron James can’t be bummed out about the news: No testing for pot in the NBA’s off-season |
Just because you’re seven feet tall doesn’t have to mean you can’t get higher. The National Basketball Association’s new labor agreement will not test players for marijuana during the off-season. Players will only be tested for performance-enhancing drugs.
| David Downs/East Bay Express |
| Kevin Reed, The Green Cross: “It’s high time Governor Brown take action to advance meaningful policies” |
The Green Cross, San Francisco’s first licensed medical cannabis dispensary, is urging California Governor Jerry Brown to join a federal petition to reschedule marijuana filed by Governors Christine Gregoire (D-WA) and Lincoln Chafee (I-RI).
| YouTube |
| Attorney General Eric Holder: “If in fact people are not using he policy decision that we have made to use marijuana in a way that’s not consistent with the state statute, we will not use our limited resources in that way.” Or something. |
It’s easy to get whiplash trying to keep up with federal medical marijuana policy, and my neck’s hurting again after hearing the latest from Attorney General Eric Holder. Holder on Thursday repeated the support of the Department of Justice for the Ogden Memo, the 2009 policy statement which deprioritized the prosecution of medical marijuana providers who are following state law.
| bkusler |
| California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano: “This is a crisis, and it’s putting patients at risk” |
We’re two months into a confusing crackdown by the federal Department of Justice on medical marijuana dispensaries, and California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano is expected to meet soon with the U.S. Attorney’s office.
| memoirsofapothead |
| Hot Box Cafe in Toronto |
| Wussup Hater |
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper apparently doesn’t plan to sign a petition from Govs. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Chris Gregoire of Washington which asks the federal government to change the classification of marijuana, but Colorado will reportedly file its own request before the end of the year.
| New York Magazine |
| The Big Apple is STILL the King of the World for marijuana arrests — even after a 13 percent drop. |
Since 1977, possession cases for small amounts of marijuana have been violations in New York — non-arrestable offenses — unless the pot is burning or in plain public view. But despite the existing law, in 2010 one out of every seven arrests in New York City was for marijuana possession “in public view” — even though the vast majority of those arrested did not possess marijuana in public view, as widely reported in The New York Times, WNYC, the Daily News and many other outlets.
| Kitsap Sun |
| Now retired, Bremerton cop Roy Alloway was one of WestNET’s top officers. Next month he’s up for sentencing on federal tax fraud and gun dealing charges. |
Among defense attorneys, “narcotics officers” have a certain reputation: thuggishly violent goons who enjoy trashing suspects’ homes and bullying children. There’s no better example of why such perceptions exist than the WestNET task force in Washington state.
| LBCA |