| Photo: Leila Avidani/Las Vegas Sun |
| Marijuana grow house bust in Las Vegas: One of 112 so far this year |
The bad economy in Las Vegas has meant opportunity for some clandestine cannabis cultivators. Las Vegas police have busted 112 marijuana grow houses this year, more than double the number raided in 2007.
With the Las Vegas economy sucking wind, a large and unprecedented number of homes are now empty and are rarely checked by police or the banks that now own them, reports Jackie Valley at the Las Vegas Sun.
Additionally, some financially desperate absentee owners and investors are renting to tenants without conducting background checks, according to Lt. Laz Chavez of the Metro Las Vegas Police Department.
Pot growers are even moving into commercial real estate, where the relaxed or absent background checks give them an “in,” reports Gus Lubin at the Business Insider. For example, police seized around 90 plants in a September raid of a large warehouse that neighboring tenants thought was a bakery. (Insert “getting baked” joke here.)
| Photo: Cleveland Police/WTAM |
| Productive operation, by the looks of it. |
Two brothers are in custody after Cleveland police executed search warrants last Friday and discovered an indoor marijuana growing operation they claimed had more than 1,000 plants.
Members of the Cleveland Division of Police Narcotics Unit and the Westlake Police Department worked “jointly” investigating the operation, reports WTAM 1100. As a result of the joint investigation, evidence was presented to the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office and the search warrants were issued.
| Photo: My Fox Phoenix |
| As of Friday morning, only 1,500 votes separated “Yes” and “No” on Prop 203, Arizona’s medical marijuana ballot initiative |
Gap Narrows As Final Ballots Counted
Friday, November 12 is the deadline for county election officials in Arizona to finalize the election that was held 10 days ago. One of the races that has been too close to call until now is Proposition 203, which would legalize medical marijuana in the state.
Maricopa County is the only hold-out at this point, according to the Arizona Daily Star, with tens of thousands of ballots left to count. Prop 203 at latest count is behind by only 1,500 votes, closing the gap from 3,000, according to My Fox Phoenix, gaining ground in the past week as ballots were counted.
If vote-counting goes late into the night, it may be Monday morning before cannabis patients in Arizona will find out if they’ll have legal access to the medicine that works best for them.
Both the Daily Star and the Tucson Citizen were reporting Friday that voters wouldn’t know the outcome until next week, but My Fox Phoenix‘s story says “Answer on Medical Marijuana Will Come Friday Night.”
| Photo: News 3 |
| New Zealand cannabis protesters targeted Wellington Central police station on Thursday |
Wellington, New Zealand police will decide Friday whether to charge cannabis legalization activists who pushed a shopping cart full of burning marijuana into the central police station foyer.
Officers will study CCTV footage showing the shopping cart loaded with smoking weed being pushed into the central police station at the height of a legalization protest, reports 3 News.
The protest, part of the Armistice Tour, a nationwide push for cannabis law reform, began Thursday morning with more than 100 people gathering on Parliament’s front lawn to promote the benefits of marijuana over legal substances like alcohol and tobacco.
The protesters gathered outside the Wellington police station about 6 p.m., when the “smoke bomb” was pushed into the foyer, according to Julian Crawford, an activist and candidate with the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party.
| Graphic: pyrello3000 |
A Battle Creek, Michigan man who was fired a year ago for legally using medical marijuana is fighting Wal-Mart’s attempt to move his lawsuit to federal court.
A federal judge on Friday will hear arguments in the lawsuit of Joseph Casias, reports the Battle Creek Enquirer. Casias, a 30-year-old cancer patient and former Employee of the Year, was fired by Wal-Mart after a routine drug screen found he had used cannabis.
Casias was legally registered in Michigan to use marijuana to treat pain.
Casias, 30, did not use marijuana at work or work under the influence, his attorneys said.
Casias’s attorneys will ask the court to deny a motion filed by Wal-Mart seeking dismissal of the case and reject the mega-corporation’s attempt to have the case tried in federal court instead of state court.
| Photo: Eastside Narcotics Task Force |
| This marijuana grow operation at a Renton, Washington rental house had 605 plants. |
Narcotics detectives found what they claim is more than $1 million worth of marijuana growing inside a Renton, Washington home on November 4.
Members of the Eastside Narcotics Task Force, one of those consortiums of local police departments formed in order to get fat federal Drug War grants, served a search warrant on a two-story rental house at 11 p.m. that night and discovered 605 cannabis plants and 71 pounds of marijuana, reports Jill Kimball at The Seattle Times.
Detectives claimed they found water damage and holes in the floor, walls and ceiling of the house, all, they claimed, the result of the marijuana grow operation that tenants of the home were operating.
| Katy Batdorff/Grand Rapids Press |
| Mayor Jack Poll of Wyoming, Michigan, wants to “protect” citizens from medical marijuana. Now, who’s gonna protect ’em from Mayor Poll? |
Is this guy your mayor or your daddy? Mayor Jack Poll of Wyoming, Michigan, wants to “protect” citizens from medical marijuana. Now, who’s gonna protect ’em from Mayor Poll?
A resident of the city of has filed suit over the municipality’s intent to ban ban medicinal cannabis within city limits.
John Ter Beek, a retired attorney and former board of education member, said he is licensed to treat pain from his bad back and diabetes with cannabis. He filed suit this week in Kent County Circuit Court, reports Matt Vande Bunte of The Grand Rapids Press.
In the suit, dated Monday, Ter Beek said this month’s City Council decision tramples the rights of Michigan voters who overwhelmingly (63 percent yes) approved medical marijuana at the polls in 2008. The suit also says the decision violates the second article of the state constitution, which guarantees citizens’ right to pass an initiative that amends state law.
Ter Beek said the city’s ban is vague and overly broad, besides.
But Mayor Jack Poll, who thinks he knows better than the voters, claimed the ban shields residents from “possible hazards” of a “poorly written” state law.
“We’re looking to advertise that (Wyoming) isn’t the best place to set up shop (for marijuana),” said former liquor store owner Poll, a pharmacist. “We don’t want it, and we think it would be a detriment to the city.”
“If nothing else, time will be on our side,” the mayor said. “If (the ban) defers (medical marijuana) from the city of Wyoming for any amount of time, then I feel it’s an accomplishment.”
“I’m out to protect our citizens as long as I can,” said the paternalistically condescending mayor.
| Photo: First Coast News |
| Daughter Ashley Bodden reacts to the news that her father’s murder by a deputy was ruled “justifiable homicide” |
“He died over a bag of marijuana.”
~ Ray Bodden’s daughter
The shooting death of a Florida man by a deputy was ruled “justifiable homicide” this week because the unarmed man supposedly made the officer “feel in danger.”
Ernest Cole, the deputy who shot and killed Franklin “Ray” Bodden, 39, as he pulled a bag of marijuana out of his pocket, has now returned to patrols, reports Kate Howard at The Florida Times-Union.
Nassau County Deputy Cole shot Bodden twice during a traffic stop, killing him.
“He died over a bag of marijuana,” said Ray’s daughter, Ashley Bodden, who said she had spent the last several years building a relationship with her father. Her mother and father had divorced when she was very young, leaving the father and daughter to make up for lost time.
| Photo: Patti Sapone/The Star-Ledger |
| Tuan Dang, the alleged leader, accused of growing marijuana in New Jersey’s biggest cultivation bust ever. |
The suspected leader and two cohorts in a marijuana trafficking organization have been indicted on charges stemming from the largest pot bust in New Jersey history.
The three are accused of growing an estimated $10 million worth of cannabis in five homes in Middlesex, Monmouth and Ocean counties, reports Charles Webster at APP.com.
Tuan Dang, 36, of Port Monmouth is charged with leading a marijuana trafficking network, which carries a mandatory life sentence in New Jersey, according to Attorney General Paula Dow. He is being held on $1 million bail, reports Tom Haydon at the New Jersey Star-Ledger.
| Photo: Irvin Rosenfeld/potluckrx.com |
| The great Irv Rosenfeld, shown here with a tin of 300 federal joints, has smoked thousands of doobs — all of which he got from the federal government — since 1982. |
Federal Marijuana Patient Irv Rosenfeld To Speak In The Mile High City
Irvin Rosenfeld is one of my personal heroes. One of only four surviving medical marijuana patients in the U.S. who receive cannabis legally from the federal government, Irv also unofficially holds the world record for smoking more joints (documented through his medical records) — 115,000 — than any other human being. (Just putting you on notice, Irv — I’m doing all I can to catch up with you.)
Rosenfeld will be in Denver for a speaking engagement and book signing this Saturday, November 13, at the Oriental Theatre in Denver at 3 p.m.