Search Results: chief (508)

Photo: puffpuffere, forum.grasscity.com
Imagine the concept: You and your doctor, rather than the Legislature, deciding how much medicine you need.

​The California Supreme Court has struck down limits on how much medical marijuana patients can possess and cultivate.

Patients and caregivers with a doctor’s recommendation to use marijuana can now possess as much as is “reasonably related to the patient’s current medical needs,” a standard that the court established in a 1997 decision.
The court concluded that the restrictions imposed by the Legislature are an unconstitutional amendment of a 1996 voter-approved initiative.


Pete Holmes
Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes: “We’re not going to prosecute marijuana cases anymore”

​Seattle’s new city attorney, keeping a campaign promise, is dismissing all marijuana possession cases, starting with those that were begun under the previous city attorney.

“We’re not going to prosecute marijuana possession cases anymore,” City Attorney Pete Holmes said Thursday. “I meant it when I said it” during the campaign.
Holmes, who defeated incumbent Tom Carr in November, said he dismissed two marijuana cases in his first day on the job, and several others are about to be dismissed, reports Emily Heffter at The Seattle Times.
Unless there are “out of the ordinary circumstances,” Holmes’s office doesn’t intend to file charges for marijuana possession, according to Craig Sims, criminal division chief.

Graphic: Cannabis Culture
Professor David Nutt: “We’re going to focus on the science”

​An independent group, designed to give “politically neutral” information in the United Kingdom about the risks of drugs, is being launched.

The group is founded by the British government’s former chief drugs adviser, David Nutt, who was sacked last October for criticizing government drug policy and calling cannabis a relatively safe drug.
The Independent Council on Drug Harms, made up of about 20 specialists, will be “very powerful,” according to Nutt, and its goal will be to take over from the government-run Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), reports the BBC.

Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Scenes like this — a 1,700-pound bust in Sumas, Washington in 2009 — may become things of the past in the state if a move to legalize marijuana comes to fruition.

​Washington State lawmakers on Wednesday heard, for the first time ever, testimony in support of legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana for adults.

Members of the House Committee on Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness, in a heavily attended, two-hour hearing, heard arguments in favor of House Bill 2401.
HB 2401 would “remove all existing criminal and civil penalties for adults 21 years of age or older who cultivate, possess, transport, sell, or use marijuana.”
The hearing marked the first time in history that Washington lawmakers had ever debated the merits of legalizing and regulating the sale and use of cannabis.

Photo: Carol Hirata/Windsor Beacon
MediGrow owner Lazarus Pino said he’s ignoring Windsor’s moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries. “I’m here for the patients. I provide medical care.”

​MediGrow, one of three medical marijuana dispensaries operating in Windsor, Colorado, has been ordered to close in compliance with a 75-day moratorium the town board passed on Dec. 16. But MediGrow’s owner, Lazarus Pino, said Tuesday he plans to stay open.

“I’m here for the patients,” Pino said, reports Lisa Mehring of the Windsor Beacon. “I provide medical care. What’s so bad about helping people medically? I’ve invested a lot of money in this place. I wish they would let me operate.”
Since the moratorium on Dec. 16, the Windsor Police Department has issued a citation every single day the business has remained open. Every citation comes with an appearance in Windsor Municipal Court.
If a judge finds MediGrow in violation, the dispensary could face a $293 fine with a $7 surcharge for every day the business remains open.
Chief of Police John Michaels said there’d been no problem in issuing the daily citations. “We go in, we issue our citation, and we make a little small talk,” Michaels said.

Photo: www.westcoastleaf.com

​A Superior Court in California has ordered the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to pay $69,400 in attorneys’ fees to a medical marijuana advocacy organization.

The Merced Superior Court on Thursday ruled the DMV must reimburse Americans for Safe Access (ASA). The attorneys’ fees award results from a lawsuit filed by ASA in November 2008 against the DMV for its policy of unjustly revoking drivers’ licenses of qualified medical marijuana patients.

Artwork: Jim Wheeler
Safe access to marijuana remains a distant dream to many patients — even in states which have legalized medical use

​One by one, the lights are winking out. In city after city, town after town, in states where medical marijuana is now legal, patients who had dared hope they would at last have safe access to the medicine recommended by their doctors are having those hopes dashed.
The problem? Political cowardice and the panicked reaction of the status quo.
Every week brings more news of freaked out city councils and county boards of supervisors who desperately want to appear to be “doing something” — anything — about the proliferation of marijuana dispensaries.
This phenomenon is so far mostly confined to California and to a lesser extent Colorado, but it’s unfortunately also starting to happen in Michigan, Montana and even Maine — where voters specifically approved dispensaries in November.
Rather than showing true leadership by showing genuine concern for patients and communities, too many local government officials are going for the easy, knee-jerk reaction. The level of disregard for the intentions of the voters — who clearly expressed their will by legalizing medical marijuana — is breathtaking.

MediLeaf
The little dispensary that could: MediLeaf is still open, despite the efforts of the Gilroy, Calif., City Council

​​A Superior Court judge handed down a ruling Tuesday keeping Gilroy, California’s new medical marijuana dispensary open for now, prompting a city councilman to call for a refund from the city’s legal firm.

MediLeaf owners embraced and sighed with relief in San Jose when Judge Kevin Murphy denied the City of Gilroy’s legal request for an injunction to shut the dispensary down immediately until after a trial ended, reports Jonathan Partridge of the Gilroy Dispatch.
The dispensary could open remain for a year or longer as the case winds its way through the labyrinthine legal process.
If that sounds expensive for the city, yes, it is. Councilman Craig Gartman said this week the he’d heard litigation could cost the city at least $250,000, and maybe up to half a million dollars.

Photo: stopthedrugwar.org
San Diegans protest Operation Green Rx, District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis’ dispensary crackdown

​The San Diego City Council is considering adopting dispensary regulations that were developed recently by the city’s Medical Marijuana Task Force, with substantial public input.

The task force held public meetings, studied ordinances from other cities and counties around the state, and considered comments from San Diego residents over a period of five weeks before making the recommendations.
“The San Diego City Council is doing a difficult and brave thing,” said Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, deputy state director in Southern California for the Drug Policy Alliance Network. “It’s putting safe access for medical marijuana patients and the needs of San Diegans above the political opposition of the County Board of Supervisors and the District Attorney.”

Photo Courtesy Eugene Davidovich
Marijuana hero Eugene Davidovich: In San Diego court today at 1:30 p.m.

​Medical marijuana patient, activist and provider Eugene Davidovich is scheduled to appear in court in San Diego today.

Davidovich is one of the victims of San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis’ war on cannabis patients and providers.
Eugene’s hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. at 220 West Broadway, San Diego. If you’re in the San Diego area, in-person court support is much appreciated.
A military veteran with an honorable discharge, Davidovich started a legal marijuana collective in San Diego, carefully abiding by state law.
Eugene was arrested last February as part of Operation Green Rx (aka Operation Endless Summer). He told me that the chief investigative officer in his case testified on the stand that the officer based his expert testimony, as far as “medical marijuana training,” on a handout from something called the Narcotic Educational Foundation of America, “Drug Abuse Education Provider of the California Narcotic Officers’ Association.”
In this toxic little screed, with the title Use of Marijuana As A “Medicine” (the quotes are theirs), we learn right off the bat — in the first sentence! — that “Marijuana, a plant from the cannabis family, is illegal and highly psychoactive.” No mention of the fact that medical use of marijuana is legal, mind you — and this in materials used to educate law enforcement officers.

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