Search Results: dennis (108)

Photo: KTLA
Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich: Is this hothead serving up quick revenge to dispensaries that dare criticize him?

​A Los Angeles police raid of a Venice medical marijuana dispensary last week — which occurred at a time when L.A. has said it will hold off on pot shop enforcement — happened just hours after an activist criticized the City Attorney on a radio broadcast from the store.

Host Zuma Dogg played audio of his Thursday web radio show for the LA Weekly, reports Dennis Romero. He said, in part, “I’d like to send this one out to Carmen Trutanich” and called the City Attorney “incompetent” and a “moron” for his handling of the city’s medical marijuana ordinance.
Zuma Dogg described his “broadcasting live” location as a Venice collective with “Green” in its title.

Graphic: Yes On Prop 19

​It’s gonna be a close one in California, as the latest poll on Proposition 19, this November’s tax and regulate voter initiative, shows the numbers tightening.

According to the latest SurveyUSA poll [PDF] of likely voters, taken August 31-September 1, Prop 19 still holds a modest lead with 47 percent of voters saying they will vote yes with 43 percent saying they will vote no. Ten percent still weren’t certain how they’d vote on the measure.
The last two times SurveyUSA polled the state, August 9-11 and July 8-11, 50 percent of likely voters said they’d vote yes for legalization, while 40 percent said they would vote no, reports Jon Walker at Firedoglake.
The initiative would allow adult Californians to possess up to one ounce of cannabis, while allowing cities and municipalities to allow, prohibit or regulate its sale in retail stores, reports Dennis Romero at LA Weekly.
Just this week, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein announced she will co-chair the campaign against legalization of marijuana with L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca.
“Is it no surprise that people are going to get killed behind this easy profit?” Baca said Wednesday, reports Nannette Miranda of ABC 7. The sheriff seems to be unaware that the illegal nature of pot is what leads to the violence — just as with alcohol Prohibition.

Photo: D.Blawg’s Weblog
Palms, California’s K.F.C. (Kind For Cures) dispensary, located at 3516 Hughes Avenue, gained worldwide fame last year when its story and photo went viral on the web.

​The infamous K.F.C. dispensary, a.k.a. Kind For Cures, has reopened in Los Angeles as the city has backed off on its crackdown against allegedly illegal marijuana dispensaries.

A K.F.C. employee confirmed on Monday that the pot shop was once again open for business, reports Dennis Romero at the LA Weekly, our sister blog in the Village Voice Media world.
The MySpace page of the dispensary, based in Palms, California, advertises that it reopened on Thursday, the day after the City Clerk’s office announced it was stopping the crackdown against out-of-compliance pot shops.
“Kind For Cures is re-opening August 26th, 10 a.m. to midnight, 7 days per week!” the MySpace page reads. “Come on in for your favorite flavors!!!”
K.F.C. was one of the dispensaries which shut down after it got a warning letter from City Attorney Carmen Trutanich’s office back in June, threatening $2,500-a-day fines and even possible jail time.
Asked on Monday if Los Angeles is once again basically letting all the pot shops operate, a City attorney’s spokesperson said, “You’re basically correct.”
Read Dennis Romero’s story at the LA Weekly.

Photo: Missoula Independent
Jason Christ, owner of Montana Caregivers Network, is accused of unethical business practices in a lawsuit filed by three former employees on Thursday.

​Three former employees of a Missoula, Montana medical marijuana business that has helped thousands of patients get cannabis authorizations sued its owner Thursday, claiming that he ordered hundreds of card applications to be falsified.

The wrongful-discharge lawsuit filed in state District Court in Missoula also accused Montana Caregivers Network owner Jason Christ of verbally abusing employees, using company funds for personal expenses, driving a company van while smoking marijuana and creating a “hostile work environment” that essentially forced the three workers to quit on June 18, reports Mike Dennison at the Billings Gazette.

Photo: Nick Wolcott/Bozeman Daily Chronicle
Dean Folda sits among the marijuana plants he grows at his home in Bozeman, Montana, to treat chronic pain. Getting medical authorization to use cannabis for chronic pain could get a lot more difficult under the tightened rules proposed by a legislative committee on Tuesday.

​A bill tightening Montana’s medical marijuana regulations will be drafted and forwarded to the 2011 session of the Legislature, a panel of lawmakers decided on Tuesday.

Medical marijuana patients and growers warned that the proposal contains some unnecessary restrictions on patients and suppliers of cannabis, which has taken off as a booming business in Montana over the past year, reports Mike Dennison of the Missoulian.
“If we the people pass a law, then how could a legislative body who we elect, completely carve that law up, do whatever they want with it because they put together a committee?” asked Jason Christ, owner of the Montana Caregivers Network, reports Matt Leach of NBC Montana.



Screen Capture: Reality Catcher
The Stop Prop 19 people aren’t interested in your feedback on their little video. This is a one-way conversation, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!

​A far-right conservative political group called SaveCalifornia.com is turning its unwholesome attention from anti-gay marriage legislation, Prop 8, to fighting this year’s pro-marijuana legislation, Prop 19, the legalization measure on November’s California ballot.

The group’s inaugural television ad ignores decades of scientific evidence showing showing otherwise to claim that marijuana is a “gateway drug” leading to methamphetamine and cocaine, and that it’s the addiction most cited by teenagers in drug rehab (failing to mention that most of those teens were forced into “marijuana rehab” under threat of jail).
Tellingly, both comments and the “Like/Dislike” buttons have been turned off on the YouTube video. SaveCalifornia doesn’t want a dialogue with Californians — it wants to lecture Californians.

Photo: ACLU-WA
Famed travel writer and TV host Rick Steves will be among the panelists at “Where Is Marijuana Reform Heading?”, a public forum in Seattle on September 12 sponsored by the WA ACLU.

Sure, it seems that the wind is at our backs. The tantalizing possibility of marijuana legalization looks more possible than it ever has before. But what comes next?

The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington on September 12 will present a discussion on the history, current status, and future of marijuana-law reform in Washington and the United States.
The event will be Sunday, September 12, 2010, 7 pm – pm (doors open at 6:30 pm), at the Great Hall at Town Hall Seattle, 1119 8th Avenue at Seneca Street. Enter on 8th Avenue. (Directions and Parking)
Local and national panelists include travel writer Rick StevesKeith Stroup, founder of and legal counsel to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML); Washington state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-WellesRob Kampia, co-founder and executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP); and Ethan Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA).

Graphic: Cheech and Chong Tickets

​After extensive press coverage of the burgeoning medical marijuana delivery scene, a Los Angeles city councilman is asking his peers to ban mobile pot shops as part of its strict dispensary law that took effect Monday.

Councilman Jose Juizar introduced the amendment, calling mobile dispensaries a “ruse” to get around the city’s law, which effectively put 80 percent of L.A.’s dispensaries out of business this week, reports Dennis Romero at the L.A. Weekly.
Any marijuana delivery service would be explicitly prohibited under the new amendment, unless it involves a dispensary currently compliant with city regulations and is carried out by a patient’s “primary caregiver” — which would effectively end legal pot delivery in Los Angeles, according to the Weekly.


Photo: Calaveras County Sheriff
Deputy Steve Avila admitted he stole a medical marijuana patient’s I.D. and authorization, then bought pot with it

​A California deputy has admitted using a doctor’s recommendation and stolen identity from a legal medical marijuana patient in order to buy pot in a drug sting.

Deputy Steve Avila of the Calaveras County Sheriff’s Department said during questioning that he had used the patient’s recommendation, with a falsified birthdate, to persuade a dispensary owner to sell marijuana to an officer.
Avila claimed he obtained the medical marijuana recommendation “from an investigation we conducted,” but also claimed he “did not recall” which officer obtained it, or how it was obtained.
Jay Smith of K Care Collective, the dispensary owner who was tricked into selling marijuana to an officer,  said Calaveras County is waging a war against medical marijuana, and is doing so using unethical means, reports Dana M. Nichols of the San Joaquin County Record.
Robert Shaffer, the medical marijuana patient whose identity was stolen, tells the same story.
According to Shaffer, Deputy Avila violated his privacy by using his identity and documents in the sting operation.
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