Search Results: duncan (26)

I And I Rootz

​Americans for Safe Access (ASA) and a coalition of advocacy and labor groups are staging a demonstration at noon in Sacramento on Wednesday, November 9 to protest the federal government’s escalated attack on California’s medical marijuana laws.

A lively rally of medical marijuana patients and supporters is set to occur in front of the Sacramento federal building and will feature state legislators, advocates, labor and dispensary operators impacted by the recent Department of Justice (DOJ) crackdown in California.

Berkeley Patients Care Collective
California dispensaries looking for a pure sativa like this Lambsbread now have help finding growers who have the strain in stock, thanks to CannCast.

​How can medical marijuana growers know which dispensaries need their strains? And how can dispensaries know which growers have what they need?

This conundrum had frustrated Berkeley Patients Care Collective managers Erik Miller and David Bowers for 10 years. There was no reliable way for their medical cannabis dispensary to regularly get certain strains that patients needed. Waiting and wishing is sometimes all dispensary managers can do, while spending too much time with providers who don’t have the strains or quality that they want.

Americans for Safe Access
California Governor Jerry Brown wants to leave medical marijuana dispensary regulation up to cities and counties

​California Governor Jerry Brown on Wednesday handed a defeat to anti-medical marijuana forces, vetoing a bill barring dispensaries from within 600 feet of homes in the state. Gov. Brown said the bill infringed on the powers of cities and counties that already have the authority to regulate the pot shops.

Brown noted he had already signed AB 1300, which gives cities and counties clearer authority to regulate the location and operation of marijuana dispensaries, reports Patrick McGreevey at the Los Angeles Times.
“This bill goes in the opposite direction by preempting local control and prescribing the precise locations where dispensaries may not be located,” the governor wrote in his veto message. “Decisions of this kind are best made in cities and counties, not the state Capitol.”

Photo: Listverse
Fraternal Order of Police telemarketers are on drugs.

​Two former employees say that illegal drug use was rife at the Indiana Fraternal Order of Police call center when they worked there recently.

“People would go smoke weed on their 10-minute break and come back smelling rank,” claimed Cameron Duncan, a psychology major at Ball State University who quit his job at the call center in April, reports Seth Slabaugh at the Muncie Star Press.
Another former employee, Gareth Bowlin, said when he worked at the Fraternal Order of Police call center last year, “everybody did drugs in the parking lot, smoking weed and dealing pills; it was nothing but a big drug area. One girl they fired, she was so messed up on pills she fell asleep during a phone call.”

Photo: Steve Rhodes/flickr
State Senator Mark Leno: “When Californians approved the compassionate use of cannabis, they never intended for it to apply only to unemployed people”

​The State Senate Judiciary Committee voted 3-2 on Tuesday, approving a bill that would protect California’s medical marijuana patients from discrimination at the workplace.

Senate Bill 129 was introduced by Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) in January as an attempt to clarify the legislative intent of the state’s Medical Marijuana Program Act. While clearly establishing a medical marijuana patient’s right to work, SB 129 continues to prohibit on-the-job impairment.
The bill now moves to the Senate floor for an as-of-yet unscheduled vote.

Graphic: DarkGovernment

​Federal regulators stepped into a firestorm of controversy recently when they ordered banks in California’s North Coast area to spy on the transactions of customers who are suspected of making money in the medical marijuana business.

In a heavy-handed bid to crack down on California’s cannabis industry, federal officials have ordered the banks to look out for “suspicious activity” by dispensary owners, reports Clarence Walker at AlterNet. That is making it very difficult for medical marijuana dispensaries which are legal under state, but not federal law, to conduct business.

Photo: Los Angeles Times
Federal agents carry away stolen merchandise, I mean “evidence,” March 15, 2010

​Drug Enforcement Agency agents, with the help of the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, raided two medical marijuana dispensaries in West Hollywood, California on Tuesday. It was the first such action in the city since the Obama Administration decided two years ago to take a hands-off approach to dispensaries in compliance with state laws.

The federal warrants were served on the Zen Healing Collective and on Alternative Herbal Health Services, and one individual was taken into custody, which may result in arrest. Both shops were among the four dispensaries the city had authorized to operate, reports John Hoeffel at The Los Angeles Times.

Graphic: MJ Dispensaries of Southern California

​Los Angeles will vote on Tuesday, March 8, on a measure which threatens to increase the cost of an already expensive treatment for medical marijuana patients in the city. Measure M, which is one of 10 ballot measures facing L.A. voters, would increase taxes on medical marijuana by five percent, above and beyond the nearly 10 percent in sales tax which patients already pay.

Patient advocates have come out in opposition to the measure, asking the city to find other sources of revenue and to remove the tax burden from sick people.
“We understand that the city is under a lot of economic stress,” said Don Duncan, California director at Americans for Safe Access, a medical marijuana group which is strongly opposing Measure M. “But it doesn’t make sense to charge our most vulnerable people more money for the treatment.

Graphic: Rose Law Group

​California employers would be prevented from discriminating against medical marijuana patients under a bill introduced to the California Legislature on Thursday.

Senate Bill 129, introduced by State Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), would not change the current law which prohibits employees from using medical marijuana at the workplace. “This bill is not about being under the influence while at work,” Sen. Leno said. “That’s against the law, and will remain so.”
According to Sen. Leno, his bill “simply establishes a medical cannabis patient’s right to work.”

Photo: Natl NORML
Don Duncan, ASA: “It’s not acceptable to marginalize the patient community in Los Angeles and deprive them of access to this important medication”

​In a move called unnecessary and hurtful by patient advocates, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is expected to take a final vote Tuesday on an ordinance that would ban medical marijuana dispensaries in unincorporated areas of the county, rescinding dispensary regulations adopted by the board in 2006.

Members of the medical marijuana community, frustrated by the imminent passage of a ban on access to their medication, are planning to protest the board’s vote on Tuesday. They hope to draw attention not only to the need for access in unincorporated areas of L.A. County, but also a failure by the board to provide sufficient cause to rescind its existing regulatory ordinance.