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Feds Warn Oakland: Industrial Marijuana Farms Are Illegal

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By on Growing, News

Photo: Adrian Rushton/Colchester Gazette

​There was some more ominous saber-rattling from federal drug warriors Wednesday as a U.S. Attorney strongly warned Oakland that big industrial marijuana farms are illegal, and that the Department of Justice is considering “civil and criminal legal remedies” if the city goes ahead with its plans to permit them.

In a letter [PDF] obtained by The Bay Citizen, U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag warned that the DOJ is “concerned” about Oakland’s “licensing scheme that permits large-scale industrial marijuana cultivation and manufacturing as it authorizes conduct contrary to federal law and threatens the federal government’s efforts to regulate the possession, manufacturing, and trafficking of controlled substances.”
The central point of Haag’s letter was clear: Marijuana is illegal under federal law.
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Jury Pool In Marijuana Case Stages Mutiny; Won’t Convict

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By on News

Graphic: The Bilerico Project
In a move sure to sweep the land, a jury pool has refused to convict the defendant of a marijuana charge

​​In what could grow into something much bigger in future cases, potential jurors in Missoula County District Court staged a revolt Thursday, taking the law into their own hands and making it clear they would not convict anybody for having less than 2 grams of marijuana.

The tiny amount of marijuana police found in Touray Cornell’s Missoula, Montana home on April 23 became a big point of contention for some members of the jury panel, reports Gwen Florio of The Missoulian. One juror after another said there was no way they would convict somebody for having 1/16 of an ounce of pot.
One juror wondered aloud why the county was wasting time and money prosecuting the case at all, according to a “flummoxed” Deputy Missoula County Attorney Andrew Paul, who called it “a mutiny,” Florio reports.
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Oakland Dispensaries Sold 4.2 Million Joints This Year

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By on Dispensaries, Medical, News

Photo: Harborside Health Center
Steve DeAngelo’s Harborside Health Center, the biggest dispensary in the Bay Area, brought in about $20 million this year.

City’s Medical Pot Sales Reach $35 Million In 2010 
Most sectors of the economy are pretty grim right now, but that assessment doesn’t include the medical marijuana business in Oakland, California.

The city is projecting that Oakland’s three dispensaries will sell between $35 million and $38 million worth of cannabis this year, reports Zusha Elinson at The Bay Citizen. That means about three and a quarter tons of marijuana — 104,000 ounces, or 4.2 million joints.
The total has been getting higher and higher since Oakland started keeping track in 2004, when the dispensaries paid taxes on $4.2 million worth of sales. The figures are derived from the business tax paid to the city by dispensaries on their gross receipts.
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