Rand Corp.’s website has removed a controversial study that suggested medical marijuana dispensaries may help reduce crime in their neighborhoods, a decision that came almost three weeks after enraged Los Angeles city attorneys slammed the report and demanded an immediate retraction. Warren Robak, a spokesman for the Santa Monica-based think tank, said Tuesday, “As we’ve begun to take a look at the report, we decided it’s best to remove it from circulation until that review is complete.” (Banned at Rand? I don’t know what scares me more, the L.A. city attorney’s office or Rand’s stern [...]
Bud’s note: Today’s must-read story comes from Justin Berton of the San Francisco Chronicle. It’s heartening to see good writing and reporting, for a change. ===================== FORT BRAGG — The moment the news spread that City Councilman Jere Melo had been shot in the hills outside this North Coast town while looking for a marijuana farm to eradicate, many people here had the same thought: The woods are not safe. “It’s out of control out there,” Mayor Dave Turner said last week as he prepared his close friend’s memorial service. “Maybe Jere’s death will make [...]
What is it that makes marijuana more frightening to the federal government than cocaine or morphine? The Drug Enforcement Administration has steadfastly, over decades, listed marijuana as a Schedule I drug, meaning that it has no medical value and that the potential for abuse is high. Cocaine and morphine, far more dangerous and habit-forming, are listed as Schedule II because they have some medical value. Last week the DEA ruled once again, a decade after it made the same decision, that marijuana is a potentially dangerous drug without known medical benefits. During the intervening 10 [...]
It was a sunny day in Forest Ranch, perfect for some outdoor gardening, and a crew of eight men was tending to a fenced-in piece of land about a third of an acre in size. A guy in his early 20s named Jack fired up a weed whacker and carefully set to manicuring the grass between several rows of raised-bed planters. “If I didn’t have the co-op to get my medicine, I don’t know how I’d get it. It’s really unsafe trying to get it on the street. You can get busted doing that,” he [...]
Here’s how Pacific Referral advertised yesterday’s grand opening of its medical-marijuana clinic in central Fresno: with a bounce house and free refreshments. Here’s what the new business didn’t advertise, Barbara Anderson reports in the Fresno Bee: Its two out-of-town doctors are on probation with the California Medical Board — and both are prohibited from practicing on their own. That fact underscores what some experts say is an emerging problem as more clinics open in California to offer medical-marijuana evaluations: They can attract doctors who have troubled histories. While many doctors who recommend medical marijuana fervently [...]
Aug 282010
Quirky social-news site Reddit always seemed an unusual acquisition for Manhattan media giant Conde Nast, and it’s never been more evident: Asked by Conde Nast overlords to stop running advertisements on behalf of advocates of California’s Proposition 19, which supports the legalization of marijuana, Reddit decided they’d do it anyway. Because Conde Nast said its main concern was obtaining revenue from those controversial advocacy groups, Reddit’s solution was that they would simply run the ads for free, Caroline McCarthy reports on CNET.com “This was a decision made at the highest levels of Conde Nast,” an [...]
Fed up with armed marijuana growers taking over public lands, a group of Mendocino County residents on Tuesday asked the Board of Supervisors to declare a state of emergency and bring in the National Guard. “They’re everywhere, they are destroying the forest,” said Chris Brennan, a Laytonville rancher and federal trapper. “It’s out of control,” said Paul Trouette, a county Fish and Game commissioner. Supervisors directed the county attorney to investigate what a state of emergency would entail and the potential repercussions. The request comes one week after a sheriff’s deputy shot to death a [...]
Oakland’s City Council late Tuesday adopted regulations permitting industrial-scale marijuana farms, a plan that some small farmers argued would squeeze them out of the industry they helped to build. To address concerns from smaller farmers, the council pledged to create regulations on regulating small- and medium-size marijuana farms this year. Council members and proponents of marijuana cultivation regulation viewed the proposal as smart public policy: It would generate revenue, ensure that fire and building codes are enforced, keep neighborhoods safe from robberies, and further position Oakland as the center of the state’s cannabis economy, the [...]
Proponents of the marijuana legalization initiative on the November ballot won the endorsement Wednesday of the council that oversees the political work of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in California, as well as one of the union’s major locals, giving proponents a significant boost to their campaign. They also had hoped to win the endorsement of the California Labor Federation, which met this week in San Diego, but decided not to press for a vote and settled instead on persuading the powerful organization to remain neutral — which it did. “Obviously, I would [...]
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration has flouted Mendocino County’s newly enacted medical marijuana ordinance by raiding the first collective that had applied to the sheriff’s cultivation permit program, the Emerald Triangle News Service reports. A multi-agency federal task force descended on the property of Joy Greenfield, the first Mendo patient to pay the $1,050 application fee under the ordinance, which allows collectives to grow up to 99 plants provided they comply with certain regulations. Greenfield had applied in the name of her collective, “Light The Way,” which opened in San Diego earlier this year. Her [...]
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