Fresno County leaders are facing a last-ditch effort to block their new medical marijuana restrictions – but not just from advocates of the drug. The cities of Selma and Fowler are asking the county to reconsider its ordinance out of fear it will push the marijuana trade into their backyards, Kurtis Alexander reports in the Fresno Bee. The county regulation – approved by supervisors July 12 but requiring a second vote next month – bans storefront marijuana sales in unincorporated communities, but it allows indoor cultivation in select industrial areas, including the outskirts of cities [...]
Our view: Four city councilors wanted to provide something for medical marijuana users, but now the users may end up with nothing. The City Council’s plan to endorse two huge marijuana-growing operations in Chico is quickly unraveling. Wow, who saw that one coming? Well the truth is, everyone, except the four city councilors who voted for it knew this would happen, the Chico Enterprise-Record opines in this unsigned editorial. Ignoring the warnings of the Department of Justice, the Butte County district attorney, the police chief and the local police force, the council voted 4-3 on [...]
Once again, government servants have told Americans that marijuana ranks right up there with heroin. The Drug Enforcement Administration ruled on July 8 that marijuana has “no accepted medical use” and will continue as a Schedule 1 drug — the most forbidden category. The DEA is a law enforcement bureaucracy, the Appeal-Democrat of Marysville observes in this refreshingly blunt editorial. The medical opinions of law enforcement bureaucrats should be of little interest. We do not ask cops to make laws; we pay cops to enforce the laws established by constitutions or enacted by the people [...]
A 43-year-old Santa Rosa man had been hired to work in an illicit marijuana garden near the Napa-Sonoma county line where authorities found him and another man dead, Santa Rosa police said. Enlarge | Wilfredo Ronaldo Rivas-Velazquez had left his family’s home on June 17 to join several other men for a job tending an illegal marijuana garden hidden in the brush on private land west of Rutherford, Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Steve Fraga said. When he failed to return home, his daughter called police, Julie Johnson reports in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. The [...]
The Chico Police Officers’ Association executive board said today it will not enforce the city’s medical marijuana dispensary ordinance. The association planned to deliver letters to council members today stating that the ordinance allowing for two dispensaries conflicts with federal law, the Chico Enterprise-Record reports. “Our only option is this. The members of the Chico Police Officers’ Association will not participate in any part of the medical marijuana ordinance that involves commercial marijuana growing or selling operations,” the letter reads. “We will not assist in any way in any activity that normalizes, standardizes, expedites or [...]
The idea of forming an ad-hoc committee to prepare an ordinance governing medical marijuana dispensaries will go before the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors Tuesday, according to County Counsel Jeanine Nadel. The Mendocino County grand jury recommended the board should adopt such an ordinance, Tiffany Revelle reports in the Ukiah Daily Journal, spurring the discussion forward after work on a draft ordinance stopped. A board-appointed committee considered a draft Nadel prepared in October 2009, then directed her to stop work on it, according to the grand jury. “The courts have made it very clear that [...]
A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday that Long Beach has the authority to criminally enforce its medical marijuana ordinance. Superior Court Judge Laura Laesecke’s decision was in response to a June claim from 14 defendants representing five medical marijuana collectives who wanted their criminal cases dismissed. They claimed that Long Beach’s ordinance was invalid and was pre-empted by California law, so it couldn’t be criminally enforced, Phillip Zonkel reports in the Long Beach Press-Telegram. Long Beach was prosecuting the collectives because they were considered illegal, not complying with Long Beach’s medical marijuana [...]
The one medical marijuana dispensary in Sebastopol, a city of 7,300, should be enough to serve the community’s needs, the City Council has decided. The council Tuesday night voted to urge county officials to reject a proposed medical marijuana dispensary just outside the city limits, complaining it would impact the city while outside the city’s control. “We allow for the needs of the medical cannabis community already,” said Mayor Guy Wilson. “I don’t feel it’s useful for us to support this.” The council also directed the city planning commission to amend Sebastopol’s ordinance regulating medical [...]
A pot grower raided by Nevada County’s narcotics task force has lost a federal lawsuit against the county. Jon-Cory Schmidt sued the county and the Sheriff’s Office alleging his due process and equal protections rights had been violated, after a raid on his medical marijuana grow in September 2009. The case, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Sacramento in October 2010, was dismissed Tuesday, Liz Kellar reports in The Union of Grass Valley. Schmidt alleged that he was in lawful possession of medical cannabis under medical recommendations issued by licensed California physicians at [...]
Medical marijuana patients in Roseville who grow their own pot will have to keep their gardens indoors under an ordinance the City Council will consider today. The proposal makes it a fineable offense – even for users covered by Proposition 215 – to grow marijuana outdoors. A 2005 council action banned marijuana dispensaries within city limits. City officials said the ordinance is being considered at the behest of residents, Ed Fletcher reports in the Sacramento Bee. Roseville Press-Tribune update: Council delays action on cultivation ban “We are not trying to stop them from growing it [...]
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