Medithrive, a cannabis dispensary in San Francisco’s Mission District that was forced to close last month, has re-emerged as a delivery-only service, part of a growing trend in California’s billion-dollar medical marijuana industry that’s recently come under attack by federal authorities. Threats of property forfeiture, fines, lawsuits and raids this winter have made brick-and-mortar locations less enticing to pot entrepreneurs, David Downs reports for the San Francisco Chronicle. Hundreds of storefronts have closed amid the new federal crackdown. Delivery services remain, offering a lower-profile, albeit more dangerous, alternative. “It just makes sense. When you have [...]
In response to a court order, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department Friday afternoon returned 2 pounds of medicinal marijuana to a dispensary from which it was seized earlier this month. A Sacramento Superior Court judge Friday morning ordered the Sheriff’s Department to return the marijuana to the Common Roots Collective, Kim Minugh reports in the Sacramento Bee. On Dec. 1, deputies accompanied code enforcement officers who executed an inspection warrant at the dispensary on 52nd Street in Sacramento, said John Fuery, the collective’s attorney. While at the collective, deputies seized 2 pounds of marijuana, citing [...]
Patients, partyers and profiteers have a month to chop down their marijuana if they want to stay on the right side of the law in Live Oak. The City Council on Wednesday night finalized a ban on growing marijuana for medical use, which will now take effect Jan. 20. Council members first approved the ban at their Dec. 7 meeting, saying marijuana grows stunk up neighborhoods and threatened people’s safety as criminals tried to steal plants and growers tried to protect them, sometimes with razor wire and guard dogs. “They’re taking our medicines away,” said [...]
Medical marijuana advocates want to create a statewide system for licensing, regulating and taxing the industry as a way of persuading federal officials to ease up on their crackdown of California’s pot clubs and growers. After months of study, a coalition of medical marijuana activists led by Americans for Safe Access and a labor union that represents dispensary workers in Northern California, have proposed a 2012 ballot initiative that would create an appointed Board of Medical Marijuana Enforcement charged with overseeing businesses and nonprofits that grow, distribute, sell and test pot both in its raw [...]
SAN FRANCISCO — Attorney General Kamala Harris urged California lawmakers Wednesday to get serious about clarifying the state’s 15-year-old medical marijuana law, saying numerous holes in the notoriously liberal statute have left law enforcement and legitimate patients in a near-constant state of uncertainty. In a letter to the Legislature’s leaders, Harris said the state needs to spell out if the hundreds of storefront dispensaries and delivery services that sell marijuana—purportedly for medical use—are legal, or if the only lawful way to obtain the drug is through patient collectives in which all members jointly grow their [...]
Petaluma Mayor David Glass says that three months ago he might well have voted for lifting his city’s ban on marijuana dispensaries. He has no doubt medical cannabis helps some and has the support of many more, Sam Scott reports in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. But times have changed. When the topic of lifting the ban arose at Monday’s City Council meeting, Glass told the audience his views had been tempered by the recent federal crackdown on the state’s medical marijuana industry. “I believe the people want it,” Glass said. “I just don’t think [...]
With no one from the public addressing the matter and almost no discussion among its members, the Eureka City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to extend a moratorium on the permitting of medical marijuana dispensaries. On an ever-changing legal landscape, the 10-month, 15-day moratorium extension is designed to allow the city to further evaluate the “legal parameters” of the city’s medical marijuana ordinance, which the city has been informed is in violation of the federal Controlled Substances Act, Thadeus Greenson reports in the Eureka Times-Standard. ”I think pretty much our hands are tied at this point,” [...]
SHASTA LAKE — The City Council voted Tuesday night to let this city’s two medical-marijuana collectives remain in business and to revise the city zoning code to comply with a recent California Court of Appeal ruling that has put collectives’ local permits in legal jeopardy statewide. City Councilwoman Dolores Lucero had asked the council to consider closing down the 530 Collective and the Queen of Dragons under an urgency ordinance, similar to the one the Redding City Council passed in mid-November, the Record Searchlight reports. Instead, after hearing from about two dozen medical-marijuana patients and [...]
An outspoken Redding medical marijuana patient and advocate presented three City Council members with recall notices Tuesday night. Rob McDonald, 50, presented council members Francie Sullivan, Rick Bosetti and Patrick Jones with the notices during the meeting’s public comment period, Sean Longoria reports in the Record Searchlight. “Tonight I do something that isn’t easy for me,” McDonald said before announcing and presenting the notices. “Four weeks ago you basically listened to a group of people who basically wanted to violate another group of people’s rights and you closed down the dispensaries.” The notice presented to [...]
LONG BEACH – A jury Wednesday convicted two local men on all counts for using a trio of medical marijuana collectives to illegally sell the drug, as well as grand theft and filing false tax returns. Supporters of defendants Joe Grumbine and Joe Byron insisted the charges – 13 felony counts – are nothing more than an attack by zealous police and prosecutors in violation of the state’s medical marijuana law, Tracy Manzer reports in the Long Beach Press-Telegram. Deputy District Attorney Jodi Castano countered the case was about two men using the sick and [...]
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