The Eureka Planning Commission reviewed the city’s proposed medical marijuana ordinance and recommended caps for dispensaries and cultivation sites, along with a few other additions. The Eureka City Council and city staff have been working to develop a medical cannabis ordinance, which is a land-use ordinance, to specify and regulate the capability for growing, processing and distributing medical marijuana in residential and industrial areas, according to a city staff report. The council voted on April 7 to send the proposed ordinance to the Planning Commission for review, the Eureka Times-Standard reports, and to ask for [...]
OAKLAND – The mere existence of the Steep Hill Lab presents a pointed question: How safe is the marijuana provided to hundreds of thousands of medical pot users in California? How safe is the marijuana provided to hundreds of thousands of medical pot users in California? The Oakland laboratory, started in 2008 by two former growers, has tested 12,000 pot samples to assure marijuana businesses that their product isn’t tainted by dangerous toxic molds or pesticides. Nearly 50 medical marijuana dispensaries and pot-growing networks contract with the lab, California’s most renowned cannabis testing location, “Weed [...]
Seeking to overturn the city’s medical marijuana ordinance even before it takes effect, a loose-knit coalition of Los Angeles collectives is quietly gathering signatures to force a referendum on the law. The scrappy, largely volunteer effort faces a Monday deadline to turn in 27,425 valid signatures, reports John Hoeffel of the Los Angeles Times. Update: Times: Petition drive falls short L.A. Daily News coverage “We’re getting down to the wire here,” said Dan Halbert, who runs Rainforest Collective in Mar Vista and has coordinated the campaign. “It’s going to be close.” Halbert’s dispensary on Venice [...]
Medical marijuana advocates told the city of Eureka Tuesday night that its ordinance regulating medical marijuana was a good start, but they still had plenty of suggestions. The city, spearheaded by council members Jeff Leonard and Linda Atkins, held a public workshop to gather input from the public about its new draft ordinance aimed at regulating the cultivation, processing and distribution of medical cannabis in Eureka. Residents brought up several issues, the Eureka Times-Standard’s Donna Tam reports, including product labeling, wattage limits, grow space to site ratio, the installation of sprinklers and the cap on [...]
Let’s not get too smug about polls that suggest California voters are poised to legalize marijuana. Even if the Tax Cannabis initiative passes by a landslide, you can bet cops, prosecutors and elected officials will undermine the law in every way possible. After all, they’ve had plenty of practice with medipot. While it’s too soon for full-blown campaign fireworks, the anti-legalization strategy is easy to predict. The law-and-order types will paint medical marijuana as a plague unleashed upon California, while at the same time expressing heartfelt compassion for patients who use it legitimately. They’ll point [...]
A state organization representing medical marijuana dispensaries filed suit Tuesday challenging a new Los Angeles law that restricts where the clinics can operate, the L.A. Daily News reports. Americans for Safe Access filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court, seeking a temporary restraining order against the city, which has launched an aggressive effort to close down clinics not abiding by the law. The city measure, adopted in January, seeks to impose a cap of 70 clinics in Los Angeles while prohibiting any from opening within 1,000 feet of schools, playgrounds and other sensitive-use areas. “The [...]
The Santa Rosa Press-Democrat urges tighter regulation of medipot in this editorial, but its proposed solutions are every bit as vague as the law itself. Strangely absent is any mention of legalization, perhaps the most useful tool available to cure what ails the medipot industry. Guess I’ll have to write my own editorial… ==================== Anecdotal evidence of marijuana’s medicinal value is nothing new. People with debilitating diseases including AIDS, cancer, glaucoma have long said that marijuana relieves pain and eases other symptoms in ways that conventional drugs don’t. Their stories moved voters in 1996 when [...]
Chris Roberts offers this enjoyably pointed blog post in S.F. Weekly, which provides useful context about the landmark medicinal marijuana report released last week. ================= It’s not news that marijuana may have healing qualities: after all, medicinal cannabis has been (sort of) the law of the land since 1996, when California voters passed Proposition 215 . Still, it was a very big deal when the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research released the results last Wednesday of its 10-year, $9 million study on pot’s medical efficacy. The good news? The tests were the first clinical trials [...]
Democratic candidates for state attorney general yesterday took varying positions on the merits of legalizing marijuana, but agreed that medical marijuana needs to be much more heavily regulated than it is now. Assemblyman Ted Lieu of Torrance said he opposes legalization, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. Assemblyman Alberto Torrico of Fremont and Chris Kelly, chief privacy officer for Facebook, said any discussion of legalization is premature until the medical marijuana industry is reined in. Assemblyman Pedro Nava of Santa Barbara said he is “agnostic” on the subject. The four, along with Los Angeles City Councilwoman [...]
The medicinal marijuana flow is coming to an end in the palm-shaded “vapor room” of the Pure Life Alternative Wellness Center, begins this in-depth article from the Sacramento Bee. Los Angeles’ restrictive new ordinance to stem the spread of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city will ban on-site pot consumption. It may force the closure of as many as 800 outlets, writes veteran Bee reporter Peter Hecht. Over the past three years, this sprawling metropolis has fostered the wildest of markets for legal sales of marijuana for medical use. City leaders are trying now to [...]
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