NEWS: Pot Collectives Vow To Fight Further City Restrictions

The medical marijuana collectives facing elimination in Long Beach have vowed to keep fighting for their right to exist — in the face of a second reading to finalize the law this January.

During its Dec. 14 meeting, the City Council passed a first reading for the medical marijuana ordinance that will eliminate as many as a dozen more collectives. Many of those collective owners have come out publicly, or through an attorney, pleading with the council to allow for relocation.

Some collective owners said they are trying to remain optimistic they will get an opportunity to relocate.

The original ordinance was enacted in the late summer, eliminating many of an estimated 90-plus collectives through an application and lottery process. After the lottery, the number of potential collectives was reduced to 32.

Then in early November, Third District Councilman Gary DeLong, Fifth District Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske and Fourth District Councilman Patrick O’Donnell introduced an agenda item for further restrictions. The council decided to enact park buffers. It was believed then that an additional nine collectives would be eliminated with the newer restrictions added.

Vance Watson, president of One Source Discount Caregivers, 5115 Atlantic Ave., said he believes his operation has legal grounds to stop the city from shutting it down. His dispensary was a winner in the lottery earlier this year, but would be shut down by the new ordinance restrictions not allowing collectives near a park.

“They pulled the rug right out from under us,” he said.

Watson said he has been working with three different lawyers in regards to what types of action his dispensary can take, depending on whether the council passes a second reading with no changes from the Dec. 14 vote.

To some owners, the process has been discredited with the latest round of restrictions, which appear to single out certain collectives — including Herbal Solutions Naples, 5746 E. Second St.

In a statement released by ownership, Herbal Solutions accused the council of “trying to exercise their legislative powers in an unabashed attempt to change the outcome of the lottery.”

“This is not a minor issue and all citizens of the city should be concerned with the precedent that this amendment sets,” the statement says.

Watson said the City Council removing beaches from the definition of parks also has raised some eyebrows.

“Who benefits from them not including beaches?” he said. “Aren’t kids still at beaches? What kind of politicking is really going on behind the scenes?”

Ninth District Councilman Steven Neal initially brought up striking beaches from the definition during the council meeting. He said his intent has been to move forward with rules that follow the original ordinance as closely as possible.

“The city has been levied with several lawsuits to date, and any changes would add further lawsuits,” he said.

The removal of beaches from the parks definition is likely to spare one or two collectives, according to initial estimates.

DeLong said his intent with further restrictions were motivated by his constituents.

“My goal is to significantly reduce the amount of dispensaries and we accomplished that goal on Tuesday (Dec. 14),” he said. “It’s hard to predict the future, but I don’t expect any additional changes going forward. However, I do expect changes a year from now (when the moratorium on accepting applications ends).”

There is still some optimism that relocation will be allowed for the nine-plus collectives that are scheduled for displacement, Watson said.

“Everyone in my situation believes the city will allow for relocation,” he said.

Herbal Solutions also is holding out hope.

“Herbal Solutions Naples has publically offered to relocate its collective out of Naples in a good faith effort to address community concerns,” the statement said. “The city’s refusal to provide relocation is baffling and amounts to nothing more than a penalty and spot zoning. Herbal Solutions Naples remains hopeful that the council will vote to allow impacted collectives to relocate when the ordinance is considered again in January, but is prepared to take legal action to protect its rights in the event that the council insists on adopting an unjust and unlawful amendment.”

Watson said his lawyers are looking at the law in regards to vested rights issues and potential impact studies they feel the council should have authorized before voting on the law.

The City Council does have the right to revisit the issue in January (Jan. 4 is the next scheduled council meeting) before passing a second reading, assistant city attorney Mike Mais said. He said the city’s attorney’s office is confident the law will stand up in court regardless.

“We feel like we’re on legally solid ground,” he said. “We’ll do our best to defend it.”

Source: Gazettes

VIDEO: Adela Falk speaks on medical marijuana at San Diego City Council Meeting

Adela Falk's public comment regarding the San Diego medical marijuana ordinance. From San Diego City Council Meeting on Tuesday December 7, 2010.

NEWS: Medical marijuana in Southwest Riverside County appears ‘up in smoke’ with recent decisions.

On Monday, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Mark Johnson ordered the Wildomar Patients Compassionate Group to close.

Stoking embers of controversy, SouthwestRivCo cities and Riverside County continue to fight against marijuana dispensaries.

Wildomar became the latest city to ban dispensaries, after a Riverside County judge ruled in its favor.

On Monday, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Mark Johnson ordered the Wildomar Patients Compassionate Group to close. A week earlier, Lake Elsinore City Council members voted to continue a moratorium on the businesses. Riverside County also reversed plans to allow dispensaries in certain areas and kept in place a county ordinance banning the dispensaries.

Wildomar Decision

Wildomar Patients Compassionate Group opened a dispensary in early December after filing a suit against the city. The group contends that the city’s ban on dispensaries contradicts state law granted safe accessing to medical marijuana.

The two sides were in court on Monday. Judge Johnson upheld the city’s ban and immediately ordered the existing Wildomar dispensary to close. The group’s attorney has stated he will file an appeal with the appellate court.

The city voted in 2008 to ban the dispensaries.


Lake Elsinore Decision

On December 14, Lake Elsinore council members continued a moratorium on dispensaries. The temporary ban dates back to Dec. 2009.

The city postponed a decision to wait and see the outcomes of legal proceedings and court ruling from other cities. At the time, the city wanted to see what leeway cities could have in limiting dispensaries.

The staff report for Tuesday’s meeting states the issue is still too undefined to take action on from a legal standpoint.

Riverside County

On the same day, that Lake Elsinore continued its ban, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors reversed plans to create zones where medical marijuana dispensaries could operate. Instead, supervisors decided to stick with an existing ban on marijuana shops.

The county had been working on zoning ordinances that would have allowed dispensaries in certain areas. The supervisors decided to stick with the current ban after watching neighboring counties enact bans.

Source: Southwest Riverside News Network

NEWS: Medicinal Marijuana on Trial

There is a precedent setting case about medicinal marijuana and a state's right to allow it now playing out in California with surprisingly little media attention....Here's the scoop.

Theresa and Steele Smith

In November 2007 Steele Smith and his wife Theresa were arrested by federal DEA agents in Orange County, California for cultivating and selling marijuana. But the Smith's aren't your run of the mill drug dealers and the federal government has left them in legal limbo ever since.

The backstory: In the summer of 2001 Steele was a successful self-employed marketing man who was felled by a gut-wrenching mystery illness. He couldn't eat and quickly dropped forty pounds from his already thin 6 foot 7 inch frame. His doctors were stymied about what caused the debilitating condition. After four excruciating months a rare-disease specialist diagnosed a condition called Zollinger-Ellison syndrome which pockmarks a victim's upper gastrointestinal tract with multiple, painful ulcers. Morphine was prescribed for Steele's constant pain and he lived in that legally induced drug dependent state for the next three years eventually becoming an opiate addict.

In the summer of 2004 his devoted wife guided him on a journey toward detox. "It was either going to kill him or me," Theresa told me. "I was black and blue from his outbursts. He couldn't help it, of course, but something had to be done!"

It was an agonizing time but Steele finally found the strength to wean off morphine. But Z-E is a lifelong affliction and he was still hobbled by the lack of nourishment and the incapacitating pain. The Smith's desperate search for alternatives brought them to information about the benefits of medicinal marijuana, made legal in California in 1996. The Smith's sought and got a medical "recommendation" for Steele to try marijuana. (Under federal law an actual prescription isn't allowed for a so-called schedule 1 drug like heroin and, yes, marijuana.) They were directed to dispensaries in Los Angeles, an hour drive away. "All we found were drug dealer types. They were all long haired, tattooed ... basically drug dealers who got a store front - intimidating, like your typical head-shop," Theresa explained.

But miraculously the medicinal marijuana worked! For the first time in years Steele was able to eat and manage his pain. His marketing ideas flowed again and the couple decided to fill the void in Orange County and open their own medicinal marijuana dispensaries to bring relief to others. Their lawyer says they did everything right under California law.

"Mr. Smith set up a legitimate 501 non-profit corporation and he paid all applicable taxes," a legal brief written by Smith's attorney Eric Shevin asserts. "He issued patient ID cards, followed pharmacy labeling requirements. He even provided free medical equipment to his customers, like wheelchairs, walkers, porta-potties and wheelchair racks for cars. Mr. Smith allowed the Fullerton Police to document his grow operation thoroughly... and the lead officer even complimented him on the cleanliness and legitimacy of the operation." By 2006 more than 1000 patients were registered in the Smith's data base.

So why were the Smiths arrested and threatened with 10 years in prison? Because back then the U.S. Justice Department decided that the federal law against cultivating marijuana should trump the California law. The Smith's were caught up in a classic battle of a state's right to pass its own laws. Theresa spent 2 months behind bars. The ailing Steele was held in a maximum security jail for 10 months. Upon release he was 20 pounds lighter and again hooked on narcotics given to him for pain. The Smiths lost everything including their home, cars, their savings and they had to borrow money from Theresa's widowed mother who died a short time later. They've lived under a terrible cloud of legal uncertainty for three years, all the while still grappling with Steele's disease.

Today's Justice Department looks at the state's rights issue differently and the Smith's trial will surely be a landmark case closely watched by the 15 states that currently allow cultivation and sale of medicinal marijuana. It will be a milestone verdict because federal Judge Cormac J. Carney has made the unprecedented decision to allow a federal jury -- for the first time ever - to hear affirmative testimony about California's medicinal marijuana law. This won't just be about someone having been caught growing pot. The Smiths will be allowed to give groundbreaking testimony about why their interpretation of the state's law led them to believe they were acting legally.

In 2008 candidate Barack Obama told an interviewer, "I think the basic concept (of) using medical marijuana in the same way, with the same controls as other drugs, prescribed by doctors (is) entirely appropriate." Fourteen months ago President Obama's Justice Department instructed all federal prosecutors not to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they followed state laws.

So, now, the feds are left squarely between a rock and a hard place with their three year old case against the Smiths.

Perhaps because Judge Carney has a track record of ruling against prosecutors who he sees as overstepping their authority the feds decided late last week to ask for yet another delay in the December 21st trial, postponing it until late March 2011.

"It's the eleventh or twelfth delay," Theresa Smith said in a weary voice. She sees the fight as a state's rights issue but also, she says, "As a patient's issue. If it was meth or heroin or some opiate I wouldn't say that. But this is a plant that God put here for a reason. It helps people - so many people."

Source: The Huffington Post

NEWS: Armed robbers hit marijuana clinic in Northridge

NORTHRIDGE - Three armed robbers stormed a newly opened medical marijuana dispensary, wounding two men and killing a guard dog at the business, police said Thursday.

The three males made off with an undetermined amount of cash during the violent robbery Wednesday at about 9:25 p.m., said Officer Gary Shanahan of the Los Angeles Police Department's West Valley Station.

He said the trio then fled into a gold sport utility vehicle.

Two men at the business were taken to Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where one was in critical condition with several shots to the head, arm and legs, police said. The other man was in stable condition with multiple gunshot wounds in the back and legs.

The dispensary, at 8244 White Oak Ave., appeared to be operating illegally. There was no business sign at the location and nobody answered doors on Thursday.

Employees from neighboring businesses said the dispensary had been operating there for only a few months - apparently set up after the city's new law regulating dispensaries went into effect this summer.

No business at that address was among those listed at the City Clerk's Office as giving "notice of intent to register" as a medical marijuana dispensary.

"These kinds of bandit dispensaries don't comply with any of the requirements set out by the city, and they usually have terrible security, which is probably why this happened," said Marc Kent, a Woodland Hills medical marijuana consultant who helps businesses become legitimate under the city ordinance.

City officials attempting to enforce a crackdown against so-called "rogue" dispensaries acknowledge that an unknown number of clinics that have been told to close remain open.

"This was not the first violent crime associated with marijuana distribution sites in Los Angeles," Councilman Greig Smith said in a statement. The dispensary was located in Smith's council district.

"Drugs, whether legalized or not, attract a seedy crowd and the amount of cash and allure of drugs associated with these locations historically breed crime."

Last summer, a robbery at a dispensary in Hollywood resulted in the shooting death of one employee.

Last Friday a Los Angeles County Superior Court issued a ruling invalidating large portions of a medical marijuana ordinance adopted by the City Council last January.

The Los Angeles City Council heard a motion Tuesday requesting the City Attorney to prepare and present to the council an "interim control ordinance" aimed at regulating medical marijuana dispensaries in the city.

Anyone with information about the robbery was urged to call the West Valley Station at 818-374-7611.

Source: Contra Cost Times

NEWS: 2 Shot During Medical Marijuana Dispensary Robbery

LOS ANGELES—Police say two people have been shot during a robbery of a medical marijuana dispensary in the Northridge area of Los Angeles.

Los Angeles police Officer Gary Shanahan tells City News Service three gunmen entered the business at about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday. He says shots were fired, two people were hit and the suspects fled with an unknown amount of cash.

Shanahan says the two wounded people were hospitalized. The conditions are not known.

Source: San Jose Mercury News

NEWS: Two-month probe into marijuana sales in Winchester nets five arrests

The illegal business was operating in the 28000 block of Winchester Road and investigators began looking into the matter after receiving reports from nearby residents.

Five people whom authorities contend operated an illegal marijuana selling business in Winchester have been arrested following a two-month investigation, said Sgt. Joe Borja.

The illegal business was operating in the 28000 block of Winchester Road and investigators began looking into the matter after receiving reports from nearby residents who were concerned because the business was located close to an elementary school and a church, Borja said in a news release.

Members of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and Riverside County Code Enforcement conducted a two-month investigation due to the complaints.

The investigation revealed that the operators of the business were selling marijuana and operating outside of the medical marijuana laws due to the business operating for profit, Borja said. Over ten pounds of marijuana and 96 marijuana plants were confiscated during the operation as evidence.

The operators of the business were identified as Ryan Jacobson, 26, Scott Buffington, 25, both of Lake Elsinore; Gary Riddle, 28, of Temecula, Isaac Morton, 25, of Winchester and David Juliano, 25, of Menifee.

All five of the suspects were booked on suspicion of possessing marijuana for sale. Investigators are will also request an additional charge of cultivation of marijuana be filed against Juliano and Jacobson.

Anyone having information regarding the investigation can contact Investigator K. Thurm at 951-955-1700.

Source: Southwest Riverside News Network

NEWS: Whittier City Council extends medical marijuana moratorium

The City Council has voted to extend a moratorium on new medical marijuana dispensaries for another year.

The council in December 2009 approved the first moratorium because of fears that more such businesses would flood into the city.

A permit for one such business, Whittier Hope Collective, was approved in October 2009. It opened in July.

More time is needed to look at other cities which have placed a cap on the maximum number of such businesses, stated Jeff Collier, director of community development.

The council also increased parking fines by $3, citing an increase in the surcharge it must pay to the state.

Source: Whittier Daily News