Long Beach Denies Medical Cannabis Convention with $100,000 Budget
The City of Long Beach would rather say no to $100,000 than host a…
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Angelenos: TURN OUT THE VOTE; Vote No on Measure M in Los Angeles
By Jg Gelay  |  NoTaxOnMedicine.org The measure was put on the ballot by Council…
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Education and Services Cut While California Squanders Funds Prosecuting Medical Marijuana Providers
By Catrina Coleman LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA – Outraged California citizens want to know why…
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ASA-Sponsored Medical Marijuana Employment Rights Bill Introduced in California Legislature
State Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) introduced legislation Thursday that would prevent California employers from discriminating against medical marijuana patients. Senate Bill 129 would not change current law, which prohibits employees from using medical marijuana at the workplace.
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A Conversation with Joe Grumbine, An Innocent Man Caught in a Legal Nightmare
An organic gardener and lifelong student of the healing properties of natural herbs, it was while working with cancer and AIDS patients that Joe first began to realize the extraordinary healing properties of cannabis. The catalyst that finally spurred Grumbine and partner Joe Byron to open a medical marijuana collective back in 2008 was the death of a close friend to brain cancer. “I saw how a few drops of cannabis tincture under his tongue provided relief where morphine failed,” says Grumbine, “and I knew others who could also benefit from this incredible healing plant.”
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Los Angeles City Council Amends Medical Marijuana Ordinance
Included in the law’s revisions would be a to create a lottery that would select 100 collectives which opened before a September 2007 moratorium which, owners argue ‘would unfairly allow some shops which don’t follow state law to remain in business,’ according to the Associate Press.
Long Beach had tried that and ran into difficulties every step of the way, and continue to change things in their own ordinance this same week
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San Diego Medical Marijuana Ordinance Heading to City Council
The ordinance, which outlines where and how dispensaries can run, could reach the City Council’s table in as soon as five weeks, said Stephen Hill, senior policy advisor to councilman Todd Gloria.
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California Coastal Commission Rejects Medical Marijuana Collective Amendments
The California Coastal Commission has rejected Laguna Beach’s zoning ordinance amendments that would have prohibited medical marijuana dispensaries in the city.
The commission voted 6 to 5 at the Jan. 12 to 14 meeting in Long Beach to deny the proposed amendment as submitted, disregarding a staff recommendation for approval.
Some commissioners voiced concern that the amendment clashes with state law that allows the use of medical marijuana, but others were convinced that that was not within the commission’s purview.
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Los Angeles City Council To Vote on Revised Medical Marijuana Ordinance
It is item #3 on the agenda and since it is an urgency item it will take 12 votes to pass.
A copy of the revised ordinance to be voted on is can be found here.
All supporters are encouraged to come in solidarity to show the Council the face of the people who will be affected be the changes, as there will be no comments taken.
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Long Beach City Council Continues to Zone Out Medical Marijuana Collectives, Tightens Restrictions, Concentrates Locations
The original law also required that collectives go through a permitting process, and that process hadn’t been completed when the council decided late last year to alter the ordinance.
Council members Rae Gabelich, Steve Neal, James Johnson and Dee Andrews voted against the amendment. The council also voted 7-2, with Gabelich and Andrews dissenting, to establish a one-year moratorium on issuing new medical marijuana permits.
“I continue to oppose the changes in this ordinance because it changes the playing field midstream,” Gabelich said. She added that changing the ordinance opens the city to more litigation.
Long Beach was already facing seven lawsuits over the law, and Deputy City Attorney Mike Mais said that an eighth lawsuit was filed this month.
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Long Beach Marijuana Law Will Again Go To Council
considering that this is a revision of a previously approved law, which never fully went into effect – and the council was divided over changing it – there could be attempts to alter it one more time.
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Judge Will Not Shut Down Medical Marijuana Collective Near Ivanhoe
Tulare County filed suit asking the the court to force the collective to stop its activities of growing marijuana and distributing it to about 100 members with medical recommendations to smoke of ingest the drugs to treat various medical conditions.
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The Incredible Shrinking Long Beach Marijuana Case
although an overwhelming majority of Long Beach voters support taxing and regulating even recreational marijuana use, the city has yet to issue a single permit to any club in the city, despite collecting $15,000 non-refundable application fees from more than 30 such organizations.
The city’s controversial ordinance, which one council member openly mocked as a “sham,” came on the heels of a massive raid against 17 cannabis clubs in the city and Garden Grove. The Garden Grove collective, Unit D, was operated by Joe Byron and Joe Grumbine, who also operated the Fourth and Elm collective in Long Beach, which was also raided. Fifteen people were arrested at the various clubs for felony marijuana charges, but so far, only Grumbine and Byron have actually been formally charged with any crime.
“If they could pick anybody in Long Beach to prosecute, they chose the wrong guys,” Glew added. “We’re making a stand on this case. These are the guys that are representative of the true intention of this whole industry and what it should be. That’s who they are…They are the Mother Teresas of medical marijuana.”
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Marijuana Crushes Grapes as Cash Crop
California’s pot crop is worth $14 billion, according to a state report. The Press Democrat points out that crushes the wine crop which comes in at $2 billion.
Legalization would be a huge shot in the arm for plenty of ancillary industries, such as banking and construction.
Of course, there’s always the possibility that the federal government would crack down. That risk might make investors too skittish to get involved. Earlier this month, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the government would continue its dangerous raids.
Some regions, such as Mendocino County, have leaned on pot agriculture as other industries dried up. It’s estimated that at least half of that county’s economy depends on cultivation of the plant.
The only sure thing is that there’s no sure thing. Marijuana legalization is uncharted territory. Or at least, it’s uncharted in this country. Other countries have managed to figure it out, but here in The Land of the Free, we’ve clung to prohibition.
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Voters Back Marijuana Dispensaries in Santa Barbara
Measure T proved divisive for the city, with proponents arguing that legal marijuana dispensaries brought a “criminal element” into Santa Barbara. Others responded by saying that the city is rigorous in its oversight of the dispensaries and the drug is used primarily for medicinal purposes. It provided arguably, the hottest debates throughout the city. In the end, the dispensaries were supported and their opponents left to hope that the state will move to outlaw them in the future.
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California Medical Marijuana Defense is Willie Nelson’s Best Hope
Country legend Willie Nelson was arrested en route to Austin, Texas for possession of six ounces of marijuana. He’s looking at six months minimum in jail, but could face up to two years.
But Bruce Margolin, director LA’s of NORML, Willie has a chance to skirt the charges — if he can convince a jury the pot was California-grown medical marijuana and he forgot it was on the bus.
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Golden Rain Foundation Bans Marijuana in Community Garden Centers
The Golden Rain Foundation (GRF) board in Laguna Woods Village Tuesday approved a policy prohibiting residents from growing medical marijuana in community garden centers.
The GRF board, a community association that oversees recreation facilities, gave initial approval to the policy in September.
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Grass Valley Council to Explore Medical Marijuana Dispensary Options
Grass Valley leaders decided to explore two tracks regarding medical marijuana — creating an ordinance to allow dispensaries and another ordinance banning them outright.
At Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, council members voted unanimously to have staff create both ordinances, to be reviewed by both the Planning Commission and City Council before the city’s moratorium expires Feb. 23.
“They wanted to look at an ordinance that would provide for allowance, and also a ban if they don’t like that ordinance,” said City Administrator Dan Holler.
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LA City Council Approves New Medical Marijuana Clinic Rules
The city’s new medical marijuana ordinance passed a few months back would have wiped out all but 40. But many owners of legally registered dispensaries complained that they’d followed the city’s rules – but still had to close.
Council member Janice Hahn led the effort to pull back the reins a bit. “We felt like our original ordinance needed to be clarified a bit more so that the city attorney does not go after clinics that we think are legitimate.”
Now the council is giving final approval to amendments that relax the rules a bit. Hahn says the city’s intent is to have about 180 medical marijuana dispensaries operating legally in Los Angeles.
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LA Supervisors Fumble
LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County Supervisors voted 4-1 today to ban medical cannabis collectives in the unincorporated communities of the county, overturning a 2006 ordinance regulating safe access. The vote was in response to concerns about public safety following high-profile violence in the City of Los Angeles and the proliferation of un-permitted collectives in the county. Today’s vote should be a wakeup call for patients and advocates all over California. Bad press and public perception can roll back progress on medical cannabis.
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The Human Solution Helped to Keep One Family Together: The Naulls Support Story
Ronnie Naulls was a friendly local businessman, he had a wife and four kids. He only wanted to make it in the world and help as many people as he could along the way. He and his family were fortunate to have The Human Solution when they needed something like it the most. Only eighteen months after opening their doors for business, Ronnie’s compassionate and professionally run dispensary, Healing Nations Collective, and Ronnie’s home, were both violently raided.
About a year later The Human Solution went into action. Members from The Human Solution and others, came together and not only supported Ronnie with their physical presence in court, but as each member filled in the courtroom in support of the Naulls family, so did the Solidarity Ribbons. The judge could hardly miss us and our proudly displayed Ribbons, our badges of courage and honor. Nor could Judge Virginia Phillips ignore the huge support that these badges, and all the peaceful people, provided.
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LA Council Weighs Allowing 140 Pot Shops to Reopen
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles City Council has ordered the city attorney to draft a measure that would allow 140 medical marijuana dispensaries to reopen in the city.
The council approved the move Friday and will vote next week on an amendment to scale back the long-debated medical marijuana ordinance that passed earlier this year.
The ordinance allowed 180 dispensaries that had registered with the city before a 2007 moratorium to stay open. However, 140 of them were disqualified because they had management changes over the past three years.
Under the proposed amendment, dispensaries could reopen if they have at least one primary owner or manager from the initial registration.
If approved, the city clerk will review all registrations to determine those that qualify under the new amendment.
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"Victory for the Patients of Westminster, and a Step in the Right Direction in Recognizing Safe and Legal Access”
The collective, located in a medical office building immediately off the 405, played host to a press conference alerting the public to their plight, and that of other families affected by the city’s decisions as the city of Westminster works on exploring options on creating a sensible zoning ordinance that incorporates what the will of the people voted on nearly 15 years ago.
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Marijuana Project - Proposition 19 in Perspective
On Tuesday, California voters defeated Proposition 19 by a 54 to 46 percent margin. A post-election survey conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, however, suggests that this was not the final word on this issue in California. In fact, support for reforming the state’s laws on marijuana run well ahead of Tuesday’s vote. Our research, as well as national polls and election results over the past 10 years, show steadily growing support for reform in the state and the country.
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