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It's Obvious: CA Medical Assoc. Says Pot Prohibition Is 'Failed Public Health Policy'

Drug War protester in Huntington Beach, Calif. (Photo by The November Coalition)

By Steve Elliott in Chronic City

In a laudable nod to the obvious, members of the California Medical Association's (CMA) House of Delegates have endorsed a resolution stating that the criminal prohibition of marijuana is a "failed public health policy."

As enacted, Resolution 704a-09, the "Criminalization of Marijuana" states: "[The] CMA considers the criminalization of marijuana to be a failed public health policy, ... and encourage[s] ... debate and education regarding the health aspects of changing current policy regarding cannabis use." [PDF] The CMA has more than 35,000 members statewide.

A report just published in the British Columbia Mental Health and Addictions Journal highlights another good reason to question marijuana prohibition: Health-related "social costs" per user are eight times higher for alcohol users than for those who use marijuana, and more than 40 times higher for tobacco smokers.

The report gauges related costs per user at more than $800 yearly for tobacco; $165 for alcohol; and only $20 for cannabis.

Read the rest at Chronic City in the SF Weekly blog, "The Snitch": Chronic City: It's Obvious -- State Medical Association Says Pot Prohibition Is 'Failed Public Health Policy' | Digg story

L.A. District Attorney Says City Councils Have 'No Authority' Over Medical Pot

D.A. Steve Cooley (left) and City Attorney Carmen Trutanich: They'll keep busting dispensaries no matter what the City Council says!
​
By Steve Elliott in Chronic City

It was a petulant fit of pique, certainly entertaining, and potentially hilarious -- if safe access for so many medical marijuana patients weren't hanging in the balance.

After things didn't go his way at Monday's Los Angeles City Council joint committee meeting, District Attorney Steve Cooley pronounced Tuesday that he'd keep prosecuting medical marijuana dispensaries, even if the council adopts an ordinance that doesn't ban sales. Cooley said his office was already prosecuting some dispensaries, and he promised to step up such efforts in December.

The D.A.'s public meltdown was a result of his frustration that the council ignored the advice of L.A. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich and changed a provision in L.A.'s proposed medical marijuana ordinance, allowing cash transactions as long as they complied with state law.

"The City Council has no authority to amend state law or Prop. 215. Such authority is solely possessed by California voters," Cooley said. "What the City Council is doing is beyond meaningless and irrelevant."

It was a richly ironic little hissy fit, given that drama king Cooley just handed pot advocates one of their best arguments in the unfolding culture war between those who insist on the lawful implementation of Proposition 215, California's medical marijuana law, and those asserting, damn it, all weed sales are illegal, medical or not.

"Undermining these laws via their ordinance powers is counterproductive, and quite frankly, we're ignoring them," sputtered a tantrum-prone Cooley. "They are absolutely so irrelevant it's not funny."

The revelation that city councils are "irrelevant" and can't "undermine" the state's medical marijuana law will certainly come as encouraging news to dispensary operators in Gilroy and at least 130 other cities statewide which have banned dispensaries outright. Eight counties (Amador, Contra Costa [ban leaves one dispensary open], El Dorado, Madera, Merced, Riverside, Stanislaus, and Sutter) have dispensary bans in place. In addition, at least 64 more cities and six counties (Madera, Nevada, Tulare, San Bernardino, Placer, and San Diego) have dispensary moratoriums in place, by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy's count (ONDCP numbers and "facts" are always suspect).

At this point, L.A. City Council Members are probably wondering why they've spent four years and a ton of taxpayer money wrestling with this issue, given Cooley's new position that the city council has "no authority" to amend Prop. 215.

Read the rest at Chronic City in the SF Weekly blog, "The Snitch": Chronic City: L.A. District Attorney Says City Councils Have 'No Authority' Over Medical Pot

L.A. Panels Reject Ban On Medical Marijuana Sales

L.A.'s dispensaries remain open, for now. (Photo by digitalshay)

Ignoring the advice of anti-pot City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, two Los Angeles City Council committees today rejected a proposed ban on sales of medical marijuana.

​Anti-pot zealots within L.A. city government had coordinated an 18-month assault on the dispensaries, with headline-grabbing pronouncements from media hogs Trutanich and Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley dominating coverage of the issue in recent weeks.

Both Trutanich and Cooley have been widely quoted in the press as claiming that most of the dispensaries are operating in violation of state law. Cooley's recent declaration that "approximately zero" of the dispensaries were operating legally sent chills and outrage through the medical marijuana community, seeming to echo San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis' statement that there are "no such things" as legal dispensaries.

The planned finalé, however, doesn't seem to be going according to script. This meeting was widely seen in the marijuana community as an attempt to deliver a coup de grace to the burgeoning dispensary scene in Los Angeles, but it didn't turn out that way.

Medical marijuana patients and providers turned out in large numbers for the meeting, a joint session of the city council's Public Safety and Planning and Land Use committees. Dozens of dispensary owners and pot users argued that the ban would simply put an end to safe access to marijuana for city patients. Don Duncan, California director for patient advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA), said of the proposed ban, "It simply won't work."

Council members on both committees wrestled with the idea of ignoring the opinion of the city's top prosecutor. But after four hours of a contentious and heated hearing, council members had heard more than enough.

"When can we finally stop the merry-go-round?" asked Councilman Dennis Zine, who has been involved with the dispensary issue since 2005. Zine proposed an alternate provision allowing dispensaries to accept cash for marijuana as long as they comply with state law.

A complete sales ban would have taken Los Angeles into legally perilous and untested territory. Both ASA and a group called the Union of Medical Marijuana Patients threatened to sue the city if the council adopted the ban.

Chief Deputy City Attorney William Carter, sent by Trutanich to do the dirty work of arguing before a largely hostile audience that state law and state court decisions mean collectives cannot lawfully sell pot, found his remonstrations falling upon deaf ears despite his best attempts to whip up some anti-weed hysteria.

Councilman Zine, by way of contrast, sounded like the voice of reason, urging the council to adopt a less authoritarian interpretation of the law that would not conflict with how dispensaries operate in Los Angeles and in much of California.

A disappointed David Berger, special assistant to Trutanich, grudgingly allowed that it is up to the city council to decide whether to heed the advice of the city attorney's office. "Our duty is to advise them on what the law allows for and not to go on a whim. They decided to go a different way."

The unyielding position of Trutanich and his minions didn't go unnoticed, or unremarked upon, by Councilman Ed Reyes. "I think they are very, very narrow in that they're taking their prosecutorial perspective," an annoyed Reyes said.

"We need something on the books now. There is no reason we should delay, Reyes said. The full city council is expected take up the long-delayed dispensary regulations as soon as Wednesday.

"My primary concern is making sure we allow enough flexibility so that people who are sick have access, that we do not create an environment where the only function of the ordinance will be to eradicate them all," Reyes said a day before the meeting. "I don't think it's fair or humane to people who are really sick who need it."

Councilman Paul Koretz, former mayor of West Hollywood, said the regulations backed by  by the City Attorney's Office are "unworkable.''

"I think we have one goal here, which is to provide access but at the same time eliminate the problems that medical marijuana dispensaries have been causing," Koretz said. And to do that, I would ask colleagues why we have to take the hardest-ass approach to the law that we could, rather than trying to take the approach that will make this as practical as possible.'' 

A crowd of about 400 people filled the main council chamber for the hearing, with the proceedings often becoming raucous. Most of the speakers were medical marijuana supporters, along with a sprinkling of community activists and conservatives who supported the ban.

Marijuana supporters argued that dispensaries should be regulated, not banned, with a reduction in the number of shops and a crackdown on operations that become a public nuisance.

The proposed ordinance would have "effectively shut down the city's medical marijuana distribution system by banning all sales of marijuana and sharply curtailing collectives' ability to grow and obtain medicine,'' according to the California chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).

"Los Angeles would be foolish to pass this unworkable, ill-conceived ordinance," said California NORML coordinator Dale Gieringer before the meeting. "The city would be better advised to adopt of system of licensed regulation and taxes, which has proven successful elsewhere in the state."

NORML estimates that closing most or all dispensaries would cost Los Angeles between $36 million and $74 million in lost sales taxes, and the loss of jobs to 6,500 dispensary employees.

"Neither the Los Angeles City Attorney nor the City Council has the right to ban activity that is protected under state law," said ASA Chief Counsel Joe Elford. "Medical marijuana sales have been deemed legal by the state legislature, the courts, and the California Attorney General."

The number of dispensaries ballooned from only four in 2005, when the city council first began to take notice, to more than a thousand, the city attorney's office estimates. In 2007, when Los Angeles adopted a dispensary moratorium, 186 pot shops were in business. Hundreds more soon slipped through a boilerplate hardship exemption, and the rush was on.

A recent poll showed that more than three-quarters of Los Angeles County residents favored regulation, rather than elimination, of the dispensaries.

Californians legalized medical marijuana with Proposition 215 in 1996. The law was expanded with SB 420 in 2003, allowing collectives to grow the herb.

According to guidelines issued by Attorney General Jerry Brown (PDF), medical marijuana providers are supposed to operate as non-profits.

Chronic City: L.A. Panels Reject Ban On Medical Marijuana Sales

N. California's Top Federal Prosecutor: 'Really Not A Change At All' In Medical Pot Enforcement

By Steve Elliott in Chronic City

​Ah, "guidelines." They're a little more lax than "rules," which are a little looser than "laws." When it comes to guidelines, that's their strength -- and that's their weakness. Whereas laws and rules are "broken," guidelines can simply be "ignored."

That truism is abundantly illustrated by this week's statements from George W. Bush appointee Joseph Russoniello, federal prosecutor for the northern district of California. "I think it's unfortunate that people have for some reason picked up on this as a change in policy," Russoniello told Mission Local, "because it's really not a change at all."

When asked if federal officials will halt investigation, prosecution, and Drug Enforcement Agency raids of medical marijuana operations in California, Russoniello replied, "The short answer is no."

An Oct. 19 memo from Deputy Attorney General David Ogden told federal prosecutors in California and the other 13 states that have legalized medical marijuana that law enforcement should focus their efforts on major drug trafficking networks, rather than patients and providers "in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws."

Read the rest at Chronic City in the SF Weekly blog, "The Snitch": Chronic City: N. California's Top Federal Prosecutor -- 'Really Not A Change At All' In Medical Pot Enforcement | Digg story

'Truth In Trials' Bill Would Lift Ban On Medical Marijuana Evidence In Federal Court

Photo by digitalshay

By Steve Elliott in Chronic City

​U.S. Representative Sam Farr (D-CA) and more than 20 bipartisan co-sponsors introduced legislation Tuesday that would allow defendants in medical marijuana cases the ability to use medical evidence at trial, a right they currently do not have.

Due to the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Gonzales v. Raich, the government has the discretion to enforce federal marijuana laws even in medical marijuana states. The Raich ruling also allows federal prosecutors to conveniently exclude evidence of medical use or state law compliance in federal trials, all but guaranteeing convictions of medical marijuana patients and providers.

Last week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder formalized a departure from Bush Administration policy when he issued new guidelines to federal prosecutors discouraging them from prosecuting cases in which patients and providers are "in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws."

Unfortunately, the new DOJ guidelines neither direct U.S. Attorneys to abandon the more than two-dozen pending federal medical marijuana cases, nor allow defendants the ability to use medical evidence to exonerate themselves.

​"This is a common-sense bill that will help stop the waste of law enforcement and judicial resources that have been spent prosecuting individuals who are following state law," Farr said Tuesday. "We need strict drug laws, but we also need to apply a little common sense to how they're enforced. This legislation is about treating defendants in cases involving medical marijuana fairly, plain and simple."

Read the rest at Chronic City in the SF Weekly blog, "The Snitch": Chronic City: 'Truth In Trials' Bill Would Lift Ban On Medical Marijuana Evidence In Federal Court

Feds Lighten Up On Medical Marijuana Just As L.A. Tightens The Screws

Let my people grow.

By Steve Elliott in Chronic City

​In a stunning bit of role reversal, law enforcement officials in dispensary-heavy Los Angeles County are gearing up for a massive mobilization against hundreds of pot shops even while the Obama administration backs away from the federal government's traditional role as marijuana enforcer in the states where medical pot is legal.

Today, the administration sent new, more relaxed medical marijuana guidelines to federal prosecutors in the 14 states which have legalized weed for patients. Under the new policy, the federal government will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws.

While keeping a promise President Barack Obama made on the campaign trail in 2008 and since affirmed by Attorney General Eric Holder, the new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration line, which continued to enforce harsh, Nixon-era federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.

Read the rest at Chronic City in the SF Weekly blog, "The Snitch": Chronic City: Feds Lighten Up On Medical Marijuana Just As L.A. Tightens Screws | Digg story

This Could Get Ugly: Anti-Marijuana Machismo Is Latest California Cop Fad

We got their Zig Zags, too! (Photo: policeone.com)

By Steve Elliott in Chronic City

Pot-phobic law enforcement officers in California are trying out an unsettling new tactic. It's the latest iteration of their continued hissy fit about what should have been a settled issue for 13 years now (since Californians voted for Proposition 215, legalizing medical use of marijuana with a doctor's recommendation).

Many cops, still pissed off and in deep denial that medical pot is legal in the Golden State, are desperately clinging to the federal prohibition of marijuana for threadbare justification of their irrational hatred of pot and its users.

This particularly unattractive phenomenon of "let's ignore the voters" increasingly involves strutting, macho displays of contempt for the law -- incredibly enough, by the cops themselves.

​​Even as the Long Beach City Council tried to do something constructive by debating the regulation of businesses that provide medical marijuana to patients under the auspices of Prop 215 and SB 420 (the Medical Marijuana Program Act, passed by the Legislature six years ago to clarify and expand the intent of the law), City Prosecutor Tom Reeves wrote an op-ed piece "that essentially amounts to kicking in the door with the guns blazing," according to the Long Beach Post.

Read the rest at Chronic City in the SF Weekly blog, "The Snitch": Chronic City: This Could Get Ugly -- Anti-Marijuana Machismo Is Latest California Cop Fad | Digg story

Let Them Grow Pot! CA Supreme Court Lets Collective Marijuana Cultivation Continue

Leave that weed alone, officer! (Photo: dea.gov)

By Steve Elliott in Chronic City

Rural sheriff's departments in California may have to find a new pastime to replace bullying medical marijuana growers. In a major victory for pot advocates, the California Supreme Court -- right around harvest time! -- has refused to review a landmark appellate court ruling protecting the right of medical marijuana patients and their caregivers to collectively grow weed.

The 2-1 ruling by California's Third Appellate District Court also affirmed patients' ability to take civil action when their right to collectively cultivate marijuana is violated by law enforcement. The case, County of Butte v. Superior Court, involved a private seven-patient medical marijuana collective in Paradise, California (oh! the delicious irony -- props to God or whomever is responsible).

Americans for Safe Access (ASA), a nationwide medical marijuana advocacy group, filed a May 2006 lawsuit on behalf David Williams, 56, and half a dozen other collective members after the Butte County Sheriff's Department conducted a warrantless search of Williams' home in 2005. The officers forced Williams to uproot more than two dozen plants, threatening him with arrest and prosecution if he didn't comply.

Read the rest at Chronic City in the SF Weekly blog, "The Snitch": Chronic City: Let Them Grow Pot -- California Supreme Court Lets Collective Marijuana Cultivation Continue | Digg story

Darkness In San Diego: Attack On Medical Marijuana Moving Northward

San Diego medical marijuana patient Donna Lambert was arrested in Operation Green Rx as part of the "crackdown." (Photo courtesy of Donna Lambert)

By Steve Elliott in Chronic City

First, we heard from ambitious, headline-seeking San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis that there are "no such things" as legal medical marijuana dispensaries, despite state law. Now, even as a brutal crackdown on providers and patients is underway in San Diego County, officials from Los Angeles and other counties are being influenced by San Diego's anti-weed brigade to implement their hardline policies further north.

At a Long Beach City Council meeting yesterday, City Prosecutor Tom Reeves was still flushed with anti-ganja fervor as he told the council of attending a summit last week held by L.A. County DA Steve Cooley, where the message was that all dispensaries are illegal and will be prosecuted. What this means, he told the council, is that Long Beach can't or shouldn't try to regulate dispensaries.

​"Over-the-counter sales are illegal," Reeves flatly stated. "So you're not helping us any," Councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga repied. "I'm helping you a great deal," Reeves snapped. "I just told you that you can't regulate illegal businesses."

So even as city governments in places like Long Beach honestly try to grapple with the real issues surrounding regulation and recognition of medical marijuana dispensaries -- including possibilities like taxation, on-site inspections and regulations similar to liquor stores or adult businesses -- their "legal experts" and law enforcement officials are giving them monumentally bad advice which seems to be in conflict with state law.

Read the rest at Chronic City in the SF Weekly blog, "The Snitch": Chronic City: Darkness In San Diego -- Attack On Medical Marijuana Moves Northward | Digg story

Taking The High Road: Attorneys Say DUI Laws Shouldn't Apply To Pot

Hey, watch where you're going!
(Image courtesy of Students for Sensible Drug Policy)

By Steve Elliott in Chronic City

Remember the first few times you drove high? You knew you were stoned, you knew it might be dangerous to operate a motor vehicle, and you drove like a little old lady.

This tendency of stoners to overcompensate for their impairment is one reason that marijuana-related car crashes aren't in the headlines every day. With estimates of current marijuana users in the United States varying between 20 and 40 million, you can bet that if weed really caused wrecks, it'd be a national tragedy on the level of drunk driving.

But you don't see those headlines, and you probably don't have anecdotes about "that time I was so high I couldn't even remember how my car got in the ditch." Seems all those stories have alcohol as a component instead. (That certainly goes for me, with 32 years of accident-free driving on pot. And, yes: There were a few alcohol-related crashes in my teens.)

Now, I'm not recommending you take a few bong rips and then hit the freeway. In fact, it'd probably be best for everyone if you'd stay your stoned ass home on the couch. There's a reason God invented pizza delivery.

Read the rest at Chronic City in the SF Weekly blog, "The Snitch": Chronic City: Taking The High Road -- Attorneys Say DUI Laws Shouldn't Apply To Pot | Digg story

The Expensive Farce Of Marijuana 'Eradication' In California

By Steve Elliott in Chronic City

Every year since 1983, the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) has engaged in a quixotic quest to "eradicate marijuana" in California. And every single year -- all 26 of them -- it has failed miserably as marijuana became more and more available.

The waste, arrogance and abuse associated with the program -- which has unfortunately become the largest law enforcement task force in the United States, with more than 100 agencies participating -- have become legendary. Ordinary families have been terrorized by paramilitary units, peaceful homeowners have been buzzed by low-flying helicopters, and community relations between citizens and law enforcement have suffered almost everywhere CAMP has laid its heavy hand.

Of course all this is done at taxpayer expense, to the tune of millions upon millions of dollars. Good thing the state treasury's in good shape, flush with all that extra cash. Oh, wait...

Read the rest at Chronic City in the SF Weekly blog, "The Snitch":
Chronic City: The Expensive Farce Of Marijuana 'Eradication' In California | Digg story

Newspaper Has Hard Time Taking Medical Marijuana Seriously. Here's My Response

The following is a response to a piece in the Contra Costa (CA) Times, in which columnist Tom Barnidge expresses his skepticism about medical marijuana, asks "What's up with this scam, anyway?" and says he "has a hard time taking the whole issue seriously."

By Steve Elliott, Reality Catcher

Tom -- or should I say Mr. Barnidge? -- it's fine having skepticism about the value of medical marijuana. Skepticism is a healthy trait, and it's certainly good journalism.

However, persisting in that skepticism even after being confronted with the evidence is not so good. And it's especially not good when you feel your skepticism gives you a license for mean-natured snickering, poking fun and implying that most medical marijuana patients are faking it just to get high.

It's true that there are always a few people who manage to work the system in their favor. But if the system, as it currently stands, allows one or two people who may not strictly need medical marijuana for every patient who obtains (in many cases life-saving of life-altering) relief, then what would you do? Would you deny relief to the one, just to deny the high to the other?

Barnidge: narrow-minded?

Considering the overall tone of your story and how you chose to both begin and end it, I believe it's fair to say that you are unconvinced. But whether or not you, yourself, choose to be convinced by the evidence, or whether you choose to believe in the value of medical marijuana to many patients, is irrelevant, really -- because it works.

Criticizing medical marijuana precisely because of its usefulness -- its efficacy in fighting the misery and discomfort produced by a variety of diseases -- seems particularly disingenuous. Would you feel better about medical marijuana if it treated only one condition? Well, here's the news flash, Mr. Journalist: There are hundreds of medical studies to show that pot is effective in treating every single one of the diseases Dr. Gieringer mentioned to you, and many more besides.

The pity is, that in your smirking sarcasm, you are going to be justifying, in many readers' minds, the narrow-minded prejudices they already have regarding the medical use of marijuana -- prejudices that have been inculcated in them, among other channels, through inaccurate media coverage. Well, like this piece for instance.

It would have been great if you could have fostered more understanding and dialogue between medical marijuana patients and the general public, rather than feeding the mistrust and the fear that many members of the public have about pot.

As a medical marijuana patient, let me say that if you don't trust the medical studies, and you don't trust the law, then maybe you can open your heart to trust the ill people to whom marijuana brings relief, when we tell you that, yes, it does work. If you believe you are in some sort of moral position to make judgments on those people and to disregard their testimony, then you are mistaken.

Maybe you enjoy laughing up your sleeve. Maybe you think it looks smart or cultured to adopt a debonair pose of having "a hard time taking the whole thing seriously." That's fine, if you like that sort of thing.

But for those of us who really are seriously ill, who really have conditions which can be effectively treated by medical marijuana, you should know that it makes you come off exactly like a thoughtless jerk, reveling in his own ignorance.

Fresno's Freakin' -- But Marijuana Dispensary To Stay Open

Medmar Clinic is under legal attack from the City of Fresno.

By Steve Elliott in Chronic City

​You've gotta pity the poor, put-upon city officials of Fresno. After all, they've only had 13 years to suss out Proposition 215, this newfangled medical marijuana law that's being forced upon their fair city by more progressive Californians. And, heck, it's only been a little over half a decade since the legislature amplified and clarified the intent of the law with SB 420, opening the door for medical marijuana dispensaries statewide.

So what have they been doing all that time? It's hard to say, actually. But one thing seems pretty clear: They didn't find much time to study the law.

The city of Fresno is trying to shut down Medmar Clinic, the first medical marijuana dispensary in town -- along with seven other city dispensaries -- via the monumentally lame move of filing a suit through its city attorneys. But on Thursday, a judge said Medmar did not appear to post an immediate threat to public safety.

Read the rest at Chronic City in the SF Weekly blog, "The Snitch":
Chronic City: Fresno's Freakin' -- But Marijuana Dispensary To Stay Open | Digg story

Aptly Named 'Joint Resolution' Succeeds; California Senate Urges Change in Federal Medical Marijuana Rules

By Steve Elliott in Chronic City

​By a 23-15 vote, the California State Senate on Monday approved a "joint resolution" urging the federal government to stop Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) raids on medical marijuana patients and providers. The Sen. Mark Leno-authored resolution additionally calls for the nation to "create a comprehensive federal medical marijuana policy that ensures safe and legal access to any patient that would benefit from it."

Marijuana advocates say recent enforcement activity, including DEA arrests following a raid in Upper Lake, Calif. last week, underscore the need for Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 14, introduced by Leno in June. Although both President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have signaled willingness to change federal policy on medical marijuana, the Administration hasn't come forward with an actual implementation plan.

"Patients and providers in California remain at risk of arrest and prosecution by federal law enforcement and legally established medical marijuana cooperatives continue to be the subject of federal raids," Leno said.

Read the rest at Chronic City in the S.F. Weekly blog, "The Snitch":

Chronic City: Aptly Named 'Joint Resolution' Succeeds; California Senate Urges Change in Federal Medical Marijuana Rules

Revealed -- California Cops Are Trained 'Marijuana Is Not A Medicine'

Artwork courtesy Jim Wheeler

Can't we all just get along?

By Steve Elliott in Chronic City

​A recent court case in San Diego has revealed some California police officers are basing their sworn court testimony in medical marijuana cases on badly outdated, legally inaccurate information.

This goes a long way towards explaining why it is that so many law enforcement officers in the state still seem to harbor such personal animosity toward medical marijuana and those who use it, even after it's been legal in the state for 13 years. Above and beyond the seemingly eternal cop/pot dichotomy, the cops' own "medical marijuana training materials" tell them that -- contrary to the law -- there's no such thing as medical marijuana, and that all marijuana is illegal!

Misinformation has consequences

This misinformation has real-life consequences. Californians who legally use and provide medical marijuana are faced with hostile police and judges who have only heard or choose to believe information which is plainly wrong regarding medicinal pot's legal status here, and inaccurate regarding its effectiveness as medicine, as supported by thousands of doctors and hundreds of studies.

Read the rest at Chronic City in the S.F. Weekly blog, "The Snitch":

Chronic City: To Tax Pot, Or Not? Oakland Votes Tuesday | Digg story

There's Pot In Them Thar Hills! How To Make Marijuana Scary Again.

Photo by David Snyder, U.S. Park Service

By Steve Elliott in Chronic City

The latest mainstream media narrative in California's marijuana wars is a spruced-up version of an old favorite: "Mexican drug traffickers" are growing massive amounts of pot in state and national parks, and are despoiling the natural environment in doing so. Once again, we are given to believe that pot is somehow scary and bad -- if not the herb itself, then at least the people who grow it.

As usual, there's a kernel of truth here, with lots of anti-marijuana spin wrapped around it. Tightening budgets have indeed reduced the number of sheriff's deputies and rangers patrolling parks, and that has indeed resulted in expanded grow-ops on public land, often by undocumented immigrants working for large cartels.

These migrant marijuana workers are considered disposable by the cartels for which they work, are often in the U.S. illegally, and often make less than $100 a day. Many have been told their families will be harmed if they stop working on the pot plantations, according to state drug enforcement officials.

These workers really do cause lots of environmental damage by clear-cutting natural growth to make way for pot fields, damming up creeks for irrigation purposes, and polluting public lands with excess fertilizer, pesticides (many of which were banned in the U.S. years ago), septic waste, and trash.

Trouble is, that's as far as the mainstream media narrative usually goes -- which makes it next to useless for actually identifying the cause of this real problem, and its solution.

Read the rest at Chronic City in the SF Weekly blog, "The Snitch":

Chronic City: There's Pot In Them Thar Hills! How To Make Marijuana Scary Again.

Marijuana, Money, and the Media

Yes, Grasshopper... Money grows on killa trees. (Photo Courtesy of Compassion Family Ministries)

By Steve Elliott in Chronic City

Things are smoking on the marijuana front, and I'm not just talking about the ringing cash registers at newly emboldened dispensaries statewide. Time after time this week, the media brought together money and marijuana in public perception.

From Fox's attempted debunking of the tax benefits of State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano's statewide regulation and taxation bill, to a huge bust in Fresno County, to Oakland's first-in-the-nation marijuana tax (reported in this space), just about every marijuana story (pro- and anti-) reported this week had big dollar signs all over it.

Read the rest at Chronic City in the SF Weekly blog, "The Snitch":

Chronic City: Marijuana, Money and the Media

To Tax Pot, Or Not? Oakland Votes Tuesday

The color of money. (Photo: chron.ron)

By Steve Elliott in Chronic City

Mail-in voting closes Tuesday, July 21 on Measure F, a new ordinance in Oakland which would impose a special tax on sales of medical marijuana in the city's dispensaries. The measure would make Oakland the first city in the United States to have a business tax category for marijuana merchants.

Dispensaries have already been paying a rate of $1.20 per $1,000 of gross receipts. Measure F would create a separate category for marijuana sellers, at a rate of $18 per $1,000 of sales. Sales taxes is already assessed on purchases.

Many activists see the proposed ordinance as an incremental step toward complete legalization. After all, once government bean counters associate the marijuana business with a positive revenue stream, they're likely going to think in much more favorable terms about the herb -- and be a lot less inclined to crack down on dispensaries.

Read the rest at Chronic City in the S.F. Weekly blog, "The Snitch":

Chronic City: To Tax Pot, Or Not? Oakland Votes Tuesday | Digg story

Six Years Later - San Diego, San Bernardino Counties Finally Issuing Medical Marijuana Cards

Not just for Marin County anymore

By Steve Elliott in Chronic City

San Diego County finally issued its first medical marijuana identification cards on Monday, and San Bernardino County will follow suit next month -- a full six years after being instructed to do so by the state legislature.

"We had to wait until all the legal matters were settled before implementing the program," Adrienne Collins Yancey of the San Diego County Health Department told local TV station KGTV. What "legal matters," you ask? Why the six-year delay?

Well, that would be because both counties -- along with seven other, predominantly rural, California counties that followed their lead -- flat-out refused to implement the program until legally forced to do so.

Read the rest at Chronic City in the SF Weekly blog, "The Snitch":

Chronic City: Six Years Later - San Diego, San Bernardino Counties Finally Issuing Medical Marijuana Cards

Digg story