Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 10:25 am | By: Radical Russ
SAN DIEGO (10 News) — A judge ruled the identity of a deputy district attorney who has admitted to being a member of a marijuana collective must be released, 10News reported.
On Tuesday, Deputy District Attorney James Pitts confirmed his membership in the now defunct Amsterdam Alternative Care. The collective was one of several shut down after being raided last September.
San Diego resident and Navy veteran Jovan Jackson is being charged with several counts involving possession of medical marijuana and the sale of medical marijuana. If found guilty, Jackson could spend several years in prison.
San Diego defense attorney Gretchen von Helms said it’s easy to see why Jackson’s defense wants to call Pitts as a defense witness.
“If the defense attorney can say, ‘Look, my client’s just doing what your deputy DA’s are doing,’ how in the heck do you prosecute someone like this? That’s a great strategy for the defense attorney,” said von Helms. “What you want to show is that all sorts of normal people utilize medical marijuana. They do so as lawfully as they can.”
Ms. District Attorney Dumanis, even your own deputy DA agrees with Prop 215 and uses medical marijuana in accordance with the law! Will you do the sensible thing and call off your crusade against medical marijuana, or will you do the petty thing and fire your deputy district attorney? Either way it works out well for us. Obviously we’d be thrilled with ending the crusade, but even if she fires Pitts, she opens San Diego up to a lawsuit from a bitter former deputy DA.
Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 8:10 pm | By: Radical Russ
I get the most incredible emails, and I mean “incredible” as in “it strains credibility” to believe this really happens in America.
My name is [Bob]. I’m 23 years old and I’m from … Mississippi. Until this year I had never been convicted of a crime. I had never even had a speeding ticket. I was on my way home from work and I was pulled over. I got caught with a stem on my floorboard. Which probably wouldn’t even register as .01 [grams] on a scale. The officer searched my vehicle 4 times before he even found it. I was arrested and taken to [jail.] My vehicle was impounded.  I lost my job and eventually my home. I bonded out and received my court date later in the mail. When I went to court I received an 1100 dollar fine and my license was suspended for 6 months. The funny thing was a repeat offender 2 cases before me only received a 600 dollar fine for simple assault. He also received a set number of hours in an anger management class.  His charge was for beating his pregnant girlfriend. I have lost faith in America and our leaders.  Marijuana is a wonderful herb and I enjoy the way it makes me feel. Sometimes I suffer with horrible depression and marijuana makes me feel soooooo much better. I’m a musician as well and marijuana stimulates my mind in ways that I never could naturally. … Anyways I figured I would share this with you so you could see how bad we have it down here in Mississippi.
Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 10:52 am | By: Radical Russ
(Denver Post) Leo Cisneros was sentenced to 15 years in prison today for selling marijuana out of his family’s Denver apartment, nearly two months after a jury found him not guilty of child abuse resulting in the death of his daughter, Auralia.
Cisneros, 31, was convicted of possession with intent to distribute marijuana and having a gun while dealing drugs.
Three men tried to force themselves into the Cisneros family home the night Auralia was killed and they exchanged gunfire with Leo Cisneros. Auralia was shot in the face in the crossfire.
The intruders — Trivi Trujillo, Joshua Rojas and Juvencio Hernandez — all pleaded guilty in the case and are serving between 16 and 24 years in prison.
I’m not saying it’s a good idea to deal a pound of weed per week out of your apartment when your little girl is living there. What I’m saying is that it is unjust to sentence a man who was selling a non-toxic substance to willing customers to one year less than a man who violates the sanctity of your home, guns blazing, and kills your child.
Of course, I’ve always had a problem with how we sentence pre-meditated violence in our country compared to other crimes. To me, there is no greater crime than assaulting or killing another human being. There should certainly be some temperance when we’re talking about spontaneous or emotional violence, but when someone coldly plans to physically harm another person, I’ve got a “one strike and you’re out” policy.
For example, take Bernie Madoff. A really rich guy suckers some other really rich people into throwing away more money than I’ll ever see on a too-good-to-be-true Ponzi scheme. The really rich people who were snookered lost a lot, but it’s not like you’re going to see Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon standing with a “Will Act for Food” sign at a freeway onramp anytime soon. And it’s not as if once this was all revealed, Bernie Madoff was going to be able to pull it off again. But for the sake of preserving society and punishing Madoff, he’s sentenced to 150 years and will never see the light of day again.
But if Bernie Madoff were just Bernie the Child Molester or Bernie the Rapist or Bernie the Murderer, depending on the circumstances he would likely be out of prison in three-to-six years. We have mandatory minimum sentences for people who sell drugs to other people who willingly buy them, but no such mandates for people who rape, assault, and kill innocent others. We have jails and prisons that are at 200% capacity, being ordered by federal courts to release tens of thousands of prisoners, but they can’t release the non-violent drug offenders because of the mandatory minimums, so thieves and violent offenders must be set free.
Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 3:16 pm | By: Radical Russ
VIERA (Florida Today) — A Brevard County jury today convicted a 53-year-old man, who said he uses marijuana for religious and health purposes, of illegally harvesting more than 100 of the plants in his Palm Bay home.
It took a jury 14 minutes to convict self-proclaimed minister Steven Swallick following a two-day trial.
Swallick faces up to 10 years in prison following a conviction on one count each of possession and manufacturing of marijuana. He also was convicted on one misdemeanor count of larceny with relation to a utility fixture for tampering with electrical wiring in his home.
Circuit Judge Jim Earp wouldn’t let him testify about his use of marijuana for religious purposes.
But as part of a motion asking the judge to allow the evidence, Swallick testified outside of the jury’s presence that he is affiliated with the Hawaiian Cannabis Ministries, which mandates use of the drug.
This Hawaiian Cannabis Ministry will sell to you and anyone who logs on a “Sanctuary Kit” for just $250. This kit allegedly “provides you with proof of your legitimacy as a religious practitioner of Cannabis Sacrament.” They claim it provides a “successful religious defense to prosecution”.
Looks like it didn’t work for Rev. Swallick. Even if Judge Earp did allow Swallick’s religious testimony, if wouldn’t work andhasn’tworkedforplentywhohavetried. I wonder how much of Swallick’s and others’ $250 donations to the ministry will come back in the form of legal defense funds for an appeal?
I am all for religious use of cannabis and I believe many people’s sincerity when they call it a sacrament. I don’t think anyone should be arrested or locked up for any use of cannabis, whether you think it’s holy or whether you just think it’s gnarly, dude. But all the “it’s my religion” claim is ever going to get you in an American court is a nice quiet cell and plenty of time to read your holy book. I’m not saying that’s right, I’m just saying that’s the facts. Point to precedents over ayahuasca and peyote all you like, but no court is going to allow cannabis as sacrament because doing so undermines government’s compelling duty to protect the citizenry from the “evils” of legal weed.
Only full legalization for all people, even healthy atheists, is going to provide patients and practitioners their right to access legal medicine and sacrament.
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 6:06 pm | By: Radical Russ
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The right of Oregonians to use marijuana for medical reasons and also to obtain concealed handgun permits is being challenged by local sheriffs who say federal law prevents those people from packing heat.
Advocates for the state’s medical marijuana law countered Wednesday in the Oregon Court of Appeals that the sheriffs simply don’t like the program and are looking for ways to undermine it.
Both sides now are looking to the courts to say definitively whether there’s anything to prevent Oregon from issuing the concealed handgun permits to users of medicinal pot.
Sheriffs from Washington and Jackson counties say, though, that they want clarification from the court on whether federal gun laws prohibiting illegal drug users from possessing handguns applies to people who have permits to use marijuana for medical reasons. Marijuana is still classified as a controlled substance under federal law, they said.
Lower courts had twice ordered the two sheriffs to give weapons permits to people who had lost them because they are medical marijuana users, and both appealed those rulings.
I hope the Oregon court takes some guidance from the California Supreme Court and US Supreme Court rulings on San Bernardino and San Diego counties’ suit over registry ID cards. The California counties, headed up by law enforcement ideologues that hate their state’s medical marijuana law, thought they didn’t have to enforce the state law that required counties to make ID cards because the federal law says all pot is illegal. Both the state and federal supreme courts deferred to earlier appellate judgments that state and local cops are charged with enforcing state and local law, not federal law.
By that reasoning, I’d assume county sheriffs in Oregon are bound to enforce state law, and since Oregon’s medical marijuana law says it is to be treated “like other medicines”, unless the sheriffs are pulling concealed handgun permits from Vicodin and Oxycontin users, they shouldn’t be pulling them from medical marijuana users.
Furthermore, since this state has no dispensary system, patients are forced to grow their own or store large quantities of medicine, making them prime targets for robbers and home invasions – disabled people with lots of weed in their homes are the very people the 2nd Amendment was enacted to protect!
Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 3:58 pm | By: Radical Russ
…but Colorado has also said that providing marijuana in and of itself counts as caregiving. It will be interesting to see how this one plays out.
The Colorado Court of Appeals issued a ruling today (10/29) creating the first case law on Colorado’s Medical Marijuana Law (Article XVIII, Section 14 of the Colorado Constitution). The court ruled that a medical marijuana caregiver must know their patients personally and must provide them with other services in addition to the acquisition of medical marijuana.
However, the decision came in the appeal of a defendant who was arrested *before* the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment issued rules this summer clarifying the patient/caregiver relationship. So the Court of Appeals opinion may not have any immediate bearing on medical marijuana caregivers currently operating in compliance with those rules and regulations, but it may show the future direction the Court is likely to take on this issue.
Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 2:06 pm | By: Radical Russ
(San Jose Mercury News) OKLAHOMA CITY—In a case highlighted by advocates seeking to reform Oklahoma’s drug laws, the state on Wednesday sought to revoke the parole of a man sentenced to decades in prison for growing marijuana that he says was used to treat his arthritis pain.
William Joseph Foster, 51, initially was sentenced in Tulsa County to 93 years in prison after authorities uncovered a pot growing operation in the basement of his Tulsa home in 1995. A state appeals court later reduced that term to 20 years in prison, and he was released on parole in 2001.
During Wednesday’s parole revocation hearing, the Department of Corrections argued before an administrative law judge that Foster violated the terms of his parole while living in California by using and growing marijuana in that state and failing to follow his parole officer’s directions.
Foster maintains he was released from supervision by a parole officer in California overseeing his case, and he claims he refused to sign the paperwork on the advice of an attorney because it would have extended his parole by four years.
“We’re spending all this time, effort and money on one man when our prisons are already full,” said Norma Sapp, director of the Oklahoma chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. “I bet we could send six kids to college on what we’ve spent to keep Will in prison.”
Let’s see if I can follow the logic here:
Oklahoma catches Will Foster growing medical marijuana for his arthritis and sentences him to 93 years, so they can keep fellow Oklahomans safe from, uh, er, a guy smoking a joint to ease his pain.
Oklahoma paroles the guy and allows him to leave the state and serve his parole in California, where he can legally smoke a joint to ease his pain.
California looks at the guy and says, “This is no criminal,” and ends his parole, allowing the guy to live his life and legally smoke a joint to ease his pain.
Oklahoma gets very upset at California, because if he’d stayed in Oklahoma, he’d still be on parole and be unable to smoke a joint to ease his pain.
Oklahoma fights to extradite him, put him in a cell, and are now working to revoke his parole so he can serve the rest of his 20-year-sentence, so they can protect Oklahomans from a guy smoking a joint to ease his pain 1,500 miles away in a place where medical marijuana is legal.
Marijuana: the drug so deadly powerful that its private legal medical use can endanger people from two time zones away.
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 7:41 pm | By: Radical Russ
(Minneapolis Star-Tribune) Bong water can count as a controlled substance, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a decision that raises the threat of longer sentences for drug smokers who fail to dump the water out of their pipes.
In a 4-3 decision Thursday, the state’s highest court said a person can be prosecuted for a first-degree drug crime for 25 grams or more of bong water that tests positive for a controlled substance.
The statute defines a drug “mixture” as “a preparation, compound, mixture, or substance containing a controlled substance, regardless of purity.” When the language of a statute is unambiguous, the high court said, precedents prohibit courts from disregarding the letter of the law under the pretext of pursuing the letter of the law.
“Regardless of purity” means that even a fleck of an ash that registers a molecule of THC floating in your bong water makes all that water weight a controlled substance. 25 grams of water equals 25 milliliters, which equals a little over five teaspoons of water. Five teaspoons of water in your bong makes you a first degree criminal. An ounce and a half of bong water makes you a felon.
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 12:55 pm | By: Radical Russ
(Law.com) If police departments want to line their budgets with drug money, they’d better do it right, according to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In a ruling Tuesday, Judge Richard Clifton ordered the feds to return nearly $200,000 to a Los Angeles medical cannabis collective. Local police raided the place in 2005, and the seized funds became subject to asset forfeiture proceedings. Clifton found that under the Fourth Amendment, a faulty warrant means the police can’t keep the money.
What happened on Wilshire Boulevard in Tuesday’s case wasn’t by plan. A Los Angeles cop responded to complaints of pot smoking on the street and quickly traced it to the United Medical Caregivers Clinic, according to the opinion. Even though the dispensary operators brandished paperwork authorizing them to operate under state medical marijuana laws, the police secured a search warrant and busted the place.
The money was turned over to the feds for a forfeiture action, with the city in line to receive 80 percent of the loot, according to the opinion. However, the state judge who signed the search warrant hadn’t been told the club operated as a medical dispensary. Given that, Clifton applied a relatively straightforward analysis to conclude that declarations submitted by one club operator in the state proceeding could not then be used in the federal forefeiture action, thus dooming the seizure.
“We are particularly concerned by the possibility that the LAPD might stand to profit from unlawful activity,” Clifton wrote.
Some things in America should not be for-profit enterprises, like policing and prisons. In so many of these dispensary raids there are no charges filed against the operators, but the property is all destroyed and the cops seize and keep the cash. Learn more about the unfair and unjust nature of civil forfeiture by visiting Forfeiture Endangers American Rights at fear.org.
Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 6:59 pm | By: Radical Russ
A new policy memo issued Monday by the Justice Department told prosecutors that pot-smoking patients or their sanctioned suppliers should not be targeted for federal prosecution in states that allow medical marijuana. The guidelines do, however, make it clear that federal agents will go after people whose distribution goes beyond what is permitted under state law or use medical marijuana as a cover for other crimes.
[Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve] Cooley contends a vast majority of several hundred outlets his office investigated aren’t following state law. Initially, the law allowed authorized marijuana users to grow their own plants, but lawmakers revised the law in 2003 to allow collectives to provide pot grown by members.
Cooley said he would target stores who are profiting and selling to people who don’t qualify for medicinal marijuana.
Cooley said his office has been assessing the rush of marijuana dispensaries for the past two years and has provided training for his staff over the past several months in anticipation of filing cases.
Some legal observers believe the first case Cooley files since his announcement will show how egregious the illegal behavior has become among medical marijuana outlets.
“He’s going to find a dispensary that is way over the line,” said Rory Little, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of Law.
Among the candidates are Jeffrey Joseph, who runs Organica and was arrested in August but has yet to be charged. Authorities recovered 452 marijuana plants, more than 100 pounds of hashish and more than $100,000 in cash from his home and dispensaries in Marina del Rey and Culver City.
How will the people of Los Angeles react to this? Will they see six-figures of cash and hundreds of pounds of hash and consider that to be their intent in passing Prop 215? Will this trigger a backlash against medical marijuana that could ripple across the entire country? Or have the people become accustomed to the dispensaries and react harshly to Cooley’s actions?
However this plays out, one thing the medical marijuana supporters in Los Angeles County should be doing is brushing up on the concept of jury nullification. Juries are the final arbiters of the law in our system, though few people know it. A juror – you – can refuse to convict a person of any crime if you believe that conviction to be unjust, even if there is videotape of the person committing the crime and CSI has sixteen different pieces of forensic evidence proving a person’s culpability. Judges will tell you you must judge the facts of the case and whether the defendant is guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, but they do not tell you that you can judge the merits of the law itself.
In other words, a law can pass with 100% of the statehouse voting for it and the governor signing it, and a person can be caught red-handed violating that law, but you, as a juror, can set that person free if you believe convicting him would be unjust. Your one vote for “not guilty” can hang the entire jury even as the other eleven vote “guilty”, and the courts, the police, even the president himself cannot do anything about it or punish you in any way for your verdict.
SneakerPimp: i wanna here about the imminent MiniSpof sounds like time for some
SneakerPimp: im estatic and excited for NSL today.
SneakerPimp: mountain time wake n bake
SneakerPimp: oh yea also wake n bake
SneakerPimp: its central im high as a kite everybody
SneakerPimp: ill grab that WUD
WakeUpDead: @Russ, I dont think that wireless is going to work out for the show, it was choppy and studdered just like last week. Hardline may be the only way. Puff [...]
WakeUpDead: A MINI Spof, Lock up your Weed, in 18 years that is. Really Man congrats! Greatest days of my life when my kids were born, hell yeh, great news [...]
BenJaMin: Late night Stash!!!
SneakerPimp: heres a bong rip for spof
RevRayGreen: errr test over....
RevRayGreen: on hold..
RevRayGreen: @RR I'll try and lob a call to you.....
SneakerPimp: where is the first field of cannabis gonna be?
SneakerPimp: !
Radical Russ: Breaking News: MrSpof's wife's water just broke! A MiniSpof is imminent!
SneakerPimp: oh russ its not my fault that i dont understand choppy word:stoned:
SneakerPimp: @Mrspof congratulations tell us all about it tommrow
Radical Russ: OK, test over. Sorry. Only needed a half hour. Be back tomorrow afternoon.
slash5city: don't forget to watch CCS live on u-stream 8 pm west
thaistik: Local Crime Stoppers notice.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Pot shop burglars sought
Crime Stoppers is looking for information on the suspects who police say burglarized a medical marijuana dispensary and stole cash, drugs [...]
American Medical Association Calls For Scientific Review Of Marijuana's Prohibitive Status; Dutch Marijuana Use Lower Than European Average, Study Says […]
"Truth In Trials Act" Reintroduced In Congress; Maine: Voters Approve Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Measure; Colorado: Breckenridge Voters Overwhelmingly Decide To End Pot Penalties. […]
Some of the nation’s top athletes discuss why today's pros are turning to cannabis — and away from alcohol and painkillers — off the field, and question why pro sports leagues are continuing to sanction those who do. Moderator: Steve Bloom, Author, Pot Culture; editor, celebstoner.com * Toby Grear, MMA fighter * Sean Neumann, Documentary Filmm […]
Cannabis Law Reform's Missing Link: Law Enforcement Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper; LEAP and NORML Advisory Board; Author of Breaking Rank Putting the Mexican Cartels Out of Business Mexican drug cartels now employ over 100,000 soldiers and are responsible for nearly ten thousand deaths per year. Their largest source of income is marijuana. […]
San Diego DA Dumanis’ deputy belongs to medical marijuana collective
sounds like time for some 
mountain time wake n bake 
don't forget to watch CCS live on u-stream 8 pm west 
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