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1. NYPD has 7th straight year of marijuana arrest increase, over 50,000 busted for pot
2. Veterans for Weed groups sparks outrage from POW likeness in logo, similarity to Veterans of Foreign Wars acronym
3. Fort Collins lawsuit challenges ban on dispensaries
4. FBI chainsaws through wrong apartment in raid, terrifying mother and toddler
5. Joan Rivers smokes pot on camera in her new reality show

Daily Toker Tunes

Irie Wednesday: Brought to you by NorCalPurps in the California Bay Area

• Winstrong & DJ Jacques – “Free Weed”

Cannabis Science with Dr. Mitch Earleywine

• Israeli study shows promise of cannabinoids in treatment of cancer

Radical Rant

• Big Pharma’s lobbying power shows incentive to oppose medical marijuana in Washington

San Francisco’s medical cannabis dispensary program has resumed their licensing and inspecting of marijuana collectives. Department of Public Health officials announced on Monday that the application process is now back on after weeks of being suspended.

New applications had stopped being processed in December when a ruling in a state appeals court said that California cities violated federal laws by regulating and permitting medical marijuana. (Pack vs City of Long Beach).  But that ruling was vacated when the California Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal, and San Francisco’s city attorney gave the health department their blessing  to resume its program on Jan. 20.  However, the department announced last week that all applications were still on hold indefinitely.

The agency did use the time off of the program to clarify some rules. Existing dispensaries must sign a statement swearing that all medical marijuana sold on-site is cultivated in California and comes from a grower who is a member of the dispensary’s nonprofit collective. Medical marijuana-laced food produced by companies outside San Francisco that is now being sold at many dispensaries throughout the Bay Area are banned at the city dispensaries. Also in the memo from Larry Kessler, a senior inspector at the health department who runs the dispensary program, says dispensaries may not sell or distribute medical cannabis or medical cannabis products produced by commercial enterprises or by another collective/cooperative.

San Francicso was the first city in California to license dispensaries in 2005 by the Board of Supervisors. The city has 21 medical marijuana businesses.

External Links:
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2012/01/san-francisco-medical-marijuana-licensing-program-resumes#ixzz1l5AUXwYY

In Colorado, the last bank that worked openly with medical marijuana businesses was the Colorado Springs Bank, and they closed the last remaining dispensary and clinic business accounts they had in September of last year. At the time they said it was due to concerns about legal issues. Jon Whiten, President of Colorado Springs State Bank that at one time courted those kinds of business accounts, said that the legal and regulatory issues need to be resolved before banks can handle those kind of business accounts, citing increased federal pressure.

Colorado MMCs, as well as dispensaries and medical marijuana business in other medical marijuana states, have been left with few banking options. In Colorado, in particular, state law requires medical marijuana businesses to keep diligent track of every transaction, but record keeping is very difficult for the average business owner if they have no bank to work with. So, cut off from the traditional banking options, a Democrat and a Republican have teamed up to co-sponsor Senate Bill 75 in Colorado to help create a system that marijuana businesses can turn to for help.  Democratic Senator Pat Steadmad and Republican Rep. Tom Massey would like to create financial cooperatives that would be regulated similarly to credit unions, but be insured by non-federal insurance policies.

Robert Friechtel, the director for the Medical Marijuana Business Exchange estimates that about half of Colorado’s 700 registered dispensaries lost their accounts last September when the Colorado Springs Bank changed their policies. Some kind of industry banking is needed so that business owners can run their businesses successfully and safely.

Brian Vicente of Sensible Colorado says that Senate bill is a positive step forward for an industry that is crying out for sensible banking. The problem has been brewing for quite a while, with big name national banks closing any marijuana-tied legal businesses back in 2007 when the DEA warned big banks that they could face potential legal liabilities if they did business with dispensaries. Dispensary owners would just be happy to put their money somewhere, there is a public safety issue in general if business have to exist with piles of cash laying around. Both Representatives agree that there might be some danger of a federal intervention, but remain hopeful that this moves the issue forward to a solution that works for business owners.

External Links:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/25/colorado-springs-state-ba_n_936208.html

When you hear us and other outlets refer to “sixteen medical marijuana states and DC,” you should be careful to remember that really means there’s pseudo-legalized California, five semi-functional medical marijuana states (Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Montana*, and Michigan), four quasi-functional medical marijuana states (Hawaii, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Arizona), four dysfunctional medical marijuana states (Alaska, Maine, Nevada, and Vermont), and three medical marijuana states in name only (New Jersey, Delaware, and DC) that haven’t actually protected any users.

What I mean by that: In California, anyone who wants to use marijuana for a medical purpose can do so.  In the “semi-functional” states, most of the serious medical users can qualify and have some level of access to medicine.  In the “quasi-functional” states, fewer people are able to qualify and access.  In the “dysfunctional” states, less than 1,000 users qualify.

Now in Vermont, the proponents of a dispensary system there want to ensure that Vermont remains “dysfunctional” by capping the total number of qualifying patients – by law – to only 1,000.

Vermont has about 450 medical marijuana patients. They currently grow their own marijuana or have a designated caregiver do it for them. However, that will change soon.

As many as four distribution centers state-wide could be operational by the end of the year. Legislation prohibits more and limits the number of patients in the state to 1,000.

According to the Vermont Department of Public Health, “about one out of three American women and one out of two American men now living will eventually have cancer” and according to the Centers for Disease Control, there will be 919 men diagnosed this year with prostate cancer alone in Vermont, another 481 will get lung cancer.  So, just for one condition and only two incidences of that condition, there are a potential 1,400 qualifying medical marijuana patients.

So, technically, this law could create a situation where a state bureaucrat has to tell someone with cancer, “Sorry, you’re #1,001. You’ll just have to wait til one of the thousand patients dies for a spot to open up.”

Patients and advocates say strict regulations in Vermont – along with the patient limit – should limit fears of raids. Vermont cities and towns can ban or zone dispensaries as they see fit.

“I think that hopefully for the federal government when they look at Vermont they look at Vermont as being a model,” said Virginia Renfrew, a spokeswoman for the Vermont People with AIDS Coalition.

That’s where medical marijuana is heading and where some of the people who support medical marijuana want to take it.  Vermont doesn’t even recognize glaucoma as a qualifying condition and protects only 0.07% of its population under its medical marijuana law.  Who knew there were Box Canyons in Vermont?

Only one person will be allowed in a dispensary at a time under the rules and customers will be seen by appointment only. No customer will be allowed in the building without their state-issued medical marijuana card

“They did a real good job.  They went from the position of ‘What’s best for the patients’ first,” said [state-registered medical marijuana patient Mark] Tucci. He says the second priority was preventing diversion to non-patients.

Tucci says he would advise most of his fellow patients to use a dispensary but he won’t be walking though that door soon. That’s because the law prevents those who buy medicine at dispensaries from growing their own.

So if you want to shop at one of the four state dispensaries, you get to go in, one at a time, to a building 1,000′ from schools or daycares, if your local community allows it at all, so it will be zoned into someplace far from where you are.  You’ll be video recorded at all times and police can come into the dispensary at any time with no warning for a “compliance check”.  Your dispensary can start with 12 mature plants until it signs up patients, then limited to just 28 mature plants for up to 14 patients.  It’s going to cost $2,500 (non-refundable) to apply to be a dispensary, $20,000 first year and $30,000 each year after to maintain the license, and start-up costs for all the massive security and tracking run about $150,000.  And according to a recent poll, 90% of Vermont’s patients favor this.

The time for legalization is now.

* One could argue Montana has slipped into the “quasi-functional” category after “repeal lite”.  It’s a vague categorization based on total patients served and ease of access.  My breaking point between “semi-” and “quasi-” is 10,000 patients and “quasi-” to “dys-” is 1,000 patients.

The California Supreme Court decided today to review two lower court rulings that would look again into the legality of regulating dispensaries in the state. During a weekly closed-door session, the judges decided unanimously to hear the cases that deal with dispensaries suits in Long Beach and Riverside.

In the Long Beach case, an appeals court decided that the city’s rules they passed to regulate dispensaries there clashed with federal drug laws, so those rules were struck down. In the Riverside case, a different appeals court ruled that local governments do have the right to ban dispensaries, giving local opponents, mainly law enforcement, the go ahead to shut down the dispensaries.

The cases will be of particular interest, because state wide decisions by the California Supreme Court would impact areas like Oakland, where they have regulations that appear to be functioning without such opposition. Also, the recent involvement of the US Attorneys in closing down many dispensaries in Southern California may entertain dozens of federal law suits should the state rule favorably to the dispensary industry.

There are already lawsuits pending in San Francisco challenging the actions of the US Attorneys in California. Many advocates were asking for the review of both these cases, so today’s news was hopeful. The Riverside ruling caused smaller local governments to ban dispensaries, something that restricts access to patients.

External Links:
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_19774681

In the state capital of Washington, Senate Bill 6265 got a hearing yesterday. The bill is sponsored by Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles of Seattle, a long time proponent of common sense cannabis law reform.

Senate Bill 6265 would legalize non-profit medical marijuana dispensaries, but kick the regulation aspect to the cities of Washington. If passed, the bill could clear up what has been a legal limbo for dispensaries in the state that are left alone in some places and prosecuted in others. Storefront cannabis shops are not explicitly allowed under state law, but most dispensaries are operating under legal loopholes and faith that they will not be raided. Under the new law, there is discussion that the dispensary business would boom in the state, especially in some cities that have refused to allow them.

Sen. Kohl-Welles’ medical marijuana bill may also have implications for the legalization bill I-502 if passed. Initiative 502 would legalize marijuana possession and distribution for adults, but it also spells out the language that would convict an adult from driving while high; specifically, if they were caught with more than 5 nanograms of THC  in their blood. She has language that would require police and prosecutors to have proof of actual impairment in order to convict a medical marijuana patient of a DUI – meaning: they would need more than the nanogram limit proposed in I-502 to convict a patient with a state medical marijuana card.

Sen. Kohl- Welles says she is optimistic that the legislature can make improvements to the system and allow the local governments to regulate non-profit patient cooperatives. She did contend though, that the bill is young and will likely undergo changes, as it has support and opposition.  They will try to work together to get the bill passed.

Gov. Gregoire vetoed so much of last year’s Bill SB 5073 that was sponsored by Kohl-Welles that the plans to regulate a medical marijuana dispensary system were blacked out entirely. However, this time around, Gregoire’s policy staff members have been working with Kohl-Welles on her bill, although the Governor’s office hasn’t officially endorsed it. The dismissal by a federal judge of Arizona’s lawsuit (to clarify if state employees would be prosecuted for taking part in a regulated market by issuing business licensees) has taken the legs out from much of the Governor’s argument about regulating dispensaries.

External Links:

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Washington-state-lawmakers-seek-new-path-for-pot-2612671.php#ixzz1jrDdTy00

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2012/01/pot_proposals_advance_in_olymp.php

Yesterday the DC City Council approved some emergency legislation to restrict how much marijuana for medical use will be allowed in each of the city’s eight wards. The council was getting pressure from Northeast Residents who feared that Ward 5 would have the concentration of large indoor marijuana growing operations. After some public debate in the meeting last night, the council decided to put a cap on the number of cultivation centers that would be allowed to be in any one ward up to six. Those cultivation centers would be allowed to grow up to 95 plants each.

Only 10 cultivations centers can open city-wide. They will not be allowed to be withing 300 feet of a school or recreation center and the Office of Zoning has now added that they will only be allowed in areas that are designed for light manufacturing. It is these restrictions that are driving applicants to want to base growing operations in the city’s 5th Ward, historically the center of the city’s industrial base.

The city has received 28 applications for a medical marijuana cultivation center and out of those, 26 of the applicants want to establish a business in Ward 5. So far, seven of those have gotten favorable recommendations from the Department of Health, and it just so happens that six of those are in Ward 5. That area of the city has seen a recent boom in adult entertainment businesses, and even a waste transfer station and to residents, they say a dumping ground because of the zoning issues in all the other parts of the city.

Ward 5 activists were at the meeting and supported the emergency legislation. More restrictive  measures were voted down when one council member stood up and said that these layers and layers of restrictions would make medical marijuana too difficult to obtain. One compromise that was voted on in the final minutes of the meeting last night was to dictate that only one medical marijuana distribution could exist in any ward with more than five cultivations centers, a compromise with Ward 5 neighborhood advisory members, although they said they wanted none.

Medical providers say the neighborhoods concerns are overblown, and will find they are not the same kind of business as a strip club or liquor store. But as Washington DC moves slowly and cautiously forward to implement their program (it was actually voted on in 1998, and enacted finally in May of 2010), some wonder if any distribution or cultivation centers will ever open in the Federal Government’s back yard. It seems that dispensaries and cultivations centers have been trying the patience of the Feds as they crack down in medical marijuana states like Colorado and California. It will be interesting to see how they treat dispensaries operating a short trip away from the DEA headquarters.

External Links:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-council-approves-limits-on-medical-marijuana-growth/2012/01/17/gIQAxLNa6P_story.html

Three dispensary operators in Long Beach were convicted for selling marijuana last week and those Southern California dispensaries that have been targeted are now going to lose all their property in asset forfeiture. According to a statement out today for the US Attorney’s office, they will take everything that belongs to targeted dispensaries in Orange and LA Counties.

Federal and state agents executed search warrants on three different medical marijuana dispensaries yesterday, and that led to a search of two separate marijuana growing operations, each with more than 500 plants. Letters from US Attorneys are still being sent out to some dispensaries, and the property owners where the dispensaries operate warning them they need to take the steps to stop the sale and distribution of cannabis at their stores, or face all the penalties that can incur at the hands of the federal government that doesn’t see marijuana as either a medicine or a legal substance.

Several dispensary owners in Southern California that ignored the warning letters last year now have court dates on the docket for 2012. And things don’t look like they will get any easier for medical marijuana dispensaries in LA. LA Councilman Jose Huizar is working to get all medical marijuana dispensaries within city limits to close their doors, a proposal he made to the council last month, and one that is gaining traction as the proposal got most of the details hashed out by the City Council’s Public Safety Committee in a closed door session last Friday WITH the US Attorneys for Southern California.

The LA City Council has had a long standing fight with dispensaries in the City of Angels. Since 2007 they have been working on regulations or outright bans, so far unsuccessfully. But now with the help of the threatening letters from the Feds, and the pressure on land owners, dozens of dispensaries have closed their doors.

The city tried to cap the number of dispensaries in LA at 100, and moved to do that based on a lottery system. A California Appeals court told them they couldn’t legally have a lottery system to choose business licenses, so many unlicensed shops have sprung up in the meantime, while the city has tried to find a way to regulate the medical marijuana market. As the number of dispensaries in LA have gone up, instead of down, it seems that the Council is more open to an outright ban than ever.

Dispensaries in LA have heard this kind of talk before, and all operate on the idea that there may be legal battles before them, but with this new round of cooperation between the city attorney’s office and the city council, many are understandably nervous. The ban proposal is now headed to the City’s Planning Committee for a hearing on January 26th, and could face a vote soon after that.

Jane Usher, a special assistant City Attorney said that they are working towards what they are calling a “gentle ban” that would still allow primary caregivers to grow medical marijuana, but not sell it in any kind of retail environment.

External Links:

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2012/01/marijuana_dispensary_ban_angeles_committee.php

Hemp Headlines

Brought to you by Cannabis Fantastic

• Worker Denied Compensation Due to Marijuana Use
• Second Colorado Group Seeks to Legalize Cannabis in the State
• Federal Prosecuters Put Colorado Dispensaries on Notice
• Representative Introduces Drug Testing for the Georgia Legislature

Daily Toker Tunes

• Groovin’ Thursday: Lost Souls – “Who Got the Weed?”

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Speaker’s Corner

• Jamie Haase – former Border Patrol / ICE Special Agent on the futility of the Drug War

NORML Newsmakers

• Heather Donahue (“Blair Witch Project”, “Grow Girl”) on ABC’s “The View”

Radical Rant

• Hash Ain’t Pot – your state may punish hashish far more harshly than an equivalent amount of pot

Wall Street looting? illegal immigration? Nope, THIS is the scourge to society Obama wants to wipe out - people buying and selling marijuana according to state law.

Federal prosecutors announced that they will go after medical marijuana dispensaries that are within a 1000 feet of a school. The US Attorney’s office had identified 23 different Colorado dispensaries that violated the 1000 foot rule and all 23 received a threatening letter.

The letter from the US Attorneys office said the dispensaries had only 45 days to close or they would face criminal prosecution along with having their assets seized under drug forfeiture laws. Letters were also sent to the property owners where the dispensaries were located, a tactic that has been very effective in the closure of many Californian dispensaries.

Colorado US Attorney John Walsh said that the Colorado law specifies the 1000/ft rule, but says that small local governments can shrink that distance if they want to. So far, none have. The 1000-foot buffer zones is significant because it also triggers stiffer federal penalties for drugs crimes.

The federal prosecutors aren’t stopping with the 23 identified dispensaries that aren’t in compliance with the 1000 ft rule.  They say they are looking for other dispensaries not in state law compliance of the 1000 foot rule. US Attorney spokesperson Jeff Dorschner said that he would not name the dispensaries that received the letter because the matter is part of an on-going investigation.  Dorschner also said that their interest is first to have the marijuana dispensaries to move away from schools to protect children.  He would not say what the feds were planning for dispensaries that did not comply in the 45 days, and he answered it would be handled in a case-by-case basis.

The U.S. Justice Department has previously said it would not target people operating in compliance with state medical-marijuana law. It then clarified that policy over the summer to state the exemption doesn’t apply to dispensaries and their owners.

External Links:

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19729288