MORE CHANGES IN STORE FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA RULES
Apr 27, 2010 Online Issue
By Colleen Slevin, The Associated Press
Source: Associated Press
Denver — State lawmakers are close to cracking down on shady doctors who are writing medical marijuana recommendations but, with 
just about two weeks to go, they’re still trying to figure out how — and whether — to regulate dispensaries.
A proposal to license dispensaries, require owners to undergo criminal background checks and to grow most of the marijuana they sell (House Bill 1284) is set to get its first hearing in the Senate on Tuesday. Sponsor Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, thinks about 80 percent of the estimated 1,000 dispensaries in the state wouldn’t be able to pass muster and would have to close. He believes about 200 dispensaries would be enough to provide medical marijuana to the estimated 100,000 people entitled to use the drug legally.
“My intention is to get the thugs and the knuckleheads out of the business,” said Romer, who wants to set the license application fees at between $10,000 and $35,000 depending on the size of the dispensary.
Tags: legalize marijuana, marijuana, marijuana for medical use, marijuana laws, marijuana legalization, Medical Marijuana
LA CITY COUNCIL APROVES FEE SCHEDULE FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA CLINICS
Apr 27, 2010 Online Issue
The City Council gave final approval Friday to a fee schedule for medical marijuana clinics, the last element needed in the hard-fought effort to regulate the facilities in Los Angeles.
The measure was approved on 10-1 vote, with Councilman Bill Rosendahl voicing his continued opposition to a measure he claims is too restrictive. The ordinance will take effect 30 days after it is signed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
The measure puts strict limitations on where the clinics can operate, banning them from close proximity to schools, parks and residential areas. While the city now has an estimated 800, the new restrictions are expected to significantly reduce that number. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: marijuana, marijuana for medical use, medicinal marijuana
MOBILE MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY CITED BY CORONA, NORCO POLICE
Apr 27, 2010 Online Issue
The first thing people see when they step into a converted 1985 Pace Arrow motorhome in Norco is a glass display case filled with chocolate-covered cannabis cookies and medical marijuana labeled “blueberry” and “cheese.” 
The collective has been on the road for seven months, but this month its operators were cited by Norco and Corona police for possessing drug paraphernalia and operating a dispensary, said Stewart Hauptman and his wife, Helen Cherry, who run the collective.
The couple plans to contest the citations and challenge zoning laws in the two cities that ban dispensaries.
Don’t Call It Pot in This Circle It’s a Profession
Apr 27, 2010 Online Issue
By Jesse McKinley
Source: New York Times 
Oakland, Calif. — Like hip-hop, health food and snowboarding, marijuana is going corporate.
As more and more states allow medical use of the drug, and California considers outright legalization, marijuana’s supporters are pushing hard to burnish the image of pot by franchising dispensaries and building brands; establishing consulting, lobbying and law firms; setting up trade shows and a seminar circuit; and constructing a range of other marijuana-related businesses.
Boosters say it is all part of a concerted effort to trade the drug’s trippy, hippie counterculture past for what they believe will inevitably be a more buttoned-up future.
“I don’t possess a Nehru jacket, I’ve never grown a goatee, I’ve never grown my hair past the nape of my neck,” Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws said. “And I don’t like patchouli.”
Tags: marijuana, marijuana for medical use, Medical Marijuana Policy, medicinal marijuana
The Pot Economy: No One Seems To Know If It Exists
Apr 27, 2010 Online Issue
By Tiffany Revelle, The Daily Journal
Source: Ukiah Daily Journal
California — How much of Mendocino County’s economy marijuana represents was one of the biggest questions at a Saturday forum on “Life After Legalization” at the Saturday Afternoon Club in Ukiah – and no one has any real answers.
The forum, brought south by Humboldt County’s KMUD radio host Anna Hamilton from where it started last month, aimed to answer the myriad questions about what should happen if the voters pass the Tax Cannabis 2010 California ballot initiative.
Tags: LA, legalize marijuana, Los angeles, marijuana, marijuana laws, marijuana legalization
Ignoring Voter Intent on Medical Marijuana
Apr 27, 2010 Online Issue
Opinion
Source: Denver Post
Denver, CO — State legislators seem poised to legitimize dispensaries. But if they must do so, they need to keep a tight rein on the situation. The medical marijuana constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2000 was never intended to create the widespread marijuana dispensary system we have today. From that standpoint, we take issue with a measure moving through the legislature that legitimizes dispensaries.
The ill-conceived bill got a little better, however, when lawmakers recently restored provisions that allow cities and counties to outlaw dispensaries in their communities.
It’s the least the legislature could do as it prepares to put a stamp of approval on a massive pot distribution web few could have ever imagined.The narrowly drawn measure approved by voters in 2000 was supposed to allow people who were very sick or in severe chronic pain the respite they might find in marijuana. The amendment talked about possessing six plants and gave every impression that medical marijuana would be a small-time, personal effort to quell debilitating ailments.
Tags: marijuana, marijuana for medical use, medicinal marijuana
Legal Pot: The Good and Bad
Apr 27, 2010 Online Issue
By Glenda Anderson, The Press Democrat
Source: Press Democrat 
California — Marijuana enthusiasts from across the country flocked to Ukiah Saturday to talk about the future of pot should California voters in November legalize its use for all adults. “I think this is huge. Everybody is watching,” said Lacey Story, an oriental medicine practitioner and herbalist from Nederland, Colo.
More than 200 people attended a day-long forum to address concerns that legalization could lead to a collapse of the North Coast’s lucrative underground pot industry.
A smattering of government and business representatives attended, but the greatest number were associated with the marijuana industry.
Tags: legalize marijuana, marijuana laws, marijuana legalization
