Hey I thought we should start a thread for all the issues that we're facing. www.safeaccess.org is ok but there isn't very much activity and they don't deal with growing issues. I just read in the LA times that the city is voting on the exemption requests of 533 dispensaries that requested exemptions. They are going to shut them down. They have targeted 16 to start.

Here's the article:
Medical cannabis at City Hall on Tuesday
June 6th, 2009 | by Don Duncan |
The Los Angeles City Council will take up fourteen hardship applications for medical cannabis collectives in Eagle Rock and Highland Park on Tuesday morning. These are the first of approximately five hundred hardship applications filed for medical cannabis facilities that opened or relocated after the City Council adopted a moratorium on new collectives on September 14, 2007. Increasing pressure from neighborhood groups and bad media coverage have embarrassed the City Council in recent weeks, and observers expect all or most of the applications will be denied. The City Council will also vote on a motion by Councilmember Huizar to remove the hardship provision from the city’s moratorium. If approved, the motion will prevent any new hardship applications.

Later on Tuesday, the Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee will discuss permanent regulations, which the City Council plans to adopt before the moratorium expires September. Medical cannabis advocates joined City Councilmember Dennis Zine earlier this year in rejecting a draft ordinance prepared by outgoing City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo. That misguided measure regarded collectives as illegal and would have forced every facility in Los Angeles to close. The PLUM Committee is expected to send recommendations for improved regulations to the full City Council on Tuesday. The Council will then forward the recommendations, including any amendments, to the City Attorney’s office with instructions to write a new ordinance.

An alphabet soup of advocacy organizations has been working with Councilmembers and city staff for over a year to craft the permanent regulations – Americans for Safe Access (ASA), Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance (GLACA), Patients Advocacy Network (PAN). These groups join other local players, including patients, law enforcement, and neighborhood groups. The final phase of writing the ordinance will be controversial, as various interests compete to shape the next draft. Expect differing strategies and priorities.

There is likely to be something in the draft ordinance to which every stakeholder objects. Ultimately, every measure must be evaluated based on its benefit or harm to legal patients. It will be even more important now that every medical cannabis supporter in Los Angeles stay plugged in and let Councilmembers know which provisions help facilitate access to medicine - and which will roll back patients’ rights.

The City Council meets at 10:00 AM on Tuesday, June 9, in Room 340, City Hall, 200 North Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles. Arrive early to complete a public speaker’s card. The PLUM Committee meets at 2:00 PM just across the rotunda in Room 350.

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Everything I grow is designated for a CA medical marijuana patient. Prop 215

god damnit

I can't go tomorrow. I wish I could.

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Everything I grow is designated for a CA medical marijuana patient. Prop 215

California Senator Mark Leno (D-SF) introduced Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 14 yesterday. This ASA-sponsored resolution calls on the President and US Congress to end medical cannabis raids in California and to create a comprehensive federal medical cannabis policy that ensures safe and legal access to any patient that would benefit from it. If adopted, SJR 14 will be the first time a state legislature has officially called for a change in federal medical cannabis policies.

I need your help today to get SJR 14 approved in the California Senate – and time is short already. Visit ASA's online action center to ask your California State Senator to support SJR 14 right now!

SJR 14 calls on the President and US Congress to end federal interference (including DEA raids) in California, allow fair trials for patients and providers in federal court, and encourage advanced clinical trials into the benefits of medical cannabis. Given the historic opportunity for change in Washington, DC, it is more important than ever that the California legislature make this historic statement in defense of safe access.

We need your participation and ongoing support to make this happen. Please contact your California State Senator today!

Thank you for your help,

Don Duncan
California Director
Americans for Safe Access

P.S. For more information on SJR 14, visit www.AmericansForSafeAccess.org/SJR14

Americans for Safe Access is the nation's largest organization of patients, medical professionals, scientists and concerned citizens promoting safe and legal access to cannabis for therapeutic use and research.

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Everything I grow is designated for a CA medical marijuana patient. Prop 215

This is confusing. This was in the paperwork that I just got from the MMIP.

"Section 11362.765. (a) Subject to the requirements of this article, the individuals specified in subdivision (b) shall not be subject, on that sole basis, to criminal liability under Section 11357, 11358, 11359, 11360, 11366, or 11570. However, nothing in this section shall authorize the individual to smoke or otherwise consume marijuana unless otherwise authorized by this article, nor shall anything in this section authorize any individual or group to cultivate or distribute marijuana for profit."

?????

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Everything I grow is designated for a CA medical marijuana patient. Prop 215

I dont see anything changing on the federal level... The future looks bleek my brother

Don't think negatively. I'm sure it will change. And, I'm a chick!

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Everything I grow is designated for a CA medical marijuana patient. Prop 215

Charles Lynch Sentenced to 1 Year in Federal Prison; Vows to Appeal

Former Morro Bay medical cannabis dispensing collective operator Charles C. Lynch, who's federal case has become an iconic rallying point for medical cannabis supporters frustrated with federal interference in California's medical cannabis laws, was sentenced this week to one year and one day in prison and four years of supervised release. Lynch was convicted in 2008 under the Bush Administration and had been awaiting sentencing under the new Obama Administration. The sentence handed down by federal District Court Judge George H. Wu is considered lenient given that the Justice Department was seeking the mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years. Despite indications from the White House of a new policy on medical cannabis, the Justice Department refused to agree with defense attorneys' contention that Lynch deserved a sentence of time served. Lynch is currently out on bail pending his appeal, but cannot use medical marijuana according to the terms of his release.

"Fortunately, the judge saw through the federal government's argument that Lynch deserved five years in prison, and instead sentenced him to the least amount of time he could," said Joe Elford, Chief Counsel with the national advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA). "Recognizing that Lynch had not violated any state or local laws, the judge was lenient despite the protestations of the federal government." On two of the counts against Lynch, Judge Wu sentenced him to time served.
During his election campaign, President Obama said that he was "not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws" on cannabis. That was followed up with statements by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that the Justice Department would only "go after those people who violate both federal and state law." These developments prompted Judge Wu to request clarification from the government regarding that policy's impact on Lynch's case. However, a response from the Deputy Attorney General's office explained that his case was unaffected.

Continued raids on medical cannabis dispensing collectives under the Obama Administration has prompted Congress to seek clarification on this new policy. On Tuesday, Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) got report language approved within the Commerce, Justice and Science Departments (CJS) Appropriations bill. "It's imperative that the federal government respect states' rights and stay out of the way of patients with debilitating diseases such as cancer who are using medical marijuana in accordance with state law to alleviate their pain," said Hinchey in a press release issued Tuesday.
"We applaud Congressman Hinchey's leadership on this issue and his attempt to restrict interference by the federal government in medical marijuana states," said Caren Woodson, ASA's Director of Government Affairs.

There are more than two dozen pending federal cases like Lynch's for which the government has failed to signal any change in strategy. Advocates contend that the federal government should either cease such prosecutions or , at the very least, remove the cases to state court where medical evidence can properly be heard. Because of the June 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Raich, federal medical cannabis defendants are prohibited from entering evidence related to medical cannabis or their compliance with local and state laws. Advocates argue that the exclusion of evidence is the reason why Lynch and others are being convicted in federal court.

Before his dispensing collective was raided by Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents in March of 2007, Lynch had operated for 11 months without incident, and with the blessing of the Morro Bay City Council, the local Chamber of Commerce, and other community members. Two months after Lynch closed his dispensary, Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers, he was indicted and charged with conspiracy to possess and possession with intent to distribute marijuana and concentrated cannabis, manufacturing more than 100 plants, knowingly maintaining a drug premises, and sales of marijuana to a person under the age of 21. None of the federal charges Lynch was convicted of constituted violations of local or state law.

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Everything I grow is designated for a CA medical marijuana patient. Prop 215

By David Burton

• Average prison sentence for first-degree marijuana possession (involving a prior conviction or first offense with 2.2 pounds or more) in Alabama: 8.4 years.

• Average prison sentence for felony DUI conviction in Alabama: 4.8 years.

• Alabama’s ranking in the U.S. for alcohol-related traffic fatalities (2006): 8 of 50.

• Number of U.S. alcohol-related deaths annually: 105,000.

• Number of U.S. drug-overdose deaths in 2005: 33,000

• Average number of U.S. aspirin-overdose deaths annually: 500.

• Number of Americans who die every year from THC overdose: O.

• Percentage of alcohol-related cases among all U.S. substance-related ER visits: 27.

• Percentage involving cannabis use: Less than 2.

• Worst U.S. state to be pulled over with a kilo of cannabis in the trunk:

• Mississippi (maximum prison sentence: 16 years).

• marijuana possession arrests in New York City from 1987-1996: 30,000.

• marijuana possession arrests in New York City from 1997-2006: 353,000.

• Year marijuana use peaked in New York City: 1980.

• Number of Americans arrested in 1990 for marijuana: 326,850.

• Number arrested in 1990 for violent crimes: 705,500

• Number arrested in 2007 for marijuana: 872,721.

• Number arrested in 2007 for violent crimes: 597,447.

• Number of Americans arrested for marijuana by the time you finish reading this: 1.

• Chance of the arrestee being African American: 1 in 4.

• Chance of a U.S. marijuana user picked at random being African American: 1 in 10.

• Chance of the arresting officer being a federal agent: 1 in 100.

• Percentage of U.S. marijuana arrests being for simple possession: 88.
• Number of U.S. citizens in prison for marijuana offenses in 2005: 27,000.

• Annual cost of enforcing U.S. marijuana prohibition laws: $10 billion to $12 billion.

• Percentage of Amsterdam residents who say they’ve used cannabis: 30.

• Percentage of Americans who say they’ve used cannabis: 47.
Ratio of Americans who support medical access to cannabis: 3-4.

• THC percentage in average hemp plant: Less than 1.

• Annual percentage of DEA-eradicated marijuana plants that are actually hemp plants: 98.

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I don't know you. Who is this. Don't come here. Prank caller. Prank call.
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Everything I grow is designated for a CA medical marijuana patient. Prop 215

There are way too many clubs polluting things. We should be able to vote on the best ones to keep though. The last thing we need is more liquor stores and check cashing places, and Prop 215 clubs are starting to turn into that sort of thing.

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