hesperia, high desert for life

Please get your friends to take this survey. It's important. We're going to get the results to the LA city counsel before they start "eradicating" legal medical marijuana dispensaries and collectives in LA. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?s...s5_2fcEQ_3d_3d

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

marijuana Testing

By Michael Backes

CityWatch
Vol 7 Issue 86
Pub: Oct 20, 2009

LA City Attorney, Mr. Carmen Trutanich, has been all over the media trying
to convince Los Angeles that a pesticide used to kill Mexican fire ants is
evidence that medical cannabis provided by dispensaries is poisonous and
supporting Mexican drug cartels.

According to Mr. Trutanich, three samples of medical marijuana from
"controlled buys" by undercover LAPD were tested by an FDA laboratory. On
these samples, Mr Trutanich said the lab found high concentrations of an
insecticide uncommon in California that is used to kill fire ants in Mexico.
Trutanich claims this Mexican fire ant insecticide is evidence that LA
medical cannabis is being supplied by the Mexican drug cartels.

Except... There are no Mexican fire ants. There is the notorious red
imported fire ant - solenopsis invicta - but that's from Brazil, not Mexico.
Those fire ants were accidentally imported into the US in the 1930's then
spread across the southern United States. Fire ants were never found in
Mexico, until they crossed the Texas border into northern Mexico a few years
back. The range of fire ants has not extended deeply into Mexico.

Pesticide testing is not a trivial exercise. It requires very sensitive
machines that are capable of detecting just a few molecules. The FDA
certainly has these machines, but were the samples provided by Mr. Trutanich
sufficient?

Pesticide testing requires a large plant sample to produce precise results.
EMA, one of the largest testing labs in California, requires a minimum 200
gram sample. No marijuana dispensary in LA sells cannabis in 200 gram
lots. It's more likely that Mr Trutanich would have had much smaller
samples tested, with a much higher risk of error in the testing.

There are no pesticide residue tolerances established for cannabis by the
EPA, the FDA or The California Department of Pesticide Regulation. It takes
careful research to establish these tolerances on a pesticide-by-pesticide
basis, but that work has not been done. This research is important, because
the acceptable ranges vary by plant species.

The insecticide that Mr Trutanich claims was found on his samples of
cannabis was bifenthrin. Bifenthrin belongs to a common class of
insecticides called pyrethroids.

Mr Trutanich claims that California restricts the use of bifenthrin because
of its toxicity to humans. Mr. Trutanich is incorrect.

California restricts the use of bifenthrin because of its high toxicity to
fish, not mammals or humans. And, according to the California Department of
Pesticide Regulation, California farmers used 107,000 pounds of bifenthrin
on their crops in 2007. They used it on corn, almonds, strawberries, even
wine grapes. Fifty tons of it.

Mr. Trutanich stated to FOX NEWS, "it's not enough to say conclusively that
this dope is coming from here (Mexico), okay. but? but, you know, if it
quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, you know, chances are that if you
look a little closer, you may be dealing with a duck."

Well... if it makes scientific claims like a duck, it might just be the LA
City Attorney.

California cannabis patients should be protected from contaminants in their
medicine.

That protection comes from intelligent regulations, something that the City
Attorney's office has been stalling for two years.

Perhaps it's time we stopped wasting tax money planning to raid medical
marijuana facilities and start regulating them.

(Michael Backes - board member, Cornerstone Research Collective, a
California nonprofit corporation, Eagle Rock.)

http://www.citywatchla.com/content/view/2816/

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

Tulare County...Medical user

__________________

Thank you for that most informative article. This is the sort of thing we put up with here in San Diego as well. Statistics that are pulled from the air, presented by the district attorney, city council and "watchdog groups" as fact. Then comes the raids, the tv coverage and suddenly Mr and Mrs Public are absolutely convinced that there is some horrific problem.

__________________
Weeeeeeeee, this is fun! The 600 Watt Club. It even comes with fries...
Medical Grow

The Superior Court judge's decision undermines the city's 4-month-old drive to shut down hundreds of the stores.

By John Hoeffel

10: 02 PM PDT, October 19, 2009

Los Angeles' ban on new medical marijuana dispensaries is invalid, a Superior Court judge said Monday in a decision that undermines the city's 4- month-old drive to shut down hundreds of the stores.

The judge issued an injunction banning enforcement of the moratorium against Green Oasis, a dispensary in Playa Vista that had challenged the ban. But city officials acknowledged the ruling would effectively block current efforts to enforce the ban against other dispensaries.

The decision came on the day the Obama administration issued guidelines that limit federal prosecution of medical marijuana users and dispensaries. A Justice Department memo makes official a policy change that the president adopted earlier this year -- one that inadvertently contributed to the city's dizzying dispensary boom.

Those actions cheered supporters of medical marijuana, but Los Angeles officials insisted they were committed to closing down and prosecuting dispensaries. The city attorney and the district attorney maintain that most are selling marijuana for profit in violation of state law.

Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley did not back off that position Monday. "A collaboration of numerous agencies, including federal, state and local police agencies, county and city prosecutors, will combat the proliferation of illegal medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles City and County," he said.

Several City Council members said the ruling will force them to take quick action to pass an ordinance that could lead to law enforcement raids to close dispensaries that opened after the moratorium was adopted in August 2007.

"Anyone who doesn't comply is going to be taken down," warned Councilman Dennis Zine, who initiated the council's consideration of dispensaries more than four years ago. "Once we take a few down and some publicity comes about, those who are in it for the cash business will say it's too hot, let's get out of it."

David Berger, a special assistant to City Atty. Carmen Trutanich, said a new draft of the ordinance would be submitted to the council today.

Berger also acknowledged the moratorium had been extended improperly and said the city would not appeal.

At Monday's hearing, Judge James C. Chalfant said he had hoped to learn that the council had adopted a permanent ordinance. "I thought you would come in and tell me this was all moot," he said.

"This is the city of Los Angeles," replied Assistant City Atty. Jeri Burge. "Sometimes it goes slowly."

City Councilman Greig Smith, who heads the Public Safety Committee, said he may send the proposed ordinance to the full council for emergency consideration so it could be approved immediately. The measure has been debated for more than two years in the planning committee and was recently sent to Smith's panel.

Chalfant's decision dismayed community activists, who have pleaded with the council to crack down on dispensaries that have opened up throughout the city but are heavily concentrated in some neighborhoods.

"It looks like not only will the ones that are open continue to operate, but there will be more that open also, and the whole business will start expanding exponentially, I think, knowing that L.A. city is completely inept at handling control on these," said Michael Larsen, the public safety director for the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council.

In his decision, Chalfant concluded that the city had failed to follow state requirements when it extended its initial moratorium. "The city cannot rely on an expired ordinance," he said.

Burge warned, "You're going to open the floodgates."

In a court filing, the city said an injunction would cause "grave irreparable harm."

"This lawsuit is not just about one 'bad apple.' It is about illegally dealing marijuana," the city argued. "Hundreds of unlawful marijuana stores have cropped up throughout the city and will likely attempt to bootstrap their illegal operation on the outcome of this action."

Chalfant dismissed that claim, saying the city had other means to shut down dispensaries. "That's so clearly in your hands," he said, noting that some cities have adopted outright bans.

Robert A. Kahn, the attorney for Green Oasis, said the city was trying to punish dispensaries for a situation that arose from the council's own failures.

"They clearly blew it, they blew the way they are supposed to be handling these ordinances," he said. "The Compassionate Use Act was passed in 1996. What have they been doing for the last 13 years?"

The council started to look at the issue in 2005, when Zine asked the Police Department for a report on dispensaries. The moratorium took effect Sept.

14, 2007, and allowed 186 dispensaries to remain in business. The City Council extended the moratorium to last for two years. It adopted a second moratorium to last through mid-March.

In court Monday, the city argued that the council did not need to comply with a state law that requires certain steps to extend a zoning moratorium. Burge argued that it was a public safety, rather than a zoning, moratorium. Zoning moratoriums cannot be extended beyond 24 months. Chalfant quickly dispensed with that theory.

"Although there may be overtones of public safety," he said, "this is a zoning issue."

Besides failing to adhere to state law when it extended the ban, the city also failed to enforce it.

Hundreds of dispensaries filed applications for hardship exemptions from the moratorium, and many opened without permission. The City Council began to deny those requests this summer, which allowed city officials to file civil or criminal charges. None have been filed, however, and Berger said the city attorney's office now will not file charges until there is a permanent ordinance.

Green Oasis, which is on Jefferson Boulevard just west of the 405 Freeway, sought a hardship exemption in April and opened in May, without waiting for the City Council to act on the request. In July, the City Council denied the exemption. The city attorney's office notified Green Oasis that its operators faced civil and criminal violations, including a $1,000 fine and six months in jail. The dispensary sued last month.

Dan Lutz, a co-owner of Green Oasis, said he was relieved by the decision but wished he was not in an adversarial stance with the city. "A lot of the collectives out there are wanting to do a good job and provide a valuable service for the community, and we're actually surprised that we're in this position in L.A.," he said.Lutz's dispensary was in the city's sights even before he filed suit.

An undercover narcotics officer visited at least twice, according to a declaration Officer Brent Olsen filed with the court. On Sept. 2, he said he handed over his identification and doctor's recommendation and filled out a form. Buzzed into an interior room, he said he was told there were 60 strains available. He paid $58 for one-eighth of an ounce of marijuana. On Sept. 10, he paid $55 for another eighth.

"It is my opinion that the dispensary is being used to sell marijuana," Olsen said in the declaration. He noted that he had not participated as a member of a collective or in any collective cultivation.

Lutz could also be in jeopardy on other grounds. The city attorney's office says the dispensary failed to obtain a building permit or a certificate of occupancy.

"They could come after us for many things," Lutz said. "What can we do?"

john.hoeffel@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...,2288177.story

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

I was damn it, but not anymore as my city (not LA) has just banned cult with a 5-0 vote.

I guess I'll just have to keep my Buds with friends and Family in nearby towns. I'm sad that i'm forced to put all these people in danger of my wrathful smackdown if something goes wrong with my plants.

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"What is a weed? A plant who's vertues have not yet been discovered" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

On Wednesday, October 28, representatives from NORML and California NORML will testify before the California Assembly Committee on Public Safety at an informational hearing entitled, "Legalization of marijuana: Social, Fiscal and Legal Implications for California."

The hearing will take place from 10am to 1pm in Room 126 of the State Capitol in Sacramento. The hearing will be chaired by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, sponsor of Assembly Bill 390, the marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education Act. You can read drafts of NORML's prepared testimony here and here.

This is expected to be a groundbreaking hearing and will set the table for future hearings on AB 390. Please show your support for marijuana law reform by contacting the Committee on Public Safety and expressing your support for AB 390 and sensible marijuana law reform.

Committee Members District Phone E-mail
Tom Ammiano - Chair
Dem-13 (916) 319-2013 Assemblymember.Ammiano@assembly.ca.gov

Curt Hagman - Vice Chair
Rep-60 (916) 319-2060 Assemblymember.Hagman@assembly.ca.gov

Juan Arambula
Ind-31 (916) 319-2031 Assemblymember.arambula@assembly.ca.gov

Warren T. Furutani
Dem-55 (916) 319-2055 Assemblymember.Furutani@assembly.ca.gov

Danny D. Gilmore
Rep-30 (916) 319-2030 Assemblymember.Gilmore@assembly.ca.gov

Jerry Hill
Dem-19 (916) 319-2019 Assemblymember.Hill@assembly.ca.gov

Fiona Ma
Dem-12 (916) 319-2012 Assemblymember.Ma@assembly.ca.gov

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

By Paul Armentano, AlterNet
Posted on October 28, 2009, Printed on October 28, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/143558/
The following is the testimony NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano will deliver on Oct. 28 to the California Assembly Public Safety Committee's special hearing on "the legalization of marijuana: social, fiscal and legal implications for California." Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, sponsor of AB 390, The marijuana Control, Regulation and Education Act, is the chairman of the committee.
By any objective standard, marijuana prohibition is an abject failure.
Nationwide, U.S. law enforcement have arrested over 20 million American citizens for marijuana offenses since 1965, yet today marijuana is more prevalent than ever before, adolescents have easier access to marijuana than ever before, the drug is more potent than ever before, and there is more violence associated with the illegal marijuana trade than ever before.
Over 100 million Americans nationally have used marijuana despite prohibition, and 1 in 10 -- according to current government survey data -- use it regularly.
The criminal prohibition of marijuana has not dissuaded anyone from using marijuana or reduced its availability; however, the strict enforcement of this policy has adversely impacted the lives and careers of millions of people who simply elected to use a substance to relax that is objectively safer than alcohol.
NORML believes that the state of California ought to amend criminal prohibition and replace it with a system of legalization, taxation, regulation and education.
The case for legalization and regulation
Only through state government regulation will we be able to bring necessary controls to the commercial marijuana market. (Note: Nonretail cultivation for adult personal use would arguably not be subject to such regulations, just as the personal, noncommercial production by adults of beer is not governed by such restriction.) By enacting state and local legislation on the retail production and distribution of marijuana, state and local governments can effectively impose controls regarding:
• which citizens can legally produce marijuana;
• which citizens can legally distribute marijuana;
• which citizens can legally consume marijuana; and where, and under what circumstances such use is legally permitted.
By contrast, the criminal prohibition of marijuana -- the policy the state of California has in place now -- provides law enforcement and state regulators with no legitimate market controls. This absence of state and local government controls jeopardizes rather than promotes public safety.
For example:
• Prohibition abdicates the control of marijuana production and distribution to criminal entrepreneurs (i.e. drug cartels, street gangs, drug dealers who push additional illegal substances);
• Prohibition provides young people with unfettered access to marijuana (e.g., according to a 2009 Columbia University report, adolescents now have easier access to marijuana than they do alcohol);
• Prohibition promotes the use of marijuana in inappropriate and potentially dangerous settings (e.g., in automobiles, in public parks, in public restrooms, etc.)
• Prohibition promotes disrespect for the law and reinforces ethnic and generation divides between the public and law enforcement. (According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, 75 percent of all marijuana arrestees are under age 30; African Americans account for only 12 percent of marijuana users but make up 23 percent of all possession arrests).
marijuana is not a harmless substance -- no potentially mind-altering substance is. But this fact is precisely why its commercial production and distribution ought to be controlled and regulated in manner similar to the licensed distribution of alcohol and cigarettes -- two legal substances that cause far greater harm to the individual user, and to society as a whole, than cannabis ever could.
Taxing and regulating cannabis in a manner similar to alcohol will bring long-overdue state oversight to a commercial market that is presently unregulated, uncontrolled and all too often inundated by criminal entrepreneurs.
While this alternative may not entirely eliminate the black-market demand for cannabis, it would certainly be preferable to today's blanket, although thoroughly ineffective, expensive and impotent, criminal prohibition.
Voters nationwide, and in California in particular, support ending criminal marijuana prohibition. This past spring, 56 percent of California voters expressed support for taxing and regulating marijuana in a statewide Field poll.
Doing so would give greater control to state law enforcement officials and regulators by imposing proper state restrictions and regulations on this existing and widespread marijuana market.
I urge this committee to move forward with the enactment of sensible regulations for legalizing marijuana.
Paul Armentano is the deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of marijuana Laws (NORML) and is the co-author of the book marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink (2009, Chelsea Green).
© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/143558/

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

ASA needs your help to stop Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich from pushing an ordinance through the City Council that could effectively ban medical cannabis collectives in the city. On Monday, October 16, the Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee and Public Safety Committee will consider this badly flawed draft ordinance. Can you take a moment to call the committee members before that meeting and tell them to reject the City Attorney’s ordinance?
A simple phone call can make a big difference! Just call the committee members and say, “I am a medical cannabis supporter calling to ask the Councilmember to reject the draft medical cannabis ordinance prepared by City Attorney Carmen Trutanich.”
Ed Reyes-Chair (213)-473-7001
councilmember.reyes@lacity.org
Dennis Zine (213)-473-7003
councilmember.zine@lacity.org
Jose Huizar (213)-473-7014
councilmember.huizar@lacity.org
Tony Cardenas (213) -473-7006
councilmember.cardenas@lacity.org
Jan Perry (213)-473-7009
Jan.Perry@lacity.org
Greig Smith (213)-473-7012
councilmember.smith@lacity.org
Join us on Monday, November 16, to ask committee members in person to reject the ordinance, and adopt one that protects patients’ privacy and ensures that collectives can stay open. This is an important point in the process, because the draft ordinance may go to the full City Council for approval after this committee hearing.
What: Joint PLUM and Public Safety Committee meeting
When: 9:30 AM * Monday, November 16
Where: Room 350, City Hall, 200 N. Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Public Transit Info: http://www.mta.net/riding_metro/default.htm
Arrive early to complete a public speaker’s card if you want to talk with the joint committee on Monday. You may have as little as one minute to speak. Keep your comments brief and on topic!
You can download a copy of the City Attorney’s draft ordinance:
http://safeaccessnow.org/downloads/four … LA_ord.pdf
You can see ASA’s suggested changes at:
http://www.safeaccessnow.org/downloads/ … LA_Ord.pdf
Don Duncan
ASA California Campaign Director
Americans for Safe Access (ASA) is the largest national member-based 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