Jay Brockman

In the midst of a major crackdown on California's medical marijuana movement, where most city officials are either working with the federal government to eradicate storefront dispensaries or directing police to raid these clubs, San Diego Mayor Bob Filner is taking another tack.

He's not only speaking up in defense of dispensaries, but is actually urging jurors in an ongoing federal trial of a dispensary owner charged with selling marijuana to reject the prosecution on the grounds that medical marijuana is legal under state law.

More »

Jay Brockman

Some of Orange County's last-standing medical-marijuana dispensaries have until May 24 to shut down.

On May 17, following a similar action in Garden Grove that came in the wake of the recent California Supreme Court ruling that affirmed the right of cities to ban storefront cannabis purveyors, the city of Anaheim sent cease-and-desist letters to all 11 dispensaries still operating within its boundaries.

More »

Jay Brockman

In my dead-tree edition of the Bong Blotter this week, about the ongoing potpocalypse in Orange County, I quoted the wheelchair-bound medical marijuana activist Marla James about her difficulties in finding a location for her cannabis collective, Patient Med-Aid. Patient Med-Aid is a group of severely-ill patients I profiled last November in my story, "Sick Enough to Smoke."

After the feds targeted the club and others in Anaheim, James was able to re-open Patient Med-Aid in Sunset Beach. Then, the cops effectively shut it down by parking a police car in front of the club. James reopened the club but is already shutting it down again. ""We're working with the city to find a location in an industrial zone," James told me this week. "But I have to say it's a bitch to find a landlord who will rent to us."

Now I know why James is having such a hard time finding a landlord.

More »

Jay Brockman

Scroll down to the end of the post for updates.

Original Post, May 8, 10:42 a.m.: For the past few years, Garden Grove has been one of the most reliably 420-friendly cities in California. It remains the last bastion of the movement in Orange County, where city-wide pot-shop bans and federal crackdowns (also carried out with the cooperation of local officials, most recently in Santa Ana and Anaheim), have effectively shut down the medical marijuana marketplace.

But all that seems to be drawing to a close. Sources tell OC Weekly that all the dispensaries currently operating in Garden Grove have been warned that they face criminal prosecution if they don't shut down within the week.

More »

Jay Brockman

It's a known fact that marijuana gives you the munchies, which is why it's a great medication for AIDS patients and people experiencing loss of appetite because of chemotherapy. In the eyes of critics, like Joel Hay, who penned an anti-marijuana editorial in yesterday's OC Register, "Pipe Dreams and quack pot medicine," however, marijuana's munchies-inducing quality is just more evidence that it's not good for you.

Hay even went so far in his editorial--which we'd link to but it's behind a paywall, so why bother?--to suggest that pot has some role in America's obesity epidemic, pointing out that Acomplia, a drug that has not been FDA-approved, fights weight-gain by blocking cannabinoid receptors.

But are pot smokers really fatter than non-tokers?

More »

Regular readers of Navel Gazing already know that of all the cities that have cracked down on marijuana in Southern California, none have been as lame and hypocritical as Long Beach.

First, the city welcomed in pot clubs, offering to provide a chance to obtain a permit to grow and distribute marijuana--in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars in lottery fees and other expenses. Then the city took the cash, failed to award any permits, and began raiding clubs that couldn't afford to compete in the lottery. Finally, Long Beach banned cannabis collectives altogether.

Fun times! But not for the people unlucky enough to get busted by the cops, who in a newly updated YouTube video can be seen acting as though they think they're a bunch of Navy SEALS taking out bin Laden.

More »

Jay Brockman

When it comes to mainstream American politics, usually it's the Libertarian Party that one would associate with a pro-marijuana (medical or otherwise) agenda, but now you can add the Democratic Party to that very brief list.

To wit: in Riverside, the very town whose fight over a local ban on marijuana dispensaries produced last week's California Supreme Court ruling saying all cities have the right to prohibit such clubs, activists are now struggling to reverse the anti-420 tide.

More »

Jay Brockman

Note to states considering medical marijuana measures: Don't forget to include a statute forcing cities and counties to enact zoning laws that will allow storefront dispensaries to operate.

Without something like that, your clubs are going to get shut down.

In a ruling issued this morning, the California Supreme Court ruled that neither the 1996 Compassionate Use Act (also known as Proposition 215) nor 2003's Medical Marijuana Program Act (affectionate dubbed SB420) prevent cities and counties from banning cannabis clubs.

More »

Bob Aul

Last August, Anaheim worked with the DEA to threaten dozens of landlords who had rented office space to cannabis collectives that were obeying state law, which allows such clubs to distribute medicine to members who have a doctor's note.

As the Weekly first reported on Feb. 7, one of the landlords threatened by the feds--a computer engineer and his wife, a dentist--stands in danger of losing their building, a $1.5 million retirement investment property, for renting to a pot club. The only evidence in the case was $37 worth of medical pot legally purchased by an undercover cop posing as a sick patient.

At the request of the landlord, the Weekly didn't publish his name in that article. But now his Lake Forest attorney, Matthew Pappas, is being joined by the Institute For Justice (IFJ), a nationwide libertarian legal aid group that helps private property owners fight civil forfeiture cases (and which learned of the case via the Weekly. And now he's going public.

More »

Southern California Edison (SCE) apparently doesn't like it when you illegally tap into the company's electrical grid to power your indoor marijuana grow. So when it realized that whoever was living at the house in the 10700 block of El Rubi Circle was pirating an inordinate amount of electricity, the company dropped the dime on the location. 

More »