Kharla Vezzetti

Buoyed by Obama’s election and the end of the Bush regime, California NORML will be pushing for meaningful changes in marijuana enforcement in the coming year.

* END FEDERAL RAIDS AND PROSECUTIONS

An immediate, high-priority goal is to realize Obama’s pledge of ending DEA medical marijuana raids in California. Scores of raids have been reported in the last year, including several since the election.

Over 100 defendants have been cited with federal charges for medical cannabis under the Bush regime, according to a compilation by Cal NORML.…

California NORML Release – Dec 12, 2008

The California Police Chief Association urged the DEA to close medical marijuana distribution centers, seize their profits and prosecute them in federal court, according to a letter to DEA administrator Karen Tandy. The letter, dated Oct 2, 2006, appears in testimony to the House Judiciary Committee.

In the letter, CPCA President Steve Krull specifically called on the DEA to “send a message to local and county governments that medical marijuana is not allowed,” in disregard of Prop 215, state law SB 420, and local ordinances that authorize licensed dispensaries and patient collectives.…

Cal NORML Release – Nov. 24, 2008

In a blow to medical marijuana providers, the California Supreme Court ruled that defendants are not entitled to a defense as Prop. 215 caregivers if their primary role is only to supply marijuana to patients. The court unanimously overruled an appellate court decision in the case People v. Roger Mentch, writing:

” We hold that a defendant whose caregiving consisted principally of supplying marijuana and instructing on its use, and who otherwise only sporadically took some patients to medical appointments, cannot qualify as a primary caregiver under the Act and was not entitled to an instruction on the primary caregiver affirmative defense.…

November 14, 2008 – In an unusual development, two Imperial Beach paraphernalia shops were raided by San Diego County Sheriffs on October 22 after a several-months-long undercover investigation. Sheriffs reportedly seized several thousand items of suspected drug paraphernalia, including pipes and bongs, from the shops Up in Smoke and Inner Visions. Two misdemeanor arrests were made, including a female woman identified as the owner of Inner Visions and Up In Smoke’s owner Chris Nasser.

According to Imperial Beach Sheriff’s Station captain Lisa Miller, the sting operation came after the San Diego district attorney and the sheriffs sent a compliance letter warning local smoke shops that they were ordered to stop selling drug paraphernalia under California Health and Safety Code 11364.7.…

November 4, 2008 – On a successful night for marijuana reform initiatives nationwide, Californians roundly rejected Prop. 5, the Non-violent Offenders Rehabilitation Act, by 40-60%. NORA would have diverted non-violent drug possession offenders to treatment instead of prison and would have lowered small-scale marijuana possession to an infraction from a misdemeanor.

Prop 5 lost in the face of a tough opposition advertising campaign funded by the state’s prison guards, who profit by imprisoning more Californians. Opponents argued that the measure’s complicated and extensive provisions were not clearly understandable by the voters.…

October 16, 2008 – The California Supreme Court today declined to review a lawsuit filed by San Diego, Merced and San Bernardino counties claiming federal laws supercede California’s medical marijuana law. The counties’ challenge was rejected by the San Diego Superior Court in 2006, and that court’s decision was upheld in July by the 4th District Court of Appeal. San Diego County will appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court within 90 days, said Senior Deputy County Counsel Thomas Bunton.…

Voters who want marijuana reform should be mindful of one thing this year: change is needed in Washington, DC.

Twelve years after passage of Prop. 215, California has done everything it can to allow legal access to medical cannabis without a change in federal policy. A truly legal distribution system remains politically impossible so long as marijuana remains illegal under federal law. The Republican mis-administration of George W. Bush and Drug Czar John Walters has done everything possible to quash marijuana reform, block research (including a vaporizer study proposed by Cal NORML), ignore scientific evidence, and waste federal law enforcement resources raiding, prosecuting and imprisoning medical marijuana offenders.…

Sacramento, September 30, 2008 – Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed Assemblyman Mark Leno’s bill to protect workers’ right to use medical marijuana.

The bill, AB 2279, would have made it illegal for employers to discriminate against workers in non-safety-sensitive jobs for using marijuana as medicine. In his veto message, the governor said, “I am concerned with interference in employment decisions as they relate to marijuana use. Employment protection was not a goal of the initiative as passed by voters in 1996.”

Prop. 215 sponsors disagree.…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: 9/19/08
CONTACT: Dale Gieinger, CaNORML 415-563-5858

RECORD JUMP IN MARIJUANA ARRESTS IN CALIFORNIA

California posted a record surge in marijuana arrests in 2007, according to data from the state Criminal Justice Statistics Center.

Altogether, there were 74,119 arrests for marijuana in 2007, up 13% from the year before. This marks the largest number of arrests since marijuana was decriminalized in 1976.

Felony arrests, which involve sales or cultivation, surged 19% to 16,123, the highest level since the height of the drug war in 1990.…

DEA Targets City-Regulated Facitilites: Dep’t of Republican Justice?
Cal. NORML Release – Sept 18, 2008

In response to federal threats of forfeiture, Santa Barbara’s medical marijuana coops are closing their doors as of this Friday, September 19th. At an extraordinary meeting on Aug 5-6th, the Department of Justice and DEA warned landlords of Santa Barbara’s MMJ coops that forfeiture charges would be filed against their property if they continued to harbor illegal activity after 45 days (this Friday).

Although many coop landlords in California have received “advisory” letters from the DEA warning of the possibility of forfeiture, this is the first time that US attorneys are known to have backed up the DEA letters with actual threats to file charges.…

The California legislature ended its regular session for 2007-8 after approving an important piece of cannabis reform legislation: Mark Leno’s bill AB 2279 to ban employment discrimination against medical marijuana patients. Urge the Governor to sign AB 2279

Altogether, the legislature voted on three cannabis reform measures in the two-year session. The State Senate approved a resolution by Sen. Carole Migden calling for an end to DEA medical marijuana raids, but the resolution was not taken up in the assembly. Last year, the legislature passed an industrial hemp bill, but it was vetoed by the Governor.…

AUGUST 27, 2008 – In a widening federal crackdown against medical cannabis collectives in Santa Barbara, a federal grand jury indicted John Seidenberg, 41, of Santa Ynez on Aug. 26th for growing two medical marijuana gardens for the Hortipharm collective.

Seidenberg, who was originally arrested on state charges, had been preparing a Prop. 215 defense in state court, but he was turned over for federal prosecution by a Santa Barbara sheriff’s deputy.

Seidenberg was charged with two indoor trailer grows, each over 100 plants, totaling more than 1,000 small plants and clones.…

August 27, 2008 – Attorney General Jerry Brown’s office issued long-awaited guidelines on medical marijuana enforcement this week: Read the guidelines.

For the most part, the AG’s guidelines are consistent with the opinion of California NORML’s attorneys and with the advice to providers previously posted at our website. However, there are certain respects in which we believe they restrict medical marijuana excessively beyond the requirements of California law.

The guidelines recognize two alternative ways for medical marijuana to be distributed: through legally defined non-profit “cooperatives” or “collectives.”…

SACRAMENTO August 20, 2008 – The State Senate approved Assemblyman Mark Leno’s path-breaking bill to prevent discrimination against medical marijuana patients by a vote of 21-14. The bill, AB 2279, would disallow the misuse of misleading and scientifically unproven urine tests to deny jobs to medical marijuana patients.

California NORML strongly endorsed the bill, arguing that marijuana is safer than many alternative prescription drugs, and that urine tests have never been proven safe and effective in improving workplace safety or productivity.…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 31, 2008
Contact: Keith Stroup, NORML 202-483-5500
ACLU Drug Policy Project 831-471-9000

California Appeals Court Upholds Medical Marijuana Law Against Federal Preemption

In a case brought by the counties of San Diego and San Bernardino against San Diego NORML and others, California’s Fourth district court of appeal ruled today that the federal Controlled Substances Act does not preempt California’s medical marijuana ID card program. Citing the federal supremacy clause, the counties sued rather than implement the ID card program, which was enacted by the California legislature in 2003 as part of SB420.…

June 20, 2008: In final election returns, Mendocino’s anti-marijuana Measure B eked out a narrow 52-48% victory. Final results were not announced until over two weeks after the election because 11,000 absentee ballots had to be counted.

California NORML, which supported the No on B campaign, regards the result as a moral victory, given that Measure B had been widely expected to win by a lopsided margin. Pre-election polls had suggested a victory margin of 60 – 65% , leading Measure B proponents to express disappointment at the narrowness of their win.…

Mendocino County marijuana activists are campaigning to defeat an anti-pot measure placed on the June 3rd ballot by the county board of supervisors in the midst of a county-wide backlash against illegal marijuana growing.

The measure, aptly dubbed Measure B (=Bad) would overturn the county’s landmark Personal Use of Marijuana Initiative, Measure G (=Good), which was approved by 58% of the county’s voters in November 2000.

Measure G declares the county’s support for decriminalization and directs law enforcement not to arrest personal use marijuana growers ­ medical or otherwise – for 25 plants or less.…