Email Author Chris Roberts

2011 Stories by Chris Roberts

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  FEATURED STORY

  Feds Force Another San Francisco Pot Club to Close

  published Dec 30, 2011

  Pressure from the Justice Department is forcing a fourth San Francisco medical marijuana dispensary to close early next year, with a fifth closure expected soon thereafter.Market Street Cooperative --... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Marijuana Use Is on the Rise ... Among Dogs and Cats

  published Dec 27, 2011

  Animals are known to consume marijuana. In fact, many have long known that pot producers in the northern counties deer-proof their marijuana plants, else docile does and bucks will chew on the buds an... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Feds Subpoenaed San Francisco for Medical Marijuana Records

  published Dec 22, 2011

  Fifth SF Dispensary Likely To CloseIt wasn't Tommy gun-toting agents who finally put Prohibition-era bad boy Al Capone behind bars on Alcatraz: it was paper-pushers from the Internal Revenue Service w... More >>

• Medical Marijuana Patients Opposing Federal Approval of ... Medical Marijuana

  published Dec 19, 2011

  Medical marijuana can be good for the brain. No less an authority than the federal government's Department of Health and Human Services says so: HHS awarded to a group of doctors in 2003 a patent titl... More >>

• Dutch Marijuana Tourism to End in 2013

  published Dec 16, 2011

  When news that Dutch police had raided the High Times Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam this year filtered back to the United States, the reaction was a mixture of shock, outrage, and outright disbelief. Sure... More >>

• Is Medical Marijuana a Low Priority for Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, Gov. Jerry Brownr

  published Dec 09, 2011

  Blindsided as he was during a "bloodbath" of a House Judicial Committee hearing, in which U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was hung out to dry over the teeny-tiny issue of injecting American-made wea... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Weed Wars: Watch a 5-Year Old Use Medical Marijuana Tonight

  published Dec 08, 2011

  A few common schools of thought persist in the medical marijuana debate -- on one end, doubters point to young men at dispensaries and say that the drug is widely abused by people who are "not that si... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Medical Marijuana Makes for Sober, Safer Drivers, Study Says

  published Dec 01, 2011

  While medical marijuana advocates will politely ask them to stop talking whenever the subject arises, there are many cannabis users who will claim that the task of operating a motor vehicle is safer w... More >>

• SF Dispensary Run By Former Marine Is Feds' Latest Medical Marijuana Target

  published Nov 30, 2011

  There are few places Michael Welch can go and feel welcome; there are even fewer places where he can go and survive. The South Carolina native is a former Marine. He is also a 45-year-old gay man with... More >>

• Medical Marijuana: Feds Move to Forfeit Marin Pot Club's Property

  published Nov 23, 2011

  The choice offered by the Justice Department was clear: Select California medical cannabis dispensaries needed to close up shop or have their properties seized and operators thrown in prison.This was ... More >>

• Marin Alliance For Medical Marijuana Dodges Feds -- for Now

  published Nov 15, 2011

  Second SF Dispensary Closes Under Federal PressureAn eviction notice was never so welcome.Last Wednesday, California's oldest storefront medical marijuana collective, Fairfax-based Marin Alliance for ... More >>

• S.F. Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Close: Jobs, Taxes Go Up in Smoke

  published Nov 11, 2011

  Charles Pappas creates jobs and pays his taxes, to the tune of about 12 full-time, full-benefit positions which start at $20 an hour, and over $200,000 a year to the state Board of Equalization. The p... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Report: Misdemeanor Marijuana Arrests Skyrocketing in California

  published Nov 11, 2011

  It's a fine time to be a criminal in California. Arrests in every category of crime are down -- way down: Arrests for rape, murder, and theft have all decreased by two-thirds since 1990, according to ... More >>

• S.F. Pot Clubs Threatened by Government Crackdown Won't Sue

  published Nov 08, 2011

  It was only a matter of time before the state's medical marijuana collectives went to the courts -- and the time was nigh Monday for Lynette Shaw of the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana to announc... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Medical Marijuana Pushed to Fringe Even with Fundraisers

  published Nov 07, 2011

  Everybody needs cash -- especially the medical marijuana community, with the sturm-und-drang kicked up by the federal government when it began its recent, highly publicized crackdown on state-legal di... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Gavin Newsom, SF Supes Blast Feds' War on Medical Marijuana

  published Nov 04, 2011

  Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom shared a Los Angeles stage on Thursday with GOP presidential candidate Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico who wants to end marijuana prohibition and free all nonviol... More >>

• Medical Marijuana Lawyers Challenge Feds to Bust All Pot Dispensaries or Bust None

  published Oct 28, 2011

  It's rarer these days, but you can still find some medical marijuana purveyors fond of saying how much they welcome the federal government throwing them in prison for decades. Each dispensary in San F... More >>

• Obama Dodges S.F. Protesters, Leaves Through Side Door

  published Oct 27, 2011

  President Has Yet to Publicly Address Medical Marijuana CrackdownPresidential visits are a big deal, even in big cities like San Francisco: As president, George W. Bush never visited us. But after Pre... More >>

• Feds Try to Handcuff Bay Area Dispensaries

  published October 26, 2011

  Don't call Lynette Shaw paranoid. They're definitely out to get her. Shaw operates Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, which... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Medical Marijuana Advocates to Protest Obama's Visit to San Francisco

  published Oct 24, 2011

  Lunch with the president isn't cheap -- it also doesn't come without some clamor.About 200 diners will munch on whatever $7,500 nets them at the W Hotel tomorrow where President Barack Obama -- and me... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Obama's Medical Marijuana Crackdown: Two S.F. Pot Clubs to Close

  published Oct 21, 2011

  Lombard Street is in the city's oft-posh Marina District, but that stretch of US-101 that leads from the Golden Gate Bridge down through Van Ness Avenue includes seedy motels as well as high-end bouti... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Oakland Invites New Marijuana Dispensaries to Risk Federal Prosecution

  published Oct 18, 2011

  At times lost in the recent hubbub surrounding California's medical marijuana industry -- and the possible lack thereof in the near future -- was the city of Oakland's plans to double the amount of di... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Record Number of Americans Want to Legalize Marijuana

  published Oct 17, 2011

  It seems that marijuana -- and what people think about it -- is constantly dominating the news, whether it's California's doctors calling for the magic plant's legalization, or the country's law enfor... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Is Nancy Pelosi Too Powerful for Potr

  published Oct 14, 2011

  Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi -- who, despite no longer being House Speaker, is arguably still the most powerful resident of San Francisco -- is a very busy politician. Just this week, the highest-rank... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Obama's New Marijuana Policies Also Target Alt-Weeklies and the Bill of Rights

  published Oct 13, 2011

  rIn their unrelenting quest to kill legal medical marijuana dead, President Barack Obama and the United States Department of Justice appear content to incur collateral damage. Last week, property owne... More >>