Marijuana

Blowing Smoke: Obama Promises One Thing, Does Another on Medical Marijuana

Obama to Arrive in S.F. on 4/20: Potheads to Protest President

Obama -- giving 4/20 a new meaning​For his promises not to use federal resources on raiding legal dispensaries, many medical marijuana users voted for Barack Hussein Obama in 2008, as we reported in our cover story last week. Many California medical marijuana users supported Obama for the candidat ... More >>

Medical Marijuana: Dad Says It Saved Two-Year-Old Son with Cancer

Cash Hyde​There are many ways to look at the story of two-year-old brain-tumor survivor Cash Michael Hyde, whose father, Michael, secretly slipped him medical marijuana oil in his feeding tube during chemotherapy last fall. You could assume that the plant is an effective drug. Chemotherapy left ... More >>

Joseph Erich Pearson, S.F. Dispensary Owner, Arrested After Blaze Burns Marijuana Grow in Rural Sonoma

Marijuna blaze​The co-founder of San Francisco's slickest medical cannabis dispensary and a member of the San Francisco Medical Cannabis Task Force has been charged with multiple felonies stemming from a Sonoma County marijuana grow, according to news reports.Joseph Erich Pearson, 34, co-founder o ... More >>

Phil Ting Is a Buzz Kill, Talks About Extra Tax on Medical Marijuana

What does he know about smoking pot?​Taxes are Phil Ting's business -- when the assessor-recorder isn't campaigning for San Francisco mayor, that is. But when Ting recently took stock of the Bay Area tax scene on medical marijuana, he realized that San Francisco could be bringing in more cash. Ev ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Patients Sue Federal Government

Stoners aren't the only ones who are slow to react ​We all know that the wheels of government move slowly -- but nine years slowly? That pace is too lazy for Americans for Safe Access, which just wants answers. So it's going to court to force the federal government to get some response.At issue is ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Must Release Names, Addresses of Pot Growers, City Says

The Green Scare​Medical marijuana patients don't seem to care where exactly their cannabis is grown. As long as the pot has been lab-tested and is free of mold and pesticides, patients seem satisfied. But that information alone is not enough for the San Francisco Department of Public Health anymo ... More >>

California Has 1.1 Million Medical Marijuana Users, NORML Says

We pot more than we need politicians​California is the most populous state in the Union. It's where the nation's medical marijuana movement was birthed, and the Golden State is also where the rest of the country gets most of its illegal pot, judging by law enforcement statistics (lo siento, Britis ... More >>

Giving Marijuana Away? The Taxman Wants a Cut

We pot more than we need politicians​California is the most populous state in the Union. It's where the nation's medical marijuana movement was birthed, and the Golden State is also where the rest of the country gets most of its illegal pot, judging by law enforcement statistics (lo siento, Britis ... More >>

Have S.F. Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Reached Critical Mass?

Is there such thing as too much pot?​On Monday, The Apothecarium will finally open its doors, making it San Francisco's 26th medical cannabis dispensary. Far from having as many pot clubs as Starbucks, vast swaths of San Francisco are, thanks to restrictive zoning laws, completely devoid of dispen ... More >>

Leland Yee Promises to Fight for Medical Marijuana, Except When He's Opposing It

Leland Yee REALLY wants to be mayor, even if it means supporting and not supporting medical marijuana​State Sen. Leland Yee will stand up for medical cannabis. Even against his own interests and against the cannabis-opposed Chinese community of San Francisco, the mayoral candidate is your man, he ... More >>

Justice Department "Clarifies" Stance on Medical Marijuana: It's Illegal And They Will Arrest You

They gonna getcha​President Barack Obama's stance on medical cannabis has been a wee nebulous: as candidate, Obama said the drug war was a failure and that doctors prescribing pot as a treatment was "appropriate"; as president, Obama's Justice Department said chasing after pot growers and users wa ... More >>

Medical Cannabis Movement Becoming Less Gay

Chris RobertsHot. But gay unfriendly?​Like Sarah Palin recounting the tale of Paul Revere's ride to warn the British (of their own impending arrival), we Americans often have a fuzzy grasp of our history. This extends to the medical cannabis movement, which was birthed in San Francisco in the 1980 ... More >>

Grass Roots Is First S.F. Medical Cannabis Dispensary to Join Union

Look for the union label​San Francisco is known as a union town and a city rich with medical cannabis dispensaries. It was only a matter of time before the two intersected. A year after United Food and Commercial Workers began organizing medical cannabis operations in Oakland and Marin County, Gra ... More >>

S.F. Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Generate Only 11 Complaints Over Five Years

That all you got?​Pot clubs. They're boring. You go in, you buy some pot, you leave. For all the clamor with which a new medical cannabis dispensary's opening receives from jumpy John Q Public, with a few notable exceptions, most we see these days resemble dentists' offices, not dens of iniquity ( ... More >>

Rolling Paper: Looking at the Current State of Safe Access

That all you got?​Pot clubs. They're boring. You go in, you buy some pot, you leave. For all the clamor with which a new medical cannabis dispensary's opening receives from jumpy John Q Public, with a few notable exceptions, most we see these days resemble dentists' offices, not dens of iniquity ( ... More >>

Dave Schwartz, "Hero" of Nevada's Pot Movement, to Take Over Michela Alioto-Pier's Mayoral Campaign

Luke ThomasMichela's marijuana man​The days when "gambling" with marijuana on a Las Vegas' Strip could result in lifetime imprisonment are long gone. Reefer now mixes with roulette in the nation's Sin City -- where, it should be noted, one has never needed a medical recommendation to use prostitut ... More >>

Most Medical Marijuana Patients Are White, Educated, and Employed, Study Says

Just your average stoner​A Californian with a job, an education, and every opportunity this society can afford him (minus perfect health).Meet your typical medical marijuana patient.A study conducted by a sociology professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz has some interesting revela ... More >>

Is David Chiu Medical Marijuana's New Best Friend?

Photo by Greg DewarPedaling for pot​A funny thing happened to Board of Supervisors President David Chiu last night, while making his evening round of speeches.Somebody asked him for pot."You got the compassion? Who's got weed?" asked an attendee of yesterday's monthly dinner/medical cannabis givea ... More >>

Will Kamala Harris Burn the Medical Marijuana Advocates Who Campaigned for Her?

One and the same ... when it comes to pot​While marijuana legalization dominated the news, unity was in short supply last fall during the election season among medical cannabis patients and advocates.It may be hard for nonsmokers to grasp, but Proposition 19 splintered the medical cannabis communi ... More >>

Does Your Woman Have Bad PMS? Tell Her to Smoke Some Weed

Let's roll you a joint, madam​Recently, we wrote about a study which claimed that a majority of medical marijuana users in California are probably white men. Not included in the study was how many of those men were acquiring marijuana to placate their wife or girlfriend to cure the myriad of "wome ... More >>

Board of Supervisors Seem Afraid to Address Medical Marijuana

Supervisors won't acknowledge the green leaf in the room ​Urban planning in San Francisco is a very big deal -- and so is the city's Planning Commission, the appointed officials who call the shots on urban design. So what does one of the city's more important entities need to do to get some respec ... More >>

President Obama Fumbles and Punts Medical Marijuana Question on Campaign Trail

He forgot what the question was ​For all his Kennedyesque "uhs" and "ahs," President Barack Obama is nonetheless generally regarded as an accomplished public speaker, able to expound extemporaneously on a plethora of topics. But on the campaign trail in Minnesota on Monday -- during what former Ma ... More >>

Pot Legalization Measure Has Support of Mendocino Growers

Drug Policy AllianceThat's the idea​Can Protections for Medical Patients Help Succeed Where Proposition 19 Failed?Cannabis advocates promised they'd be back at the California ballot following marijuana legalization measure Proposition 19's historic failure in November 2010 (the measure received mo ... More >>

Marijuana Advocates Unsure if New State Law Is Good or Bad

Who's he helping?brokencountry.com​Earlier this summer, medical marijuana advocates sounded the legislative alarm over a bill penned by a Southern California assemblyman that gives local governments the right to ban medical cannabis dispensaries, as many a Bay Area burgh from Danville to Daly City ... More >>

Oaksterdam's Richard Lee: Marijuana Legalization Is "Dead" in California -- For Now

Richard Lee says it's all over -- for now​Last year's Proposition 19 was quite a wild ride, but marijuana legalization in California is over.  That's according to Richard Lee, the Oaksterdam University founder and chief sponsor of Prop. 19, which won its place on Californians' November 2010 b ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Dispensary Owners Facing Criminal Charges for Operating a "Flower Shop"

Pretty flowers​The former owners of Wellness Solutions Group, a Pacifica medical cannabis dispensary ordered closed by city officials on Monday night, will face criminal charges for operating a business under false pretenses, police said Tuesday.The owners, Ruben Salvatierra of South City and Timo ... More >>

Senator Lou Correa, Author of Vetoed Medical Marijuana Restrictions Bill, Just Wanted to Help

The LiberalOCHere to help​Medical marijuana advocates celebrated Wednesday with Governor Jerry Brown's veto of SB 847. The brainchild of State Senator Lou Correa (D-Orange County), the bill would have made a 600-foot barrier between medical cannabis dispensaries and homes state law (except in citi ... More >>

Should San Francisco Ease Restrictions on Pot Clubs Near Schools?

The titty bars are fine; it's the pot club that a-fears us.​San Francisco's notorious land-use restrictions and zoning laws send neighbors to court over the construction of a porch, and they also mean that the city known as the birthplace of medical marijuana is tougher on pot clubs than most of t ... More >>

Unemployed Still? Cannabis Jobs Fair at Cow Palace This Weekend

And you wouldn't have to pay taxes!​This being election season also means it's jobs season -- as in jobs-talking season. Jobs are on the lips of every politician worth his or her soft money -- from Barack Obama's jobs plan, to Mayor Ed Lee's own Wilsonesque 17-point jobs plan (in some ways eerily ... More >>

Feds Now Fight War on Medical Marijuana with Passive Aggressive Strategies

US Attorney Melinda Haag, weed-killer​Hard to believe it's been only two years since Attorney General Eric Holder shocked -- and relieved -- California's medical marijuana users when he said the federal government had no interest in prosecuting state-legal cannabis activities. The Bush Era was ove ... More >>

Is Nancy Pelosi Too Powerful for Pot?

Right Behind You​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-ranking woman in American political history had her fingers in everything from the Ch ... More >>

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

And Divinity Tree, and Green Door Sacramento, and maybe Medithrive​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 boutiques. It might have also contai ... More >>

Obama's War on Weed: President Attacks Medical Marijuana

And Divinity Tree, and Green Door Sacramento, and maybe Medithrive​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 boutiques. It might have also contai ... More >>

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

Flickr/Steve RhodesAaaaand, scene!​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 President Barack Obama's reception Tuesday -- where some prominent ... More >>

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

Drug warrior in words only?​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 nonviolent marijuana offenders from jail.While it's unlikely Newsom would sac ... More >>

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

On defense​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 announce at a downtown San Francisco law firm that she's suing the feds. Her deadline to close ... More >>

Marin Alliance For Medical Marijuana Dodges Federal Threat -- for Now

Praise Legalists​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 Medical Marijuana, received an eviction notice from its landlord -- which means t ... More >>

Medical Marijuana: Landlord Evicts Pot Club at Behest of Feds

tokeofthetown.comMAMM's Lynette Shaw​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 the ultimatum issued in September by United States Attorney f ... More >>

Pot Club Crackdown Continues, Judge Rejects Demands to Stop Feds

Up in smoke ​A judge has ruled that she would not interfere with the feds' efforts to shut down medical marijuana dispensaries across California. Oakland U.S. District Court Judge Saundra Armstrong ruled on Monday that pot clubs failed to show that  the federal government was violating their ... More >>

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

If it makes parents tolerable ... ​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 sick." On the other hand, believers say that you don't need to be ... More >>

Is Medical Marijuana a Low Priority for Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, Gov. Jerry Brown?

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 weaponry into the Mexican cartel wars, you could forgive the Justice Department head for mincing his wo ... More >>

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

umpp.orgStanding Up Against... Medical Marijuana​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 titled "Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotect ... More >>

Feds Force Another San Francisco Pot Club to Close

Times they did a-change.​Pressure from the Justice Department is forcing a fourth San Francisco pot club to close early next year, with a fifth closure expected soon thereafter.Market Street Cooperative -- one of the city's lowest-profile cannabis dispensaries, with a modest sign outside its 1884 ... More >>

S.F. Begins Issuing Medical Marijuana Dispensary Permits Again

It's a go -- for now.​San Francisco has begun issuing medical marijuana dispensary licenses again, following a recent state Supreme court decision that will allow local pot dispensaries to do business -- for now. The city's Medical Cannabis Act permitting process had been on hold for several month ... More >>

BREAKING: San Francisco Suspends Medical Marijuana Licensing Program Indefinitely

​San Francisco city officials indefinitely suspended the city's medical marijuana dispensary permitting program on Wednesday, according to the Department of Public Health.Pending permits had been on hold since December, after a ruling in a state appeals court case halted similar permitting program ... More >>

Marijuana Legalization Measure Courts Billionaires for Vital Campaign Cash

Close. But close enough?​Regulate Marijuana Like Wine, a marijuana legalization measure vying to get onto the November ballot, has only $80,000 in cash on hand, according to finance records. But in a poll released this week, it had potential support from 62 percent of likely voters -- and that, ba ... More >>

Tea Party Warrior: Report Medical Marijuana Clubs to the IRS and Get Rich

facebook.com/pages/Paul-Chabot-for-Assembly/Paul Chabot Wants YOU to Call the IRS on Pot Clubs​For Paul Chabot, the War on Drugs is personal indeed: Before he became a Navy man, a campus cop, and a former National Drug Control Policy staffer, he was in drug rehab for alcohol and marijuana addictio ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Week: Protest President Obama, Mail Nancy Pelosi a Heart.

Pot smokers getting no love from Obama this Valentine's Day ​The week doesn't often begin on Friday. But then again, it's not often Medical Marijuana Week -- is it?Indeed not. And that Medical Marijuana Week coincides with Valentine's Day is no mistake: It was the Compassionate Use Act that got us ... More >>