Psychoactive Drugs

President Obama Has Outspent And Out-Arrested George W. Bush On Marijuana, Reports Say

Liberals and libertarians are sometimes uneasy bedfellows, but both have no shortage of reasons to fear, loathe and otherwise vote against mainstream Democrats, as the current imbroglio over the National Security Agency's spying program displays. Here's another one: Under the administration of Presi ... More >>

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to Visit Berkeley, Marijuana Supporters to Protest

Eric Holder is a survivor. The United States attorney general's record during President Obama's first term was more than a bit spotty: Holder angered the left when he defended Obama's use of drones to kill suspected terrorists without court proceedings and when he said he couldn't prosecute the bank ... More >>

Tech Workers Fuel San Jose Medical Marijuana Scene, Employers Give Up on Drug Screening

It was only a few years ago that spooked-out city leaders in San Jose declared that medical marijuana dispensaries had taken over their town. Today, there are still more than 100 dispensaries in the South Bay city, many more than are in San Francisco and the East Bay combined. And they're thriving, ... More >>

Poll: Even More Californians Want to Legalize Marijuana. So When's Their Next Chance?

Today's release of a Field Poll indicating "record high support" for marijuana legalization -- and the accompanying cavalcade of clever (for newspapers) puns in headlines -- signals what many have known for some time, even before Washington and Colorado shot ahead of California: Cannabis legalizatio ... More >>

Attorney General Hopeful Wants to Ban All Marijuana Users From Driving -- Ever

Among the popular goofy Internet offerings of the last week is a CNN report in which the news network filmed three Washington residents navigating a driving test course -- in between marijuana smoke breaks -- with an instructor and police evaluating their performances. The verdict: you had to be rea ... More >>

Gil Kerlikowske, U.S. Drug Czar, Criticizes Obama on Marijuana

Now that it's President Barack Obama's second term and all, drug policy watchers can rightly feel and act impatient. This was when the president would finally do something clear-cut about drug policy -- and specifically marijuana policy. The Justice Department's non-intervention in Colorado and Wash ... More >>

If Medical Marijuana Dispensary Ban Is Overturned, You Can Thank An Escort Service

In this world, we're blessed and cursed with things, with the things we want but can't get, and the things we want but can't have. In California, of course, we can have most things -- except when we want to have a medical marijuana dispensary in Daly City, Danville, or any of the other estimated 200 ... More >>

Marijuana Still Has No Medical Value, Court Says

The United States Court of Appeals delivered pot smokers some bad news today, ruling that marijuana is a dangerous and highly addictive drug with no medical value. In a 2-1 decision on the medical marijuana reclassification case, Americans for Safe Access v. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Co ... More >>

Storefront Marijuana Dispensaries Are Definitely Legal

In this uncertain reality of ours, the last place to look for a nugget of truth is the gray area laden world of medical marijuana. But the California Supreme Court gifted us all an unexpected dose of certainty this week by refusing to do anything.Earlier, Attorney General Kamala Harris and other law ... More >>

Harborside Health Center Chief Asks Obama to Freeze Federal Crackdown on Pot Clubs

Last week, President Barack Obama informed and entertained pot smokers across the nation with his sorta pro-marijuana comments, claiming (once again) that his administration has bigger problems to tackle than pot. In short, he fed marijuana advocates the same line from when he was elected in 2008 ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Users Can Get Booted From Public Housing at Any Time

Medical marijuana users enjoy protection from criminal prosecution under California law -- but that's about it. A medical cannabis patient can be fired solely for using the preferred drug at any time, and any medical marijuana user living in public housing can be evicted at any time. And yes, this a ... More >>

Harborside Health Center: Landlord Can't Evict Medical Marijuana Dispensary

California Court Upholds State Law; Federal Court Next on Dec. 20Oakland's Harborside Health Center is in the business of selling medical marijuana. This is obvious to anyone -- and in particular the dispensary's landlord, who last week had her effort to evict the dispensary tossed by a judge.The la ... More >>

Feds Bust 11 Suspects Linked to Largest Meth Seizure in U.S. History

A San Francisco federal grand jury has indicted 11 people on suspicion of possessing and distributing large quantities of narcotics. And when police say "large," they're talking more than 570 pounds of crystal methamphetamine. Federal prosecutors announced the arrests today after cops seized the i ... More >>

Medical Cannabis Task Force: So Long, Farewell

"Landmark" Medical Marijuana Dispensary Ruling May Hurt Feds

A court ruling in San Diego could hinder the federal Justice Department's war on California's legal cannabis industry.In what cannabis advocates called a "landmark ruling," an appeals court in San Diego tossed out a dispensary operator's drug-dealing conviction. Jovan Jackson was found guilty of mar ... More >>

City's First Union Medical Marijuana Dispensary Opens -- Finally

San Francisco may be a union town, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily easy for a union business to open up shop.Especially if that business is a medical cannabis dispensary.Nearly three-and-a-half years after Mission Organic Center first applied for its dispensary permit -- or, in other words, t ... More >>

"The House I Live In": The Straight Dope

Haborside Health Center: Oakland Files Lawsuit Against Feds to Prevent Closure of Pot Club

Oakland filed a complaint in United States District Court today in an attempt to stop the feds from shutting down the state's largest medical marijuana dispensary. The feds are trying to seize the building along the Embarcadero where the Harborside Health Center is located. The pot club was operat ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Advocates to Protest Obama Tonight

President Barack Obama sure does love the Bay Area. Northern California has proved to be a very handy ATM for the president, who is making yet another fundraising swing through San Francisco on Monday night. And this one's special.Food legend Alice Waters and celebrity chef Tyler Florence are cookin ... More >>

Palo Alto Mulls Medical Marijuana, With Conservative Backing

It's a fine town, but Palo Alto is a bit one-dimensional. There's nearby Stanford, and nearby Silicon Valley (fine, that's two dimensions), but not much else is happening in that Peninsula city.But what about medical marijuana? The city could become the first San Mateo County municipality to allow m ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Advocates to Protest at Obama HQ Tonight

Cannabis advocates have been mad as hell for almost a year now. And as the first anniversary of the war waged on state-legal medical marijuana by President Barack Obama's Justice Department approaches, they'll have you -- and him -- know that they're not going to take it anymore.Across the country, ... More >>

Paul Ryan's Take on Marijuana: Worthless or Desperate?

Scooping up votes in swing states is how Paul Ryan serves Mitt Romney best. And what better dissatisfied liberal bloc for the Republicans to court than marijuana supporters, stunned by President Obama's total betrayal?Hence the vice presidential candidate's stance in a college town in swinging Color ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Crackdown: Rep. Barbara Lee Tells Feds to Back Off

This past week has been among the darkest in recent history for the medical marijuana movement, with the federal Justice Department picking two of San Francisco's best-known and best-behaving licensed medical cannabis dispensaries for closure. This came mere weeks after United States Attorney Melind ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Advocates Mourn Pot Club Closures in Mock Funeral

There were plenty of tears shed during yesterday's funeral procession dedicated to medical marijuana and all the local dispensaries that have passed in the last year. In the Haight, residents in black and white garb gathered around a jazz band a la New Orleans and a 12-foot paper-mâché puppet of U ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Crackdown: Come Mourn the Closure of the Vapor Room Tonight

As we warned last week, the Vapor Room and Hopenet medical marijuana dispensaries were the feds' next victims in this crackdown on pot clubs -- and tonight the doors will close. So here's your chance to grieve. According to the Vapor Room's Facebook page, the dispensary will shut its doors at 9 p.m. ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Advocates to Argue DEA in Federal Court

Is marijuana a medicine, or is it a vitality-sucking, life-destroying devil weed? Cannabis advocates and law enforcement don't exactly see eye-to-eye on this crucial point -- but for the first time, a judge will be called in to decide.A federal court of appeals in Washington, D.C., late last week ag ... More >>

Feds Move to Close Harborside Health Center, California's Biggest Marijuana Dispensary

The federal Justice Department's crackdown on California's medical marijuana industry escalated Monday when the government moved to shut down the state's largest cannabis dispensary.U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag filed paperwork July 6 to seize the Oakland and San Jose locations of Harborside Health Cen ... More >>

Cash Only Pot: Credit Cards No Longer Accepted at Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

High FICO score be damned: Your credit is no longer any good at California medical marijuana dispensaries, whose accounts with credit-card processors have been canceled, thanks to pressure from the federal government.Merchant services providers -- the intermediaries between retailers and credit card ... More >>

California Appeals Court Strikes Down Medical Marijuana Dispensary Bans

Medical marijuana dispensaries are protected under California state law, and cities and counties have no right to ban cannabis collectives outright, according to a state Court of Appeals ruling released Monday.The decision invalidates a ban on dispensaries in Los Angeles County, which was enacted in ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Activists Add to Attorney General Eric Holder's List of Woes

Attorney General Eric Holder is an embattled man. For refusing to release documents related to the Fast and the Furious "gun-walking" scandal, Congress on Thursday voted to hold the country's top law enforcement officer in contempt.Holder may face criminal charges after the contempt vote, the first ... More >>

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano Pulls Plug on Medical Marijuana Reform Bill

Attempts to reform California's oft-confusing and always-contentious medical marijuana industry have been put on hold until next year -- at the earliest.Assemblyman Tom Ammiano on Monday withdrew from consideration Assembly Bill 2312, medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access announ ... More >>

Organized Labor Flexes Muscle for Medical Marijuana Dispensary

Support from UFCW Helps Mission Organics Win PermitSan Francisco's reputation as a union town was hard-won on the docks and picket lines of the 1930s. Less violence accompanied the city being known as a haven for pot-smoking freaks, but it took the carnage of the AIDS epidemic for San Francisco to b ... More >>

Oakland Joins S.F. in Battle to Preserve Medical Marijuana Laws

Oakland isn't letting San Francisco fight for medical marijuana alone. The East Bay city announced it would join other California cities in the pivotal fight to defend the rights of local governments and their ability to regulate pot clubs. Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker, on behalf of the City ... More >>

City Attorney Dennis Herrera Defends Medical Marijuana Permitting

Medical marijuana does not grow on trees (pot plants are much smaller). And cannabis does not fall from the sky: In order for marijuana users to access their preferred medicine -- and in order for the will of the voters to be respected -- "patients" need to acquire cannabis from somewhere. In Califo ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Is Still too Expensive

Being poor is not so bad. Not in San Francisco at least, where in addition to free housing, city officials are now also handing out taxpayer-subsidized puppies to panhandlers. The disabled, terminally ill, or downright dirt-poor also "enjoy" an advantage over the healthy or the merely struggling to ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Clubs Still Don't Cause Crime, Study Says

Whenever a new medical marijuana dispensary applies for a San Francisco permit, a troop of naysayers is ready with a predictable script: dispensaries cause crime, harm children, and destroy neighborhoods. However, the city's Planning Commission tired of this long ago -- because it's simply not based ... More >>

Fire, Not Obama Crackdown, Shuts Mission Medical Marijuana Dispensary

Prior to the four-alarm fire next door, the coffee shop behind the nameless awning and signless storefront at 208 Valencia St. was notable not for what was behind the white door opposite the barista -- a pot club -- but for the dispensary's flaunting of federal law.Exactly how 208 Valencia Caregiver ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Users Don't Need to be Marijuana Farmers, Court Says

It doesn't take much to join a collective or cooperative in California, be it a grocery store or a medical cannabis dispensary. In the former, perhaps all you need is a small fee; in the latter, a doctor's recommendation and the scrill required to purchase some medical bud.It certainly doesn't requi ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Activists Occupy the Capitol

As the pleasant Sacramento spring turns into the furnace of the Central Valley summer, so too is the heat turned up in the corridors of the state Capitol: It's budget season, and it's also last call for certain bills stalled in the Legislature to get a hearing before a June 1 deadline sends them int ... More >>

Cops Fight Clarity of Medical Marijuana Sales

Police in California have long expressed displeasure with the state's medical marijuana laws. And with good reason: Cops just might have the legal right to haul into court medical marijuana merchants who exchange cash for cannabis. But then again, they might not. Much police behavior depends on the ... More >>

Meet the California Lawmakers Who Are Enabling the Marijuana War

Losing efforts sometimes score wins. Medical marijuana scored such a moral victory late Wednesday, when 163 members of Congress voted in favor of not allowing federal dollars to be spent on busting pot growers, distributors, and dispensaries in states with medical cannabis laws.The brainchild o ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Advocates Petition Nancy Pelosi to End Federal Crackdown on Pot Clubs

Pot patients are marching to Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco office as we type to deliver a petition demanding she do something to stop the ongoing and significant crackdown on local pot clubs. The petition, which you can find here, asks Pelosi to defend medical marijuana users who rely o ... More >>

Obama Explains Medical Marijuana Crackdown -- Sort Of

Mystery accompanied the federal Justice Department's crackdown on California's state-legal medical marijuana industry since Oct. 7, when prosecutors formally declared their war on weed. Who was behind the feds deciding it was time to shut down hundreds of California dispensaries -- rogue prosecutors ... More >>

Local Democrats Ask Obama to Leave S.F. Marijuana Clubs Alone

San Francisco Democrats turned on one of their own as they issued a scathing rebuttal to President Barack Obama's explanation of his unpopular crackdown of medical marijuana clubs.The local Democratic Party passed a resolution yesterday, demanding that President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, ... More >>

Marijuana Legalization Efforts Fail in California, Thanks to The Feds

Few successful political movements count their finest hours a loss. Yet 2010 will remain the high water mark of the marijuana legalization movement for at least another two years -- or longer, if the federal situation worsens.Buoyed by Oaksterdam University founder Richard Lee's cash and energy, Pro ... More >>

Anti-Marijuana Rally Draws Chinese Families, Supervisor Candidates

Medical marijuana is not a political issue for Leon Chow. Or so the labor organizer insisted Saturday morning, when he led about 100 mostly Chinese men, women, and children on a mile-long march in opposition of three proposed medical cannabis dispensaries down the main drag of Mission Street in the ... More >>

#OpCannabis: Anonymous Pushing Marijuana For 4/20

Not every innocuous schoolboy joke becomes a worldwide cultural phenomenon, but this one -- 4/20, 4-20, four twenty -- has had legs since it began 41 years ago at San Rafael High in Marin County.This year, the universal code for marijuana use is being co-opted by everyone's favorite "hacktivist" col ... More >>

Mayor's Office Says Medical Marijuana Is a "Nuisance" Akin to Liquor Stores, Strip Clubs

It took some doing, but Mayor Ed Lee at last gave medical marijuana the lip service it had been seeking for months with a statement where Lee dubbed state-legal medical cannabis "legitimate," and expressed "concern" over more city-licensed dispensaries risking federal closure from the United States ... More >>

Mayor Ed Lee Finally Breaks Silence on Medical Marijuana

"If you get Ed Lee on record about medical marijuana," more than one well-connected San Francisco politico has told us, "you deserve a medal."Our best efforts were all deflected, including a situation when we physically blocked Mayor Lee's path to his hybrid Mayoralmobile and still did not win a com ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Stay Open Despite Federal Deadline

On the day the federal government wished HopeNet to close, the operators of San Francisco's oldest licensed and taxpaying medical marijuana dispensary prepared accordingly: They grilled hot dogs."We made about 220," said Catherine Smith, whose Ninth Street medical cannabis dispensary is one of the n ... More >>