The air inside the Los Angeles Patients and Caregivers Group was pungent with the aroma of premium hydroponic marijuana, but the proprietor, Don Duncan, said on Thursday that he was breathing a bit easier.

A day before, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. had said that the [...]]]> From the March 19 edition of the New York Times:

The air inside the Los Angeles Patients and Caregivers Group was pungent with the aroma of premium hydroponic marijuana, but the proprietor, Don Duncan, said on Thursday that he was breathing a bit easier.

A day before, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. had said that the federal authorities would no longer take action against medical marijuana dispensaries if they were in compliance with state and local laws.

While 13 states, including California, have laws allowing medical use of marijuana, they had not been recognized by the federal government. One of Mr. Duncan’s two marijuana dispensaries was a target, in 2007, of one of the scores of raids involving medical marijuana that the Drug Enforcement Administration conducted in Los Angeles during the Bush administration.

Mr. Duncan, a founder of Americans for Safe Access, a medical marijuana advocacy group, said he was meeting with officials at City Hall at the time of the raid, trying to work out a local ordinance under Proposition 215, which allows the medical use of marijuana.

“I got a call and found out they smashed through our window and pried open the back door,” Mr. Duncan said. Since then, he has operated only one dispensary, fearing he could again be a target of the federal authorities.

Mr. Holder’s statement that he would not authorize raids on medical marijuana dispensaries appeared to shift Justice Department policy, at least rhetorically, away from the Bush administration’s stated policy of zero tolerance for marijuana, regardless of state laws. Advocates of medical marijuana welcomed the change.

But conversations with government officials on Thursday revealed disagreement within the administration about how great a shift Mr. Holder’s statements represent.

A spokesman for the drug enforcement agency, Garrison Courtney, pointed out that the attorney general’s statement indicated that the federal authorities would continue to go after marijuana dispensaries that broke state and federal laws by selling to minors, selling excessive amounts or selling marijuana from unsanctioned growers.

Mr. Courtney said that the agency had raided only a fraction of the thousands of marijuana dispensaries now operating and that agents had used discretion to go after only the worst offenders.

Palm Springs could be the first city in Riverside County to allow medical marijuana dispensaries if approved by city council members Wednesday night.

The meeting will open with a public hearing at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the council chambers at City Hall, according to the agenda. The proposed law limits dispensaries to [...]]]> From ABC7 in Los Angeles:

Palm Springs could be the first city in Riverside County to allow medical marijuana dispensaries if approved by city council members Wednesday night.

The meeting will open with a public hearing at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the council chambers at City Hall, according to the agenda. The proposed law limits dispensaries to industrial zones. The city now has at least four dispensaries operating illegally, with at least one more waiting for council approval to open, according to The Desert Sun.

The draft ordinance states that dispensaries would not be allowed within 1,000 feet of each other or within 500 feet of schools, public parks, playgrounds, churches, youth centers or residential areas. Other provisions state that the dispensaries must be set up as nonprofit collectives or cooperatives, as recommended in the guidelines issued by California Attorney General Jerry Brown in August. No one under the age of 18 would be allowed to work in marijuana dispensaries.

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Despite a Sausalito city ban on marijuana dispensaries, Gate Five Caregivers opened in September without informing local officials. It joins the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax [...]]]> The newest marijuana collective in Marin County is Gate Five Caregivers in Sausalito, CA. The Marin Independent Journal posted an in-depth story on the collective this afternoon.

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Despite a Sausalito city ban on marijuana dispensaries, Gate Five Caregivers opened in September without informing local officials. It joins the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax as the second local medical marijuana collective, but more may be on the way: Two other groups are seeking to establish medical marijuana collectives in Novato and Corte Madera.

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The Gate Five collective occupies the same space where last December the Marin County Major Crimes Task Force and Sausalito police confiscated $1 million worth of marijuana plants and processed pot. Four men, three of them Marin residents, were booked into Marin County Jail on suspicion of cultivation of marijuana and possession for sale.

Scott called that a “coincidence.” But Sausalito Councilman Mike Kelly said he doesn’t buy that; he said the Gate Five collective is illegal because it violates a city ordinance prohibiting dispensaries passed by the council in 2007.

Sausalito adopted its ban after a group calling itself Capitol Compassionate Care Co-op of Fort Bragg sought to open a medical marijuana cooperative there in 2005.

“The question is, how do we enforce that ordinance?” Kelly said.

Proposition 215, approved in 1996 by 55.6 percent of California voters – and 76 percent in Marin – made it legal for patients and caregivers to possess and cultivate marijuana for medical treatment as recommended by a doctor. The federal government, however, has never recognized the legitimacy of the state law.

David Nix, a San Francisco lawyer who is working with the Gate Five Caregivers, said Sausalito’s ordinance prohibiting medical marijuana dispensaries is illegal.

“You don’t have to be an attorney to understand that if the city of Sausalito passed an ordinance tomorrow that said there shall be no abortion clinics in this town that is not going to hold up in court,” Nix said.

Mary Wagner, Sausalito’s city attorney, said, “The city is exploring its legal options.”

In Marin, San Rafael, Mill Valley, and Larkspur have also adopted ordinances banning medical marijuana clubs.

Attorney General Jerry Brown in August ordered a crackdown on medical marijuana clubs that are generating big profits. Brown also issued an 11-page directive outlining the rules such clubs must observe to be legal: they must operate as nonprofit collectives or cooperatives and pay sales tax, and they are prohibited from buying marijuana from illegal commercial growers. They must obtain their “medicine” from patients or caregivers, who may grow no more than 12 immature or six mature plants.

On Dec. 2, Scot Candell, a San Rafael lawyer, told the Corte Madera Town Council that he represented a group of 20 medical marijuana users who wanted to open a collective there. Since then, Candell said the council has warned him that it would close down the club on the basis that it would violate federal law. Candell is scouting alternative sites in Marin. He declined to say where.

Soon after Candell sounded out Corte Madera, William Ringgold, 33, of San Francisco informed the Novato City Council that he plans to establish a medical marijuana collective in Bel Marin Keys. Ringgold said he has identified two possible sites, but declined to identify them.

Ringgold, who works as a manager at an online dry cleaning delivery service and part-time for a marijuana dispensary in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights, said he has received no response from the city.

“I’m really interested in doing this with the city’s permission,” Ringgold said. “Everything that Jerry Brown set forth as what we need to do to make this legitimate we’re going to do.”

Novato Mayor Jim Leland said, “I didn’t have a reaction one way or the other when he spoke, and I have no opinion.”

Officers responded to reports of gunfire at 10 p.m. Friday at the dispensary in the 1500 block of Sepulveda Boulevard, Los Angeles Police Lt. Darryl Grayson said.

The men, believed to be [...]]]> The LA Times with more:

More details:

Check out the killer quote from Deputy Mayor Brandt Grotte towards the bottom.

From InsideBayArea.com:

City officials are [...]]]> Local authorities in San Mateo, CA shut down three cannabis dispensaries last year, and another in 2008. However, a recent article by the San Mateo News on InsideBayArea.com indicates that the city could be changing its tune.

Check out the killer quote from Deputy Mayor Brandt Grotte towards the bottom.

From InsideBayArea.com:

City officials are considering an ordinance that would regulate the cultivation of medical marijuana and the cooperative groups that band together to produce the substance.

At a study session Monday night, members of the San Mateo City Council voiced their support for the legal production and use of medical marijuana but agreed the city should establish clear rules for those activities and educate the public on local and federal law.

Authorities shuttered three pot clubs in San Mateo in 2007 and a fourth in 2008.

The draft ordinance would require medical marijuana collectives, composed of patients and their primary caregivers, to apply for a license and register with the San Mateo Police Department before growing or storing pot. The collectives would operate indoors with barred windows at least 300 to 500 feet from schools, recreation centers and youth centers.

To protect patients, the collectives — rather than city officials — would maintain a list of members, City Attorney Shawn Mason said.

“I’m in full support of the city of San Mateo having a regulation like this,” Deputy Mayor Brandt Grotte said during the meeting.

Nonetheless, “there still remains the inevitable conflict between state and federal law, and eventually I hope the feds will grow up and get over it.“