Global Ganja Report

The four United States attorneys for California came together at a Sacramento press conference Oct. 7 to announce that they would move against landlords who rent space to storefront operators of medicinal cannabis dispensaries. Breaking with past practice, they actually addressed the state's medical marijuana law—only to say that it is being abused by a fast-growing cannabis industry. "This is not what the California voters intended or authorized,” said André Birotte Jr., US attorney for the Los Angeles-based Central District. "It is illegal under California law."

Federal prosecutors this week warned several  California cannabis dispensaries they must close in 45 days or face criminal charges and confiscation of their property. At least 16 dispensaries or their landlords received letters stating that they are in violation of federal law. The Associated Press obtained copies of the letters that a prosecutor sent to 12 San Diego dispensaries. They state that federal law "takes precedence over state law and applies regardless of the particular uses for which a dispensary is selling and distributing marijuana."

The IRS has ordered Oakland's Harborside Health Center, biggest cannabis dispensary on the West Coast, to pay $2 million in taxes, ruling that the collective may not deduct standard expenses such as payroll and rent. "They're attempting to tax us out of business," protested owner Steve DeAngelo. Ironically, the same day he received the IRS letter, DeAngelo was photographed handing the Oakland treasury a $360,000 check —third installment of $1 million in city taxes  Harborside generated in 2010.

San Diego authorities said they have reached an agreement with a North Park landlord to evict cannabis dispensaries and massage parlors from his properties. San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said the owner of the building, at 4009-4010 Park Blvd., agreed to evict four dispensaries and a dozen massage parlors after authorities determined the businesses were violating zoning laws. Police said they believe the cannabis businesses were the cause of recent increases in traffic, loitering and public cannabis smoking in the area. Goldsmith said the landlord agreed to pay $10,000 in civil penalties without admitting liability. (UPI, Sept. 30)

A record 14 tons of cannabis, valued by authorities at over $22.6 million, was seized Sept. 26 at a checkpoint some 60 miles north of the Mexican border in California's Imperial Valley. Agents found the cannabis in 1,100 bundles inside a tractor-trailer, the largest checkpoint cannabis seizure ever for the Border Patrol's El Centro sector. The bust also ranked as one of the biggest US checkpoint seizures outside a border crossing nationwide, according to Border Patrol spokesman Jonathan Creiglow. "This is definitely exceptional," Creiglow said.

Northern California's Humboldt Plant Fertilizers (HPF) announced Sept. 22 that it will become "the only natural liquid plant nutrient company banning any use of slaughterhouse by-products such as the bone meal, blood meal, and feather meal almost universally found in all other natural fertilizer products." Every product manufactured by HPF will now bear the "Holy Cow" symbol—a smiling bovine head with a halo and the words "We never use slaughterhouse by-products."

The RAND Corporation issued a report Sept. 20 dispelling the myth that there are inherent links between medical marijuana dispensaries and crime. The study found that crime is as much as 60% greater where dispensaries had been shut down by the City of Los Angeles compared to those areas with open dispensaries. "[W]e found no evidence that medical marijuana dispensaries in general cause crime to rise," said Mireille Jacobson, the study’s lead author and a senior economist at RAND.

For the second time in less than a week, a judge issued a restraining order to prevent officials in California's Tulare County from pulling medicinal cannabis plants from a farm just north of Visalia. The order by Tulare County Superior Court Judge Paul Vortmann will remain in effect at least until Oct. 6, when another hearing on the case is scheduled. The ruling came in response to an application for a restraining order filed by Richard Daleman, who runs a business leasing small plots to about 40 clients to grow medicinal cannabis. All have doctors' recommendations to grow and smoke.