Anthony Gregory, LewRockwell.com
On Tuesday, Drug Enforcement Administration agents swooped down upon the premier medical marijuana club in California’s Bay Area, targeting its dispensary and seven ancillary locations in San Francisco and Oakland. By destroying and confiscating property, seizing medical records, pummeling ATM machines with sledge hammers and jailing fifteen people, the federal agency hopes to teach a lesson, not just to medicinal pot users but to all Americans – this area, as all areas in the country, belongs to the federal government.
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K Kaufmann and Marie McCain, The Desert Sun
A medical marijuana-laced “tip” left for an employee at Palm Springs’ Spa Resort & Casino in September ended with a search-and-seizure raid on a Palm Springs medical marijuana dispensary on Wednesday.
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Kenneth Michael White, OP/ED, opinioneditorials.com
Since California first did it in 1996, several other States have decriminalized medical marijuana, even though the Federal Government considers all marijuana to be contraband. Despite the constant threat of Federal criminal sanction, there are thousands of people in the United States who use marijuana for medical purposes. Did these people come to their decision to use medical marijuana in accordance with the teaching of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?
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Ryan Olson, Chico Enterprise Record
A group of seven people qualified for medicinal marijuana are suing Butte County officials after a sheriff's deputy ordered the destruction of nearly all their plants.
The Oakland-based Americans for Safe Access is filing a lawsuit in Butte County Superior Court on behalf of David Williams and six other plaintiffs. The lawsuit alleges Butte County officials violated the law by refusing to recognize their established collective.
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Tim Morancan, Modesto Bee
Stanislaus County residents will be able to get county-issued medical marijuana identification cards in the future.
But they won't be able to buy the drug legally here, if county Board of Supervisors Chairman Ray Simon has anything to do with it.
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Tom Lochner, Contra Costa Times
The San Pablo City Council on Monday extended for a second year a moratorium on the opening of medical marijuana dispensaries, or cannabis clubs. But the council signaled it does not want the issue to drag on for much longer, ordering the city staff to schedule a study session on the matter within a "reasonable" period.
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, U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Claims have been advanced asserting smoked marijuana has a value in treating various medical conditions. Some have argued that herbal marijuana is a safe and effective medication and that it should be made available to people who suffer from a number of ailments upon a doctor's recommendation, even though it is not an approved drug.
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Kimberly Trone, Press-Enterprise
Donna Dixon found out the hard way that a state law allowing her to use marijuana for glaucoma didn't keep her from getting fired from a casino job after a positive drug test.
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Lawrence O. Gostin, JD, LLD (Hon), Journal of the American Medical Association
In Gonzalez v Raich, the US Supreme Court held that federal law enforcement authorities could criminally prosecute patients for possessing marijuana prescribed by a physician in accordance with state law.1 The Court did not overturn state medical marijuana laws but did open the door to criminal prosecution under federal drug statutes. The Court also did not foreclose future challenges to federal enforcement on other constitutional grounds (eg, an unwarranted invasion of patient-physician privacy).
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