Press Releases

San Francisco -- Robert Schmidt, a medical marijuana dispensary operator, cultivator, patient, and researcher was sentenced today by Judge Stephen Breyer to 41 months in federal prison, and 3 years supervised probabtion. Mr Schmidt's dispensary in Sonoma County, named Genesis 1:29, was shut down by federal agents in a raid in September 2002.

Sacramento -- California Department of Health Services today launched a pilot medical marijuana ID card program as outlined by a law passed by the California legislature in 3 California counties Amador, Del Norte, and Mendocino. Trinity County will begin its program in a couple of weeks. A wider state roll-out of the piloted system will commence this summer on August 1.

Washington DC – A medical marijuana advocacy group filed an appeal with the Department of Health and Human Services after the agency declined their request to either correct or deny their petition seeking to dismiss government assertions that marijuana is dangerous and medically useless.

NATIONWIDE – The United States Supreme Court will render its decision in the Ashcroft v. Raich case any day. In the most-watched case before the U.S. Supreme Court this term, two California women argued that the federal government does not have the right to punish them for using the medical marijuana their doctors recommend and their state says is legal.

 

Americans for Safe Access representatives are available to provide commentary and analysis of the Raich decision.

SACRAMENTO – In light of a recent statement by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, medical marijuana advocates are calling on him to issue a formal legal opinion requested by numerous public officials over the years. Americans for Safe Access, a medical marijuana advocacy group, is asking Lockyer to answer the latest overdue request “to clarify the scope of permissible conduct of California officials,” made by Assemblymember Mervyn Dymally (D-CA) in June 2004 in regards to medical marijuana.