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After the raid: For patients, worries that medical marijuana dispensaries will shut down

Oakland resident Sableu Cabildo was diagnosed at the end of 2011 with a kind of brain cancer known as an astrocytoma. It originated on the right side of her thalamus, the lobed mass under the cerebral cortex that acts like the brain’s switchboard, regulating sensory perception and motor functions. Because of the cancer, Cabildo has been steadily losing her short-term memory and her balance. She stutters sometimes, and to be on the safe side, doesn’t drive at night anymore.

To alleviate some of the symptoms of her cancer and the harsher side affects of her medications, Cabildo, 34, has a medical marijuana prescription. It’s helped to calm her mood swings and improve her diminished appetite. It also dulls the pain from the migraine headaches caused by her disease. It lets her sleep at night.

After the raid: First Oaksterdam, then legal battles for Harborside Health Center

He might direct the largest medical marijuana dispensary in the country, but Steve DeAngelo isn’t scared of the government’s attempts to shut it down.

“The federal government has thrown everything they had at us and we met them and we pushed back,” DeAngelo said, referring to Harborside Health Center, where he serves as founder and executive director. “It’s a drug war machine that’s bound for extinction.”

After the raid: The financial fallout for Oaksterdam and Oakland’s pot business

Following the federal raid on Oaksterdam University last April, Dale Sky Jones found herself with an incredible task: rebuilding the school from the ground up. Not only had Richard Lee, Oaksterdam’s founder and director, just stepped down—assigning Jones to take over his role—but during the raid, federal agents had gutted the university entirely. As Jones took on the responsibility of providing for the students, staff and volunteers who had already signed on for the spring semester, the rest of Oakland’s burgeoning pot industry was left wondering what lay ahead for their businesses and whether they, too, were vulnerable to raids or legal action from the federal government.

After the raid: One year after federal agents raided Oaksterdam, what’s changed?

One year ago, federal agents raided Oaksterdam University, a move that sent ripples throughout Oakland’s well-established cannabis industry and raised questions about the complex and often conflicting web of state and federal regulations surrounding medical marijuana use and patient rights. In this four-part series, Oakland North will examine what’s changed since last year’s raid, who was affected the most, and what may lie in store for medical marijuana use here in Oakland.

Oscar Grant family reaches out to mother of Kenneth Harding

On a Saturday afternoon in July, 2011, Kenneth Harding Jr., 19, lay stomach down in his own blood, fighting for his life on the corner of 3rd Street and Palou Avenue in the heart of the Bay View Hunters Point neighborhood in San Francisco. Some say San Francisco police officers shot Harding after he allegedly evaded his transit fare on the T-line of San Francisco’s Muni system, and then ran from police. The San Francisco Police Department contends that Harding shot…

Election brings mixed results for Oakland police union

The Oakland Police Officer’s Association — the police union, a nonprofit organization representing the city’s police officers — has for years dabbled in the political scene, endorsing candidates and spending thousands of dollars each election cycle advocating for candidates OPOA leaders believe will best address public safety and police concerns.