Posts Tagged ‘Harborside Health Center’
During an opioid epidemic, can cannabis be an alternative pain treatment?
Dani Geen was 18 when she was in a severe accident: the car spun violently and was smashed on all four sides. The force of the seatbelt broke all of Geen’s ribs and caused internal abscesses. She came to in an ambulance, panicking from pain and shock, and felt the sharp stab of a needle—the…
Read MoreAfter 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.
Read MoreAfter 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.”
Read MoreAfter 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.
Read MoreFor local dispensaries after the Oaksterdam raid, business as usual and a low profile
Medical marijuana dispensaries often strive to keep a low profile, but this has been even more the case after federal agents raided Oaksterdam University and the home of founder Richard Lee on Monday. Half a dozen East Bay dispensaries responded with “no comment” when asked about how their organization was reacting to the raid, and others ignored voicemails. To date, there are no known closures of dispensaries in the East Bay as a reaction to Monday’s raid, and for many dispensaries, such as Harborside Health Center and the Berkeley Patient’s Care Collective, it’s business as usual.
Read MoreOakland marijuana dispensaries concerned over potential prosecution, taxes
Medical marijuana supporters and business people in Oakland reacted angrily last week to dual blows from the federal government—a prosecution warning and a massive tax bill—as they speculated on the possible consequences for patients and the local marijuana industry.
Read MoreA moment of hope and trouble for local marijuana advocates
Even as states decriminalize marijuana use through programs for medical purposes, continued arrests for marijuana cultivation, possession and distribution are seen by legalization advocates in Oakland and beyond as both an obstacle and a sign of hope in the drive to legalize marijuana.
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