Posts Tagged ‘medical marijuana’
Expert answers museum-goers’ questions about marijuana
Dr. Beau Kilmer, 39, sits on the “Ask an Expert” desk at the “Altered State: Marijuana in California” exhibition, answering questions about legalization of marijuana at the Oakland Museum of California on Friday, September 9, 2016.
Read MoreAs the marijuana industry heats up, street dealers think about going legal
Entrepreneurs from other industries are moving into the space and creating a social bubble that excludes the “underground” group.
Read MoreWill unionizing the cannabis industry bud in Oakland?
Since 2010, the Bay Area’s cannabis industry has been unionizing, in almost every case by the United Food and Commercial Workers, or UFCW.
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 MoreAfter 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.
Read MoreCity Attorney candidates discuss injunctions, medical marijuana and public safety
This year, voters must choose whether to give a full four-year term to current City Attorney Barbara Parker or to longtime District 1 Councilmember Jane Brunner, both familiar faces in Oakland politics. When Oakland voters nixed Measure H in 2011, they decided how the city would select a city attorney this year. Until 1998, city…
Read MoreOakland sues U.S. government to stop Harborside medical marijuana seizures
The city of Oakland filed a complaint Wednesday against the federal government in order to stop officials from seizing the nation’s largest medical marijuana dispensary, claiming the government took too long to take legal action against Harborside Health Center and that the federal statute of limitations regarding seizures has expired.
Read MoreOaksterdam welcomes unlikely presidential candidate, Roseanne Barr
Roseanne Barr is running for president. It was clear, when she addressed a packed house at Oaksterdam University on Thursday night, that the bulk of the crowd was there to hear her say that out loud. Former Democratic Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney delivered an introduction to the evening, cutting directly to the chase. “We are meeting here,” she said, “because the Peace and Freedom Party had the courage and the smarts to nominate Roseanne Barr as their presidential candidate.”
Read MoreFuture cloudy for Oakland’s regulation of medical marijuana dispensaries
Oakland’s dispensary ordinance, which has been on the books since 2004, is lauded by city officials—a staff report from the City Administrator’s Office published in July, 2011, calls it “a role model for the nation”—and is generally well-respected among local dispensary owners who consider it fair to them and the city. It requires that dispensary operators follow certain rules: sharing annual financial audits and personnel records with the city, making sure there’s proper security and safe access for patients, and making sure clients aren’t a nuisance to the neighborhood.
But there could be major changes brewing for how Oakland’s dispensaries are regulated.
Dale Sky Jones to become new head of Oaksterdam University
After a federal raid in early April on Oaksterdam University, an education center located in downtown Oakland that trains students to work in the marijuana industry, founder Richard Lee has decided to step down as head of the institution. His successor will be former executive chancellor Dale Sky Jones, which will officially be announced on Wednesday morning.
Read MoreBay Area medical marijuana dispensaries face a federal crackdown
In October, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a crackdown on medical marijuana facilities. The four U.S. Attorneys for California began sending out eviction notices to various medical marijuana dispensaries throughout the state.
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 MoreCannabis enthusiasts light up at Oakland street festival
Touted by locals as the center of the medical marijuana industry, Oakland seems a fitting host for the nation’s first marijuana outdoor street festival: the two-day International Cannabis and Hemp Expo, which opened its doors Saturday.
Read MoreCouncil reconsiders pot farm permits, discusses redevelopment funds
Without voting on a single ordinance, members of a beleaguered Oakland City Council spent Tuesday night’s meeting discussing their two most pressing concerns: threats of prosecution by the state and federal government over the city’s plan to permit industrial cannabis cultivation, and dramatic budget cuts from the governor.
Read More