Long Beach Update

As many of you are aware of by now the up and down legality of collectives in Long Beach is now on life support.  There is a slight reprieve until January 17, 2012.  So for now the patient that is safe access to medical marijuana in Long Beach breaths is alive- for now.

As their are some fine collectives in Long Beach, here is for hoping that they continue to live.  They are calling for your support at the city council meeting on January 17, 2012.

Stay tuned.

Garden Grove Sends Out Notices

According to a few collective owners, the city of Garden Grove has begun issuing cease and desist notices to those stores who were not approved during the so called "licensing" procedure.  Garden Grove began their licensing procedure last fall.  It called for a retroactive application to June 30, 2011 for stores that were in operation prior to that point.

Fomrer Collective Owners Convicted

Surprise, surprise, surprise.  Joe Grumbine and Joe Byron former collective owners and verified caregivers if there ever were caregivers have been convicted in Long Beach Superior Court.

Personally being very familiar with both Long Beach Courts and the Judge involved here, Judge Shelton, this conviction is hardly a surprise.  Neither was the one sided nature of things which according to the OC Weekly included shielding the jury from the audience, limiting defense witnesses etc.

An appeal is expected.

Here is the full story:

http://www.ocweekly.com/2011-12-22/news/judge-charles-d-sheldon-joe-byron-grumbine-medical-marijuana/

Long Beach Seeks Ban

  The Long Beach City Council will discuss a potential complete ban on medical marijuana collectives during next week’s council meeting.
  Ordinance 5.89, if approved by the City Council, would prohibit “medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation sites from locating in the city of Long Beach.”

    Earlier this year, the appellate court judge who presided over the Pack v. City of Long Beach trial ruled that Long Beach’s 5.87 ordinance was at least partially against federal law — specifically, its permitting process that created a lottery system was ruled illegal.
       Here is a quote from city officials.

      “Protecting citizens from the secondary impacts and effects associated with medical marijuana and related activities, including, but not limited to, loitering, increased pedestrian and vehicular traffic, increased noise, fraud in obtaining or using medical marijuana identification cards, sales of medical marijuana to minors, drug sales, robbery, burglaries, assaults or other violent crimes.”

Lake Forrest Dispensaries Voluntarily Close

Patients in Lake Forrest

Score another one for the bad guys as attorneys for medical mariuana dispensaries have advised their clients to shut down while the this federal crackdown issue is being address.

Full story from OC Register: http://www.ocregister.com/news/marijuana-321612-federal-medical.html

Long Beach Shutting Down?!

More bad news on the medical marijuana news front as word from the dispensaries is that the city of Long Beach has sent out notices to all dispensaries in Long Beach to close within 21 days. 1 Love one of the coolest collectives in the LBC has sent out emails to their patients notifying them of this latest development. Those email notices apparantly went out on October 13, 2011.

The possibility that Long Beach will shutting down or atempting to shut down its dispensaries is an epic event.  Long Beach had enacted a controversal lottery system that allowed dispensaries to operate in a quasi-legal way. That lottery system was over thrown by a the Appeals court earlier this month.

Feds Go After Media

Wow the feds showing no respect for the 1st Amendment have now announced a coordinated policy of targeting media outlets that sell ads to medical marijuana dispensaries.

See Toke of The Town article:

http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/10/feds_to_go_after_newspapers_radio_for_medical_mari.php#more