Marijuana and Murder

Police remove marijuana from scene of Kerman double murder

30 to 40 marijuana plant removed from home

By Richard Morales
By KSEE 24 Staff

Story Published: Jul 23, 2009 at 3:29 AM EDT
Story Updated: Jul 23, 2009 at 3:41 AM EDT

Watch The Video (2:48) -
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Kerman Police removed more than 30 marijuana plants from the home of a
couple killed in home invasion robbery Wednesday night. It all began
that morning at a home at El Mar Lane and 4th Street in Kerman.
Ironically, the home was under surveillance by police when 3 men went
inside and allegedly shot and killed a couple in their 60s who lived in
the home.

Police chased until the suspects car crashed into another vehicle at
Golden State and Jensen.

Three people in the car were arrested immediately, but a fourth man ran
and was later tracked down and caught.

Kerman police say the home where the couple were killed had been under
surveillance for weeks, suspected of being a marijuana grow house.
Police were planning on raiding the home when the suspects entered the
house.

Neighbors, who identified the couple as Gary and Sandra DeBartolo, were
shocked at the couples death, noting that Sandra worked at the nearby
Kerman High School.

Chico City Council Reviewing Cannabis Garden Laws

City Council discusses how to regulate med-pot grows

There is little talk of creating a dispensary in Chico

By Meredith J. Cooper
meredithc@newsrevie w.com

July 23, 2009

Tuesday night was atypical for the Chico City Council. There were two,
mostly noncontroversial, topics on the agenda, and most of the people in
attendance left before the meeting even started, after Maria Phillips
presented a new city art map and thanked those who helped create it.
Most remarkably, the meeting was adjourned at 8:30—possibly a record
for brevity.

The first topic of discussion was an amendment to a 1996 plan that
outlined projects the city needed to work on to comply with the
Americans with Disabilities Act. All those projects were completed as of
a year ago, announced Capital Project Services Director Tom Varga.
Tuesday he offered up a new list to the council, who approved it
wholeheartedly and unanimously (Councilman Jim Walker was absent).

Then came the item of most interest to the dozen or so people left in
council chambers that night: medical-marijuana dispensary zoning. As
Assistant City Manager John Rucker explained, this topic was brought
before the council by a concerned citizen, Michelle Cooper (he first
announced the name as Meredith Cooper, garnering confused looks from
council members and this reporter, but later corrected himself).

Cooper had written the council because her neighbors were growing pot
outside and the smell had become a nuisance. The subject went to the
council's Internal Affairs Committee, which looked at other cities,
such as Gridley, where outdoor growing is prohibited. The committee did
not see that as a viable option for Chico, however, based on increased
fire danger as well as the possibility of added home-invasion robberies.

"It doesn't make sense to fix an outdoor problem by moving it
indoors," explained Councilman Andy Holcombe, a member of the IAC.

The committee recommended that review of zoning laws be done by the
Planning Services Department to determine an appropriate location for a
med-pot cooperative or collective—after the general-plan update is
completed.

"Why wait a year and a half?" Councilman Larry Wahl asked.

The rest of the council, along with City Manager David Burkland, agreed.

So, now what?

A handful of community members headed for the lectern. One was Paul
Harbison, who explained that he's lived in his house, which is near
both a school and a group home, for 10 years. Two years ago, his
next-door neighbors started growing marijuana, enough for three people
with scripts. The smell is overwhelming.

"I should have the same right as they do to have a livelihood,"
he said. "Their medicine is making me sick."

Harbison's story struck a chord with many on the council, who asked
staff about public-nuisance laws already on the books as well as use
permits and other ways to regulate such grow sites.

One thing that seemed to keep tripping everyone up was the various terms
for different types of sites and the regulations on who can grow
marijuana. For instance, an individual can get a letter of
recommendation from a doctor. That person is then legally allowed to
grow pot. If that person can't grow it at home, he or she can join
up with others with scripts and grow as a collective, or cooperative. If
that person is too sick or unable to grow it, he or she can have a
caregiver grow it instead. Dispensaries, on the other hand, are more
like drug stores. They come with their own list of regulations.

In the end, Councilman Scott Gruendl made a motion to ask the Planning
Department to review Title 19 (zoning) for operating a co-op or
collective, or private grow, during the general-plan process. He also
proposed that the city manager work with staff to create a brochure for
people who receive prescriptions. Wahl added a request that staff come
back to the council in 60 days with "the fixings for an
ordinance"—either a way to regulate within current laws or examples
from other cities that have already confronted this issue.

The council agreed unanimously.

CA Pot Tax A Trick of Smoke and Mirrors?

California's $1.4 Billion Pot Tax Hopes May Be Up in Smoke

California's tax board says the state could reap about $1.4 billion by
taxing their biggest cash crop -- marijuana -- but their estimate
appears to be based on hazy "studies" conducted by marijuana advocates.

By Joseph Abrams
FOXNews.com

Thursday, July 23, 2009

With its state parks and summer schools on the chopping block,
budget-busted California could see a $1.4 billion windfall if it
legalizes and taxes the sale of marijuana, the state tax board found in
an analysis that was published last week.

But a close look at that $1.4 billion figure raises a timely and
important question:

What in blazes were they smoking?

To reach that amount, the board apparently relied on a source that
relied on a source that misquoted a book that misquoted a study, all
involving a hazy mix of out-of-date numbers, high margins of error and
complete guesswork that could be a mere $700 million off the mark.

California's Board of Equalization published its much ballyhooed
analysis last week of a bill that would tax pot like alcohol and also
levy an extra $50 fee on every ounce (which already costs about $400), a
green godsend the bill's sponsor says the state can't afford to pass on.

"It defies reason to propose closing parks and eliminating vital
services for the poor while this potential revenue is available," State
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano said in a statement.

According to the tax commission's report, Californians consume 16
million ounces of pot every year -- 1 million pounds exactly -- a
suspiciously round number the report said was derived from a "literature
review" of "law enforcement and academic studies."

That number would go up even more, it said, if prices dropped by half as
the drug became legal.

But FOXNews.com took a close look at the board's analysis and found a
$700 million kink in its accounting.

The board appears to have based its 16-million-ounce guess on a
problematic "study" conducted by the founder of a pot-growing university
in Oakland and by the director of California's branch of NORML, the
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

But the fact is, no one -- not even law enforcement agencies -- really
knows how much weed gets smoked in California, because self-reported
users can and do lie on government surveys.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents in California said they "don't
really track users," the Drug Czar's office said it doesn't follow the
amount of pot consumed, and the California Highway Patrol said they "do
not have those types of statistics."

So how did California's figures get so . . . high?

A spokeswoman for the tax board told FOXNews.com that the board
calculated its $1.4 billion guesstimate based on four publications, a
story on CNBC, some unnamed "Harvard studies" and Internet searches.

But the spokeswoman named only one source that addresses hard
consumption in California: a 3-year-old financial report to Oakland's
medicinal marijuana oversight committee, the one that was composed by
Professor Pot and the state's director of NORML -- two staunch advocates
of legalization.

The report offers an estimate of how much marijuana Californians smoke
in one year: 16 million ounces exactly -- the same even number the state
board is using.

But that 16 million ounce figure -- the heart of the matter -- was
clipped verbatim from another report prepared by NORML that has been
online in the same form for at least six years.

But after only a quick look, those numbers went up in smoke. The NORML
report based some of its figures on a book called "The Science of
Marijuana," which in turn appears to have misquoted an annual study of
regular smokers conducted at music festivals and pot rallies in Britain.

The book says the study found that daily marijuana users smoke about 2
ounces a month (56 grams), but the study actually found that they used
just over an ounce a month (34.25 grams).

NORML's numbers, which seemingly became the state's numbers, are really
a composite formed from the product of several old studies that measured
the number of Californians who smoked in the last month, who smoke
daily, the average amount a "daily smoker" smokes, the average amount a
"regular smoker" tokes and a guess at how much everyone else is using.

According to national numbers from the National Survey on Drug Use &
Health, there are now more people smoking month by month than when NORML
ran their numbers. But in referring to the British study, they
essentially tripled the amounts that regular users consume on a monthly
basis. Also, fewer smokers indulge daily than NORML thought.

And a few grams here and there really add up: Using the same essential
equation produced by NORML but updating the numbers with data from the
U.S. government's most recent national survey and the real figures from
the British study, FOXNews.com found pot consumption to be about half of
NORML's estimate -- between 8 and 10 million ounces a year.

That number still relies on guesswork and is cobbled together from
British and U.S. government estimates of self-reported data from
different years -- a hodgepodge mix just like NORML's debunked number.

But the California state estimate doesn't factor in at all a continuing
black market for untaxed marijuana that, without the extra fees, might
cost $1,000 less a pound. And as the analysis does note, the law "would
incur substantial administrative costs" for the tax board and would
actually kill other tax revenue the state already earns from cigarettes
and alcohol as citizens steer their money toward pot.

On the flip side, because self-reported drug use is probably a good deal
lower than real consumption, California could be seeing extreme green.
Another study mentioned explicitly in the tax board's review (one whose
full implications are seemingly ignored) indicates that Californians
could be consuming nearly 3 million pounds of pot a year.

So at the end of the joint is this bottom line: No one -- neither the
tax board nor weed advocates -- really knows how much the Golden State
is smoking. If the state legalizes marijuana, it could get a life-saving
lift for its crumbling economy, or it could could see all its
revenue-earning dreams go to pot.

Butane and Buds Don't Mix

Pot-pipe explosion sends Sacramento man to hospital

Posted by Bill Enfield
7:09 PM
July 22, 2009

From Nicole Williams:

A Sacramento man suffered second-degree burns on half of his body after
an explosion erupted when he attempted to light a marijuana pipe in his
bathroom earlier today, fire officials said.

The man, who is in his earlier 30s and a medical marijuana patient, had
mixed butane with his pot and the chemical is likely the cause of the
explosion, which knocked the bathroom wall off its foundation, said Jim
Doucette, spokesman for the Sacramento Fire Department.

"It's not for sure that's what happened ... but whatever he was doing
went wrong," Doucette said.

A second-level hazmat alarm was called because the Fire Department was
initially unaware of the source of the blast, he said.

No one else was in the house at the time of the explosion, and the man
was transported to a nearby hospital but is expected to recover,
Doucette said.

US Federal Government Won't Support Legalization

Drug czar says U.S. won't back pot legalization

Published online on Wednesday, Jul. 22, 2009
By Marc Benjamin / The Fresno Bee

The federal government is not going to pull back on its efforts to
curtail marijuana farming operations, Gil Kerlikowske, director of the
White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, said Wednesday in
Fresno.

The nation's drug czar, who viewed a foothill marijuana farm on U.S.
Forest Service land with state and local officials earlier Wednesday,
said the federal government will not support legalizing marijuana.

"Legalization is not in the president's vocabulary, and it's not in
mine," he said.

Kerlikowske said he can understand why legislators are talking about
taxing marijuana cultivation to help cash-strapped government agencies
in California. But the federal government views marijuana as a harmful
and addictive drug, he said.

"Marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit," Kerlikowske said
in downtown Fresno while discussing Operation SOS -- Save Our Sierra --
a multiagency effort to eradicate marijuana in eastern Fresno County.

Marijuana plants valued at more than $1.26 billion have been confiscated
and 82 people arrested over the past 10 days in Fresno County. The
operation started last week and is continuing.

By comparison, Tulare County's leading commodity -- milk -- was valued
at about $1.8 billion in 2008.

Officials say the marijuana-eradicati on operation will cost hundreds of
thousands of dollars, but the exact amount won't be known until agencies
can add up staffing, vehicle and other costs.

In Operation SOS, more than 314,000 plants were uprooted in 70 gardens
-- numbers expected to rise as the enforcement action continues. Agents
also seized $41,000 in cash, 26 firearms and three vehicles.

Planning for the operation began in February and focused on marijuana
crops being backed by Mexican drug cartels, Fresno County Sheriff
Margaret Mims said.

Mims said many cartels are involved, but she would not name any because
the investigation is still under way. All but one person arrested was
from Mexico, officials said.

One hundred growers may still be on the loose, said Fresno County
sheriff's Lt. Rick Ko. Many may have gotten rides out of the area, but
some could still be in the Sierra, Ko said.

Last year, Fresno County deputies seized 188,000 marijuana plants.

In just one week, nearly twice as many plants were seized, Mims said,
"so you can imagine how many we were missing."

Statewide, more than 5.3 million plants were seized in 2008, or two of
every three confiscated in the United States, said Bill Ruzzamenti,
director of the Central Valley High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area.

"The amount of drugs out there scares most of us," he said.

Volunteers are going into the gardens to clean up trash, dead animals
and pesticides to return the land as close to its original condition as
possible. But it could take years for the land to recover, because
little can be done once fertilizers and pesticides seep into the ground
or stream beds.

"For every acre of marijuana grown, 10 acres are damaged," said George
Anderson with the California Department of Justice.

Marijuana Legal in CA by 2010?

Calif. Pot Legalization May Be On 2010 Ballot

Jul 22, 2009 7:41 pm US/Pacific

Slippery slope or sensible solution? Add your comments to Eye on Blogs -
http://cbslocalblog s.prospero. com/kpix_ eyeonblogs? entry=6168

Watch video story (3:08) - http://cbs5. com/video/ ?cid=129

OAKLAND (CBS 5 / BCN) - The head of a trade school for the
cannabis industry said Wednesday that he hopes the victory of an Oakland
measure that creates a business license tax for cannabis businesses will
build momentum for a statewide measure to legalize the recreational use
and taxation of pot.

Richard Lee, the president of Oaksterdam University, which was founded
in 2007, said an initiative he plans to file with state officials on
Thursday would make possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by adults
legal throughout California.

Lee said it would also give cities and counties the option of allowing
the cultivation, sale and taxation of marijuana within their borders.

In a mail-in election that ended on Tuesday, nearly 80 percent of
Oakland residents who participated approved Measure F, which makes
Oakland the first city in the nation to establish a special tax rate for
cannabis businesses.

The measure taxes gross receipts of all cannabis businesses at 1.8
percent.

City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan, who helped sponsor the measure, said
she hopes it will generate up to $1 million a year for Oakland's general
fund.

Kaplan said the passage of Measure F and three other funding-relates
measures that were on the ballot is "great news."

Lee and other overseers of medical marijuana dispensaries supported the
measure as a step in having them become perceived as more mainstream and
legitimate.

Lee said paying the new business tax "is a lot better than being
arrested and put in prison."

He said, "It's cheaper to pay the tax than it is to pay lawyers."

Lee said TaxCannabis2010. org plans to start collecting signatures for
the statewide initiative in September, after state officials have
reviewed its title and summaries.

He said the group plans to turn in its signatures in January and place
it on the ballot in November 2010.

Lee said legalizing the possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by
adults would make the drug "like alcohol" in the eyes of the law.

Oaksterdam University gets its name from the so-called "Oaksterdam"
district in downtown Oakland where several medical marijuana
dispensaries are located.

The Oaksterdam district earned its nickname for its similarities to
Amsterdam, the Dutch city known for its legal marijuana clubs.

Oaksterdam University, which is described on its Web site as America's
first cannabis college, is located at 1776 Broadway. It provides
training for the cannabis industry.

The school also has campuses in Los Angeles, Sebastopol and Ann Arbor,
Mich.

http://cbs5. com/local/ pot.tax.legaliza tion.2.1097304. html

>
> By Tanya Sierra
> Union-Tribune Staff Writer
>
> 7:38 p.m. July 21, 2009
>
> CHULA VISTA – City officials have temporarily banned medical marijuana
> dispensaries to give them time to come up with a policy to regulate the
> businesses or to decide that they are not allowed at all.
>
> The City Council voted 4-0 to enact a 45-day moratorium Tuesday night,
> saying it needed more information before deciding whether to allow medical
> marijuana cooperatives to operate.
>
> Requests to open medical marijuana collectives are cropping up all over the
> county, and most cities don't know how to deal with the nontraditional
> businesses.
>
> “They have to operate in a manner and a form that do not create public
> safety issues,†Councilman Steve Castaneda said. “The moratorium isn't to
> deny, it's how we in better ways understand how we safeguard the community
> as a whole.â€
>
> State voters approved medicinal marijuana in 1996, but some counties have
> fought the state law because medical marijuana use is still illegal under
> federal law. In May, the county lost its battle when the California Supreme
> Court refused to hear its lawsuit. The lawsuit argued the state could not
> force it to issue medical marijuana ID cards because the drug is illegal
> under federal law.
>
> Two Chula Vista residents – Dustin Vogel and Daniel Green – applied last
> month for a business license to operate CV Collective, which would dispense
> pot to medical marijuana patients.
>
> “There's nothing down here, and it's not reasonable for someone who is
> seriously debilitated to drive up to San Diego to get medical marijuana,â€
> said Vogel, 25.
>
> When he addressed the council Tuesday night, Vogel assured them his business
> would follow any guidelines.
>
> “This is a legitimate business venture,†he said.
>