An all-day symposium at UC Irvine Thursday is not only dedicated to one of OC Weekly's favorite topics (marijuana legalization), but it includes … um … colorful characters who have filled our pages (print and otherwise) for years (Dana Rohrabacher, Lou Correa, Judge Jim Gray and Tom Umberg).
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U.S. Congress Backs Dana Rohrabacher's Bid To Ban Marijuana Raids
Presented by the Center for Land, Environment and Natural Resources (CLEANR) at UC Irvine School of Law and Brown Rudnick LLP, the symposium aims to get at the following, according to organizers:
Despite stringent controls at the federal level, U.S. states have adopted laws legalizing the use of marijuana for medical or recreational purposes. A suite of land use and environmental laws may nonetheless regulate marijuana production activities, including product safety, pesticide use, environmental impacts, facility siting, and use of public lands. Attorneys also face uncertainty as to their ability to advise industry clients regarding these activities. This symposium explores these issues, guided by leading experts deeply involved at the interface of federal and state marijuana use and control.
Despite our years and years of kicking Rohrabacher around the block, the forever Surf City Republican congressman has taken bold stands toward legalization of cannabis, most certainly the medicinal variety. He's the symposium's keynote speaker along with State Sen. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana), who I cannot recall ever taking a bold stand on anything. That's some keynote balance!
Featured speakers include Gray, who as an Orange County Superior Court judge famously called for drug decriminalization and later campaigned for other offices with that as his platform, and Umberg, a former Orange County Democrat assemblyman who went on to serve as deputy director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. (More balance!)
Other featured speakers include: Hilary V. Bricken of The Canna Law Group; Boulder, Colo., City Attorney Tom Carr; Andrew DeAngelo of Harborside Health Center; Sean Donahoe of California Cannabis Industry Association; Fresno County Sheriff's Lt. Patrick Hanson; Allison Margolin of Margolin & Lawrence; Amy Poinsett of MJ Freeway Business Solutions; Jeffrey Raber of The Werc Shop; Deborah Rosenthal of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP; Ann Southworth of UCI School of Law; Jacob Sullum of Reason; Sherry Tune of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture; King County, Wash., Sheriff John Urquhart; and, from Brown Rudnick LLP, Joel Miliband and Stephen Cook.
Moderators are Alejandro E. Camacho, a UCI law professor who is also the CLEANR director, and Geoffrey K. Willis, a partner at Brown Rudnick LLP.
The symposium runs from 8 a.m. through 5 p.m. Thursday in EDU 1111 of UCI School of Law. Registration is $49 or free to UCI faculty, staff and students.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.