Marijuana

Federal Prosecutors Lift Gag Order After San Diego Mayor Defends Dispensary Owner Ronnie Chang: Update

Scroll down to the end of this post for an update on Ronnie Chang's case in the wake of Mayor Bob Filner's press conference Monday. Original Post, May 21, 1:30 p.m.: In the midst of a major crackdown on California's medical marijuana movement, where most city officials are either working with the f ... More >>

Study Shows Stoners Are Skinnier Than You Thought

It's a known fact that marijuana gives you the munchies, which is why it's a great medication for AIDS patients and people experiencing loss of appetite because of chemotherapy. In the eyes of critics, like Joel Hay, who penned an anti-marijuana editorial in yesterday's OC Register, "Pipe Dreams and ... More >>

OC & Riverside Democrats Struggle to Reverse California's Potpocalypse

When it comes to mainstream American politics, usually it's the Libertarian Party that one would associate with a pro-marijuana (medical or otherwise) agenda, but now you can add the Democratic Party to that very brief list. To wit: in Riverside, the very town whose fight over a local ban on marij ... More >>

Lawsuit Alleges Long Beach Cops Brutalized Marijuana Dispensary Worker During 2012 Raid

A lawsuit filed March 26 alleges that Long Beach police conducting a raid on a medical marijuana dispensary last year. The Weekly first reported on the June 19, 2012 incident, last July, noting that the employee, Dorian Brooks, a young African-American with no prior arrests or convictions on hi ... More >>

Blowing Smoke: OC Weekly's Top Ten Marijuana Stories of 2012

2012 was a busy year for marijuana. It began with what looked like the beginning of the end of the medical marijuana industry in California and ended with the legalization of recreational weed in both Colorado and Washington State. Looking back through the posts in Navel Gazing's Cannabis Chron ... More >>

Pot Poll: Most Americans Want Marijuana To Be Legal

Fifty-eight percent of Americans believe that marijuana should be legal under federal law, and 50 percent of Americans think it actually will be within the next ten years, according to a poll commissioned by the Marijuana Policy Project. The poll, which was carried out by the Raleigh, North Car ... More >>

D.A.R.E. Dropping Marijuana From Kids' Ant-Drug Curriculum

As of this month, Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or D.A.R.E., the nation's largest anti-drug non-profit group, will no longer indoctrinate public school elementary kids against the evils of marijuana.This is pretty major news, stoners, since D.A.R.E. has been preaching against the funky weed since ... More >>

[UPDATED W/STATEMENT BY VICTIM'S MOTHER] Emmanuel Walker, Long Beach Police Snitch, Sentenced To Life In Prison

*See bottom of this post for a statement by Kathy Windom, mother of victim Stephen Brown, which she read during Walker's sentencing hearing.ORIGINAL POST, Sept. 18, 2:22 p.m.: Sixteen months after he allegedly murdered 32-year-old Long Beach resident Steven Brown, Emmanuel Walker was sentenced ... More >>

California Supreme Court Drops Review of Long Beach Pot Ordinance

The city of Long Beach's bizarre and ill-fated foray into the medical marijuana business has now gone full circle. Yesterday, the California Supreme Court announced it was not going to review the city's appeal of an appellate court ruling that struck down the city's 2010 medical marijuana ordinance. ... More >>

[Updated W/Details of Council Meeting]Long Beach To Ban Medical Marijuana Tonight?

See updated details of last night's council meeting at the end of this post.On Feb. 14, Long Beach city officials voted to ban all medical marijuana dispensaries in the city with the exception of those that had won a lottery, paid hefty fees, and managed to survive subsequent revisions of the city's ... More >>

Disabled Californians Have No Right to Smoke Weed, Federal Court Rules

This isn't exactly surprising, seeing as how marijuana remains illegal under federal law despite having been legalized for medicinal purposes in more than 15 states. But yesterday,a three-judge panel with of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed against the citie ... More >>

Better Call Glew: Am I Allowed to Smoke Weed In An Alley?

​I have a medical marijuana recommendation, and since my apartment is non-smoking I have to smoke outside, which as I understood from my doctor and collective is legal anywhere tobacco is legal. I try my hardest to be discreet by puffing on small side-streets, but the other night, a bit after midn ... More >>

Letters From OC Weekly Readers

Long Beach Offers Collective Punishment

How the city's botched marijuana lottery screwed its winners and losers alike

Cypress Hill Smokeout Festival 2012 Announces Final Lineup

​New things are happening at Cypress Hill's Smokeout Fest this year: One, Cypress Hill and Rusko are performing together. Two, there's going to be a Low End Theory stage--yes, LA's most famous experimental hip-hop and electronic music night that Thom Yorke frequents when he's in town. Three, Wol ... More >>

Long Beach City Council To Vote on Pot Ban Next Tuesday

​UPDATE, Jan. 18, 10:30 AM: The Long Beach City Council has yet again delayed its vote on whether to ban medical marijuana, this time because councilmember Suja Lowenthal was absent from the city council chambers. Ironically, the council had been expected to vote on such a ban last month, but Lowe ... More >>

Hwa Sung Sim and James Yi Get Prison Time for Botched Medical Marijuana Robbery That Left Partner Dead

​Final sentences have been handed down in June's botched medical marijuana robbery in Brea that originally had three would-be bandits arrested for murder because the fourth was shot dead by a security guard protecting the weed. Hwa Sung Sim, 20, and James Yi, 18, of Irvine, switched their earlier ... More >>

[UPDATED W/CITY COUNCIL PROTEST] Yousef Ibrahim, Lake Forest Marijuana Clubs Landlord, Faces Federal Foreclosure

​UPDATE, OCT. 19, 1 P.M.: More than 100 medical marijuana patients and activists protested Lake Forest's cannabis crackdown at city hall last night, according to a story in today's Orange County Register. The protest was organized by the OC chapters of both NORML, the National Organization to Refo ... More >>

Obama Administration Says No Guns For Potheads

​If you're a medical marijuana smoker who happens to be in the market for a firearm, you might want to keep your state-issued cannabis card in your wallet once you reach the cash register. According to an Associated Press report, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (ATF) has just is ... More >>

Jim Gray: Voters Wanted To Regulate Pot Like Wine?

Photo by John Gilhooley​Retired Orange County Superior Court Judge Jim Gray, Orange County's favorite anti-drug war crusader, is pushing a ballot initiative for next year that would legalize marijuana for adults in California. Like Proposition 19, which failed at the ballot box last November, his ... More >>

420 Times Expands Circulation to Orange County

​Starting with this month's issue, which hit the streets on July 15, The 420 Times, Southern California's premiere glossy magazine dedicated to "alternative healing," will finally be available in Orange County. According to a press release just issued by the company, anyone eager to get the latest ... More >>

420 Quiz! Name This Day in Pot History

​If you're a bonafide stoner, you already know what 4:20 pm, especially on a Friday afternoon, is all about. The less said about that the better.But do you know what happened on this day exactly 100 years ago? Here's a hint: it happened in Massachusetts and it involved pot, although that's not wha ... More >>

Pot Smuggling Boat Washes Up on Dana Point Beach

​A boat containing 740 pounds of marijuana was discovered on Monday, at approximately 6 a.m., but so far nobody has come to claim the haul, leaving experts guessing that it was most likely a Mexican cartel smuggling operation gone awry.The first clue: The boat was heading north whenever its occupa ... More >>

Coastal Commisssion Votes in Favor of Medical Pot Clubs

​Not sure how we missed this, but kudos to The Orange County Register for reporting that the California Coastal Commission voted--against the recommendation of its own staff--to deny Laguna Beach's effort to seek its approval for a ban on marijuana dispensaries. The Jan. 19 story by Claudia Koerne ... More >>

Sunset Beach Must Ban Marijuana Dispensaries, County Says

​On Jan. 1, 2011, Sunset Beach will officially merge with Huntington Beach. Amazingly, for Sunset Beach residents, that's not the bad news. The bad news is that they won't be able to medicate themselves through this unfortunate merger with marijuana. Although Surf City doesn't allow medical mariju ... More >>

The Year in Pot: Looking Back at Our Top Five Marijuana-Related Stories of 2010

​From the failure of Prop 19 to the various battles between cities and medical marijuana dispensaries fighting to stay open, 2010 was, well, the year of pot. Take a look through Staff Writer Nick Schou's picks for marijuana-related stories of the year after the jump.

[UPDATED:] Election 2010: 4:20 Alert! Where's the Prop. 19 Party?

​UPDATED: With most current updates at the top. 10:30 p.m.: Okay, it's official. The Register is smoking some serious chronic. First they report that 60 percent of OC's conservative electorate wants to legalize weed. Now, the Reg is reporting that Republican senatorial candidate Carly Fiorina is p ... More >>

Will Anaheim Voters Put Their 'Trust in Dustin?'

​With less than two weeks away until election time, more than a dozen candidates are vying for two open seats on the Anaheim City Council. Dustin Apodaca, frontman of Dusty Rhodes and the River Band, is the only one listed as "musician" under official ballot designations. The charismatic ... More >>

Much-Awaited Appellate Decision on Medical Marijuana Dispensary Bans is a Non-Decision

​Orange County cities and medical-marijuana dispensaries had been eagerly awaiting a decision from the California 4th District Court of Appeal on the constitutionality of municipal bans on cannabis clinics.That decision is now in . . . . . . and it's pretty much a non-decision.

Pot Tax Weighed in City That Spawned the World's Cannambassador Snoop Dogg

​On the same November ballot that will have Californians decide whether to legalize marijuana, Long Beach voters will decide whether the city that spawned Snoop Dogg should tax recreational marijuana.That's right, not medical cannabis but recreational pot, the kind consumed by the pride of LBC and ... More >>

Isaac Robert Longo, the Face of Marijuana Manslaughter?

​Don't be surprised if Isaac Robert Longo becomes a poster child for the evils of driving while high by forces girding to defeat marijuana legalization in California this November.After all, the 33-year-old Placentia man smoked pot before causing a five-car pileup on the 55 freeway in November 200 ... More >>

[UPDATED:] Will OC's Pot City Roll Into Surf City?

​UPDATE: As expected, the Huntington Beach City Council voted Monday night to annex Sunset Beach (updates throughout) . . . What's apparently Orange County's marijuana capital is one step closer to being part of Huntington Beach, which takes a dim view of the devil's weed. (At least officially ... More >>

Emboldened by Appeals Court, 2 Lake Forest Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Reopen

​Despite the city's enforcement and court moves against Lake Forest Wellness Center, the medical marijuana dispensary has kept it doors open through the ongoing appeals process--and was able to celebrate at least a partial victory as the last of 21 clinics in town still in operation.Now, the dispe ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Advocate Chadd McKeen Seeks to Shake Up Costa Mesa City Council

Photo by Keith MayChadd McKeen, the man with the plan.​Chadd McKeen, the Weekly's current cover boy ("Growing Pains at Otherside Farms"), is not only working to change people's perception of medical marijuana providers through his Costa Mesa business that helps patients grow their own. He's also w ... More >>

The Medical Marijuana Telethon

Found Theatre

As Lake Forest Marijuana Dispensary Owner Gets Prison Time, Federal Suit is Filed to Guarantee Patient Access

​As a Lake Forest medical marijuana dispensary owner and manager were being convicted today of selling and possessing cannabis, a Mission Viejo law firm was announcing a federal lawsuit aimed at barring authorities from denying patients access to Costa Mesa and Lake Forest dispensaries.

Cynthia F. Bruckner and Scot A. Christensen of Fountain Valley Busted in Nebraska With 66 lbs. of Marijuana

​If a family that plays together stays together (or is it "prays together"? Whatever), what are we to make of a family that's caught holding 66 pounds of marijuana?That can be asked of Cynthia F. Bruckner, 62, and her son Scot A. Christensen, 42, who were arrested Wednesday near Lincoln, Nebraska, ... More >>

Crime Time: Boozy Mom, Asshole Cop, Thieving Aliens, Fast-Acting Pharmacist and Lotsa Stabbers

It's the Weekly's weekly round-up of local police calls--now with more boozy moms, asshole cops, fast-acting pharmacists, apartments full of thieving aliens and loads of stabbings!Courtesy of Costa Mesa Police DepartmentCraig Anthony McVay, 48, of Garden Grove, was in the midst of three years probat ... More >>

A Medical-Pot Activist Spends a Night in Jail for Talking Back to Deputies at the OC Fair

Reefer Madness

Maverick Theater

With 'Reefer Madness,' Maverick Theater Has a (Bong) Hit On Its Hands

Prince Valeant and Mary Jane

Valeant Pharmaceuticals, based out of Costa Mesa, wants to give cancer patients the munchies. The FDA has just approved Valeant's Cesamet, already on sale in Canada as Nabilone, to moderate nausea and vomiting in those undergoing chemotherapy. A Belgian company has made a similar project, Marinol ... More >>

After This, Tomatoes

In a better world, Dr. Philip A. Denney wouldnt have to dedicate his practice to pot

FOR THE BENEFIT OF MRS. ROHRABACHER

George Bushs Joint

Rebecca Schoenkopf takes on the presidents drug war

Chronic Mess

Kottonmouth Komrades

Music, marijuana and one bands battle for your civil liberties

Redemption Song

Dave Herrick's strange odyssey through the U.S. war on drugs

Criminal Prosecution

Body count grows in war on medical marijuana