Dispensaries

Cash-strapped Los Angeles voted on Tuesday to impose a five percent tax on medical marijuana dispensaries, a measure that will raise $10 million a year.

In Tuesday's election, voters approved the Measure M, under which the city can collect $50 out of each $1,000 that the dispensaries raise by selling medical marijuana.

Ann Arbor medical marijuana entrepreneur T.J. Rice is being charged with two felony drug counts on suspicion of operating a downtown marijuana dispensary in violation of state law.

"We have two felony warrants for him, and he's not been arrested yet," Det. Chris Fitzpatrick of the Ann Arbor Police Department said today.

Fitzpatrick said the Washtenaw County Prosecutor's Office has decided to pursue charges against Rice based on an investigation by the city police department.

The charges stem from a March 14, 2010, incident in which city police investigated a complaint about Rice's dispensary and confiscated numerous marijuana plants.

Rice is being charged with one count of delivery or manufacture of a controlled substance, a four-year felony, and one count of possession with intent to deliver, also a four-year felony.

Additionally, Rice remains under investigation by the Livingston and Washtenaw Narcotics Enforcement Team, also known as LAWNET, police confirmed. A representative of LAWNET declined to comment, saying it doesn't comment on pending investigations.

Rice recently was featured in an AnnArbor.com article in which he talked about his dispensary being raided by city police last March. Authorities offered no clear reason at the time why Rice was not charged with a crime, even though his marijuana was seized and never returned.

Fitzpatrick explained why it took nearly a full year to bring charges against Rice.

"I think the department wanted to take a wait-and-see attitude with the current political state," he said, noting the law around medical marijuana dispensaries remains hazy. "The city and the state are still sorting out the law, so that was the reason. It was a wait-and-see."

(Source) (Photo Source)

Cuttino Mobley has been retired from pro basketball since 2008. 3 years later seems like the perfect time to start a new business venture. Cuttino’s business of choice, medicinal marijuana.

In January of this year, Mobley was listed in documents filed with the Rhode Island Department of Health as “the sole financier for the Summit Medical Compassion Center,” a proposed medical marijuana dispensary to be located in Warwick, Rhode Island.”

Cat went to school at Rhode Island so I’m assuming that’s why he selected that state for the location. Well that and it’s one of the view that allow medical weed stores. But it won’t be as easy as it sounds for him to set up shop. First he actually has to obtain a license. From there, Rhode Island state law allows its Department of Health to authorize between one and three dispensaries. 18 license applications have already been filed.But how many of them come attached to an ex NBA star?

At least he’s trying to make his $green grow… yeah, yeah pun intended!

(Source)

If all goes as planned, the Rhode Island Department of Health will announce Tuesday who has been selected to open dispensaries that will legally sell marijuana to patients who have been certified by doctors as needing the drug to help cope with debilitating pain or disease.

But even if the groups proposing dispensaries go on a fast track to build facilities and start growing product, Rhode Island will not be the first state in New England to open such businesses.

By the end of this month, one state-regulated dispensary will open in Frenchville, Maine, on the Canadian border, according to John Thiele, program manager for Maine’s Medical Use of Marijuana Program. It will be the first on the East Coast.

Two more dispensaries are expected to open, one in Biddeford and another in Ellsworth, by the end of April. A fourth, located in a shopping plaza in Auburn, plans to open in May, run by a couple, Tim and Jenna Smale.

Both Rhode Island and Maine have allowed medicinal marijuana for several years — since 1999 in Maine, and beginning in 2006 in Rhode Island. The programs were started in both states to help people who claimed to get little relief from prescription drugs to cope with pain, wasting syndrome and agitation caused by a host of conditions, including cancer, HIV and Alzheimer’s disease. According to the administrators of the respective programs, it’s not elderly cancer or AIDS patients who most often register to legally use marijuana, but those with “other” chronic conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and degenerative bone disease.

Like Rhode Island, Maine has central control over medicinal marijuana dispensaries and over their monitoring. But in Maine, there has been considerable opposition to the creation of the dispensaries and concerns over their potential effect on public safety.

In Rhode Island, where one to three dispensaries have been authorized, the opposition has been relatively muted. Cranston Mayor Alan Fung, a former state prosecutor, was one of just a few people who testified against the dispensaries at a recent Department of Health hearing on the applications by the 18 entities that want dispensary licenses.

(Read more)

The Los Angeles City Clerk released a list of 228 medical marijuana collectives Wednesday that have applied to participate in a lottery to select 100 dispensaries to operate in the city.

The clerk’s office is still reviewing the information on the eight-page form and the supporting documents to ensure that the applicants meet the requirements in the city’s ordinance to qualify for the drawing. Among them, dispensaries must have paperwork that proves they were in business on Sept. 14, 2007, and have at least one of the original operators.

“This is likely to take us a while,” said Holly L. Wolcott, the clerk’s executive officer, noting the office’s limited staff and the complicated requirements in the ordinance. “I have no prediction as to when we will complete this process, but we are working diligently to review each packet.”

The lottery is the latest strategy devised by the City Council on the advice of the city attorney’s office to decide which dispensaries will be allowed to operate legally and to make it easier for the city’s lawyers and police to shut down hundreds of other dispensaries.

The clerk’s office originally said it received 229 applicants. Wolcott said it is unclear whether one applicant met the Feb. 18 deadline, and the office is investigating the circumstances.

When the city adopted a moratorium on new dispensaries, it required dispensaries that were in business when the ban went into effect on Sept. 14, 2007, to register, and 182 did. The City Council chose that same date to use as a cutoff for the lottery.

City officials believe that only about 135 registered dispensaries are still open. But medical marijuana advocates have said many more dispensaries were in business in the city at the time but failed to register, which could explain the number of applications.

(Source)