cannabisnews.com: Prop. 215 Pioneer Looking To Set Up Shop in Eureka





Prop. 215 Pioneer Looking To Set Up Shop in Eureka
Posted by CN Staff on August 27, 2006 at 06:50:45 PT
By Chris Durant, The Times-Standard
Source: Times-Standard 
California -- Since medical marijuana was passed by California voters over a decade ago, David Kasakove has been at the forefront of efforts to regulate and organize medicinal cannabis dispensaries. ”I've been through a battle with a DA who didn't like me,” Kasakove said. “I've beaten federal and state charges.” Kasakove, who lives in Eureka, is beginning a process that may end with a medical marijuana dispensary in Eureka.
He first became involved with medical marijuana as the owner of a hemp store in Chico, which he opened in 1995. ”Jerry Garcia died and I needed a job,” Kasakove said. “I didn't want to work for Mobile or Exxon or take a job at Jack-in-the-Box.” So after Proposition 215 passed his hemp customers began asking him when he was going to start selling medical marijuana. ”I was at the post office and the postal clerk asked when I was going to start selling pot,” Kasakove said. In 1996, he started providing medical marijuana for patients in Chico, but the next year he was raided. He said the Butte County district attorney called federal authorities on him and a lengthy court battle began. He was charged in 1998 and arrested in 1999. Eventually he beat the charges and moved to Eureka in 2000. Why Humboldt? ”This county is more liberal and more open to (medical marijuana),” Kasakove said. Since its inception, Prop. 215 has had a cloud of confusion around just what's allowed and what's not. ”It varies from county to county,” Kasakove said. Kasakove has been in contact with city officials, like the city attorney and city manager, about what it will take to open a dispensary in Eureka, modeled after the Oakland, or “Oaksterdam,” coffee shop/dispensaries. ”I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel,” Kasakove said. “I'll go with what works.” There's no time frame on when the dispensary may open. ”There's no rush. I'm going to jump through all the hoops,” Kasakove said. The idea to open a dispensary came out of the 2006 National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws April conference in San Francisco. ”I had three or four lawyers tell me go for it,” Kasakove said. He said he would run a tight ship, too, like pushing for his patients to get a state 215 card from the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services and keeping track of what medicine is going to what patient and how much, so that it doesn't end up on the black market. ”If someone were to sell the medicine they got from me on the black market, I'd kick them out,” Kasakove said. He's also aware of how some use 215 as a loophole to sell marijuana illegally. ”If you come into a house and there's scales and baggies already weighed out, that's not 215,” Kasakove said. Kasakove said his past legal bouts won't discourage him from pursuing a Eureka dispensary. ”The establishment doesn't scare me,” he said. Source: Times-Standard (Eureka, CA)Author: Chris Durant, The Times-Standard Published: August 27, 2006Copyright: 2006 MediaNews Group, Inc.Contact: editor times-standard.comContact: cdurant times-standard.com Website: http://www.times-standard.com/NORMLhttp://www.norml.org/CannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
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Comment #5 posted by afterburner on August 27, 2006 at 13:33:31 PT
#1 & 2 and more
For the children?:CN AB: Drug Raid Ruling Upheld, Calgary Herald, (25 Aug 2006) http://www.mapinc.org/newstcl/v06/n1125/a06.html?176DEA, oh, yeah, we really trust them, NOT!Hooray! Weeds is coming back to Canada, this week!:CN ON: TV Show Review: Puff Piece, Eye Magazine, (24 Aug 2006) http://www.mapinc.org/newstcl/v06/n1129/a03.html?176Hemp for Victory! Do we really want to depend on still communist China for our hemp supply?:CN ON: Hopes Still High For Hemp, London Free Press, (26 Aug 2006)
http://www.mapinc.org/newstcl/v06/n1128/a05.html?176Russell Barth, MMAR exemptee:CN BC: PUB LTE: A 'Bong' Show, Aldergrove Star, (24 Aug 2006) 
http://www.mapinc.org/newstcl/v06/n1128/a07.html?176
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Comment #4 posted by FoM on August 27, 2006 at 13:27:15 PT
Firm Helps Get Marijuana-Based Drug Into Trials
By Michelle MironSunday, August 27, 2006 
A cannabis-derived painkiller will undergo Phase III clinical trials in the United States beginning later this year, partly because of help from Kalamazoo life-sciences consulting firm Apjohn Group LLC. The prescription drug, Sativex, was approved in January by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the Phase III trials, which represent the last stage of clinical research required before a company can apply for license to market. The oral analgesic spray is produced by British technology firm GW Pharmaceuticals and is already being marketed in Canada by Bayer Healthcare AG. Snipped:URL: http://www.mlive.com/business/kzgazette/index.ssf?/base/business-3/1156652675255420.xml&coll=7
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on August 27, 2006 at 09:48:17 PT
Thanks Global_Warming
Both articles are posted now.
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Comment #2 posted by global_warming on August 27, 2006 at 09:21:11 PT
Denver DEA rep: Don't legalize it
Agent seeks support to fight proposed legislationBy Ryan Morgan, Camera Staff Writer
August 27, 2006The Drug Enforcement Agency is stepping into the political fray to oppose a statewide ballot issue that would legalize possession of small amounts of marijuana.In an e-mail to political campaign professionals, an agent named Michael Moore asks for help finding a campaign manager to defeat the measure, which voters will consider in November. If passed, it would allow people 21 and older to have up to 1 ounce of marijuana.	
In the e-mail, which was sent from a U.S. Department of Justice account, Moore also writes that the group has $10,000 to launch the campaign. He asks those interested in helping to call him at his DEA office.That has members of Safer Colorado, the group supporting the marijuana legalization measure, crying foul. The government has no business spending the public's money on politics, they said.Steve Fox, the group's executive director, said members of the executive branch, including the DEA, should leave law-making to legislators."Taxpayer money should not be going toward the executive branch advocating one side or another," Fox said. "It's a wholly inappropriate use of taxpayer money."Jeff Sweetin, the special agent in charge of the Denver office of the DEA, said voters have every right to change the laws. And the law allows his agency to get involved in that process to tell voters why they shouldn't decriminalize pot."My mantra has been, 'If Americans use the democratic process to make change, we're in favor of that,'" he said. "We're in favor of the democratic process. But as a caveat, we're in favor of it working based on all the facts."Sweetin said the $10,000 the committee has to spend came from private donations, including some from agents' own accounts. He said the DEA isn't trying to "protect Coloradans from themselves" but that the agency is the expert when it comes to drugs."The American taxpayer does have a right to have the people they've paid to become experts in this business tell them what this is going to do," he said. "They should benefit from this expertise."That argument threatens states' rights to make their own laws, says Safer's Fox."By this logic, federal funds could be used by the executive branch without limitation to campaign for or against state ballot initiatives," he said. "Our federalist system is based on the notion that states can establish their own laws without federal interference. The DEA ... is thumbing its nose at the citizens of Colorado and the U.S. Constitution."State and federal law take different approaches to whether government employees should be allowed to mix work and politics.Colorado law prohibits state employees from advocating for or against any political issue while on the job, and also bars those employees from using government resources — including phone and e-mail accounts — for any kind of political advocacy.But federal law — which governs what DEA agents can do — is different.The Hatch Act, passed in 1939 and amended in 1993, governs most political speech. Passed in the wake of patronage scandals in which the party in power would use government money and staff to campaign against the opposition, the law is mostly aimed at partisan political activity, said Ken Bickers, a University of Colorado political science professor.While the act's prohibitions against on-the-job partisan politicking are strict, for the most part it allows federal employees to take part in non-partisan politics. And it's mostly silent on non-partisan ballot measures."I'm not sure that this doesn't slide through the cracks in the Hatch Act," Bickers said. "The Hatch Act isn't about political activity — it's about partisan political activity. Since this is a ballot initiative, and there's no party affiliation attached to it, that part of the Hatch Act probably wouldn't be violated."An official from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the federal agency charged with investigating violations of the act, said in a statement last week that the DEA hasn't run afoul of Hatch.Contact Camera Staff Writer Ryan Morgan at (303) 473-1333 or morganr dailycamera.com.http://tinyurl.com/rej87
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Comment #1 posted by global_warming on August 27, 2006 at 09:16:09 PT
cindy rodriguez | columnist Denver Post
This gals column reads like on odcpee brochure..Legalizing pot would hurt kids, and here's why...Tvert is right when he says that alcohol abuse is damaging. More people die of alcohol- and nicotine-related illnesses than any other diseases. It also can make people unruly and aggressive. But that's no argument for legalizing marijuana.Not when the minds of kids are at stake. http://tinyurl.com/ro8vhI think what cindy misses is the point, the law (Amendment 44) is for adults not children, children should not be drinking, smoking or having sex, until they are old enough to make responsible choices.
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