Shop owner disguised 'drug trafficking' business as medical marijuana shop

Glenn Price, whose medical marijuana shop was raided by Winnipeg police, has been charged with drug trafficking.

"It was determined that the owner was operating an illegal drug trafficking business which was held out to be a medical marijuana dispensary," police said in a news release.

Several police units searched Price's shop, Your Medical Cannabis Headquarters, as well as a suite in the same Main Street building on Tuesday morning.

Police seized a kilogram of marijuana as well as drug paraphernalia from the store, and about two ounces of pot from the suite.

Price, 54, was charged with several drug-related charges before being released from custody.

He told CBC News on Wednesday that he was kept in custody for 12 hours without being offered anything to eat. He also said the police effectively put him out of business by taking everything — even the sign above his front door.

He didn't want to talk further until he had a chance to speak to his lawyer.

Meanwhile, city Coun. Ross Eadie said he wants Winnipeg to follow Vancouver's lead and consider ways to regulate marijuana dispensaries, allowing them to remain open.

"I still think it's worthwhile to set out some parameters because right now they can open up anywhere and given society's change, it's coming. I'm serious, it's coming and we need to deal with it now," he said.

Currently there are more than 100 dispensaries in Vancouver, where their city council voted just two weeks ago to regulate the businesses.

Winnipeg currently regulates where massage parlours and escort services can operate, Eadie noted, adding he is considering putting forth a motion asking the city to examine the issue around dispensaries when council reconvenes.

"I'm talking about where you can locate it what kind of signage you can use," he said.

"What we're saying is, 'let's get on top of this because more and more will start opening up.' We really need to look at the future and deal with it now."

Death threats for activist

Anti-marijuana activist Pamela McColl, who has filed complaints to police and Mayor Brian Bowman about Price's shop, said she has received death threats.

"The RCMP are now monitoring my email and phone calls," she said.

McColl, who speaks for the group Smart Approaches Marijuana Canada, said she wanted to call attention to the negative side of dispensaries and of pot.

I find that upsetting. I'm not going to be intimidated," she said. "I wish this country could just calm down and discuss this situation calmly and find a way to move forward."

Canadians and parents do not want to see marijuana promoted to their kids and storefronts are a form of advertising, said McColl, whose group wants to protect the rights of children to live in a drug-free world.

"We don't want to have drugs pushed on anyone and we're very, very cautious of claims made of benefit," she said.

"This is the problem with medical marijuana — the claims some people are making about it with no evidence in science."

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Illegal marijuana grow stole water from creek of Feather River

An illegal marijuana grow site in Butte County appears to have siphoned a nearby creek dry in order to feed a total of 4,774 plants discovered at the site.

About a quarter mile of tubing was discovered to be taking water from a feeder creek along the west branch of the Feather River to the grow site, according to Sgt. Marty Rolph with Butte County Sheriff's Department. The tubing was buried under dirt in an attempt to hide it from hikers

The department, along with U.S. Forest Services, discovered the site but they did not find any suspects nearby. The team did determine the site is related to the Coon Creek marijuana grow site that was discovered earlier this month. There, one suspect was taken into custody and a total of 9,251 marijuana plants were seized.

The site discovered this week was grown within manzanita bushes to avoid detection by the sheriff’s helicopter, but the department said its water supply appeared to be dwindling and efforts by growers to make water reservoirs proved fruitless. During the department’s raid, they said almost no water was left in the feeder creek.

Near the site, the department discovered two camps with several hundred pounds of trash, pesticide, herbicide and miscellaneous items. The department said a clean up of the area is scheduled for later this year to return the site to its natural state.

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NY's medical pot distributors reflect industry's evolution

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - America's medical marijuana industry has come a long way from its beginnings 20 years ago.

Entrepreneurs, physicians and well-heeled investors are now getting into the business as New York works toward becoming the latest state to authorize cannabis for conditions like cancer, epilepsy and AIDS.

State health officials on Friday announced five companies that will grow and dispense the medication when the program begins next year. They include three organizations with experience in other states.

Each one will operate one greenhouse facility and four dispensaries located throughout the state.

The marijuana itself will be required to be in non-smokable form, such as oils that can be ingested or vaporized.

State officials say the goal is a system that prevents abuse while giving patients the most modern medical marijuana treatments.

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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UBC revamps medical school curriculum; doesn’t include marijuana

UBC’s medical school is rolling out a new curriculum next month, but it won’t include more training on medical marijuana.

Three hours of class time is currently dedicated to the controversial medicine, even though doctors have now become the gatekeepers of the drug.

The Assistant Dean of Curriculum for the medical undergraduate program, Adam Peet, says there are few rigorous studies to guide even experienced physicians, much less medical students.

He was asked if education could be expanded one day.

“It really depends on how the whole issue of medical marijuana unfolds; you know I think it’s really important to state that we are not so much about teaching content, as we are about teaching process. Medicine in any area within science is expanding at such a fantastic rate that it is impossible for everyone to stay up on everything all of the time.”

He adds “I don’t think the system is necessarily broken. There is always going to be new technologies and new controversies coming down the pipeline, and so it comes back to making sure our students are prepared to deal with them, rather than knowing how to manage each particular situation.”

UBC researcher, Dr. MJ Milloy, says normally science comes before regulation, but not in this case.

He is studying the role between marijuana and HIV/AIDS.

“The scientific evidence we need to determine if something is beneficial or not, when it comes to marijuana, we still have a long way to go. We have preliminary data that it might have a beneficial effect on HIV infection. What we are hoping to do is run a clinical trial that will last one or two years at least to figure out if what we have seen in our preliminary work in fact occurs in these proper clinical trials.”

He adds “It will take years for us to come up with adequate scientific knowledge to guide doctors and patients.”

Health Canada refuses to approve marijuana as a drug or medicine.

It’s been forced to regulate cannabis by the courts.

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Lawmakers Call For Investigation Into DOJ's Continued Crackdown On Medical Marijuana

Two congressmen behind a federal provision protecting state-legal medical marijuana operations are seeking an investigation into the Department of Justice's continued crackdown on medical marijuana patients and providers, saying the DOJ may be in violation of federal law.

"We request that you immediately investigate the Department's expenditure of funds to continue prosecuting these cases, which we believe are in direct violation of the prohibition on such expenditures established by Rohrabacher-Farr," reads the letter, addressed to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz from Reps. Sam Farr (D-Calif.) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.). 

Rohrabacher and Farr's amendment, which blocks the Justice Department from using funds to undermine state-legal medical marijuana programs, found support in Congress and ultimately made it into the final federal spending bill signed into law by President Barack Obama in December. As the marijuana provision is part of an annual funding bill that will expire, the lawmakers introduced an identical version again in June, which was reauthorized by the House of Representatives. 

Despite last year's provision becoming law, "the Department has continued to pursue and prosecute individuals and businesses for involvement with medical marijuana in states where it is legal despite the clear direction in the law to forswear such activities," the lawmakers wrote Thursday.

DOJ spokesman Patrick Rodenbush laid out the department's justification for doing so earlier this year, telling the Los Angeles Times that the marijuana protections only stop the department from "impeding the ability of states to carry out their medical marijuana laws," and that the DOJ didn't "expect that the amendment will impact our ability to prosecute private individuals or private entities who are violating the Controlled Substances Act.” 

But in Thursday's letter, the congressmen blast Rodenbush's position on the matter.

"Mr. Rodenbush's interpretation is clearly a stretch," the letter reads. "The implementation of state law is carried out by individuals and businesses as the state authorizes them to do. For DOJ to argue otherwise is a tortuous twisting of the text ... and common sense."

Any DOJ official who interprets their provision differently is "doing so knowingly and willfully, without regard for the facts," the congressmen argue, adding that the continued use of federal funds to prevent individuals or businesses who are compliant with their state laws is "clearly a violation" of their provision.

Although the DOJ has slowed its crackdown on medical marijuana recently, it continues to target some dispensaries and patients. 

Earlier this year, Farr and Rohrabacher, along with Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), wrote a letter publicly condemning the DOJ for trying to shutter the Oakland, California-based Harborside Health Center -- widely considered to be the largest and one of the most well-respected medical marijuana dispensaries in the nation.

In Washington state last year, the DOJ went after a family of medical marijuana patients who have maintained they were growing more than 70 medical marijuana plants for their own personal medical use near their rural home in Kettle Falls.

Citing these and other cases in their letter, Rohrabacher and Farr argue the DOJ has overstepped its bounds "spending dollars it does not have the legal authority to spend."

A spokesman for the DOJ inspector general's office acknowledged that the letter was received and said that the office will respond to the congressmen after reviewing it. DOJ spokesman Rodenbush declined a Huffington Post request for comment. 

To date, 23 states have legalized marijuana for medical purposes, and an additional 17 have legalized limited medical use of nonpsychoactive cannabis extracts, which are often used to treat children with severe epilepsy. Four states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana. 

Under the Obama administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration and several U.S. attorneys have raided marijuana dispensaries and sent people to prison, even though they complied with state laws. According to a 2013 report released by advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, the Obama administration has spent nearly $80 million each year -- more than $200,000 per day -- cracking down on medical marijuana.

Meanwhile, the American public overwhelmingly support the use of medical marijuana: A 2014 CBS News poll found 86 percent of Americans believe doctors should be able to prescribe marijuana to their patients.

Despite the public's support and congressional amendment's protections, the federal government continues to classify the plant among the most "dangerous" substances, alongside heroin and LSD, with "no currently accepted medical use."

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