Marin Alliance For Medical Marijuana, California's Oldest Dispensary, Faces Foreclosure

This article comes to us courtesy of SF Weekly's The Snitch.

By Chris Roberts

The choice offered by the Justice Department was clear: Select California medical cannabis dispensaries needed to close up shop or have their properties seized and operators thrown in prison.

This was the ultimatum issued in September by United States Attorney for Northern California Melinda Haag to the landlords of five Bay Area dispensaries. In response, three dispensaries in San Francisco closed, and one in Oakland relocated.

The landlord of the fifth, Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, did what he could do as prescribed under California law: He began eviction proceedings against the dispensary, the state's oldest.

But that was not enough for Haag, whose office on Friday began forfeiture proceedings against the 600-square-foot Fairfax storefront, attorneys said Tuesday, even as eviction hearings were scheduled for this week.

"The landlord has complied [with the letter] and begun eviction proceedings -- this is just intimidation to go through with the forfeiture," dispensary operator Lynette Shaw said.

Shaw did not identify exactly who owns the property at 6 School Street Plaza, targeted by Haag because of its proximity to Bolinas Park.

Fairfax-based attorney Robert Weems, representing the landlord in court, did not return a telephone call seeking comment. And Jack Gillund, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

The forfeiture proceedings are believed to be the first in California since the four U.S. Attorneys announced a statewide crackdown on the medical marijuana industry on Oct. 7, according to San Francisco attorney Matt Kumin, who is representing Shaw in a lawsuit filed against Haag. The lawsuit seeks a restraining order on the Justice Department's closing of dispensaries, and argues that the federal government gave the okay to medical cannabis in California in a 2010 settlement of a lawsuit brought by a Santa Cruz collective.

Marin Alliance is California's oldest continuously operating dispensary, located in Fairfax since 1996. Shaw, a medical cannabis patient who is not accused of breaking any state or local laws, is drawing sympathy in the town, where the council and mayor passed a resolution in support of her dispensary.

"The whole town [of Fairfax] is up in arms," said attorney Greg Anton, Shaw's longtime attorney.

In the past, federal officials have said that only dispensaries breaking local law would be targeted for enforcement.

"For them to choose her to make an example of really goes against all they've said they're trying to do," Anton said. "It's like saying, 'We don't want to hurt the people in the house, but we'll burn the house down.'"

For more San Francisco politics and beyond, follow The Snitch on Twitter.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/23/marin-alliance-for-medical-marijuana_n_1111071.html

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Economics and Investing: - SurvivalBlog.com

This page contains a single entry by James Wesley, Rawles published on November 22, 2011 10:48 PM.

Odds 'n Sods: was the previous entry in this blog.

Letter Re: Urban Evacuation--When The Plan is No Plan At All is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Source: http://www.survivalblog.com/2011/11/economics_and_investing_999.html

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Baggy Rack Means The End of Spilt Salsa [Genius]

These magical green arms are your ticket to never spilling your delicious sauces again. Hug my sauce bags Baggy Rack, hug 'em good. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/JXcB-Xy0jaU/baggy-rack-means-the-end-of-spilt-salsa

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Oil price up on Mideast strife, Europe debt plan (AP)

NEW YORK ? Oil prices rose Tuesday on concerns that Middle East strife could disrupt supplies and on hopes that Europe's debt crisis wouldn't lead to worldwide financial gridlock.

West Texas Intermediate crude, the benchmark used to price oil in much of the U.S., rose $1.09 to end at $98.01 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, which is used to price oil produced in many foreign countries, rose $1.99 to finish at $108.65 a barrel in London.

Oil prices rose on worries that new international sanctions on Iran would reduce the flow of oil from the world's fourth biggest oil producer. Also large, violent protests in Egypt stirred fears that upheaval in the region could spread and disrupt supplies. Egypt is not a major oil producer, but it does control important energy supply lines and wields considerable influence in the region.

The worst fears about Europe's debt crisis ? that it could lead to a lending crisis and financial gridlock around the world ? were allayed somewhat Tuesday by the announcement of an International Monetary Fund plan designed to help prevent the debt crisis in Europe from spreading. The IMF plan would provide quick cash on flexible terms to countries facing sudden financial stress.

Concerns remain that Europe's debt crisis is pushing the region toward recession, which would slow industrial activity in Europe and in countries around the world that export to Europe.

In the U.S., the Commerce Department said the economy grew more slowly over the summer than the government had earlier estimated. That picture of a sluggish economy helped drive the stock market mostly lower Tuesday.

When the global economy slows, demand for crude oil and refined products like diesel and gasoline falls because fewer goods are produced and shipped, and people travel less. Even with Tuesday's gain, oil is down 5 percent since last Wednesday, when it spiked to $102.59 per barrel.

"The market is concerned on the one hand about the rate of economic growth," said Andrew Lipow, an independent oil analyst based in Houston. "On the other hand issues in the Middle East are continuing."

There was some encouraging economic news in the U.S., however, that helped push oil higher Tuesday. The government reported that inventories of goods fell over the summer. That raised hopes that the economy could grow faster than expected in the current quarter, if factories crank up to restock shelves.

And mild weather forecast for much of the U.S. over the Thanksgiving weekend is expected to motivate drivers to hit the road to visit families and shop. The price of gasoline futures rose nearly 3 percent, to finish at $2.5618 a gallon in New York, a gain of 7.28 cents.

At the pump, retail gasoline fell almost a penny to a national average of $3.34 per gallon on Tuesday, according to AAA, Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express. In coming days the higher price of wholesale gasoline could push up pump prices.

Gasoline demand has been falling in the U.S. for the past several months. It began to drop sharply as prices rose above $4 per gallon in many states last winter and spring. Current pump prices, while still high, are 16 percent below the peak national average of $3.98 per gallon reached on May 5.

In other energy trading in New York on Tuesday, natural gas rose 2 cents to finish at $3.4150 per 1,000 cubic feet, and heating oil rose 4 cents to end the day at $3.0346 a gallon.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111122/ap_on_bi_ge/us_oil_prices

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Australia lifts oil spill fines to $11 million (AP)

CANBERRA, Australia ? Australia has increased maximum fines for ships that spill oil from $1 million to $11 million (US $11 million) in response to a Chinese coal carrier grounding on the Great Barrier Reef.

Parliament passed new laws late Monday for the discharge of oil or oil residue by ships in Australian waters. Shipping companies will also have to contribute to cleanup costs.

The change follows last year's grounding on the world's largest chain of coral reefs by the Shen Neng 1, which spilled nearly 3 tons of fuel oil. The ship's officers were fined about $50,000.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111122/ap_on_bi_ge/as_australia_oil_spills

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The Galaxy Nexus Outperforms the iPhone 4S [Android]

Like we weren't excited about the Galaxy Nexus enough already. The crew at AnandTech has been busily benchmarking Android's new flagship against Apple's top performer. The results? The Galaxy Nexus is the new king of the hill in some key areas. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/J1POacxLImo/the-galaxy-nexus-outperforms-the-iphone-4s

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Stopgap Budget Bill Shows Compromise, but Misguided Congressional Priorities (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | The gap between Republicans and Democrats isn't impassable after all. Early on Thursday the House of Representatives voted 298-121 to approve $130.4 billion in federal spending cuts, before the bill passed 70-30 in the Senate. After easily passing through Congress, President Barack Obama signed the bill into law, giving a 2012 budget for five Cabinet-level agencies, along with numerous state and local agencies and NASA. The budget is the first step towards creating a leaner government, but will only reduce federal spending by about 0.5 percent ($700 million), according to a Washington Post report.

The bill beat a Friday deadline to make progress on the United States' budget conundrum and gives lawmakers until Dec.16 to find more spending cuts or have a government shutdown further blacken Congress' name in the court of public opinion. However, the programs that will lose funding as a result of this new budget may make the tarnishing of our nation's lawmakers inevitable.

While food aid programs like food stamps and school lunch received a budget increase, many of the approved cuts will severely defund and outright end many public programs, according to a report done by Federal Times. The bill contained provisions to cut $819 million of funding for the maintenance and operation of low-income housing complexes; and remove $296 million from the Justice Department's Community Oriented Police Service program to free up more funds for the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the Bureau of Prisons.

The bill also contained measures to slash millions of funding earmarked for a program that provided incentives for farmers to not allow pollution to runoff from their lands into water supplies. It will also take millions from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is charged with overseeing and regulating the $3 trillion derivatives market and the practice of the complex financial transactions called, "swaps," which were partially to blame for the 2008 global financial crisis.

Congressional priorities seem to be with keeping law enforcement agencies, afloat, allowing more deregulation of the financial sector, allowing environmental pollution, and maintaining prisons instead of housing projects. Lawmakers blamed the harsh cuts on a "challenging budget environment;" a day after President Obama announced plans to station 2,500 U.S. Marines in Australia and allocate funds to ensure the United States remained a "Pacific power."

Thursday's stopgap budget bill averted a partial government shutdown, and put the onus on the 12 member congressional "supercommittee" to strike a deal to avoid activating the $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts outlined in August's debt-ceiling compromise. But it also reveals what Congress' true concerns are, now that U.S. lawmakers can no longer afford to show their voters that they're concerned with everything.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111119/us_ac/10477039_stopgap_budget_bill_shows_compromise_but_misguided_congressional_priorities

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