California Marijuana Dispensary Worker Gets 3 Years In Prison

Photo: Michael Fagans/Bakersfield.com

Israel Cavazos, manager of Nature’s Medicinal Co-Op in Bakersfield, California, measures bags of marijuana for a patient one day after the dispensary was raided again in 2009. Cavazos has been sentenced to 42 months in federal prison, and his co-worker Jonathan Chapman on Monday got 37 months.

​A medical marijuana dispensary employee in Bakersfield, California has been sentenced to more than three years in federal prison for “conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute marijuana.”

Jonathan Michael Chapman, 32, of Bakersfield, was sentenced to 37 months in prison, reports TurnTo23.com. The barbaric sentence was handed down Monday by U.S. District Judge Anthony W. Ishii and announced by U.S. Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner.

Chapman admitted that between 2005 and July 2007, he worked at Nature’s Medicinal Co-op, a Bakersfield business engaged in distributing marijuana. In 2007, federal agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) seized what they claimed was more than 85 kilograms (187 pounds) of marijuana from the dispensary.

Photo: Felix Adamo/Bakersfield.com

Medical marijuana patient Rex Palmer showed up at Nature’s Medicinal Co-Op but couldn’t get his medicine because of the raid.

​Prosecutors claim Nature’s Medicinal Co-Op logged $9.6 million in sales from January 2006 to September 2006, reports The Associated Press.

Five other Bakersfield defendants have already been sentenced after pleading guilty:

• Timothy Glenn Doolittle, 42, was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison and five years of supervised release

• Jennifer Diane Brown, 37, was sentenced to one year in prison and three years of supervised release

• John Shanks, 62, was sentenced to 20 months in prison and three years of supervised release

• Israel Cavazos, 38, was sentenced to 42 months in prison and three years of supervised release; and

• John Wayne Wyatt, 31, was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison and three years of supervised release.

Two other defendants are still awaiting trial. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen A. Servatius is prosecuting the case.

The case comes as the result of a witch-hunt, I mean investigation, by the DEA, the Internal Revenue Service, the Kern County Sheriff’s Department, the Bakersfield Police Department, and the Southern Tri-County High Intensity Drug Task Force, all of which spent thousands of taxpayer dollars to lock up citizens for helping sick people.

- http://www.tokeofthetown.com

Not Much Competition Yet in D.C. Medical Marijuana Program

Photo used under a Creative Commons license with Torben Bjørn Hansen.

Those jumping into the medical marijuana business in the District include both individuals and organizations, seasoned professionals and budding entrepreneurs. But so far, there aren’t that many of them.

To date, nine letters of intent for medical marijuana dispensaries have been submitted to the D.C. Department of Health, while 11 letters have been submitted for cultivation centers – nine by individuals or groups that are also looking to run a dispensary.

The letters of intent – copies of which were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request – are the first step in gaining a license to run one of the five dispensaries and 10 cultivation centers that will grow and distribute medical marijuana to qualifying patients in the District. The letters will be followed by a lengthy and expensive application process overseen by a seven-member committee that will consider everything from security plans to ANC input before granting licenses.

The letters don’t give away much, but they provide some insight into who’s looking to get into the business of growing or dispensing medical marijuana. One potential applicant for both dispensary and cultivation center licenses touts his Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences, his “green thumb” and a hobby in landscaping and design; another notes that she’s part of a minority, women-owned business operated by lifelong residents.

One group looking to run a cultivation center promotes their professional capabilities – they’ve got a “professional grower…with vast experience in all aspects related to the production and operation of a horticultural facility” on staff, not to mention an Advisory Board that includes a former police lieutenant; while another is a “well capitalized” investor that has run two cultivation centers in San Diego.

There’s a few recognizable names, including Montgomery Blair Sibley (who we interviewed last November); Adam Eidinger, the owner of the Capitol Hemp shops; and Stephenie Reifkind Khan, wife of Rabbi Jeffrey Khan, who was profiled by the City Paper last year. The names of the LLCs and organizations run the gamut from innocent to devious – there’s Hope Haven and Metropolitan Wellness Center, but also District of Cannabis Cultivation Center and Jahrock.

Only a few tease out the locations they’ve scoped out for their dispensaries and cultivation centers, which have to be at least 300 feet away from schools and youth centers. Two cultivation centers would be in Northeast, one north of Bladensburg Road, the other to the south. (Sibley has been eying a location along New York Avenue NE.) One dispensary could be along Pennsylvania Avenue SE within a block of Eastern Market, another somewhere in Ward 2. (We’ve also heard of groups scoping out spots in Adams Morgan, Takoma and Tenleytown.)

While interested parties have until June 17 to submit letters of intent to the Department of Health, the small number that have been handed in so far might well be a function of a program that will be restrictive, expensive and carefully monitored. Application costs for cultivation centers and dispensaries run $5,000 a pop, while annual fees stand at $5,000 for cultivation centers and $10,000 for dispensaries. Renewals will cost $3,000, and a rejected application will cost an applicant a full 50 percent of their application fee. Each cultivation center will only be allowed to grow 95 plants at a time, meaning that profit margins could well be very, very thin – if they exist at all.

City officials say that they’d like to have the medical marijuana program fully functioning by October, but some advocates say that it won’t likely happen until 2012.

http://dcist.com/2011/05/theyre_both_individuals_and_organiz.php

North Alabama infant tests positive for marijuana; mom charged

FLORENCE, Ala. (AP) – Florence police say a woman was arrested after her newborn baby tested positive for having marijuana in her system.

Police say 35-year-old Jennifer Lynn Sopanos of Florence, is charged with chemical endangerment of a child.

Sopanos’ baby boy was born March 16 at Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital. Police say he tested positive for THC, the main active chemical in marijuana. Ppolice detective Keith Johnson said Sopanos also tested positive for THC.

Johnson says Sopanos has denied using marijuana during her pregnancy and claims the positive test is a result of second-hand marijuana smoke.

Who Are Potheads?

This is a question that most people think they know the answer too.

If you ask my grandpa he will say, “Potheads are those guys that hang out in front of the grocery store bumming cigarettes of everyone that walks by”
If you ask a middle aged school teacher they might say “Potheads are the delinquent students that hang out by the back of the school and always come late to class”
Pretty much if you ask anyone that only knows about marijuana from what they leaned in health class, ignorant religious people or any government sponsored commercial, there answer will almost always be something negative.
Potheads are a sub culture and the “sub” in sub culture is slowly fading away because our numbers are growing or because our numbers have always been big but just recently allot of people started coming out of the so called “grow closet”.
Ether way we are a culture and like all cultures we have our delinquents and people that make the rest of us look bad and that is the extent of it, nothing more.

Now my goal isn’t to tell you in detail about who we AREN’T, I’m here to tell you who we ARE.

We are your neighbors and friends.

We are your mail men and your bus drivers.

We have Christmas dinner with our family’s.

We give and receive love.

We are Kindergarten teachers and computer technicians

We go to PTA meetings and play chess at the park.

We are black,white,brown and speak every language on earth.

We care about others and can have our feelings hurt.

We like classical,country,punk,,oldies and any other kind of music.

We are the people that helped you change a flat tire on the freeway.

We are your doctors and nurses.

We are college teachers and college students

We are rich.

We are poor.

WE ARE NORMAL.

No matter who you are or were you live, you already know us, care about us and are involved in our lives, you just didn’t know we were potheads because we don’t fit your ignorant stereo type.
Stay blind if you want but your only making the ones you care about keep a needless secret, and if you are reading this shaking your head in disgust, stop for a Minuit and ask your self why is it so bad and then question your source of information.

http://www.howtogrowbud.com/2010/01/who-are-potheads/#axzz1JFIyWbwO