California Judge Rules Medical Marijuana Not An Agricultural Product

By Steve Elliott of Toke of the Town

Yes, marijuana is a plant you grow from the ground. No, it’s not an agricultural crop. Confused yet?

In what is believed to be the first ruling of its kind in the state, a judge in California has ruled that a marijuana collective can’t operate on land zoned for agriculture, reports Lewis Griswold of the Fresno Bee.

In his ruling last week, Tulare County Superior Court Judge Paul Vortmann dismissed a property owner’s argument that a medical marijuana collective’s cultivation of marijuana is legal because it is in an agricultural zone.

“In this state, marijuana has never been classified as a crop or horticultural product,” Judge Vortmann wrote in his ruling. Marijuana is a controlled substance, the judge said.

“The court finds as a matter of law that growing marijuana … is not an agricultural use of property,” the judge wrote.

It’s the first time a court has addressed whether medical marijuana might be an agricultural crop, according to Tulare County Counsel Kathleen Bales-Lange, whose office sued a property owner and collective on behalf of the Board of Supervisors.

Marijuana plants are “agricultural in nature” because they grow like any other crop, according to lawyer Brandon Ormonde of Tulare, who represented the property owner. He acknowledged that medical marijuana has never been legally acknowledged as an “agricultural plant.”

“If it’s not a crop, I don’t know what it is,” said Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML, reports the Associated Press.

The case involved the Foothill Growers Association medical marijuana collective, which rented a building south of Ivanhoe in an agricultural zone. The collective grew plants inside the building and operated a dispensary.

Tulare County sued the collective and the property owner last year, arguing that marijuana dispensaries are only allowed in specified commercial and manufacturing zones.

The group has until Friday to stop using the building. Hanford attorney Bill Romaine, who represents Foothill Growers Association, said on Thursday that he believed the cooperative had negotiated a new site to use in unincorporated Tulare County, reports David Castellon at the Visalia Times-Delta.

Five years ago, an estimate that marijuana was the top cash crop in the United States at $35.8 billion a year made headlines nationwide. The crop’s value is more than corn and wheat combined, according to legalization advocate Jon Gettman, who prepared the 2006 report.

But never mind all that. Marijuana is not recognized by the California Department of Food and Agriculture as an “agricultural commodity.” (Maybe it’s time they catch up to reality.)

No agricultural commissioner in the state — not even in Mendocino and Humboldt counties — lists cannabis in is annual crop reports.

“We don’t regulate or track marijuana at all and regard that as a law enforcement issue,” said Steve Lyle, speaking for the state agriculture agency.

That could all change, though, under a proposed ballot initiative that plans a farming future for marijuana. Among other things, it proposes to apply “existing agricultural taxes and regulations to marijuana” and would prohibit zoning restrictions on cannabis cultivation.

It was recently approved by the Secretary of State’s office for signature gathering in an attempt to get it on the 2012 ballot.

Article From Toke of the Town and republished with special permission.

Teen Turns In Father On Marijuana Growing Operation

When you can even trust your own kids, who can you trust?

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – A Murfreesboro father is in trouble after his own son turned him in for growing marijuana.

Police went to the family home after the 15-year-old called to report allegations of physical abuse. When officers arrived the teen handed them a marijuana plant growing in a small flower pot.  Inside the home, police found several plants in two illegal grow operations and arrested the father.

“The juvenile went inside and came out with a marijuana plant that was part of a grow operation inside the house,” said Kyle Evans with Murfreesboro Police.

In an exclusive interview the teen’s father told NewsChannel 5: “I could not believe my son would turn against his father like that.”

In addition to the marijuana plants and grow lights, Murfreesboro police also confiscated scales and supply of processed marijuana from the home. There’s no indication the suspect was growing the marijuana to sell.

(Source) http://www.newschannel5.com

Jury Convicts 70-Year-Old Woman For Medical Marijuana

Photo: Oakland County Daily Tribune

Barb Agro, 70, was barred from mentioning during the trial that she is a registered, legal medical marijuana patient.

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A 70-year-old woman was convicted on a marijuana charge by a Michigan jury after they were instructed by the assistant prosecutor to “follow the law and not use sympathy” when weighing her fate.

“You must hold the defendant accountable for her actions,” said Assistant Prosecutor Beth Hand during her closing argument.

In the end, the jury heeded the prosecutor’s advice and decided to convict Barbara Agro, a registered medical marijuana patient and caregiver, as charged, reports Ann Zaniewski at the Oakland County Daily Tribune. Agro faces sentencing on July 13 for one count of delivery/manufacture of marijuana, a felony which can get four years in prison.

Photo: The Oakland Press

Circuit Judge Wendy Potts ponders one of her “head up the ass” style rulings

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The former Lake Orion police dispatcher worked as a receptionist at Clinical Relief, a medical marijuana dispensary in Ferndale. When the place was raided on August 25, 2010, Agro told deputies that she had marijuana plants growing at her house. Deputies found 19 cannabis plants and “other items” during a serch of her Lake Orion home.

Defense attorney Jerome Sabbota said Agro used cannabis for medicinal reasons.

“In this case here, we have a person who was growing medicine for herself,” Sabbota said.

Sabbota pointed to old laws, such as those surrounding prohibition and a law that once made it a crime to harbor a runaway slave. In his opening statement yesterday, he told jurors that laws sometimes need to be changed.

Assistant Prosecutor Hand said that Sabbota did not contest any elements of the charged crime. She said that marijuana, in the state of Michigan, is still illegal, and said Agro is not charged with using marijuana, but with growing it.

“This is not a medical marijuana case,” the assistant prosecutor claimed.

Hand referenced Agro’s age and told jurors that all different types of people break the law.

“The law is, that sympathy and prejudice have no place in the courtroom,” Hand said.

Oakland Circuit Judge Wendy Potts, who evidently issues rulings with her head up her ass, previously granted a motion from prosecutors seeking to prohibit Agro from mentioning the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act during the trial.

How To: Germinate Marijuana Seeds

Check out this video to learn how to germinate your marijuana seeds! Super informative and helpful!

11 Things Holder Could Say About Pot That Would Make Me Happy

Photo: The Troubled Patriot

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By Jack Rikess

Toke of the Town

Northern California Correspondent

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he will “work with states” to clarify the Department of Justice’s position on medical marijuana. This is what I’d like him to say…

11. Marijuana is no longer a Schedule I drug.

The Good News: Marijuana will finally be reclassified as having medical value.

Bad News: Big Pharma doesn’t like to share…

​10. Everyone can grow!

For states that have Medical Marijuana, patients will be allowed to grow six plants each. Why not?

Most everyone is doing it already. That way, the Man (and Woman) can’t control our stash.

9. Arizona, you have medical marijuana, get over it!

It would be great if the highest attorney in the land, Eric Holder reaffirmed that if the highest voters passed medical marijuana, they have spoken. This goes for any state that doesn’t like democracy and the right of voters.

I’m also looking at you, Big Sky.

8. We’re only busting deals over 50 pounds.

Until legalization happens, commerce shall continue. Fifty elbows can be divvied up pretty quick, especially if it’s the amazing Purps or some of that Solar Diesel making the rounds.

I think 50 pounds and under is a fair amount that one should be able to travel with for commercial purposes, within state lines of course.

​7. There won’t be any lists of medical marijuana patients or growers recorded anywhere.

Doctors don’t give the State or the Feds lists of their patients who are on Viagra or Ritalin, (and who wouldn’t want to know who gets a little sketchy if they’re not on their meds?)

Why should they give the medi-jane patients up? In the Time of Grey Markets, we’ll come out, but don’t make us tell you where we live.

6. States need to get their acts together.

There are 58 counties and a whole lot of unincorporated towns (think Deadwood) in California. Unless two adjoining counties have the same laws, ordinances and restrictions, you’re going to have graft, corruption and more of the same.

We need consistent and common-sense regulations within the states, left up to each state what that would be, but for the love of all that is sane, let’s have cultivation, commerce and transportation laws that make sense and work.

5. Amsterdam is over.

The Dutch no longer want the sounds of the Grateful Dead gracing their canals. For some crazy reason (actually, the Flemish blew it for everyone) foreigners will not be allowed entry into the hash bars without a visitor’s permit.

This is the United States’ chance for a big toe into the lucrative world of the ganja-turistas. For Las Vegas whose fountains suck the blood of a vanishing economy everyday and then spit it out in a multicolor symmetry five times a day to a couple of tourists dressed in cut-offs, and other destination cities that are having hard times. Here’s your chance!

It’s time for these sinkholes to reinvest in the American Dream and open our own hash bars. Once Las Vegas discovers marijuana, munchies, and cotton-mouth, food and beverage directors everywhere will have a new lease on life. This model could be replicated everywhere.

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​4. If you’re in jail because of cannabis, pack your bags…

It is just time to stop. As correctional officials nationally figure out ways to release the least violent and aggressive inmates into our society. Why are non-violent, first-time marijuana offenders going to prison at all?

Because somebody says it is illegal.

3. Users are immune from federal prosecution. 

From this point on, it will be left up to the state you’re in for the rules and regulations governing marijuana. One of the reasons it is easy to get a job in Oklahoma City is because people are leaving there because of draconian weed laws. You took a chance on gambling and casinos, alcohol and guns.

Trust me, after all of that, you’re going to love marijuana. We’re a lot less hard to handle.

​2. Movies are better when you’re stoned.

I don’t know, I just think it would be cool if the Attorney General of the United States came out and said, “You know, I saw Ghostbusters straight the first time, then I saw it high.

“Man, it’s a lot funnier when you’re baked. I’ll take your questions now if you have any.”

1. I am sorry.

These last few weeks have been very tense for many of us in the medical marijuana movement. Dispensaries have been threatened with closures. Banks that do business with the cannabis industry have been told to open their drawers. Proposition 19 in 2010 had a pretty good chance of passing until Eric Holder came out the week before the vote and said, “no matter what happens with the vote, the Feds will still bust pot smokers.”

In fact, Eric Holder and then candidate Obama pledged to back off medical marijuana patients and make marijuana a low priority in terms of prosecution. At a time when Big Pharma seems to be making strides and advancements, patients and medical marijuana doctors are being deterred, harassed and even jailed.

Some days it is like a bad game of ganja musical chairs. We’re never sure where to sit.

It would be nice to hear someone say, “Sorry for the inconvenience. We hear you. We won’t smile nor smirk when asked if marijuana has medicinal value. We will take medical marijuana patients and their input seriously, realizing that they’ve been the only true governing body that has driven the medical marijuana movement since it started.

“I am sorry.”