A celebration of the tenth anniversary of Prop 215 took place last night at the San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center. The honored speaker of the evening was Dennis Peron, founder of the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club and the catalyst behind Prop. 215.

Peron's look back at the history of the medical cannabis movement is worth reading and I have transcribed it below from my notes. But this being election season, the politicians spoke first. First up was San Francisco City Supervisor Tom Ammiano. San Francisco City Supervisor Chris Daly then spoke followed by California State Assemblymember Mark Leno. Leno presented Peron with a proclamation from the California State Assembly thanking Peron and the medical cannabis movement. After an interlude of lively cabaret entertainment, Peron walked on stage and talked about Prop. 215.

Dennis Peron: It's great to see you, but I can't help thinking of people who are not here. I recently reviewed an old tape from the first club on Church Street and Beth Moore, Hazel Rodgers and Brownie Mary, all the people in the beginning are all dead. Pinky also died recently. It is with a heavy heart that I come here. I still miss these people and I think every day about people who are not here. Jonathan West who inspired me to start the Cannabis Buyers Club - my best friend and lover and brother. It is in their name. I did it for them. And I did it for the living. People had to die so that other people can live. Today we are going down memory lane for ten years.

By Ann Harrison

The San Francisco District Attorney's office said this week that it will retry marijuana possession and distribution charges against Tom "The Nurse" Juzbasic who runs a medical cannabis bicycle delivery service in the city. The new trial is set to begin April 7.

Juzbasic was arrested in June 2003 after he sold a quarter ounce of marijuana to undercover San Francisco police Inspector John Keane for $100. If convicted, Juzbasic could face up to three years in state prison.

A long-time medical cannabis activist, Juzbasic says he's been arrested seven times on charges of marijuana possession, possession for sale and cultivation, and had ten prior cases dismissed in state court. He asserts that San Francisco police regularly disregard the city's tradition of tolerance for medical cannabis and intends to set a legal precedent. On this latest charge, Jusbasic refused to plea bargain and instead appeared in court over sixty times making his one of the longest running marijuana cases in recent San Francisco history.

Juzbasic's first four-day jury trial in this case ended with a mistrial February 28th after a member of the jury refused to deliberate. But reactions to the evidence presented at the trail offers a rare view into what San Francisco juries consider acceptable boundaries for medical cannabis providers under Prop 215, California's 1996 Compassionate Use Act.

Although Juzbasic's jury had not yet taken a formal vote on whether to convict him, a show of hands requested by Judge Thomas J. Mellon Jr. indicated that all but one of the jurors would have voted to convict Juzbasic on a marijuana sales charge. All but two jurors indicated that they would have found him guilty on a second charge of possessing marijuana for sale.

Attorneys for eighteen people arrested during the DEA's raid on three San Francisco medical cannabis dispensaries last June argued in U.S. District Court today that their clients were targeted for prosecution because they were Asian.

Laurence Lichter, who represented defendant David Lee, filed a motion to dismiss the case based on selective prosecution and requested a hearing to examine discovery in the case that could support charges of racism.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Scoble, who is prosecuting the case
known as Operation Urban Harvest, told Judge Susan Illston that investigators are still sorting through 175,000 pages of information seized from the defendant's computers that will be admitted as evidence.

Lichter argued that the DEA, with the assistance of state and local law enforcement, had already conducted an extensive investigation of San Francisco's 40 or so medical cannabis dispensaries prior to the raid. But the DEA only arrested people associated with the three Asian-owned dispensaries and alleged during a subsequent press conference that they were members of an Asian organized crime ring.

"I think we will look back someday at this case and see that it is racism that explains these charges," said Lichter after the hearing.

Most of those arrested were Asian and the DEA claimed that the defendants were part of an "Asian Mafia." Lawyers representing the defendants have filed motions to dismiss the charges based on selective prosecution. On Friday, February 16, the accused will have a hearing at 11 am in front of Judge Susan Illston in U.S. District Court, 450 Golden Gate, San Francisco. I will be blogging an account of the proceedings here.

Cannabisworld.com and Overgrow.com Seized By Police
by Marc Emery (03 Feb, 2006)
Overgrow.com, Cannabisworld.com, Heaven's Stairway Seed Company, and Eurohemp.com Shut Down and Servers Seized by Canadian Police

When the world's largest websites for cannabis growers and enthusiasts disappeared from the web on Monday, January 30, it was thought to be a server problem. As the week dragged on, tens of thousands of members, seed company sponsors, growers and fans worried there might be more than mere 'server' problems as Richard Calrisian (a pseudonym) had not made any statements in any web based media about any 'technical' problems.

Vanessa Nelson
National Secretary, The Compassionate Coalition

02/06/2006

Steve Kubby made a brief appearance in Placer County Court Friday,
stunning courtroom spectators with the decision to table the motion to
allow him to use medicinal cannabis while in jail.

Though surprising and consequential indeed, this revelation was just one
in a series of eyebrow-raising events that took place at the Auburn
courthouse on February 3rd.

The mood was set shortly after dawn, when courthouse workers were caught
off guard by the arrival of a van of nuns who unfurled quilted banners
decorated with pot leaves and memorials for deceased medical marijuana
patients. These women, proudly wearing buttons that identified them as
"pot-smoking nuns," quickly formed a prayer circle along with the
earlybird activists who were awaiting Steve's hearing.

I filed the following item for the Bay Guardian before going to the Placer County Court yesterday. Kubby says he did not flee to Canada but merely stayed there after being given permission to visit by the court.
Guardian editors inserted the line about Kubby fleeing anyway, cut the story in half and added a bad headline.

One Toke Over the Line
San Francisco Bay Guardian 2/1/06

A medical cannabis patient with a rare form of adrenal cancer who was arrested by San Francisco police officers and federal agents after landing at San Francisco International Airport Jan. 26 says he's gravely ill and being denied medical treatment in a Placer County jail.

According to Gieringer, a friend of Steve Kubby's, Fred Colburn, received a call from Kubby early this morning. Kubby told Colburn that he is in excruciating pain, vomiting, weak from inability to eat for the last several days, with blood in his urine, and without a blanket or even Tylenol. Kubby has been held at the Placer County Jail for four days.

Kubby's supporters will be holding an 8:30 am press conference and then a rally at noon at the Placer County Courthouse in Auburn, California. Kubby has a hearing set for 1 pm.

Below are two long telephone interviews with Kubby conducted by journalist Pat McCartney over the weekend. Kubby claims that jail officials are denying him needed medical care and forced him to sign a document absolving them of responsibility for his health.

The proposed resolution, which may also have the backing of city supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, was sparked by the imprisonment of medical cannabis patient Steve Kubby who was taken into custody by San Francisco police officers after arriving on a flight from Canada Thursday.

Kubby, who suffers from a rare form of adrenal cancer that he treats with cannabis, is now in a Placer County jail cell. Kubby tells supporters that jail officials are allowing him to use Marinol, a synthetic form of cannabis, but he is still suffering from nausea and extreme pain.

Kubby is scheduled to for a hearing at the Placer County courthouse in Auburn, California tomorrow at 1 pm. Gochenaur says she is arranging to transport 20 to 40 activists, patients and organizers from the steps of San Francisco City Hall to the Placer County Courthouse at 5 am tomorrow. The group plans to hold a press conference on the steps of the courthouse at 8:30 am.

Gochenaur asks that those who want to be transported be dressed for court. Axis of Love, which is headquartered at the California Marijuana Party bookstore at 223A 9th Street in San Francisco, is also looking for donations of food and gas money to Auburn.

"I am not fully aware of the context as to why they moved on Steve, but I will inquire," wrote Mirkarimi in an e-mail to Kubby's supporters.

Kubby's attorney, Bill McPike, said he had made arrangements for Kubby to turn himself in to Placer County Superior Court on Tuesday. But San Francisco police summoned Kubby to the jetway after his Alaska Airlines flight landed. He was met by officers who escorted him to a Redwood City jail.

A San Francisco police officer, who identified himself at Sgt. Mike Hughes, said at the airport that Kubby was arrested on a no-bail warrant for violation of probation on a narcotics charge. He said Kubby was polite as he was taken into custody at the request of the Placer County Sheriff's Department.

In a letter to Mirkarimi asking him to look into the matter, medical cannabis activist Clark Sullivan pointed out that the voters passed a resolution in 2001 making San Francisco the City of Sanctuary for medical cannabis.

"The SFPD has again, blatantly disregarded the policies of the government of San Francisco," wrote Sullivan. "Their actions are but another slap in the face of the public's will."

Kubby, who has a rare form of adrenal cancer that he treats with cannabis, fears that county officials will not permit him to use cannabis in jail. According to supporters, Kubby smokes cannabis every thirty minutes and consumes it before sleeping to regulate the levels of adrenalin in his body.

Kubby phoned Dale Gieringer of California NORML last night from jail to say that he was beginning to suffer from nausea, headache and chills.

After an uncomfortable night, McPike reports that Kubby has been transported to the Placer County Jail where he is to receive Marinol, a synthetic version of marijuana. Kubby is scheduled to be arraigned at 1 pm on Tuesday at the Placer County courthouse in Auburn, California.

According to his colleague Omar Figueroa, a fellow attorney at the Pier 5 law offices, Serra will being serving a 10-month term on March 31 for his long standing refusal to pay taxes. Or as the court stated it, "failure to pay war taxes."

This is potentially bad news for Lepp who Serra was representing pro bono. Lepp says he can not afford to pay a private attorney. Lepp is arguing a religious use defense for his cultivation of cannabis – an argument which could set an important precedent. If Lepp looses Serra as an attorney, chances are that his federal public defender will have far less fire in the belly to make the religious use defense that Lepp wants.

The gathering, which will take place at 8 pm at Alaska Airlines Terminal 1 at San Francisco International Airport, is a show of support for Kubby who was denied refugee statues by Canada where he had fled after being arrested in Placer County California for growing cannabis.

Kubby, a former Libertarian candidate for California governor, says he suffers from pheochromocytoma, rare adrenal cancer which causes deadly amounts of adrenaline to enter his blood stream. After surviving 20 years with the condition, Kubby says he is alive because he uses medical cannabis to help control the levels of adrenaline in his blood stream.

Placer County Assistant District Attorney Chris Cattran told the Auburn Journal on January 6th that when Kubby returns, he would be arrested and jailed for at least 120 days and possibly longer.

But on January 9, Immigration Counsel Keith Reimer told Canadian Justice Yvon Pinard that Kubby faced no risk of arrest if he was forced to return to the U.S. Kubby's request for refuge status was subsequently turned down.

When Kubby arrives in San Francisco tomorrow night, he is expected to be greeted by both law enforcement and medical cannabis activists who say every effort will be made to keep Kubby from being forced to return to Placer County.

Cattran told a Canadian Refugee hearing in April 2003 that Placer County had arranged for two "specialists" to fly in and testify at Kubby's trial that Kubby did not have cancer, but if he did, cannabis would make the condition worse.

Kubby's wife Michele and his two daughters are driving to California because they say they want to shield their children from having to watch their father taken into custody.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), and several patient plaintiffs filed a motion in federal court today to intervene in the San Diego County Board of Supervisors’ lawsuit against the State of California. The Supervisors’ lawsuit seeks to overturn California’s Compassionate Use Act (Prop. 215), which permits patients to use medical cannabis with a doctor's recommendation.

San Diego is the first county in California to defy the state-mandated medical marijuana ID card and registry program that went into effect this month. The County Board of Supervisors voted in December to sue the state rather than follow Proposition 215 and implement the program. This is the first such lawsuit to overturn medical marijuana laws which have been passed in 11 states.

The Board of Supervisors of San Bernardino County also voted this morning to file their own lawsuit against the state of California opposing Prop. 215.

BASEL, Switzerland -- When Kevin Herbert has a particularly intractable programming problem, or finds himself pondering a big career decision, he seeks insight with a powerful consciousness expanding tool -- LSD-25.

"It must be changing something about the internal communication in my brain. Whatever my inner process is that lets me solve problems, it works differently, or maybe different parts of my brain are used, " said Herbert, 42, an early employee of Cisco Systems who intervened to ban drug testing of technologists at the company.

Herbert says he's solved his toughest technical problems after dropping LSD and listening to drum solos by the Grateful Dead – who were among the many artists inspired by LSD.

"When I'm on LSD and hearing something that's pure rhythm, it takes me to another world and into another brain state where I've stopped thinking and started knowing," said Herbert.

Herbert, who lives in Santa Cruz, California, joined 2,000 researchers, scientists, artists and historians from 40 countries who gathered here over the weekend to celebrate the 100th birthday of Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD in 1938.

In many ways, the conference LSD: Problem Child and Wonder Drug, an International Symposium on the Occasion of the 100th Birthday of Albert Hofmann, was a scientific coming-out party for the substance Hofmann uncovered.