Global Ganja Report

Eviction notices from local and federal authorities shut down eight cannabis dispensaries in Orange County's Lake Forest this week, after years of litigation over zoning and more than $600,000 in legal fees. The dispensaries, in suites on the second floor of a strip mall, included Lake Forest Patients Group, Pharmers' Choice, Cannabis Permanente, Evergreen Holistic, Cooperative, Florentina Organic, Independent Collective of Orange County and The Health Collective.

Supporters of California's medical marijuana laws will be protesting the Department of Justice crackdown on dispensaries and providers when President Barack Obama comes to visit San Francisco on Oct 25. Demonstrators will be protesting at the at the Hotel W, on the corner of 3rd and Mission from 10:30 AM to 3 PM. A preceding press conference will be held at 10 AM at the Marriott Hotel, 299 Second St, Room #3.

Northstone Organics, a dispensary in Mendocino County's Redwood Valley, was raided by federal agents Oct. 13, in a move that has sparked outrage across Northern California's Emerald Triangle. "They came in, guns blazing," Northstone Organics owner Matthew Cohen said of the early morning raid, although it does not appear any shots were fired. "They calmed down and were pleasant at the end, but they came in with machine guns."

Trustees of the California Medical Association, representing more than 35,000 physicians statewide, on Oct. 14 adopted a position calling for legalization of cannabis at their annual meeting in Anaheim—becoming the first major medical association in the nation to do so. Dr. Donald Lyman, the Sacramento physician who wrote the group's new policy, attributed the move to growing frustration over California's medical marijuana law, which puts practitioners in the situation of having to decide whether to recommend a substance that is illegal under federal law.

Federal prosecutors warn they are preparing to target newspapers, radio stations and other media outlets that advertise medical marijuana dispensaries in California. US Attorney Laura E. Duffy, whose district includes Imperial and San Diego counties, said cannabis advertising is the next area she's "going to be moving onto as part of the enforcement efforts in Southern California." Duffy said she could not speak for the three other US attorneys in the state but stressed that their efforts have been coordinated so far.

The four United States attorneys for California came together at a Sacramento press conference Oct. 7 to announce that they would move against landlords who rent space to storefront operators of medicinal cannabis dispensaries. Breaking with past practice, they actually addressed the state's medical marijuana law—only to say that it is being abused by a fast-growing cannabis industry. "This is not what the California voters intended or authorized,” said André Birotte Jr., US attorney for the Los Angeles-based Central District. "It is illegal under California law."

Federal prosecutors this week warned several  California cannabis dispensaries they must close in 45 days or face criminal charges and confiscation of their property. At least 16 dispensaries or their landlords received letters stating that they are in violation of federal law. The Associated Press obtained copies of the letters that a prosecutor sent to 12 San Diego dispensaries. They state that federal law "takes precedence over state law and applies regardless of the particular uses for which a dispensary is selling and distributing marijuana."

The IRS has ordered Oakland's Harborside Health Center, biggest cannabis dispensary on the West Coast, to pay $2 million in taxes, ruling that the collective may not deduct standard expenses such as payroll and rent. "They're attempting to tax us out of business," protested owner Steve DeAngelo. Ironically, the same day he received the IRS letter, DeAngelo was photographed handing the Oakland treasury a $360,000 check —third installment of $1 million in city taxes  Harborside generated in 2010.