Global Ganja Report

Superior Court Judge Paul Vortmann in California's Tulare County ruled Aug. 11 that a cannabis collective cannot operate on land zoned for agriculture, dismissing a property owner's arguments. "In this state, marijuana has never been classified as a crop or horticultural product," Vortmann wrote. Cannabis is a controlled substance, the ruling stated, adding that "the court finds as a matter of law that growing marijuana...is not an agricultural use of property."

California's Legislative Analyst's Office released a status report on Aug. 5 concluding that California is unlikely to meet the US Supreme Court's two-year deadline to reduce the state's prison population by 34,000 inmates. California's prisoner realignment plan, which entails shifting thousands of low-level offenders to county jails, could reduce the prison population by 32,000 inmates—still a few thousand inmates short of decreasing the 180% prison capacity to the mandated 137.5% capacity, by June 27, 2013.

Arrested last August in San Francisco for possessing marijuana, meth and child porn, Dennis Peron had his day in court Aug. 3, and scored a win when the DA dropped the case because the "burden of proof" was not "beyond a reasonable doubt." Peron immediately declared, "They dragged my name through the mud for a year. I'm going to sue [the San Francisco Police Department] for a million dollars. They soiled my name for no reason."

Park rangers announced the seizure in late July of more than 3,500 cannabis plants over a nine-acre swath in the heart of Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. The National Park Service said the plots were scattered across an area near Zuma and Trancas canyons, south of Mulholland Highway. Earlier in the month, Ventura County Sheriff's officials announced the largest single seizure of cannabis plants in their jurisdiction, from an outdoor grow operation in the Pine Mountain area of Los Padres National Forest. The raid  in the rugged mountains north of Ojai netted 68,500 plants valued at $205.46 million, according to a sheriff's statement. No suspects were arrested. The season total for seized cannabis in Ventura County is over 100,000 plants. (Thousand Oaks Acorn, July 28; LAT, July 18; KEYT, Santa Barbara, July 15; LAT, July 14)

On July 25, following extensive testimony from medical cannabis advocates, the San Diego City Council voted to repeal an ordinance passed in April that would have restricted dispensaries to a few remote industrial areas of the city. Only a couple of collectives would have been allowed to open after they came into compliance with one of the most strict ordinances in the state of California. The City Council must now consider the recommendations of its own Medical Marijuana Task Force, which came up with a less restrictive set of rules—although still keeping dispensaries 1,000 feet away from schools, playgrounds, libraries, childcare facilities.

The Oakland City Council on July 26 passed an ordinance that will double the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city, to eight from the current four—the Oakland Patient Center, the Purple Heart Patient Center, Coffeeshop Blue Sky, and the Harborside Health Center. The new ordinance was passed with an amendment that provides the city with access to all the dispensaries' financial information. And accompanying legislation imposes a $5,000 application fee and a $60,000 annual regulatory fee on each dispensary. The Council put off discussion of amending the city's cultivation ordinance, which would regulate large-scale cannabis farms, until the Public Safety Committee reconvenes in the fall. (Office of the City Clerk, City of Oakland, July 26; San Francisco Chronicle's Oakland Blog, July 13)

A massive, six-county cannabis eradication operation targeting Northern California's Mendocino National Forest is currently underway, with a multi-agency task force of hundreds of state, federal and county officers claiming seizures of some 292,000 plants and 77 arrests. "At this point, the operation is going as planned. We're making very good progress," said Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman. Raids are taking place simultaneously in Mendocino, Lake, Colusa, Glenn, Tehama, and Trinity counties, which all contain portions of the Mendocino National Forest.

Law enforcement agents in six Northern California counties are preparing for the largest series of cannabis raids yet conducted in the Emerald Triangle.  "Operation Full Court Press" will unleash hundreds of local, state and federal agents, first targeting the Mendocino National Forest, combing the mountains for illegal growers who authorities say have set up "huge plantations" deep in the woods, some reportedly numbering tens of thousands of plants. Law enforcement contends that many of the illegal growers are Mexican nationals who are linked to large drug-trafficking cartels. As evidence of a strong Mexico connection, prosecutors point to hundreds of Mexican nationals arrested in recent years at illegal outdoor grows in the Golden State. (California Watch, July 21)