Global Ganja Report

Venice medical marijuana dispensary Organica Inc was barred by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant April 13 from selling or distributing cannabis, in a ruling that City Attorney Carmen Trutanich hopes will lead to the shutdown of hundreds of clinics across the city. Assistant City Attorney Asha Greenberg said there is no evidence Organica, which had $5.2 million in sales over a 13-month period, was operating as a nonprofit collective.

Mayor Peter Arth of Dunsmuir, Calif., has propsoed planintg a large medical marijuana garden in the small city's historic business district. Arth, himself a medicinal user, this week asked the city council for a permit that would allow him to lease three commercial lots he owns to a cannabis collective to build greenhouses. Arth says the prime location would help "bring medical cannabis out of the darkness of an underground market and into the legal light."

A wave of marijuana law reform is sweeping the US, with initiatives to legalize medicinal use in the forefront, and the traditionally staid East Coast starting to catch up with western states. A medical marijuana bill is gaining ground in New York's state legislature, with lawmakers touting the additional revenues it could bring from licensing fees for growers and dispensers. (WXXI, Rochester, March 23)

The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 will appear on California's November ballot, state election officials announced March 24. Secretary of State Debra Bowen certified that the petitions had hundreds of thousands more signatures than the 433,971 minimum needed to qualify. Supporters turned in 694,248 signatures, collecting them in every county except Alpine. County election officials estimated that 523,531 were valid.