Global Ganja Report

Venezuela on May 16 demanded that the US extradite a former supreme court judge who has accused high-ranking figures of the Hugo Chávez government of links to drug-trafficking. The fugitive judge, Eladio Aponte Aponte, was removed from office in March over charges that he provided forged documents to accused trafficker Walid Makled. Aponte is co-operating with US authorities after his April 2 flight to Miami in a DEA-chartered plane. Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said the US must hand over Eliado Aponte, as there was a judicial process underway against him in Venezuela, and noted that an Interpol "red notice" has been issued for him.

Federal agents from the DEA and IRS, backed up with Santa Barbara police, served search warrants at a medical marijuana dispensary and a grow house on May 2 and 3. No arrests were made, but search warrants were executed at the Pacific Coast Collective dispensary and, the next morning, at 305 E. Haley St., which was named as a grow house. Agents and detectives also searched the residences of PCC operator Charles Jeff Restivo in Carpinteria, who is already facing local felony charges related to the dispensary; and Steven Kessler in Santa Barbara, who was said to operate the cultivation site.

A May 5 report in the Sacramento Bee portrays an Emerald Triangle hard-hit by the federal crackdown on medical marijuana in California. Cultivators who sought legitimacy through the medical market are fleeing to the black market, leading to a glut—which is now ironically hurting the remnant medicinal market. With cheap weed getting dumped in the college town of Arcata, some local dispensaries say business is down 75%. The price of top-line bud has dropped from around $5,000 to under $1,000. "Last I heard, a pound of marijuana is $800 for outdoor grown," gloated Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman. "That's plummeting. You might do better with tomatoes."

A UC San Diego student left in a federal holding cell for days without food and water has filed a $20 million lawsuit against the government. Daniel Chong, 23, was picked up in a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raid April 21. After questioning him, agents told him that he would not be charged and to wait in the holding cell until they finished the paperwork to release him. He spent four days alone in the cell, apparently forgotten.

Four Transportation Security Administration (TSA) airport screeners in Los Angeles were arrested April 24 for accepting bribes from drug traffickers. Two current and two former Los Angeles International Airport screeners are accused of looking the other way as cocaine, cannabis and methamphetamine stuffed into carry-on bags passed through their X-ray machines—in exchange for payments of as much as $2,400—on five separate occasions. "This case underscores the unique nature of 21st century drug smuggling," said Briane Grey the acting Special Agent in Charge of the DEA office in Los Angeles. "The defendants traded on their positions at one the world's most crucial airport security checkpoints and used their special access for criminal ends." (UPI, Reuters, April 25)

The 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals in San Francisco April 9 issued a ruling that may open the way for protection of sacramental cannabis use under federal law. While the decision found that the government does not have to compensate a Native American church for seized cannabis, it also allowed Michael Rex "Raging Bear" Mooney and the Oklevueha Native American Church of Hawaii to fight for declaratory and injunctive relief barring the government from enforcing the Controlled Substances Act against their followers.

A coalition of medical marijuana patients, activists, dispensing centers, and concerned citizens has compelled public officials to stand up to recent federal attacks. Last week, the new coalition "San Francisco United for Safe Access" held a press conference with several city supervisors and state officials, decrying the Obama administration's aggressive tactics before a crowd of more than 500 supporters. By Friday April 6, San Francisco United had secured a statement from Mayor Ed Lee, expressing his opposition to "recent federal actions targeting duly permitted medicinal cannabis dispensaries...that aim to limit our citizens’ ability to have safe access to the medicine they need."

Dozens of federal agents on April 2 raided Oakland's famed Oaksterdam University and the Lake Merritt area apartment of its owner Richard Lee, California's most prominent cannabis advocate. The armed agents, some wearing face masks, came to the locations with a battering ram, sledgehammer and power saws. Agents from the DEA, IRS and Marshals Service carted away loads of cannabis as well as numerous file boxes, did but not reveal the purpose of the raids, other than to call it part of an "ongoing investigation."