Global Ganja Report

A Nov. 9 rally in Sacramento to protest the US Department of Justice crackdown on California's medical marijuana industry brought out some 500 people, who gathered outside the Federal building to hear speakers from the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Americans for Safe Access (ASA), and other organizations before marching through the downtown area.

Lawsuits were filed Nov. 4 in federal courts in Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Diego in a move to block efforts by US attorneys to crack down on medical marijuana dispensaries in California. A similar suit was filed in San Francisco days earlier. "We will ask for injunctive relief in all four districts," said PJ Johnston, a spokesman for the statewide legal effort, coordinated by American for Safe Access (ASA). "The US attorneys in each of the four districts have basically threatened landlords, cannabis cooperatives and media outlets with prosecution and property forfeiture if they don't shut down operations immediately."

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."

Dubbed the "Wal-Mart of Weed," the 10,000-square-foot weGrow store, set to open this weekend at 1537 Fulton Ave. in Sacramento, is the first franchise for a company that calls itself a supply and training destination for legal cannabis cultivators. The enterprise started in Oakland last year as a warehouse store called iGrow. Now the Oakland location is being reorganized as a distribution hub for a network of retail hydroponics outlets. The Sacramento store—billed as "the first honest hydro store"—is to be followed by weGrow stores in Arizona, Colorado, New Jersey and Oregon in coming months.