Global Ganja Report

Despite being acquitted by a jury late last year of charges stemming from a 2008 arrest on marijuana possession and distribution, medicinal cannabis patient and provider Jovan Jackson is being tried by San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis for a second time in less than a year. However, for the second trial Dumanis is trying to deny Jackson, the former operator of Answerdam Alternative Care Collective (AACC), a medical marijuana defense—based on the claim that "sales" are illegal under state law. Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the country's leading medical marijuana patient advocacy group, filed an amicus ("friend of the court") brief in support of Jackson's defense, refuting the District Attorney's allegations.

A North San Diego County medical marijuana provider, James Stacy, whose Vista dispensary was raided on Sept. 9 by a multi-agency narcotics task force, will be the first such case to go to trial since the Justice Department issued its new enforcement policy in October. Stacy's trial date is to be scheduled this week at a hearing where Stacy said he will argue that under the new policy he's entitled to admit evidence of compliance with state law—something routinely denied federal defendants.