Chaos in San Diego's Medical Marijuana Community (tags)
A report on conflicts within San Diego's medical marijuana community between the grass-roots Americans for Safe Access (ASA) and the dispensaries' trade group, Patients' Care Association (PCA) — and conflicts within the PCA between locals and an out-of-town organizer they accuse of trying to take over.
Queer-Oriented Obelisk Store Shut Down by Hellish Fire (tags)
Obelisk Bookstore, a major Queer-oriented business on University Avenue in Hillcrest, burned on Wednesday, July 6. Three other businesses in the building were burned out, as were 15 apartments on the second and third floors. Miraculously, none of the residents were injured because none of them were home at the time. Leo E. Laurence, J.D., associate editor of Zenger's Newsmagazine and a former volunteer firefighter in Tijuana, got photos of firefighters containing the blaze (they weren't able to save the Obelisk building but WERE miraculously able to keep the fire from spreading to the rest of the block), the true extent of the damage (visible only from the alley behind the building) and the condition of Obelisk's stock after the fire.
Hemp Music Festival in Balboa Park (tags)
While music festivals supporting medical marijuana are common in southern California, it was rare when longtime cannabis (marijuana) activist James Dean Stacy produced an event focused on hemp in Balboa Park on July 9. ?Hemp is the cousin of cannabis that has no THC in it,? explained Stacy.
Teen Producers' Project Makes Pro-Immigrant Videos (tags)
In addition to running the popular San Diego Latino Film Festival, the Media Arts Center in North Park also sponsors the Teen Producers? Project, which trains teenage filmmakers to make professional-quality videos. This year?s productions were a series of hard-hitting documentaries on the rights of immigrants that progressive Congressmember Bob Filner offered to take to Washington, D.C. and show to his colleagues.
A Different Kind of Tea: Some Tea Partiers May Support Pot Legalization (tags)
Proposition 19, which would legalize and tax marijuana in California, may have some unexpected supporters in the conservative tea party movement, reports Leo E. Laurence, associate editor of Zenger’s magazine and a former deputy sheriff who's campaigning for the measure as a member of the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (L.E.A.P.).
Marijuana Initiative Could Generate $1.4 Billion (tags)
Proposition 19, the initiative on the November 2 ballot to decriminalize possession of marijuana in California, could bring $1.4 billion or more annually to California's parched coffers — but in advocating for the measure as part of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (L.E.A.P.), Zenger's Newsmagazine associate editor Leo E. Laurence has found some politicians and law enforcement personnel eagerly embracing the idea, while others figuratively and sometimes literally run away from any hint of endorsing the measure.