cannabisnews.com: Oakland District Evolves Into Cannabis Community 





Oakland District Evolves Into Cannabis Community 
Posted by CN Staff on August 09, 2003 at 20:08:43 PT
By Rona Marech, Chronicle Staff Writer 
Source: San Francisco Chronicle 
The blocky bouncer stands guard outside the Oakland cafe, complete with a copper espresso machine, fancy chocolates, elegant glass lights and a European air. Pedestrians may unknowingly wander in and order coffee, but the tip-off comes when, sorry, the food options are limited or access to the downstairs lounge is politely denied. The main thing on the menu here is medical marijuana.
Suddenly, the bouncer's T-shirt makes more sense: The word stretched across his broad chest reads "Oaksterdam." The name "Oaksterdam" is arrived at by mixing the names of cannabis-tolerant Amsterdam and Oakland, and the downtown district near the 19th Street BART station is now home to eight medical marijuana clubs. One such club is a new three-story dispensary on Telegraph Avenue that owner Ken Estes says will eventually house an organic food cafe, along with an on-site chiropractor, acupuncturist and a doctor. Apparently the first of its kind in the United States, this cannabis community offers a range of services. Patients can pick up city-sanctioned patient identification cards, purchase $550 lung-friendly inhalers that allow the medicine to be vaporized rather than smoked, get marijuana-growing equipment or buy cannabis in any form, from green buds to lollipops. "San Francisco and Oakland have Chinatown and Japantown. Now we're going to have pot town. Better yet, hemp town," said Randy Csongor, the manager of Best Collateral pawn shop, which sits in the middle of medical marijuana row. Club owners are circumspect about where they get their product, which they sell to patients at prices ranging from $50 an ounce to more than $400 an ounce for the highest grade. The dispensary owners -- who acquire the usual business licenses but no other official permits for cannabis distribution -- are caught in an uncomfortable legal position. The city and state says they are legal under Proposition 215, the medical marijuana compassionate use initiative that California voters passed in 1996. But the federal government says the clubs are operating illegally. Federal agents have staged pot club raids and pursued high-profile activists such as Oakland resident Ed Rosenthal, who was convicted in a controversial trial earlier this year for cultivating marijuana. The jury, however, was not allowed to hear evidence related to Rosenthal's assertion that the city of Oakland had "deputized" him as part of its medical marijuana program. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer sentenced him to one day in jail, which Rosenthal had already served. But in July, federal prosecutors signaled they would ask an appeals court to increase Rosenthal's sentence. The government did not explain on what grounds they intended to appeal. Greg Underwood, a special agent at the Drug Enforcement Administration, said, "If we are investigating them, I can't comment on any open investigations . . . . The only thing I can say is that marijuana is what we consider a Schedule I drug, which means it's illegal to use and the federal government does not make any distinction for medical marijuana." Estes, whose front-room eatery at the 420 cafe so far consists of an empty room, a fan and an "Open" sign, says: "Unfortunately, we have one foot in the illegal world and one foot in the legal world. We're trying to get both in legal world." Some of the Oaksterdam clubs do not have phone numbers or even signage; one is jokingly called "Parking in Rear," a reference to the only sign posted on the storefront. Others have the appearance of a sterile nurse's office -- with a few extra television monitors -- and still others seem like ordinary cafes with umbrellas and dainty tables out front. The clubs' shadowy status is also apparent on paper: One proprietor's business card lists his job title as "coffeeshopkeeper;" another dispensary's glossy, postcard-size advertisement reads "a different kind of chocolateria." And though owners are eager to speak about their concern for patients and show how professional their businesses are, of those approached, only Estes would speak on the record, an indication of just how tenuous their situation is. "I see the people running those clubs as modern-day heroes," said Keith Stroup, founder and executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a public interest lobby in Washington, D.C. He's visited the neighborhood and even has his own Oaksterdam T-shirt. "It does remind me of Amsterdam. It's certainly the closest thing we have in this country to what they have in Amsterdam," he said. "I think there's nothing quite like that in the United States." Snipped:  Complete Article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/08/10/POTCLUB.TMP   Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)Author: Rona Marech, Chronicle Staff Writer Published:  Sunday, August 10, 2003 Copyright: 2003 San Francisco Chronicle -  Page A - 1 Contact: letters sfchronicle.comWebsite: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/Related Articles & Web Sites:OCBChttp://www.rxcbc.org/NORMLhttp://www.norml.org/Ed Rosenthal's Pictures & Articleshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/trialpics.htmBrown Embarks on Probe of Oaksterdam Pot Clubs http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17026.shtmlIt's Almost Like Visiting Amsterdam http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17025.shtmlPot Clubs Grow Below City's Radarhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17015.shtml 
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Comment #5 posted by Max Flowers on August 10, 2003 at 11:47:02 PT
Pardon me while I vomit
Okay now I know for sure he's insane. The incongruity of this guy thinking he's being artful and sensitive by singing while he persecutes innocent, sick people is just nauseating and very troubling. WTF is going on...? A showboating neurotic attorney general? Oh boy this guy is out of it.
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Comment #4 posted by goneposthole on August 10, 2003 at 07:23:14 PT
why Ashcroft must go
http://www.cnn.com/video/us/2002/02/25/ashcroft.sings.wbtv.med.htmlplease try and contain your laughter
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Comment #3 posted by i420 on August 10, 2003 at 00:46:37 PT
Grass
Grass is showing on the Sundance channel Sunday   noon!
Poll is still holding steady at 91% !!
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Comment #2 posted by goneposthole on August 09, 2003 at 22:04:28 PT
poll results
as of 12:58 EDT 91%- 7644 yes, 9%-728 no; at Lou Dobbs Tonight on the CNN website. People everywhere are smoking cannabis. Alcohol and cigarettes are real killers. Don't abuse alcohol and don't smoke tobacco.  
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Comment #1 posted by Virgil on August 09, 2003 at 21:29:03 PT
Turmel has transcribed some more
Turmel is spending such an effort to get the words transcribed from his 12 hours of tapes- I think they are video but at one point he mentioned boombox- that he does not really explain the issues and the arguments. But at least with 959 he gives a legend of the initials. You just have to figure out who they are- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MedPot/message/959 For example he will say Y= Young but will not say Allan Young representing xxxxx.I think this is the seventh installment with at least one more. There are three judges ruling for the Ontario Supreme Court and their names are Doherty, Goudge, and Simmons.Turmel's words make the most sense in it all. At some point the court heard of the United States's interest and the audience gasp. There is one question being heard that has to do with the states interests and if laws should defer to them because of state interest and one interest would be that the US may retailiate. There is the issue of balance between the individuals(freedom) amd the Canadian government. The question is asked by Judge Doherty. Turmel's answer makes great sense and is surely a line of reasoning that the Crown's lawyers did not want to hear. What it all means is still a mystery to me. D: The third question we have is: considering whether the eligibility requirements in the regulations are inconsistent with the principles of fundamental justice, it appears from the authorities that the court must balance between the individual and the state interest. What, in your submission,is the test to use in determining that balance? [*** proportionality of the harm to the [********. You want to go first?turmel is not the first to respondD: Mr. Turmel, I don't know if you want to deal with a 
"lawyer's question" on fundamental justice? T: Well, yeah. I'm not going to cite the actual case where I 
read my one point, but I can understand the principles of 
fundamental justice in time of war and if government wants 
to say: We're going to put all the people who look like the 
Japanese into camps because we're scared, that the judges 
might have believed that under the principles of fundamental 
justice, their liberty right may be violated in a war. Or 
their security right may be violated in an emergency: Get 
out of your house, you can't stay, there's a fire coming, 
there's a big forest fire, move. We're not going to let you 
stay. So, I did read a case somewhere, now, obviously, the 
security and liberty rights, they can be more easily 
balanced by fundamental justice of "we need you to do it," 
than "life rights." Now, we raised the right to life which 
is the fact that 10 epileptics are going to die every day 
until the prohibition on their medicine is abolished and 
everybody's walking around with their medicine in their 
pocket because these are "have a seizure and die" kind of 
cases. And the right to life has a different standard in the 
balancing act. The United States' consideration. If they 
want to change our trading relations and they're going to 
give us a hard time and raise our inflation, is that good 
enough reason to let 10 more epileptics die tomorrow? Well, in the case of the right to life, which they 
specifically treat differently and distinguish from the 
other rights, and that's why it should have had its own 
section in the Charter, it shouldn't have been linked in 
with liberty and security, right to life is special, but 
before you let these 10 epileptics a day die, you pretty 
well, under the right to life, got to find a war or a 
national emergency.Now that makes sense so I don't remember which case it was I 
read it in but it was a Supreme Court of Canada and it made 
so much sense I never worried about it. That's what it 
means. Fundamental Justice says: We're going to take your 
life because it's important in a time of war or emergency. 
Well, we don't have that here. Not at all. We're talking 
about these people's medicine, no proven harms to society 
from that medicine ingested by those other people, seems 
this medicine doesn't hurt anybody and should be treated as 
the medicine it is getting its acclaim to be. So we just 
point out the balancing act under the principles of 
fundamental justice are different in Parker's case under 
right to life, section 7 than they are under the liberty and 
security of supply right. And I'm saying that before you say: I'm going to accept that 
fundamental justice is going to balance 10 epileptics a day, 
you need a war or you need a national emergency, I believe 
you'll find the Supreme Court of Canada said. So as for minimal impairment in the case of a right to life, 
well, I just don't think you have the authority but to say 
that: This can't possibly balance all these 1500 dead 
epileptics a year. And that's just the epileptics who can be 
saved by it. Let alone all the people who don't have spasms, 
and who can now eat food and live longer lives. So AIDS 
people gain extra life by having this herb, even if it 
doesn't actually cure them. So, because we raised the right to life, and not the others, 
we have a higher standard to demand from the courts before 
you dispense with our rights because it's balanced by the 
state's interest in preventing us, or protecting us, from 
this supposedly dangerous drug, which the science is now 
coming to accept is not dangerous any more and the truth is 
coming out. So we need you to accept that the principles of 
fundamental justice state that this is not good enough to 
let 10 epileptics a day die. Thank you my Lords. Since this is cannabis news on the forefront of the collapse that is coming to prohibition, I want to copy some more words from Turmel, because he does not buy into the bullshit and the techniques by which the government says that cannabis does not help epilepsy. Terry Parker is involved in this case and the original case on July 31,2000 that gave the government a year to fix the supply problem. The MMAR(Medical Marijuana Access Regulations) were introduced on July 30th of 2001. I could be wrong, but I think it was Turmel that represented Terry Parker in that case. Anyway, it was Turmel's belief is that introducing a paper of guidelines did not do anything to get Terry Parker MMJ by the date given. He said after the MMAR was introduced he waited one more day and when August 1, 3001 came without a satisfactory supply for Parker, the cannabis laws fell. He calls this Terry Parker Day and he says cultivation and possession of any quantity of cannabis no longer existed. Possession and cultivation crimes became unknown to law on Terry Parker Day, as Turmel calls it. I think Allan Young now represents Parker, but damn if I really know.T: Yes, I'll make a few points, just very short. I 
understand the government's mind set with respect to why 
they need specialists. As this dangerous drug, we can permit 
the people who are going to die in 1 year because it doesn't 
matter that much. But for people who aren't going to die but 
who have proof that it works for them, well, we're going to 
have to get a specialist's opinion because maybe long-term 
smoking is more dangerous and therefore we think that people 
who aren't going to die right away and we can't just kiss it 
off, need a specialist for this dangerous drug. And finally 
people with arthritis or those who just want to take a 
little bit of a marijuana muffin to go to sleep at night, 
like old people, they don't want buzz, the want the other 
parts of the plant that put them to sleep for 10 hours with 
no pharmaceutical side-effects, well, these dangerous drugs 
should therefore probably need 2 specialists to protect 
people like that. And that's the reasoning behind it, to 
protect Canadians from this dangerous drug. Again, we challenge the original premise that: Show us the 
dangers of this drug. All you ever do is say that: it might 
be a risk of this and that wins on how they get those 
probabilities, in the negative. "Mr. "expert" doctor, can you guarantee that marijuana does 
"not" cause acne?" "Oh gee, I never heard of it but I can't 
say for sure that it doesn't cause acne." "All right, put it 
down on the list that marijuana may cause acne. Mr. Expert, 
is it possible marijuana may cause athlete's foot, can you 
guarantee it doesn't?" "Well, I never heard of it but I 
can't guarantee that it doesn't cause athlete's foot." "Put 
it down on the list that marijuana might cause athlete's 
foot." By putting these questions in the negative, I can come up 
with a hundred things marijuana might possibly cause and I'm 
saying that I have, as yet, found no harms made by the 
actual substance that warrant the fear of dangers that need 
somebody with arthritis to have to go check with 2 other 
specialists before they take this dangerous drug. We 
challenge the premise that the drug is dangerous. And this is what enrages Mr. Parker because he was one of 
the guinea pigs in the research way back in '79. And they 
didn't give him marijuana to smoke, they gave him THC alone 
and it's not the buzz that saves him from his seizures, it's 
the other cannabinoids. 
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