News Nuggets (Bay Area)

Pelosi joins critics of federal crackdown

Patients opposed to the ongoing federal assault on dispensaries have a new ally in Washington: U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi, a Democrat whose 8th Congressional District includes most of San Francisco city and county, issued a statement in May asking the U.S. Justice Department to back off its crackdown on dispensaries in the state.

“I have strong concerns about the recent actions by the federal government that threaten the safe access of medical marijuana to alleviate the suffering of patients in California,” she penned.

MMJ advocates had criticized Pelosi, long a supporter of compassionate-use laws, for her silence regarding the federal raids. Her statement now casts her as the most powerful elected official in the nation to speak out against the crackdown.

Leaner, all-volunteer Oaksterdam reopens

California’s most well-known school for all things cannabis has reopened its doors—albeit with fewer workers and an all-volunteer staff—following a brief, federally enforced shutdown.

Nicknamed the “Princeton of Pot,” Oaksterdam University in Oakland was shuttered April 2 after law-enforcement agents stormed the school in a still-unexplained federal raid. Shortly after, Oaksterdam founder Richard Lee announced he was retiring, a move that prompted some observers to say the celebrated cannabis center would not survive.

Now, following the layoffs of 45 employees both at the university and related businesses and with a staff of volunteers, Oaksterdam is again instructing students on such fine arts as cannabis cultivation, dispensary operations and cooking. The university no longer uses actual cannabis plants in its classes and is no longer affiliated with nearby Blue Sky dispensary.

Bill legalizing dispensary compensation advances

Dispensary owners and their employees would be legally allowed compensation for their efforts, under a proposed law now under consideration by the California Senate.

Introduced by Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), SB 1180 cleared its first big legislative hurdle in May by a 5-2 vote in the Senate Public Safety Committee. If signed into law, it would bar state and local officials from imposing criminal sanctions on dispensary operators and employees who conduct their business within the 2008 Attorney General’s guidelines and receive compensation for their expenses and labor.

A coalition of law-enforcement groups—the California Narcotic Officers’ Association and the California Police Chiefs Association—have registered opposition to the bill, which faces an uncertain future before the full Senate.