Orange County

It’s a well-established fact that rap and marijuana go hand in hand. They’re both popular, they both fuel important social movements, and they both help people relax. It should be no surprise, then, that rising hip hop artist The Game bought a stake in a Southern California medical marijuana dispensary this summer. The Game, a protégé of Dr. Dre, disclosed ...

Prosecutors in Orange County have charged three Santa Ana police officers with stealing snacks and smashing surveillance cameras while raiding a marijuana dispensary in 2015. Each of the officers was charged with petty theft, while one was also charged with vandalism for destroying five closed-circuit cameras. The cameras were destroyed “by banging and smashing the camera lenses,” according to the ...

It’s no secret California is a great place to smoke marijuana. The state produces 60 percent of the nation’s pot supply, and medical cannabis laws have long been notoriously lax, so at least a few California cities should appear on any serious list of the best places for stoners. Indeed, a study from 2014 ranked the top 10 cities for ...

Federal authorities say they’ve busted a major drug ring that distributed synthetic marijuana in Los Angeles. The U.S. attorney’s office for the region announced in October that federal agents had arrested a dozen suspects as part of a larger crackdown on synthetic weed, commonly known as Spice. All were California residents, and their alleged drug conspiracy targeted homeless people living ...

Police found as many as 4,000 marijuana plants growing in a public park in Orange County in August. Narcotics investigators uprooted the plants Aug. 15. A parks worker spotted the plants “a few weeks back” and called the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, Lt. Jeff Hallock said. The plants were growing in the Muddy Canyon portion of the Laguna Coast Wilderness ...

Voters in Santa Ana will decide in November whether they want to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries in the city. Now, thanks to a proposal before the city council, voters could face two ballot items with that goal – one proposed by the city, the other by MMJ advocates. The latest proposed ballot initiative was introduced to council members by city ...

Another light has gone out in Southern California. Whittier has now joined the long list of cities, towns and counties that have banned medical marijuana dispensaries. The situation was already bad, but in some place it continues to get worse. The Whittier City Council voted 4-1 at a special meeting Nov. 19 to ban all dispensaries in the city. They ...

In a case that argues loudly for legalization, three men and one woman are charged with cutting off the penis of a medical marijuana dispensary owner during a robbery and kidnapping in Newport Beach. According to authorities, the attackers thought the dispensary owner had buried cash in the desert outside Palm Springs and tortured him to find it. But he ...

Medical marijuana laws may have prevailed in California, but some counties are doing whatever they can to get around them. In an ironic twist of roles, counties like Riverside are using legal loopholes to keep marijuana out of the area. In Riverside and Orange County new zoning ordinances are keeping dispensaries out. City Attorney Greg Priamos took Riverside’s battle all ...

An Orange County man who pleaded guilty to running illegal dispensaries in Southern California was sentenced to nearly 22 years in federal prison on July 21, plus more than $4 million in fines and restitution. San Clemente resident John Melvin “Pops” Walker, 56, ran at least nine dispensaries in Long Beach and Orange County. He was indicted last fall by ...