Counties

A California elementary school has drawn international media attention after three third graders were busted for smoking weed in the boy’s bathroom. The three boys – two 8-year-olds and a 9-year-old – were caught smoking marijuana from a pipe Feb. 27. The fellow student who spotted them alerted school administrators. They in turn called police in Sonora, where the incident ...

A Moreno Valley resident caught fire and suffered burns to more than 40 percent of his body, apparently while making honey oil, police said. Chad Bishop, 40, was treated for burns at a regional hospital early March 1, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said in a press release. According to investigators, Bishop was burned in his home in Moreno Valley. ...

Medical marijuana proponents in Shasta County have apparently succeeded in stalling a new ban on outdoor cultivation, at least until November. Activists handed more than 13,000 voter signatures to the city Feb. 27 in an effort to force the new ordinance onto the ballot in November. There, they hope, voters will reject it as an intrusion on the rights of ...

A judge invalidated Kern County’s marijuana ordinance Feb. 14, effectively opening the door to an all-out ban on medical weed dispensaries in unincorporated parts of the county. Superior Court Judge Kenneth Twisselman struck down Measure G, a referendum passed by voters in 2012 that limited where dispensaries could locate. Twisselman said the county had failed to conduct proper environmental studies ...

A group hoping to establish a nationwide certification for medical marijuana dispensaries gave its first-ever stamp of approval to two California pot shops Feb. 20. Americans for Safe Access, a pro-marijuana group, certified two dispensaries in the Bay Area: the Berkeley Patients Group and the San Francisco Patient and Resource Center. The group uses a certification process known as Patient ...

It’s the perfect mix of munchies and moolah. In cities across the country, including San Francisco, enterprising girls have discovered a novel method for selling Girl Scout Cookies: setting up shop outside medical marijuana dispensaries. And business is booming. Within just two hours of setting up her stand outside The Green Cross dispensary in San Francisco, 13-year-old Danielle Lei sold ...

Contra Costa County firefighters are adopting new strategies to deal with what they say is a growing problem: blazes breaking out at marijuana grow houses. Any fire poses grave risks to firefighters, said Vic Massenkoff, investigator for the Contra Costa Fire Protection District. But fires at large-scale cultivation sites are especially dangerous, and they require unique approaches, he said. Those ...

The Fremont City Council has banned all outdoor cultivation of medical marijuana in response to neighborhood complaints. The council voted unanimously Feb. 18 to prohibit all outdoor growing, as well as cultivation inside residences if the plants can be seen from public places. The new policy was enacted after several residents complained their neighbors were growing large amounts of weed ...

When the Obama administration promised last year that it wouldn’t interfere with states that legalize weed or the businesses that provide it, the IRS apparently never got the memo. In that announcement, issued in August, the Justice Department said states could legalize, whether for medical or recreational purposes, and businesses could cultivate and sell the drug under state law, as ...

Police discovered a boat beached on the coast of Big Sur that they believe was used to smuggle thousands of pounds of marijuana from Mexico. The 36-foot boat was found beached on the sand at Garrapata State Beach in Big Sur early Feb. 15. Police discovered it about 9:30 a.m. while conducting foot patrol, and found a 35-pound bale of ...