Riverside County

Legal marijuana offers big possibilities to many people in California, from pot farmers and dispensary owners to lawyers and accountants. But the modern-day green rush is proving especially helpful to one struggling community in the desert. The Inland Empire city of Desert Hot Springs voted in 2014 to legalize medical marijuana farms, making it the first local government in the ...

A leak at a home in Murrieta led authorities to an indoor pot garden with nearly 1,000 plants, police said. Police arrested Zi Ye Wu, 38, and Wei Ming Li, 30, during a raid on a home on Hannah Way, said Murrieta Police Sgt. Dave Baca. The two posted $50,000 bail and were released. They face drug charges. Murrieta code ...

A struggling desert town in Riverside County, long a hostile place for medical marijuana patients, is turning to an unlikely ally in the fight to keep its police department alive: MMJ. Leaders of the City of Desert Hot Springs, located in the Coachella Valley two hours east of Los Angeles, could move to re-legalize medical weed dispensaries so they could ...

Voters in Riverside will decide next year whether they want to allow a small number of medical marijuana dispensaries in their city. Proponents of a measure to allow pot shops in city limits secured enough signatures in May to guarantee a place on the ballot during the June 2015 local elections. That’s not the goal they were aiming for. Riverside ...

An Inland Empire dispensary owner who is serving a 10-year federal prison sentence lost his bid to win a new trial. Aaron Sandusky, who ran the shuttered G3 Holistic Inc. and its dispensaries in Moreno Valley, Upland and Colton, sought to overturn his 2013 conviction. But in March the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his arguments. The court ...

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. ...

The City of Palm Springs has set a tax rate for its medical marijuana dispensaries that could bring in nearly half a million dollars a year, according to city officials. The city council voted Dec. 18 to levy a 10 percent tax on Palm Spring’s three legal dispensaries and a 15 percent tax on any illegal pot shops. The city ...

Palm Springs residents approved a new tax on medical marijuana dispensaries early this month, and providers and patients will soon find out just how big a financial hit that will mean. On Nov. 5, voters approved Measure B by more than 66 percent, imposing a tax of up to 15 percent on the proceeds of pot shops in the city. ...

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 ...

The family of a mentally disabled California boy who was tricked into buying pot for an overzealous narc, then arrested and kicked out of school by iron-fisted officials, have sued the school district even as it continues to try to expel him despite a court order. Last year, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department launched an ill-conceived crackdown on drug dealing ...