Marijuana

Santa Clara county authorities are on the lookout for a pot farmer who recycles. Workers at a San Jose recycling center found a large trash bag filled with marijuana plants last week. San Jose police say the plants could have come from anywhere in Santa Clara County. Because marijuana cultivation is illegal under federal law, the plants are evidence and won't be sent to a composting bin, authorities say.

Peter Lewis, who helped build Progressive Corp. into one of the largest auto insurers in the country and later became the billionaire backer of marijuana legalization, died Saturday. He was 80. Philanthropic advisor Jennifer Frutchy said Lewis died at his home in Coconut Grove, Fla. In 1965, Lewis became CEO of Cleveland-based Progressive, a company that succeeded a small operation co-founded by his father in 1937. Lewis held the post for 35 years and was Progressive's chairman at his death.

A medical malpractice lawsuit filed by the family of an Orange County girl who was revived after doctors allegedly declared her dead went to trial Monday. Mackayla Jespersen was 20 months old when she fell into a swimming pool at her Fullerton home on Nov. 7, 2003. The lawsuit alleges that the girl, now 6, suffered permanent brain damage after doctors at Anaheim Memorial Medical Center wrongly pronounced her dead and disconnected her breathing tube. More than an hour later, a police detective conducting a routine investigation noticed that her chest was moving and summoned doctors, who were able to revive the child.

The fact that his brother was killed in a robbery - over marijuana - is something Steven Butcher can't seem to wrap his mind around. There's a possibility he never will. But this week may have been a step forward as Butcher, 23, received a one-word text from his mother about the 2010 execution-style killing of his brother Matthew Butcher : Guilty. Daniel Deshawn Hinton, 31, and Raymond Lemone Easter, 27, were found guilty Tuesday of first-degree murder and premeditated attempted murder with special circumstances, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.

A government test has determined that a red dye used in many lipsticks is a powerful herbicide capable of killing marijuana plants, prompting some Bush Administration officials to propose using the dye in an airborne offensive against domestic marijuana cultivation.

As a drug, marijuana has certain effects and, depending on why you're taking it, some side effects. And not everyone wants the whole package. New research finds that for patients who consider weed's buzz an unwanted side effect, the answer might be as simple as taking an ibuprofen with their tetrahydrocannibinol (or THC). A study published Thursday in the journal Cell both demonstrates and explains why common anti-inflammatory drugs, including ibuprofen and the prescription analgesics indomethacin and celecoxib (marketed as Celebrex)

For seven years, Scott Stokes conducted his own reckless inquiries into the physiological effects of pot. "I woke up to get high, and I got high to go to bed," recalled the 19-year-old from El Toro, who broke his marijuana habit only after he was arrested two years ago for burglarizing a head shop. "If I didn't have it, I would . . . start sweating, and when I'd breathe deep I'd get into these weird breathing patterns. "People say that marijuana is not addictive, but it's extremely addictive."

Education has long been preached as a way to keep kids away from drugs. It's the walk to school that has Supt. Tom Barnett worried. This hardscrabble Northern California town has become a hotbed for medical marijuana farming. Kids stroll much of the year past pungent plants flourishing in gardens and alleys. The red-and-black-clad Timberjacks football team moved its halftime huddle on a recent Friday night to avoid the odor of marijuana smoke wafting over the gridiron from nearby houses.

In the debate on legalizing marijuana, which Californians will vote on in November in the form of Proposition 19, the health risks of marijuana are often overlooked. Legalizing marijuana will almost certainly lead to a decrease in its price and an increase in its use, according to a recent Rand Corp. study. And because no drug or medicine is without side effects, increased marijuana use will mean increased health risks. But what kind of risks? Supporters of legalization say marijuana is no more harmful than caffeine, whereas advocates of criminalization suggest that marijuana is highly toxic.

Go figure! The voters in our state have spoken and now we want to ban cigarettes and legalize marijuana. Only in California. JOE WERTZBERGER Yorba Linda

As a drug, marijuana has certain effects and, depending on why you're taking it, some side effects. And not everyone wants the whole package. New research finds that for patients who consider weed's buzz an unwanted side effect, the answer might be as simple as taking an ibuprofen with their tetrahydrocannibinol (or THC). A study published Thursday in the journal Cell both demonstrates and explains why common anti-inflammatory drugs, including ibuprofen and the prescription analgesics indomethacin and celecoxib (marketed as Celebrex)

Bernhard Goetz, the “subway vigilante” who set off a national debate about crime and race after he shot four black men in New York in 1984, has been arrested on drug charges. Goetz, 65, was arrested about 6:30 p.m. Friday in New York after he sold $30 worth of marijuana to an undercover officer outside his Manhattan apartment, police said. Goetz was arrested after he led the officer to his apartment building, went to get the pot from his apartment and sold it for $30,  New York Police Department Det. Annette Markowski told the Los Angeles Times.

SEATTLE - When Washington state voters legalized recreational marijuana a year ago, Jeff Stewart saw an opportunity: After all, he figured, it's the rare industry that's born overnight with proven demand and little competition. But then the 37-year-old tech worker tried to find a warehouse where he could grow about 10,000 square feet of pot plants. What he found was that some cities in the Evergreen State had imposed moratoriums to keep out recreational pot while the foundation is being laid for the new industry.

TUCSON -- The parents of a 5-year-old Arizona boy are suing the state, seeking to treat their son's seizure disorder with marijuana extracts under the state's medical marijuana law. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit on behalf of Jennifer and Jacob Welton, parents of young Zander. The Weltons, of Mesa, want to force the state to include marijuana extracts, such as oil resins, as legal substances under a law approved three years ago by voters. The boy's severe epilepsy is one symptom of a rare, congenital condition.

San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies arrested a marijuana dispensary worker but not a suspected street dealer when the two got into a confrontation about drug sales outside the store. It started about 9:30 a.m. Thursday as customers waited outside the Higher Healing Medical Center marijuana dispensary in Hesperia for the shop to open, authorities said. A 41-year-old Phelan man drove into the parking lot and began offering the dispensary customers marijuana, according to a sheriff's department news release.

On the Venice Boardwalk, the pot hawkers come at you like carnival barkers. In their green scrubs, armed with business cards, they beckon passersby to enter their narrow shops. “Do you have a headache? A backache? Come on in, our doctor is very high quality,” a green-clad barker said. “Do you have cancer, anorexia, AIDS, chronic pain, glaucoma, arthritis, migraine, insomnia or depression?” If you did, you were in luck. The doctor was in. The doctor is always in. Tuesday, I visited the Green Doctors, a hole-in-the-wall storefront next to Jody Maroni's Sausage Kingdom, where 40 bucks gets you a physician visit, and 25 bucks more gets you a medical marijuana card, the only legal way to buy pot in California.

Re "Reefer madness at the DEA," Editorial, Jan. 25 You state that whether to reclassify marijuana under federal law to permit its prescription as a medicine should be based on science and an evaluation of the facts rather than myths. I agree. Yet your editorial is based on myth, asserting that the Drug Enforcement Administration has made it nearly impossible for researchers to obtain marijuana for such studies. To the contrary, not a single scientifically valid study by a qualified researcher has ever been denied by the DEA or, for that matter, by the National Institute of Drug Abuse.

The Highland Park Patient Collective has been praised by Yelp reviewers for its sample room where patients can try their meds, its PlayStation 3 and stockpile of games and its cheap outdoor kush that's good for rolling blunts. But don't expect the residents of Mar Vista to roll out the welcome mat when the collective moves into what used to be a landmark health food store. The former Mrs. Gooch's market on the corner of Palms and Centinela has been mostly empty for 10 years.