Ed’s note: This story published Dec. 23, 2011 in the Sacramento Bee’s medical marijuana advertising section. BY ED MURRIETA In this season of fresh-baked Christmas cookies, the creation story of Uncle Buck’s new line of medical cannabis edibles — hand-scooped raw cookie dough that can be purchased at medical cannabis dispensaries and baked at home [...]
Pot Parties in Sacramento: A Fund-Raiser, a Farewell, a Fright
BY ED MURRIETA Two cannabis-themed events with “frightful” overtones are planned for Saturday night at two Sacramento medical cannabis dispensaries. One event is a fund-raiser for a group of patients, medical professionals, scientists and concerned citizens promoting safe and legal access to cannabis for therapeutic use and research. The other event marks a dispensary’s closure [...]
Feds Bark and Cities Back Off on Cannabis Dispensary Approvals
BY ED MURRIETA The cities of Sacramento and Eureka are cowering as the federal government intensifies its war on medical cannabis. As the 15th anniversary of the passage of the voter-approved ballot initiative that legalized cannabis for medicinal use in California approaches, Sacramento and Eureka retreat. The city of Sacramento, unnerved by a federal crackdown [...]
‘Straight-up drug dealers’ busted in Sacramento grow opp
BY ED MURRIETA The federal government’s war on cannabis in California yielded indictments against four Sacramento men accused of operating a cannabis-growing operation “for straight-up drug deals.” California Department of Justice agents, supported by Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies, raided an industrial building in South Sacramento this morning, Sacramento TV station News 10 reports. A DOJ [...]
More Medical Cannabis Dispensaries Close in Sacramento County’s Assault on Pot
BY ED MURRIETA A former Assistant U.S. Attorney speaking in favor of the federal government’s pot pogrom said recently that a letter from the U.S. Attorney warning medical cannabis dispensaries and the landlords who rent to them is a good thing. “This letter is the best news that marijuana growers have ever received from the [...]
Owner of Sunnyfields Dispensary, a U.S. Marines Combat Veteran, Cedes a Battle to Sacramento County but Soldiers On
BY ED MURRIETA With more than $5,000 in code violations and the threatened closure of two adacent businesses, Johnny Zonneveld conceded a skirmish in Sacramento County’s war on medical cannabis dispensaries and closed Sunnyfields Collective on Thursday. Sunnyfields joins One Solution, City of Trees, California Holistic Care, Citizen Collective, The Reserve, PACC Group and Fort [...]
Pictures of Pot Dispensaries Past: Closures in Sacramento County
Closed: The Reserve on Fulton Avenue. Closed: Citizen Collective on El Camino Avenue. Those cards taped beneath the closed signs at both Citizen Collective and The Reserve are a classy touch touting Touch of Earth, a dispensary on Auburn Boulevard. Closed: Only one of the businesses at this Fair Oaks Boulevard address closed — Sunnyfields [...]
Feds Crack Whip at Pot ‘Profiteers’
BY ED MURRIETA Four United States Attorneys from major jurisdictions in California announced today in Sacramento that federal prosecutors will now use federal laws and asset forfeitures to target landlords and others who do business with medical cannabis dispensaries and large growing operations. While saying that they had not yet come up with a unified [...]
Ganja Today, Gone Tomorrow: Dispensary Darwinism and Political Pot Pogroms in Sacramento
BY ED MURRIETA Once upon a time, when I was a restaurant critic in a second city in a bad economy, I chased restaurants — the delayed openings, the quick closures, the inspections in between, the cooks who served good food vs. the operators in it for a buck. It put a taste in my [...]
Whack-A-Pot: Feds Threaten Property Seizures; IRS Hounds Harborside; Eureka Snubs Fed Threat; Carnival Vibe in Sacramento County
BY ED MURRIETA “Kind of like Whack-A-Mole.” That’s the assessment of Sacramento TV newsman George Warren, who’s on top of medical cannabis law enforcement coverage these days. Last night on News10, Warren reported that the federal government is threatening to seize the property of landlords who rent to medical cannabis dispensaries. Warren’s report is based [...]
Crackdown: Closure, Asset Seizures, a Dispensary Sold
BY ED MURRIETA Like the sign says, City of Trees, a medical marijuana dispensary in Carmichael, shut down. Farther down Fair Oaks Boulevard, California Holistic Care is empty, with a for-rent sign in the window. One Solution on Madison shut too. In addition to closures (and rumors, oh, of course, rumors) of closures, I hear [...]
The Farmers Market’s Shake ‘N’ Bake Gives Your Bud More Bang
BY ED MURRIETA The baggie containing brown, powdery cannabis was marked Shake ‘N’ Bake. I asked if that’s the dispensary’s culinary blend — perhaps for a batch of pot-crusted pork chops. “It’s kief,” the cannabis consultant at The Farmers Market said. “Throw your bud in, coat it with kief. Ten bucks for any eighth, five [...]
But Carmichael Pot Shops Already Spruce Up ‘Blighted’ Suburban Road
BY ED MURRIETA Sacramento County Board of Supervisors have given their unanimous but tentative approval for a plan to beautify a 1-mile stretch of suburban thoroughfare that has the dubious honor of being dubbed the ugliest street in Sacramento (gotcha, Sacramento Tree Foundation), littered with a hodgepodge of discount stores, fast-food outlets and auto lube [...]
Feds Want Sacramento Men Who Sought ‘as Great a Profit as Possible’ from Pot
Bryan Smith, left, and dad Kelly Smith. BY ED MURRIETA A marijuana investigation that began in February with what local law enforcement calls an anonymous tip bloomed into a federal case when criminal charges against six Sacramento men were unsealed Thursday. An affidavit signed by a Drug Enforcement Adminstration special agent charges that the owners [...]
Unity Puts Heart and Feet into the Community
BY ED MURRIETA The patients at Unity Non-Profit Collective are not just people who suffer from breast cancer, diabetes and other conditions treatable with medical marijuana. They are, in fact, patients who help finance medical research into those conditions. Unity and its patient-members raise money through events like the Susan G. Komen Race for the [...]
Mary Jane’s Wellness: $10 Grams, Roll-Your-Own Jack Balls and a Retail Buzz on Sunrise
BY ED MURRIETA Big, bright, clean and staffed by friendly budtenders who do their homework, Mary Jane’s Wellness does customer-service right — serious like a jewelry store, with a little frivolity of a candy store. All of Mary Jane’s marijuana is advertised as top-shelf and goes for $10 a gram, about $3 to $5 less [...]
Pot Appetit Interview: Michael Backes of Abatin Wellness — Montel’s Medical Marijuana Joint
BY ED MURRIETA I interviewed Michael Backes of Abatin Wellness in Sacramento this week. Backes is a veteran of both the Los Angeles medical marijuana dispensary scene and Hollywood’s film industry. For just over an hour, we talked about Abatin Wellness; the role research plays in the dispensary’s operation; business practices of dispensaries; the science [...]
Visit 1 Love Dispensary in Sacramento, Say ‘Ed Murrieta Sent Me,’ and Help Poor People Get Free Medicine
BY ED MURRIETA Word of mouth — friends telling friends about a store or a service – is one of the best ways of bringing in new customers. When the mouth that speaks the words is rewarded, everyone wins. That’s pretty much the experience of medical marijuana dispensaries’ patient referral programs. Refer a new patient, [...]
A Is for Abatin, but Click M for Montel Williams, Medical Marijuana and Ed Murrieta’s Request
BY ED MURRIETA According to Pot Appetit’s traffic stats, Montel Williams and the medical marijuana dispensary he’s opened in Sacramento and the one he wants to open in Washington, DC, are popular. And why not? First off, as one bald-headed, dark-skinned, sexy medical pot smoker, I must say: Yeah, Montel’s one sexy, bald-headed, dark-skinned medical [...]
Tasting Sacramento’s Po’ Boys of Pot: $3 Joints
A $3 joint can look this good? BY ED MURRIETA Joint. Spliff. Pre-roll. By any name, it’s arguably the most known and widely recognized vehicle associated with smoking pot. It’s certainly the most convenient. It’s portable. It’s easy to share — making it a truly social medium. You can even eat one — as medicine, [...]
‘Pot Party on the Sacramento River’: Local TV Shows the Smoke at Sacramento Hempfest
BY ED MURRIETA If your impression of Sacramento Hempfest is limited to local television coverage — as it is for me, as my request for a media credential went unanswered — you might get the impression that this weekend’s inaugural event is little more than “a pot party on the Sacramento River.” I’d like to [...]
Warren G and Comics Pre-Func Hempfest at Sacramento Pot Dispensaries
BY ED MURRIETA Hempfest Sacramento begins its inaugural three-day run today at the Rio Ramaza RV park on the Sacramento River just across the Sutter County line, and some of the performers are getting on their pre-func at Sacramento medical marijuana dispensaries today.
Montel Williams Wants to Go to Washington — and I Want Check Out His Upscale Joint in Sacramento
BY ED MURRIETA Abatin Wellness Center in Sacramento made headlines in June when TV personality and pitchman Montel Williams signed on as a consultant with what looks to be the most progressive and medically minded dispensary I’ve encountered in the 14 years I’ve been a medical marijuana patient in California and Washington. Abatin and Williams [...]
Fruitridge Health and Wellness Donates to UC Davis Breast Cancer and Prostate Cancer Programs
Sacramento’s Fruitridge Health & Wellness Collective‘s $50,000 pledge to UC Davis Health System will fund outreach, education and support for newly designated breast cancer and prostate cancer patients at UC Davis Health Systems’ WeCARE! Breast Cancer and Prostate Cancer Peer Navigator Programs. With three relatives afflicted by cancer, two of whom have passed, the donations to [...]
Pedaling for Pot in Sacramento: Like Amsterdam on the American River
SUMMER TRAVEL SPECIAL Enjoy two of Sacramento’s popular activities and attractions: bicycling and medical marijuana dispensaries. Stop at cafes, museums, parks and produce farms along the way and, hey — who needs Amsterdam this summer? BY ED MURRIETA SACRAMENTO – If you’re a medical marijuana patient and a bicycle enthusiast, California’s capital city is the [...]
Two of my recipes
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