Free Republic

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has introduced legislation to keep Californians convicted of illegal marijuana cultivation out of state prison. Ammiano's Assembly Bill 1017 seeks to set a maximum sentence of one year in county jail for people convicted of illegal cultivation. Current California law treats illegal pot growing as a felony allowing up to three years in state prison, with stiffer sentences if the cultivation is connected to illegal sales or trafficking. The bill by the San Francisco Democrat is also intended to make it easier for authorities to charge non-medical pot cultivators with a misdemeanor instead of a felony, ....

As the United States Attorney in Los Angeles in the late 1980s, Robert C. Bonner prosecuted Mexican drug cartel members and conspirators in the ruthless torture and murder of a U.S. drug agent, Enrique "Kiki" Camarena. At the time, he vowed: "The United States government will not let the murder of an agent by a terrorist organization go unavenged." These days, Bonner is refusing let a California ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana use go unchallenged. In an interview for an article in last Friday's Sacramento Bee, Bonner argued that Proposition 19 not only defies federal law but also breaches...

Lea Ananda and life partner Shar Ananda settled in Mendocino County for a leisurely retirement growing pot. Lea, 61, a former insurance examiner and Shar, 65, a retired hospital lab worker, bought a 26-foot geodesic dome and invested Shar's pension to fill it with seedings. Their medical cannabis venture took off. They became growers for dispensaries, including three in Sacramento. But the pot trade can have unexpected events. Lea Ananda complained the P Street Health Center in Sacramento never paid $14,500 it owed them for weed. Dispensary manager Wade Brown, 34, pleaded he had an excuse: Officers in Merced County...