Raids baffle pot users with legal standing in Nevada

[Newsjock]

Source: Las Vegas Sun

James Parsons still doesn’t know why he and a volunteer employee spent the afternoon of Sept. 8 in handcuffs after authorities raided his medical marijuana consulting business as well as his rented Summerlin home in a crackdown on pot dispensaries throughout the Las Vegas Valley.

“It was just a smash and grab robbery,” Parsons said while collecting the final scraps of his shuttered business. They didn’t touch his financial records, he said, but “they took stuff that I believe they could sell at a police auction.”

The raids confused Parsons, a state-registered medical marijuana user who insists he never sold the drug. And they have exposed what medical marijuana advocates say is a glaring weakness in Nevada’s medical marijuana law — a ban on dispensaries, which they say makes it difficult for many patients with AIDS, cancer or other ailments to buy pot for pain relief and appetite stimulation. Their only legal alternative: grow their own marijuana with a doctor’s prescription. And that raises another weakness in the state law — it says patients can possess marijuana plants, but not the seeds to grow them.

... But Parsons, 34, has more than a shuttered business on his mind. He’s fighting eviction from his home, brought about after Metro wrote a Sept. 30 letter informing the landlord that he was in violation of a Las Vegas nuisance ordinance because marijuana “was being sold or possessed for sale” at the residence. Parsons is angry, saying he wasn’t arrested or charged with a crime and that he can legally grow pot as a registered patient.

Read more: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/nov/02/raids-baffle-pot-users-legal-standing-state/

[BakedAtAMileHigh]

1. Nevada Cops Shot a guy in the head for smoking a joint a few weeks ago

so I don't find this much of a surprise, really.

LAS VEGAS — The Las Vegas Metro police detective who shot a 21-year-old man during a drug raid was identified Monday as Brian Yant.

Yant and his fellow officers were searching the house for marijuana, according to a search warrant.

Pearce spoke to FOX5 Sunday, admitting that her boyfriend used drugs but saying that he was not a threat.

“Trevon was a recreational smoker. He smoked weed, marijuana. That’s what he did,” she said. “They didn’t have to kill him.”

Pearce, 20, is nine months pregnant with the couple’s child.

“We were supposed to get married next year, plan a black and white affair,” she said. “He was all I ever knew, we were gonna make it.”

via Girlfriend Mourns Man Shot By Vegas Police – Las Vegas News Story – KVVU Las Vegas.

[AngryAmish]

2. This is an important story, but you should delete it

Righthaven and whatnot.

[Newsjock]

3. Righthaven is the Review-Journal, not the Sun

Different ownership, and the Sun hates the R-J ... and is covering Righthaven (and DU's involvement) extensively.

[laughingliberal]

5. Indeed. nt

[AngryAmish]

7. Sorry, my bad.

[Fumesucker]

4. What's so baffling?

In the eyes of law enforcement pot has always been illegal and always will be illegal, those who consume it are low life dopers who deserve to be thrown in jail and all their belonging confiscated and sold to support the police state.

[truedelphi]

8. + 1. n/t

[laughingliberal]

6. Looks like we have a ballot initiative about MJ today.

Nevadans for Sensible Marijuana Laws
Nevadans for Sensible Marijuana Laws BAG
Fiscal Notes

http://nvsos.gov/index.aspx?page=298


Looks like a 'yes' for me

[truedelphi]

9. I am voting for a similar proposition here in California.

It is flawed and what not, but not as flawed as what we have currently.

[Uncle Joe]

10. This has got to be the most Alice in Wonderland sentence that I've read in a long time.

The raids confused Parsons, a state-registered medical marijuana user who insists he never sold the drug. And they have exposed what medical marijuana advocates say is a glaring weakness in Nevada’s medical marijuana law — a ban on dispensaries, which they say makes it difficult for many patients with AIDS, cancer or other ailments to buy pot for pain relief and appetite stimulation. Their only legal alternative: grow their own marijuana with a doctor’s prescription. And that raises another weakness in the state law — it says patients can possess marijuana plants, but not the seeds to grow them.

Thanks for the thread, Newsjock.