• Colorado court rules smoking pot off the job can still get you fired

    The Evans Firm

    Attorney Michael D. Evans and client Brandon Coats, who was fired from his job at Dish Network in 2010 for smoking medical marijuana off the clock.

    By Andrew Rafferty, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Coloradans may be able to legally smoke pot now — but lighting up a joint, even off the clock, can still get you fired.

    Although Centennial State voters approved a measure last fall to legalize marijuana use, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that employees can still be fired for testing positive for the drug -- even if they never show up to work impaired.

    A divided panel of judges decided that because marijuana use is illegal under federal law, employees are not protected from being terminated for using it.


    The case centered on Brandon Coats, a quadriplegic medical-marijuana patient who was fired in 2010 from his job as a telephone operator for Dish Network after testing positive for the drug. Lawyers for Coats argued he was protected under a Colorado law that states it is illegal for workers to be terminated for participating in lawful activities off the clock.

    But a trial court dismissed the claim in 2011, siding with Dish Network that medical marijuana use isn't a "lawful activity" covered by the termination law.

    Now, even though the law has changed, the outcome for Coats has not. In its ruling, the Colorado Court of Appeals sought to define the word "lawful," ultimately concluding that for something to be lawful it "must be permitted by, and not contrary to, both state and federal law."

    Coats' attorney Michael Evans said the ruling is a major blow to Coloradans who use marijuana for medicinal purposes. 
    "This case not only impacts Mr. Coats, but also some 127,816 medical-marijuana patient-employees in Colorado who could be summarily terminated even if they are in legal compliance with Colorado state law," he said in a statement.

    Evans plans to appeal the ruling and said he believes the three-judge panel ultimately reached its decision out of a reluctance to issue a groundbreaking reversal that could have a far-reaching impact as Colorado establishes how to govern its new drug laws.
    "What they did was the conservative thing, the safe thing to do," Evans said of the ruling.

    The court acknowledged that Dish Network never accused Coats of being impaired while on the job. Lawyers for the former employee said he received satisfactory performance reviews all three years he worked at the company. 

    But Dish Network ultimately has the right to fire marijuana smokers regardless of whether they were good employees, the court ruled. "While we agree that the general purpose of (the Lawful Off-Duty Activities Statute) is to keep an employer's proverbial nose out of an employee's off-site off-hours business ... we can find no legislative intent to extend employment protection to those engaged in activities that violate federal law," Court of Appeals Chief Judge Janice Davidson wrote in the opinion.

    Judge John Webb dissented in the 2-1 vote, disagreeing with the majority's conclusion on the definition of lawful. 

    If the federal government had issue with various states' versions of lawful off-duty activities statutes, it could have passed a federal law by now, Webb argued.

    "[Congress] could have resolved that problem with legislation empowering employers to discharge employees who have engaged in conduct that violated any federal law. To date, Congress has not done so. Recognition that protecting employees from discharge based on their off-duty conduct is primarily a matter of state concern favors measuring 'lawful' based on state law," he wrote in his dissent.

  • Police: Drug runners use magnets to clasp pot to unsuspecting woman's car

    San Diego Police Dept. via NBCSanDiego.com

    Approximately 30 pounds of pot were secured to the undercarriage of a woman's vehicle using magnets. Detectives say she unknowingly transported the drugs across the border.

    By Monica Garske, NBCSanDiego.com

    San Diego narcotics detectives are investigating an incident in which a woman may have unknowingly transported a large quantity of marijuana across the border.


    According to investigators, a 33-year-old woman who lives in Mexico and works in downtown San Diego crossed the border in her personal vehicle around 3 a.m. Friday.

    Read original report at NBCSanDiego.com

    She arrived at work early and was seated inside her car when, at about 4 a.m., two unknown males approached her parked vehicle and began removing items from the undercarriage.

    Investigators say the woman startled the men, and they ran to a black sedan nearby and took off.

    The woman contacted police officers, who discovered six packages had been secured to the undercarriage of the woman’s vehicle with strong magnets.

    Inside the packages officers found more around 30 pounds of marijuana.

    Investigators believe the woman unknowingly transported the drugs across the border. At this point, it is unclear who actually strapped the marijuana to her car.

    No arrests have been made, and police say the investigation is ongoing.

    Narcotics detectives want to remind drivers to check their vehicle before crossing the border to ensure it’s free of contraband, illegal items or unknown items.

  • Marijuana gardeners seek help with tough weed

    Ed Andrieski / AP

    Instructor Ted Smith, left, shows Ginger and Heath Grider how to cut and plant a section of a tomato plant during class at THC University at the Tivoli in Denver.

    By Kristen Wyatt and Nicholas K. Geranios, Associated Press

    It may be called weed, but marijuana is legendarily hard to grow.


    Now that the drug has been made legal in Washington and Colorado, growers face a dilemma. State-sanctioned gardening coaches can help folks cultivate tomatoes or zucchini, but both states have instructed them not to show people the best way to grow marijuana. The situation is similar in more than a dozen additional states that allow people to grow the drug with medical permission.

    That's leaving some would-be marijuana gardeners looking to the private sector for help raising the temperamental plant.

    "We can't go there," said Brian Clark, a spokesman for Washington State University in Pullman, which runs the state's extension services for gardening and agriculture. "It violates federal law, and we are a federally funded organization."

    The issue came up because people are starting to ask master gardeners for help in growing cannabis, Clark said. Master gardeners are volunteers who work through state university systems to provide horticultural tips in their communities.

    Related: Colorado, Washington approve recreational marijuana use

    The situation is the same in Colorado, where Colorado State University in Fort Collins recently added a marijuana policy to its extension office, warning that any employee who provides growing assistance acts outside the scope of his or her job and "assumes personal liability for such action."

    The growing predicament is just the latest quandary for these states that last year flouted federal drug law by removing criminal penalties for adults over 21 with small amounts of pot. In Washington, home-growing is banned, but it will be legal to grow pot commercially once state officials establish rules and regulations.

    In Colorado, adults are allowed to grow up to six marijuana plants in their own homes, so long as they're in a locked location out of public view.

    At least two Colorado entrepreneurs are taking advantage of that aspect of the law; they're offering growing classes that have attracted wannabe professional growers, current users looking to save money by growing their own pot and a few baby boomers who haven't grown pot in decades and don't feel comfortable going to a marijuana dispensary.

    "We've been doing this on our own, but I wanted to learn to grow better," said Ginger Grinder, a medical marijuana patient from Portales, N.M., who drove to Denver for a "Marijuana 101" class she saw advertised online.

    Grinder, a stay-at-home mom who suffers from lupus and fibromyalgia, joined about 20 other students earlier this month for a daylong crash course in growing the finicky marijuana plant.

    Taught in a rented room at a public university, the course had students practicing on tomato plants because pot is prohibited on campus. The group took notes on fertilizer and fancy hydroponic growing systems, and snipped pieces of tomato plants to practice cloning, a common practice for nascent pot growers to start raising weed from a "mother" marijuana plant.

    Related: Recreational marijuana users could get pot from vending machines, company says

    Ted Smith, a longtime instructor at an indoor gardening shop, led the class, and warned these gardeners that their task won't be easy. Marijuana is fickle, he said. It's prone to mildews and molds, picky about temperature and pH level, intolerant to tap water.

    A precise schedule is also a must, Smith warned, with set light and dark cycles and watering at the same time each day. Unlike many house plants, Smith warned, marijuana left alone for a long weekend can curl and die.

    "Just like the military ... they need to know when they're getting their water and chow," Smith said of the plants.

    The class was the brainchild of Matt Jones, a 24-year-old Web developer who wanted to get into the marijuana business without raising or selling it himself. As a teenager, Jones once tried to grow pot himself in empty Home Depot paint buckets. He used tap water and overwatered, and the marijuana wilted and died.

    "It was a disaster," he recalled. Jones organized the class and an online "THC University" for home growers, but his own thumb isn't green. Jones said he'll be buying his marijuana from professional growers.

    The course showed would-be grower Cael Nodd, a 34-year-old stagehand in Denver, that marijuana gardening can be an intimidating prospect.

    "It seems like there's going to be a sizable investment," he said. "I want something that really tastes good. Doesn't seem like it will be that easy."

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • California Supreme Court to weigh cities' bans on medical marijuana

    David McNew / Getty Images file

    Marijuana is shown at the Perennial Holistic Wellness Center, a medical marijuana dispensary, on July 25 in Los Angeles.

    By Andrew Mach, Staff Writer, NBC News

    For the first time, the California Supreme Court will enter the medical marijuana debate Tuesday and hear arguments on whether municipal governments can ban retail pot dispensaries within their jurisdiction.


    In the years since California voters legalized medical marijuana in 1996, about 200 cities and counties have outlawed pot shops, according to Americans for Safe Access, a pro-dispensary group. But Tuesday’s hearings in the state’s high court will mark an unprecedented test on whether cities can legally restrict them.

    The hearing stems from a Southern California case from two years ago when a dispensary sued the city of Riverside, Calif., on its decision to ban pot shops. The dispensary claimed that cities and counties cannot ban or restrict something the voters have already approved.

    “What the appellate court decided was that cities have a choice, and, in fact, 14 cities in the county of Santa Clara decided to ban dispensaries, San Jose being really the only one to allow it,” San Jose City Councilman Sam Liccardo told NBCBayArea.com.

    Many of the citywide bans on pot dispensaries were enacted after the U.S. Department of Justice said in 2009 that prosecuting pot sales would be a low priority under the Obama administration, prompting an explosion of retail medical marijuana outlets in Southern California.

    "These places are popping up everywhere, and the typical city that had one or two, two became four and four became 16 or 20," Jeffrey Dunn, an Orange County lawyer who will be arguing in favor of the local bans on Tuesday, told The Associated Press. "What has happened as a practical matter is this state law, which authorizes the medical use of marijuana, and federal law that prohibits it, has forced cities and counties to be the ones to regulate this like any other entity that crops up in our business districts." 

    But advocates for medical marijuana say that California’s laws allow local governments to set limits on dispensaries, but not to ban them entirely.

    "If it's the case localities can ban, you could end up with the entire southern and middle portion of the state banning dispensaries, which clearly does not promote uniformity throughout the state or safe access" to marijuana, Americans for Safe Access legal director Joe Elford told the AP. 

    Liccardo said he supports limiting the number of dispensaries but wants the cities to have the final decision.

    “It is disconcerting if the state rules that cities don’t really have the ability to control when, how and where dispensaries operate,” Liccardo said. “It’s very important for a lot of communities because we know there are a lot of impacts with dispensaries – not all of them are good.” 

    Courts have delivered mixed results on the issue in the state.

    In two other cases, an appeals court in Southern California struck down Los Angeles County's two-year-old ban on dispensaries, and another appeals court upheld the ban in Long Beach, Calif., ruling federal law pre-empts municipalities from allowing dispensaries. 

    But Alex Kreit, a Thomas Jefferson School of Law professor said the Supreme Court may be reluctant to strip cities of the right to enact the bans, likening the situation to states that permit counties to be "wet" or "dry" in allowing alcohol sales.

    "It is really unusual for a locality to try to outright ban something that is legal under state law," Kreit told the San Jose Mercury News. "But I still think it's going to be an uphill battle for the medical marijuana argument in this case."

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  • Marijuana restrictions: Appeals court backs DEA, rejects pot advocates argument

    Anthony Bolante / Reuters file

    A marijuana starter plant is shown at Canna Pi medical marijuana dispensary in Seattle on Nov. 20.

    By Pete Williams, Justice Correspondent, NBC News

    Advocates of looser federal restrictions on marijuana suffered a significant legal setback Tuesday, as a panel of three judges found that the federal government acted properly in refusing to loosen restrictions on pot.


    Pro-marijuana groups and a disabled veteran who said it improves his medical condition asked the Drug Enforcement Administration to put marijuana on a lower tier of federal restrictions.  They said the agency was ignoring a growing body of scientific evidence that it has some medical benefits. When the DEA refused, they sued.

    But by a 2-1 vote, a panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said Tuesday that the DEA did consider all the available information. "We find nothing in the record that could move us to conclude that the agency failed to prove by substantial evidence that such studies confirming marijuana's medical efficacy do not exist," the majority opinion said.

    The ruling comes as a stark contrast to actions by a growing number of states that allow use of marijuana on the recommendation of a doctor. And voters in Colorado and Washington approved ballot measures in November that ease state restrictions against recreational use.

    The DEA has long classified marijuana as a Schedule I drug, the most-restrictive category, finding it "has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States." The production, sale, and use of marijuana remain illegal under federal law as a result.

    Judge Harry Edwards, who wrote Tuesday's opinion, took note of the controversy. "There is a serious debate in the United States over the efficacy of marijuana for medicinal uses," he said.

    But the issue for the court, he said, "is not whether marijuana could have some medical benefits." Instead, Edwards said, the court's job was to determine whether the DEA acted within the scope of its authority in declining to reclassify the drug, given claims in the lawsuit that peer-reviewed scientific studies found some evidence that it could be beneficial.

    "We defer to the agency's interpretation of these regulations and find that substantial evidence supports its determination" that no studies exist that are "adequate and well-controlled" proving its effectiveness in medical treatments.

    The dissenting judge, Karen LeCraft Henderson, expressed no view on whether marijuana has medical benefits.  Instead, she said the court should have dismissed the case on the grounds that none of those filing the lawsuit had legal authority to bring the case to court in the first place. 

  • Alligator-like Mr. Teeth dies after being discovered guarding pot

    View more videos at: http://nbcbayarea.com.

    By Lori Preuitt , NBCBayArea.com

    Updated at 4:45 p.m. ET: There is a sad update to a pot bust that included a 5-foot alligator-like creature that was allegedly used by his owner to guard drugs in Castro Valley.

    Veterinarians at the Oakland Zoo reported Thursday that Mr. Teeth died overnight.


    Dr. Karen Emanuelson said the animal, which looks like an alligator, was actually a dwarf caiman. And when he came to the zoo Tuesday after an unusual drug bust, he was critically ill and non-responsive.

    Veterinary staff said they examined Mr. Teeth, took blood samples and determined his prognosis was poor. Emanuelson confirmed Thursday that the animal died sometime in the night, but no one at the zoo would explain or discuss any more. It was not clear why the caiman, thought to be about 16 years old, died, or if guarding drugs at a man's house had any connection to his death.

    The odd story of the caiman came to light when Alameda County  sheriff's deputies walked into a house earlier this week on the 19000 block of Mount Jasper Drive in Castro Valley to do a routine probation check.

    The found the suspect, 32-year-old Assif Mayar, and the drugs and the animal.

    Mayar said he acquired the caiman in 1996 to commemorate the death of rapper Tupac Shakur, deputies said.

    The caiman was found in a Plexiglas tank in one of the bedrooms and was being used as a deterrent to would-be thieves.

    Sgt. J.D. Nelson said when deputies got to the bedroom they found Mr. Teeth "guarding" a 34-pound stash of dried, processed marijuana worth about $100,000."

    When NBC Bay Area knocked on the door Wednesday night, the lights at Mayar's home were on and dogs were barking, but no one answered. Neighbors told NBC Bay Area that Mayar and his wife moved into the house about two years ago before their son was born.

    Related: Cops respond to shooting, find stripper pole, gators guarding pot plants

    A mother of two who didn’t want to be identified said she’d been inside that house before but noticed and heard nothing out of the ordinary.  "They’re just family people like us, and she has a little boy, very cute, about 20 months, so of course you wouldn’t suspect or expect anything like this from this neighborhood," she said.

    Another neighbor, who also did not want to be named, added: "It doesn’t belong in a neighborhood with little kids, and there are lots of little kids. There’s a school about a block away, and if the thing got out, that could be really dangerous."

    Caimans are generally from South and Central America and require a lot of care. They need a heat source, a large pond with extra space, and fresh meat bi-weekly.

    Mayar was booked into the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin on drug possession and sales charges. It was not immediately clear if additional animal cruelty charges would be considered.

    NBC Bay Area's Stephanie Chuang contributed to this report.

  • In Los Angeles, advocates push dueling medical marijuana measures

    Reed Saxon / AP file

    "Budista" Angela Nagel assists a client at the Starbudz medical marijuana dispensary in the North Hollywood district of Los Angeles on May 5, 2010.

    By Kari Huus, NBC News

    In Los Angeles, where pot dispensaries have proliferated despite city lawmakers' efforts to regulate or ban them, advocates for medical marijuana have taken the initiative to rein them in — with two groups putting forward rival ballot initiatives to manage the budding industry.

    Los Angeles City Council in October reversed a ban on the pot shops — which they had passed less than three months earlier after activists mounted lawsuits and gathered tens of thousands of signatures opposing it. The lawmakers have been slow to draft alternative plans for the pot industry so medical marijuana advocates have stepped in.

    An initiative that qualified for the ballot on Friday, after gathering tens of thousands of signatures, proposes that all comers are allowed to enter the business of selling medical cannabis — but only if they pass a background check and meet strict operating and zoning requirements. The measure would also hike taxes on medical marijuana sales by 20 percent to cover the cost to the city for regulation.

     


    The current tax is $50 per $1,000 of gross receipts, and the increase would bump it up to $60 per $1,000 of gross receipts.

    That measure is pitted against a medical marijuana initiative that qualified for the ballot just two days earlier — one that would force all the city's marijuana dispensaries to close down except about 100 that were set up before Sept. 2007, when the city imposed a moratorium on new shops.

    In the face of vociferous opposition, the city council did not enforce the moratorium, instead letting it expire. The number of cannabis shops soared to an estimated 700 to 1,000 in 2012. They range in size from tiny mom-and-pop shops to large multi-million dollar businesses, the Los Angeles Times reported. Police say some are squeaky-clean outlets providing relief to desperately ill patients, while others are magnets for crime with a toxic mix of cash and narcotics, with a negative impact on neighborhoods.

    Regulating medical marijuana has been complicated by lawsuits and the push-pull between federal and state laws.

    Under California law it is legal to obtain medical marijuana and the court has ruled it is legal for the medical dispensaries to sell it.  But under federal law marijuana is a controlled substance, illegal to possess and sell. If California issues licenses to pot sellers, even if it's in an effort to limit their numbers, it may be in violation of federal law.

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    David Welch is a Los Angeles attorney advocating for Angelenos for Safe Access, which gathered more than 73,000 petition signatures to get their initiative qualified for the ballot on Friday. He says that the proposed zoning — designed to keep pot sales at a specified distance from schools, parks, churches, substance abuse facilities and other designated sites — would naturally limit the number of dispensaries to about 150. The proposal also calls for background checks for dispensary operators, prescribed operating hours and higher taxes.

    "Currently there is no regulation so that’s why there is proliferation. Our goal is to have good operators stay in business," said Welch. "It would put out 70-85 percent of the dispensaries operating out of business."

    This ballot measure, "Regulation of Medical Marijuana for Safe Neighborhoods and Safe Access" is backed by many of the dispensaries that have opened since the 2007 moratorium.

    The competing initiative, called the "Medical Marijuana Collectives Initiative Ordinance" would grandfather in about 100 medical marijuana dispensaries set up prior to the 2007 moratorium, and bar all others. It would also add restrictions on hours of operation and location.

    Los Angeles residents will have a chance to vote on the proposals in municipal elections in May, according to the Los Angeles Times.

    The new ballot drives have "forced our hand," City Councilman Paul Koretz  told the Times.

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  • Obama on pot laws: 'We've got bigger fish to fry'

    Nick Adams / Reuters

    Marijuana is broken up for use by customers at Frankie Sports Bar and Grill in Olympia, Wash., on Sunday.

    By Tracy Connor, NBC News

    Pot smokers in Washington and Colorado are inhaling a little easier after President Barack Obama said the federal government has more important things to do than go after "recreational" drug users in states that legalize marijuana.


    "We've got bigger fish to fry," Obama told ABC News' Barbara Walters.

    He was weighing in on the issue for the first time since voters in the two states approved initiatives to legalize the recreational use of marijuana – which is still a crime under federal law.

    Obama admitted this disconnect between federal and local laws had put him in a tough spot.

    "I head up the executive branch. We're supposed to be carrying out laws," he said. "And so what we're going to need to have is a conversation about how do you reconcile a federal law that still says marijuana is a federal offense and state laws that say that it's legal?"

    The Justice Department is still looking into how to handle the conflict. But in the meantime, Obama suggested, the feds aren't gearing up for what might be a costly, unpopular crackdown on tokers in Colorado and Washington.

    Related: Americans to feds -- Keep your hands off our pot

    "You've seen the voters speak on this issue. And as it is, the federal government has a lot to do when it comes to criminal prosecutions," he said.

    "It would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have determined that it's legal."

    The president’s comments on the new Colorado and Washington laws echo the stand he took on medical marijuana during the 2008 campaign, when he said prosecutions would be a low priority.

    Related: So where will all that 'legal' pot come from?

    Two years later, though, federal authorities toughened up that stance, announcing that dispensaries and growers in 18 states that have legalized medical marijuana could be charged with violating drug and money-laundering laws. Dozens of medical marijuana collectives have been ordered shut since then.

    Washington State's new law makes it legal for adults to possess up to one ounce of marijuana, but some speculate the federal government will prosecute those who use marijuana on federal land because federal law prohibits marijuana use. NBC's Kristen Dahlgren reports.

    Federal prosecutors have not sounded as relaxed as Obama about new state legalization efforts.

    Hours before the law in her state went into effect, the U.S. attorney in Washington, Jenny Durkan, issued a warning that "growing, selling or possessing any amount of marijuana remains illegal under federal law."

    Related: Like Amsterdam, Washington bar owner lets patrons get stoned

    Ezra Klein explains how reclassifying marijuana to a lesser category can reduce some of the tension between federal law prohibiting the drug and new state laws allowing its use medicinally or in small quantities.

    Obama – who revealed in his 1995 memoir that he was a regular pot smoker in high school -- said he doesn't back wider legalization of marijuana "at this point." And he wanted to nip in the bud any suggestion that he's pro-weed.

    "There are a bunch of things I did that I regret when I was a kid," Obama said in excerpts of the interview, which airs Friday on "20/20."

    "My attitude is, substance abuse generally is not good for our kids, not good for our society," he said. "I want to discourage drug use."

    Related: Feds fire warning shot over pot legalization

    Obama was frank about his youthful drug use in his best-selling book, "Dreams from My Father."

    "I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though," he wrote.

    "Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man."

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  • 'Unique' smuggling attempt: $42,500-worth of marijuana shot into Ariz. by cannon

    US Customs and Border Protection

    Over 30 cans of marijuana were shot into Yuma via cannon, Customs and Border Protection officials said Tuesday.

    By Lauren Steussy, NBCSanDiego.com

    Over 30 cans of marijuana were shot into Yuma, Ariz., using a cannon, Customs and Border Protection officials said Tuesday.


    The suspicious cans were discovered near the Colorado River in Yuma on Friday.

    Border Patrol agents said the discovery was "another unique but unsuccessful attempt" to smuggle drugs into the U.S.

    An investigation of the area determined that the cans were fired from about 500 feet away with a pneumatic-powered cannon. A carbon-dioxide tank was found nearby.

    Read more news on NBCSanDiego.com

    Mexican authorities were also looking into the incident.

    The marijuana weighed 85 pounds and was valued at $42,500. It will be destroyed, according to a statement from the agency.

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  • Like Amsterdam: Washington bar owner lets patrons get stoned

    Stringer / REUTERS

    Frankie's Sports Bar and Grill recently started allowing people to smoke marijuana in the Olympia, Wash., bar, taking advantage of some haziness in the law.

    By Jonathan Kaminsky, Reuters

    Thanks to a successful ballot initiative last month, Washington state residents can legally smoke marijuana in the privacy of their living rooms as of Thursday.


    When that gets old, bar owner Frank Schnarr suggests, area stoners have another option: grab a booth at Frankie's Sports Bar & Grill in Olympia and toke up there.

    Schnarr, 62, says he is not acting out of a love of cannabis - he says he hasn't smoked the stuff since he was a soldier stationed in Southeast Asia in the 1970s. Rather, he's looking for new sources of income.

    "I stay up at night," he said. "I'm about to lose my business. So I've got to figure out some way to get people in here." 

    Schnarr, who waged an ultimately successful battle with local and state officials over Washington's 2006 smoking ban, appears to be the first restaurant or bar owner in the state to test the recently expanded limits on recreational marijuana use. 

    So, is he breaking the law? 

    Federal, state and local officials appear unsure. Or if they are, they're not saying. 

    "Marijuana remains illegal under federal law," said Emily Langlie, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle. "I can't tell you whether what he's doing is legal or not." 

    Americans to feds: Keep your hands off our pot

    Says Tom Morrill, Olympia's city attorney: "We're looking into it. There are a lot of changes in state law right now. That's all I can say." 

    Mikhail Carpenter, spokesman for the state's Liquor Control Board, newly empowered to make rules for and oversee the state's planned regime for the cultivation, processing and sale of marijuana, is similarly noncommittal. 

    "The board is weighing its options with regard to Frankie's," he said. "It's not perfectly crystal clear as to who this falls to." 

    Carpenter said he knows of no other bar or restaurant in the state that allows marijuana smoking. 

    The legal gray area that Schnarr is exploiting exists in part thanks to his earlier fight over the smoking ban. 

    In order to flout it, Schnarr renamed his establishment's smoking-friendly second floor as "Friends of Frankie's," a private room limited to those who pay a $10 annual membership fee. 

    Nick Adams / REUTERS

    A medical marijuana patient smokes inside the Frankie Sports Bar and Grill.

    A full range of alcoholic beverages are for sale and the room is staffed by comely bartenders and cocktail waitresses. They are volunteers entitled to reimbursement for travel expenses and childcare but otherwise making their living off tips. 

    "Frank's ahead of the curve on (allowing marijuana use)," says Shawn Newman, Schnarr's attorney. "A lot of other taverns, bars and restaurants would like to do this, but they didn't have enough chutzpah to fight the smoking ban so they're locked into non-smoking operations." 

    Schnarr says "Friends of Frankie's" has over 10,000 members, with upwards of 40 joining in the two days since he announced that marijuana would be welcome. 

    To help appeal to his new target market, Schnarr has introduced a $4.20 appetizer menu — included are breaded shrimp, breaded cheese sticks and breaded mushrooms — and he is toying with the possibility of opening a medical marijuana dispensary on a nearby property. 

    But he isn't looking to attract Olympia's sizable transient crowd, or stoned college students. 

    "I'll have security in here, and if I see a bunch of guys just trying to get ripped, they're gone," he said. 

    Early last Friday evening, a few dozen customers played pool, drank beer, smoked cigarettes and loosened up for an impending shuffleboard tournament. 

    Only a small group at the back of the bar appeared to be smoking pot, a glass jar of the stuff sitting on the table between them. 

    Chris Sapp, 28, a long-haired diesel mechanic and longtime Frankie's member, said being able to smoke pot at the bar makes him feel like he's in Amsterdam. 

    "If I wasn't a friend of Frankie's already I'd be one now because you can come here and smoke and feel free," he said after taking a pull from a small pipe. "That's how it should be. We shouldn't have to hide weed." 

    Across the room, another patron commended Schnarr for welcoming pot use but begged off giving his name. As a volunteer firefighter, he said, he wasn't supposed to be in contact with marijuana smoke. 

    "I cannot be in this room," he lamented. "It's not like I'm sitting here smoking a joint or anything. My problem is that I'd love to, but I can't. 

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  • Police: 2 University of Colorado students arrested for feeding pot brownies to classmates, professor

    Two Colorado University students are facing multiple felony charges after campus police say they fed marijuana-laced brownies to their unsuspecting classmates and professor. KUSA's Nick McGurk reports.

    By NBC News staff

    Two University of Colorado students have been arrested for allegedly feeding marijuana-laced brownies to their unsuspecting classmates and professor, police said.


    Thomas Ricardo Cunningham, 21, and Mary Elizabeth Essa, 19, baked the pot-laced brownies for the class as part of a "bring food day," the University of Colorado Police Department said in a news release on Sunday. The professor and classmates were unaware that the brownies contained tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, police said.

    On Friday morning, officers were called to the Hellems Arts and Sciences Building on the Boulder campus on a report of a professor who was complaining of dizziness and going in and out of consciousness.Paramedics transported her to a hospital.

    Later that afternoon, a student's mother notified campus police that her daughter, who had been in the professor's class, was having an anxiety attack and was at a hospital. On Saturday, a second student told police that she felt like she was going to "black out" after the class. Her family took her to the hospital for evaluation.

    An investigation revealed that the three hospitalized victims - and five other classmates - were suffering from the effects of marijuana, police said. The three hospitalized victims have since been released.

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    Cunningham and Essa were interviewed by police on Saturday evening and admitted that the brownies contained marijuana, police said.

    They were arrested on suspicion of four felonies: second-degree assault, inducing consumption of controlled substances by fraudulent means, conspiracy to commit second-degree assault and conspiracy to commit inducing consumption of controlled substances by fraudulent means.

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  • Cops: Man shoots dead 2 intruders at pot-growing house

    By NBC News staff

    A Washington state homeowner on Thursday shot and killed two people who may have been trying to steal marijuana from a large pot-growing operation at the home, a sheriff’s official said.

    The shooting happened at a house in the Summit area of rural Pierce County, about 10 miles southeast of Tacoma. Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said the homeowner and the intruders both had weapons and got into a shootout.

    The two intruders were killed; the homeowner and his 9-year-old son, who was also in the home at the time, were not hurt.

    “This is not a random residential robbery,” Troyer told reporters at the scene. “This is a cultivating operation that somebody came and tried to take away from the homeowner.”

    He described the pot-growing operation as “fairly substantial.”

    “It could have went the other way. We could have had a dead 9-year-old and a dead homeowner,” Troyer said.

    It was unclear whether the homeowner would face charges.

    The shooting happened on the same day that a new law went into effect took effect in Washington decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana. It is still a federal crime to grow or sell marijuana.

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