The Bay Area’s budding medical pot industry is facing a big tax bill. The IRS has ruled Oakland’s largest dispensary can not deduct business expenses. In a letter last week, the IRS told Harborside Health Center that it can not deduct standard expenses like rent, payroll and health insurance … because it traffics drugs. Harborside’s executive director Steve DeAngelo said the dispensary now owes the federal government $2.5 million in back taxes and penalties.
Category: Health
Posted inHealth, Public Safety
Japan nuclear crisis calls future of atomic energy into question
World Affairs Council panelists say U.S. facing big demand for clean source of power
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan, caused by the magnitude 8.9 earthquake and tsunami, has opened a dialogue about nuclear energy policy and safety of reactors in the U.S.
Posted inCity Hall, Environment, Health, Technology
Pharmaceutical industry yields to pressure from San Francisco to fund a drug take-back program
Starting as soon as August, San Franciscans will be able to dispose of their unused medicines for free at 16 independent pharmacies and five police stations throughout the city. The pharmaceutical industry is funding the pilot program with $110,000, after facing city plans that threatened to extend producer responsibility to pharmaceuticals. For decades the industry and government waste experts told consumers to flush medications down the toilet. But with increasing recognition of the effects of human drugs on wildlife, regulators at all levels are seeking to get medicines out of the waste stream.
Posted inBay Area, City Hall, Health
Growing pot should be treated the same as growing grapes: Q&A with lawyer David Owen
David Owen was a freshly minted lawyer when he decided to open up a marijuana-focused land-use law firm in San Francisco. The former legislative aide to then-Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin had been involved in the early days of the city’s cannabis regulation development. Since opening his firm, Owen has represented SPARC, a high-end medical pot dispensary, and helps local pot cultivators navigate conflicted legal waters. In light of regulation problems in Southern California and San Jose, Owen talked about the challenges of being a medical marijuana attorney as San Francisco’s once forward-thinking regulations have become “stagnated” over the past six years.
Posted inHealth, Neighborhoods, News, Technology
The race is on for the killer health app at UCSF
In the future, you might not need to go to a doctor for follow up visits even if you suffer from a chronic disease. You can connect devices like blood pressure or glucose meters to your phone or enter in data from them, as well as tell your device how you are feeling. The phone (or the application, to be exact) will tell you if you need to adjust your habits, diet or medication – or if you should visit your doctor. Mobile technology is expected to give patients better access to care at lower costs while empowering them to take care of their health. At the University of California, San Francisco, Jeff Jorgenson and his mHealth development team are building next-generation patient apps.
Posted inHealth
California officials say radiation ‘plume’ from Japan won’t increase state’s levels above normal
California health and emergency officials said a “plume” of radiation coming from the Japanese nuclear crisis that’s expected to hit the West Coast as early as tomorrow will bring radiation levels to no higher than normal background levels.
Posted inHealth
Upscale medical cannabis club aims to change image of industry
The San Francisco Patient and Resource Center in the South of Market area resembles an art gallery where customers in sports coats and skirts suck THC vapors from plastic balloons and feast on cannabis-laced caramels.
The medical cannabis dispensary at 1256 Mission St. was designed by Larissa Sand of Sand Studios in the South Park neighborhood with the intention of luring new customers in this evolving area, which includes the new Federal Building just two blocks away.
Posted inHealth, Media, Social Justice
With few restrictions and bundles of cash, cannabis ads help sagging media profits
Commercial broadcast stations still reluctant to take pot club advertisements
Medical marijuana advertising is taking off, propping up the fortunes of ailing media companies that have seen income from other business sectors plummet in the recession.
Advertisements offering free edibles for new patients and products such as “super silver haze” are helping to keep the San Francisco Bay Guardian, SF Weekly and East Bay Express in business. Similar ads have even started cropping up — tentatively — in more staid publications, such as the San Francisco Chronicle.
Ads for pot are growing so fast in part because they face fewer regulations and restrictions than marketing materials for cigarettes and alcohol. The only real regulation is one requiring the ads to warn customers that they need a doctor’s recommendation.
Posted inElections, Government & Politics, Health, News
Tracking of medical pot data, key aim of state program, varies greatly by county
San Francisco hands back applications to cannabis card users
San Francisco is among the most active cities in California in easing access to medical marijuana, having issued more than one-third of the 47,828 cannabis cards in the state. But unlike surrounding counties, San Francisco has a long-standing practice of handing back the paper applications for cards and not recording the names of patients or the doctors who give them the required recommendations.
Posted inEnvironment, Health, Public Safety
Gulf residents doubt government committed to working with communities to fix spill damage
Some fear money won’t go to restoring ravaged coastline
As the federal government promotes initiatives to ensure long-term recovery for the oil-spill-beleaguered Gulf Coast region, officials are attempting to court marginalized community groups whose members say their suggestions have been disregarded or they have been left out of discussions entirely. But the reaction has been skeptical, with residents saying they have been deceived by low-ball official assessments of environmental and health threats.
Residents say they are increasingly anxious about the economic and environmental viability of life along the shoreline. As many as one-quarter of the region’s residents say they are thinking of moving away.