Obama's Justice Department may be loosening up about medical marijuana, but right on cue the DEA just busted a huge marijuana grow operation that was running out of dozens of half-million-dollar homes in the towns of Elk Grove, Lathrop, Modesto, Sacramento, Tracy, and Stockton. A total of 24,500 plants in 50 different homes-turned-grow-houses were seized, and the whole operation was estimated to have grossed about $100 million a year. Federal agents and the IRS had apparently been investigating some individuals at lower levels of the operations for several years, and the 18 people arrested in yesterday's raids were all low-level, gardener-type employees. The DEA has said that these houses were all being run by "a San Francisco-based organized crime syndicate." Who knew we had one of those? Anyway, here are pictures of the four dudes arrested in Elk Grove. more ›

Check it, check it... A Vacaville boy was about to turn one last week, yo. He and his cuzzes and his parents were going to kick back and chill at a park with some beers and some cake and some skunky green weed that his dad was bringing. The problem is, his dad gave him too big a hit before the party started (or was it a pot cookie?). And then, since he was only one year old and couldn't really hold his own, his dad dropped him back home at his ma's because he was turning into kind of a buzz kill. But now she's pissed and got the po-po involved, and Dad's being held under suspicion of child endangerment. [Ed. Note: A paltry 14% of NBC Bay Area readers are "laughing" about this. Come on guys. Do us proud. Go to work against those "furious" clickers.] more ›

Former SF pot club owner Kenneth Hayes (pictured here in 1999), whose Sixth Street dispensary, the Harm Reduction Center, was raided by federal agents in 2002, was sentenced to six months of home confinement today by a federal judge. Hayes' co-defendent, Oakland marijuana advocate Ed Rosenthal got probation, despite a federal law stating that he should get at least five years in prison for supplying Hayes with his pot. Both men existed in murky legal territory, having worked with local authorities to set up their businesses and believing they were acting within the law -- just not the federal one. more ›

Did you know that in the past five months officers have busted 20 major marijuana grow operations in the Sunset and Ingleside districts of San Francisco? Yes, and a man was arrested yesterday in the 2200 block of 20th Avenue with 246 mature plants growing in his home and charged with cultivating, possession with intent to sell, and stealing electricity. Cops say the skunky smell emanating from the house is usually what gives it away. No shit! It looks like the CAMP task force is still hard at work, and that this is more the work of local officials than the DEA, since our current Attorney General isn't too big on federal pot busts anymore. But we don't actually understand the politics of the marijuana policy anymore... We suppose this just wasn't a fully sanctioned medical marijuana grow operation? They're just hating on the Nancy Botwins around town? more ›