One year ago, Los Angeles County received the distinction of being number one in the nation for the amount of medical marijuana dispensaries in the country, with close to 50 in operation. Recently, picking up your prescribed pot got theoretically easier with the launching of the world's first marijuana vending machines here in the City of Angels, which is causing international waves from objectors who cast doubt on the therapeutic validity of the Schedule 1......

Slide your money in the slot, press the right alphanumeric combo, and down drops a treat for you to reach in and grab. That's vending machine magic in a nutshell. But LA's got some new vending machines that are raising some eyebrows, and possibly violating some international treaties. They are the newly installed marijuana vending machines that are operating out of at least three of the city's medical marijuana dispensaries, and the International Narcotics Control......

Fire: La Salle Avenue Elementary School sustained damage today, but no injuries were reported, due to a fire on the second floor this afternoon. Rain: A small tornado did indeed land on shore last night in Ventura County which is probably what led the NWS to issue last night's tornado warning for LA. It was an "empty air station hangar at the Naval Base Ventura County at Point Mugu" that took the hit, losing its......

Photo by Fire Monkey Fish via flickr. Forget medical marijuana storefronts, the feds have found a new kind of place to storm into -- museums. Today, four Southern California museums, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana, the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena and the Mingei International Museum in San Diego, were raided in an attempt to bust an "alleged illegal smuggling of Southeast Asian......

Increasingly free of gang violence, it may be getting safer to walk the streets of Watts, the Daily News reports. Homicides in the area have dropped from 24 in 2006 to just 11 last year and many residents are pinning hopes for further neighborhood revitalization on economic opportunities. Hey Magic Johnson, that's your cue! A man died last night after sliding down an escalator at the Hollywood Highland shopping pit of hell today. Apparently......

Just like yesterday, when we announced that while the federal government can rob medical marijuana dispensaries, citizens can't, we find that LAPD officers are not allowed to rob drug dealers. In a separate case from the widely known Rampart Division Scandal, a group of rogue officers held up at least 30 drug dealers in a two year period ending in 2001 according to CBS2 News. After the robberies, which included taking the drugs, money......

Just because the federal government can legally rob a medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles, it doesn't mean you can too. On Friday, in two separate incidents in the Valley, a dispensary on Cahuenga Boulevard in North Hollywood and Golden State Collective, 10369 Balboa Blvd., in Granada Hills, both got robbed in takeovers. On Sunday, the Granada Hills robbers were caught, according to the Daily News:During the heist, one shot was fired, ricocheting off......

On Sunday, 60 Minutes updated their story from September on California Proposition 215 and Medical Marijuana in a 12-minute news report, saying the law became victim to the the law of unintended consequences.For one thing, the federal government still views marijuana, medical or otherwise, as illegal and has been cracking down on dispensaries that sell it. For another, it's clear there are legions of people buying medical marijuana for the sole purpose of getting high.......

Consolation Prize of a Lifetime - Al Gore is a man of peace and gets the homepage of Apple.com all to himself -- should we expect the iAl to come out by the holidays? The Catalina Island Avalon city employee who beheaded a deer and left it in a soccer net is definitely not getting any peace prize. There was another suspicious package today left around City Hall, forcing street closures and the evacuation......

The LA Weekly has been struggling to placate its staff ever since the alt-weekly's publisher, Village Voice Media was swallowed up by not-so-alternative New Times Newspapers nearly two years ago (New Times adopted the VVM name, but not necessarily the flavor). If you haven't witnessed the shift in ideology and coverage in the pages of the Weekly yet, a drastic dip in content quantity -- if not quality -- seems imminent, as the New......

Things got off to a rocky start between us and TD Camp. We think he possibly knee-jerk reacted to our review of the new album "From The Ground Up" (see the comments), and wanted to give the San Francisco native a chance to tell his side. Bored Stiff's album comes out today, click here to check it, blah blah blah... OK! here's the interview: LAist: Whats life like as a musician/record label owner? TD Camp:......

While Sacramento scrambles to cut hundreds of millions of dollars of funding for public transportation and other programs around the state, a serious group of underground marijuana professionals are offering to pay at least a billion dollars in taxes, if only California would legalize pot. A coalition of California marijuana growers and dealers has offered Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger one billion dollars to solve the current state budget crisis. The group, calling itself Let Us......

There was a "'Funeral for State's Rights" at the Van Nuys courthouse yesterday. There has been lots of activity on the medical marijuana front of late, with the DEA busting legal dispensaries, seizing their assets and taking their medicine. I went to hear what the phriendly people adorned with pot leaves had to say, and to document the rally the best way i know how to: with a camera.......

Last week after receiving the Hottest Politician award from Downtown News, 13th District Councilman Eric Garcetti headed up to the Valley where he grew up. "You can the kid out of the Valley, but you can't take the Valley out of the kid," he told a the San Fernando Valley Jaycees at their monthly membership meeting. Garcetti, a Jaycee alumnus himself, spoke eloquently about the history of Los Angeles and how we got to where......

While SFist cringed at the fatal dose of crime littering the Bay Area, it found solace in Hillary Clinton's San Francisco campaign headquarters opening, which featured loads of exposed mammary glands. In other news, SF Taxi Commission ruled that Satan's cab must keep its (in)famous medallion number, 666; and in an un-fashion-forward frenzy, San Francisco Fashion Week (chortle) bars bloggers from covering and getting smashed at their shows and parties, respectively. Also, they found a......

Don Duncan of the California Patients Group in Hollywood talks to reporters through the door broken by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) As the Los Angeles City Council placed a moratorium on new facilities so rules could be drafted to better regulate them, federal agents raided 10 local medical marijuana facilities on Wednesday [LA Times]. What follows are pictures from the raid at the California Patients Group in Hollywood.......

Today the DEA raided 10 marijuana dispensaries, made five arrests, and seized large quantities of marijuana and cash. All of this taking place the same day the Los Angeles City Council whipped out an ordinance calling for the federal government to stop singling out marujuana clinics that are legal under state law. The government is here to serve us, and to protect us, just like it reads on many cop cars. So when the......

On today's LAist poll, over 80% of you readers are willing to pony up for a subway to the sea. Is anybody at City Hall listening? Or does Zuma Dogg have to get all wacky on their asses? The LAT names two new managing editors. To whom do I write to protest the axing of West Magazine? About 200 employees were evacuated from UCLA today after a basement explosion; no injuries reported. 16-year-old Victor......

Happy Father's Day! For those of you who have dads, are dads, or know dads, this one's for you, from all of us at the Gothamist network. It was a week of bizarre, embarassing headlines at DCist. The trial of the local administrative law judge who sued his cleaners for $54 million over a pair of missing pants left everyone shaking their heads. Then the capital city was nearly brought to its knees, twice, by......

Sometimes you're in the right place at the right time. Rolling Stone contributing editor Vanessa Grigoriadis just happened to be finishing up an indepth, behind-the-scenes look at the medical marijuana craze here in LA when 11 dispensaries were raided. Needless to say a good story suddenly got a lot better and even more timely. Taking the reader pretty much everywhere medical marijuana dispensary owner "Daniel" goes throughout his day, Grigoriadis describes a world that's......

- "With little fanfare until this month, Los Angeles County has quietly become the country’s capital of medical marijuana." - LA Business Journal - Tuesday night he was sent to Hollywood on "American Idol". Wednesday TMZ reported that he had been busted for possession of weed.Thursday he was fired from Idol. Thursday afternoon he says they knew about his record even before he auditioned - People - Marijuana-like chemicals (whatever the hell those are) may......

Ask anyone who attends Los Angeles city council meetings about Zuma Dogg and they roll their eyes. "Oh god, Zuma Dogg. It's not that he wrong or loud. It's that he takes up all the time at city council meetings. I show up to speak during public comment and there is no time left after he and his buddies go," a local lobbyist who wishes to remain anonymous said. "And you know what is......

- The founder of Reason magazine wrote a column in today's LA Times entitled "Let them have their pot" about the feds cockblocking weed from sick people - LAT - The cost of getting a California medical marijuana ID card is going up almost 1,000% because not enough people are getting California medical marijuana ID cards. Which is interesting because we thought that marijuana dispensaries in LA were booming. So wtf? - Bay Area......

With all this national attention surrounding the recent DEA raids on Medical Marijuana Dispensaries, LAist found it the perfect time to get the news from the horse's mouth, so we sat down with a Medical Marijuana card-holder who has visited some of the shops that the DEA shut down. Hopefully we can answer some of the questions surrounding the rumors, the hype, and the DEA: How does a person get a Medical Marijuana card? How......

In the wake of yesterday's LA raids by the DEA, about 100 protesters marched in front of the West Hollywood City Hall this morning. Clearly the state of medical marijuana in America has become the line in the sand between state's rights and the power of federal law. Yesterday the feds flexed their muscle: They confiscated several thousand pounds of processed marijuana, along with weapons and money. A spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration......

Five Santa Monica Blvd. medical marijuana dispensaries were raided by the feds today, pretty much harshing the mellow of the WeHo city council. "The state of California voted to allow marijuana for medical purposes," says West Hollywood City Councilmember Abbe Land. "The City of West Hollywood along with other cities across the state have established regulations to govern the dispensing of medical marijuana, so that people whose lives depend on this drug can be......

The Golden Globes came and went, all while many, if not more, watched the second two hours of Los Angeles being terrorized in 24 on FOX. It was still brisk for the stars on the Red Carpet and the weather is expected to continue in the 60's throughout the week with the lows in the 40's. Luckily, the fire department has determined that the Red Flag will be lifted this morning. People celebrated Martin......

10) While LA's Silversun Pickups can't seem to shed the Smashing Pumpkins comparisons despite releasing a record -- "Carnavas" -– that tops anything Billy Corgan's done since Siamese Dream, the only think rockin' in Chicago these days is the back seat of R. Kelly's stretch Benz. 9) Ex-Illinois Governor George Ryan may be headed to jail for his activities as a corrupt, crony-lovin' highway-to-nowhere-building Republican, but he at least had the foresight to impose......

- Neighbors near Santa Barbara dispensary call the cops when men in dark clothes try to break in to the Acme Collective. Cops come in 15 minutes, thieves popped in minutes. - SB Independent - The LA Times prints two letters today regarding medical marijuana, the second being someone upset that it doesn't get taxed - LA Times - LAPD mistakes catnip for herb when they search the car of a man who runs......

120 year old Indian woman died this week. She claimed that smoking marijuana every day was the reason for her long life. - All Headline News "Weeds" star and Hollywood Blvd. preacher, Craig X, was arrested last month for distributing marijuana. He says the "sacrament" that he sold to people at Temple 420 on Hollywood Blvd. is protected under the freedom of religion and Prop 215. The LAPD, who officially pressed charges this week,......