This really isn\'t weird news and I\'m posting strictly for the taint content.
Feds bust alleged munchie operation in East Bay
OAKLAND - Four people were charged in Oakland federal court today with growing marijuana that became the not-so-secret ingredient in treats resembling popular candy bars and other packaged food, including barbecue sauce.
Authorities say the four were connected with an operation known as Tainted Inc. that made marijuana-laced candies, cookies, ice cream, peanut butter, barbecue sauce, granola bars and brownies.
"Tainting candy and other products with marijuana is not sweet, it is criminal," said Javier Pena, special agent in charge of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration in San Francisco. "These items could have harmful effects on a user, especially the unsuspecting ones."
Authorities said Tainted Inc. grew from a small outfit that cooked marijuana leaves in butter for chocolate truffles into a large enterprise that supplied marijuana-laced candies to cannabis clubs in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver and Amsterdam.
Over the past two years, Tainted Inc. ordered nearly four tons of chocolate from suppliers, investigators said. Its candies and other food items sold for $2.50 to $20 apiece, depending on the strength of the product, authorities said.
The investigation bears similarities to DEA raids in Oakland last year in which five people connected with a company called Beyond Bomb were convicted of making marijuana-laced treats with names like Buddahfingers, Munchy Way, Rasta Reece\'s and Puff-a-Mint Pattie.
Federal prosecutors charged Tainted Inc.\'s alleged owner, 33-year-old Michael Martin of El Sobrante, with conspiracy to manufacture or distribute controlled substances. Also accused of those charges were the operation\'s alleged manager, Jessica Sanders, 30, of San Leandro, and couriers Michael Anderson, 42, of Oakland and Diallo McLinn, 35, of Oakland, authorities said.
Martin is a fugitive; the other three defendants are to appear this afternoon in U.S. District Court in Oakland.
Drug agents said they searched homes or warehouses Wednesday on the 900 block of 61st Street, where Tainted Inc. products were made; the 300 block of 40th Street in North Oakland, where an alleged marijuana-growing operation was located; Martin\'s home on the 3300 block of Brentwood Avenue in El Sobrante; Anderson and McLinn\'s home on the 4100 block of Howe Street in Oakland; and Sanders\' home on the 600 block of Black Pine Drive in San Leandro.
During the raids, investigators seized hundreds of marijuana products, 460 marijuana plants, a handgun, an undetermined amount of cash and a 2005 GMC truck, Pena said.
E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com.
Tainted Inc.
genius.
ps, great bandname
marijuana Barbeque sauce?
?
:drool:
marijuana Barbeque sauce??
:drool:
me too.
almost as :drool: as the crazy pancake escapde in Burlington 2 Aprils ago.
marijuana Barbeque sauce??
:drool:
me too.
almost as :drool: as the crazy pancake escapde in Burlington 2 Aprils ago.
I think the :drool: factor of the Brahlington pancake escapade can\'t be compared to anything.
man, I\'m slacking lately! oh well.
not really wierd but interesting
DULUTH, Minn. - The recording industry hopes $222,000 will be enough to dissuade music lovers from downloading songs from the Internet without paying for them. That\'s the amount a federal jury ordered a Minnesota woman to pay for sharing copyrighted music online.
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"This does send a message, I hope, that downloading and distributing our recordings is not OK," Richard Gabriel, the lead attorney for the music companies that sued the woman, said Thursday after the three-day civil trial in this city on the shore of Lake Superior.
In closing arguments he had told the jury, "I only ask that you consider that the need for deterrence here is great."
Jammie Thomas, 30, a single mother from Brainerd, was ordered to pay the six record companies that sued her $9,250 for each of 24 songs they focused on in the case. They had alleged she shared 1,702 songs in all.
It was the first time one of the industry\'s lawsuits against individual downloaders had gone to trial. Many other defendants have settled by paying the companies a few thousand dollars, but Thomas decided she would take them on and maintained she had done nothing wrong.
"She was in tears. She\'s devastated," Thomas\' attorney, Brian Toder, told The Associated Press. "This is a girl that lives from paycheck to paycheck, and now all of a sudden she could get a quarter of her paycheck garnished for the rest of her life."
Toder said the plaintiff\'s attorney fees are automatically awarded in such judgments under copyright law, meaning Thomas could actually owe as much as a half-million dollars. However, he said he suspects the record companies "will probably be people we can deal with."
Gabriel said no decision had yet been made about what the record companies would do, if anything, to pursue collecting the money from Thomas.
The record companies accused Thomas of downloading the songs without permission and offering them online through a Kazaa file-sharing account. Thomas denied wrongdoing and testified that she didn\'t have a Kazaa account.
Since 2003, record companies have filed some 26,000 lawsuits over file-sharing, which has hurt sales because it allows people to get music for free instead of paying for recordings in stores.
During the trial, the record companies presented evidence they said showed the copyrighted songs were offered by a Kazaa user under the name "tereastarr." Their witnesses, including officials from an Internet provider and a security firm, testified that the Internet address used by "tereastarr" belonged to Thomas.
Toder said in his closing argument that the companies never proved "Jammie Thomas, a human being, got on her keyboard and sent out these things."
"We don\'t know what happened," Toder told jurors. "All we know is that Jammie Thomas didn\'t do this."
Copyright law sets a damage range of $750 to $30,000 per infringement, or up to $150,000 if the violation was "willful." Jurors ruled that Thomas\' infringement was willful but awarded damages in a middle range; Gabriel said they did not explain the amount to attorneys afterward. Jurors left the courthouse without commenting.
Before the verdict, an official with an industry trade group said he was surprised it had taken so long for one of the industry\'s lawsuits against individual downloaders to come to trial.
Illegal downloads have "become business as usual. Nobody really thinks about it," said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, which coordinates the lawsuits. "This case has put it back in the news. Win or lose, people will understand that we are out there trying to protect our rights."
Thomas\' testimony was complicated by the fact that she had replaced her computer\'s hard drive after the sharing was alleged to have taken place — and later than she said in a deposition before trial.
The hard drive in question was not presented at trial by either party.
The record companies said Thomas was sent an instant message in February 2005 warning her that she was violating copyright law. Her hard drive was replaced the following month, not in 2004 as she said in the deposition.
"I don\'t think the jury believed my client regarding the events concerning the replacement of the hard drive," Toder said.
The record companies involved in the lawsuit are Sony BMG, Arista Records LLC, Interscope Records, UMG Recordings Inc., Capitol Records Inc. and Warner Bros. Records Inc.
and there, you have what is wrong with our justice system.
people who kill people while driving drunk get a couple years in jail, and this woman\'s life is essentially ruined for sharing music. did she break the law? sure. but did she ruin anyone\'s life?
come on.
they can\'t be serious about her paying that back. it\'s all for publicity
CANBERRA - An Australian barmaid has been fined for crushing beer cans between her bare breasts while an off-duty colleague has been fined for hanging spoons from her friend\'s nipples, police said Wednesday.
Police in Western Australia said the 31-year old barmaid pleaded guilty in the local magistrate\'s court to twice exposing her breasts to patrons at the Premier Hotel in Pinjarra, south of the state capital, Perth.
The woman "is alleged to have also crushed beer cans between her breasts during one of the offences," in breach of hotel licensing laws, police from the Peel district of Western Australia said in a statement.
The barmaid and the hotel manager were both fined A$1,000 ($900), while an off-duty barmaid was fined A$500 for helping to hang spoons from the woman\'s nipples, police said.
"It sends a clear message to all licensees in Peel that we will not tolerate this type of behavior in our licensed premises," local police superintendent David Parkinson said.
Beer Can Jugs
shoot where\'s the nearest non-licensed place