The Los Angeles City Council pushed for a ballot measure to begin taxing medical marijuana. There are cities in California that tax medical marijuana, such as San Jose, La Puente, Oakland, Richmond, Sacramento, and Berkeley. With a vote of 9-3 the Los Angeles City Council has informed city attorney’s to draft a ballot measure for the March 8 election in favor of taxing marijuana.

Veteran Bay Area investigative reporter John Geluardi released his first book, Cannabiz: The Explosive Rise of the Medical Marijuana Industry this October. A former staff writer for the SF Weekly, Geluardi saw so much momentum building behind medical pot, he researched and reported a 200-page non-fiction paperback. Geluardi talks about investing in pot, economies of scale, and new fissures in the field in this two-part Q&A edited for length and clarity.

The head of Venezuela’s narcotics agency, Nestor Reverol, denied allegations made by one of the world’s top drug traffickers that he had stolen his money and used some of it to buy a $2 million home. Walid Makled, arrested in Colombia in August, alleged in two TV interviews that Reverol took over his businesses worth as much as $70 million annually after he fled Venezuela, where he is wanted on charges of drug trafficking and murder. Makled said that before fleeing Venezuela he had retrieved videos, receipts and other evidence to back up his allegations.

Life-saving equipment, including a special extraction device, is now sitting on the floor inside the Boulder Emergency Squad because delivery to Mexico faces setbacks due to drug traffickers. The items were supposed to be delivered to Mante, Mexico, one of Boulder’s sister cities where the need for the gear is great. Delivery is impossible at the moment as the squad is being told that the traffickers have taken over many of the roads between the border and the city.

Prohibition-caused threats and violence by drug trafficking organizations are preventing some government oil workers from reaching installations in northern Mexico and costing state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos about $350,000 every day in lost production. That amounts to about $10.5 million per month, or about 2.3 percent of Mexico's $450 million per month average in monthly natural gas revenues.

A federal judge on will hear arguments in the lawsuit on behalf of Joseph Casias, a 30-year-old cancer patient who lost his job after a routine drug screen found he had used medical marijuana. Casias was registered in Michigan to use it to treat pain.

Last week's killing of the top drug lord in the Gulf Cartel marked the second takedown of a major capo in Mexico in a little over two months. Experts in Mexico and the United States say the strategy has a real downside.

"High Society," an exhibition opening today at London's Wellcome Collection museum, examines the history of opium, from pre-biblical practices to today's entire prohibitionist drug market, which is worth an estimated $320 billion per year, according to the United Nations. One of the aims of the exhibit is to de-stigmatize today's illegal drugs and show there is more to the subject than visitors may have thought. After all, substances that many people ingest freely today — alcohol, caffeine and tobacco — have all been criminalized in years past or are still illegal in some parts of the world.