Via AP Wire

San Francisco — Federal prosecutors should be careful not to overreach in their crackdown on California’s pot dispensaries, even though there are ambiguities in the state’s medical marijuana laws, the state attorney general said Thursday.

The law passed 15 years ago by California voters has ambiguities that must be resolved either by the state Legislature or the courts, state Attorney General Kamala Harris said in a statement.

However, Harris said she was worried that “an overly broad federal enforcement campaign will make it more difficult for legitimate patients to access physician-recommended medicine in California.”

She urged federal authorities to make sure their enforcement efforts are focused on significant traffickers of illegal drugs.

Harris, a Democrat in her first year as the state’s chief law enforcement officer, made her statement in response to inquiries from the media about the crackdown announced two weeks ago by the four federal prosecutors in California.

They have ordered dozens of medical marijuana clubs to close, saying the operations are too close to places where children gather or are being used as fronts for drug dealers.

Harris acknowledged that she shares the concerns of federal prosecutors about the proliferation of gangs and criminal enterprises that seek to exploit the medical marijuana law.

The four U.S. attorneys said they were sending letters to landlords who rent retail and warehouse spaces to pot collectives and growers saying they could be prosecuted and have their properties confiscated by the government for aiding illegal enterprises.

Officials in Sacramento and several other cities have since stopped issuing business permits to dispensaries.

State law allows marijuana possession by residents with written doctors’ recommendations.

LAKE FOREST – Michael Hawkins, an Army veteran stricken with a double-fist-sized brain tumor, pleaded with the City Council to reconsider its stance toward the medical marijuana dispensaries that operated in Lake Forest

“The tumor decimated my marriage and what I spent my life building,” the 60-year-old said, adding that marijuana reduced his pain. “Look into the eyes of the people who need medical cannabis, If that day ever comes for you, I’ll stand with you. Please stand with me.”

More than 100 patients, caregivers and dispensary owners from across Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties besieged the City Council on Tuesday night to reconsider their decision to close the dispensaries. The protest was organized by Orange County NORML and OC Americans for Safe Access as a response to the city’s recent partnership with the U.S. Attorney General’s Office and a crackdown on eight medical-marijuana dispensaries in a strip mall on Raymond Way.

“I’m glad people came out to support safe access, said Kandice Hawes, executive director of Orange County NORML. “This is serious. It’s the end of the line. It wasn’t right for them to call in the federal government. …It’s inappropriate to take something that is state law, and make it illegal. You’re driving people onto the streets. Why aren’t you protecting us?”

The protest follows Friday’s efforts by building owner Yousef Ibrahim to order the eight dispensaries in his Raymond Way building to shut down following federal seizure of his bank account. Ibrahim, who found out about the seizure from an article in The Orange County Register, issued a three-day abatement notice to avoid federal prosecution, said his attorney, Garfield Logan.

Federal agents Saturday delivered asset-forfeiture summonses to some of the dispensaries, including the Independent Collective of Orange County and Cannabis Permanente, said attorney Damian Nassiri, who had defended them in their efforts to fight closure by the city of Lake Forest.

According to Logan, five of the eight dispensaries closed Tuesday morning. The others closed later in the day, police said.

“They’ve been very cooperative,” Logan said.

The Lake Forest City Council took no action following the public comments. The city will move forward with its present litigation efforts to close down all pot shops in the city. Two dispensaries remain open.

Read the rest of the article here.

Via OC Register

Erika Ritchie

LAKE FOREST – Orange County NORML and OC Americans for Safe Access plan to protest at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting against the city’s recent partnership with the U.S. Attorney General’s Office and a crackdown on eight medical-marijuana dispensaries in a strip mall on Raymond Way.

Many local residents and patients and supporters of the dispensaries are upset that the Lake Forest City Council and City Attorney Scott Smith called the federal government for assistance after not prevailing in state court, said Kandice Hawes, executive director of Orange County NORML.

The rally, expected to draw more than 200 people, is planned for 6 p.m. in front of the council chambers at 25550 Commercentre Drive. At 7 p.m., protesters will join the council meeting and speak during public comment, Hawes said. Several of the collectives at 26402 Raymond Way are expected to participate, she said.

“We’re expecting a huge turnout from patients all across the county and beyond,” Hawes said. “Everyone needs to stand up for this because our rights are being trampled on.”

The protest follows Friday’s efforts by Raymond Way building owner Yousef Ibrahim to order the eight dispensaries in his building to shut down following federal seizure of his bank account. Ibrahim, who found out about the seizure from an article in The Orange County Register, issued a three-day abatement notice to avoid federal prosecution, said his attorney, Garfield Logan.

“He doesn’t want to fight the federal government,” Logan said.

Federal agents Saturday delivered asset-forfeiture summonses to some of the dispensaries, including the Independent Collective of Orange County and Cannabis Permanente, said attorney Damian Nassiri, who had defended them in their efforts to fight closure by the city of Lake Forest.

According to Logan, five of the eight dispensaries closed Tuesday morning. The others are expected to close by early afternoon, he said.

“They’ve been very cooperative,” Logan said.

The dispensaries – Lake Forest Patients Group at Suite 201, Pharmers’ Choice at 202, Cannabis Permanente at 203, Evergreen Holistic at 206, Cooperative 207 at 207, Florentina Organic at 208, Independent Collective of Orange County at 209 and The Health Collective at 210 – were targeted Oct. 7 by the U.S. attorney general after efforts by the city to remove them continued to be tied up in legal battles.

Read the rest of the article here.

Via LA Times

California — What is the status of medical marijuana in California? May people possess it, use it, distribute it, sell it? Those ought to be easy enough questions to answer, but because of state and local fumbling on the issue, they’re not. And now, after last week’s announcement by federal authorities of a crackdown on dispensaries, the answers may be harder than ever to nail down. So complicated are the legal and enforcement issues surrounding medical marijuana that the attempt by California’s four U.S. attorneys to bring some clarity — just like earlier attempts by federal Justice Department officials — actually makes things murkier.

The core of the problem is the same as it has always been: the interplay, and conflict, between the federal prohibition of marijuana and the state authorization of medical use under Proposition 215, passed in 1996. Any law student will tell you that federal law prevails, but that’s hardly the end of the matter.

Before last week’s announcement, the best-known attempt at clarity came in the form of a 2009 memo from U.S. Deputy Atty. Gen. David W. Ogden. “The Department of Justice is committed to the enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act in all states,” the memo said. “Congress has determined that marijuana is a dangerous drug, and the illegal distribution and sale of marijuana is a serious crime and provides a significant source of revenue to large-scale criminal enterprises, gangs and cartels.”

But the memo went on to state that it would be an inefficient use of scarce resources to prosecute people “whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.”

So what is “clear and unambiguous compliance”? Purveyors kept pushing the envelope until supporters of fully legalized marijuana argued that they had virtually achieved their goal.

Now the U.S. attorneys say marijuana sellers and the cities that allowed them to set up shop have gone too far. Under the guidelines laid out in the Ogden memo and other federal advice and instructions, they appear to be correct. But where does that leave us? Will the federal government target those dispensaries located near schools and parks, as one prosecutor suggested? And if so, does that give a safe harbor to others? Or will prosecutors move against anyone in the marijuana industry who is making a profit, as one U.S. attorney spokesman said they would? Will they go after “large-scale industrial marijuana cultivation centers,” as one Justice Department official said? Can they at least cite a state that they believe does it right and will be left alone?

Federal prosecutors have respected the wishes of California voters and their counterparts in more than a dozen states to allow people to acquire and use medical marijuana out of courtesy and prudence, not because they believed they had to. They, or their successors, could at any time go further, and scrutinize, for example, whether use is truly medical. The balance between federal and state marijuana laws has been re-calibrated for now, but for there to be any reliable truce, we need guidance from California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris on what constitutes “clear and unambiguous compliance” with state medical marijuana laws. Then we need some unambiguous guidance from the feds about what they can live with, rather than a long period of silence and then a sudden snap to attention.

Read the full article here.

Via:OCRegister

LAKE FOREST – Eight owners of medical marijuana dispensaries have been given three days to shut down, according to a legal document from their landlord.

In a Three Day Notice to Abate sent to their attorney on Wednesday, landlord Ibrahim Yousef’s attorney writes: “Three days after the date of service of copy of this notice upon you, unless you cease and desist from any and all sales, distribution, cultivation, or possession of marijuana at said premises. You will be required to quit and deliver up possession of the premises 24602 Raymond Way.”

The dispensaries, which include Lake Forest Community Collective at #201, Lake Forest Wellness Center & Collective at #203, Lake Forest Patient’s Collective/Florentina Organic, #208, Independent Collective of Orange County, #209, and The Health Collective, #210 were targeted on Friday by the U.S. Attorney General after efforts by the city of Lake Forest to remove them continued to get tied up in legal battles.

Andre Birotte, the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said his office targeted the Lake Forest dispensaries because the city had spent nearly $600,000 in legal fees to remove the dispensaries which they contend violate their zoning ordinance.

On Thursday, federal prosecutors in the Central District of California filed a forfeiture action against the eight storefronts in the two-story strip mall, alleging that eight of 11 suites on the second floor are occupied by marijuana stores. The property is across the street from a school that serves pre-schoolers and kindergarten students.

Authorities on Wednesday seized $136,686 from the bank account of the building’s owner Yousef Ibrahim.

The attorneys repeated several times that their targets are large-scale operations, but would not make any guarantees that sick people will continue to get marijuana or that pot dispensaries not receiving warning letters are off the hook. Despite state laws allowing the use of marijuana for medical purposes, federal law has a blanket prohibition on marijuana, making it illegal for all uses.

The federal crackdown is focused on commercial growers, retail stores and mobile delivery services. Birotte said he used the term “commercial marijuana business” because that is what has developed in California in the wake of Proposition 215.

Approved by California voters in 1996, Proposition 215 legalized the use of marijuana to treat pain and other medical issues through non-profit distribution of the drug. The U.S. attorneys maintain that overtly commercial marijuana enterprises have instead proliferated, producing millions of dollars in profits for people who have no role in helping the sick or infirm.

“The federal governments bully tactics seem to be working,” said Vincent Howard, who represents the Lake Forest Wellness Center & Collective. “They are forcing the reluctant property owners to do the illegal job of the city and get rid of legal patient organizations in Lake Forest. These tactics will not deter my clients in their ongoing lawsuit against the city.”

Attorney Damian Nassiri, who led the battle against the city of Lake Forest for the dispensaries, said the dispensary owners might have a way out of the three day abatement order.

“We may fight the unlawful detainer and still keep the lease,” he said. “We’re not in breach of the lease, we’ve paid the rent, the landlord knows what the use is and we’re operating in compliance of state law. The federal government has not sent letters to the dispensaries to close down.”

Snipped: Read the rest of the article here.

California — Medical marijuana in California is an utter mess, a mockery of what most voters intended when they approved Proposition 215 in 1996.

It was supposed to be a nonprofit enterprise, but has spawned a $1.5 billion industry in which networks of storefront dispensaries and large growing operations are reaping millions of dollars. Cities and counties are trying to keep up with the explosion of pot shops by limiting where they can operate, but at the same time they’re also trying to wring revenue out of them.

The first-in-the-nation law was supposed to allow “compassionate use” to ease the pain and suffering of people with cancer or AIDS. Instead, it’s so easy to get a recommendation for “medical” marijuana that, according to the first statewide study, many patients are using pot to relieve headaches and anxiety, and to sleep and relax.

The law has been so corrupted that the feds are cracking down. On Friday, the four U.S. attorneys in California announced criminal charges against large-scale dispensaries, growers and financiers, declaring that medical marijuana “has been hijacked by profiteers.”

Some are accused of drug trafficking by shipping “medical” marijuana to other states for sale. Others are accused of irregular banking practices. And some are charged with marketing to underage customers with products like marijuana cotton candy. The prosecutors are also seizing the properties of landlords leasing space to dispensaries that are too close to schools or parks or not allowed at all.

This chaos calls out for clear and fair state regulation and oversight.

Snipped. Read the rest here.

Via: Sign On San Diego

Greg Moran

The four U.S. attorneys in California are expected to hold a news conference Friday announcing a crackdown on landlords and property owners of medical marijuana dispensaries.

Letters to affected property owners have already been sent out in San Diego by U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy. Medical marijuana operations in the Bay Area have also received a letter, and a spokesman for the eastern district’s U.S. attorney said letters from that office will be going out soon. A spokesman for the Los Angeles office declined to comment.

The letters notify landowners that their property could be seized and forfeited to the federal government or they could be criminally prosecuted. It gives them 45 days to stop the distribution or sale of medical marijuana at their properties.

Medical marijuana is allowed under California law but is not recognized by federal law. The letter notes that federal law does not recognize a medical marijuana defense for criminal charges or in asset forfeiture proceedings.

About a dozen property owners in San Diego were mailed letters from Duffy’s office Thursday. San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said similar letters are expected to be sent to the other 168 medical marijuana establishments in the city.

San Diego County Superior Court Judge Ronald Prager on Wednesday signed orders to close nine of 12 dispensaries that Goldsmith says are violating state law by being within 600 feet of schools.

All 12 collectives have agreed to shut their doors within 48 hours. Goldsmith said he plans to bring most, if not all, of the remaining dispensaries before the court, arguing they violate local zoning laws.

The dispensaries have been in a legal netherworld since a city ordinance aimed at regulating medical marijuana storefronts collapsed in July. City officials say the stores have violated codes for at least two years, but made no concerted effort to shut them down while the council worked to draw up regulations.

Read More here.

Via AP

SAN FRANCISCO — Federal prosecutors have launched a crackdown on pot dispensaries in California, warning the stores that they must shut down in 45 days or face criminal charges and confiscation of their property even if they are operating legally under the state’s 15-year-old medical marijuana law.

In an escalation of the ongoing conflict between the U.S. government and the nation’s burgeoning medical marijuana industry, at least 16 pot shops or their landlords received letters this week stating they are violating federal drug laws, even though medical marijuana is legal in California. The state’s four U.S. attorneys were scheduled Friday to announce a broader coordinated crackdown.

Their offices refused Thursday to confirm the closure orders. The Associated Press obtained copies of the letters that a prosecutor sent to at least 12 San Diego dispensaries. They state that federal law “takes precedence over state law and applies regardless of the particular uses for which a dispensary is selling and distributing marijuana.”

“Under United States law, a dispensary’s operations involving sales and distribution of marijuana are illegal and subject to criminal prosecution and civil enforcement actions,” according to the letters signed by U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy in San Diego. “Real and personal property involved in such operations are subject to seizure by and forfeiture to the United States … regardless of the purported purpose of the dispensary.”

The move comes a little more than two months after the Obama administration toughened its stand on medical marijuana. For two years before that, federal officials had indicated they would not move aggressively against dispensaries in compliance with laws in the 16 states where pot is legal for people with doctors’ recommendations.

The Department of Justice issued a policy memo to federal prosecutors in late June stating that marijuana dispensaries and licensed growers in states with medical marijuana laws could face prosecution for violating federal drug and money-laundering laws. The effort to shutter California dispensaries appeared to be the most far-reaching effort so far to put that guidance into action.

“This really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. The administration is simply making good on multiple threats issued since President Obama took office,” said Kevin Sabet, a former adviser to the president’s drug czar and a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Substance Abuse Solutions. “The challenge is to balance the scarcity of law enforcement resources and the sanctity of this country’s medication approval process. It seems like the administration is simply making good on multiple statements made previously to appropriately strike that balance.”

Greg Anton, a lawyer who represents dispensary Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, said its landlord received an “extremely threatening” letter Wednesday invoking a federal law that imposes additional penalties for selling drugs within 1,000 feet of schools, parks and playgrounds.

Read more here.

Via Providence Journal

Providence, R.I. — After five months of delays and indecision, Governor Chafee announced on Thursday that he will not issue licenses to three medical-marijuana dispensaries, a decision that has infuriated medical-marijuana advocates and disappointed thousands of patients who have had problems securing the drug to cope with their medical ailments.

In a four-paragraph news release, Chafee said it “has been a difficult decision,” but he said he felt that issuing the licenses would be placing the owners of the dispensaries and anyone affiliated with their operation at risk of arrest and federal prosecution.

“I cannot implement a state marijuana cultivation and distribution system which is illegal under federal law, and which will become a target of federal law-enforcement efforts,” said Chafee in his statement. “Federal injunctions, seizures, forfeitures, arrests and prosecutions will only hurt the patients and caregivers that our law was designed to protect.”

Chafee said that he’s committed to improving the state medical-marijuana program, and he wants the General Assembly to introduce legislation in the next session “that will address flaws” in the existing system and not draw the attention of the federal authorities..

JoAnne Leppanen, executive director of the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition, characterized the governor’s statement as “condescending and offensive.”

“This is a further slap in the face to patients with debilitating medical conditions in Rhode Island,” she said. “He is hurting patients. He has overstepped his bounds by not following state law. He needs to get out of the way.”

said that she and other medical marijuana advocates will turn to the court system to challenge Chafee’s decision.

Rep. Scott A. Slater, D-Providence, whose late father, Rep. Thomas C. Slater, D-Providence, championed the legalization of medical marijuana in Rhode Island, called Chafee’s decision “insulting” to the state’s 4,000 medical-marijuana patients.

“I think it’s pretty insulting to the patients and the advocates of the program who have worked so very hard for so many years,” he said. “I’m very disappointed.”

Read more here.

Eugene, Oregon — Sometime after midnight on a moonlit rural Oregon highway, a state trooper checking a car he had just pulled over found less than an ounce of pot on one passenger: A chatty 72-year-old woman blind in one eye. She insisted the weed was legal and was approved by the U.S. government.

The trooper and his supervisor were doubtful. But after a series of calls to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Drug Enforcement Agency and her physician, the troopers handed her back the card — and her pot.

For the past three decades, Uncle Sam has been providing a handful of patients with some of the highest grade marijuana around. The program grew out of a 1976 court settlement that created the country’s first legal pot smoker.

Advocates for legalizing marijuana or treating it as a medicine say the program is a glaring contradiction in the nation’s 40-year war on drugs — maintaining the federal ban on pot while at the same time supplying it.

Government officials say there is no contradiction. The program is no longer accepting new patients, and public health authorities have concluded that there was no scientific value to it, Steven Gust of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse told The Associated Press.

At one point, 14 people were getting government pot. Now, there are four left.

The government has only continued to supply the marijuana “for compassionate reasons,” Gust said.

‘I Have No Pain’

One of the recipients is Elvy Musikka, the chatty Oregon woman. A vocal marijuana advocate, Musikka relies on the pot to keep her glaucoma under control. She entered the program in 1988, and said that her experience with marijuana is proof that it works as a medicine.

They “won’t acknowledge the fact that I do not have even one aspirin in this house,” she said, leaning back on her couch, glass bong cradled in her hand. “I have no pain.”

Marijuana is getting a look from states around the country considering calls to repeal decades-old marijuana prohibition laws. There are 16 states that have medical marijuana programs. In the three West Coast states, advocates are readying tax-and-sell or other legalization programs.

Marijuana was legal for much of U.S. history and was recognized as a medicine in 1850. Opposition to it began to gather and, by 1936, 48 states had passed laws regulating pot, fearing it could lead to addiction.

Anti-marijuana literature and films, like the infamous “Reefer Madness,” helped fan those fears. Eventually, pot was classified among the most harmful of drugs, meaning it had no usefulness and a high potential for addiction.

In 1976, a federal judge ruled that the Food and Drug Administration must provide Robert Randall of Washington, D.C. with marijuana because of his glaucoma — no other drug could effectively combat his condition. Randall became the nation’s first legal pot smoker since the drug’s prohibition.

Others Join Federal Program

Eventually, the government created its program as part of a compromise over Randall’s care in 1978, long before a single state passed a medical marijuana law. What followed were a series of petitions from people like Musikka to join the program.

President George H.W. Bush’s administration, getting tough on crime and drugs, stopped accepting new patients in 1992. Many of the patients who had qualified had AIDS, and they were dying.

The AP asked the agency that administers the program, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, for documents showing how much marijuana has been sent to patients since the first patient in 1976.

The agency supplied full data for 2005-2011, which showed that during that period the federal government distributed more than 100 pounds of high-grade marijuana to patients.

Agency officials said records related to the program before 2005 had been destroyed, but were able to provide scattered records for a couple of years in the early 2000s.

The four patients remaining in the program estimate they have received a total of 584 pounds from the federal government over the years. On the street, that would be worth more than $500,000.

All of the marijuana comes from the University of Mississippi, where it is grown, harvested and stored.

Government Pot Production

Dr. Mahmoud ElSohly, who directs the operation, said the marijuana was a small part of the crop the university has been growing since 1968 for all cannabis research in the U.S. Among the studies are the pharmaceutical uses for synthetic mimics of pot’s psychoactive ingredient, THC.

ElSohly said the four patients are getting pot with about 3 percent THC. He said 3 percent is about the range patients have preferred in blind tests.

The marijuana is then sent from Mississippi to a tightly controlled North Carolina lab, where they are rolled into cigarettes. And every month, steel tins with white labels are sent to Florida and Iowa. Packed inside each is a half-pound of marijuana rolled into 300 perfectly-wrapped joints.

With Musikka living in Oregon, she is entitled to more legal pot than anyone in the nation because she’s also enrolled in the state’s medical marijuana program. Neither Iowa nor Florida has approved marijuana as a medicine, so the federal pot is the only legal access to the drug for the other three patients.

The three other people in the program range in ages and doses of marijuana provided to them, but all consider themselves an endangered species that, once extinct, can be brushed aside by a federal government that pretends they don’t exist.

All four have become crusaders for the marijuana-legalization movement. They’re rock stars at pro-marijuana conferences, sought-after speakers and recognizable celebrities in the movement.

Irv Rosenfeld, a financial adviser in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, has been in the program since November 1982. His condition produces painful bone tumors, but he said marijuana has replaced prescription painkillers.

Rosenfeld likes to tell this story: In the mid-1980s, the federal government asked his doctor for an update on how Rosenfeld was doing. It was an update the doctor didn’t believe the government was truly interested in. He had earlier tried to get a copy of the previous update, and was told the government couldn’t find it, Rosenfeld said.

So instead of filling out the form, the doctor responded with a simple sentence written in large, red letters: “It’s working.”

Via AP