Chronic City: Darkness In San Diego -- Attack On Medical Marijuana Moving Northward
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| Courtesy Donna Lambert |
| San Diego medical Marijuana patient Donna Lambert was arrested in Operation Green Rx as part of the "crackdown." |
At a Long Beach City Council meeting yesterday, City Prosecutor Tom Reeves was still flushed with anti-ganja fervor as he told the council of attending a summit last week held by L.A. County DA Steve Cooley, where the message was that all dispensaries are illegal and will be prosecuted. What this means, he told the council, is that Long Beach can't or shouldn't try to regulate dispensaries.
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| longbeach.gov |
| Hardliner Long Beach prosecutor Tom Reeves: "You can't regulate illegal businesses." |
"Over-the-counter sales are illegal," Reeves flatly stated. "So you're
not helping us any," Councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga repied. "I'm
helping you a great deal," Reeves snapped. "I just told you that you can't regulate illegal businesses."
So
even as city governments in places like Long Beach honestly try to
grapple with the real issues surrounding regulation and recognition of
medical Marijuana dispensaries -- including possibilities like taxation,
on-site inspections and regulations similar to liquor stores or adult
businesses -- their "legal experts" and law enforcement officials are
giving them monumentally bad advice which seems to be in conflict with
state law.
Not surprisingly, since those
present couldn't agree on whether such a thing as a legal dispensary
even exists, the Long Beach council didn't find a solution after two
hours of discussion, and will continue wrestling with the issue at a
future meeting.
San Diego: Bitter Intransigence and Stubborn Refusal
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| Office of Bonnie Dumanis |
| San Diego DA Bonnie Dumanis: arrest 'em all and let the courts sort it out |
The notoriously conservative San
Diego County Board of Commissioners is well known for its irrational
opposition to medical pot, even pursuing a quixotic and hopeless challenge to the law all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, losing the case in every court that heard it, every step of the way.
Last
week, the Board unanimously extended for 10 more months what had been a
45-day moratorium on new dispensaries in unincorporated areas of San
Diego County. After its court challenge to the law was defeated, the
Board began grudgingly issuing ID cards for medical Marijuana users. But in the meantime, DA Dumanis has sent her raiders to shut down
dispensaries and arrest their owners, creating a climate of fear and
confusion among patients countywide.
The
latest raids forced at least 14 dispensaries to close, and resulted in
at least 33 arrests. Dumanis assembled strike forces of San Diego
Police, San Diego County Sheriff's officers, DEA agents, and IRS agents
to descend on the dispensaries, make arrests, seize cash and pot, and
disrupt the local medical Marijuana distribution system. Many patients
who had come to depend on safe, legal access to the medicine
recommended by their doctors were left in the lurch.
"I
don't think Bonnie Dumanis has ever seen a 'legal dispensary' in 13
years," said Dion Markgraff, San Diego coordinator for Americans for
Safe Access (ASA). "She can't follow the plain language of the law, but
instead she holds some impossible standard that no one else knows
about. The DA is sending in cops who lied to doctors to get valid
recommendations, and then busting dispensaries that are operating
according to the law."
"The question in court is, 'Can one medical Marijuana patient help another and be exempt from sales charges?' " patient Donna Lambert, arrested back in February in the "Operation Green Rx" phase of Dumanis' crackdown, told the SF Weekly.
"The answer is a clear yes, but San Diego has not yet accepted that.
For a total of two quarter ounces of Marijuana, they did a SWAT-style
raid on my home, pointed assault rifles at me and tore my house apart,"
she said. Lambert is still fighting her case in court.
San
Diego attorney Patrick Dudley has represented people accused of illegal
use of medical Marijuana. "Most people would say that the last
battleground for medical Marijuana is San Diego," Dudley told NPR.
Under
state law, medical Marijuana patients and primary caregivers may
"associate within the State of California in order collectively or
cooperatively to cultivate Marijuana for medical purposes" (§
11362.775). But according to Dudley, San Diego law enforcement has
shown no inclination to help dispensaries understand how to follow the
law. Their approach, he says, is to arrest first and ask questions
later.
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