The San Diego Police Department cooperated with a multi-agency task force, including the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), to raid at least six medical cannabis collectives in the San Diego area today. Today’s action puts new urgency behind the calls for clarity on the Administration’s policy, and underscores the danger of local cooperation with federal law enforcement. It may be difficult for medical cannabis patients and advocates to maintain faith in comments made by the President and US Attorney General Eric Holder if DEA raids continue in California and other medical cannabis states. San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis has been a vocal opponent of safe access and repeatedly cooperated with the DEA in 2007-2008 to close approximately twenty facilities. Her cooperation is almost certainly a factor in today’s raids.
You can see video of the raid online, including the police department shoving a handcuffed and wheelchair-bound man into a squad car.
Details are still coming in, but the San Diego chapter of Americans for Safe Access (ASA) reports raids at the following patients’ associations: SDDC, Top Quality, Natures RX, SDDS San Marcos, Answerdam, Movment in Action, Healing Dragon, Green Kross, PB Collective, Hillcrest Compassion, Medicinal Solutions , Green Tree Solutions, Total Herbal Care, and Kush Lounge.
On Friday, the New York Times ran an article featuring the Los Angeles Patients and Caregivers Group (LAPCG) in West Hollywood and me, discussing the reaction in the medical cannabis community to US Attorney General Eric Holder’s latest statement about federal policy. I told the reporter that we were breathing a little easier, but still worried about federal interference and rouge law enforcement. I also reminded him that there are still dozens of people facing trial, awaiting sentencing, or serving time. Holder’s “new American policy” must not forget people like Charles C. Lynch, who is to be sentenced to 5 to 20 years in Los Angeles tomorrow.
Patients and staff at LAPCG worry that local police and federal agents have little experince distinguishing who is and who is not obeying state law. Under the previous Administartion, obeying the letetr and the spirit of California law still left you at risk of prosecution and jail. It is our hope that law enforcement will rise to the challenge and learn to tell who is doing it right. It should not be too difficult to see that a legal, tax-paying, nonprofit patients’ association like LAPCG, which has operated in West Hollywood since 2004, is off limits to the DEA under Holder’s new policy. Time will tell; but until we change federal law to allow states to choose and regulate medical cannabis as they see fit, there will always be a risk.
The historic election of President Barack Obama and the expanded Democratic majority in Congress signal an opportunity for change in federal policy concerning medical cannabis, and recent developments indicate that this change may already be underway. On February 4, in response to post-inauguration raids by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) at medical cannabis dispensaries in California, White House Spokesman Nick Shapiro reiterated the President’s campaign pledges to stop wasting federal resources in efforts to circumvent state medical cannabis laws. Then on February 25, US Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters at a press conference, while standing next to acting DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart, that ending federal raids on medical cannabis dispensaries “is now American policy.” Attorney General Holder followed up theses comments on March 18, by indicating the new policy meant the federal government would only prosecute providers who were breaking state law.
We have also seen remarkable progress in Congress. US House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) sharply criticized DEA interference and intimidation in medical cannabis states last year. His historic letter of April 28, 2008, challenged the DEA tactics in California and other states where medical cannabis is already legal. On February 6, 2009, Congressman John Olver (D-MA) and fifteen of his colleagues sent the Attorney General a letter asking him to abandon his predecessor’s policy of blocking medical cannabis research; and on February 16 Congresswoman Lois Capps (D-CA) asked him to stop threatening California property owners who rent to medical cannabis providers.
These are remarkable developments, but I want to caution all potential operators that federal law has not changed. Medical cannabis remains illegal and penalties are still severe under federal law. There is more work to be done to harmonize federal law with state law. You have a role to play in that ongoing work.
This Senate Joint Resolution urges the federal government to end medical marijuana raids in California and to create a comprehensive federal medical marijuana policy that ensures safe and legal access for any patient that would benefit from it. […]
The US Senate passed S.258, the "Saving Kids from Dangerous Drugs Act of 2010." Without amendments, this act and infringes on the rights of medical marijuana patients by doubling federal penalties and heightens the risk of arrest and prosecution for edible cannabis users. […]
