Clay and Debra Tepel

The day began without incident.  Kush Korner, our California Medical Marijuana Dispensary, had been open for 6 months to the day and we were not making our overhead.  Much has been said about fast, plentiful paydays from these coops.  Throughout our existence we never made a profit from our operations.

That day, our first few patients were very ill, one with cancer and another with Parkinson’s disease.  Serving these patients was most rewarding.  Each had a humility and continence that you only see in the severely ill.   When these patients left with their meds, we felt satisfied that we were fulfilling our mission.

The next two patients were check-in nightmares.  Each had the same doctor who required a fax to his office for verification.  The doctor would verify and fax back to us a response.  The process took much longer than expected, but in the end we were successful.

The day moved on.  It was a quiet mid-afternoon, when the telephone call came into the coop.   A loud excited voice on the other end announced himself from the LAPD, and ordered us to open the front door immediately, with a threat of invasion they made very clear.  At first I thought it was a joke, but the voice sounded too excited and threatening.

I walked quickly to the front door and was greeted upon opening the door by 10-15  LAPD officers in helmets, flack-jackets, and Bermuda shorts, each heavily armed and all of them pointing their weapons at me.   Most were tattooed-up and they definitely did not look like the normal police officer.  Terror filled my heart.  What were they thinking; couldn’t they see I was a 60 year old man who posed no threat?  Rudely and without explanation, I was handcuffed as all 15 entered and began ransacking my coop.  I was told to sit on the couch in the waiting room while the rampage unfolded.  I could hear the sounds of merry cops savoring their moments of discovery and destruction.  Fear and despair were the only feelings I was in touch with.

After those surreal moments came the interrogation.  I was led through the cannabis room and immediately noticed the displaced cameras, neat little half moon shaped video recording devices, removed from their ceiling locations and placed on our emptied counters.  What were they afraid of?

The sounds I had heard from the other room were a transcript of the destruction the LAPD did not want recorded.  Were the comments I had heard correct?  One police officer clearly stated in a light happy voice, during the destructive clean-out, “I want that.”  These dudes were on a mission.  A mission of shock and awe.  A mission of destruction and power.

As the jars in the cannabis room were emptied and the edibles taken from the counters the dispensary rolled over in submission and all of the natural pain relief and healing it provided was temporarily gone.  All of our patients would be displaced.   Countless lives would be affected, and none for the good.  It will not be easy for our many severally ill patients who will be without a familiar place to purchase their meds.  We were that familiar friendly face of compassion for hundreds of cannabis patients.

The police had prepared an interrogation room in a small back room.  I was led into the room to meet the main guy, the one in-charge.   Detective X  was right out of a detective show.  Much more refined than the tatted up Narc drones cleaning out my dispensary, this officer had a purpose.  Obviously, he did not care about who we were and truly what good we were doing.  His only concern was closing us down and removing all of our meds and cash, so that we could never open again.  As a little aside to the decimation and destruction of our dispensary, they were going to arrest me for, get this, “possession of and intent to sell Marijuana”, a felony.

The only question I could ask during the interrogation was, WHY.   Why us, a group of oldsters, servicing a base of older patients, with a surprising number of severely ill women.  We were, as we amusingly called ourselves, “below non-profit.”  We had been open just 6 months and each month had been a net-loss.  Our prices were low and we were not out to make money.  We were truly a compassionate dispensary.  We did want to break even and we strived to accomplish that end.

Our dispensary, a model for the framework of proposition 215 and SB 420, was a comforting relaxed place, full of effective pain relieving cannabis and a friendly compassionate staff.  We were definitely doing a great deal of good for all of our deserving patients who will now have to find another friendly dispensary to fulfill their medication needs.

The interrogation lasted for close to one hour.  Right out of a movie script; all that was needed were saltine crackers and a hot glaring spotlight.  The main detective kept saying, “We are going to close all of these cannabis stores down.”  That was his answer for “why”; that was his answer for everything.  Power is what he wanted, at the cost of our freedom and the will of the people who passed proposition 215.  This you can be sure of, the LAPD is on a mission to be the omnipresent decider of your rights and voting power.

I was led out of the dispensary in handcuffs, and paraded past police photographers and curious onlookers.  I was placed in a non-descript late model beige sedan and taken to the police station for booking.  The plain-clothes officers driving me were polite drones each repeating a mantra of learned topics about medical marijuana.  I heard from three separate officers on three separate occasions, each repeating almost word-for-word their answer for why medical marijuana was not effective for treating the eye pressure associated with, Glaucoma.  I am a Glaucoma patient and my eye pressure has been significantly reduced for over three years since starting a treatment of medical marijuana to replace the eye-drops, full of beta blockers, prescribed by my ophthalmologist.

I spent eleven hours in jail before I was bailed out.  The experience was demeaning and threatening.  This was my first experience in jail.  I guess I was not surprised that while waiting to be booked and seated next to other prisoners, one kept casting caustic looks while making low guttural threats to me.  The narcotics officer standing in front of me leaned over and casually said to me, “just punch him in the mouth, he will not feel a thing, he is too drunk and I do not like him.”  Wow, that was over-the-top, but what do you expect in the jungle known as our Los Angeles jail system.

I was eventually led to a cell with over forty beds, mostly occupied by other drug offenders.  Some were recovering addicts, sick in their cots.  There was one open toilet in middle of the room.  Jail is not a friendly place, not a place I am used to and not one I care to ever see again.  Fortunately, bail was only eleven hours away.  Still the experience was frightening and demeaning.

Oh, did I tell you my home was raided too.  My seventeen and nineteen year old daughters were terrorized by a group of gun-wielding LAPD officers.  Tearing apart my home and threatening my children was uncalled for.  What did they gain by that?  They confiscated from my home a small amount of personal medical marijuana and a legal amount of plants I had been growing for personal consumption.

Our dispensary is closed while we fight this battle to reopen and clear my good name of all charges.    Our family is financially ruined and our dreams have been crushed.  I do not know how I will be able to afford the legal costs to defend  Kush Korner, and the criminal prosecution defense I will need to prepare for.  We have put every penny of our savings into this dispensary and have extended our credit to the limit .  This was a dream that has turned into a nightmare.

Respectfully,

Clayton A. Tepel

Read the entire post, including links and tips, on the ASA Blog.

Detective Holcomb offered the same spurious explanations for the raids we have come to expect from law enforcement – “dispensaries are illegal under People v. Mentch, these places are operating for profit, no sales of cannabis are legal,” etc. I addressed these untenable arguments in greater length on the Americans for Safe Access (ASA) blog today.

New LAPD raids come at an uncertain time for Los Angeles patients’ associations. The fate of hundreds of hardship applications filed by collectives and cooperatives that opened or relocated after the city’s moratorium took effect in September of 2007 may be decided soon. The buzz from City Hall is that many will be denied. The City Council is also working to craft permanent regulations before the moratorium expires on September 14, 2009. A proposal by outgoing City Attorney to close all of the city’s storefront facilities seems dead, but advocates worry the City Council is running out of time to adopt a more sensible measure.

Los Angeles area collective and cooperative operators would do well to be on high alert for police activity – especially in the Devonshire precinct. This includes communities like Canoga Park, Chatsworth, Granada Hills, Northridge, Porter Ranch, West Hills, and Winnetka. Take some  precautions to protect staff and members:

1.    Limit the amount of medicine and other assets on hand to only what is necessary to serve members.
2.    Make sure everyone knows to remain silent if detained and questioned.
3.    Schedule a staff meeting or training to prepare for a raid.
4.    Have an attorney on call for emergencies.
5.    Make a plan for what to do if you are in jail – bail, child care, securing the facility, etc.
6.    Be 100% sure there are no weapons or illegal drugs in the facility.

I also recommend you call ASA toll free at (888) 929-4367 to report any law enforcement encounters. Leave a message at extension 319 or email legalsupport@safeaccessnow.org if you do not get through.

Federal pressure on collectives may be waning, but we still must be vigilant. We are likely to see more LAPD activity as the public outcry about the continued proliferation of collectives grows and the deadline for the new ordinance gets closer.