After word spread of DEA raids on medical marijuana collectives in San Diego and Mendocino County last week, many are left wondering if federal agents deliberately violated the Obama administration’s instructions to not interfere with state medical marijuana laws.

Under the Department of Justice policy announced in an October memo, federal agents are no longer supposed to target or prosecute medical marijuana patients or providers who operate in “clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state law.”

Yet, according to local accounts, the sites raided last week were legal under state law. From the Press Democrat:

Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman confirmed Friday that the [raided] property owner had the proper paperwork and the marijuana was legal in the eyes of the county.

“This was a federal operation and had nothing to do with local law enforcement,” he said. “The federal government made a decision to go ahead and eradicate it.”

Steve Elliott has more in Alternet:

A multi-agency federal task force descended on the property of Joy Greenfield, the first Mendo patient to pay the $1,050 application fee under the ordinance, which allows collectives to grow up to 99 plants provided they comply with certain regulations.

Greenfield had applied in the name of her collective, “Light The Way,” which opened in San Diego earlier this year. Her property had passed a preliminary inspection by the Mendo sheriff’s deputies shortly before the raid, and she had bought the sheriff’s “zip-ties” intended to designate her cannabis plants as legal.

In the days before the raid, Greenfield had seen a helicopter hovering over her property; she inquired with the sheriff, who told her the copter belonged to the DEA and wasn’t under his control.

The agents invaded her property with guns drawn, tore out the collective’s 99 plants and took Greenfield’s computer and cash.

Joy was not at home during the raid, but spoke on the phone to the DEA agent in charge. When she told [him] she was a legal grower under the sheriff’s program, the agent replied, “I don’t care what the sheriff says.”

The DEA has not yet released any statement explaining their actions, which all reports indicate violated their DOJ-issued guidelines.

With the number of state medical marijuana laws at 14 and growing, there is an urgent need for the federal government to ensure that its policy on state medical marijuana laws is made “clear and unambiguous” to its enforcers as well. The DOJ guidelines issued in October should have done just that, but apparently the DEA in California didn’t get the memo.

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Law enforcement officials from all over the nation have descended upon San Diego, California this week to attend a conference for the National Marijuana Initiative (NMI) and the California Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP). We’ve been pointing out the futility of marijuana “eradication” campaigns like CAMP and NMI for years but don’t expect conference attendees to spend any time rethinking their failed prohibitionist policies while enjoying their stay in sunny San Diego.

The agenda for the publicly funded conference, held at the prestigious U.S. Grant Hotel from May 10 through May 13, is not available to the public. In fact, the conference is under the close guard of about a dozen San Diego Police officers and even some military personnel.

We do know that former U.S. Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey was a featured speaker. According to his press release, McCaffrey laid out talking points against California’s Tax Cannabis 2010 initiative. That’s right, your tax dollars are essentially being used to hold an anti-reform campaign rally behind closed doors.

There’s also no doubt that conference attendees are patting themselves on the back for their work in the largest and most expensive weed abatement project of all time. Since 2003, CAMP’s marijuana plant seizures have grown by 500% but nevertheless have had no effect on marijuana’s availability or cost, which has actually decreased slightly since CAMP’s inception in 1983. Programs like CAMP are actually making matters worse by driving illegal marijuana operations deeper into harder-to-reach and environmentally sensitive areas on our public lands.

[Read more →]

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Last week, I posted the results of the MPP-commissioned poll showing that despite outrageous claims being made by local officials, there is wide support for medical marijuana among Los Angeles County voters. A new poll now shows that support for medical marijuana access isn’t confined to Los Angeles.

A poll released Wednesday in San Diego found super-majority support for medical marijuana in that city. The poll — commissioned by addiction recovery Web site keepcomingback.com — found 77% agreement that “officials must make sure that San Diego’s medical marijuana patients have convenient access to their medicine in the city.” 70% support regulating the city’s medical marijuana collectives in some way, while only 9.5% support banning them (3% said they didn’t need any regulations). The poll also collected other interesting information about how San Diegans view medical marijuana sales. Read more about it here.

This poll should send a firm message to San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, who just last month ordered a series of shocking raids on local medical marijuana patients and suppliers.

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Despite the success experienced by dozens of California cities and counties regulating — and in one case, even taxing — medical marijuana sales, some municipalities have seen fit to shutter all open access to patients. In San Diego, where local voters approved the state’s medical marijuana initiative 13 years ago, the county district attorney  continues to assert that it’s illegal to dispense medical marijuana to patients whose physicians have approved its use. Despite repeated losses in court and overwhelming opposition to medical marijuana raids, District Attorney Dumanis has vowed to continue her pogrom against San Diego’s sick.

On the other end of the state, the small town of Red Bluff may be taking it upon itself to re-write California’s voter-approved medical marijuana law altogether. The city’s planning commission voted 3-2 on Tuesday to support of an ordinance which would not only ban storefront medical marijuana dispensing collectives but also prohibit all medical marijuana cultivation. Apparently, the news that California laws specifically allow cultivation by patients and their caregivers hasn’t reached Red Bluff in all these years. Nor have the loads of case law supporting these rights been taken into account when the majority of commission cast its vote to thwart state law.

The Red Bluff City Council should reject this offensive proposal but if they don’t, I’m confident that it will be overturned in court. Further, public officials like D.A. Dumanis and the three Red Bluff planning commissioners who openly defy the will of their state’s voters and its legislature should find another line of work.

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Remember that gut-wrenching footage of the wheelchair-bound medical marijuana patient being pulled out of his chair and into the back of a squad car? The victim of this brutality was Rev. Paul Cody, operator of the Hillcrest Compassion Care medical marijuana collective in San Diego.

Paul has told the San Diego City Beat that he’s planning on filing a legal complaint for his treatment during the raid on Hillcrest. Paul is paralyzed from the waist down due to a motorcycle accident, and he repeatedly told the police officers that his condition required that he receive special treatment but sadly, the thugs carried on as if terrorizing a man in a wheelchair was just another day at the office. [Read more →]

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