Whoa, Dude! California’s US Attorneys Defy Prez, Target Marijuana Dispenseries
Looks like some law enforcers have been taking the movie “Reefer Madness” an eentsy bit too seriously. Or maybe they just want to stick it to the dope-loving Kenyan Muslim socialist usurper. Either way, a few prosecutorial heads should roll:
Two of the oldest and most respected dispensaries in California, Harborside Health Center and Berkeley Patients Group, both in Alameda County, have been targeted by the Feds on numerous occasions, even in light of strict regulations imposed by their localities, and a squeaky clean track record of providing both a crucial public health service and a large amount of tax revenue.
On its face, the resolution sounds like a plea to start this conversation with President Obama; however, as we are now learning, this has less to do with orders from the POTUS, and more to do with the vendetta that the U.S. Attorneys in California have against well regulated medical marijuana facilities. The President has been clear about his intentions regarding medical marijuana for quite some time now. During his 2008 campaign, Obama stated that, “I’m not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue.” Then, in 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder reiterated that the Feds would only be going after medical marijuana businesses in violation of both Federal and state law. Although California’s medical marijuana program is not administered on the state level, numerous localities, including Oakland and Berkeley, both in Alameda Co., developed their own regulations and processes for licensing and overseeing medical marijuana dispensaries.
In an effort to ensure compliance with state law, facilities like Harborside and Berkeley Patients Group worked closely with local officials to ensure they were in compliance. So, in 2011, when the four U.S. Attorneys in California announced a crackdown on medical marijuana businesses that were not complying with state law, these dispensaries should have been safe from prosecution. But, as it turns out, the U.S. Attorneys were not playing fair. Instead of going after businesses that were unlicensed or that had received complaints from the community, the U.S. Attorneys targeted some of the most well run and respected entities in the state, including Harborside, Berkeley Patients Group, the Vapor Room in San Francisco, and the Marin Alliance, which was the oldest dispensary in the state. Outrage ensued as supporters accused Obama of going back on his word and questioned the fiscal utility of this crack down. However, things are not always what they seem.
Recently, four cases brought by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Southern California against landlords renting to dispensaries were dropped. In the process it was discovered that, instead of following the directive of the President and Attorney General on this matter, California U.S. Attorneys were blatantly ignoring the directive concerning compliance with state law, and were instead insisting that state level medical marijuana laws had no weight as long as marijuana was illegal on a Federal level.
