COUNCIL TELLS SHOP TO CEASE POT SALES

Vote On Medical Marijuana Dispensary Infuriates Many

About 120 people at the Modesto council meeting Tuesday, including
Beyer High government class students, right, sat through a lengthy
debate on closing a medical marijuana dispensary.

Despite the pleas of a dying woman, the Modesto City Council on
Tuesday night voted to shut a McHenry Avenue shop that fills medical
marijuana prescriptions and to ban permanently similar businesses
from opening in the city.

The unanimous vote angered many people in a crowd of about 120 who
sat through a three-hour debate between people who said they relied
on medical marijuana to ease chronic pain and others who said the
city should not sanction a shop that violates federal laws.

Council members did not discuss the merits of the measure, which
requires California Healthcare Collective to close its doors by July
14, 2006. Councilmen Denny Jackman and Garrad Marsh were absent and
did not vote.

Luke Skarmozzo, a manager at the collective, said the business
intends to fight the council vote.

"We're not going to stop," he said. "There are too many patients who
have a right to access their medicine safely."

One medical marijuana user, who did not want to identify herself
because she has not told her family that she has been diagnosed with
two forms of cancer, said the ban would send her to the streets to
get the drug.

"I don't want you to close the club, because I personally need it," she said.

Others said they'll have to drive to the Bay Area to get their
medicine once the ban takes effect.

"We're going to have to drive to Hayward or Oakland, and I can't
drive," said Diana Gimbel Dominici, a Modesto woman whose daughter
cares for her.

Shop's foes say it encourages crime

Supporters of the ban said the clinic encourages the illegal sale of
marijuana on the street by giving it to people who fake illnesses to
doctors, then hawk the drugs from the collective as dealers.

"The people that are getting these cards don't need them. They're
just furthering their addictions," said Karl Meabrod, 48, a Modesto
addiction counselor.

"I don't want a marijuana dispensary in Stanislaus County, because I
believe it would encourage sales of the drug and, thereby, crime in
our community," said David Whiting, 48, a Turlock man who called
himself a former methamphetamine addict.

Modesto police Sgt. Craig Gundlach led an investigation into
California Healthcare Collective and concluded, "It relates more to a
criminal enterprise than it does to a pharmacy."

Gundlach said officers have found materials from the collective on
several people suspected of dealing drugs. He said the department
also has received reports of people filling a prescription and then
selling marijuana to someone else in the collective's parking lot.

His investigation led Modesto Police Chief Roy Wasden to tell the
council, "I do not see a way that it can be done safely or
effectively in our community."

The council has debated what to do with the clinic since March;
opponents of the ban say the issue won't end with Tuesday's vote.

The city could expect a lawsuit from Americans for Safe Access, an
advocacy group that has sued to overturn a ban on medical marijuana
dispensaries in Fresno. The group sent a letter to Modesto City
Attorney Michael Milich, saying it might adopt the same course here.

Milich argued that the city can defend the ban because state laws do
not allow medical marijuana clinics to earn a profit -- which
California Healthcare Collective says it does -- and federal law
calls marijuana an illegal substance.

In June, the Supreme Court affirmed that federal laws banning the
drug trump California's Proposition 215, which allows certain people
to use it for medicinal purposes.

Robert Raiche, an attorney who helped bring the case to the court on
behalf of his ill wife, urged the Modesto council to follow the lead
of other cities, such as Oakland, which have allowed a handful of
medical marijuana dispensaries to operate.

"This is actually a legal way for people to obtain a legal medicine
in California," said Raiche, who is representing the Modesto collective.

He said Milich misinterpreted the state law detailing how people can
get medical marijuana, arguing that dispensaries are legal and can be
compensated for the service they provide.

Raiche said the city's planning commission seemed to endorse that
path on Nov. 21, when it rejected an outright ban on dispensaries by
a 5-2 vote, with Kristin Olsen and Dave Cogdill Jr. supporting the ban.

Livingston, Manteca, Merced and Turlock have banned medical marijuana
dispensaries, but none of those cities had a business already selling
the drug when councils enacted the measures.