REEFER MADNESS

California Pot Raids Cast Doubt On Local Laws

It's something of a mystery why federal Drug Enforcement
Administration agents raided HopeNet, a medical cannabis dispensary
said to serve about 30 patients a day in San Francisco, on Dec. 20.
It followed a series of raids in San Diego on Dec. 12 that closed 13
cannabis dispensaries. No arrests were made in any of the raids, but
some patients are concerned that these raids are a prelude to a major
effort to close down cannabis clubs statewide.

That seems unlikely, at least any time soon.

The backdrop to all this is the fact that California law and federal
law are different regarding the medical use of cannabis, or
marijuana. This could have repercussions in Colorado, as we also have
a state law that allows possession of small amounts of marijuana for
medical use if a person has the approval of a doctor.

Especially since the Supreme Court ruling last June in Raich v.
Ashcroft, federal law prohibits growing, possessing or using
marijuana, even for medical purposes, and even if such activities
occur entirely within the borders of a state that authorizes the use
of marijuana through the recommendation of a licensed physician, as
California and Colorado have since voters approved measures in those
and nine other states.

After last summer's Supreme Court decision, DEA officials said it was
unlikely they would pursue patients using marijuana in accordance
with state law. "The reality is, we don't have the time or resources
to do anything other than going after large-scale traffickers and
large-scale growers," McGregor Scott, U.S. attorney in Sacramento,
told reporters in June. The rule-of-thumb guideline has traditionally
been that the feds are interested almost exclusively in sites with
1,000 or more plants.

In Northern California, the DEA began with a raid in the Sonoma
County town of Penngrove that turned up 217 plants, which led to a
raid on the San Francisco home of Steve Smith and his wife,
Catherine, proprietors of HopeNet, where 122 small plants were
confiscated. When DEA agents then went to HopeNet in San Francisco,
the manager asked to see a warrant, which the agents didn't have. The
DEA, presumably having secured a warrant, returned at night, kicked
in the doors and seized what they claim were 500 plants and club
records. All together these raids don't add up to the 1,000-plant
guideline. So much for truth in government.

We hope this is the end of the raids rather than the beginning of a
concerted effort to disrupt California's medical marijuana laws. As
Dale Giereinger, head of the California branch of the National
Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws, said, there are now
probably too many small-time medical growers and dispensaries in
California for the feds to have a serious impact on the
implementation of California's law. That might be fine for
Californians easing their suffering with marijuana, but it leaves
other states with less-organized clinics open to federal attention.
And laws such as Denver's that decriminalized possession of small
amounts of pot are steamrolled by federal laws that prohibit all
possession and use.

To be sure, the feds have the legal authority to arrest casual users
and patients with a single joint. But it would be an enormous and
unpopular waste of taxpayers' money.