The federal government filed
a lawsuit targeting the city’s largest medical marijuana outlet and is
aiming to seize the property from its landlord.

The suit, filed
May 2 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, says Nahla Droubi of
Moraga, who is the landlord for Berkeley Patients Group, is breaking
federal drug laws by allowing the sale of marijuana and therefore is
subject to seizure of her property.

The suit comes after Berkeley
Patients Group was forced to close its previous location down the street
on San Pablo Avenue last May when the landlord there received a letter
threatening seizure for the same reason. The letter also cited the fact
that it was too close to two nearby schools.

It then moved down the street and reopened in December.

Sean
Luse, chief operations officer for Berkeley Patients Group, which has
been doing business in the city since 1999, said he was surprised at the
suit because he did everything asked of him when he was forced to leave
the last location.

"We moved our previous location and moved 1,000 feet from any school, so we’re very surprised," Luse said.

The
lawsuit against the Berkeley Patients Group landlord, in addition to
citing federal drug laws, also mentions the proximity of two preschools
in the neighborhood near the new location.

Luse said Berkeley Patients Group will join the lawsuit as a defendant and stay in business as the saga unfolds.

"We look forward to our day in court," he said.

Last
August, Droubi said she was not worried about having her property
seized when Berkeley Patients Group announced it would become her new
tenant.

"Our property is not close to any school," she said at the
time. "The previous landlord had a very good experience with this
group. He said they were very organized and most important thing is they
had no violations and great security."

Droubi did not respond to calls seeking comment Tuesday afternoon, nor did a spokesman for the U. S. attorney in San Francisco.

The
lawsuit is similar to one filed last year against Harborside Health
Center in Oakland, the nation’s largest medical marijuana dispensary.
That lawsuit has not yet been resolved.

Kris Hermes, spokesman for
Americans for Safe Access which advocates for medical marijuana with
50,000 members nationwide, said there have been about 20 dispensaries
targeted in a similar fashion across California in the last couple of
years, but he did not know how many of the suits have been successful.

He
said the U.S. attorney’s office has sent hundreds of letters to
landlords threatening forfeiture "and hundreds have shut down as a
result."

More recently he said a new round of threatening letters
has recently gone to landlords of dispensaries in San Francisco and San
Jose.

"The Obama Administration has so far gotten away with
claiming that they are only targeting those in violation of state law,"
Hermes said. "Berkeley Patients Group stands in direct contrast to that
contention. It’s patently false."

Four Berkeley City Council
members plan a news conference on Wednesday at noon, at 2134 Martin
Luther King Jr. Way, to protest the lawsuit.

On April 23 Lindsey and Josh
Rinehart were driving back to Boise, Idaho, after a hiking trip
when they got a frantic phone call: Police were searching their
house. By the time the Rineharts made it home, their babysitter was
a mess, and their two children

We often make the case that some law enforcement officials want to maintain marijuana prohibition because enforcing it provides them with job security and bigger budgets. This Texas Monthly article quotes a former Texas judge making that case for us while discussing his support for a bill that would reduce penalties for possession of up to one ounce of marijuana.

Bryan-College Station Judge John Delaney reported that probation officers in Brazos County had told him that passage of the bill, with its removal of incarceration and therefore of probation, would devastate their offices. Why? Because almost half of the county’s misdemeanor probationers have been convicted of possession of less than two ounces of marijuana. “We live off our under-two-ounce misdemeanor guys. They pay the rent.” [MPP emphasis added]

Joni Whiting

At a press conference held by Minnesotans for Compassionate Care last week to announce the introduction of a medical marijuana bill, several patients shared their heart-wrenching stories with reporters and assembled lawmakers.

Once of those people was Joni Whiting, whose daughter found relief from cancer pain with medical marijuana. Her testimony is available at the Star Tribune.

Clayton Holton

As New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan attempts to strip the provisions allowing patients to grow a limited amount of marijuana from the legislation being considered in the state Senate this week, patients are speaking up.

Clayton Holton, a 28-year-old with muscular dystrophy and an outspoken supporter of medical marijuana, wrote in Seacoast Online:

I have spent the better part of a decade asking New Hampshire legislators to allow patients like me to use medical marijuana, and it finally appears that a medical marijuana bill is going to pass this year. Unfortunately, it appears this law may not be of any benefit to patients like me who are fighting for our lives.

HB 573, which passed overwhelmingly in the House, allows patients to access medical marijuana from one of five state-regulated alternative treatment centers or grow up to three cannabis plants. The centers will not begin serving patients for at least two years, and many patients, including myself, cannot wait that long for relief. Thus, it is critical that we be allowed to grow for ourselves or designate a caregiver to do so for us, as the bill allows.

Sadly, Gov. Maggie Hassan is now insisting that home cultivation be removed from the bill before she will be willing to sign it. This means patients will continue to suffer without legal access to marijuana. Frankly, I do not expect to live another two years, so for me, this may as well be a death sentence.

While Gov. Hassan should be commended for supporting the rights of patients to use the medicine that works best for them, she needs to realize that we should not be forcing patients to either wait years or put themselves in danger getting their medicine from the criminal market.

If you live in New Hampshire, please contact Gov. Hassan and ask her to remove her opposition to patient cultivation.

Legislators are disagreeing on a lot of big issues, but they found a bit of common ground Thursday — medical marijuana.

It’s too late to push a bill through this session, but about 40 legislators in both parties, including more than a dozen committee chairmen, sent a strong signal that they want to add Minnesota to the 18 states where marijuana can be legally prescribed.

Legislators passed the legalization of medical marijuana in 2009, but were stopped by Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who vetoed the bill.

Now they’re ready to try again, in part because of such Minnesotans as Joni Whiting, of Jordan. Whiting watched as her 26-year-old daughter, Stephanie Whiting Stradinger, endured surgeries for malignant melanoma that ate away her face and ultimately took her life. There was just one thing, Whiting said, that eased her daughter’s suffering, and getting it meant her entire family had to break state law.

“They cut her face off, one inch at a time, until there was nothing left to cut,” Whiting said at a Thursday news conference, holding up a picture of Stradinger, smiling and lovely. She then covered it with a later photo of her daughter, her face flayed open and raw from treatments for the melanoma that started to grow on her cheek during her third pregnancy.

“The pain she was experiencing was unimaginable and the nausea was so severe that it became difficult for her to eat,” Whiting said. “That was when a doctor at the hospital pulled me aside and told me that Stephanie might benefit from using marijuana.”

The legislation proposed Thursday would allow doctors or other medical professionals to write prescriptions for up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana for patients with “debilitating” medical conditions. Those conditions include cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma and post-traumatic stress.

The marijuana would be available through licensed dispensaries that would grow the drug on site in locked greenhouses. Patients in remote areas could be licensed by the state to grow a small number of marijuana plants for their own use.

But is a state that doesn’t allow wine sales in grocery stores ready to legalize marijuana dispensaries?

The issue is not one that breaks along party lines.

Like Pawlenty, DFL Gov. Mark Dayton opposes legalization, and for the same reason — law enforcement agencies are firmly against it.

Rep. Carly Melin, DFL-Hibbing, is a chief sponsor in the House, joined by Republican Rep. Tom Hackbarth, of Cedar. For Hackbarth, the cause is painfully personal. His wife is terminally ill.

“It’s a matter of the quality of life in the final days for me,” Hackbarth said. “We’re introducing it now so we can gain support, talk to legislators and then really hit the ground running when the session starts next year.”

But even if the House and Senate pass a bill to legalize medical marijuana next year, they face a formidable obstacle in the governor’s office.

“The governor will not be able to support the legalization of medical marijuana as long as law enforcement is opposed,” Dayton spokeswoman Katharine Tinucci said. “If advocates are able to reach an agreement with law enforcement, the governor would consider the measure.”

Police officials remain deeply skeptical. Legal marijuana greenhouses won’t make the job of clamping down on illegal drug use any easier, they warn.

“It is an absolute regulatory and enforcement nightmare,” said Dennis Flaherty, executive director of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association. “We are not convinced that there really is a medicinal purpose to marijuana. … We see marijuana as a harmful drug and a gateway drug.”

But Whiting doesn’t want the governor to wait until law enforcement officials are on board with medical marijuana. Smoking the drug, she said, was the only thing that gave her daughter relief before her death in 2003 at age 26.

“He’s the governor and he should lead,” she said. “It’s his responsibility to lead, and then it’s law enforcement’s responsibility to do what he says.”

Source: Minneapolis Star-Tribune (MN)
Copyright: 2013 Star Tribune
Contact: http://www.startribunecompany.com/143
Website: http://www.startribune.com
Author: Jennifer Brooks

As poll numbers show Ohioans are growing increasingly comfortable with the idea of marijuana use, a Youngstown Democrat wants to give people the chance to make the drug fully legal in Ohio.

Rep. Robert F. Hagan has made a few attempts over the years to persuade his colleagues to allow for the use of medical marijuana in Ohio, and each effort has died a quiet death. A spokesman for Speaker William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, declined to comment on the pair of proposals Hagan introduced yesterday.

One is a bill that would allow patients with certain chronic conditions such as cancer or sickle-cell anemia to use marijuana for treatment. Eighteen other states have approved similar measures.

“In addition to the studies that show marijuana to be a valuable treatment option for chronic pain, nausea and seizure disorders, I have heard countless stories of how cannabis has made a difference in the lives of people who are sick or dying,” Hagan said.

His other proposal, modeled after an amendment recently passed in Colorado, would ask voters to approve allowing people 21 or older to purchase and use marijuana. The drug could be sold only by state-licensed establishments and would be subject to a 15 percent excise tax.

“With billions upon billions spent on the war on drugs with little progress to show for it, it is time for more-sensible drug policy in this country,” Hagan said, arguing that the revenue could help restore cuts to education and local governments.

It takes a three-fifths vote for the legislature to put an issue on the ballot.

A recent Saperstein Associates poll of more than 1,000 Ohioans for The Dispatch found that legalizing medical marijuana was overwhelmingly favored, 63 percent to 37 percent, but making pot completely legal was opposed by a 21-point margin.

Martin D. Saperstein, head of the Columbus polling firm, noted that surveys in other states are finding growing acceptance of legalizing marijuana, especially if it would be regulated and taxed.

The Ohio Ballot Board last year approved language for two medical-marijuana issues, though neither appears likely to collect the 385,000 signatures needed to qualify for the November ballot. One group has reorganized, calling itself OhioRights.org, and plans to submit a new petition that will include legalized growing of hemp, a plant related to marijuana.

Source: Columbus Dispatch (OH)
Author: Jim Siegel, The Columbus Dispatch
Published: Friday May 3, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Columbus Dispatch
Contact: letters@dispatch.com
Website: http://www.dispatch.com/

One man was walking home with groceries. Another was on a break from his job at a meat market. A third was walking down the street listening to headphones.

That is when the men say police officers confronted them, sometimes violently, searched their clothing and discovered small amounts of marijuana, according to a federal civil rights lawsuit that is expected to be filed on Thursday in United States District Court for the Southern District, in Manhattan.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of five Bronx men, contends that New York City police officers routinely stop black and Latino men without cause and then charge them with low-level misdemeanors when their pockets are emptied and small amounts of marijuana are found.

In each of the cases, the amount of marijuana found on the men would have amounted to little more than noncriminal violations punishable by a fine of up to $100 for first-time offenders. But the lawsuit contends that the charging officers falsely claimed the marijuana was in public view, making it a low-level misdemeanor under Section 221.10 of the New York Penal Code, which allows for sentences of up to three months in jail.

Critics of the Police Department say the practice, which they call manufactured misdemeanors, is widespread. The arrests are often the outgrowth of the department’s stop-and-frisk program, which is being challenged in federal court for, among other things, disproportionately targeting black and Hispanic men.

The lawsuit names the city, the department and several officers and supervisors as defendants. It was filed by the Bronx Defenders, which represents low-income defendants, and the law firm of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady L.L.P. A similar lawsuit filed by the Legal Aid Society is pending in state court in Manhattan.

A spokeswoman for the city’s Law Department declined to comment on Wednesday, saying the city had not yet been served with the lawsuit.

The Police Department charged more than 50,000 people with marijuana misdemeanors in 2011. More than 84 percent were black or Hispanic, a disparity that is even more pronounced in the Bronx.

In an effort to limit these arrests, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has made decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana in open view one of his top goals this legislative session. The Legislature failed to act on a similar measure last year, despite support from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly.

Though state law calls for misdemeanor cases to be tried within 60 days, the time limits are seldom met, the lawsuit contends. People arrested in the Bronx have it even worse; a recent series of articles in The New York Times revealed a dysfunctional justice system plagued by long delays that often make it all but impossible for people charged with misdemeanors to ever reach trial.

Two of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Francisco Zapata and Danilo Melendez, were featured in one of the articles. They endured long delays and made frequent court appearances waiting for trial before the charges against them were finally dropped.

A version of this article appeared in print on May 2, 2013, on page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: Federal Suit Claims Police Distorted Marijuana Searches to Create Misdemeanors.

Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Ray Rivera
Published: May 2, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/