For the past few years, as businesses associated with medical
marijuana have proliferated in Western Washington, federal prosecutors
have taken mostly a hands-off approach.

On Thursday, however, the feds issued the clearest threat yet to 23
medical-cannabis dispensaries in the region: Shut down or else. The
issue was their location, within 1,000 feet of an "educational facility
or other prohibited area."

In letters sent by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the
targeted businesses were warned they could be charged criminally if they
didn’t close within 30 days. Their property, including profits and the
buildings themselves, could also be seized under federal law, which
prohibits the sale of marijuana, the letters warned. They were sent to
both the business operators and their landlords.

"Please take the necessary steps to discontinue the sale and/or
distribution of marijuana … ," reads the letter, signed by Matthew G.
Barnes, special agent in charge of Seattle’s DEA office. He warned more
dispensaries may be targeted.

Neither the DEA nor the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which supported the
action, would release the names of the 23 dispensaries or even disclose
which cities they’re in. Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U.S.
Attorney’s Office, said releasing the information would be
"inappropriate," since the businesses had not yet received the letters.

"We need to enforce one message for our students: Drugs have no place
in or near our schools," U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan said in a news
release.

The action follows a pattern elsewhere in the country. Dozens of such
warnings were sent in Colorado, and those dispensaries closed or moved.
In California, more than 300 letters have been sent out, primarily
targeting businesses near schools.

The U.S. Attorney for Eastern Washington sent warnings to 55
businesses and landlords in April 2011 after hearing complaints about
nine dispensaries operating near schools, including one with a large
billboard two blocks from an elementary school. Those that didn’t shut
down were raided before the 30-day time period was up.

"I think the federal government has sent a pretty clear message in
the last couple of years that they’re just not going to tolerate
cannabis distribution within 1,000 feet of schools," said Kurt Boehl, an
attorney who represents medical-marijuana businesses.

"Since we’re seeing such a proliferation in Seattle maybe they’re just trying to regulate that a little bit," he added.

Dispensaries have sprung up, in part, because authorized patients say it’s hard to grow marijuana themselves.

Washington’s medical-marijuana law doesn’t authorize them, however.
An effort to legalize and regulate them passed the state Legislature
last year but was vetoed by Gov. Chris Gregoire, leaving Washington with
one of the most unregulated medical-marijuana industries in the
country.

Seattle, home to more than 140 medical-marijuana-related businesses,
lightly regulates them, requiring only basic business licenses and
compliance with city building-safety codes.

"The dispensaries that are located within 1,000 feet of schools are
fair game for federal action, as the owners/operators know and have been
told by the city," Kimberly Mills, communications director for Seattle
City Attorney Pete Holmes, said in an email.

The City Council will hold public meetings to consider zoning restrictions this fall.

Aaron Pelley, a medical-cannabis attorney, said finding a spot
outside a 1,000-foot radius can be challenging

Federal prosecutors on Tuesday expanded their crackdown on California medical marijuana dispensaries, filing three lawsuits and sending warning letters to more than 60 clinics in two Orange County cities.

The asset-forfeiture lawsuits filed against landlords who own buildings that house six marijuana shops in Anaheim and the letters order the closure of the clinics or possible criminal charges will be filed.

More than 300 pot stores and grows have been targeted in the Central District of California, which stretches from Santa Barbara to San Bernardino counties, since October when the state’s four U.S. attorneys announced an effort to curb dispensaries.

Prosecutors argue dealers and suppliers are using the state’s medical pot law, approved in 1996, as legal cover for running sophisticated drug-trafficking ventures in plain sight. Marijuana remains illegal under federal law.

Medical marijuana advocates argue the collectives are protected by California law, which allows the drug to be cultivated and supplied to ill people on a nonprofit basis.

The crackdown comes amid a shift by municipalities and law enforcement agencies that say the clinics are abusing the law and in some cases overrunning neighborhoods. Last month, the Los Angeles City Council voted to ban as many as 900 storefront dispensaries in the coming weeks.

A medical marijuana trade group has since sued the city, claiming the ban violated constitutional rights. Activists are also working to qualify a ballot measure to repeal the ban.

In all, 66 warning letters were sent to marijuana dispensaries in Anaheim and La Habra. Some have closed recently, but federal authorities said 38 remain open.

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Published: August 21, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The Associated Press

Even as the city’s ban on
medical marijuana is facing legal and political challenges, the City
Council on Wednesday asked local and federal law enforcement agencies to
develop new strategies to enforce the shutdown.

"We need to get out of the way of law enforcement," Councilman
Bernard Parks said of his request asking the Los Angeles Police
Department to coordinate with the district attorney and Drug Enforcement
Administration on an enforcement policy.

"Federal law is clear. State law is clear," said Parks, a
former L.A. police chief. "State law allows collectives. It does not
allow for the sale of marijuana."

The City Council recently adopted a proposal to close down all
the medical marijuana dispensaries operating in the city as of next
month and the City Attorney’s Office sent a letter to landlords advising
them of the law.

However, a lawsuit has been filed challenging the city measure
and proponents of medical marijuana have been working to qualify a
referendum challenging the law.

Parks said he tried to introduce a similar measure five years ago, but action was never taken on it.

Kris Hermes, spokesman for the pro-medical marijuana group Americans for Safe Access, said they were surprised by the action.

"This proposal is unsettling to have local government work with the federal government to undermine a state law," Hermes said.

"We have maintained that passing a total ban is illegal and we’re in statecourt
fighting that and are collecting signatures on our referendum. We
expect to qualify it in early September when the new city law is
scheduled to take effect."

Revelers at Seattle’s Hempfest celebration of marijuana were offered a debate by supporters and opponents of Initiative 502. We hope they were sober enough to think through it.

For the first time, it is possible to envision an end to marijuana prohibition. That is a huge change — a huge possible change that hasn’t happened yet. But prohibition replaced by what? Any new regime will have to be acceptable to a majority of people — and not just a majority of revelers at Hempfest or voters in liberal Seattle.

This fall, voters in Washington are being offered Initiative 502. For marijuana activists, it probably is not the ideal offer. The proposed law limits possession of smokable marijuana to one ounce. It has a blood-THC standard for driving a car, and no such standard exists now. It has heavy taxes. It doesn’t allow private growing of marijuana plants except by medical patients.

All this has occasioned bellyaching among cannabis users.

Our advice: Get real. Voters in Washington are just now ready, for the first time, to allow marijuana to be grown, processed and used for recreational purposes.

They are not ready to do this without a standard of intoxication for driving, or without licensing and regulation of people in the business, or without taxing marijuana like tobacco and alcohol.

Hempfest revelers should remember: Your festival is tolerated because Seattle people don’t agree with prohibition.

Nonetheless, state law still says possession of marijuana, except for medical patients, is punishable by fines and imprisonment.

In November, voters will be offered a law that declares possession of a limited amount of marijuana by adults is no longer punishable by fine or imprisonment.

Think carefully before rejecting the offer.

Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Published: August 20, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The Seattle Times Company
Contact: opinion@seatimes.com
Website: http://www.seattletimes.com/

Washington’s annual Hempfest — a three-day celebration of pot, bongs and hemp bead necklaces that is typically one of Seattle’s largest festivals — was uncharacteristically worked up Saturday over what should have been cause for laid-back cheering: a fast-gaining ballot initiative to legalize possession of small quantities of marijuana.

Ballot measures to legalize marijuana are sprinting toward the polls in three Western states in November. Marijuana supporters say Washington’s vote on Initiative 502 is important to maintain national momentum on an issue that is beginning to see steady gains in popular support.

But the pro-marijuana community here is deeply divided over the measure. Beneficiaries of the state’s medical marijuana law fear that legalizing and regulating pot use would subject pot patients to potential arrest under the measure’s strict impaired-driving provisions.

The result has been an undercurrent of discord amid the celebratory haze on the scenic Seattle waterfront. Dedicated pot proponents find themselves amazed to be in opposition.

“I never in a million years imagined myself to be on a stage advocating against the passage of a marijuana legalization law,” Steve Elliott, who writes the “Toke Signals” column for the Seattle Weekly, said at a civilized but highly divided debate on I-502 on the “Hemposium” stage.

Legalization measures also are on the ballot in Oregon and Colorado. Washington’s I-502 would eliminate civil and criminal penalties for possession of up to an ounce of marijuana for people 21 years and older and set up regulations for the substance to be taxed and sold at state-licensed stores.

Its most controversial feature — at least among marijuana proponents — is that it would set up a new driving standard based on a definable blood limit for marijuana. This is a stricter regulation than the current impaired-driving laws and one that many medical marijuana patients believe they would be unable to meet after regular medicinal doses.

They fear they might be subject to arrest for driving even days after their last marijuana dose.

I-502 has gained substantial mainstream support in liberal western Washington, where Seattle’s mayor, its city attorney, several members of the City Council, two former U.S. attorneys and the former special agent in charge of the local office of the FBI have all come out in favor of it, along with a number of state legislators.

“Here’s what we know: Prohibition has not worked,” Mayor Mike McGinn told supporters who lazed in the grass a cloud of cannabis haze. “It’s fueled criminal violence. Right now in this city, people are murdering each other over pot…. It’s time to stop. It’s time to tax it, regulate it, legalize it.”

Steve Sarich, a longtime activist in the medical marijuana community who heads the official campaign to defeat I-502, was not even invited to attend Saturday’s debate at Hempfest.

The opposition was instead left to Elliott and legislative analyst Kari Boiter to argue.

“They’ve locked us out of the debate,” Sarich said.. “But quite frankly, Hempfest is 250,000 people and 60 voters, so we don’t necessarily expect to make a whole lot of converts, because most of the people here don’t even vote.”

“Never has an issue divided our community like 502,” said debate moderator Don Wirtshafter. “Hopefully, here we can use the Hempfest festival to work toward more energy, and what we can agree on.”

The head of the campaign to pass I-502, Alison Holcolmb, urged the crowd to remember that it’s already a crime to drive while under the influence of marijuana.

But opponents say it is wrong to force a vote on an initiative about which so many are so deeply divided when a less controversial ballot measure might be taken up later.

“I don’t want to see another law on the books that police can use to harass us with,” Boiter said of the controversial driving provisions.

Keith Stroup, a co-founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, told the crowd that while the initiative is “not perfect,” it is important to capitalize on the momentum of three recent national polls that have shown 50% popular support or more across the nation for marijuana law reform.

“For the first time in the 41 years that NORML has been involved in legalization of marijuana, we actually have won the hearts and minds of the majority of the American public, and that is terribly important,” Stroup said.

He said wins in Washington, Colorado and Oregon could begin to provide the basis for pushing Congress, until now steadfastly opposed to ending marijuana criminalization, to start reconsidering.

“We need to have one or two or three states with the courage to stand up to the federal government and say, ‘To hell with you,’” he said. “This initiative, if it passes, and I fully believe it will, will forever be seen as the defiant step that led to the end of marijuana prohibition. They will be writing about this, folks, in history books for decades.”

Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Author: Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times
Published: August 19, 2012
Copyright: 2012 Los Angeles Times
Contact: letters@latimes.com
Website: http://www.latimes.com/

An alliance of medical marijuana collective owners, vendors and
patients sued the city of Los Angeles Friday to block the implementation
of a ban on pot shops.

The lawsuit from the Patient Care Alliance-Los Angeles seeks an
injunction against the ban, which is scheduled to take effect on Sept.
6. The plaintiffs argue that the city will deny patients access to badly
needed medicine and put an entire industry out of business. 

A medical marijuana trade group is suing Los Angeles to stop the city from implementing a ban on prescription pot dispensaries.

The suit filed by Patient Care Alliance alleges the ban violates the constitutional right of freedom of assembly, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday ( http://lat.ms/NtAQ5p).

The
ordinance passed last month by the City Council said medical marijuana
may be grown and shared only by groups of three people or fewer, and it
outlaws the sale of the drug in stores.

Marc O’Hara, who heads the trade group, said the ban is
"unconstitutional on its face" and said it denies patients their right
to assemble and care for each other.

"We believe that this is a very necessary medical need in the city of LA," O’Hara said.

The
city is notifying dispensary owners that they must shut down by Sept.
6, when the ban takes effect. In a letter sent out this week, city
lawyers warned that those who don’t comply face fines or jail time.

Special Assistant City Attorney Jane Usher told the newspaper the city had not yet seen the lawsuit and had no comment.

Patient Care Alliance works with more than 300 dispensaries in Los Angeles.

The
suit comes as other groups of medical marijuana activists are working
to qualify a ballot measure to repeal the ban, the Times reported. The
Greater Los Angeles
Collectives Alliance and Americans for Safe Access have joined forces
with a labor union of dispensary workers to gather enough signatures to
put the issue to voters.

Medical marijuana dispensary owners across Los Angeles will be receiving glum news in the mail this week: a letter from the city telling them it’s time to shut down. But despite threats of fines and jail time, some dispensary owners have vowed to stay open.

They say they are working hard to qualify a ballot measure to overturn the ban on storefront sales of medical marijuana passed last month by the Los Angeles City Council.

The letter from the city, sent Tuesday from the office of City Atty. Carmen Trutanich, says dispensaries have until Sept. 6 to comply with the ban. Shops that refuse to shut down may be subject to penalties of $2,500 a day and up to six months in jail.

Dispensary owner Yamileth Bolanos, who heads the Greater Los Angeles Collectives Alliance, said she hadn’t gotten the letter yet. But she was defiant: “I’m not shutting down.”

Bolanos, who believes the city could have come up with a workable policy that would limit the number of dispensaries while also ensuring patients have access to the drug, said her group’s current focus is on collecting signatures for a voter referendum to overturn the ban.

The process of getting signatures has already begun, according to Don Duncan, California director for Americans for Safe Access. He said about 27,500 people must sign the petition for the referendum — or one-tenth of the voters who participated in the last mayoral election.

Last month’s ban was seen as a turning point in the city’s seemingly unending battle to regulate the distribution of medical marijuana.

It will outlaw the estimated 1,000 or so storefront dispensaries in the city, but it will still allow patients and their caregivers to grow and share marijuana in groups of three people or fewer.

From The LA Times Blog

Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Published: August 16, 2012
Copyright: 2012 Los Angeles Times
Contact: letters@latimes.com
Website: http://www.latimes.com/

Medical marijuana dispensary owners across
Los Angeles will be receiving glum news in the mail this week: a letter
from the city telling them it’s time to shut down. 

But despite threats of fines and jail time, some dispensary owners
have vowed to stay open. They say they are working hard to qualify a
ballot measure to overturn the ban on storefront sales of medical marijuana passed last month by the Los Angeles City Council.

The letter from the city,
sent Tuesday from the office of City Atty. Carmen Trutanich, says
dispensaries have until Sept. 6 to comply with the ban. Shops that
refuse to shut down may be subject to penalties of $2,500 a day and up
to six months in jail.

Dispensary owner Yamileth Bolanos, who heads the Greater Los Angeles
Collectives Alliance, said she hadn’t gotten the letter yet. But she was
defiant: "I’m not shutting down."

Bolanos, who believes the city could have come up with a workable policy
that would limit the number of dispensaries while also ensuring
patients have access to the drug, said her group’s current focus is on
collecting signatures for a voter referendum to overturn the ban.

The process of getting signatures has already begun, according to Don
Duncan, California director for Americans for Safe Access. He said
about 27,500 people must sign the petition for the referendum — or
one-tenth of the voters who participated in the last mayoral election.

Last month’s ban was seen as a turning point in the city’s seemingly
unending battle to regulate the distribution of medical marijuana.

It will outlaw the estimated 1,000 or so storefront dispensaries in
the city, but it will still allow patients and their caregivers to grow
and share marijuana in groups of three people or fewer.

The City Attorney’s Office
announced today it is warning all marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles
to close by Sept. 6, when a new ordinance goes into effect, or face
court action and a $2,500 fine for every day they remain open after the
deadline.

The office mailed letters to 1,046 suspected dispensary
locations and to 728 landlords, warning they are also liable if
dispensaries remain open beyond the deadline.

The City Council voted in July to ban storefront marijuana
dispensaries, citing a lack of clarity on how the city can legally
regulate the distribution of medical cannabis and the potential threat
of federal legal action against the city.

The council’s vote allows primary caregivers and patients to
grow and transport marijuana. Under the new ordinance, two or three
patients are allowed to collectively grow and share marijuana in homes
or apartments, but not storefronts.

The letter from Chief Deputy City Attorney William Carter
warns dispensaries that each day they remain open beyond that date is a
separate violation of the law and a misdemeanor subject to a $1,000 fine
and six months in jail.

In the letter, Carter recounted the city’s attempts to
regulate dispensaries in recent years and the dozens of lawsuits by
marijuana collectives that followed.

"The city spent nine months in settlement discussions with the
dispensary litigants and the court. We are not able to share the
content of those confidential discussions, but we can tell you that we did not achieve settlement," Carter wrote.

"The unresolved and continuing legal impasse has been accompanied
by a massive proliferation of unregulated dispensaries in the city,
leaving the city with only one clear legal option — to recognize
compassionate access, but prohibit medical marijuana businesses within
the city."

Medical marijuana supporters, led by Americans for Safe
Access, have been collecting signatures in an effort to put a referendum
on the March or June citywide election ballot to repeal the law. "The
tens of thousands of patients harmed by this vote will not take it
sitting down," Americans for Safe Access California Director Don Duncan
said last month. "We will campaign forcefully to overturn this poor
decision by the council."