Obama Administration Cracking Down on California mar1juana Dispensaries

Rocketman95 · Oct 9, 2011

sammy said: ↑

I've heard that for every one they shut down, 100 new ones pop up. Don't quote me on that. Just something I heard once.
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don't tell me what to do. muhahahaha.

jo mama · Oct 9, 2011

geeimsobored said: ↑

That wasn't his promise. His promise was not to crack down on users. The Justice Department had a policy of actively prosecuting people with medical mar1juana permits. That hasn't changed.

What he's doing now is directly targeting larger dispensaries.

I certainly don't agree with the President but he didn't break any promises here. In fact the quote in your post proves as much.
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no, his promise was indeed to end raids on medical mar1juana dispensaries. you can spin it any way you want, but this is a total 180 degree turn from what candidate obama promised.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/2943370...ea-halt-medical-mar1juana-raids/#.TpHOwHKyBhU
DEA to halt medical mar1juana raids
Holder confirms states to have final say on use of drug for pain control
2/27/2009 5:42:59 PM ET
Supporters of programs to provide legal mar1juana to patients with painful medical conditions are celebrating Attorney General Eric Holder’s statement this week that the Drug Enforcement Administration would end its raids on state-approved mar1juana dispensaries.

Federal raids on medical mar1juana distributors continued at least into the second week of Barack Obama’s presidency, when federal agents shut down at least two dispensaries in California on Feb. 3.

Holder was asked about those raids Wednesday in Santa Ana, Calif., at a news conference that was called to announce the arrests of 755 people in a nationwide crackdown on the U.S. operations of Mexican drug cartels. He said such operations would no longer be conducted.

“What the president said during the campaign ... will be consistent with what we will be doing here in law enforcement,” he said. “What (Obama) said during the campaign ... is now American policy.”

Obama indicated during the presidential campaign that he supported the controlled use of mar1juana for medical purposes, saying he saw no difference between medical mar1juana and other pain-control drugs.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/us/19holder.html
Obama Administration to Stop Raids on Medical mar1juana Dispensers
Published: March 18, 2009
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Wednesday outlined a shift in the enforcement of federal drug laws, saying the administration would effectively end the Bush administration’s frequent raids on distributors of medical mar1juana.

Speaking with reporters, Mr. Holder provided few specifics but said the Justice Department’s enforcement policy would now be restricted to traffickers who falsely masqueraded as medical dispensaries and “use medical mar1juana laws as a shield.”

In the Bush administration, federal agents raided medical mar1juana distributors that violated federal statutes even if the dispensaries appeared to be complying with state laws. The raids produced a flood of complaints, particularly in California, which in 1996 became the first state to legalize mar1juana sales to people with doctors’ prescriptions.

Graham Boyd, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union drug law project, said Mr. Holder’s remarks created a reasonable balance between conflicting state and federal laws and “seem to finally end the policy war over medical mar1juana.” He said officials in California and the 12 other states that have authorized the use of medical mar1juana had hesitated to adopt regulations to carry out their laws because of uncertainty created by the Bush administration.

Mr. Holder said the new approach was consistent with statements made by President Obama in the campaign and was based on an assessment of how to allocate scarce enforcement resources. He said dispensaries operating in accord with California law would not be a priority for the administration.

Mr. Holder’s comments appeared to be an effort to clarify the policy after some news reports last month interpreted his answer to a reporter’s question to be a flat assertion that all raids on mar1juana growers would cease. Department officials said Mr. Holder had not intended to assert any policy change last month but was decidedly doing so on Wednesday.

Ethan Nadelmann, the founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, said Mr. Holder was telling the Drug Enforcement Administration that it should leave legitimate growers of medical mar1juana untouched. “The message from the Bush Justice Department was ‘watch out — we have the authority to go after everybody,’ ” he said.
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that was two years ago...here is their position now.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4480672...s-told-feds-shut-down/&gt1=43001#.TpHQT3KyBhU
Calif. pot dispensaries told by feds to shut down
U.S. prosecutors send letters even though state law allows
10/6/2011 7:56:13 PM ET
Federal prosecutors are cracking down on some pot dispensaries in California, warning the stores that they must shut down in 45 days or face criminal charges and confiscation of their property even if they are operating legally under the state's 15-year-old medical mar1juana law.

In an escalation of the ongoing conflict between the U.S. government and the nation's burgeoning medical mar1juana industry, at least 16 pot shops or their landlords received letters this week stating they are violating federal drug laws, even though medical mar1juana is legal in California. The state's four U.S. attorneys were scheduled Friday to announce a broader coordinated crackdown.

Their offices refused Thursday to confirm the closure orders. The Associated Press obtained copies of the letters that a prosecutor sent to at least 12 San Diego dispensaries. They state that federal law "takes precedence over state law and applies regardless of the particular uses for which a dispensary is selling and distributing mar1juana."

"Under United States law, a dispensary's operations involving sales and distribution of mar1juana are illegal and subject to criminal prosecution and civil enforcement actions," according to the letters signed by U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy in San Diego. "Real and personal property involved in such operations are subject to seizure by and forfeiture to the United States ... regardless of the purported purpose of the dispensary."

The move comes a little more than two months after the Obama administration toughened its stand on medical mar1juana. For two years before that, federal officials had indicated they would not move aggressively against dispensaries in compliance with laws in the 16 states where pot is legal for people with doctors' recommendations.

The Department of Justice issued a policy memo to federal prosecutors in late June stating that mar1juana dispensaries and licensed growers in states with medical mar1juana laws could face prosecution for violating federal drug and money-laundering laws. The effort to shutter California dispensaries appeared to be the most far-reaching effort so far to put that guidance into action.

"This really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. The administration is simply making good on multiple threats issued since President Obama took office," said Kevin Sabet, a former adviser to the president's drug czar and a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Substance Abuse Solutions. "The challenge is to balance the scarcity of law enforcement resources and the sanctity of this country's medication approval process. It seems like the administration is simply making good on multiple statements made previously to appropriately strike that balance."

Greg Anton, a lawyer who represents dispensary Marin Alliance for Medical mar1juana, said its landlord received an "extremely threatening" letter Wednesday invoking a federal law that imposes additional penalties for selling drugs within 1,000 feet of schools, parks and playgrounds.

The landlord was ordered to evict the 14-year-old pot club or risk imprisonment, plus forfeiture of the property and all the rent he has collected while the dispensary has been in business, Anton said.

Marin Alliance's founder "has been paying state and federal taxes for 14 years, and they have cashed all the checks," he said. "All I hear from Obama is whining about his budget, but he has money to do this which will actually reduce revenues."

Kris Hermes, a spokesman for the medical mar1juana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, said the warnings are part of what appears to be an attempt by the Obama administration to curb medical mar1juana on multiple fronts and through multiple agencies. A series of dispensary raids in Montana, for example, involved agents from not only the FBI and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, but the Internal Revenue Service and Environmental Protection Agency.

Going after property owners is not a new tactic though, Hermes said. Five years ago, the Department of Justice under President George W. Bush made similar threats to about 300 Los Angeles-area landlords who were renting space to medical mar1juana outlets, some of whom were eventually evicted or closed their doors voluntarily, he said.

"It did have an impact. However, the federal government never acted on its threats, never prosecuted anybody, never even went to court to begin prosecutions," Hermes said. "By and large, they were empty threats, but they relied on them and the cost of postage to shut down as many facilities as they could without having to engage in criminal enforcement activity."

Besides the dozen dispensaries in San Diego and the one in Marin County, at least three shops in San Francisco already have received closure notices, said Dale Gieringer, director of the California chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of mar1juana Laws.

The San Diego medical mar1juana outlets put on notice were the same 12 that city officials sued last month for operating illegally, after activists there threatened to force an election on a zoning plan adopted to regulate the city's fast-growing medical mar1juana industry, City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said. A judge on Wednesday ordered nine of the targeted shops to close, while the other three shut down voluntarily, Goldsmith said.

Duffy, the U.S. attorney for far Southern California, planned to issue warning letters to property owners and all of the 180 or so dispensaries that have proliferated in San Diego in the absence of compromise regulations, according to Goldsmith.

"The real power is with the federal government," he said. "They have the asset forfeiture, and that means either the federal government will own a lot of property or these landlords will evict a lot of dispensaries."
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