Pubdate: Wed, 09 Nov 2005
Source: Anderson Valley Advertiser (CA)
Column: Cannabinotes
Copyright: 2005 Anderson Valley Advertiser
Contact:  http://www.theava.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2667
Author: Fred Gardner
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?323 (GW Pharmaceuticals)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/raids.htm (Drug Raids)

THE RAID ON MENDOHEALING

I met David Moore in the spring of 2000 at a UC San Francisco conference on 
cannabis therapeutics sponsored by G.W. Pharmaceuticals (the British 
company that is developing strains with differing cannabinoid ratios to 
achieve different medical effects). Moore, who was then in his early 40s, 
said he had a personal interest in medical marijuana and wanted to advance 
the cause.

He had loved ones with AIDS and schizophrenia, and he was a medical user 
himself.

I gathered that he had a background in business and that he had done time 
(marijuana-related, small-time). He played the bass. He seemed affable, 
calm and serious.

I told him a few things off the top. 1) That California growers, too, could 
develop strains with different cananbinoid ratios, standardized for use by 
an MD; all G.W. had on us, really, was a lab to analyze the contents of the 
strains being produced. 2) That Tod Mikuriya, MD, was trying to promote 
vaporization and was recommending a high-end model from Germany called the 
Volcano. 3) That Dennis Peron said the real measure of Prop 215 being 
implemented would be the price coming down.

Next time I heard from David Moore he had already been to Tutlingen, 
Germany, to meet with the inventor of the Volcano, Markus Storz, and to 
offer his services as a U.S. importer and representative. Storz told Moore 
that he already had a business partner and a plan to expand Volcano 
distribution in the U.S., but the two hit it off and Storz invited Moore on 
a camping trip in the beautiful green countryside around Tutlingen (a town 
famous for making precision medical equipment). Moore brought back tapes of 
some formal interviews he had conducted with Storz, and photographs of the 
inventor at his workbench.

Moore had made the down payment on some land in Fort Bragg, on the 
Mendocino County coast, and launched "Kind Food Farms" to produce medicinal 
grade cannabis by organic methods.

In 2001 he opened a dispensary in Fort Bragg in which the Medical Marijuana 
Patients Union was involved.

The project ended when the property was sold. Moore then got a conditional 
use permit and opened an outlet in Fort Bragg, which was soon closed 
because it didn't meet requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In late 2003, feeling confident in his productive capacity, he opened a 
dispensary in San Francisco selling high-grade cannabis "farm direct to 
collective members" for $30 an eighth-ounce -when other dispensaries were 
charging $50-$60. He sold Volcanos at cost ($420, which was more than $100 
below the prevailing retail price). As a member of the board of the Medical 
Cannabis Association he advocated a formal collective comprised of 
patients, distributors and growers.

Moore's low prices -and a policy of giving a few free grams to collective 
members in need-resulted in long lines (with a high percentage of blacks 
and Hispanics) forming outside the door of the MendoHealing storefront on 
Lafayette, a small residential street that runs off Howard between 11th and 
12th.  Some neighborhood residents were righteously upset about people 
coming out of the club and loitering in front of their houses, smoking, 
being rude, offering cannabis for sale, taking up parking spots, 
double-parking, etc. MendoHealing's manager canceled the giveaway policy 
and upped the price to $40/eighth (the point to which other dispensaries 
had come down), but it was too late to mollify the Lafayette St. NIMBYs. 
Moore began looking for another location.

Before he could find one, a lawyer hired by the neighbors got a court order 
to close MendoHealing as a nuisance (which the city wouldn't do because the 
police found MendoHealing had complied with their 
requirements).  MendoHealing began operating as a delivery service and 
Moore hired a San Francisco attorney, Terry Goggin, a former state 
legislator, to fight for his right to relocate.

But as of November 3, Moore needed Goggin to defend him against looming 
criminal charges for cultivation.

David Moore's Fort Bragg property was raided at noon last Thursday -the 
peak of the harvest-by a task force consisting mainly of FBPD officers and 
sheriff's deputies.

Glenda Anderson's report in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat noted that the 
trim crew consisted mainly of Mexicans who had just finished harvesting 
grapes. "Finding 65 people trimming and packaging pot under one roof 
surprised even Rusty Noe, the veteran leader of the County of Mendocino 
Marijuana Eradication Team," Anderson wrote.

Apparently the sheer amount of cannabis being grown convinced law 
enforcement that it could not have been destined for distribution through 
medical channels.  Anderson wrote in the PD: "While the people processing 
marijuana in the Mitchell Creek Road barn claimed they were working for a 
medical cannabis club, [Sheriff's Capt. Kevin] Broin said the operation was 
clearly commercial, which makes it illegal.

"Law enforcement seized 1,707 plants and 1,000 pounds of processed, trimmed 
marijuana from the barn, he said. The seizure brings the total number of 
plants confiscated in Mendocino County this year to 144,021."

According to a source on the scene, the task force wreaked unnecessary 
destruction, breaking down doors instead of asking that they be 
opened.  "We had several letters posted in the kitchen from officials 
confirming our medical status.  Letters from [Sheriff Tony] Craver and the 
planning department and the tax collector and business licenses... They 
were all posted on a wall. [Craver was not working the day the raid on 
MendoHealing went down.] Although they said at the gate that they wanted to 
check our paperwork, they seemed surprised to see that we really were 
medical...

"They were told that Craver and the district attorney had been right here 
at this farm. They were asked,'Why are you guys here?' They said, 'Well, 
without getting too much into the case, we have evidence that this is going 
somewhere else than medicine.' By this time I could see men in the field 
chopping things down... Patients' records were in a file cabinet in the 
office and living room area of the main house.

They just took the whole filing cabinet."

The crew was handcuffed for about half an hour -"detained but not 
arrested"- then cut loose and ordered to leave the premises until 9 
p.m.  Those who returned found the warrant and an itemized list of what had 
been seized on the kitchen table.

Our source says, "Anybody that had more than $100 cash on them they took it 
and they didn't give anybody a receipt for it. Since everybody was paid in 
cash, most of the trim crew had more than $100 on them... I feel like we 
were robbed.

Somebody broke and entered and robbed us. It was the exact same thing."

Two days after the raid on MendoHealing, a New York Times piece about the 
history of American marketing noted that the president of a leading grocery 
chain (A&P in 1931) attributed his company's success to its policy "of 
immediately passing on reductions in wholesale commodity prices to the 
consumer... A&P had one dominant mission: to sell quality food at low 
prices."  Of course I thought of David Moore, who has been pre-judged by 
law enforcement and punished for distributing cannabis according to 
rational marketing principles and respect for the letter and spirit of the law.

Second item    Note from Oregon

Your correspondent was in Salem Monday as the Oregon Supreme Court heard 
oral arguments in Washburn v. Columbia Forest Products. Washburn is a 
Klamath Falls mill worker who was medicating legally with marijuana under 
state law. He had never showed signs of impairment at work but the company 
fired him for violating its zero-tolerance-for-illegal-metabolites policy. 
Details TK in a future column... Washburn was at the hearing with his 
beautiful wife, observing the colloquy with quiet dignity. (His lawyer, 
Phil Lebenbaum, had told him not to discuss the case.) Washburn has a high 
brow, a drooping mustache, John Lennon eyeglasses and powerful hands. "A 
working-class hero is something to be."

Birthday Present

We wanted to buy a globe for an eight year old boy. The one on sale at 
Target had oceans that were parchment-paper tan (for an antique effect, 
although the nations' names and boundaries were up-to-date) We eventually 
found a globe with blue oceans at an educational toy store.

It was made by Replogle Globes of Broadview, Illinois, and came with a card 
entitling the owner to a 50% discount through Replogle's "Updateable Globe 
Program."  The father of the eight-year-old was pleased to read the 
assertion on the card: "From time to time the world does change."  See, 
there's hope!
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom