Pubdate: Sun, 07 Oct 2007
Source: Contra Costa Times (CA)
Copyright: 2007 Knight Ridder
Contact:  http://www.contracostatimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/96
Author: Michael Manekin, staff writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal)

ADVOCATES DECRY MEDICAL MARIJUANA RAIDS

DEA Hurting Most Vulnerable Patients With Escalated Attack on State's 
Laws, Activists Say

OAKLAND -- The raid of a large Oakland-based manufacturer of 
cannabis-laced candy last month was deemed by the federal government 
as a timely victory in the war on drugs.

With Halloween only weeks away, "kids and parents need to be careful 
in case kids get ahold of this candy," U.S. Drug Enforcement 
Administration Special Agent in Charge Javier Pena said after the bust.

But medical marijuana advocates, who dismissed Pena's Halloween 
reference as an "absurd" attempt at "pure publicity," pointed to the 
raid as further evidence that the DEA has escalated its attack on 
California's marijuana laws by targeting the most vulnerable medical 
cannabis patients.

An estimated 150,000 to 200,000 medical marijuana users are in the 
state, and the most terminal and debilitated among them cannot smoke 
their medicine. Instead, the elderly and those suffering from cancer 
or living with HIV must eat it.

The recent federal raid of Tainted Inc. -- a company that produced 
cannabis-infused candy, cookies, granola bars, ice cream, brownies, 
energy drinks and other products -- has "literally denied thousands 
and thousands of patients throughout the state" of their medicine, 
said Kris Hermes of Safe Access Now, the largest medical marijuana 
advocacy group in the country.

Until last month, Tainted was perhaps the largest distributor of 
cannabis-laced edibles for the state's medical marijuana patients, 
according to dispensary owners and advocates.

Only Beyond Bomb, another Oakland-based manufacturer of pot-infused 
morsels, once distributed as much edible medicine, but the DEA shut 
it down last year. Since both companies were once the largest 
distributors to the state's medical marijuana dispensaries, patients 
too sick or weak to smoke are struggling to access their medicine, 
advocates and dispensary owners said.

The raid on Tainted, which netted four arrests and the seizure of 
about 460 marijuana plants, is one of at least 44 DEA raids of 
medical marijuana dispensaries or individuals in California this 
year, according to Hermes.

Last year, Hermes said, the DEA raided about 20 patients or providers 
of medical cannabis -- less than half the raids conducted thus far 
this year. In 2005, the federal government raided 19 establishments.

"The escalation is really quite serious and devastating both to state 
law and seriously ill patients in California," Hermes said. "This 
isn't just a game of chess between patients and the federal government."

The DEA makes no apologies for the raids.

The shutdown of Tainted was consistent with the agency's mission to 
"go after distributors who manufacture, cultivate and distribute 
(marijuana) at the highest levels," said DEA spokeswoman Casey McEnry.

Asked whether the agency was concerned how the raid would affect 
patients throughout the state, McEnry said that marijuana "has no 
medical use ... according to federal statutes."

Dr. Frank Lucido, a Berkeley-based general practitioner who advocates 
the medical use of cannabis, dismissed that notion and criticized the 
DEA raids as a dangerous outgrowth of a misguided federal policy.

"These raids always affect the sickest the most because they don't 
know how to go out on the street and find marijuana," Lucido said. 
Patients who can't smoke because of illness or those who find 
themselves in hospitals "rely on edibles," he said.

Many less-terminal patients choose to ingest marijuana because the 
doses are steady and more easily regulated.

Using laced sweets and snacks with medicine is hardly a ruse to 
encourage recreational marijuana usage but rather "a time-honored 
tradition to use a little bit of sugar to make the medicine go down," 
Lucido said.

Jeff Bishop, a 41-year-old Oakland resident living with HIV, once 
counted on Tainted products as his most reliable form of edible marijuana.

Unlike smaller manufacturers of cannabis-laced sweets, "You could 
pretty bet on the (Tainted) dosages being what they're supposed to 
be," Bishop said.

Bishop is worried that the DEA raid of the two largest distributors 
of edible medical marijuana will jeopardize his ability to treat his illness. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake