Pubdate: Fri, 27 Feb 2009
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 2009 San Jose Mercury News
Contact:  http://www.mercurynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390
Author: Josh Richman, Oakland Tribune
Cited: Americans for Safe Access http://www.americansforsafeaccess.org
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/dispensaries
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Americans+for+Safe+Access

MEDICAL POT SUPPORTERS CHEER END OF DEA RAIDS

California medical-marijuana advocates are celebrating a verbal 
promise that federal raids on the state-law-abiding dispensaries have ended.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, in a news conference on an 
unrelated matter Wednesday in Washington with Drug Enforcement 
Administration chief Michele Leonhart, said the raids -- in many 
cases, searches and seizures without arrests -- are not part of 
President Barack Obama's policy.

"What the president said during the campaign, you'll be surprised to 
know, will be consistent with what we'll be doing in law 
enforcement," Holder said. "What he said during the campaign is now 
American policy."

Obama last year said he wouldn't be "using Justice Department 
resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue," a stance 
reiterated earlier this month by White House spokesman Nick Shapiro.

"Today is a victory and a huge step forward," said Steph Sherer, 
executive director of Oakland-based Americans for Safe Access. "I'm 
overjoyed to finally have a news conference with some great news."

Rather than spending a lot of time staving off these federal attacks, 
she said, groups like hers now can work in earnest with Congress and 
federal agencies to iron out conflicts between federal law -- which 
still bans all use, cultivation and distribution of marijuana -- with 
state laws such as California's permitting medical use.

Examples might include legislation to protect veterans' benefits or 
housing rights of people using the drug in accordance with state law, 
Sherer said.

In some cases, the DEA and federal prosecutors have written to 
dispensaries' landlords, threatening forfeiture of their properties 
unless they evict their tenants. That's what happened last month to 
Heather Poet's cooperative in Santa Barbara, causing Rep. Lois Capps, 
D-Santa Barbara, to write to Holder urging a halt to such tactics.

"I am just so grateful to her and to the Obama Administration that 
they are finally saying that they're going to stop this horrible "... 
travesty that has been happening to sick people throughout 
California," Poet told reporters Thursday.

It's still unclear what will happen to prosecutions already in 
progress, such as that of Charles Lynch, whose Morro Bay dispensary 
was raided in 2007 and who was convicted last year on marijuana 
distribution charges.

He's scheduled to be sentenced March 23, and federal prosecutors 
still seem intent on putting him in prison for at least five years.

Sherer said she hopes the new administration will set a new course in 
this and other pending cases.

"This is where we roll up our sleeves," she said. "The devil is in 
the details."

Marijuana dispensaries operating outside state and local law's bounds 
remain subject to prosecution.

For example, Oakland police last Friday raided the Lemon Drop Cafe on 
Telegraph Avenue, seizing firearms, marijuana and cash and arresting 
owner-operator Steven Smyrni, of San Ramon; the cafe does not hold 
one of Oakland's four city-issued permits for medical-marijuana dispensaries. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake