Pubdate: Tue, 9 Nov 2010
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 2010 San Jose Mercury News
Contact:  http://www.mercurynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390
Authors: John Woolfolk and Sean Webby
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/raids.htm (Drug Raids)

SOME SAN JOSE POT CLUBS SHUT DOWN IN PROTEST OF AGGRESSIVE POLICE RAIDS

Medical marijuana activists pleaded Tuesday for San Jose leaders to 
stop drug raids they say have sent a jolt of fear through cannabis 
providers and patients alike.

Drug agents in recent weeks have raided three local medical marijuana 
providers. Several other collectives, including Harborside Health 
Center, one of the area's largest and best-established, have simply 
closed, fearing an imminent bust.

"How can you sit up there and take my rights away?" asked a tearful 
Aisha Alexander, 36, who told the City Council she uses marijuana to 
relieve breast cancer symptoms.

But city officials said they were powerless to act, noting that 
although some San Jose officers have participated in the raids, they 
were conducted by a county special enforcement team. The topic also 
wasn't on the council's agenda, which prohibited any action.

"This is not something over which we have any authority or 
jurisdiction," Mayor Chuck Reed told a crowd of dozens who spoke 
during an open-comment period at the end of the council's afternoon meeting.

Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio, who last year initiated an ongoing 
city process to consider limited zoning and taxation of medical 
marijuana providers, asked the city manager to gather additional 
information for the council.

The raids straddled a historic statewide vote last week in which 
Californians rejected an initiative to legalize recreational 
marijuana use. Voters in San Jose and several other cities, however, 
approved local measures to tax and regulate the drug.

In addition to the recent raids, South Bay narcotics agents also ran 
a sting operation dubbed Up in Smoke against medical marijuana 
delivery services, arresting almost two dozen suspects officials 
accused of "perverting" the state's medicinal marijuana law.

Santa Clara County Special Enforcement Team Commander Danielle Ayers 
defended the raids in an interview, saying the marijuana sellers were 
nothing more than profiteering drug peddlers and that their 
activities were drawing complaints. She noted the number of marijuana 
dispensaries has multiplied to 88 in the county, mostly in San Jose, 
in just two years.

"The county chiefs got together and told us, 'This is a huge problem 
in our community, there are 14, 15-year old kids buying marijuana,'" 
Ayers said. "The problem is that they are making money, and they are 
hiding it. There is money laundering going on."

But the operators and employees of the medical marijuana collectives 
are in a panic, saying they're unsure of what local law enforcement 
wants from them and are worried that their industry is under attack.

"Everyone's shaking in their boots," said David Genovese, executive 
director of the San Jose Patients Group, which was raided Nov. 4. He 
is also a founding member of the Medicinal Cannabis Collectives 
Coalition, which promotes "sensible regulations" for providing 
medical marijuana.

Genovese acknowledged that there are some shady operators -- which he 
blames on city officials who've dragged their feet on regulations. 
But he said raids of those striving to operate within the law has 
left everyone fearful.

City zoning currently does not allow marijuana dispensaries. But 
Genovese noted that more than 78 percent of San Jose voters just 
approved Measure U, which called for a 10 percent tax on marijuana 
providers to help with the city's chronic money shortages.

The city council next month will continue its discussion of marijuana 
dispensary zoning.

"This is a modern witch-hunt to chase the 'green skinned" people out 
of town," said Dave Hodges, who founded the San Jose Cannabis Buyers 
Collective -- among the first of what are now dozens of dispensaries.

Harborside, one of the Bay area's best-funded, most high-profile 
dispensaries, left a message on its door saying "recent police raids 
of San Jose collectives, with no intervention of the City Council, 
lead us to believe we are not welcome in this community."

In recently unsealed affidavits attached to two of the raids, 
narcotics agents accused the dispensaries of selling pot for profit, 
violating state guidelines that medical marijuana be distributed only 
by non-profits.

In their investigation of Angel's Care, undercover agents who bought 
marijuana with such names as "Orange Kush" and "Grapefruit Diesel" 
argued in court documents that the operation sold pot for street 
prices 12 or 13 times the cost of growing it.

"I believe that it is highly improbable Angel's Care Collective 
generated no profit from projected annual sales of $5,880,000, with a 
75 percent markup on their marijuana," wrote agent Dean Ackemann.

The thousands of "members" -- Angel's Care reported 6,500 -- had no 
responsibilities or duties toward their cooperative/collective, 
documents said, other then the right to purchase pot.

Genovese, however, insists that his nonprofit San Jose Patients Group 
on the Alameda was no such place. He said his nine employees were 
terrorized by agents pointing guns in their faces, screaming at them 
and trashing the center.

Councilman Oliverio said he had "sympathy for the plight of medical 
cannabis clubs that are operating under the state law," and he 
questioned the agents' priorities.

"Law enforcement perspective overall is that they typically view 
these things as bad," Oliverio said. "Tell me how medical cannabis is 
worse than the epidemic of meth or alcoholism?"

Here are the South Bay medical marijuana providers that have been 
shut down by police or have closed voluntarily in recent weeks. All 
are in San Jose unless otherwise noted:

Angel's Care Collective (Santa Clara)

Harborside Health Center

Medi-Leaf

The Natural Herbal Pain Relief Center

New Age Healing Collective

San Jose Patients Group

The South Bay Healing Center
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake