Pubdate: Sat, 04 Feb 2012
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2012 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Sandy Banks

COMPASSIONLESS CRACKDOWN

Thorough Closure of Pot Dispensaries Leaves Legitimate Patients to Suffer

Forget years of conflicting rules, hazy regulations, hard lines and soft bans.

An LAPD narcotics squad has made an end-run around the city's 
fumbling efforts to regulate medical marijuana, shutting down every 
dispensary in its San Fernando Valley division in a three-year 
campaign whose success just might signal the end of legal pot sales 
in Los Angeles.

The closure this week of Herbal Medicine Care in Chatsworth ended a 
string of Devonshire Division busts that netted 30 guns, $2 million 
in cash and nine kilos of cocaine, in addition to a ton of marijuana.

Seventy-four people were arrested, including several whose 
dispensaries were operating with the city's regulatory blessing.

"It was like a little private pogrom," said Joao Silverstein, whose 
Cannamed dispensary in Northridge was shut down in August by police.

"We fought for years to meet the requirements," he said. "Every hoop 
the city put in front of us, we jumped through like trained seals, 
with the belief that we were operating within the law. Legally."

But narcotics Det. Robert Holcomb contends that every dispensary in 
the city is engaged in illegal drug dealing.

The state law that legalized marijuana for medical use does not allow 
its retail sale, he said. Neither does the city ordinance that allows 
collectives to exist.

His team handled the operation like any other drug bust: Identify the 
target, conduct surveillance, make an undercover buy, arrest the 
sellers. They closed down 37 shops. Everyone arrested faces felony charges.

"I've been working narcotics for 25 years," Holcomb said. "It used to 
be, the hardest thing was to find the dealer. Now they put a big 
green cross on the door and advertise on the Internet."

More than 15 years have passed since California voters approved the 
Compassionate Use initiative that allows adults with a doctor's 
recommendation to possess and cultivate marijuana. It's hard to 
believe that its application is still such a legal muddle.

Los Angeles lawmakers spent years avoiding the issue, while hundreds 
of dispensaries cropped up, sometimes two or three on one block.

Two years ago, the City Council approved an ordinance that was 
supposed to shut most dispensaries down. It limits the number and 
favors those that have been around the longest. The owners would pay 
taxes, get business licenses and apply for building permits.

But that's been stalled by legal challenges; there are hundreds of 
dispensaries selling marijuana in L.A. now. The council is about to 
consider revoking those rules and adopting a temporary ban that would 
forbid dispensaries but let patients and caregivers grow their drugs.

"That would allow us to clear the deck and ask 'What is the right 
approach to allowing access to medical marijuanaUKP' " said 
Councilman Jose Huizar, the ordinance sponsor, whose Eagle Rock 
district has been overrun by pot shops.

Local prosecutors have always taken a hard line: Any sale of 
marijuana to anyone is a crime.

But the crackdown in the Devonshire Division "has been particularly 
harsh," said attorney Saralynn Mandel. Her clients have had their 
business assets seized and personal bank accounts blocked. Those who 
want to go to trial are being pressured by prosecutors to plead 
guilty, she said, or risk having proceedings dragged out.

"These are people who were adhering to what the city told them was 
acceptable," she said. "In Devonshire, they don't distinguish between 
people obeying the law and people who are not."

Councilman Mitchell Englander, whose district includes Devonshire, 
isn't bothered by that conflict. "Our political will was 'We don't 
want this in our community,' and if we can find any kind of law that 
says storefront sales are not allowed, we would use it to shut them down."

Holcomb said the raids have done their job, sweeping the northwest 
Valley clean of "cash and carry storefronts."

But the detective has discovered at community meetings that not every 
resident likes the process. "The ones that live around [dispensaries] 
love the fact that they're not plagued with these places anymore," he 
said. "But a lot of people are concerned about someone who is sick: 
How do they get their marijuana?"

That's been the problem all along. How do you balance that plague of 
proliferating shops with the rights of ailing patients?

I live in the Devonshire Division, and I recognize some of the places 
that Holcomb fingered as trouble spots, like the dispensary down the 
block from Granada Hills Charter High, "where somebody would go in 
and buy, and come out and deal to the kids waiting outside."

But I also support access to medical marijuana. I've been a 
card-carrying patient in the past.

And I feel for people like Sue, arrested behind the counter at 
Cannamed. She never sold me anything stronger than cannabis balm for 
my arthritic hands. She's not a criminal drug dealer, just a genial, 
middleaged hippie who treated patients with kindness and respect.

"There are lots of us involved in this business who are not losers, 
not marginal characters who compromise the quality of society," 
Cannamed owner Silverstein said. "This is not just some recreational 
party.... We have resources for people who need help."

But Silverstein also expressed a bit of grudging gratitude; at least 
the raids wiped out big outlaw shops that gave a bad name to the 
industry. "I give [the LAPD] credit for one thing," he said. "They 
John Wayned it everywhere they went."

At the 2 AM Pharmacy in Canoga Park, which shares its lot with a 
strip club, Holcomb's team seized the most money the detective had 
ever seen - "$600,000 in cash." One of the operators was a guy 
Holcombhad arrested 20 years ago "with two kilos of cocaine," he said.

Councilman Englander suspects that sort of operation is less the 
exception than the rule.

"They're ripping off the people they're supposed to help. It's not 
the few that spoiled it for the most," he said. "It's the most that 
spoiled it for a few."

Officers in other parts of the city are taking lessons from Holcomb's 
crew. Marijuana advocates worry that could lead to wholesale 
shutdowns. Said attorney David Welch: "Every single storefront 
collective in this city would fall under that umbrella."

I wonder what that would mean for the patients I encountered at 
Cannamed. It's not so easy to grow your own when you're shaking from 
Parkinson's disease or in the midst of chemotherapy treatment.

This crusade treats their medication like our menace. And they're the 
folks the Compassionate Use Act is supposed to make life easier for.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom