Pubdate: Sun, 01 Jul 2012
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2012 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Norimitsu Onishi

CITIES BALK AS FEDERAL LAW ON MARIJUANA IS ENFORCED

ARCATA, Calif. - Faced with growing chaos in the state's medical 
marijuana industry, this city in Northern California passed an 
ordinance in 2008 that meticulously detailed, over 11 pages, how the 
drug could be grown and sold here.

Humboldt Medical Supply, a dispensary here in Humboldt County 
regarded as a law-abiding model that has given free cannabis to 
elderly patients, became the first to obtain a permit in 2010. The 
Sai Center, whose owner has a history of flouting city regulations 
and was described by the mayor as running his business "purely for 
profit," was rejected last year.

Humboldt Medical quickly closed shop after federal prosecutors began 
shuttering hundreds of dispensaries in October in one of the biggest 
crackdowns on medical marijuana since its legalization in California 
in 1996. The Sai Center's owner moved locations and has defied the 
authorities by continuing to operate, most recently out of his 
mother's house. City officials, afraid of becoming targets themselves 
of the prosecutors, have suspended the applications of two other 
dispensaries that were expected to be approved.

"We feel the federal government's actions have had a very negative 
effect," said Mayor Michael Winkler. "We're very upset with their actions."

Like their counterparts in many other municipalities that have 
regulated medical marijuana on their own, Arcata officials say the 
federal offensive has brought renewed chaos to the medical marijuana 
industry. The federal authorities, their critics say, have 
indiscriminately targeted good and bad dispensaries, sometimes 
putting the best ones out of business. The crackdown, the critics 
say, has made it difficult for qualified Californians to obtain 
marijuana for medical use and is just pushing buyers into the black market.

Acting on federal law, which considers all possession and 
distribution of marijuana to be illegal, California's four United 
States attorneys, working with the Drug Enforcement Administration 
and the Internal Revenue Service, have shut down at least 500 
dispensaries statewide in the last eight months by sending letters to 
operators, landlords and local officials, warning of criminal charges 
and the seizure of assets. The United States attorneys said the 
dispensaries were violating not only federal law but also state law, 
which requires operators to be primary caregivers to their customers 
and distribute marijuana only for medical purposes.

"We're not concerned in prosecuting patients or people who are 
legitimate caregivers for ill people, who are in good faith complying 
with state law," said Benjamin B. Wagner, the United States attorney 
for the Eastern District of California. "But we are concerned about 
large commercial operations that are generating huge amounts of money 
by selling marijuana in this essentially unregulated free-for-all 
that exists in California."

Because of the lack of regulation, it is difficult to know precisely 
how many dispensaries have shut down or even how many were in 
operation before the start of the current crackdown. But figures 
provided by three of California's four United States attorneys 
totaled more than 500: "dozens" in Mr. Wagner's district; 217 in the 
Southern District, in San Diego; and more than 200 in the Central 
District, in Los Angeles. Officials in the three districts say they 
have succeeded in putting out of business more than 90 percent of the 
dispensaries they have identified so far.

Declining to release figures was the United States attorney for the 
Northern District. The district includes San Francisco and Oakland, 
the two cities that have led the fight against the current federal 
offensive, as well as Arcata and other municipalities long known for 
their tolerance of marijuana.

Dan Rush, an official at the United Food and Commercial Workers 
Union, said about 650 out of the 1,400 marijuana dispensaries that 
existed last October have ceased operating. The union represents 
between 600 and 800 members working in statewide dispensaries, he said.

Except for San Francisco and Oakland, the roughly 50 municipalities 
with medical marijuana ordinances have suspended the administration 
of dispensaries, said Kris Hermes, a spokesman for Americans for Safe 
Access, a group that promotes access to medical marijuana. Though 
federal authorities have periodically gone after dispensaries since 
California became the first state to legalize marijuana for medical 
use, Mr. Hermes described the current crackdown as "unprecedented" 
because of its "intensity" and because of the number of dispensaries 
closed and federal agencies involved.

Prosecutors denied that legitimate patients were being driven to 
illegal sellers.

"Most often the individuals who are visiting these places have 
obtained sham doctor recommendations for really no purpose other than 
to engage in the recreational use of marijuana," Laura E. Duffy, the 
United States attorney for the Southern District, said of the 
dispensaries. "To the extent that blatant distribution of marijuana 
is not available in commercial businesses throughout California, 
certainly in this district, I think that's a good thing."

Here in Arcata - a city of 17,000 people in a region of the state 
known as the Emerald Triangle, where the illegal marijuana trade has 
long been tolerated and is a pillar of the local economy - government 
officials worried that counterparts in neighboring communities had 
received letters warning them against regulating the medical 
marijuana industry.

"They said they could prosecute city officials and staff," said Larry 
Oetker, a city official who oversaw the regulations on the 
dispensaries. "That was a dramatic change."

Under the ordinance here, the city approved the permit of Humboldt 
Medical Supply, an "exemplary" dispensary according to Mayor Winkler. 
Greg Allen, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union who 
represented the dispensary, said its staff included a nurse and 
rigorously screened customers to ensure that they had legitimate 
conditions that required treatment with marijuana.

By contrast, the city rejected the application of the Sai Center, 
which has violated city regulations, including advertising its 
services and letting customers mill around its premises. Its owner, 
Stephen Gasparas, exhibited "an extremely hostile attitude" at city 
hearings for his application, the mayor said.

"He was very contemptuous of any government regulation of this at 
all," the mayor said. "He seemed really to be in it for the money. If 
he also had any commitments to patients, I wasn't aware of that."

But federal prosecutors sent warning letters to the owners of the two 
dispensaries, as well as their landlords, citing their proximity to a 
ballpark, city officials said. Humboldt Medical Supply, which had 
been struggling financially, ceased operating. But Mr. Gasparas moved 
five blocks away to a house owned by his mother and quickly resumed business.

On a recent afternoon, an employee was working out of a single room 
in the back of the blue, single-story house, sitting behind a large 
desk, surrounded by marijuana plants and three large safes. Through 
the employee, Mr. Gasparas declined to be interviewed.

The employee, who declined to give his name but said he was majoring 
in botany at Humboldt State University here, said the federal 
offensive was "all political." The dispensary, he said, was helping 
the ill who would otherwise buy marijuana from "an unsafe source." He 
said he himself first obtained a doctor's approval to use medical 
marijuana because he had anxiety.

At the Humboldt Patient Resource Center, one of the two dispensaries 
whose application was delayed because of the federal crackdown, a 
steady stream of customers - young men but also middle-aged men and 
women - came in to buy various strains of marijuana, including those 
called Blue Dream, Lemon Diesel and Oh Sour Head, at $40 for an 
eighth of an ounce.

Mariellen Jurkovich, the dispensary's director, said she had spent 
$200,000 to comply with the city's marijuana ordinance. Federal 
prosecutors had not sent her a warning letter, but she remained worried.

"Even if I eventually get a permit from the city, I don't think I'm 
protected as long as the federal law doesn't change," she said. "I 
don't know who they'll go after and why."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom