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Courage under fire in San Diego PDF Print E-mail
Written by Justin Baker   
Cannabis outlets continue to serve patients after raids

Police raids hit 13 San Diego dispensaries on Dec. 12. Soon thereafter the County Board of Supervisors instructed its attorneys to file a federal lawsuit seeking to recriminalize medical marijuana in California. Dispensary operators and patient groups said they are, in turn, taking action against the Supervisors.

Within days, many of the dispensaries were open and serving patients again, as government officials said they were continuing to investigate the supply network that provides medicine to qualified patients consistent with State law. Drug agents, who used forged documents to entrap the staff, alleged that each dispensary had failed to verify at least one fraudulent physicians’ letters when presented.

Support rallies were held in San Francisco, Sacramento and a dozen other cities nationwide to protest the raids and denounce the Supervisors attempt to thwart the will of the voters. “San Diego is the touchstone for medical marijuana in the state,” said Oakland attorney Rob Raich on his return from a recent trip to the area. “That’s where both the good and the bad are going down.”

ACLU threatens suit

    The American Civil Liberties Union announced Jan. 18 that it was sending a letter to warn the County that it would intervene to force the county to follow state law, which was approved by 56% of state voters. “For this one county to decide to go against the will of California voters — it’s unprecedented and it’s unconstitutional,” said the ACLU’s Anjuli Verma.

    The Board’s attack on the rule of state law prompted local activists to announce a petition for a voter initiative to impose term limits on the five county supervisors, all of whom have sat on the Board for at least 12 years and have drifted out of touch with the community they serve. If successful, the effort would still not remove any Board member during the current term.

    The raids appeared to be part of a larger scheme hatched in San Diego to outlaw medical marijuana by trumping up charges against the dispensaries, feeding information to federal agents and trying to get the popular law passed by voters in 1996 held unconstitutional by federal courts.

Two separate jurisdictions

    The separation of state and federal jurisdictions goes back to the slave era, when states refused to enforce the federal Runaway Slave Act that required African Americans to be returned to slavery after they escaped to so-called “Free States.” The Supervisors are essentially trying to return to the era of policies that propped up slavery and led to the Civil War.

    California’s state law, Prop 215 (HS 11362.5) has twice been revisited at the US Supreme Court level which held, in 2001 and 2005, that state law does not trump a federal ban on medical cannabis. However, in 2006 the court voted to uphold an Oregon law legalizing death with dignity under limited circumstances. The medical restriction of Prop 215 is similar in that it affects medical use of a federal controlled substance, in California to relieve suffering and in Oregon to end it.

    Cannabis is not a listed controlled substance in California law, it has its own sections of the health code that apply to its possession, cultivation, production, sales, transportation, and other aspects. (See sidebar on this page.)

    San Diego County voters are decidedly unhappy with their Board’s scheme to attack the law in federal court. In a poll taken Jan. 3-4, San Diego County voters favor the landmark state law by a margin of two to one, and an even larger percentage of voters do not want their tax money spent trying to overturn it.

    The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) commissioned the poll late last year after the Supervisors refused to implement a state law requiring counties to provide ID cards to protect qualified patients and caregivers from arrest for possessing or providing small amounts of medicine.

    Some 67% of San Diego County voters surveyed said they support the initiative approved by voters and 80% agreed that, the pending lawsuit “is wasting taxpayers’ money.” In a statement released with the poll, MPP director Rob Kampia warned that, “The supervisors pursue this suit at their own peril.”
 
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