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Medical marijuana patients in San Diego lost access to theirmedicine on Friday when the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) shutdown all the city's remaining dispensaries.
Steph Sherer, executive director of patient advocate group Americansfor Safe Access, reported that DEA agents seized medicine andthreatened to arrest dispensary employees and patients. A DEAspokesperson, on the other hand, said agents went to the dispensariesto pay "courtesy visits."
Margaret Dooley, San Diego coordinator for the Drug Policy Alliance,said, "Rather than focusing on violent or organized crime, the DEA hasdecided to terrorize San DiegoÂ’s patients. One terrible result of theclosures will be to force sick and dying patients to buy their medicineon the black market, which can be a dangerous and unreliablealternative."
Patients will gather at a City Council meeting Tuesday morning toseek support from the city. They are going to ask the council toinstruct police to enforce state and local laws, which allow themedicinal use of marijuana. They will also ask the city to return tothe table to develop regulations for dispensaries within city limits.
"We need to stop raiding and start regulating," said WendyChristakes, a medical marijuana patient and San Diego co-coordinator ofAmericans for Safe Access. "Local officials are under both moral andlegal obligations to develop a safe and secure system for thedistribution of medical marijuana to eligible patients. Failing to doso has put us all at risk of DEA harassment and worse."
Last week'sÂ*"visits" by the DEA continued a series of raids thatbegan in December of last year, almost immediately after the San DiegoCounty Board of Supervisors voted to sue the state to strike downCalifornia's medical marijuana law.
In early July, the Drug Policy Alliance, Americans for Safe Access and the American Civil Liberties UnionÂ*filed to intervene in the lawsuitÂ*on behalf of medical marijuana patients and their caregivers.
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