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Buzzby

Does Raid Constitute Harassment Of Medical Marijuana Patients?
Desert Dispatch | 12/19/2006

In the case of Legal Ease, a medical marijuana dispensary raided last week by Tustin, Calif., police, either charges should be filed quickly or the property of the proprietors should be returned immediately.

Police raided Legal Ease with a search warrant based on the fact that undercover police officers had been able to purchase marijuana using phony doctors' notes. As we have seen in two other recent California cases, weeks can pass after a raid and no charges filed, leaving the dispensary and patients in limbo. The Tustin police and Orange County (Calif.) District Attorney's office should act expeditiously.

Tustin Lt. Jim Peery said, "This was nothing more than drug dealers using a storefront as opposed to selling out of the back of the van." The police say several undercover police officers went into the dispensary and successfully bought marijuana each time, even though their doctors' notes were fictitious. Lt. Peery said he wasn't sure what phony "doctor's office" number was available to call on the undercover officers' notes, but he assumed it was somebody at the police department.

The police said that they saw apparently healthy people obtaining marijuana at Legal Ease. We wonder where these investigators got their medical training, and how they are able to diagnose people simply by looking at them.

Philip Denney, a physician who writes recommendations for the medical use of marijuana, as authorized by state law, told us that while he can't speak for how Legal Ease handled patients from other doctors, their staff members did call regularly to verify his referrals. However, "even an imperfect dispensary," he said, "is better than patients buying from a dealer with a bag of cocaine in his other pocket." He fears that actions such as the raid on Legal Ease will force many patients to rely on the black market, when California voters and the state Legislature have voted to create a legal market for patients who use marijuana under medical supervision.

That's why it's important to watch carefully whether charges are filed in the Legal Ease case.

Proposition 215, which California voters approved in 1996, did not eliminate state laws against using or selling marijuana for nonmedical purposes.

Thus, if Legal Ease was simply selling to people who did not have valid physician recommendations it may be justifiably subject to legal penalties.

If no charges are filed, however, the case then looks not just like simple harassment but perhaps even an effort to nullify the medical marijuana law California voters approved. Notably, no charges yet have been filed after a Dec. 20 raid in San Francisco and a Dec. 12 raid in San Diego.

County supervisors should direct the county health agency to get busy setting up a voluntary identification card system for medical marijuana patients, as directed by state law, and convene a panel, as the city of San Diego did years ago, to explore the medical and legal issues and develop guidelines.

Patients, doctors and the police deserve to have a better idea than they do now about what the law permits and doesn't permit.

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dedbr

a "drug dealer" would set up a storefront to sell out of, sure. I wonder tho, how much longer it will be before the good citizen's of California are tired of their money being wasted on police raid's that produce no arrest's or conviction's?

By now you would think the police would feel like they were candles in the wind....

The Deddy

__________________
"Starry, starry night, Paint your pallet blue and gray, Look out on a summers day,
With eyes that know the darkness of my soul, Shadows on the hills, Sketch the trees and the daffodils, Catch the breeze and the winter chill, In colors in the snowy linen land......"

Vincent.... Don Mclean


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troublemaker_42

If med. marijuana providers are selling to anyone, how is it any different than a "drug dealer" setting up a storefront? Illegal sales by so-called "legit" providers could very well be medical marijuana's downfall. To be honest, considering how "open" California's med pot laws are, i can't see any reason for "under the table" deals. Basically, anyone can get a card, with the slightest amount of imagination or creativity. I'm not necessarily saying thats a bad thing, but with spo many "legit" customers, why take the risk of selling to those who don't have real documentation?

Buzzby

I'd say that this is more likely to lead to the downfall of medical marijuana than providers who will sell to anyone.

For the sellers you can always say, "There's a few bad apples in every bushel." If an investigative reporter documents a couple of dozen healthy people who have obtained doctors' recommendations under false pretenses it would indicate a systemic failure to separate the sheep from the goats. The prohibitionists are shouting that medical marijuana is simply a back door for potheads to get high without risking arrest. The last thing we need is news stories supporting that position.


Gotta keep up the payments on the wife's Hummer and the mortgages on the house in Belize, the house in Scottsdale, and the house in the south of France. Easy money is addictive.

killer12382

Do you see what they (the cops) are doing here, don't you? They are testing these medpot dispensaries. Send in some bogus patients, with bogus letters and see if they score. If this happens alot, there will be consequences. And it doesn't have to be just the bad dispensaries, it could be the informal ones that happened to make a few mistakes, like not checking the doctors note.
There could be a silver lining to this, though. It could lead to some hard and fast rules that would weed out the unprofessional dispensaries.