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Prop. 215 pioneer looking to set up shop in Eureka
Chris Durant | The Times-Standard | 08/27/2006

Since medical marijuana was passed by California voters over a decade ago, David Kasakove has been at the forefront of efforts to regulate and organize medicinal cannabis dispensaries.

”I've been through a battle with a DA who didn't like me,” Kasakove said. “I've beaten federal and state charges.”

Kasakove, who lives in Eureka, is beginning a process that may end with a medical marijuana dispensary in Eureka.

He first became involved with medical marijuana as the owner of a hemp store in Chico, which he opened in 1995.

”Jerry Garcia died and I needed a job,” Kasakove said. “I didn't want to work for Mobile or Exxon or take a job at Jack-in-the-Box.”

So after Proposition 215 passed his hemp customers began asking him when he was going to start selling medical marijuana.

”I was at the post office and the postal clerk asked when I was going to start selling pot,” Kasakove said.

In 1996, he started providing medical marijuana for patients in Chico, but the next year he was raided.

He said the Butte County district attorney called federal authorities on him and a lengthy court battle began. He was charged in 1998 and arrested in 1999.

Eventually he beat the charges and moved to Eureka in 2000.

Why Humboldt?

”This county is more liberal and more open to (medical marijuana),” Kasakove said.

Since its inception, Prop. 215 has had a cloud of confusion around just what's allowed and what's not.

”It varies from county to county,” Kasakove said.

Kasakove has been in contact with city officials, like the city attorney and city manager, about what it will take to open a dispensary in Eureka, modeled after the Oakland, or “Oaksterdam,” coffee shop/dispensaries.

”I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel,” Kasakove said. “I'll go with what works.”

There's no time frame on when the dispensary may open.

”There's no rush. I'm going to jump through all the hoops,” Kasakove said.

The idea to open a dispensary came out of the 2006 National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws April conference in San Francisco.

”I had three or four lawyers tell me go for it,” Kasakove said.

He said he would run a tight ship, too, like pushing for his patients to get a state 215 card from the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services and keeping track of what medicine is going to what patient and how much, so that it doesn't end up on the black market.

”If someone were to sell the medicine they got from me on the black market, I'd kick them out,” Kasakove said.

He's also aware of how some use 215 as a loophole to sell marijuana illegally.

”If you come into a house and there's scales and baggies already weighed out, that's not 215,” Kasakove said.

Kasakove said his past legal bouts won't discourage him from pursuing a Eureka dispensary.

”The establishment doesn't scare me,” he said.