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Drug Czar Honors Officers for Raid
01.19.07|Modbee|By MICHAEL DOYLE

The raid at Modesto's medical marijuana dispensary has earned drug agents national acclaim.

It's also showing how a Central Valley task force has expanded its turf.

In a ceremony Thursday, the White House drug czar honored the state, local and federal officers who shut down Modesto's California Healthcare Collective. Officials say the collective, which was raided Sept. 27, was fronting for big-time marijuana dealers.

"Most health care providers wear white coats and carry stethoscopes," said Bill Ruzzamenti, director of the Fresno-based Central Valley High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. "In this particular case, they wore bulletproof vests (and) carried a gun."

Ruzzamenti nominated the Modesto police officers and others for National Marijuana Initiative awards. He accompanied them to the event in the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House.

The awards are modest: a certificate and a handshake from Office of National Drug Control Policy Director John Walters.

Still, they are piling up for Californians.

Walters handed out three other awards, as well, to California officers and investigators. The honors are going to analysts at a Sacramento-based "intelligence fusion center," to a Central Valley "marijuana investigations team" and to the statewide California Campaign Against Marijuana Planting.

With four national awards — out of 15 presented — the California anti-pot efforts exceed any other region.

"We have so much activity here, and we have some really good folks," Ruzzamenti said. But meth, not marijuana, was Ruzzamenti's original focus.

The longtime narcotics agent began the Central Valley HIDTA in 1999.

Congress provides relatively modest funding: a base of $2.5 million, with another $2.5million or so added on. The federal funds pay for Ruzzamenti, intelligence analysts and some support personnel serving the area from Sacramento to Bakersfield.

The real muscle, though, comes from as many as 120 state, local and federal agents, officers and deputies who coordinate their work with federal assistance.

"This shows the level of commitment by the sheriffs and the police chiefs," Ruzzamenti said of the latest award-winning work. "They don't send us chumps."

The Central Valley HIDTA's mission statement says that its goal is "to reduce the manufacture, trafficking and distribution of methamphetamine, precursor chemicals and other dangerous drugs." Over time, the valley's big meth labs have decamped for Mexico — so agents are seeking new targets.

Jill Smith-Edwards, for instance, is an intelligence analyst from the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department. She is assigned to the Sacramento-based intelligence fusion center, joining California National Guard Master Sgt. Kevin McLeer to coordinate anti-pot efforts on public lands.

"Jill and Kevin have developed the art of bringing investigators and analysts together," their award nomination states.

In Modesto, investigators claim the California Health Collective earned about $8 million a year by selling marijuana, supposedly for medicinal purposes. Agents with HIDTA's Stanislaus-San Joaquin Meth Task Force pitched in to investigate.

Nine defendants affiliated with the California Healthcare Collective face federal charges, ranging from drug possession to money laundering.

All have pleaded not guilty and are free on bail.

"We followed California law to the letter," Luke Scarmazzo, former manager of the marijuana center, told The Bee in a recent letter. "We paid our taxes. We went to work every day providing a benefit and service to the community. Yet in the end we were made out to look like common criminals."

 

king cola

Until the federal government allows marijuana to be sold legally and in this case with sales totaling $8 million dollars you bet your ass they are going to carry a gun and wear bulletproof vests to protect themselves from robbers.

If the pot wasn't just going toward patients that used it for medical purposes then rules were broken under state law. If the pot was going strictly toward people that had recommendations from their doctors then the bust was just a slap in the face to the state of California. What investigating did they need to do? The place was a marijuana dispensary, everyone in the area probably knew that. They probably didn't hide what they were doing. What was the money being used for? Was it going back into funding the growers? They don't mention anything except money laundering and leave information out.

John Walters is the biggest ass, f*ckin guy goes around making up lies about marijuana for money purposes and other politicians benefit from it when they need more votes. Just mention marijuana and the public will remember Walters information and scares a decent amount of them to vote against legalization or medical use. If it wasn't for that then he would be telling the truth about marijuana which would be a move toward legalization.

That it does because the politicians can't do that themselves. People like John Walters count how much money and votes they can get while they send law enforcement out like a bunch of pawns to risk getting killed over what people use for their drug of choice.

I thought legal citizens in our country were responsible for manufacturing meth? After they make a pot bust then they mention that their focus was on meth labs, but the camps went back to Mexico? I only heard that Mexicans were responsible for a lot of big grow operations in California in the state forests. They either targeted the medical marijuana club in desperation to make a bust or it's easier to bust a pot club that isn't hiding what they are doing. That could always be a possibility because it would probably be harder to spend months trying to investigate whos making meth in their basement or barn when it's easier to bust a club that doesn't exactly hide their activity which is a violation under federal law.

Theres campaigns against planting marijuana but it's alright to use the space to put up another brewery or maybe another tobacco field.

Buzzby

The only risk in raiding a medical marijuana dispensary is the resulting bad karma. I've never heard of dispensary employees/owners resisting these intrusions on their lives and businesses.

I've read that as much as 80% of the meth in this country is imported from Mexico, where it's made in factory-size labs rather than mom-and-pop basement operations. It's a lot easier to manufacture where you can get the precursor chemicals by the barrel rather than buying boxes of Pseudophed at the drugstore.

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SirSmokaALot

John Walters... needs to get bitch slapped by somebody... for god's sake. his ignorance's giving me the major headache.

ZedRULES

This asshole doesn't even want to comprehend the disruption in the lives of the MMJ patient who is state legal...our government could careless, because we still appear to be a minority compare to the gross population...most people will not even take the time to be adequately informed about MMJ or the patients that benefit from it...
We have a drug zar thanks to the likes of Richard Nixon who vowed open war against all "illegal"drug use...with long prison terms and all...nothing has been repealled, even Jimmy Carter succumbed to pressure to ban MJ...so we have had toking presidents...candidates that snort coke, puff a joint and then self righteously declare users as unwanted scum dirtying up the landscape. What is needed is a complete removal of the status quo mentality that Washington has carefully maintained over decades...what really changed when Bill Clinton was pres??? The drug war continued to victimize people under his watch as well...so we have to vote out all incumbants and start fresh... otherwise the "ol' party line" will never get crossed.

 

Buzzby

Who is this "we" you speak of? If every marijuana user in the country who is qualified to vote did so, "we" would still be a small minority of voters. Considering the fact that, out of an estimated 24,000,000 marijuana users in the US, fewer than 70,000 have bothered to join a pro-legalization organization, it doesn't seem like marijuana users are capable of forming the kind of political grassroots organization to even nominate pro-marijuana candidates, much less get them elected.

You're putting the cart before the horse. Before we can start to think about "starting fresh" we need to change the public perception of marijuana. That means putting enough support behind pro-legalization organizations that they can effectively counteract the propaganda spouted by the ONDCP and other prohibitionist organizations. If every marijuana user in the country put 1% of what they spend on weed and accessories into the pro-legalization organizations they'd have $400,000,000 to spend every year on getting cannabis legalized instead of the measly $16,000,000 they have now. $16,000,000 might sound like a lot of money until you think about the ONDCP spending $120,000,000 on TV spots alone.

I put $15 a month, every month, into supporting pro-legalization organizations. Are you doing your part?

National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML)

Marijuana Policy Project (MPP)

Drug Policy Alliance (DPA)

ZedRULES

I like you're thinking there...I already support all three of those organizations and partipate as actively as my career permits...I not firing blanks there pal!!! Every MJ user has an obligation to pursue legalization... and thanks partly on your previous posts, which has inspired me to have very frank open discussions w/ my wife who adamentaly thinks there's no value to the plant...now bear in mind that it took one year from my first MMJ prescription to finally get her to see the legitament use of MJ...I've talked to many people who were surprised at the facts about the usefulness of MJ and dismayed that OURgovernment would turn against its population in order to control it...and dictate how we are to live every minute...You are right Buzzby...how about anyone else????