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Local Marijuana Shop Reopens
8-6-07|NORML| by James Burger, Staff Writer :Bakersfield Californian

California
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One of Bakersfield's medical marijuana dispensaries has reopened, two weeks after it locked its doors in the wake of federal pot raids.

Jim McGowen has re-opened American Caregivers Collective on Gilmore Avenue just off Buck Owens Boulevard in Bakersfield.

He is risking arrest and prosecution, he said, because his patients need his help.

"We had 2,000 phone calls in the first three days ( of closure )," McGowen said outside his dispensary Monday. "We had so many people suffering."

But McGowen is taking a risk.

Medical marijuana is legal under state law. But it is illegal under federal statutes. In July, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood, who regulated shops under county ordinance, helped federal drug agents raid Nature's Medicinal Cooperative in Oildale.

McGowen's business and two other local dispensaries closed in the wake of those raids.

"Even with shutting down, I'm wondering if I'll be arrested and thrown in prison for what I've already done," McGowen said when he closed his business.

Now, he said, he is making the decision to stay open on a day-by-day basis. He said he's struggling to balance the risk of arrest with the needs of his patients.

"Going to jail is the downside. We're trying to decide how to keep it going and not go to jail," McGowen said.

Youngblood said reopening is definitely a risk for medical marijuana businesses. He said he intends to inform federal agents that a dispensary has re-opened.

"I will go to the feds and ask them to come back," he said.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents had begun to investigate all of Bakersfield's dispensaries before the Oildale raid, Youngblood said, and could easily pick up that investigation again.

"I think he has probably opened ( himself ) to retroactive investigation," the sheriff said.

If the federal government chooses to do other dispensary raids in Bakersfield, Youngblood said, he intends to assist federal agents once again.

A slow but steady stream of patients visited American Caregiver's Monday.

Most did not want to speak with a reporter or share their names.

But patient Diane Leedham said she was forced to drive long miles after Bakersfield's dispensaries closed to obtain a medicine permitted under state law.

"I had to drive out of county 300 miles," she said.

Leedham said McGowen is brave to reopen his shop and government leaders should be brave enough to uphold state law.

"We voted for this," she said. "Where are our representatives?"