FEDS ANNOUNCE CRACKDOWNS ON MMJ

Is Obama Trying to Throw the Election?

by Patricia Smith

The Feds have declared a full frontal assault on medical marijuana according to Americans for Safe Access legal spokesman, Joe Elford.   On October 6th, the four top federal prosecutors based in California staged a press conference in the lobby of the the Federal Courthouse in Sacramento to announce a “coordinated crackdown” on medical marijuana dispensaries.   Outside, dozens of activists were noisily chanting “We’re healers, not dealers.”

At least 16 dispensaries were ordered to close shop within 45 days or face criminal prosecution.  The US Attorneys presented a united front promising “almost certainly” that more closures will follow because of their belief that all dispensaries are in violation of California law SB 420 that stipulates medical marijuana can only be distributed on a non-profit basis.  “People are using the cover of medical marijuana to make extraordinary amounts of money,” declared US Attorney Melinda Haag of San Francisco.

 “Large commercial operations cloak their moneymaking activities in the guise of helping sick people when in fact they are helping themselves. We have yet to find a single instance in which a marijuana store was able to prove it was a not-for-profit organization,”  added Andre Birotte, the US Attorney from Los Angeles.

The attorneys said they wouldn’t target individuals who used marijuana for “legitimate medical needs,” but would enforce federal law that prohibits the commercial sale of a controlled substance.  Their concern for “individuals” is touching, but their actions will force thousands of patients to acquire their medicine from street dealers.

“Our interest is in enforcing federal criminal law, not prosecuting seriously sick people and those who are caring for them.  We are making these announcements together today so the message is absolutely clear that commercial marijuana operations are illegal under federal law, and that we will enforce federal law.”

This is a direct contradiction to the policy outlined in Attorney General Eric Holder’s 2009 memo which stated, “People who use marijuana for medicinal purposes and those who distribute it to them, should not face federal prosecution, providing they act according to state law.”  Many credit this memo with the large expansion of dispensaries in California and the movement to legalize MMJ in other states.

But since then, cities, counties, and the State of California have chipped away at the rights of medical marijuana patients and those working in the industry, and now the Federal government has joined the battle.  “The problems we are experiencing today are the direct fault of our elected officials who failed to implement sound regulations when Prop 215 became law. Now they are trying to ban medical marijuana out of existence rather than reap the benefits that could be obtained by taxing and regulating the industry,” steamed Ryan Landers, senior advisor for the Compassion Coalition, a group dedicated to patients rights.

Landlords that lease property to medical marijuana collectives were also threatened with imprisonment, forfeiture of assets, and heavy fines (equalling all of the rental monies collected from the start of the dispensaries’ operations).  Going after landlords is not a new tactic according to Kris Hermes, spokesman for Americans for Safe Access.  In 2006, George Bush made similar threats to approximately 300 Los Angeles landlords.

Although the federal government never acted on their threats, they did have an impact -  some tenants were evicted, while others closed voluntarily.  “By and large, they were empty threats, but they used them and the cost of postage to shut down as many facilities as they could without having to engage in criminal enforcement activity,” according to Hermes.

The threats feel different this time.  Laura Duffy, US Attorney SD, supported this claim.  “This is not an idle threat.  This is our commitment to the concerned citizens and parents of our community,”  she shared.  “Medical marijuana has become a law enforcement nightmare.”

 “The huge profits generated by these stores and the value of their inventory, present a danger that the stores will become a magnet for crime which jeopardizes the safety of nearby children,”  Haag added.

A report just released by the non-partisan Rand Corporation disputes law enforcement claims that storefront dispensaries are a “crime magnet.”   Studying crime reports for 10 days prior to and 10 days after the City of Los Angeles shut down a large number of dispensaries, researchers found that crime increased significantly once the dispensaries left the area.  They attribute the cameras and security guards to the decrease in crime in and around the storefronts.

“Banks are more likely to get robbed than medical marijuana dispensaries,”  according to Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck.  ”I have tried to verify that (dispensaries increase crime) because that, of course, is the mantra.  It doesn’t bear out.”    In 2009, the LAPD reported that 71 robberies occurred at the 350+ banks in the city, compared to 47 robberies at over 800 dispensaries.

President Obama stated that he thought the crackdowns necessary because “marijuana usage is at an all time high” – totally ignoring the obvious reason for the increase: hundreds of thousands patients in 16 states and Washington D.C. now have legal access to the herb.

The latest moves by the Feds have pushed activists to their limit.   “Barack Obama is betraying promises made when he ran for president and he’s turning his back on the sensible policies announced during his first year in office, said Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance.

Aaron Smith, Executive Director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, concurred, “The Obama Administration has lost its way on medical marijuana and is about to seriously anger millions of voting Americans.”  Smith added that the policies would “only help the criminal market to flourish.”

The Feds have stepped up their game by employing multiple governmental agencies in their enforcement efforts including the FBI, DEA, IRS, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Even fellow Democratic politicians are stunned by the policy change.  “Obama’s MMJ policies are worse than Bush or Clinton’s,”  said California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano.

The Bank Secrecy Act requires banks to spy on their customers and to report “any suspicious activity”  – including cash deposits over $2,000.   DEA and IRS officials claim they are looking for money launderers and drug traffickers, but nearly every bank in the country has stopped accepting deposits from dispensaries.  The banks are not being told to cease serving MMJ accounts, but they are opting to close accounts rather than put up with the time-consuming efforts of investigating and reporting the transactions.

Colorado Springs State Bank, the last remaining bank in the state that still accepted dispensaries as clients, recently notified 300 account holders they were no longer welcome.  The move has thrown the industry into a tailspin.   “No matter how closely we try to follow the rules, they seem determined  to force us into the illegal black market,” observed one disgruntled owner who didn’t want to be named for fear of retaliation by federal agents.

  “Forcing us to keep large amounts of cash on hand will make us the “crime magnets” they claim we already are.  This is totally unnecessary and puts us and the public at risk.  We just want to be treated like any other business,” he stated.

Earlier in the week, The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms notified all federally licensed gun dealers that the ban on selling firearms to illegal drug users applied to marijuana patients even when they hold a valid doctor’s recommendation.

“Any person who uses or is addicted to marijuana, regardless of whether or not his or her state has passed legislation authorizing marijuana use for medicinal purposes, is an unlawful user of, or is addicted to a controlled substance, and is prohibited by federal law from possessing firearms or ammunition,” stated Arthur Herbert, Assistant Director for Enforcement Programs and Services for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms.

Herbert reminded firearms dealers that they cannot sell guns to people “they have reason to believe are illegal drug users.”  Ownership of a medical marijuana registration card is reasonable cause for a dealer to refuse the sale.  Does this mean that the Feds have plans to hijack the states’ MMJ patient records to create a data base of “marijuana addicts?”

A October 5th Denver Post editorial opined “To strip them (MMJ patients) of their right to bear arms based on a health care choice strikes us as an onerous and dangerous overstep.”

On another front, the IRS has levied an assessment of $2.4 million including back taxes, penalties, and interest against Harborside Health Center for the years 2007 & 2008.  The IRS has denied Harborside’s deductions from their gross income for employee payroll costs and normal business operating expenses, but surprisingly, they allowed the dispensary to deduct the millions of dollars they paid for the medical marijuana they distributed to their members.

The White House recently launched a new website, “We The People,” to give ordinary citizens an opportunity to be heard by the Administration.  Anyone can launch a petition on any topic.   Once an petition gathers enough signatures to qualify,  (originally, the threshold was 5,000, but it has now been increased to 25,000), they promise the issue will be reviewed and an Administration official will issue a response within thirty days.

You would think that economic issues would dominate the top spots in the petition drive, but you would be dead wrong.  Within the first 24 hours, a petition launched by NORML to regulate marijuana like alcohol received 17,000 signatures – more than any other issue by far.  To date the petition has received over 52,048 signatures.  In fact, five of the top ten vote getters have to do with marijuana or hemp legalization efforts.

The aggressive crackdowns launched by the Feds probably weren’t the responses the petitioners were looking for.

Medical Marijuana is a winning proposition for politicians courageous enough to stand up to special interests  A recent Harris poll shows that three out of four Americans would support legalized medical marijuana in their state.  Normally, you can’t get 74% of Americans to agree on the time of day.

With that in mind, I have to ask, Is Obama trying to sabotage his own candidacy?  When there is such wide support for the legalization of medical marijuana among the citizenry, just whose interests are they protecting?  Perhaps a petition should be launched asking Obama to step aside to allow a real Democrat to run in his place.

Patricia Smith is the Administrator of GrassRootsSolutions, a patients rights advocacy group.  She may be reached for comment at GrassRootsSol@yaho.com or visit the website at www.GrassRootsSolutions.org.