Medical Marijuana News & Views

With a real war going on against terrorism, federal law enforcement officials should call off the one they're waging against medical marijuana users. Instead, they've gone on the offensive.

Last week, about two dozen Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center in West Hollywood, one of California's largest suppliers of medical marijuana. The raid followed months of surveillance, tips from confidential informants and fly-overs of one of the center's marijuana gardens in Ventura County where 342 plants were seized.

In West Hollywood, agents took medical files, computers, gardening equipment and bank records in addition to marijuana plants. No criminal charges have been filed, but the center is out of business.

Medical marijuana is legal in California. It has been since 1996. Seven other states also have laws allowing sick people legal access to marijuana prescribed by their doctors. In a strange twist, Nevada officials have asked the federal government to supply it with marijuana because the statute there requires the state to ensure patients legal access to the drug.

But while medical marijuana is legal in California and elsewhere, it is a federal felony to cultivate, possess or distribute the drug. And the Supreme Court ruled in May that marijuana has no currently accepted medical use. So federal officials have continued the battle. It's a fight the federal government doesn't need.

The Pew Research Center reported in March that three-quarters of those polled supported allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana for medical purposes. Most of the Los Angeles center's 960 patients have AIDS. Others have cancer, glaucoma or multiple sclerosis.

Instead of chasing down the folks who supply them with marijuana, federal officials should just say NO to this misguided campaign.

Last Thursday at about 4:30 p.m. federal Drug Enforcement Agents came through the doors of the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center calling President Scott Imler's name.

It was a bust.

The DEA had a federal search warrant and declared the center a federal crime scene. About eight agents were present and some momentarily had their guns drawn outside, according to neighbor Chris Shaefer. Shaefer says the agents secured the exits, watched the windows and entered the building.

The LACRC was closed for the day, but some members who work there had just finished baking marijuana goods, according to member Michael Mallory.

The members were detained for about four hours, during which time neither West Hollywood Mayor John Heilman nor the center's attorney, City Councilman John Duran, were allowed into the center. The DEA left at around 11 p.m. after confiscating about 400 marijuana plants, the growing equipment, disbursement records, financial documents, computers, 3,000 medical records, and doctors' names in two Ryder trucks.

"They were as gracious as they can be when they are raping you," Imler says of the DEA agents.

The bust was a result of months of surveillance and years of investigation of the LACRC by the DEA. Court records state that the center and its leadership are under investigation for manufacturing and distribution of a controlled substance, maintaining a drug establishment and related money-laundering offences. No arrest warrants have been issued yet.

The bust is another move in the conflict between state and federal law over medical marijuana. In May, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that dispensing marijuana was a federal crime and that marijuana did not have medicinal value, upholding a 1970 law.

"It is a felony violation of federal law to cultivate, distribute or possess with intent to distribute marijuana.... Prop. 215 [the medical marijuana initiative approved by voters in 1996] is a California state law that has no bearing on the applicability of federal criminal laws," U.S. Attorney John S. Gordon said in a statement.

According to court records, DEA agents conducted surveillance outside the LACRC on four days -- Aug. 31, Sept. 5, Sept. 7, and Oct. 17 -- and counted individuals who entered the staircase as well as noting they stayed for about 10 to 20 minutes and left carrying small paper bags.

The DEA also searched the property of Lynn and Judy Osburn in Ventura County on Sept. 28, 2001, according to court records. Agents seized 273 cultivated marijuana plants, 76 pounds of marijuana and tax documents where the Osburns claimed $264,500 as income from "dried flowers." They also found a document titled "LACRC Patient Co-op Cultivation Cost Reimbursement Jan. through Dec. 1999" listing paid amounts totaling $264,500.

The court records cited a news report where Imler stated the plants seized from the Osburns were 30 percent to 40 percent of the annual supply. It also cited a news source that in the calendar year 2000 the LACRC had paid $620,000 to black market dealers for 100 pounds of marijuana that was distributed to its members. The court records show that the DEA anticipated finding between 408 and 637 plants on the LACRC premises if these plants constituted the rest of the supply.

City officials condemned the raid at a press conference last Friday that was attended by more than 100 center members.

The West Hollywood Sheriff's Station has worked in the past to protect the center and did not cooperate with the DEA raid, when they were reportedly given a five-minute warning.

Duran says that a visiting federal judge issued the search warrant from Florida rather than a California judge, which is unusual. He says that the DEA treated the LACRC as if it were a crystal methamphetamine laboratory instead of a group of patients using medical marijuana to treat AIDS, cancer and other illnesses.

"It is absolute overkill, it is outrageous," Duran says. "Given all the priorities -- war, anthrax terrorism -- that the federal government would think that this is a priority in light of Sept. 11 is just outrageous."

The cannabis resource center has been open in West Hollywood since 1996. The LACRC is a cooperative of medical marijuana patients who collectively assert the ability provided under Prop. 215 for patients to grow medical marijuana, according to Imler. Duran says the center has been fully compliant with local and state law and keeps "squeaky-clean" records.

Imler says: "The immediate problem in the short term is to find marijuana for the 960 people who have come to rely on it in the past four and a half years." Eighty percent of LACRC clients are HIV/AIDS patients, 10 percent are cancer patients and the rest have glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, sickle cell anemia, paralysis, epilepsy and other illnesses.

Many LACRC medical marijuana patients felt the Supreme Court ruling was a potential deathblow. However, they hoped that the federal government did not have the resources to come after them. The center did begin cultivation classes to teach members how to grow their own marijuana as a precaution, according to Imler.

LACRC member Mallory, an HIV patient, says the raid has left him feeling "robbed." "It's become systematic to go on a regular basis to pick up my medicine, to improve my health and my weight.... Now I don't know what to do," he says. "I have concerns that my weight is going down. All this causes me to do is to get it off the black market."

Mallory says that his use of medical marijuana decreases the nausea caused by HIV medications and increases his appetite. Center vice president Jeffrey R. Farrington, who cultivates the plants, is a glaucoma patient who says that medical marijuana prevents him from going blind.

LACRC members had to provide a doctor's recommendation and go through a screening process before they were accepted into the center. They would enter an unmarked door, present their identification card at a checkpoint and then proceed to a counter where they could choose from a selection of marijuana, the best quality selling for $65 for 3.5 grams. ( Fees were charged on a sliding scale. ) Downstairs, there was an indoor garden of marijuana plants being grown with lights and equipment that were carefully cultivated and documented.

The U.S. Attorney handling the case, Patrick Fitzgerald, is planning to go through the records for anything unorthodox, according to Duran.

The LACRC is concentrating on getting medical marijuana to the patients first and then planning its legal strategy, he adds.

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 30 -- Armed with a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court, the Bush administration has begun its first major crackdown on the distribution of marijuana for medical purposes, Justice Department officials say.

In the last month, federal agents in California have uprooted a marijuana garden run by patients, seized the files of a doctor and lawyer who recommended the drug for thousands of sick clients and raided one of the state's largest cannabis clubs, in West Hollywood, where more than 900 people with ailments like cancer and AIDS bought the drug with the blessing of city officials.

The sudden rush of enforcement, coming three years after the last federal raid on a "medical marijuana" club in Oakland, represents the Justice Department's renewed attempt to impose federal drug laws in states that have legalized marijuana use for people who are sick or dying.

Basing its efforts on a unanimous Supreme Court decision last May, which effectively rendered the distribution of marijuana through large cooperatives illegal, the Justice Department said that more actions would probably follow, despite its current focus on fighting terrorism.

"The recent enforcement is indicative that we have not lost our priorities in other areas since Sept. 11," said Susan Dryden, a spokeswoman for the department.

"The attorney general and the administration have been very clear: We will be aggressive," Ms. Dryden said, adding that the department did not differentiate between medical marijuana and other illegal drugs.

The recent raids have enraged local officials, who not only support medical marijuana clubs but also sometimes help to set them up. The City of West Hollywood, for example, co-signed the mortgage for the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center that was raided last week and helped to get the club listed as a member of the local chamber of commerce.

"This was a serious effort to provide relief for people who were ill," said Steve Martin, a councilman in West Hollywood. "The Bush administration is forcing sick people to become criminals."

Some medical professionals are equally concerned about the recent seizure of medical records and legal files from a doctor and her husband, a lawyer, who run a clinic of sorts in Cool, northeast of Sacramento. The pair, federal agents say, coached their patients how to evade arrest and supplied them with marijuana grown in their home and a greenhouse out back.

"Federal and state law enforcement authorities have no business interfering with the doctor-patient relationship," said Peter Warren, a spokesman for the California Medical Association, which supports using medical marijuana when other treatments have failed. "It's especially shocking in this time of national crisis that federal agents are out there tossing doctor's offices."

Federal officials did not specify why they have focused their efforts on California, as opposed to seven other states that have passed similar initiatives, saying they did not want to compromise investigations taking place elsewhere.

Some of those investigations, federal officials acknowledge, may be taking longer than anticipated, in part because the interest in cracking down on distributors of medical marijuana is not equally shared throughout the Justice Department.

Still, local politicians and advocates argue that California is a natural target for enforcement, since it has far more marijuana clubs than other states, with many more patients buying from them.

The recent enforcement actions have not yet resulted in any criminal charges, which would give rise to jury trials. In the past, the Justice Department has sought injunctions from judges, rather than face jurors who might be sympathetic to the idea of supplying those suffering from debilitating or terminal illnesses with marijuana. In a nationwide poll in March by the Pew Research Center, 73 percent of respondents said they supported allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana.

Justice Department officials said criminal charges might be forthcoming, and certainly were a part of their policy to thwart the illegal distribution of drugs, including medical marijuana. Even short of bringing charges, though, the recent enforcement actions have had their impact. Left without medical records to verify legitimate patients and, perhaps most important, devoid of any marijuana to pass out, the cannabis club in West Hollywood, for example, is effectively shut down.

In response, advocates of medical marijuana say they are looking at ways of bringing states directly into the business of distributing the drug, something the Supreme Court ruling did not specifically prohibit.

The constitutional amendment that legalized medical marijuana in Nevada last year, for instance, specified that the state must make sure that patients there can obtain the drug legally. As a result, the state is asking the federal government to supply it with marijuana for those in need, providing a model that advocates would like to duplicate in future ballot measures.

"If these initiatives passed, then how would the administration enforce federal law? By arresting the governor?" asked Bill Zimmerman, executive director of the Campaign for New Drug Policies, which helped draft the eight medical marijuana measures that have passed. "It would produce too much of a crisis."

AUSTIN -- WHOA! The problem is the premise.

We are having one of those circular arguments about how many civil liberties we can trade away in order to make ourselves safe from terrorism, without even looking at the assumption -- can we can make ourselves safer by making ourselves less free? There is no inverse relationship between freedom and security. Less of one does not lead to more of the other. People with no rights are not safe from terrorist attack.

Exactly what do we want to strike out of the U.S. Constitution that we think would prevent terrorist attacks?

Let's see, if civil liberties had been suspended before Sept. 11, would law enforcement have noticed Mohamed Atta? Would the FBI have opened an investigation of Zacarias Massoui, as Minneapolis agents wanted to do? The CIA had several of the 9-11 actors on their lists of suspected terrorists. Exactly what civil liberty prevented them from doing anything about it?

In the case of a suspected terrorist, the government already had the right to search, wiretap, intercept, detain, examine computer and financial records, and do anything else it needed to do. There's a special court they go to for subpoenas and warrants. As it happens, they didn't do it.

Changing the law retroactively is not going to change that. Certainly, we had a visa system that had more holes than Swiss cheese. What does that have to do with civil liberties? When we don't give an agency enough money to do its job, it doesn't get done.

As you may have heard, Immigration and Naturalization has been a bit overwhelmed in recent years. In fairness to law enforcement, it's hard to imagine how anyone could have seen this one coming. It's always easy to point the finger after the fact. It was just a damnable act.

Absolutely nothing in the Constitution would have prevented us from stopping 9-11, so why would we want to change it?

I also think we're arguing from the wrong historical analogies. Yes, during past wars civil liberties have been abrogated and the courts have even upheld this. We regret it later, but we don't seem to learn from that.

But the Bush administration's rhetoric aside, we are not at war. War is when the armed forces of one country attack the armed forces of another. What we're looking at is more akin to the 19th century problem with anarchists, the terrorists of their day. And we made some memorable errors by giving in to hysteria over anarchists.

In the infamous 1886 Haymarket Square affair in Chicago, after a bomb killed seven policemen, eight labor leaders were rounded up and "tried," even though there was no evidence against them -- four hanged, one suicide, three sentenced. Historians agree they were all innocent.

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, executed in 1927, were finally exonerated by the state of Massachusetts in 1977. That outbreak of hysteria over "foreign anarchists" led to, among other abuses, a wave of arrests for DWI: "Driving While Italian." And no one was ever made safer from an anarchist bomb by the execution of innocent people. We all know other groups, from the Irish to the blacks to the Chinese, have been targeted for legal abuse over the years -- all betrayals of our laws, values and the sacrifices of generations. Let's not do it again.

The counter-case was neatly put by David Blunkett, the British Home Secretary: "We can live in a world with airy-fairy civil liberties and believe the best in everybody -- and they will destroy us." Unless, of course, we destroy ourselves first.

"Fascism" is not a word I throw around lightly, but what do you think happened in Germany in the 1930s?

The US. Constitution was written by men who had just been through a long, incredibly nasty war. They did not consider the Bill of Rights a frivolous luxury, to be in force only in times of peace and prosperity, put aside when the going gets tough. The Founders knew from tough going. They weren't airy-fairy guys.

We put away Tim McVeigh and the terrorists who did the 1993 World Trade Center bombing without damaging the Constitution. If the laws break into some apartment full of al-Qaida literature and plans of airports, absolutely nothing prevents them from hauling in the suspects and having a nice, cozy, cop-like chat with them. Because there's evidence. That's what they call "due process."

When there is no evidence, no grounds for suspicion, we do not hold citizens indefinitely and without legal representation. Very airy-fairy of us, to be sure. Foreign citizens have only limited rights in this country, depending on their means of entry -- different for refugees, permanent residents, etc. So what's the problem?

Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft has been so busy busting dying marijuana smokers in California and doctors in Oregon who carry out their terminal patients' wishes to die in peace, he obviously has no time to consider the Constitution. But he did swear to uphold it.

US NV: Column: "Police" Are Still Seizing Medical Records
Pubdate: Sun, 21 Oct 2001
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)
Copyright: 2001 Las Vegas Review-Journal
Contact: letters@lvrj.com
Author: Vin Suprynowicz, assistant editorial page editor
Note: The writer is the author of "Send in the Waco Killers." For more from
this author - http://www.mapinc.org/authors/vin+suprynowicz

"POLICE" ARE STILL SEIZING MEDICAL RECORDS

Last week, we examined the seizure of the records of more than 5,000 medical marijuana patients as drug police raided the home and office of Dr. Mollie Fry, a physician, in El Dorado County, Calif.

But it appears the Fry raid may be the tip of the iceberg. In a firsthand account of a similar raid on the office of Dr. William Eidelman in Santa Monica on Oct. 10, a medical marijuana patient writes:

"I arrived at Dr. Eidelman's office in Santa Monica at approximately 3 p.m. The doctor was seeing another 'patient' so I waited in the lobby. A few minutes later that supposed 'patient' came out into the lobby and stopped. He smiled really big, looked down at the letter he had just received from the doctor, and said to me, 'I'm sure glad this guy is around, good luck,' and then he left," writes the witness, who is on probation and asks that his name not be used.

"I then went into Dr. Eidelman's office and had a discussion with him. About 10 or 15 minutes later there was a knock at the front door of the office. When the doctor answered I could hear from down the hall the man introduce himself as a narcotics detective with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, and he said he had a warrant to search the premises and seize some property. The doctor called for me to come out of the office and into the lobby.

"The cops said they were there to seize all his medical records, and the laptop computer the records were stored on, and to search for controlled substances. Dr. Eidelman argued with them for a few minutes about the lack of probable cause for the search and the illegality of seizing all his confidential patient records.

"All of the officers appeared to be with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's department. There were approximately a dozen officers, all fully armed, outfitted, geared up, weapons showing/being carried, some wearing helmets and goggles, etc. I did not see any DEA or feds.

"The man who appeared to be the lead detective was the same man who had posed as a 'patient' and seen the doctor right before I did.

"An officer asked me for ID and I gave it to him. He then walked out into the hall and handed it to another cop and told him to 'run this guy, and try and find something so we can take him in; I'm sure you'll find something.'

"A few minutes later they sent me out into the hallway to be 'interviewed' by the cop who ran my ID. I was then face-to-face with the same guy who had been posing as a patient when I arrived. His attitude, questions and treatment of me was despicable. He asked why I was there and I told him I was meeting with my doctor. He then tried to force me to give my medical history and tell him what I had been discussing with the doctor.

"He kept asking what my medical conditions were and what treatment I was seeking from the doctor. I told them it was none of their business. He then told me I had better cooperate and stop lying to him 'or else you'll be in a lot more trouble.' He kept saying, 'You're here to buy a pot note, aren't you?' I told him I was not there to 'buy a pot note.' That went back and forth for a while.

"After more of their harassment I said I had to be somewhere and asked how much longer I had to stay. The detective gave me back my belongings and said, 'If you really have a medical condition, I recommend you go see a real doctor who will treat you with real medicine, and stop running around trying to get "a fix."

"The detective gave me his card and then I left. The detective's info on his business card is: Michael Wirz, Sheriff's Detective Narcotics Division, 655 East Third St., San Bernardino, CA 92415.

"They did not arrest Dr. Eidelman, but are investigating him for supposed felonies."

A preliminary hearing on the seizure of Dr. Eidelman's computer records has been scheduled for San Bernardino County Superior Court.

"Basically they don't like the law and they don't believe in the legitimacy of medical marijuana," Dr. Eidelman told me last Friday. "In spite of the fact the law was passed by the people of the state of California they would like to ignore the law and contravene it."

I pointed out to Dr. Eidelman that the ideal test case would be some white-haired general practitioner recommending marijuana for a life-long patient who now has to deal with glaucoma, that police on the other hand will doubtless try to characterize him as some kind of "marijuana mill," with marijuana recommendations constituting the bulk of his practice.

"Well, this is a major part of my practice these days, because the white-haired old GP is scared to write the letters. The patients come to me and say, 'My doctor sent me to you because he says I need this but you're the only one who's willing to write the recommendations,' so by the laws of supply and demand I've become the specialist in medical marijuana in Southern California.

We were all taught in our high-school Civics classes that if you want to change the law, all you have to do is get a majority of voters to agree with you - which is exactly what backers of California's humane Proposition 215 did. But these California prosecutors and so-called "police" now reveal they don't believe in - or honor - that system at all.

In the courtroom where Chief Magistrate Gregory Hollows set the Oct. 22 hearing in the case of Dr. Mollie Fry, wheelchair-bound Dee Blanc of Placerville told The AP she had dropped to 81 lbs. before she began using marijuana to gain weight.

''I'm a chronic pain patient,'' she said.

Kimberly Craft of Placerville said, ''We have a state law that protects us. I'm afraid they're going to put us on a list and decide who's next."

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US CA: U.S. Cracks Down On Medical Marijuana In California Pubdate: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 2001 The New York Times Company Contact: letters@nytimes.com Website: http://www.nytimes.com/ Author: Greg Winter

US CA: U.S. Cracks Down On Medical Marijuana In California
Pubdate: Wed, 31 Oct 2001
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2001 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Author: Greg Winter