Emergency Response to DEA Raids in San Diego!

On Monday December 12th, federal agents raided thirteen medical cannabis dispensaries in San Diego, CA with the help of the local police and sheriff.

Thanks to everyone who participated in our nationwide emergency response actions in response to the DEA raids in San Diego. We had successful actions in at least 16 cities, including:

Bellingham, WA
Dallas, TX
Denver, CO
Grand Junction, CO
Houston, TX
Kansas City, MO
Los Angeles, CA
Missoula, MT
Riverside, CA
Sacramento, CA
Salt Lake City, UT
San Diego, CA
San Francisco, CA
Tuscon, AZ
Washington, DC
Wichita, KS

Activists nationwide protested in solidarity with patients and caregivers in San Diego, calling for the DEA to keep their hands off our medicine! All of the events were successful, with great turnout and media coverage in several cities.

A special thanks to all the ASA activists who stepped forward to organize these actions on such short notice.

Here is some press coverage from the actions:

Protest on medical pot

By Peter Marcus

Denver Daily News

DENVER — Holding signs and chanting, “Feds give back meds,” a group of medical marijuana patients and activists gathered in front of the Byron White U.S. Courthouse yesterday demanding an end to government interference concerning medical marijuana.

The protest was in response to raids conducted by federal agents Monday in which 13 medical cannabis facilities in San Diego were searched and shut down.

As stated on fliers passed out during yesterdays rally, “The DEA chose scare tactics to frighten patients and their caregivers from implementing California state law.”

Dr. Robert J. Melamede, considered to be an expert on marijuana’s medicinal properties, spoke of marijuana’s healing ability at the rally, and in a subsequent phone conversation.

“Marijuana mimics how the body works,” he said. “As you live and breath your body makes free radicals viewed as biochemical friction. Endocannabinoids (the property released from marijuana) seems to reduce that friction.”

An example that Melamede gave was in relation to pain and other effects caused by cancer.

“Often times, people can’t sleep from cancer, endocannabinoids help you sleep. You may not be eating from cancer, endocannabinoids help you eat. If you’re in pain, it’ll help with the pain, and even more profoundly, it also helps kill certain cancers,” he said. “Also, it has effects on mood, if you’re dying of cancer and feeling good, but the government says it’s a crime, that’s ludicrous.”

Brian Vicente, director of Sensible Colorado, organized the rally.

“We’re asking the Feds to stop harassing medical marijuana patients,” he said.

Participants held signs that read, “safe access now,” and “we the people want marijuana legalized,” to name a couple. Some wore T-shirts that said, “Stop busting cancer patients.”

Melamede also questioned whether the federal government actually considers the American vote.

“We the people have voted to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes,” he said. “What the Feds don’t understand is that our vote means something.”

Activists Protest Medical Marijuana Raids

KFMB.com

San Diego, CA Dec 13, 2005 -- Local activists are protesting the DEA raid of 13 medical marijuana clinics Tuesday, claiming the businesses are being unfairly targeted.

DEA agents seized large amounts of marijuana in over a dozen locations around the county Monday. According to investigators, the stores that were busted were illegally selling drugs for recreational use.

“People don’t close the whole alcohol industry because of one minor buys underage,” said Dion Markgraaff of Americans for Safe Access. “Everyone in California is eligible for this law.”

The San Diego Prevention Coalition, however, is pleased with Monday’s raid.

“These dispensaries are not pharmacies… they don’t have regulations,” said Kevin McClure of the San Diego Prevention Coalition.

DEA's pot raid draws protests

Rallies in Sacramento and at least 11 other cities nationwide support medical marijuana as legal under Proposition 215 and criticize this week's federal action against San Diego area dispensaries

By Robert D. Dávila -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Thursday, December 15, 2005

Story appeared on Page A3 of The Bee Medical marijuana patients and advocates demonstrated Wednesday in Sacramento and other U.S. cities to protest a major federal raid on cannabis dispensaries in the San Diego area.

About three dozen people carried signs and spoke out against the crackdown during a noon rally outside the U.S. courthouse in downtown Sacramento. Similar grass-roots events were planned at federal buildings in at least 11 other cities nationwide.

Organizers blasted the federal Drug Enforcement Administration for targeting businesses that are legal under Proposition 215, a California law that permits marijuana use for medical treatment. Demonstrators said the action would restrict access to regulated pot shops for seriously ill patients.

"Why are they going after the easy targets, people with health issues like me?" asked Thomas Coy of Sacramento, who uses marijuana to ease symptoms of AIDS. "They should go after the people who deal in the parks or on the street."

On Monday, an interagency task force of DEA agents and state and local officers served search warrants at 13 marijuana dispensaries in the San Diego area. Officials seized marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms and hashish oil, along with computers and records, DEA Special Agent Misha Piastro said.

The raids followed a six-month investigation into the dispensaries, including visits by undercover DEA agents who purchased drugs without medical necessity or other documentation, he said.

"That's drug-trafficking," Piastro said.

No business employees were arrested, although officials are still investigating seized items, Piastro said.

Agents arrested a man carrying a firearm as he arrived to sell some marijuana to a dispensary and arrested several other people on outstanding warrants, he said.

The crackdown, one of the largest at cannabis dispensaries in California, drew immediate protests from medical marijuana supporters. Americans for Safe Access, an advocacy group, organized local demonstrations nationwide, including Los Angeles, Riverside, Sacramento and San Francisco.

Legal uncertainty clouds medical marijuana in the United States. While California and 10 other states allow patients with a doctor's recommendation to cultivate, possess and use cannabis, federal law forbids marijuana even for seriously ill people.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court said in a California case that state laws do not trump the federal government's authority to prosecute pot users on federal charges. But the ruling did not specifically overturn California law, and state Attorney General Bill Lockyer has said medical marijuana is still legal under Proposition 215.

At the Sacramento rally, participants accused federal drug agents in San Diego of harassing legitimate cannabis dispensaries and consumers. About a dozen clubs and delivery services offer medical marijuana in the Sacramento area, advocates said.

"They didn't do any arrests, just took drugs and computers," said Paula "Cookey" Brown. "It just seems like a straight armed robbery."

Advocates expressed concern that the San Diego seizures would establish a pattern of state and local police working with federal drug agents to target cannabis dispensaries, despite Proposition 215. In July, federal and local authorities teamed up to seize marijuana plants at a Sacramento County dispensary, closing the shop for failure to have a proper business license and arresting the owner for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

"Any local law enforcement that has a beef and wants to get control of a dispensary can just bring in the feds, even if they're not doing anything wrong," medical marijuana advocate Ryan Landers said. "It's a huge waste of taxpayers' dollars."

Gordon Taylor, special agent in charge of the DEA office in Sacramento, said local officers on interagency task forces are deputized to make arrests under federal authority. He declined to say if the agency is investigating local dispensaries.

"Those people operating these businesses are in violation of federal law and could be subject to possible investigation and prosecution," Taylor said.

Dispensary raids slammed

DEA: An official confirms the agency is conducting a large-scale inquiry of the sites.
12:32 AM PST on Thursday, December 15, 2005

By KIMBERLY TRONE / The Press-Enterprise (Riverside, CA)

RIVERSIDE - Medical-marijuana users rallied Wednesday outside the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration building in downtown Riverside to protest the agency's recent raids on 13 Southern California marijuana dispensaries.

Caitlin M. Kelly / The Press-Enterprise
La Vonne Victor, 50, of Temecula, a medical marijuana user for five years, and Sharon Crain, 51, left, protest against federal agents who seized marijuana from San Diego-area dispensaries on Monday.

Federal agents seized large quantities of marijuana, records and small amounts of psychedelic mushrooms and hashish from the San Diego-area dispensaries on Monday. No dispensaries in Riverside or San Bernardino counties were raided.

Misha Piastro, a DEA special agent in San Diego, called Monday's sweep a part of one of the administration's most comprehensive investigations in California history. He said the investigation is in its infancy.

"In many cases, we sent in undercover agents who purchased marijuana without providing documentation of any sort," Piastro said. "This was drug trafficking."

Protesters said they are worried the raids are a signal the federal government intends to aggressively challenge a California law that allows the cultivation and use of medicinal marijuana with a physician's recommendation.

The California law is at odds with a June ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that people who smoke marijuana with a doctor's permission could still be prosecuted for violating federal drug laws.

Oscar Lorigo, 31, of Palm Desert, said he uses marijuana for insomnia after trying to treat his sleeplessness with liquor and pharmaceutical drugs that left him hung over or groggy the next day.

Lorigo, one of about 20 protesters, said the federal government should be focused on fighting crime and not patients who need their medicine.

While Riverside County began taking applications Dec. 1 for state medical-marijuana identification cards, San Diego County has refused to participate in the state-mandated card program.

The San Bernardino County Public Health Department next month plans to begin implementing an ID-card program.

Reach Kimberly Trone at (951) 358-9456 or ktrone@pe.com