Barack Obama asked Americans to take a stand. Now a local pot provider is putting the candidate’s rhetoric on the stand. (Photo by David Rolland)
More than most citizens, James Dean Stacy feels betrayed by the candidate for whom he voted for president.
Up and down the campaign trail, from Los Angeles to Medford, Ore., then-Sen. Barack Obama and his spokespeople pledged that he would end the aggressive raids by the U.S. Department of Justice of medical-marijuana dispensaries operating legally under state law. The candidate said it was a waste of resources that would be better dedicated to fighting terrorism and prosecuting violent crime. Obama said he didn’t see any meaningful difference between marijuana and prescriptions such as morphine and that providers should be protected, excepting those who blatantly use medical-cannabis laws as a shield for otherwise dubious drug trafficking.
When he assumed office, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder echoed the sentiments during several meet-the-new-DOJ appearances in California and New Mexico—“You will be surprised to know that the Justice Department will be acting in a manner consistent with what [the president] said during the campaign”—and, in October, Holder formalized the policy in a set of guidelines distributed to U.S. Attorney offices.
By then, Stacy had been running a medical-marijuana collective, Movement in Action, for five months in the space adjacent to his martial-arts dojo in Vista.
“I’m the most follow-the-rules kind of guy around, so I thought I was the perfect guy to do it,” Stacy tells CityBeat. “When the collective was open, I’d have days where we’d turn away as many as 10 people who didn’t have the proper paperwork.”
In a Dec. 10 court motion, Stacy says he did the due diligence: He researched the prosecutorial policies articulated by Holder, hired a lawyer to walk him through the process and corresponded with the California Secretary of State’s (SOS) office on how to file for “public benefit” status, the technical term for a California nonprofit. The SOS even provided him with a copy of the state Attorney General’s guidelines for running a collective. Unlike many of the other collectives where the San Diego Regional Narcotics Task Force ran stings, Stacy opted for a low-profile model because, he says, “I didn’t want people who didn’t need to know to have it in their face.”
Stacy told undercover officers that they could provide labor to the collective in exchange for medicine and invited them to a “farmers market,” where patients could buy directly from growers—practices he felt were in keeping with the spirit of the California AG’s guidelines. Nevertheless, on Sept. 9, he was arrested after his collective and 13 others were raided.
Now, Stacy is one of only two collective operators who have been charged in federal court as a result of the raids. He faces one count of conspiracy to manufacture and distribute marijuana, one count of manufacturing marijuana and one count of possession of a firearm while committing the other crimes—a handgun was found in the locker where he kept the collective’s supply.
The other federal defendant, Joseph Nunes of Green Kross Collective, pleaded guilty to his charges earlier this month. Stacy, however, says he’s not giving in to the prosecution.
“I quote my wife: ‘I’m not going to let you plead guilty to something you didn’t do,’” says Stacy, who uses marijuana to treat pain from martial-arts injuries and to relieve the nausea he’s suffered since losing his gall bladder. “They threatened life-imprisonment at both of my bail hearings…. This is nothing but a terrorist attack against the medical-marijuana community.”
Instead, Stacy is mounting a novel defense: The statements by Obama and Holder constitute entrapment by estoppel, defined as when an official tells someone that something is legal, then busts them for it. Put plainly, Stacy would not have formed the collective if the government hadn’t assured legal collectives that they wouldn’t be prosecuted.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office does not comment on pending cases, and Ben LaBolt, a White House spokesman whose pro-medical-marijuana statements were directly cited in the court filing, did not respond to inquiries.
The entrapment defense draws from a “fundamental notion of fairness: The individual must have fair warning of what conduct the government intends to punish,” Stacy’s attorney, Kasha Castillo of Federal Defenders of San Diego, writes in the recent motion. Judge Barry Ted Moskowitz has agreed to hear the motion—which includes a request that the case be dismissed or, alternately, Stacy be allowed to present the entrapment defense in court—on Feb. 3.
When CityBeat first posted a summary of the motion on its blog, Lastblogonearth.com, and linked it from the Huffington Post, some commentators wrote it off as a gratuitous and foolish attempt to claim that a candidate’s campaign promises are as good as laws passed by Congress. However, defense attorneys say it isn’t just a novel approach; rather, it’s a potential groundbreaking solution to a longstanding paradox in federal medical-marijuana cases.
San Diego County Deputy Public Defender Juliana Humphrey explains that, historically, medical-marijuana patients and caregivers have been barred from saying they were acting in good-faith under California law because it has not been considered a legitimate defense under federal law.
“Most of the time, the common thought is that trial defendants are getting some kind of advantage because everything is sterilized for the defendant’s benefit,” says Humphrey, who chaired the city of San Diego’s Medical Cannabis Task Force in 2002. “But in this case, it completely keeps from the jury the truth of the motivation of the person that possesses or provides the marijuana for the benefit of the government.”
Last month, a San Diego jury in state Superior Court acquitted Jovan Jackson, the coordinator of Answerdam Alternative Care, of all marijuana-related charges; the foreman told the press following the verdict that California’s laws are too vague to determine whether Jackson’s collective wasn’t in compliance.
Jackson’s trial lawyer, K. Lance Rogers of Turner Law Group, cautions that each case’s circumstance are different—not to mention each jury—and that Jackson’s verdict doesn’t indicate how the federal court will rule on Stacy’s motion. Plus, unlike in Jackson’s case, when the prosecution had to prove he committed the crimes beyond a reasonable doubt, the burden will be on the defense during the hearing to show that Stacy was within the law.
“The issues and the challenges that will ultimately come up with Mr. Stacy’s hearing are all of the same issues that came up in Jovan’s case,” Rogers says. “It’s not enough to say, ‘I knew about this information before I set up my collective.’ In my opinion, he needs to show some evidence that he knew the government’s public advisory.”
Stacy’s testimony may be enough, Rogers says, but his communication with the Secretary of State’s Corporations Division and the fact he hired a lawyer to advise him may prove the most compelling.
More than the entrapment defense, Rogers is interested in another argument Stacy’s attorney makes: The federal government violated the 10th Amendment protection of states’ rights by enlisting San Diego County Sheriff’s deputies to enforce a federal law that contradicts state law.
“The federal government can’t commandeer state law enforcement to implement federal policies, and the keyword is ‘commandeering,’” Rogers says. “This is a fundamental principle of federalism and American jurisprudence. That’s a fascinating argument that has not been decided to my knowledge.”
Until it is decided, Stacy is keeping his nose (and his pipe) clean. He believes he has the right to continue using marijuana for medical purposes but has switched to Marinol, a synthetic THC pill, until the court gives him explicit permission at his next bail hearing.
“I did not, I do not and I will not break the law,” Stacy says.
Write to davem@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.
- Published: 12/22/2009
- Other Stories by Dave Maass
Entrapped by campaign promises: Prosecuted pot provider uses Obama’s election rhetoric in his legal defense.
December 17, 2009 – 5:48 pm — Dave Maass
As progressives complain that President Barack Obama isn’t fulfilling the promises he made on the campaign trail, one medical cannabis provider is now using the then-candidate’s words to defend himself in federal court.
James Dean Stacy, the defendant, is calling it entrapment.
Stacy, a martial-arts instructor and medical cannabis patient who ran the Movement in Action Collective in Vista, was arrested on Sept. 9 as part of the countywide raids that temporarily closed 14 medical marijuana dispensaries. So far, criminal charges have been filed against two individuals in state court, and two in federal court.
Last week, Joseph Nunez of Green Kross Collective, pleaded guilty in his federal case, but Stacy is holding strong. His attorneys, Federal Defenders of San Diego, filed on Dec. 9 a motion to dismiss the indictment, drawing from statements Obama made while campaigning for the presidency.
In essence, Stacy is arguing that he meticulously researched the process and did the due diligence in order to form a collective in compliance with the California Attorney General’s guidelines and the Secretary of State’s policies for non-profits. He says that he opened the collective based on the assumption that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Obama would stand by their statements that medical cannabis providers obeying state law would not be prosecuted.
In other words, he thought he had Obama’s blessing.
Stacy’s motion calls it a “fundamental notion of fairness: the individual must have fair warning of what conduct the government intends to punish.”
The defense relies on “entrapment by estoppel,” which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals defines as “when an official tells the defendant that certain conduct is legal and the defendant believes the official.”
Stacy cites everything from the LA Times to the Huffington Post to back up his claim. Here’s the big one he throws in Obama’s face, a statement the candidate made during an interview with the Medford Mail-Tribune on March 22, 2008:
“When it comes to medical marijuana, I have more of a practical view than anything else. I mean, my attitude is that if it’s an issue of doctors prescribing medical marijuana as a treatment for glaucoma or as a cancer treatment, I think that should be appropriate because there really is no difference between that and a doctor prescribing morphine or anything else. I think there are legitimate concerns in not wanting to allow people to grow their own or start setting up mom andpop shops, because at that point it becomes fairly difficult to regulate. And again, I am not familiar with all the details of the initiative that was passed and what safeguards there were in place, but I think the basic concept that using medical marijuana in the same way with the same controls as other drugs prescribed by doctors, I think that’s entirely appropriate. What I am not going to be doing is using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue. Simply because I want folks to be investigating violent crimes and potential terrorism. We’ve got a lot of things for our law enforcement officers to deal with.” (bolding added)
He also cites a May 12, 2008, statement by Obama’s spokesman (and current White House staffer) Ben LaBolt:
“Voters and legislators in the states – from California to Nevada to Maine – have decided to provide their residents suffering from chronic diseases and serious illnesses like AIDS and cancer with medical marijuana to relieve their pain and suffering. . . Obama supports the rights of states and local governments to make this choice – though he believes medical marijuana should be subject to (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) regulation like other drugs.” LaBolt also said Obama would end U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration raids on medical marijuana suppliers in states with their own laws. (bold added)
And, of course, the defense also draws from Holder’s much publicized statements and official guidelines for prosecuting medical marijuana cases, that is, that the Department of Justice shouldn’t if the provider’s operations are in keeping with state law.
Stacy is making this a Constitutional issue, arguing that the prosecution subverts state law, breaking the 10th Amendment, and violates his right to due process under the Fifth Amendment.
The process Stacy underwent to set up his collective is laid out in detail: He researched web sites, hired an attorney, went back and forth with the Secretary of State’s office to get the non-profit’s articles of incorporation just right. Ultimately, he claims that the case must be dismissed because prosecutors cannot prove he was breaking California’s medical cannabis laws—and, as Holder and Obama promised, the DOJ should use the resources to investigate and prosecute real crimes, like terrorism.
Click here to download the motion and exhibits (pdfs).
Update: I originally attached the wrong pdf of the motion. The correct one is linked now. I also rewrote the post title. The image of Stacy’s medical-cannabis card was derived from the exhibits filed with the motion.
One Response to “Entrapped by campaign promises: Prosecuted pot provider uses Obama’s election rhetoric in his legal defense.”
Ken Says: 
Jackson cried when he heard the not guilty verdicts being read.
“I was very thankful,” Jackson said outside court. “This has been a long road. It hasn’t been easy. I felt like a lot of weight was on my shoulders.”
Jackson’s case was the first to go to trial in the wake of law enforcement raids in September which resulted in 31 arrests and the shutting down of 14 medical marijuana storefronts in San Diego.
Jurors who spoke to reporters after the verdicts said the laws on medical marijuana sales from collectives were vague, prompting them to find the defendant innocent.
“On a personal level, if you’re going to hold somebody to a law, you have to define that law,” said juror Perry Wright.
Deputy District Attorney Chris Lindberg said he was disappointed with the verdicts, but applauded jurors for the job they did.
“They were interested in deciding whether or not these actions violated the law,” the prosecutor said.
Lindberg told jurors in his opening statement that the case against Jackson was not about medical marijuana.
“This case is about making money, plain and simple,” the prosecutor said.
During the raids in June and July of 2008, officers found credit card receipts for more than $150,000 in sales at Answerdam Alternative Care Collective, Lindberg said.
The prosecutor said the case was not about marijuana patients but was “about profits.”
“He (Jackson) was running a business,” the prosecutor told the jury.
Lindberg said an undercover San Diego police officer was able to get a medical marijuana recommendation from a doctor and then bought marijuana on two occasions at Answerdam, which, according to its records, had 1,649 members.
The prosecutor said the undercover officer paid $20 to join Answerdam and immediately was able to buy the drugs.
A raid on Aug. 5, 2008, at Answerdam turned up 5-to-6 pounds of marijuana and a receipt in Jackson’s name for a $100,000 transaction to an investment company, Lindberg said.
Agents also searched the defendant’s home and found some marijuana by his bed and 17 ecstasy tablets, according to the prosecutor.
Lindberg told the jury that Jackson took advantage of a law that allows medical marijuana patients to legally buy the drug from a collective that grows marijuana to meet those needs.
But defense attorney K. Lance Rogers told the jury in his opening statement that the undercover officer signed up for the medical marijuana collective under false pretenses, using a fake name and getting a false medical recommendation.
Rogers said Lindberg wouldn’t be able to prove that Jackson “stood out” from other members in the collective.
“This is about Answerdam. This is not about Mr. Jackson,” the defense attorney told the jury.
Jackson, an eight-year Navy veteran, faces similar drug charges from an undercover buy at the collective this year. He faces more than three years in prison when sentenced next week on current charges, but will probably get probation, Lindberg said.
The number of medical marijuana dispensaries rose recently, in the wake of San Diego County’s failed attempt to overturn the state’s 1996 medical marijuana law and U.S. Attorney Eric Holder’s directive that federal agents will only target medical marijuana storefronts when operators violate both state and federal laws.
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SAN DIEGO, Nov. 30 (UPI) –A California court says the amount a medical-marijuana user can possess is for juries to decide, and using limits set by state law is improper.
Legal experts say the state appeals court ruling will change how medical-pot trials are handled, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Monday.
Nathaniel Archer of San Diego was convicted in 2007 of cultivating and possessing marijuana. The medical-marijuana patient was sentenced to probation, the newspaper said.
The appeals court reversed his conviction, saying the state’s 2003 amending of the original initiative that allowed medical use of marijuana, passed by voters in 1996, was unconstitutional.
The amendment illegally set limits not in the original measure, the court said. Juries, not the state, should decide what amount of marijuana is “reasonably related” to someone’s medical needs, it said.
“This has real ramifications,” Russel Babcock, Archer’s lawyer, said. “It becomes a case-by-case basis for juries of reasonableness.”
Ex-U.S. Attorney: Time to Change Pot Laws
Three years ago, former U.S. Attorney John McKay was somewhere near the front lines of the nation’s drug war.
Directing federal prosecutions in Western Washington before he was fired in 2006 by the administration that appointed him, McKay’s office sent marijuana smugglers and farmers to prison on decade-long terms. It indicted a loudmouth Canadian pro-pot activist for selling cannabis seeds by mail order.
So the crowd at an Edmonds auditorium could have been forgiven its surprise on Monday when McKay stood on stage with travel author and decriminalization advocate Rick Steves and declared that, of course, he is “against stupid laws.”
“I think there has to be a shift in the paradigm,” said McKay, now a professor at Seattle University. “The correct policy change would be a top-to-bottom review of the nation’s drug laws.”
McKay joined a panel as part of an effort by Steves and the American Civil Liberties Union to, in their view, return rationality to discussions about the nation’s drug laws. They were joined there by Egil “Bud” Krogh, a former official in the Nixon White House who gained notoriety during the Watergate scandal, and state Rep. Mary Helen Roberts, an Edmonds Democrat who joked Monday about being dubbed by her colleagues the “Marijuana Queen of Northwest Washington” for her efforts on medical marijuana law reform.
While the panelists did not agree on all points, each said they see the need for substantive change in the way marijuana is regulated and offenders are punished. They also each spoke about the fears, or lack of courage, of elected officials in addressing issues surrounding the drug.
Steves and the ACLU launched the initiative last year partly as a response to that fear. The effort, built around an infomercial “Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation,” is aimed at encouraging citizens to discuss the issue openly.
“This is an issue that’s scary for people,” Steves said. “I have friends who oppose what I do on this issue because they’re worried about their kids. What they don’t understand is that so are we.”
Addressing the audience, a group mixed in age and outward appearance, Roberts argued that the law as it stands takes an unjust toll on minority communities. In essence, she said, it leaves law enforcement agencies to pursue people who are easiest to catch while their efforts could be more productively spent elsewhere.
At the same time, she said, lawmakers — even those who believe the laws to be unjust with regard to marijuana — are afraid of being branded soft on crime.
“As a community and a society, we’re afraid of crime,” Roberts said. “And if what you’re doing is being referred to as ’soft on crime,’ even without details, legislators respond negatively to it.”
Roberts also said the Legislature must revisit the state’s medical marijuana law, which, in her view, fails to adequately protect patients.
McKay, though, said such changes fail to address the larger problems with marijuana laws in the country.
Even as the Obama administration has adopted medical marijuana rules similar to those he advocated while U.S. Attorney — specifically, that federal agents not interfere with state medical marijuana regulations — McKay said that simply having federal agencies ignore the laws enacted by Congress does not go far enough.
“Federal law makes the possession of any amount of marijuana a crime,” McKay said. “So, even if you’ve got a certificate from your doctor, a federal officer could arrest you. … That’s just bad policy.”
McKay faulted Congress for failing to take initiative on the issue. It is not the place of federal prosecutors or law officers to make policy, he said, nor should the White House go it alone.
In the end, he argued, marijuana should not be lumped in with *******, ************** and ****** as part of the war on drugs. Marijuana law, McKay said, “should look a lot more like alcohol (regulations) and a lot less like ******* and ************** (laws).”
Medical marijuana gets a boost from major doctors group
The American Medical Assn. changes its policy to promote clinical research and development of cannabis-based medicines and alternative delivery methods.
By John Hoeffel
November 11, 2009
American Medical Assn. on Tuesday urged the federal government to reconsider its classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use, a significant shift that puts the prestigious group behind calls for more research.
The nation’s largest physicians organization, with about 250,000 member doctors, the AMA has maintained since 1997 that marijuana should remain a Schedule I controlled substance, the most restrictive category, which also includes heroin and LSD.
In changing its policy, the group said its goal was to clear the way to conduct clinical research, develop cannabis-based medicines and devise alternative ways to deliver the drug.
“Despite more than 30 years of clinical research, only a small number of randomized, controlled trials have been conducted on smoked cannabis,” said Dr. Edward Langston, an AMA board member, noting that the limited number of studies was “insufficient to satisfy the current standards for a prescription drug product.”
The decision by the organization’s delegates at a meeting in Houston marks another step in the evolving view of marijuana, which an AMA report notes was once linked by the federal government to homicidal mania. Since California voters approved the use of medical marijuana in 1996, marijuana has moved steadily into the cultural mainstream spurred by the growing awareness that it can have beneficial effects for some chronically ill people.
This year, the Obama administration sped up that drift when it ordered federal narcotics agents not to arrest medical marijuana users and providers who follow state laws. Polls show broadening support for marijuana legalization.
Thirteen states allow the use of medical marijuana, and about a dozen more have considered it this year.
The AMA, however, also adopted as part of its new policy a sentence that admonishes: “This should not be viewed as an endorsement of state-based medical cannabis programs, the legalization of marijuana, or that scientific evidence on the therapeutic use of cannabis meets the current standards for a prescription drug product.”
The association also rejected a proposal to issue a more forceful call for marijuana to be rescheduled.
Nevertheless, marijuana advocates welcomed the development. “They’re clearly taking an open-minded stance and acknowledging that the evidence warrants a review. That is very big,” said Bruce Mirken, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project. “It’s not surprising that they are moving cautiously and one step at a time, but this is still a very significant change.”
Advocates also noted that the AMA rejected an amendment that they said would have undercut the medical marijuana movement. The measure would have made it AMA’s policy that “smoking is an inherently unsafe delivery method for any therapeutic agent, and therefore smoked marijuana should not be recommended for medical use.”
Dr. Michael M. Miller, a psychiatrist who practices addiction medicine, proposed the amendment. “Smoking is a bad delivery system because you’re combusting something and inhaling it,” he said.
Reaction from the federal government was muted.
Dawn Dearden with the Drug Enforcement Administration said: “At this point, it’s still a Schedule I drug, and we’re going to treat it as such.” The Food and Drug Administration declined to comment.
In a statement, the office of the White House drug czar reiterated the administration’s opposition to legalization and said that it would defer to “the FDA’s judgment that the raw marijuana plant cannot meet the standards for identity, strength, quality, purity, packaging and labeling required of medicine.”
The DEA classifies drugs into five schedules, with the fifth being the least-restrictive. Schedule II drugs, such as cocaine and morphine, are considered to have a high potential for abuse, but also to have accepted medical uses.
Several petitions have been filed to reschedule marijuana. The first, filed in 1972, bounced back and forth between the DEA and the courts until it died in 1994. A petition filed in 2002 is under consideration.
Kris Hermes, a spokesman for Americans for Safe Access, said that advocates hoped the petition would receive more attention. “Given the change of heart by the AMA, there is every opportunity for the Obama administration to do just that,” he said.
In a report released with its new policy, the AMA notes that the organization was “virtually alone” in opposing the first federal restrictions on marijuana, which were adopted in 1937. Cannabis had been used in various medicinal products for years, but fell into disuse in the early 20th century.
Sunil Aggarwal, a medical student at the University of Washington, helped spark the AMA’s reconsideration after he researched marijuana’s effect on 186 chronically ill patients. “I had reason to believe that there was medical good that could come from these products, and I wanted to see AMA policy reflect that,” he said.
The AMA is not the only major doctors organization to rethink marijuana. Last year, the American College of Physicians, the second-largest physician group, called for “rigorous scientific evaluation of the potential therapeutic benefits of medical marijuana” and an “evidence-based review of marijuana’s status as a Schedule I controlled substance.”
Last month, the California Medical Assn. passed resolutions that declared the criminalization of marijuana “a failed public health policy” and called on the organization to take part in the debate on changing current policy.
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
Congratulations to Martin Jay Victor for his win. Story follows.
A Temecula man cried Wednesday after a judge dismissed criminal charges accusing him of trying to game the state’s medical marijuana laws with a collective garden the man ran from his home.
“They are attempting to operate as a legitimate collective,” Riverside Superior Court Judge Mark Mandio said at the end of a key pretrial hearing in his French Valley courtroom. “That is how I view the evidence.”
In dismissing the case against Martin Jay Victor, Mandio also said vague state laws governing medical marijuana put “law enforcement and patients in an untenable position.”
As he listened to the judge toss the case, Victor hugged his attorney, Zenia Gilg, and then pressed his hands to his face. Victor’s wife, seated in a wheelchair, embraced a female friend and cried.
When the hearing ended, Victor hugged his wife for a long moment as they both cried.
“It’s over,” a teary-eyed Victor said, leaning on his cane as he left the courtroom.
After spilling out into the courthouse hallway, some of the couple’s supporters, including members of the collective, let out cheers of “Yes!”
Prosecutors had charged 57-year-old Victor with illegally cultivating marijuana and possessing it with the intent to sell. Investigators said Victor possessed more marijuana than legally permissible and questioned whether Victor was gaming the system.
Victor argued through his attorney that the marijuana garden and its harvest were done in line with state laws as well as guidelines laid out by California Attorney General Jerry Brown in August 2008.
Mandio’s finding that there was insufficient evidence in the case came at the end of a preliminary hearing, at which prosecutors must show that enough evidence exists to force a defendant to stand trial.
Defense attorney Gilg said she was “thrilled” by the ruling.
“I think the judge did the right thing,” Gilg said.
Deputy District Attorney Greg Garrison, who prosecuted the case, declined to comment.
In September 2008, acting on a complaint, Temecula police raided the home of Martin and LaVonne Victor, seizing more than 70 plants as well as what police said was 5 pounds of already harvested marijuana.
During the raid, the couple reportedly showed officers their medical marijuana cards and provided photocopies of cards for 10 members of the cooperative. According to testimony, the couple also kept detailed ledgers that included how much money each member had put into the collective, as well as receipts for expenditures for soil and garden equipment.
Collective member Lanny Swerdlow testified that everyone in the group not only supported the garden with money, but also with time, getting their hands dirty in the cultivation process.
Mandio found that the amount of plants as well as harvested marijuana at the Victors’ home were in line with the amount permissible for the collective under the state’s medical marijuana laws.
Victor has been diagnosed with optical edema, a swelling of the eyes’ optic nerve.
His wife, LaVonne, suffers from multiple sclerosis and panic attacks. Victor said he is also a caretaker for his 82-year-old mother, a cancer survivor who uses a walker, and that she is also a member of the collective. The frail-looking woman embraced her son after the hearing.
In making his ruling, Mandio said the statutes put law enforcement and legitimate medical marijuana patients at risk because there is no licensing agency to which patients can report how much they are growing, what they are harvesting and how much they are allowed to have. Likewise, the judge said, law enforcement officers could go to such an agency to find out just who is growing what and how much.
“We will continue to be in this position … until the Legislature clarifies the statutes, or better yet, creates such a licensing agency,” Mandio said.
Aside from the now-dismissed criminal case Victor had faced, eight members of the collective sued the Sheriff’s Department and the city of Temecula last month, arguing that authorities “unlawfully” seized their share of the marijuana.
Call staff writer Teri Figueroa at 951-676-4315, ext. 5442.
The Californian Opinion Staff | Posted: Sunday, November 1, 2009 12:05 am
- Earlier this year, the counties of San Diego and San Bernardino saw their efforts to overrule the will of the people on medical marijuana go up in smoke —- along with hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars —- when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear their appeal of California’s laws on the subject.
Now it is Temecula’s turn to tilt at prohibitionist windmills.
A year ago, Riverside County sheriff’s deputies, serving as Temecula’s police force, raided a cooperative run by Martin and Lavonne Victor, seizing 70 marijuana plants the Victors and a dozen other medical-marijuana patients registered with the state were growing for their use. Last week, eight members of that co-op who had not been arrested sued the city and the Sheriff’s Department for the return of those plants, which they said were theirs. They also are asking for $1 million each in damages.
Deputies said the Victors couldn’t prove the plants were for use solely for members of the cooperative, as required by state law, even though they showed them the state-issued ID cards and other documentation for their fellow co-op members.
Nevertheless, the deputies confiscated the plants and arrested Martin Victor. A hearing scheduled for Monday will determine whether he must stand trial or not, but that issue is largely separate from the lawsuit, because the eight people suing for the return of their plants were not arrested.
Thirteen years after voters in this state said use of marijuana to ease pain and suffering of ill patients should be permitted, two-thirds of the state’s counties have taken the necessary steps to make the law work, and the state has not descended into drug-addled debauchery as a result. Yet in this corner of the state authorities continue to butt their heads against the wall.
Authorities have every responsibility to ensure that the state’s laws are followed, but too often —- as in the Temecula case —- it looks as though they want to keep fighting the will of the people.
And that’s a fight that could get very expensive.
MEMORANDUM FOR SELECTED UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT: Preemption