Largest U.S. Medical Marijuana Dispensary Beats Back Another Shutdown Attempt

By Nicole Flatow on Jan 8, 2013 at 1:10 pm

Last month, a California judge rejected a landlord’s move to evict the nation’s largest medical marijuana dispensary for engaging in a business that is legal under state law. Now, a federal judge has also barred the landlord’s attempt to halt the dispensary’s operations.

Harborside Health Center founder Steve DeAngelo

In the ongoing federal-local battle over state laws that legalize medical marijuana, the court ruling is the latest victory for Harborside Health Center, a 100-plus-employee operation that Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker has praised for providing “access to safe, affordable and effective medicine.” While the Obama administration initially said it would not target medical marijuana dispensaries in compliance with state law, it has since fluctuated on this position, and pursued increasingly vigorous crackdowns. To shut down Harborside, the federal government filed a civil action to seize the Oakland and San Jose, Calif. properties Harborside leases for its dispensaries. The owners of the two properties attempted to skirt the federal case by moving to evict Harborside or cease its marijuana distribution. One county judge rejected the move, while another has allowed eviction proceedings to move forward. But U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James held Monday that the federal Controlled Substances Act cannot be enforced by private parties like these landlords:

As Harborside points out, courts have consistently held that there is no private right of action under the CSA to force compliance. […]
Moreover, while the Court understands Claimants’ concern over the potential forfeiture of their properties, Rule G(7)(a) is not a means to sever business relationships when they suddenly prove risky or to demonstrate cooperation with the Government.

The landlords and the Department of Justice will now litigate between themselves over the move to seize the properties where Harborside is housed. The city of Oakland also filed an unprecedented, affirmative lawsuit to halt federal government crackdowns of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city. The city alleges that the federal government exceeded its authority with its civil forfeiture action by acting contrary to earlier statements and actions that indicated it would not crack down on those dispensaries in compliance with state medical marijuana laws, now in 18 states.
The litigation raises the question of how the federal government will handle Washington and Colorado’s new laws to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana. In the first comment on the measures, President Obama said recreational users are not a “high priority.” He did not, however, refer to marijuana sellers and suppliers, which would be the likely subjects of any federal crackdown.
In the wake of the crackdown, landlords have been unwilling to rent to several other dispensaries that were approved for operation in Oakland.

Largest U.S. Medical Marijuana Dispensary Beats Back Another Shutdown Attempt

USA - Cannabis medica. Giudice salva il piu' grande dispensario

Il piu' grande dispensario di marijuana medica del mondo, che ha sede a San Francisco, per ora puo' continuare ad operare nonostante un bando federale. Lo ha deciso, riportano i media locali, un giudice californiano, secondo cui e' il governo a dover prima emanare una nuova legge per dichiarare il dispensario illegale.
La sentenza e' un nuovo capitolo della guerra che oppone le autorita' federali, secondo cui i dispensari violano le leggi sulla droga, e quelle locali, che invece vogliono mantenere le entrate derivanti dalle tasse sulla marijuana medica. La citta' di Oakland, ad esempio, dove si trova una delle sedi del dispensario, guadagna 1,4 milioni di dollari l'anno. In tutta la California sono 100mila i pazienti che hanno accesso alla droga per uso medico, metre in tutti gli Usa sono 18 gli stati che ne hanno ammesso la vendita.

Federal Crackdown on Medical Marijuana: Oakland Fights Back, Mendocino County Still Deciding

December 19, 2012, 3:15 pm • Posted by Jon Brooks

Last week on ABC News' 20/20, Barbara Walters asked President Obama if he thought marijuana should be legalized.

Marijuana plant buds at a dispensary.

"I wouldn't go that far," Obama said. "But what I think is that at this point, Washington and Colorado, you've seen the voters speak on this issue. And as it is, the federal goverment has a lot to do when it comes to criminal prosecutions. It does not make sense from a prioritization point of view for us to focus on recreational drug users in a state that has already said under state law that's legal."
Those comments, however, may come as a surprise to those who follow the medical marijuana issue in California. In October 2011, the four U.S. attorneys for the state announced it was going to be no more Mr. Nice Guy when it comes to federal enforcement of the burgeoning medical marijuana industry. In that press conference, Melinda Haag, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, provided a number of reasons for cracking down on medical marijuana, including environmental harm by growers and the proliferation of retail stores "motivated not by compassion but by money."
"What we are finding is that people are using the cover of medical marijuana to make extraordinary amounts of money," Haag said. "In short, to engage in drug trafficking."
When it came to taking action against purveyors of pot in the state, the U.S. attorneys were true to their word. In Northern California alone dozens of dispensaries have been shut down, including some high-profile businesses that not only enjoyed solid reputations as responsible industry players, but which were operating with the express approval of local governments.
That hasn't mattered. While passage of Proposition 215 in 1996 legalized medical marijuana in the state, its sale is still a felony under federal law.

Oakland Comes to Defense of Harborside
One successful strategy in shuttering marijuana retail operations has been to threaten landlords of dispensaries with forfeiture of their property.

This is the tack U.S. Attorney Haag took in taking on Oakland's Harborside, which operates under a city permit.  To some, the action against Harborside represents an expansion of the federal crackdown, which had previously used proximity to schools as its main criteria for targeting. But in threatening action against Harborside's landlord, the U.S. Attorney's office cited the size of the business, which may be the biggest in the world with over 100,000 patients served. Steve DeAngelo, Harborside's cofounder and executive director, told Oakland North in October that Harborside earned $22 million in sales in 2011, paying the city $1.2 million in taxes. "The Justice Department issued a statement that said we'd been targeted because of an abstract principle that larger dispensaries tend to result in more people inappropriately receiving cannabis," Harborside owner Steve DeAngelo told us in July. "I don't think that's a valid principle, but even if it were, to target an organization like Harborside that has an exemplary record of legal compliance simply because of a general principle that may or not apply to other people in the industry is really an egregious abuse of prosecutorial discretion.
"I think the Justice Dept has grievously overreached; I think the amount of support both from public and elected officials demonstrates that."
And indeed, the city of Oakland has stepped up to support Harborside, becoming the first city to file suit against the federal government in relation to the targeting of marijuana facilities. Oakland says the federal government can’t seize the property that Harborside leases because the federal statue of limitations has run out. The city also claims the federal government misled it into thinking it could license dispensaries without legal consequences.
"We’re concerned that the government, through its action and inaction, caused the city to rely on the fact that we could proceed to dedicate the resources that we did to set up this dispensary system," Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker told KQED in October.

In the meantime, Harborside has refused to shut down. “We are open and we have no intention of closing our doors voluntarily,” DeAngelo said. “We made a commitment to our patients six years ago to provide them with a safe place to get cannabis medicines and we're going to do that unless it becomes impossible.” Harborside's landlords in both Oakland and San Jose, where it also runs a dispensary subject to forfeiture proceedings, have gone to court attempting to force an eviction. But an Alameda County judge said on Nov. 30 that state courts did not have the power to enforce federal law. As the Oakland Tribune reported, the ruling held that "under state law, Harborside was running a legal business and had not violated its lease."
The case is scheduled to be heard in federal district court by Chief Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James on Thursday. On the table are motions by Harborside’s landlords asking the court to enjoin the dispensary from selling medical marijuana while the issue of the forfeiture is adjudicated.
Oakland has filed a motion to stay the landlords’ requests. 

Mendocino County: 'Model' Program Now Ended, Still Under Attack
From the point of view of medical pot advocates, Mendocino County, a longtime hub of illegal marijuana distribution, has been one of the most forward-looking local governments in terms of bringing order to the vague legalization mandate of Prop 215.
The county’s 9.31 ordinance set up a unique first-in-the-nation permitting program under which marijuana growers were allowed to cultivate up to 99 plants, provided they complied with regulations like restrictions on the locations in which they operated. The program also brought much-needed revenue to the county.
Mendocino County officials like Sheriff Tom Allman and Supervisor John McCowen argued that the program encouraged illegal actors in the marijuana trade to go legit, reducing crime and the need for law enforcement resources to address it.
But last year, the DEA raided Northstone Organics, owned and operated by Matt Cohen, a vocal proponent of legitimizing the medical marijuana trade through regulation. Cohen has been described by Michael Montgomery, who covers drug issues for KQED, as the “poster child” for compliance with Mendocino County’s regulatory regime. He has also been an advocate for using the Mendocino model as the way forward for expanded legalization of medical marijuana.

But the DEA's action was just the beginning. Earlier this year, Melinda Haag's office told the county it had to end the program or face possible litigation. After some debate, supervisors decided to “effectively gut the program,” says Michael Montgomery. "After that, most people in Mendocino thought the matter was over, that they had complied with the federal government." But in early December news emerged that a grand jury had been convened, and had issued subpoenas to Sheriff Allman, his captain who oversaw the permitting program, the  financial manager for the sheriff's office, and the county Auditor-Controller. Montgomery says Mendocino officials have reacted with "shock and anger and concern” to the order, which calls for the officials to hand over all records related to the program.
After an extension, the county now has until Jan 8 to comply, and its hired a San Francisco attorney to help represent it. Some involved in the Mendocino marijuana industry have pleaded with the county not to cooperate with the federal government.
"Please don't give this information to the federal government because patients' information and entire coops' information is accessible," said Matt Cohen at a recent supervisors' meeting. "This would not be the right thing to do."
No one really knows what the feds are after -- whether it's criminal prosecutions or something else. But Mendocino County Supervisor Dan Hamburg, a former Democratic congressman, said he thinks the money that the county made from the program is a likely target. The Ukiah Daily Journal recently reported that "proceeds from the popular permitting program ... had mounted to more than $1 million by January of this year.”
"You've probably heard the term smash and grab, when the DEA comes into a dispensary and takes their money, takes their marijuana out the door and that’s the end of that," Hamburg told Michael Montgomery recently. "I sort of see this as a form of that. They weren't satisfied with us shutting down the objectionable part of the program. And now they want to come back for the money that came into the program ... It seems that's the information they want and the only thing I can draw from that is it's some kind of a forfeiture proceeding."
If that’s the case, Sheriff Tom Allman told Montgomery, "We're not going to be able to write them a check, I'll tell you that. They better take payments, because we're broke."
Hamburg, who expressed reservations about the program when it was operational, doesn't want to see the federal government go after county assets. He says, "I just don't see the good sense of Mendocino County having to forfeit money from a program done in good faith and done with really trying to get a hand on regulating this practice in Mendocino County, which by the way has been going on for four decades. So if Melinda Haag and the federal government think 'oh we're going to put marijuana out of business in Mendocino County'...that's just not going to happen. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube."

Why California?
Colorado and Washington, the two states that have legalized recreational marijuana, are now deciding how to build regulatory systems for growers and  distributors, says Michael Montgomery.
"The big question is what are the feds going to do in these  states. What they've done in places like Mendocino that have tried to regulate could be a clue."
On the other hand, Montgomery says, Colorado set up a fairly elaborate system to govern medical marijuana from the start, drawing little interference from the federal government.
"So is the message that if you set up tight regulatory system you're going to be okay? I don’t know," he says.
Another difference between California and other states that have legalized medical marijuana is that some Californians have flaunted their federally illegal activities in a very public way. Mendocino County's Matt Cohen, for example, appeared in documentaries about the state's marijuana business on both KQED TV and the PBS program Frontline. And Harborside's Steve DeAngelo was the subject of his own reality TV series on The Discovery Channel -- "Weed Wars."
In a March interview with Michael Montgomery about the reasons for what some at the time considered to be a rather sudden focus federal focus on marijuana, Melinda Haag said, "Marijuana dispensaries are full of cash and they're full of marijuana and everybody knows that. And many of them are very public about their operations. Some of them go on television, most of them have websites, and everybody knows where they are."

DeAngelo, for his part, told us he doesn't regret doing the show.
"Absolutely not. After it aired we had a flood of senior citizens coming in, veterans, people from states where they don’t have access to medical cannabis. We had dozens and dozens of parents of gravely ill children coming to us because of what they saw...and we were able to provide a positive example of cannabis distribution for the world."
"I would say, however, that I think there's a connection between my outspoken views and Harborside being targeted."
For his part, Montgomery said it's important to pay close attention to President Obama's choice of words when it comes to speculating on how the federal government might handle the new world of marijuana legalization in the states.
"The president said it didn't make sense for the federal government to use its resources targeting recreational users in states that have legalized pot. But that's really embracing the status quo. The real question, which the president didn't address, is how the feds will handle the emergence of major cultivation and distribution networks for a drug that is still classified under federal law as a Schedule 1 narcotic. Do the clues for future federal action lie in Colorado or in California?"

Federal Crackdown on Medical Marijuana: Oakland Fights Back, Mendocino County Still Deciding

Harborside Health Center Press Conference 07/12/12

The Wall Street Journal about Cannabis

Weed Wars

TV Takes a Close Look at a Marijuana Haven, Just Before the Law Does

Orange County and Beverly Hills have “The Real Housewives.” The San Francisco Giants had “The Franchise” on Showtime last summer.

Now, Oakland is getting ready for a reality television close-up. Naturally, it is a show about marijuana.
The Discovery Channel will broadcast the first episode of “Weed Wars” on Thursday. The four-part series offers an inside look at the medical marijuana business at Harborside Health Center in Oakland, the largest dispensary on the West Coast. The show stars the colorful crew that runs the dispensary: Steve DeAngelo, the silver-pigtailed co-founder and executive director; Luigi Zamarra, the nervous accountant; and Dave Wedding Dress, the bearded, dress-wearing co-founder, among others.
The day-to-day routine, it turns out, is a mix of the achingly mundane and the risky. In one episode, as Terryn, a Harborside “bud tender,” frets about aphids killing his plants, Mr. DeAngelo stares into the camera lens and says, “At any moment federal agents could break through these doors and lock me up for the rest of my life.” In fact, the Justice Department announced a big crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries across California soon after the series finished its scheduled shooting, though Harborside remains open.
“Weed Wars” is not the first marijuana reality show. It is not even the first featuring Oakland. That honor goes to “I’m in the Marijuana Business,” an episode of the MTV “True Life” series that was broadcast last summer. While “Weed Wars” is straightforward, “True Life” was more typical reality TV fare, with a cast of volatile individuals prone to fighting, crying and flashing money.
MTV followed a friendly 20-something named Chris who moved to Oakland to pursue his lifelong dream of growing marijuana. But “he’s been afraid to tell his family for fear they’ll disown him,” the announcer intones dramatically. It also features a Colorado hippie couple, Gemma and Pa, as they struggle to make marijuana bars in between stoner ruminations and screaming matches.
Mr. DeAngelo wanted to avoid this type of portrayal. He said that before the Discovery Channel offer, he turned down 10 other companies because “I could tell they had some sort of agenda.”
“We have been stereotyped as slackers, profiteers and criminals,” Mr. DeAngelo said. “With this show, they will see that we are decent people who are providing medicine for patients in a responsible way.”
The first episode of “Weed Wars” centers on a tax-bill fight between Harborside and Oakland’s Business Tax Board of Review (in what is undoubtedly the television debut for the solemn and obscure entity).
To cope with the stress of the ordeal, Mr. DeAngelo turns to his own form of relief. The camera cuts to a darkened room. “I don’t want to forget how to relax, and cannabis really helps me remember how to relax,” said Mr. DeAngelo as he lovingly inhaled.
At another point, Mr. DeAngelo, who has a medical marijuana card, rips into a marijuana-laced piece of gingerbread to calm his nerves as he drives across the Bay Bridge to a speaking engagement. It does not take effect for 45 minutes, he tells the camera in an effort to explain that he is not driving while high.
Although Discovery could not know it at the time, the dispensary’s skirmish with the tax board was a precursor to much more serious weed wars. Soon after the crew turned off its cameras, Harborside was hit with a $2.5 million bill from the Internal Revenue Service. The Department of Justice crackdown on California dispensaries came the following week.
In an interview this week, Mr. DeAngelo acknowledged that when he opened his doors to the cameras last year, the legal climate was decidedly sunnier. The Obama administration had indicated that it would not go after medical marijuana dispensaries.
“I wasn’t expecting to find us in the middle of a huge reversal of federal policy when we made this,” Mr. DeAngelo said.
Indeed, after the announcement from the United States attorneys, the Discovery crew returned to collect more video. When asked if it added more drama to the show, Mr. DeAngelo deadpanned, “Just a touch.”
Some people in the medical marijuana industry were alarmed by Mr. DeAngelo’s decision to open up his operation to the cameras.
“I think they’re absolutely nuts,” said William Panzer, a criminal lawyer who represents medical marijuana dispensaries in the Bay Area. “I think they risk getting shut down. They risk getting raided.”
The Discovery producers, however, seem careful with the dispensary’s image.
“With this show in particular, because there’s a lot on the line for Steve and his business, we wanted to make sure we were getting it right,” said Nancy Daniels, executive vice president of production and development at Discovery.
Mr. DeAngelo is hoping for the best. “There’s no question in my mind that the show will help the movement,” he said, though the dispensary still faces some harsh realities. “Whether or not it is going to protect Harborside from the wrath of the federal government, I don’t know.”

zelinson@baycitizen.org

09/11/2009 Monticelli chiama California

Egregio direttore, in California, ha recentemento aperto un "Whealth Center" dove si può comperare
legalmente cannabis.
Via libera alla marijuana, non piú solo per uso terapeutico: i deputati dello Stato della California hanno cominciato a discutere i possibili effetti di una proposta di legge per legalizzare, regolare e tassare l'uso personale della cannabis.

Lo scrive il New York Times, secondo cui non è affatto certo che la proposta sia approvata, ma comunque nella patria degli hippies il vento soffia nelle direzione dell'antiproibizionismo.
Si può cosi trovare in rete immagini del centro no-profit dove si praticano attività che potremmo trovare alle terme di Monticelli, massaggi, attività di meditazione e studio e comperare legalmente
la cannabis.
A Monticelli però, questo centro non c'è. Parma ha, in compenso, via Trento, lo spaccio in mano alla criminalità e una giunta distaccata dalla realtà.