The DEA and local law enforcement officials moved to shut down San Diego's proliferating medical cannabis clubs.

Drug agents raided half of the city's collective dispensaries on July 6. Owners and employees were charged with selling marijuana to agents presenting doctors' recommendations. Two weeks later, DEA agents visited the other half and warned them to close or face arrest.

ACCESS DENIED - The DEA and San Diego county want patients to suffer. Oaksterdam News photo by Chris ConradAll 19 of the publicly listed San Diego dispensaries (see canorml.org) ceased operations, at least temporarily. A few delivery services are said to be privately providing medicine, and policy analyst Chris Conrad predicts that many more will open in the coming months to supply regional demand that had been well-served by the storefront operations, as collective members regroup to help one another.

Patient advocates protested the raids. “How can you bust people for breaking the law when there are no rules?” asked ASA spokesperson Dion Markgraaff. “That's what everybody wants - regulation.”

The San Diego DA's office told the North County Times that the county was helping the DEA because dispensaries were selling marijuana to almost anyone who wanted it, rather than legitimate patients. Undercover officers reportedly obtained open-ended recommendations for vague and unsubstantiated complaints from several doctors. Four of the doctors were reported to the state medical board for further investigation.

DA Bonnie Dumanis claimed to support medical marijuana “wholeheartedly,” but complained that Prop. 215 was being “severely abused.” However, the only fraudulent patients identified were police engaging in sting investigations.

San Diego police chief William Lansdowne, who has generally supported medical marijuana, labeled the dispensaries “magnets for crime” such as burglaries and robberies. (Law enforcement statistics show that senior citizens, small restaurants and medical marijuana patients and providers are increasingly being victimized in addition to banks, jewelry stores and liquor stores. However, law enforcement more often targets cannabis patients than the criminals who prey upon them. -Ed)

While most of the dispensaries have experienced burglaries, they report receiving few if any complaints from neighbors. Several were visited in a previous round of warning raids last December.

Some 15 persons were arrested on state charges, Some 15 persons were arrested on state charges, among them directors and employees of Ocean Beach Dispensary, Native Sun Dispensary, Utopia, the California Medical Center in La Jolla, and Top Shelf Dispensary in Solana Beach.

Six defendants were charged in federal indictments. One was John Sullivan, owner of the Purple Bud Room, who has had repeated run-ins with the law. The other federal defendants were associated with Co-Op San Diego: Wayne Hudson, Chris Larkin, Ross McManus, Scott Wright, and Michael Ragin. They were charged in connection with an alleged major cultivation operation.

The San Diego district attorney's office indicated that they are not seeking stiff sentences, but simply want operators to cease and desist.

The City of San Diego typically has been supportive of medical marijuana. The City of San Diego typically has been supportive of medical marijuana. In 2003, it adopted cultivation guidelines and even proposed a patient ID program.

In contrast, San Diego County has been notably hostile to Prop. 215. Earlier this year, it filed a lawsuit against the state of California and San Diego NORML seeking to overturn the state law requiring that counties maintain a medical marijuana identification card program. The lawsuit argues that Prop. 215 should be disregarded because it is against federal law.

Most legal experts believe the lawsuit will fail, since courts have long held that states do not have to enforce federal law.

However, the legality of dispensaries is far less clear. Prop 215 calls for the state to establish a distribution system. Health and Safety Codes 11362.765 and 11362.775 give qualified patients and caregivers who collectively obtain medical marijuana limited immunity from charges of sales, manufacture and maintaining a place where cannabis is grown or sold to patients. The Appeals Court's People v Urziceanu ruling has since upheld those protections.

However, prosecutors claim that it protects sales only by “designated primary caregivers” on a non-profit basis. San Diego's medical marijuana task force specifically declined to endorse unregulated dispensaries. Local patient advocates hope to prevail on the city to regulate dispensaries like other jurisdictions, such as San Francisco and Los Angeles County.

The internet circulated alarming reports that DEA agents were threatening to shut dispensaries across the whole state. However, there is no evidence of further plans beyond San Diego. Without local support, a full-fledged assault on the clubs would tax DEA's manpower and create a nasty PR problem. In the last three years, the DEA has refrained from medical marijuana busts except where they have support from local law enforcement or stumble upon them during an unrelated investigation.