AAMC: California: Feds vs. S.F. on pot

Feds vs. S.F. on pot

Publication date: 02/13/2002
By Dan Evans and Nina Wu of The Examiner Staff
Source: San Francisco Examiner

The event was loaded -- with politics.

The Drug Enforcement Agency raided at least two Bay Area medical marijuana clubs Tuesday morning -- one of them operating a mere three blocks from where DEA chief Asa Hutchinson spoke Tueday night.

All told, agents seized about 8,300 plants, including seedling plants known as clones, DEA spokesman Richard Myer said. A .22 handgun and a shotgun belonging to one of those arrested also were confiscated.

DEA agents arrested three men in two cases. A fourth man, Kenneth Hayes, a former executive director of the San Francisco pot club CHAMP, is in custody in Vancouver, B.C. His attorney, Bill Panzer, said Hayes has petitioned the Canadian government for political refugee status.

Panzer, an Oakland lawyer who co-wrote California's medical marijuana initiative, had the more amusing take on the day's events. Since the feds are pushing the message that buying drugs aids terrorists, he said, it seemed strange they would crack down on people who are cultivating marijuana for the state's sick people -- a perfectly legal enterprise under Proposition 215.

Voters approved the initiative legalizing medical marijuana in 1996, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled several months ago that its use was a federal crime. Local marijuana dispensers swore at the time that they would continue to remain open until federal officials shut them down.

"Now, since they can't buy it from people producing in state, sick people have to buy it from drug dealers, who are aiding the terrorists," Panzer said. "I feel it's a shame that this administration is helping to aid terrorists."

Hutchinson denied the busts had anything to do with his first official visit to San Francisco. He said the sweep was not aimed at medical marijuana clubs, but at a trafficking ring originating in Canada.

He also denied the federal agency was stepping up enforcement of smaller marijuana operations in the wake of recent pronouncements by District Attorney Terence Hallinan and state Attorney General Bill Lockyer pushing for a hands-off approach to medical marijuana clubs.

"Our priorities have always been the larger traffickers," Hutchinson said.

Tell that to Hallinan

The district attorney -- a vocal proponent of medical marijuana -- decried the action in a speech outside the Commonwealth Club offices on Market Street. Speaking in front of the building where Hutchinson spoke an hour later, The City's top prosecutor complained that neither his office nor the Police Department had been informed of the action.

"Matters of health and safety are for the local government and not some federal, national agency," he said, as Board of Supervisors President Tom Ammiano got the 150 or so protesters gathered to chant "b---sh--, b---sh--."

"It's a decision to be made by the voters of California," Hallinan continued. "I call on the DEA to respect the wishes of the people of California and stay out of the marijuana clubs of San Francisco."

Hallinan and Ammiano were joined by Supervisors Mark Leno, Chris Daly and Matt Gonzalez, all who voted in November to make San Francisco a marijuana sanctuary. The feds, however, felt differently.

Dynamiting the door

Earlier Tuesday, DEA officials dynamited the front door to the Harm Reduction Center at 52 Sixth St., cordoned off the sidewalk and cleared it of its supply of buds. The proprietor of the club, Richard "Brick" Watts, was hauled away.

Agents served eight search warrants in San Francisco, Oakland and Petaluma.

In Oakland, a similar scene erupted at 6:30 a.m. at the home of Ed Rosenthal, who is connected with the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Collective. Rosenthal's home was searched, and numerous papers were seized, said his wife, Jane Kline.

"He does horticultural things, and I'm begging the agents to take some of the old junk away, but I guess they're not going to," she said, noting there were no illegal substances in the home. "I don't mean to be flip, but I'm angry. They should be spending their time worrying about terrorists, not sick people."

Rosenthal wrote a book on marijuana cultivation and wrote an advice column on the topic for the magazine "High Times" for several years.

Watts, Rosenthal and Hayes are listed as co-defendants in the criminal complaint.

Hallinan testified on Hayes' behalf during his trial on charges of marijuana cultivation and sales in Sonoma County last March. Hayes and Michael Foley, a former general manager of the club, were acquitted in large part because Hallinan claimed Prop. 215 protected the two men.

Feds target cultivators

James Halloran, another Oakland resident, was arrested in a separate case Tuesday. Halloran is suspected of growing more than 1,000 plants in an abandoned movie theater. All four men are charged with cultivation of marijuana.

Jeff Jones, executive director of the Oakland cooperative, said the busts were anything but a coincidence. It is a waste of time and taxpayer money, he said, to arrest people for actions that voters in California decided were not a crime.

"The nerve of them coming into our state and violating our constitution," Jones said. "It's lacking in compassion and lacking in our locally supported efforts."

Anger in The City

This was the feeling in San Francisco, where a cluster of bystanders -- many of them members of the cannabis club -- watched in anger as the feds did their work.

"This is San Francisco," said Mark Romero of CHAMP, who ran to the scene after hearing of the sweep. He stood with his arms crossed and repeatedly tore up the yellow tape surrounding the scene, much to the ire of the DEA officers. "It's a public sidewalk. Get out of my house," he yelled.

"If they want to, why don't they go after the drugs over there?" he said, pointing across the street.

"DEA, Go away!" yelled Clark Sullivan from the League of American Marijuana Patients & Supporters. He continued to ride around on his bike, yelling "Boo! Go back to your federal land, idiot. We don't want you here. Leave us alone and go after the terrorists."

Lucifer T. Cheshire, a 6-foot-tall man clad in a leather jacket who said he smokes marijuana because he has AIDS, also joined in. "We're here to make sure they know how we feel," he said. "Pot is one of the few things that kept me alive."

Another man, Patrick Hughes circled around the police squad units -- sent as backup -- intermittently standing up and raising his arms in the air. "I have brain damage," he said. "I can stand up, but I can't walk."

Hughes said he smokes marijuana morning, noon and night to ease the pain.

"This sucks. I just got my card yesterday," said John Stone, a neighborhood resident who has AIDS. "I kind of understand why they're doing this because people abuse it, but then there are people like me."

Stone estimated that about 50 percent of those with cards probably abused the system. "If it's going to happen here, it's going to happen all over The City."

James Railback, another member of the center, said he was drinking at a nearby bar when he heard the dynamite go off. When he went out to see what it was, he discovered the sweep. "They took my weed and they took my pipe," he said. "F------- DEA. It's the state against the feds."

At the Market Street Cannabis Club, reaction to the raids was nonchalant. Jim Green, who runs the club, said he does his business as honestly and above-the-board as possible. There are risks, he said, but everyone knows that -- or at least should -- going in.

"When you're engaged in civil disobedience, you can't expect soft or fair treatment," Green said. "It's not easy to deal with, but I've been so concerned about the inevitability of this for so long I'm almost numb."

E-mail Dan Evans
E-mail Nina Wu
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Click here to refer this page to a friend and let freedom grow