The week started off with a bang, as Americans for Safe Access (ASA) Chief Counsel Joe Elford threatened to file a lawsuit against Los Angeles if the city banned medical marijuana “sales.” The threat was in response to public statements made by City Attorney Carmen Trutanich that over-the-counter sales of medical marijuana are illegal under state law. Trutanich had been urging the Los Angeles City Council to adopt his proposed ordinance banning over-the-counter sales.

ASA is confident that Trutanich has a flawed interpretation of state law. The Medical Marijuana Program Act, landmark court decisions, California Attorney General guidelines, and a sales tax policy by the State Board of Equalization provide ample evidence that medical marijuana sales are legal. So, ASA decided to fight Trutanich using his own public relations strategy. The Friday before ASA threatened to file suit against the City of Los Angeles, Elford went on Air Talk, broadcast by KPCC, the NPR affiliate, to debate the issue of sales with Special Assistant City Attorney David Berger. (more…)

U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello expressed his desire yesterday for medical marijuana dispensaries in San Francisco to be run as “communes” rather than as “candy stores.” Russoniello’s reference to “candy stores” is confusing enough, but the Bush-appointed federal prosecutor’s shift from conservative free-market thinking to Marxist communism was a surprise to many in the medical marijuana movement, not to mention the public at large. (more…)

Allison Margolin

(This is a guest blog by Allison B. Margolin, Esq.)

As the Obama administration attempts to steer federal agents away from prosecuting marijuana dispensaries, the LA District Attorney and City Attorney’s Office are attempting to undermine that shift by articulating a deceitfully narrow view of the state law.

Despite reports of trillion dollar deficits nationally and a collapsing state economy, District Attorney Steve Cooley says his office is committed to closing down revenue-generating medical marijuana dispensaries and the LA district attorney’s office continues to take prisoners of war in their fight against safe access to medical marijuana.

In doing so, LA City is threatening to plunge the state’s economy into further collapse by taking potential tax revenues that could be going to the state treasury. Moreover, the City’s position threatens to generate crime by forcing the huge demand for marijuana back to the street. If the free market has allowed for the proliferation of dispensaries, that demand is not going away. The avenue for its fulfillment will simply change and could go from safe to entrenched in the poly-drug trafficking black market economy.
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ASA is encouraged to learn that the Obama Administration has taken a major step forward in defining its policy on medical cannabis today, when the U.S. Department of Justice issued a memo giving new instructions to federal prosecutors and law enforcement.  This memo has been expected since we learned that the Committee report to accompany the Justice appropriations legislation would include specific language requiring a written policy.

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(This is a guest blog by Resipsa from the Landa Prison Outreach Project)

Stephanie Landa

Nearly three years ago, I drove veteran medical marijuana cultivator and activist Stephanie Landa to San Francisco to surrender herself to federal authorities. Her attorney, Allison Margolin, had managed to stall the court for an extraordinarily long time, but Stephanie’s luck had run out, and it she’d been ordered to present herself at the federal building to begin a 41-month sentence.

Americans for Safe Access (ASA) had really been there for Stephanie. Among other things, they helped make her last press conference a great success. Executive Director Steph Sheer and California Director Don Duncan personally walked her through the jailhouse door. I was crying and distraught. But I did manage to promise my friend that I would be there for her while she was inside and I would drive her home, just as I had driven her to the jail.

Keeping my promise to bring her home involved detailed negotiations with the prison and three pages of instructions. But in the end, the warden himself signed off on the paperwork.
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Last Friday, a day after Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich and District Attorney Steve Cooley attended a law enforcement training hosted by the California Narcotic Officers Association (CNOA) on the “eradication” of medical marijuana dispensaries, both officials declared a war on safe, affordable access to this therapeutic substance. In multiple newspapers, Trutanich and Cooley flagrantly stated their opinion that almost all dispensaries in Los Angeles are operating illegally, in violation of state law. Not only did these local prosecutors fail to provide any evidence of such violations, making unfounded accusations instead, but they have also ignored (or, more appropriately, rebuffed) the California Attorney General guidelines on this matter. (more…)

You might think the job of law enforcement is enforcing the law, but that’s not the way some California officers and organizations see it when it comes to the state’s medical cannabis statute. The latest disturbing evidence of this is an upcoming “training luncheon” on “The Eradication of Medical Marijuana Dispensaries in the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County,” hosted by the California Narcotic Officers Association (CNOA).

What’s shocking is not that the CNOA would resist state law – the organization is one of the oldest and most virulent opponents of medical cannabis in the state – but who will be joining them in the effort. Headlining the training on how to close down medical cannabis collectives are Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley and Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, and police officers from Los Angeles, Pasadena, and Alhambra. (more…)

The “shock and awe” tactics used by local and federal law enforcement yesterday to raid several medical marijuana providers were indefensible. One would have thought that such paramilitary-style raids were a thing of the past, a remnant of the Bush Administration. And, yet, videos like this one indicate that not only is law enforcement still trying to undermine California’s medical marijuana law, it’s being done with a vengeance. Where else would you see wheelchair-bound people being thrown into police squad cars?

I can’t resist commenting on what is otherwise a decent front page Washington Post article. In particular, the ridiculous quote offered by Leonard C. Collins Jr., a prosecutor in Charles County, Maryland.

First, had Mr. Collins conducted a simple internet search, he would have learned that studies in the United States, backed up by countless studies around the world, have clearly demonstrated that marijuana is efficacious for a number of serious and chronic illnesses.  In fact, CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, reported on the research that clearly demonstrates the efficacy of cannabis to relieve hard to treat nueropathic pain.  Moreover, safe access to cannabis for patients and research has been endorsed by a growing number of professional health care organizations, including the American Public Health Association, the American Nurses Association, the American College of Physicians, and most recently, the Medical Student Section of the American Medical Association.

Apparently, Charles County’s top prosecutor is abandoning any sense of a rational (or compassionate) approach to the issue, in favor of nonsense reminiscent of “reefer madness” days.

Second, I would invite Mr. Collins to do a little bit more research to understand the specific and unnecessary barriers that block the normal FDA-approval process for cannabis.  For starters, he might consider reading ASA’s report on the matter.

And, finally, I invite all Charles County medical cannabis advocates to get involved with the Maryland chapters of Americans for Safe Access. The only way to beat the law (and guys like Mr. Collins) is to  change the law!

Last week, in separate and unrelated cases, two Maryland residents who use cannabis to control symptoms of a serious or chronic condition used their medical necessity as a mitigating circumstance during sentencing.  As a result, both individuals received a $100 fine — the maximum penalty permitted by the State of Maryland’s medical marijuana law.

The first case involved Bill, a local ASA advocate and 50-something grandfather of two. Bill suffers from a rare, serious condition known as Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome (CVS). The case second concerned a nineteen-year-old woman who uses cannabis to control symptoms of epilepsy. They were both charged by prosecutors with felony possession with intent to distribute.  ASA provided information to both defense councils, but I was honored to provide my personal testimony at Bill’s sentencing hearing.

While the outcome is better than the alternative, the process patients are required are undergo underscores the need for real medical marijuana reform in Maryland. The bottom line: no one who uses cannabis in accordance with a physician’s recommendation should be treated as a criminal by law enforcement or subjected to fines or other penalties. Anything less than comprehensive reform leaves patients vulnerable to arrest and prosecution and wastes taxpayer money!

Read more HERE and HERE