No More Raids On Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

US Attorney General Eric Holder said on Wednesday that the Justice Department will not raid medical marijuana dispensaries in states where they are legal under state law anymore. It is one of President Obama’s campaign promises. It also is the end of 13 years of federal resistance to state medical marijuana programs. The DEA still raided medical marijuana facilities in California even after Obama was elected and even after the inauguration. But Holder told a reporter that they will stop now. He said, “What the president said during the campaign, you'll be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we'll be doing in law enforcement. He was my boss during the campaign. He is formally and technically and by law my boss now. What he said during the campaign is now American policy." You can watch a video of it if you want here: <link>
Almost 75 million Americans live in the 13 states that medical marijuana is legal to use. In California the DEA has raided many of the facilities, even though it is legal in the state for medical marijuana to be grown. Many of the people are now being prosecuted, are being sentenced, or are already in prison not because of the raids.
A patient that uses medical marijuana and director of ASA (link), Steph Sherer, said that there has been “a lot of damage in the federal campaign against medical marijuana patients.” They also said,“ We need to stop the prosecutions, bring the prisoners home, and begin working to eliminate the conflict between state and federal medical marijuana laws.”
The ASA had a press conference on Thursday and Sherer explained, "Today is a victory and a huge step forward in what has been at times a cruel and tragic period. My outrage over the raids was shared by millions of Americans, and now our collective voice has been heard in Washington. We look forward to working with the Obama administration to harmonize the conflicts with state laws once and for all."
One person, Larry Epstein, who owned a dispenser that was raided got all of her property and plants taken, and her bank account was frozen; she can’t pay her taxes now. She said she had hundreds of patients who relied on her facility to get their median.
Another person named Heather Poet said that the Justice Department pressured her landlord to evict her. They told her landlord that if he didn’t evict them that they would begin forfeiture proceedings against his property for the “illegal use of his property”( they were operating legally by the way). But she got in contact with Rep. Capps and within a week they worked on a letter with ASA. They didn’t get charged for anything it seems.
Another person who worked a legal dispensary named Charles C. Lynch was convicted on a federal distribution of marijuana charge. He was one of the last people of this type to be charged and faces a mandatory 5 year minimum sentence. Lynch explains, “"I became a medical marijuana patient in 2005 and decided we needed a dispensary here in the San Luis Obispo area so patients didn't have to drive 90 miles to Santa Barbara. Before I opened the dispensary, I called the DEA and asked them their policy. They told me it was up to the cities and towns, so I got a business license from the city of Morro Bay, and opened up on April 1, 2006. The mayor, the city attorney, and council members all came by to visit the facility. We even joined the Morro Bay Chamber of Commerce. I did everything I thought was necessary to run a legitimate business. In March 2007, they raided me, took all my money and froze my bank account. They made it sound like I was selling drugs to children in the schoolyard. The city of Morro Bay reissued my business license -- the DEA had stolen it, too -- and I reopened for business. Two weeks later, the DEA threatened my landlord with forfeiture unless he evicted us for good, so on March 16, 2007, the dispensary closed for good. On July 17, 2007, I woke up to federal agents banging down my door with an arrest warrant for federal marijuana distribution charges," Lynch related. "I had a spotless record, but I had to post a $400,000 bond to get out of federal detention. The DEA and the sheriff did everything in their power to defame me, destroy me, and destroy my life. Now, I have been found guilty on five counts of distribution and await sentencing. I'm filing for bankruptcy, my friends are scared to talk to me because the feds are breathing down my neck. They've destroyed my life.”
I guess now the people who make legal medical marijuana can take a sigh of relief. It seems like they don’t have to worry so much now.
My Opinion:
Although I don’t know much on this subject, I think that it is a good thing honestly. I don’t think that marijuana is bad if you are using it for medical purpose and if you are not abusing it. It is better than some things people can do to help themselves, I guess. I don’t think that it is any worse then smoking a cigarette, although I don’t think that cigarettes can make you loopy like marijuana can. But if you are sick and feeling awful being loopy isn’t a real bad thing I would suppose.

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