CA NORML News
July 25th,
2007, The DEA launched
a long-awaited crackdown on Los Angeles' thriving medical marijuana scene,
raiding ten different Hollywood clubs in a single day.
The raids came two
weeks after the DEA sent out letters to some 120 to 150 LA dispensary
landlords, warning them that they were liable to forfeiture and criminal
prosecution for allowing distribution of illegal drugs on their property.
In a separate
action, the L.A. U.S. attorney's office announced several indictments in
pending cases. Targets included operators in Morro Bay, Corona, Bakersfield,
and West Hollywood, but none of the LA clubs.
The raids were
perfectly timed to send a message, coming on the same day that the LA City
Council was scheduled to vote on a dispensary regulation and moratorium
ordinance, and the same day that Congress voted on the Hinchey-Rohrabacher
amendment.
The raids also
succeeded in energizing support for medical marijuana to a level hitherto
unseen in L.A., as the City Council, press, and local patients rallied against
the DEA.
Protesters
demonstrated as the DEA raided the California Patients Group on Santa Monica
Blvd., a local headquarters for Americans for Safe Access and meeting space for
medical marijuana activists. More than a dozen protesters joined Dege Coutee in
blockading DEA cars outside the club, securing the release of all of the club's
employees who were being detained inside.
Coutee was arrested and charged with a state misdemeanor for obstructing
police.
LA City Councilman
Dennis Zine, a former LAPD officer who is sponsoring an ordinance to regulate
dispensaries, held a press conference to protest the raids. Zine preented a letter to the DEA
calling on it to stop threatening landlords and to allow the city to regulate
dispensaries without interference.
Council President Eric Garcetti and other council members signed on to
the letter and expressed their support for medical marijuana.
Later in the day,
the council unanimously approved the first reading of Zine's bill to place a
moratorium on new dispensaries while the city considers regulations, a move
strongly endorsed by California patients' groups as a necessary step to
establishing order and legitimacy for the city's dispensaries. The council also voted unanimously to
endorse the Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment, which was being voted on by the U.S.
House.
"It was a
wonderful and terrible day for medical cannabis in LA," said Southern
California ASA director Don Duncan, who thanked supporters and city officials
for their response. "Los Angeles has turned a corner on medical cannabis
and the endgame is now in sight."
While the DEA
crackdown sent a shock through the cannabis community, it fell short of the
kind of all-out sweep that many have feared. A score of clubs promptly folded or planned to
relocate in the wake of the landlord letters. Others decided to go underground or stop accepting new
patients. However, the great
majority of LA's 200-odd clubs remained in operation. So far, no federal charges have been announced against LA dispensaries,
despite repeated raids, including another wave of 11 raids in greater LA last
January.
The letters were
carefully targeted to the City of Los Angeles, not surrounding communities,
suggesting they were planned in collaboration with local police. Clubs that engaged in aggressive
advertising were most likely to be hit by the letters.
The LA raids were concentrated in
Hollywood, likewise suggesting collaboration by the LAPD, who were present at
the raids. (One of the
dispensaries also had a branch in Buellton that was raided). In private conversations,
DEA spokesmen say they do not raid medical marijuana clubs without support from
local authorities, a pattern that has generally held throughout the state since
2004.
DEA spokeswoman
Sarah Pullen told the press that the letters should not be viewed as a threat.
"We are literally just serving notice that these property owners are
violating the law," she said.
Nonetheless, the letters have important legal significance, since they
deprive landlords of the opportunity to claim that they were "innocent
owners" unaware of illegal activity on their premises. Forfeiture attorneys typically advise
landlords who have received such notices to promptly evict tenants or take
other action to insure that they desist from illegal activity.
Most landlords were
inclined to take the forfeiture warning seriously, though some indicated they
would resist, while others doubted the seriousness of the threat.
There were no indications that the US
Attorney's office was prepared to follow through with a massive forfeiture
action against the city's landlords.
Any such action would invite a strong public backlash against a
Department of Justice already crippled by severe credibility issues. The LA Times editorialized
against the letters as a "deplorable new bullying tactic," warning
that if DEA tried to use it,
Congress should deprive it of civil asset forfeiture powers altogether.
Federal forfeiture
powers are limited by a Supreme Court ruling that forfeitures cannot be
excessive, but must be in line with the culpability of the landlord. This is
typically measured by the rent that has been collected and the criminal fine
for the offense. Under this
doctrine, the proprietor of a large shopping complex is unlikely to lose the
entire property for renting to one small dispensary.
The landlord letters are said to have
been ordered by DEA headquarters in Washington, DC, which presented testimony
to Congress against the LA clubs on July 12th. The letters were sent by registered mail on July 6th.