How Legal Is Your Garden?
the420times | Apr 28, 2010 | Comments 0
FROM THE MAGAZINE
How Legal Is Your Garden?
Patients who grow for their own use may avoid scrutiny from two law enforcement agencies.
BY THEO DOUGLAS
We’re a quarter of the way through what virtually everyone agrees is one of the most exciting years in recent cannabis history–and agrees, and agrees. But what some of us may not be so quick to acknowledge is that, while we do have ringside seats for the possible legalization this November of a much maligned, long-criminalized substance, it’s rarely a good idea to get that close to history being made.
Ask any patient or dispensary employee who’s been hauled in for possession, sale or transport: just being taken into custody means a felony arrest — good enough for many potential employers todisqualify you in a background check.
All cannabis is still listed as a controlled — and therefore illegal — substance by the federal government. And confusion also still exists over the issue of growing — despite the fact that the California Attorney General’s office clearly spells out in its Medical Marijuana Guidelines that patients with a card may grow and possess up to six plants at a time for personal use.
Worst of all, research for this story reveals that, as with other clandestine industries, many law enforcement agencies around the state really don’t want to say very much about what types of growers they’re targeting as they enforce existing medical cannabis law. Neither are many lawmakers very talkative about whether the medical marijuana ordinances being passed by local cities will be worth the paper they’re printed on after the November election.
Here’s what Los Angeles Police Department’s Capt. Kevin McCarthy — the commanding officer of L.A.P.D.’s Gangs and Narcotics Division, and the Department spokesperson on medical cannabis-related issues — had to say about enforcement:
“We are still working to develop enforcement strategies with respect to the growing and inspection of collectives,” McCarthy wrote, in an email forwarded by Richard French, a member of L.A.P.D.’s Media Relations detail. “It is a work in progress.” McCarthy did not respond to a telephone message left at his office.
“I’m sorry I’m unable to give you more, but these issues are still being hammered out, and Capt. McCarthy is unable to provide more details at this time,” French wrote in the email.
Hammered out? It’s about time. Remember, Los Angeles City Council approved its medical marijuana ordinance in January; Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed it on Feb. 2; and it became effective on March 14th. If you find it odd that some of the city’s designated first-responding agencies in the event of a disaster are slow in the handling of other key issues, well, you’re not alone.
But don’t feel bad. Many smaller cities — like Long Beach, the state’s sixth largest burg, after being eclipsed in size by Fresno last year — are equally conflicted over legislating and policing medical cannabis. During a particularly rancorous exchange in February, Long Beach City Attorney Robert Shannon actually had to come between Long Beach Police Department — which had used more than 100 police officers in November to bust three dispensaries in Long Beach and Garden Grove, but hadn’t yet brought charges — and members of Long Beach City Council who wondered why that was.
“There’s an ongoing criminal-enforcement proceeding,” Shannon told the City Council. “Now, at a certain point when that investigation is over and when the criminal proceeding is over, you certainly do have a right to look into it. But I don’t think that time has come yet.”
Shannon was equally dubious about the prospects of Long Beach’s own medical cannabis ordinance — which passed in March, but won’t take effect until some time this summer.
“It’s a process, but it’s a process that’s going to have to be refined in Sacramento,” Shannon said in a recent interview. “Anybody that thinks we’re going to come up with some ordinance that’s going to address all the concerns on both sides…We’re just not able to do that.”
Among other points, Long Beach’s ordinance forbids the sale and transport of medical cannabis — and requires all medical cannabis dispensed by local collectives be grown within city limits. Los Angeles, by contrast, has taken aim squarely at dispensaries — capping their number at just 70, while allowing an additional 187 whose owners have already registered with the city.
Representatives of the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office, and members of the California Attorney General’s office, had not responded to several requests for interviews as this issue of The 420 Times went to print. But a Los Angeles County employee familiar with the intense debate over legalizing cannabis had this to say:
“The marijuana initiative has now come out, and I think everybody’s studying it before they decide to come out and talk about it,” said the employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “You picked probably the worst time to try to talk about it.”
Los Angeles County District Attorney Stephen Cooley’s spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons was more forthcoming — offering perspective on how medical cannabis prosecutions are being handled.
“The cases we’re prosecuting do not involve individual possession, they involve over-thecounter sales. Our cases that we filed recently deal with over-the-counter sale of marijuana, whether it is medical or any other kind,” Gibbons said. “Over-the-counter sale is illegal under current law, and those are the cases that are being brought to us. The dispensaries — they’re the ones that are actually, you know, selling. And cooperatives are legal — where people join together and it’s dispensed through a cooperative system.”
She’s right, naturally, and at least one local law enforcement agency may share the District Attorney’s views.
“Generally, we’re honoring the state law, and the federal government does not seem to have an issue with that,” Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Chief Bill McSweeney, when asked whether the federal government — which considers cannabis illegal — has a problem with legal medical cannabis in California.
“They’re not doing a lot of direct enforcement. I think if they think there’s an aggravated problem, they may go after it,” McSweeney said, adding that he doesn’t see patients who grow for their own use as an enforcement problem. “I don’t think there’s a lot of enforcement to a middle-aged lady with arthritis who has six plants for her own personal use.”
The Sheriff’s Department perceives dispensaries differently, however, McSweeney said.
“I think it’s a combination of factors,” he said. “But in general … there have been problems with people who have been operating these on a very commercial basis, and they were not intended to be.” Translating, that means the Sheriff’s Department is another of the many agencies which consider the sale of medical cannabis illegal. And what about the possibility that all this could be legalized in just seven months?
“Mmm, you know, I think Sheriff [Lee] Baca’s view is to be opposed to that particular statute, but I don’t know if we’re watching it very closely,” McSweeney said. “If it does pass, there will still be some problems with it, including a conflict with federal law.”
That’s true; regardless of what happens in November, cannabis will continue to be criminalized by our federal government.
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