News » Feds Order CA Medical Marijuana Dispensaries to Shut Down Within 45 Days
October 6, 2011 by cannacentral
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It appears the Federal government has no intention of slowing down in its prosecution of medical marijuana. After the IRS’s recent announcement that Oakland’s Harborside Health Center owed over $2.5 million in back taxes, the federal government has now decided to step things up a notch and are now warning California medical marijuana dispensaries they must shut down within 45 days or face criminal prosecution and having their property confiscated.
The California’s four U.S. attorneys sent letters Wednesday and Thursday notifying at least 16 medical marijuana dispensaries or their landlords that they are violating federal drug laws, even though medical marijuana is legal in California. The attorneys are to announce their coordinated crackdown at a Friday news conference.
The Associated Press obtained copies of the letters that a prosecutor sent to 12 of San Diego’s dispensaries. They state that federal law “takes precedence over state law and applies regardless of the particular uses for which a dispensary is selling pot.
This latest move signals that the federal government is tightening it’s stance against medical marijuana and reversing earlier promises to not prosecute medical marijuana businesses following state law. This latest action, along with the schizophrenic and confused statements about medical marijuana made by various federal agencies recently, indicates the federal government is no closer to creating a coherent medical marijuana policy now than it was when California’s 215 law was first passed, and will likely contribute to continued friction between medical patients, the state of California, and the federal government.
This latest announcement also begs the question – why, at a time when wars and economic hardship continue to consume our government and it’s citizens, is the federal government wasting time, energy, and money chasing after medical marijuana users?
[source ABC News]
Tags: California, disensaries, dispensary ban
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THIS IS IN LARGE PART SCARE TACTICS! Please, fellow Redditors, listen to me. I work at a San Diego Medical Marijuana Collective, and we have been dealing with these false headlines since June. This summer, the city of San Diego tried to pass a predatory zoning ordinance that would have served as a de-facto ban on all San Diego Dispensaries. In order to prevent this from happening, San Diego dispensaries worked together and formed an organization called the Patient Care Association of California (pcaca.org) and put forth a referendum to fight the zoning ordinance. In one month we gathered the signatures required and fought off the ordinance, and are currently in a weird neutral standoffish situation with the city.
Every few months we see these headlines, when currently the situation is a waiting game. The PCACA is currently putting together their own ordinance to propose to the city to be voted on in next years ballot, and up until that point San Diego Dispensaries ARE NOT at risk of being shut down at random. The few PCACA dispensaries that have been raided have been back open within weeks.
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Feds running out of things to do.
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dey gotta keep der jerbs.
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DON’T BACK DOWN!
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stand and fight!
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