“Most federal law enforcement attention has been aimed at growers and distributors of medical marijuana,” Bruce Mirken, director of communications for Marijuana Policy Project, said via e-mail. “The Feds treat all medical marijuana providers - no matter how ethical or law-abiding - as common drug dealers, directly undermining state and local efforts to separate those trying to follow California law from any bad guys who might abuse it.”
Although Prop. 215 allowed for medicinal marijuana to be used in the state, federal law does not allow for the medicinal use of marijuana. Any person who grows, distributes or is in possession of marijuana can still be arrested and prosecuted under federal law.
A marijuana growing room
Photo taken from DEA Web site
“Because we enforce the federal drugs laws of the United States, we don’t recognize Proposition 215,” Drug Enforcement Agency Special Agent Casey McEnry said via telephone. “According to federal drug statutes, there is no medicinal use for marijuana… All marijuana, regardless of its purported use or destination, is illegal under federal law.”
Former California Assemblyman John Vasconcellos, who wrote a supporting ballot argument for Prop. 215 in 1996, said opposition arguments to marijuana’s medicinal value constitute “the most flagrant denial of the latest scientific evidence, generated by thoroughly objective scientific studies conducted under all the right federal and research protocols.”
Vasconcellos also said the DEA’s pursuit of marijuana users and distributors in California is “the silliest waste of precious federal resources in the history of the United States government.”
“This is simply a common sense issue of our upholding the will of the people of California in their enacting of Proposition 215,” Vasconcellos said.
Clyde Baker, who owns and operates the Hugs Alternative Care medicinal marijuana dispensary in Sacramento, said Californians clearly support medicinal marijuana.
“We voted this in… it won by a landslide,” Baker said. “We’re in the state of California and (medicinal marijuana) was voted legal. I know that the (federal) government takes preference over state, but the point is the people of California want this and need it.”
Prop. 215, also known as the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, was passed with 55.6 percent of the vote. Recent research indicates that support among Californians has only grown since then. A January 2004 Field Poll found that 74 percent of registered voters favored the implementation of Prop. 215.
Proponents of medicinal marijuana, such as Prop. 215 co-author Dennis Peron, said there have been many positive impacts from the proposition, with few new issues arising.
“It turned people around on marijuana,” Peron said. “People always used it - now they have been educated.”
“The biggest change is that many thousands of patients no longer live in fear and many doctors have become educated about marijuana’s use,” Mirken said. “Also of interest, teen use of marijuana has dropped remarkably after rising in the early and mid-90s.”
Although there is no state data on marijuana usage by teens, arrest statistics appear to support Mirken’s claim. According to statistics from the Web site of the California Department of Justice, juvenile felony marijuana arrests declined by more than 36 percent between 1996 and 2005.
However, McEnry said that over the last few years there has been a significant increase in underground illegal marijuana operations, mostly due to their large profitability, lenient state penalties and “a permissive attitude towards the drug” on behalf of the public.
“You hear a lot of times, ‘Oh, it’s just marijuana, it’s no big deal,’” McEnry said.
McEnry also said the DEA does not know if marijuana from these operations is intended for dispensaries when raids are conducted.
“When we find these operations, there’s no way of knowing where (the marijuana is) going to go,” McEnry said.
The dispensaries themselves are also susceptible to DEA raids, and Baker said the agency has sent his landlord a letter in which it warned that it could seize the property currently occupied by Hugs. However, Baker said he has not heard of any examples of the federal government actually confiscating the land a dispensary was built upon.
“It’s a scare tactic,” Baker said.
Another concern for dispensaries has been constant robberies. Baker said his dispensary has been robbed twice and broken into once since he first started distributing marijuana there eight months ago.
“Every dispensary in this town last year was robbed at one time or another, I think,” Baker said.
“A number of dispensaries have been robbed at gun point because marijuana is a sought-after commodity and has a high street value,” said Sgt. Matt Young, public information officer for the Sacramento Police Department.
Despite the frequency of theft, Baker said marijuana dispensaries do not attract crime or adversely affect the neighborhoods they inhabit.
“The dispensaries have not had any problems like people loitering and any neighborhood complaints,” Young said.
Furthermore, Baker said the Sacramento police officers he has talked to are behind his business “100 percent.”
“When we got robbed, they told me, ‘You know, one thing about these dispensaries – it’s taking a lot of crime off the street and it’s freeing us up to go chase the meth monsters and the heroin addicts and stuff like that,’” Baker said.
Proponents of Prop. 215 contend that the ballot measure has had a positive impact in California, and both Baker and Peron said they would like to see medicinal marijuana becoming legalized across the country.
Hugs Alternative Care medicinal marijuana dispensary
Photo credit: Fernando Gallo
“Even if the federal government would control it, at least you’re giving the people the opportunity to choose their own medication,” Baker said.
“(Marijuana) is going to be accepted medicine,” Peron said. “Someday it will be at Walgreens - hopefully in my lifetime.”
“With the elections in November, and hopefully a Democrat in office, a new day is coming around for marijuana.”
The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department did not return a phone message seeking comment for this story.
Reporting by Walter Engman, Anna Torres and Fernando Gallo. Writing by Fernando Gallo.
Putting the compassion into the Compassionate Use Act
By Fernando Gallo
Customers come in and out of Hugs Alternative Care medicinal marijuana dispensary every day – but for owner and patient Clyde Baker, his dispensary is much more than just a business.
“I started out to get into it for the money, until I started seeing all these sick people,” Baker said. “And now, it’s all about the patients.”
Baker has operated Hugs for eight months, and in that span he said customers have come in with a variety of different ailments ranging from cancer and AIDS to arthritis and chronic back pain.
“There’s just so many diseases that this does help,” Baker said.
Baker said he gives away an average of $300 to $400 worth of marijuana every day, which he said is OK because it helps those in need.
“If you’re sick and you can’t afford medicine, which I’ve been there before…it’s screwed,” Baker said.
Certain customers have been particularly memorable to Baker, such as a Stockton man with back problems who Baker said can barely walk from his car to the door of the dispensary.
“I went and bought him a walker,” Baker said. “I sell him some weed, and then I give him some that he can smoke inside the dispensary here, and that kid can almost stand up straight and walk out of here - that’s a miracle.”
Despite the scrutiny on marijuana operations by the Drug Enforcement Agency, Baker said he won’t stop operating his dispensary.
“As long as I can see that I’m helping people, I’m not going to let the federal government bully me,” Baker said. “I’m going to say, ‘You know what? I’m going to stay open until you shut me down.’ I honestly feel that strongly about it.”
