Feds Target California's Highest Profile Dispensary
Harborside Health Center, California's largest and most well-known medical marijuana dispensary, has been targeted for closure by federal prosecutors. Workers at the dispensary's home base in Oakland and at its second store in San Jose found complaints from US Attorney Melinda Haag's office taped to their doors when they came to work Monday morning.
[image:1 align:left]The complaints inform Harborside that federal prosecutors have filed lawsuits seeking to seize the properties where it operates under federal asset forfeiture laws.
In the past year, federal prosecutors in California have undertaken a concerted campaign against dispensaries, sending out more than 300 letters to dispensaries or landlords threatening asset forfeiture or criminal prosecution or both. More than 400 dispensaries have closed their doors during that same period, many of them because of the federal threats.
If Harborside is going to join that list, it won't be without a fight.
"Harborside has nothing to hide or be ashamed of," said executive director Steve DeAngelo in a prepared statement. "We will contest the DOJ action openly and in public, and through all legal means at our disposal. We look forward to our day in court, and are confident that justice is on our side."
Harborside maintains that it has complied with all local and state laws and that it was not within 1,000 feet of a school, another rationale the Justice Department is using to target dispensaries even though state law is set at 600 feet.
Shutting down Harborside would be a major blow to Oakland. The dispensary employs over a hundred people there and is the city's second largest retail tax payer. Of more than $3 million in combined taxes paid by Harborside last year, more than a million went to the city.
"The claim by the Obama Administration that it's not undermining the laws of medical marijuana states like California is becoming less and less tenable," said Don Duncan, California Director of Americans for Safe Access, the country's leading medical marijuana advocacy group. "The Attorney General and the president must be held accountable for actions by their U.S. Attorneys that are harming untold numbers of patients."
Harborside and its supporters are gathering their forces for what promises to be a long and bruising battle with the Justice Department. This story is just getting underway.
Comments
Not without a fight...
This is ridiculous. I've been following the shut downs, and have many friends that are being directly effected, either back a lack of medication, loss of employment, or incarceration. How do we live in a nation where everyone screams for Less Government Control, and yet, the people let the government get away with atrocities such as these?
Not without a fight...
This is ridiculous. I've been following the shut downs, and have many friends that are being directly effected, either back a lack of medication, loss of employment, or incarceration. How do we live in a nation where everyone screams for Less Government Control, and yet, the people let the government get away with atrocities such as these?
Decriminalization could help slow the federal deficit
Estimates show that marijuana is America’s number one cash crop, making more money than corn and tobacco. However, marijuana remains untaxed.
Over 500 of the nation’s top economic professors from prestigious schools such as Harvard, MIT, University of Chicago and George Mason University have shared their opinion in supporting the removing the prohibition and imposing the taxation and regulation of marijuana as a way to slow the federal deficit.
Please join electedface.com and sign the petition at electedface.com supporting the taxation and regulation of marijuana.
When you sign up for electedface members will automatically be connected to their state legislatures, allowing users to lobby their point of view in numbers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_tUy6fylQs
In reply to Decriminalization could help slow the federal deficit by electedface (not verified)
Discriminatory law enforcement is a tax
The Supreme Court says a "penalty" for not buying health insurance is a tax. Well, the outrageous high price of cannabis, caused by government intervention to terrorize and sabotage supply, is a TAX.
2 packs of $igarettes-- about an ounce net weight of tobacckgo-- cost less than twenty dollars tax-included but cannabis costs $200-- time for some TAX DEDISCRIMINATION. (Before another 800,000 kids across the USA get steered toward niggotine $igarette addiction...)
Legalize, reduce price to $20/oz., THEN put on a nice tax-- $5/oz.?
Feds Deliver Guns to Drug Cartels—Shutdown Patient Dispensarie
Is it hypocrisy that while the Justice Department wages a campaign against Northern California medical Marijuana dispensaries and forfeits the real estate, attorney general (Holder) is charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to handover Fast & Furious Documents that pertain to Justice Dept. assisting the delivery of 2000 guns to Mexican Drug Cartels—expected to be used in crimes? An estimated 200-Mexican Citizens and one U.S. Border Patrol Agent were reported killed by those guns. It is foreseeable the Justice Department's closure of Northern CA medical Marijuana dispensaries will escalate the demand for illegal marijuana benefiting organized crime.
class action
Its time to file class action and stop paying taxes to a gov that views us as criminals.
Maybe we should take tax money of millions in protest and support real criminals since that is how we are classified. Its call we the people not we the government, in taking funds away from them then no fund to hurt us.
Sad what no rights means to all of us and more so after Patriot act.
In the past year, federal
An estimated 200-Mexican
Add new comment