A Superior Court judge granted an injunction on Wednesday calling for the closure of California’s largest medical marijuana dispensary. Club proprietor Dennis Peron, who says his operation serves some 9,000 patients, told reporters that he will defy the order.
“You cannot just throw people out in the street; you cannot just stop the will of the people,” he said. “We are fighting for the will of the people here.”
Judge David Garcia said that the club overstepped the provisions of the state’s medical marijuana law that legalized the possession and cultivation of the drug for medical use. “The Court finds uncontradicted evidence in this record that defendant Peron is currently engaging in the illegal sales of marijuana,” Garcia declared.
Garcia’s decision reversed his January 1996 ruling authorizing the club to engage in the not-for-profit sale of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Garcia’s earlier ruling was rejected by the state Court of Appeals, First Appellate District.
This latest decision okays state Attorney General Dan Lungren’s request for a nuisance abatement order allowing the club to be seized and closed by either the county sheriff or the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement.
NORML Executive Director R. Keith Stroup, Esq. said that medical marijuana dispensaries such as the San Francisco Cultivators’ Club perform a legitimate public health service for the community. “Cannabis buyers’ clubs remain the only viable source of medical marijuana in California short of home cultivation or purchasing marijuana on the street,” he said. “To close these clubs would force thousands of seriously ill patients to suffer needlessly and force many patients to enter the black market or go without the marijuana they need to survive.”
For more information, please contact either Keith Stroup of NORML @ (202) 483-5500 or Dale Gieringer of California NORML @ (415) 563-5858. Dennis peron may be contacted at Californians for Compassionate Use @ (415) 621-3986.
