“Effective immediately, any person who makes unauthorized entry into medical marijuana dispensaries operating lawfully under state jurisdiction will be subject to coordinated grass-roots resistance”
Washington, DC: Medical marijuana patients and activists targeted an estimated 60 Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) offices today in a nationwide “Day of Action” to protest the federal government’s increasing crackdown on California’s medical marijuana patients and dispensaries.
The planned protest came only days after federal agents raided the Aiko Compassion Center – a medical marijuana dispensary in Santa Rosa, California – and arrested two of the club’s proprietors. The raid is the fourth since October, following the busts of high-profile medicinal cannabis cooperatives in Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Francisco.
Although federal law enforcement officers have publicly denied that they are targeting medical marijuana clubs – dozens of which have operated openly and with the support of community officials since the passage of California’s Proposition 215 in 1996 – court records obtained this week by The Santa Rosa Press Democrat reveal that last week’s raid was not related to any larger drug trafficking operation. Federal anti-drug agents had been conducting surveillance on the club for four months, the court documents show.
“It’s a sad commentary on the Justice Department that it’s made more arrests for medical marijuana than terrorism in California,” said California NORML Coordinator Dale Gieringer, who notes that federal authorities yesterday also filed a forfeiture action against the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center building.
Fearing additional raids by the federal government in both California and other states that have legalized the use of medical pot, patients and marijuana-law reformers retaliated today by confronting DEA outposts in 60 cities and presenting the Feds with “Cease and Desist” orders stating: “Effective immediately, any person who makes unauthorized entry into medical marijuana dispensaries operating lawfully under state jurisdiction will be subject to coordinated grass-roots resistance.”
Americans for Safe Access, which coordinated the protests, called the demonstrations an escalation “of our resistance to the federal government’s expanding war on democracy and patients in need of safe access to medical marijuana.”
In Washington DC, several drug law reformers demonstrated by chaining themselves to the entrance of the Department of Justice. Ten individuals were arrested in the protest, including Kevin Zeese, president of Common Sense for Drug Policy. Zeese called the direct action necessary because the Feds have done “everything they can to block the seriously ill from getting their medicine.”
“We still hope the federal government will come to its senses,” Zeese said. “But today we needed to make a statement. We will not go away. We will no longer tolerate any more injustice. We will stand together against [the federal government’s] denial of medicine. And in the end, we will prevail.”
NORML Executive Director Keith Stroup said nationwide protests demonstrate the marijuana-law reform community’s resolve to stand up for the rights of the seriously ill and those who provide medicine for them. “These dispensaries play a necessary and positive role in their community: providing medicine in a safe and regulated environment, and present no threat to public safety,” he said. “By targeting these clubs and the patients who rely on them, the federal government is trying to stifle an entire movement. Today’s action is our way of letting the feds know that we are not about to stand by and let that happen.”
For more information, please contact Donna Shea, NORML Foundation Legal Director, at (202) 483-8751 or visit the Americans for Safe Access website at: http://www.safeaccessnow.org.