cannabisnews.com: Cannabis Club Loses Its Lease, Shuts Down Cannabis Club Loses Its Lease, Shuts Down Posted by CN Staff on November 10, 2002 at 12:56:08 PT By Jeff McDonald, Union-Tribune Staff Writer Source: Union Tribune The Shelter from the Storm cannabis center operated by medical marijuana activist Steve McWilliams has closed, the casualty of a real estate transaction unrelated to a federal crackdown on such clubs. McWilliams, who was arrested by U.S. drug agents after his pot garden was uprooted in late September, said he lost the lease on the Normal Heights storefront when the building was sold. The resource center for medical marijuana, which attracted dozens of calls and visits a week by cancer, AIDS and other patients with chronic illnesses, closed shop late last month. "Now there's no information center for people to go to," said McWilliams, who faces five or more years in prison if he is convicted on the federal drug charges. "We were the only one operating in the entire county." McWilliams had been running the center off Adams Avenue for about two years. Before that, he set up various cooperative pot gardens and cannabis clubs across San Diego County under Proposition 215, a state law that allows people to grow and use marijuana with a doctor's recommendation. Federal drug officials never recognized that 1996 law and began cracking down on California cannabis clubs after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year held there was no medical necessity to violate federal drug laws. McWilliams worked closely with local law enforcement officials in setting up his pot garden according to guidelines proposed by a task force created by the San Diego City Council. Federal drug agents seized about two dozen plants Sept. 24 from McWilliams' residence, and he was arrested Oct. 11. He pleaded not guilty to unlawful cultivation and is awaiting trial. McWilliams closed the storefront, saying he had lost his lease and needed to concentrate on his criminal case. "I want to be as active a participant in my defense as I can," he said. Michael Barbee, a member of the city task force that proposed the medical marijuana guidelines now being weighed by City Hall, said he will continue on with the center, even without an office. Barbee said he will maintain a telephone information line to answer questions for people interested in using marijuana legally under Proposition 215. The message line is (619) 685-7505. "I've been getting eight or nine calls a day," Barbee said. "There's a void of information here in San Diego about how patients can follow the law." City officials are moving ahead with plans to issue identification cards to medical marijuana patients. About 1,500 to 3,000 patients are expected to apply for the cards. The City Council is expected to consider the proposed guidelines before the end of the year. Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)Author: Jeff McDonald, Union-Tribune Staff WriterPublished: November 10, 2002 Copyright: 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.Contact: letters uniontrib.comWebsite: http://www.uniontrib.com/Related Articles & Web Site:Medicinal Cannabis Research Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/research.htmPot Grower Gets Letter of Warning from DEAhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14191.shtmlActivist Prods S.D. on Medical Pot Rules http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14159.shtmlMarijuana Activists Give It Away at City Hall http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14144.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #1 posted by DdC on November 10, 2002 at 18:16:02 PT Why do they do it? Why would a patient give up (sometimes free) Pharmaceuticals to risk life, limb and property on an expensive plant with no medicinal value according to the vested interest D.E.A.th and N.I.D.E.A.th?Do these people really like pain or spasms or wasting away? Do they truly like the pressure and blindness and dementia and just not telling their AMA insured Doctors? Tax paid is better than free or nill leaving ganja alone by cops? Cops are better killing pheasant habitat and bullying polio patients than possibly getting hurt keeping neighborhoods safe. Or streets safe from legal drunks in SUV tanks. Honor the drugthugs and spend more taxes pisstasting the kids. Who get it from perverts down the line the same as the booze killing most young adults. We seem to be all freaked out about that, cause they won't be able to die fighting Sadamn? For crude Henry Ford shelved decades ago. Fixing it the same old way, over and over getting the same negative results, is business or insanity, depending on the source. Collateral damage to tie up more resources. They're all just wingnut burned out hippies deserving rape and violence in cages for minding their own business healing themselves. Helping the shunners and suffering who turned up their noses and switched the addiction of stigmatizing. Do unto others as someone did unto you? Vengeance? Believing the stigma, Shepparding groups into low self esteem to fight each other in the arena's. Knocking down ladders, pulling down each other from leaving the pits, out of obedience? What? What is this power holding normally ok people who aren't all that bad. What is so addictive to keep one and one from being two? What Supreme Court Judge can use the title without flinching? So supreme they can't find medicinal uses? How can a Congress person show up for work in the hallowed tombs of the forefathers, with raised eyebrows of disgust looking down on them. The world is of Bush and nothing else matters. Grand Theft of our Fundamental Rights while the Just Us Symptoms brute force supplies slavery as necessary for the betterment of the whole body of the thousand twinkles of Bush. The Untied State of Anemica exist cause of YOU who choose to live with this D.E.A.th wish.Take their Rainbow farms and kill em. Make em choke to D.E.A.th for illegally, non-medicinally removing the cruel symptoms of the Disease or side effects of the Pharmaceuticals. With NO thought of helping Bushit get wealthy "fixing" things he breaks. To stimulate the economy of the Military dropping smarter bombs in the sand than the kids shoveled through the processing pisstasting period.Groupie GOPer Demo crates. Keeping up with the Jones, Fascism must be fought with more Fascism! What's the difference is that these red haired left handed breeds are heathen liberals and minority races, enslaved back in cages for bringing home with them. Face it. It ain't so bad. Knowing what you do won't hurt anybody. Knowing that ganja is not meant for everybody. Knowing that no one can keep it from us. That those who don't know are those who ask for it. Those who do know don't ask, they use it. No one should obey the speed limit if the bridge is washing out and your on it. Take care of you, thats all you do. Don't put laws on me. Those who want to legitimize with blinders on to save their own destructive ways are pissing in the wind selling towels. We are born terminally ill. Why sweat the details of co-dependancing around the Mulberry Polls, ashes ashes we all fall down.Bless Yourselves for having the wisdom to search for the truth. Cannabis is used to treat bipolar. If that voice in your head, ain't you. You may be a candidate. If you know it is you. Then know you can do what whatever you want. You are giving feedback not God. It's been you all along. If your actions are harming others who are not harming others then you are doing the harm. Not in the name of anything, YOU are doing harm. You will be responsible for that harm. You are raping children. You are dropping bombs on innocents and you are poisoning preborn humans NOT in the name of anything. YOU personally will be judged! You standing by NOT getting involved. NOT learning all you can from independent sources. You voting to continue torturing citizens. You not voting to stop the torture of citizens. You who don't want to know. You that profit on not knowing. You that harm others by not stopping it. YOU personally will shed the karma one way or the other. You that holds onto worldly trinkets of fossil fools plastic and nuclear insanity and chemical adultery not using what each of YOU were born with. Common sense. 12 inches in a foot. Not because Bushit sits in residence. 5280 feet always equals a mile even if Wally D.E.A.th says its an inch. The buck naked boy prince notching his belt, making daddy Warbucks proud as hell. YOU who perpetuate this war. YOU suck his teat. YOU are the whores. YOU create the disease caused by adulterating the body with toxic profits of foreign Korpses, and taxes. YOU can stop it by leaving this one simple plant alone. Stop terminating its seeds. Stop the greed. Stop the prisons and the poisons. Stop the wars for crude oil heroin. Just one simple plant depending on stage of development. Can supply everyone in their own lands without poisoning the neighbors or babies or animals. Its not complicated, 12 inches equals a foot. Cannabis is stronger than redwoods or isn't. Its nutritional or not. Its organic not chemical or who tends the ditchweed, coincidentally accounting for the majority of busts. A rant a day and learn something new about yourself and your views, not blindly because someone said so. If it doesn't harm then don't try to fix it. You only create harm to fix. The cart only travels in front of the horse in a lie or a dream or virtual reality. Believing someone standing in the rain saying they're as dry as a bone, is being someone destined to stand in the rain trying to prove it someday. The day has come, you look very silly. Live for the moment and try to get through the day without doing anybody any harm. Ole Jerry Garcia said that alone is pretty hard and a major accomplishment with all the pitfalls of ordinary life. And if you can do that plus get through the day actually helping someone and making them feel better. Wow man, thats pretty special. How can you sit by or worse, perpetuate and profit on it? Inform yourself its perfectly natural to want the truth. Its the basics of communication, education and healing. Not profits on censorship, lies agreed upon History or the war on cannabis. Rise up and be counted! They have the money we have the souls, they have the bullets we have the earth, water, wind and fire of natural alternatives, the power of those living under tyranny is awesome in solidarity!Peace, Love and Liberty or D.E.A.th's O.N.D.C.PtionDdC"Certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extended aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there." - William E. Dodd, U.S. Ambassador to Germany, 1937. Continued... http://www.sumeria.net/politics/shadv3.htmlD.E.A.th Deceptions http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/ddc/DEAth.html Why do YOU think they call it dope? [ Post Comment ] Post Comment