cannabisnews.com: Big Dispute In City Pot Bust 





Big Dispute In City Pot Bust 
Posted by CN Staff on July 01, 2004 at 08:42:05 PT
By Paul T. Rosynsky, Staff Writer
Source: Oakland Tribune 
Oakland -- A routine traffic stop Wednesday afternoon for an illegal turn resulted in the discovery of what could be the largest pot-growing operation ever found by police in the city. But what the California Highway Patrol described as "a major criminal grow" is being claimed by medical marijuana advocates as a legitimate business operation for one of three city-approved medical marijuana clubs.
The dueling descriptions coupled with the past criminal history of the building's owner and the involvement of a federal drug enforcement agency turned what appeared to be a simple drug bust into a possible test of the city's medical marijuana laws. The CHP said it is turning the case over to the DEA, which doesn't recognize the state's medical marijuana law. "That place is so medical. It is so medical," said Angel McClary Raich, a medical marijuana advocate and user who worked on the Oakland law. "The people that were involved in that were basically getting the blessing of the city. The California Highway Patrol should not have just busted through the door." The Highway Patrol did just that shortly after 2 p.m. following a traffic stop two hours earlier -- and three blocks away -- that resulted in an officer finding 88 marijuana plants in the back of what was described as a U-Haul truck. The officer stopped the truck after its driver made an illegal turn, police said. As he walked up to the truck, the officer smelled marijuana, conducted a search and found the plants and "documentation" that led officers to the warehouse at 2638 Market St., police said. Once there, officers saw three people run from the building. They caught all three, went inside to search for more suspects and found almost 2,000 plants worth "several millions of dollars," police said. "Our officers noticed the smell as soon as they arrived," said Lt. Rob Patrick. "This is a major criminal grow." Patrick said the four arrested, the driver and three people found at the warehouse, all were born in the mid-1970s and live in San Leandro, Richmond, Santa Clara and Oakland. Bob Berry, owner of Berry Bros. Towing, which owns a lot and a warehouse next to the growing operation, said his employees began smelling the drug last week. "One of my guys said it smelled like marijuana to him," Berry said. "They told us they were contractors fixing up homes in West Oakland and using the warehouse as offices." Also being investigated is the building's owner, Thomas Grossi, a pawnbroker arrested several years ago on two counts of transporting narcotics for sale and distribution, police said. That charge resulted in the city of Oakland revoking Grossi's pawnbroker permit. Contacted by the Oakland Tribune, Grossi denied knowledge of the growing operation and said he leased the building to others, whom he refused to identify. "Holy mackerel, Holy Jesus," he said. "This is such a shock, I didn't know anything about this." In September 2003, Grossi, then owner of a medical marijuana club in Oakland, told the Tribune the clubs were helping sick people and businesses in the city's Uptown neighborhood. "I can't emphasize that enough," he said at the time. "If you sit there on a daily basis, you will see people who are definitely ill and seeking comfort and solace and relief." Grossi, however, refused to discuss his past Wednesday, including the prior criminal charges, which he said were misdemeanors. The connections between the growing operation, the city's medical marijuana laws and the Highway Patrol's decision to call in federal agents troubled medical marijuana advocates. They questioned why the city's police department was not called and said it is too much of a coincidence that a traffic stop blocks away led to the bust. By having federal agents involved, federal drug charges could be used to prosecute the growers, setting up another challenge between federal, local and state medical marijuana laws, advocates said. Raich, whose fight against the federal government over the legalization of medical marijuana is blazing a path through the country's legal system, said the Highway Patrol broke the law when it entered the warehouse. In addition, she said the federal government should have never been called to investigate because the plants were being grown legally under city laws. Raich sued the federal government in 2002 for violating California's medical marijuana law when federal agents began raiding medical marijuana clubs. That suit resulted in a court battle, which the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear. A federal appeal court ruled in Raich's favor last December and she has been given permission to use marijuana for medical purposes. Jeff Jones, director of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative, also said the plants were being grown legally under city laws. "There will be a medical claim," he said. "It is tied to one of the three clubs in the city." City officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday night. Highway Patrol Spokesman Wayne Ziese rejected the medical marijuana claims. "Why would the suspects run if they are operating a legitimate business?" he said. "The grow is so sizable and sophisticated, this is not a minor mom and pop type grow."Staff writers Kristin Bender, Robert Gammon, Laura Counts and correspondent Alicia Wittmeyer contributed to this report. Source: Oakland Tribune (CA)Author: Paul T. Rosynsky, Staff WriterPublished: Thursday, July 01, 2004 Copyright: 2004 MediaNews Group, Inc. Contact: triblet angnewspapers.com Website: http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:Oakland Cannabis Buyers Clubhttp://www.rxcbc.org/Angel Raich v. John Ashcroft Newshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/raich.htmProtecting Patients' Rightshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19104.shtmlMarijuana Backers Pleased by Justices' Decisionhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19093.shtml Key Medical Pot Case To Be Heardhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19092.shtml
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Comment #8 posted by FoM on July 02, 2004 at 08:15:51 PT
Related Video from KTVU
http://www.ktvu.com/news/3484222/detail.html
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on July 01, 2004 at 23:09:03 PT
Related Article from The Associated Press
Four Charged In Oakland Pot Bust July 1, 2004SAN FRANCISCO -- Four people were charged in federal court Thursday for growing thousands of marijuana plants in Oakland in a case that pits medical marijuana advocates against the federal government.The drugs were found after a routine traffic stop Wednesday. Medical marijuana advocates allege that plants are being grown legally under city laws.Jesse Nieblas, Jacek Mroz, Heleno Dearaujo and Celeste Angello face two charges each of marijuana cultivation. They appeared Thursday in federal court in San Francisco. Oakland resident Angel Raich, 38, said that the "warehouse was definitely medical." Raich uses marijuana with her doctor's approval to treat pain, nausea and seizures associated with a brain tumor and a wasting syndrome.Authorities said the building had no permits to grow medical marijuana under Proposition 215, the state initiative approved by voters in 1996 that legalized medicinal cannabis with a doctor's recommendation."There is absolutely nothing we have seen thus far to indicate anything but a criminal enterprise," CHP Lt. Rob Patrick said.The events that led to the discovery started at noon Wednesday, when a CHP officer stopped a truck for making an illegal U-turn. A strong marijuana smell motivated the officer to search the vehicle, where he found 88 plants as well as paperwork that led the CHP to a warehouse, where 2,000 additional plants where found, said Lt. Rob Patrick.CHP officers arrested three people who began running away from the building as soon as they arrived. The driver of the truck also was arrested."Why would the suspects run if they are operating a legitimate business?" CHP spokesman Wayne Ziese said. "The grow is so sizable and sophisticated, this is not a minor mom and pop type grow."Authorities said that the building's owner, Thomas Grossi, is being investigated. Grossi was arrested several years ago on two counts of transporting narcotics for sale and distribution, police said.Grossi denied knowledge of the growing operation to the Oakland Tribune and said he leased the building to others, whom he refused to identify.CHP has turned the case over to the Drug Enforcement Agency, which doesn't recognize the state's medical marijuana law.According to authorities, the plants are worth "several millions of dollars." Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press
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Comment #6 posted by cloud7 on July 01, 2004 at 10:00:48 PT
MaxFlowers
"I am forced to agree it makes them look mighty guilty."Agreed, but even if they were legitimate medical growers they had more than enough reason to fear the cops.
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Comment #5 posted by Truth on July 01, 2004 at 10:00:09 PT
Billos
You have a lot of nerve knocking Lt. Rob Patrick's intelligence, not every cop can tell if a grow is criminal or medical by the smell alone. : )
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Comment #4 posted by Max Flowers on July 01, 2004 at 09:58:03 PT
This is how they do it
- The officer stopped the truck after its driver made an illegal turn, police said. - This part, which starts it all off in the chain of "events", is the CHP officer's word against the driver's. No way to prove the officer is lying. How convenient...- As he walked up to the truck, the officer smelled marijuana, conducted a search and found the plants and "documentation" that led officers to the warehouse at 2638 Market St., police said. - The old sniff and search. Again, if this is a ruse supporting a larger surveillance and federal operation, there is no way to prove it. Hopefully the driver wasn't stupid enough to be smoking while driving and the officer smelled that. But I don't believe he could smell plants closed up inside a U-Haul truck while standing on a busy Oakland street.- Once there, officers saw three people run from the building. They caught all three, went inside to search for more suspects and found almost 2,000 plants worth "several millions of dollars," police said. - If true that guys ran, that is really dumb, and I am forced to agree it makes them look mighty guilty.- "Our officers noticed the smell as soon as they arrived," said Lt. Rob Patrick. "This is a major criminal grow." -As soon as they gained entry, maybe... those big Oakland growers are usually pretty professional and I seriously doubt they would have been allowing odor to escape the building. If they did, however, they were already doomed to be either busted or ripped off. At any rate, the cops would *say* they smelled it anyway, to support their story of probable cause and chain of events in their "investigation." Another thought I have about these comments is that the intensity of the smell is not linked to the criminality of the grow as Lt Patrick would like to suggest. A small medical grow at someone's house, if they were not using odor control (carbon filtration), would smell just as strong when you walk in the house as a huge warehouse grow would. So that statement is BS. 
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Comment #3 posted by cloud7 on July 01, 2004 at 09:56:15 PT
I wonder why
"Highway Patrol Spokesman Wayne Ziese rejected the medical marijuana claims."Why would the suspects run if they are operating a legitimate business?" he said. "The grow is so sizable and sophisticated, this is not a minor mom and pop type grow.""Let me tick off the reasons for Lord Ziese:1. They won't get a fair trial.2. The state will financially ruin them if it can't get a conviction.3. Being raped is not high on their priority list.4. They've correctly learned to fear cops rather than view them as protectors.5. They were well aware that the armed thugs running to "check out the place" did not give a damn whether this was a legitimate business or not. They had seizure profits in their eyes.
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Comment #2 posted by billos on July 01, 2004 at 09:38:07 PT
Huh??
Our officers noticed the smell as soon as they arrived," said Lt. Rob Patrick. "This is a major criminal grow." Lt Rob Patrick...............you ARE a moron.
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Comment #1 posted by Truth on July 01, 2004 at 09:07:35 PT
chips
Sounds like the CHP is unwilling to follow state law. WTF????
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