cannabisnews.com: It's 'Warfare' Medi-Pot Activists are Mad as Hell





It's 'Warfare' Medi-Pot Activists are Mad as Hell
Posted by CN Staff on December 14, 2005 at 12:51:22 PT
By David Rolland 
Source: San Diego City Beat
San Diego, CA -- Already steaming mad about the county Board of Supervisors’ decision to sue the state in federal court to overturn the law that allows sick people to use marijuana as medicine, activists who gathered in University Heights Monday night were furious about the raids on pot dispensaries that occurred earlier in the day—and vowing not to back down in the face of what they called federal law-enforcement intimidation.
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration on Monday led a multi-agency assault on 13 dispensaries in San Diego County, handcuffing whomever was inside the shops and confiscating products, computers and patient records. Tony Amarine, 32, who runs Utopia, an Ocean Beach dispensary, said the aggressive manner in which heavily armed agents came bursting into his shop made him feel like they must have thought it was al-Qaeda’s headquarters: “Guns to my forehead, handcuffed, down on the ground.” He pulled up a pant leg and revealed a bloody scrape he said he suffered when manhandled. A DEA spokesman didn’t return CityBeat’s call. Eight to 10 agents raided Utopia, Amarine estimated. Once the place was secured, he said, one agent opened an envelope and began to read its contents, a list of things they were searching for—“about a thousand things,” he said, adding that they left after three or four hours. “All I do is sell weed to sick people,” Amarine said, vowing to open again on Tuesday and then sue the federal government. Utopia serves 2,000 to 3,000 patients, he said, including 150 who are terminally ill. “They’re scared,” he said. “They’re not going to get medicine. They’re gonna go back to the streets… or they’re going to go without.” “Anne,” a 45-year-old patient who declined to give her real name, said she favors pot over prescription drugs for the fibromyalgia she suffers from. Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition that causes pain in muscles, ligaments and tendons and affects mostly women. In addition to relieving some of the pain, marijuana relaxes her muscles, eases her anxiety and helps her sleep. If she can’t get pot at a dispensary, Anne said, “I’ll exhaust my existing resources [and then] I’ll buy it back on the streets. That’s what Prop. 215 was trying to eliminate.” Prop. 215’s intent lay at the heart of the San Diego Police Department’s decision to take part in Monday’s raids. Assistant Police Chief Cheryl Meyers told CityBeat Tuesday that had the raids been only a product of the federal government’s attitude that medicinal marijuana is just as illegal as recreational marijuana, San Diego Police would not have participated. However, Meyers said, “we were convinced; the evidence was there” that each of the 13 locations raided were acting outside the boundaries of Prop. 215 and the city’s medical-marijuana guidelines. She said state and city laws do not allow for caregivers, which is what the dispensaries are supposed to be, to make a profit. “They’re jacking up the prices so steep [that] they’re making a profit off of the illness” of their patients, “and they were very loose in who they sold the marijuana to.” She added that in most cases, the dispensaries had more pot on hand than city law allows. The guidelines allow caregivers to have two pounds of pot and 48 plants. Most dispensaries had more, she said. One had psychedelic mushrooms; several had hash (although, she acknowledged that the police are struggling with whether or not hash—concentrated THC, the active ingredient in pot—is allowed. Of particular concern, Meyers said, was the fellow police officers found out in a Loma Portal dispensary parking lot who had two pounds of pot, $2,600 in cash and a firearm on him, and another guy coming into a Kearny Mesa dispensary with two pounds of pot who said he’d picked the stuff up in Palm Springs and had heard he could unload it at the dispensary for $3,000 and an $800 profit. That’s the sort of activity Meyers said San Diego doesn’t want or need. Both men were arrested. As for the patients who count on dispensaries, Meyers said, “they’ll have to find a caregiver that fits within the guidelines of Prop. 215.” In University Heights Monday evening, activist Dion Markgraaff, coordinator for the San Diego chapter of Americans for Safe Access, an organization that advocates on behalf of patients wanting to smoke pot to alleviate symptoms, helped organize the crowd of several dozen people at Twiggs coffeehouse. “I regard [the raids] as a political tactic used often by the U.S. government: low-intensity warfare,” he said. Markgraaff urged the crowd to gather downtown the next day to protest the government’s actions: “This day is going to live in history in this town, and we have to make the most of it.” Source: San Diego City Beat (CA)Author: David Rolland Published: December 14, 2005Copyright: 2005 San Diego City BeatContact: editor sdcitybeat.comWebsite: http://www.sdcitybeat.com/Related Articles & Web Site:Americans For Safe Accesshttp://www.safeaccessnow.org/Warrant Served After Drug Bought http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21378.shtmlU.S. Drug Agents Raid 13 Medical Marijuana Siteshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21376.shtmlCounty To Sue over Prop. 215 in Federal Courthttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21364.shtml
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Comment #7 posted by Richard Zuckerman on December 15, 2005 at 14:52:31 PT:
"IT'S JUST A GODDAMN PIECE OF PAPER!!"
Visit www.davidicke.com, click on his updated news stories, and scroll down to the news stories describing the responses President Bush made about a month ago to a Congressman's concern for renewal of the Patriot Act!!!
President Bush said he does not care about the U.S. Constitution and "it's just a Goddamn piece of paper!!!"
This is the same President Bush who once stated: "You can fool some of the people all of the time and these are the ones you need to concentrate on."Do you believe Kerry would have been any better of a U.S. President?? With his pro-United Nations, pro gun control, pro-war stances???Richard Paul Zuckerman, Post Office Box 159, Metuchen, New Jersey, 08840-0159, richardzuckerman2002 yahoo.com.
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Comment #6 posted by ekim on December 14, 2005 at 19:14:11 PT
Assistant Police Chief Cheryl Meyers told CityBeat
ok to much money is being made off the sale of med cannabis.so is it the option of the enforcers that we do live in a free country and the sale of such huge amounts are against the good will of said freedom ---and at the very least one should be able to possess-- at bare minimum cannabis as one can beer and wine ect.and can grow the [plant] as well. taken to court such a claim must be made so the deciding audience will be able to weigh the right of a US Citizen. to have the enforcers make the case for ending the Black Market is to publicly thank LEAP and sites like this for connecting billions of minds as to the true nature of this unjust war.
http://leap.cc/events
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Comment #5 posted by PainWithNoInsurance on December 14, 2005 at 18:27:29 PT
What Are The Intentions of This Government?
It makes me wonder what the government's intentions are in the war on drugs. The only sane intention would be to take drugs away from citizens because it's best for them. The thing that doesn't make sense is that if the govenment is looking out for the welfare of its citizens then why are they using violence, wrecking people's lives, and taking away their chance for a higher education? I think the war on drugs is the proper name------WAR---- and not a human helping a human, it's just a war of hate. Nobody listens to a hostile government talking about the dangers of drugs like meth, crack, or heroin. Being humane is the way to everything. 
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Comment #4 posted by FoM on December 14, 2005 at 13:59:13 PT
Toker00 and Kaptinemo
Toker00, I'm sorry that you went to the bother and it didn't come about.Kaptinemo it doesn't surprise me.
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Comment #3 posted by kaptinemo on December 14, 2005 at 13:46:18 PT:
Guess who's in San Diego?
Ol' Johnny Pee, no doubt to deliver the official Pat on the Head and the ONDCP Doggie Biscuit to reward the 'supervisors' for their recent performance in the DrugWar Dog-and-Pony Show personally.I think being chained to a yard-stake out back and forced to eat what your average non-violent drug offender has to in prison would be more appropriate. Down! Bad Supervisors! Bad, bad! (Whapp! with rolled up newspaper) Not 'sposed to dookie in the taxpayer's house, on the carpet they've paid for! No more taxpayer provided goodies for your bank account! Off to the shelter for you!
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Comment #2 posted by Toker00 on December 14, 2005 at 13:32:50 PT
What a dud.
I showed up in down town Houston at the Federal Building today, like I said I would, ready to shout down the injustices done to sick people by the DEA and Cannabis Prohibition. Twelve o'clock came and no one showed. No ASA. No Norml. Two people, me and a woman. Signs, but no permit. I asked the cops if they were expecting a protest here today. They said no permit had been issued by the city. Stayed til 12:30 anyway,just to make sure. I suppose it was due to the bad weather that was coming, but the weather was fine at 12:30. The lady who was walking around looking for a protest like me was only on her lunch break, but she was there. Two people in a city of FOUR MILLION. Sucked.FoM, I apologize if this is one of those long addresses you have to fix. You can delete it if it gives you probs. I just wanted to see if anyone else believes this looks like a call to gather. Ok. So it was the weather. It was a rainout and not a cop out. I have to believe that. It still sucked. K. Done. I will sheath my signs for another battle.Wage peace on war. END CANNABIS PROHIBITION NOW!http://houstonnorml.org/nuke//modules.php?name=NuCalendar&op=ShowEvent&month=12&day=14&year=2005&eventid=34
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Comment #1 posted by runruff on December 14, 2005 at 13:07:46 PT:
eight to ten agents?
Even recovering from heart surgery I must be a baaaaaaad man. It took forty armed gun toting Gestapo to raid my little mountain cabin. Not a gun on the place. twenty to ransack my house twenty to tear down my operation. I must really rate. Just call me Bill the Bud. With respect if you please.
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