cannabisnews.com: Feds Raid Denver-Area Marijuana Dispensaries
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Feds Raid Denver-Area Marijuana Dispensaries
Posted by CN Staff on November 21, 2013 at 15:08:35 PT
By Jeremy P. Meyer and Eric Gorski, Denver Post
Source: Denver Post 
Denver -- Seven weeks before the nation's first retail marijuana shops open in Colorado, federal authorities Thursday morning raided more than a dozen Denver metro area marijuana facilities.In the largest federal raid on Colorado marijuana facilities since medical marijuana became legal, federal law enforcement agents with an assist from local police officers executed search and seizure warrants at multiple dispensaries and cultivation facilities throughout the region — at least a dozen in Denver alone.
At one raid in Boulder, a pile of seized marijuana lay in the snow like Christmas trees until a front-end loader scooped it up. At one of the largest dispensaries in the state — VIP Cannabis in Denver — broken glass from a shattered front window littered the parking lot while masked agents hauled boxes of evidence into a U-Haul truck. Police turned customers away. And the dispensary's website said it would be closed on Thursday and Friday.Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice in Denver, said the raids were being conducted by the Drug Enforcement Administration, Internal Revenue Service criminal investigations unit, the Denver Police Department and state and local law enforcement."Although we cannot at this time discuss the substance of this pending investigation, the operation under way today comports with the Department's recent guidance regarding marijuana enforcement matters," Dorschner said in his e-mailed statement to The Denver Post."While the investigation is ongoing, there are strong indications that more than one of the eight federal prosecution priorities identified in the Department of Justice's August guidance memo are potentially implicated," he said in a later statement.On Aug. 29, the U.S. Justice Department issued a memo to federal prosecutors revealing the federal government wouldn't stand in the way of marijuana legalization. The memo warned the federal government would still "aggressively enforce" eight areas of concern surrounding the drug:• Preventing distribution to minors;• Preventing revenue from marijuana sales from going to criminal enterprises, gangs, and cartels;• Preventing diversion of marijuana from states where it is legal to other states;• Preventing state-authorized marijuana activity from being used as a cover or pretext for the trafficking of other illegal drugs or other illegal activity; • Preventing violence and the use of firearms in the cultivation and distribution of marijuana• Preventing drugged driving and the exacerbation of other adverse public health consequences associated with marijuana use;• Preventing the growing of marijuana on public lands and the attendant public safety and environmental dangers posed by marijuana production on public lands; • Preventing marijuana possession on federal property.SnippedComplete Article: http://drugsense.org/url/Rs16WDblNewshawk: The GCWSource: Denver Post (CO)Author:  Jeremy P. Meyer and Eric Gorski, The Denver PostPublished: November 21, 2013Copyright: 2013 The Denver Post Website: http://www.denverpost.com/Contact: openforum denverpost.comCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml 
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Comment #7 posted by museman on November 22, 2013 at 12:38:59 PT
"What are police?"
"The LAW!"LEGALIZE FREEDOM
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Comment #6 posted by The GCW on November 22, 2013 at 10:02:26 PT
What are police?
In Miami Gardens, store video catches cops in the acthttp://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/21/3769823/in-miami-gardens-store-video-catches.htmlEarl Sampson has been stopped and questioned by Miami Gardens police 258 times in four years.He’s been searched more than 100 times. And arrested and jailed 56 times.Despite his long rap sheet, Sampson, 28, has never been convicted of anything more serious than possession of marijuana.Miami Gardens police have arrested Sampson 62 times for one offense: trespassing.Almost every citation was issued at the same place: the 207 Quickstop, a convenience store on 207th Street in Miami Gardens.But Sampson isn’t loitering. He works as a clerk at the Quickstop.So how can he be trespassing when he works there?It’s a question the store’s owner, Alex Saleh, 36, has been asking for more than a year as he watched Sampson, his other employees and his customers, day after day, being stopped and frisked by Miami Gardens police. Most of them, like Sampson, are poor and black.And, like Sampson, many of them have been cited for minor infractions, sometimes as often as three times in the same day.Saleh was so troubled by what he saw that he decided to install video cameras in his store. Not to protect himself from criminals, because he says he has never been robbed. He installed the cameras — 15 of them — he said, to protect him and his customers from police.Cont.
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Comment #5 posted by Sam Adams on November 22, 2013 at 08:31:33 PT
another perspective
great article on alternet, why are so-called cannabis activists more passive than a random alternet journalist? He seems to understand what's happening is far from normal treatment in our "society":http://www.alternet.org/drugs/mass-federal-raids-colorado-pot-hint-crackdown-pattern>>>it's easy to predict that more governments will conduct even more raids on the lightly-taxed medical marijuana industries as they exist Thursday. Any government to do so is only acting in their own financial interest. 
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Comment #4 posted by HempWorld on November 22, 2013 at 07:18:52 PT
The GCW
Well said!
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Comment #3 posted by The GCW on November 22, 2013 at 06:35:51 PT
Editorial in Denver Post
EDITORIAL
Making Colorado's marijuana industry toe the linehttp://www.denverpost.com/editorials/ci_24574789/making-colorados-marijuana-industry-toe-line-0-I recall instances where the Fed's have confiscated things, wearing black masks (as seen in photo's), and shut down business, involved with cannabis and did not make arrests or indicate what the charges were: This seems like that kind of situation.
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Comment #2 posted by Sam Adams on November 22, 2013 at 05:37:08 PT
federal
Also, when was the last time the feds did raids to enforce state alcohol laws? In my state it's all state agencies that enforce the liquor laws.  Sure hope people making careers doing this aren't selling us out.
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Comment #1 posted by Sam Adams on November 22, 2013 at 05:30:01 PT
bad sound bite Mason
>>>"We hope they are sticking to their word and not interfering with any state-regulated, law-abiding businesses. ... If a business is suspected of violating state laws, they will likely face increased scrutiny, and if they are found to be in violation, they will likely face consequences. That is how our society treats alcohol, and that is how we expect to see marijuana treated."No, it's not how "society" (actually the govt) treats alcohol at all! If they sell to minors they get a warning first, then after more offenses a license suspension, then after more offenses shut down.  If there are tax violations they get prosecuted by the IRS.There are no raids of alcohol businesses where are the supplies are stolen by the govt. and the building trashed by thugs. No, sorry Mason, not sure why you're defending these thugs.
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