Pubdate: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 Source: Los Angeles City Beat (CA) Copyright: 2005 Southland Publishing Contact: http://www.lacitybeat.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2972 Note: Also prints Los Angeles Valley Beat, often with similar content, and the same contact information. Author: David Rolland Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal) 'ALL I DO IS SELL WEED TO SICK PEOPLE' DEA Raids 13 Marijuana Dispensaries In San Diego Medical marijuana activists gathered in the University Heights area of San Diego on Monday, December 12, furious about raids on pot dispensaries and vowing not to back down in the face of what they called federal law-enforcement intimidation. Earlier that day, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration led a multi-agency assault on 13 dispensaries in San Diego County, handcuffing those 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. DEA Special Agent Misha Piastro, an agency spokesperson, said he was unaware of any injury incidents during the raids. The actions came, he said, after several instances in which dispensaries sold to undercover agents without prescriptions or I.D., as required by law. "One of the things being lost here is that trafficking in marijuana is still illegal under state law," Piastro said. 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 to help her battle fibromyalgia. 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." San Diego Police Department cooperated with the raids. Assistant Police Chief Cheryl 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 a man apprehended in the parking lot of a Loma Portal dispensary carrying two pounds of pot, $2,600 in cash, and a firearm. Another guy coming into a Kearny Mesa dispensary had two pounds of pot which, he said, he picked 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. 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." - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman