Pubdate: Thu, 30 Aug 2007
Source: San Mateo County Times, The (CA)
Copyright: 2007 ANG Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.sanmateocountytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/392
Author: Michael Manekin, Staff Writer
Cited: San Mateo Police Department 
http://www.cityofsanmateo.org/dept/police/index.html
Cited: Americans for Safe Access http://www.americansforsafeaccess.org
Cited: California NORML http://www.canorml.org
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Americans+for+Safe+Access

SAN MATEO POT SHOPS RAIDED

Three Medical Cannabis Dispensaries Shuttered in Joint Action by DEA 
and Local Police

SAN MATEO -- In the largest Bay Area raid of medical marijuana 
dispensaries in nearly a year, federal agents stormed three medical 
cannabis outlets in downtown San Mateo on Wednesday afternoon and 
shut them down.

The DEA, accompanied by members of the San Mateo County Narcotics 
Task Force and the San Mateo Police Department, seized 50 pounds of 
processed marijuana, hashish, cannabis-laced edibles and 
approximately $30,000 in cash, according to a statement by the U.S. 
Department of Justice. No arrests were reported.

The raids occurred in the middle of the afternoon, and the three 
dispensaries were located in busy, commercial districts of the city 
- -- including one site in an office building in the city's commercial 
center on Third Avenue. "A bunch of guys with drawn guns dropped into 
the building and bashed the door down, shock-and-awe style," said 
Josh Snyder, an employee of an Internet startup in the Third Avenue 
office building.

A DEA spokesperson refused to identify the dispensaries, and the 
search warrants issued for the raids remain under seal, but the 
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws lists on its 
Web site three San Mateo dispensaries: Patients Choice Resource 
Cooperative, at 164 South Blvd.; Peninsula Patients Local Option, at 
397 S. Claremont St.; and MHT, at 60 E. Third Ave.

All three dispensaries were reportedly raided, according to Kris 
Hermes of Americans for Safe Access, an Oakland-based medical 
marijuana advocacy group. A fourth dispensary named Holistic 
Solutions closed voluntarily as a result of the raids, he said.

Federal agents did not say whether the raided dispensaries had 
violated the state's medical marijuana laws. However, they were all 
"in violation of federal law," said Cmdr. Mark Wyss of the county's 
Narcotics Task Force.

The use of medical marijuana with the recommendation of a doctor is 
legal in California under Proposition 215, passed by state voters in 
1996. In San Mateo County, 66 percent voted in favor of the measure.

However, federal law prohibits the possession of cannabis, and the 
city of San Mateo does not have local regulations pertaining to the 
distribution of medical marijuana.

According to NORML, which only lists dispensaries compliant with 
state and local marijuana laws on its Web site, the raided 
dispensaries had not violated state law.

Medical marijuana advocates and law enforcement officials said that 
the raids essentially wiped out the county's medical marijuana dispensaries.

"Of course, that's going to impact access for the patients who live 
in San Mateo and surrounding areas," said Hermes. "You're talking 
about the vast majority or all of the facilities in a particular region."

That the DEA would devastate one county's supply of medical marijuana 
is not "unprecedented," Hermes said. Last year, federal agents raided 
two dispensaries in Stanislaus County, which essentially cut off 
patients' access in that region.

"The federal government has been coming in and undermining the 
state's medical marijuana law," Hermes said. "There is an unrelenting 
amount of harassment currently going on by the federal government."

Hermes called the DEA's collaboration with San Mateo police and 
Narcotics Task Force "very distressing."

San Mateo City Councilman Brandt Grotte said that he was not aware 
that local police were working with federal agents on a nine-month 
investigation of the city's medical marijuana dispensaries.

"If it turns out that the activities that were being undertaken (at 
the dispensaries) were in compliance with the state law, then I would 
prefer that police were not involved locally, aside from being 
informed the raids were occurring.

"I have a lot of compassion for people who are suffering," said 
Grotte. "If they're in cancer treatment or something like that, I 
honestly believe that (marijuana) can have therapeutic value."

Outside the shuttered dispensaries in San Mateo on Wednesday 
afternoon, that seemed to be the prevailing view among the 
eyewitnesses to the raids.

Michael Gilbert was standing across the street from the Patients 
Choice Resource Cooperative when "the DEA just came down like a ton 
of bricks," he said -- an operation he emphatically disagreed with.

"I don't smoke dope," said Gilbert, "but that's what I think."

"Oh, man, that's not dope -- that's medical marijuana," said Glenn 
Owens, the owner of a lawn-mower repair shop next to the dispensary. 
"There are people who actually use it for medical purposes -- and to 
deny them that is wrong."

Jason Marshalla, a 19-year-old college student from Mountain View, 
was one of a handful of patients who attempted to stop by the 
Peninsula Patients Local Option on South Claremont Street late 
Wednesday afternoon.

Standing outside the shuttered dispensary, he said he smokes medical 
marijuana to treat his Attention Deficit Disorder -- a treatment 
which helps him do his homework better, he said. His aunt, he said, 
takes THC pills (a distillation of the psychoactive ingredient in 
marijuana) to treat her cancer, and a friends' mom uses marijuana to 
ease her arthritis.

Marshalla traveled all the way from Mountain View to San Mateo, he 
said, because the city harbors the closest dispensaries to his home 
in the South Bay.

Now, he said, he would have to travel to Hayward, the next-closest 
location -- a prospect he called "inconvenient."

"Now, I have to go really far to get it," he said. "It's probably 
going to be the same now for a lot of people."

The last large-scale raids of Bay Area medical marijuana dispensaries 
by the DEA came in October 2006, when federal agents stormed about a 
half-dozen locations in San Francisco and Oakland, seizing about 
13,000 plants and arresting 15 people. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake