Pubdate: Wed, 28 Nov 2012
Source: Press Democrat, The (Santa Rosa, CA)
Copyright: 2012 The Press Democrat
Contact:  http://www.pressdemocrat.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/348
Author: Mary Callahan

FEDS SUBPOENA MENDOCINO COUNTY POT RECORDS

Mendocino County officials are under federal orders to surrender
records from their now-suspended medical marijuana permitting program,
raising questions about the fate of those named in the permits as well
as more than $800,000 in fees collected from pot growers.

But Sheriff Tom Allman, whose department was tapped to run the program
approved in March 2010, said the exercise may be worthwhile if it
brings some clarity to a murky legal area in which state and federal
law conflicts.

"The federal government surely isn't going to tell me what their game
plan is," Allman said Tuesday. "I'm certainly willing to tell them
everything about the program possible, with the hopes that we're
getting closer to getting an answer about the law."

The subpoenas, issued quietly last month by a federal grand jury, mark
the latest volley in a federal crackdown on California's medical
marijuana industry. Over the past two years, federal authorities have
stepped up enforcement efforts against medical marijuana, raiding
farms and shutting down dispensaries.

Critics say the U.S. Attorney's Office is attempting to undermine
California law authorizing medical marijuana use. Its current stance
marks a departure from the 2009 guidelines issued by U.S. Attorney
General Eric Holder, who vowed to prosecute criminals using medical
marijuana claims as a front for illegal drug distribution but said
federal authorities would not focus on individuals operating in
compliance with state laws.

"The question is, why is the federal government using resources in
this way when people are growing all over the state in a similar
fashion?" asked Kris Hermes, a spokesman for Americans For Safe
Access, a national organization. "Why is there such determination to
undermine what Mendocino County was trying to do, and hopefully will
continue to do in the future, once it gets the federal government off
its back?"

A federal grand jury convened by the U.S. Attorney's Northern
California District issued the subpoenas for the county's
first-of-its-kind regulatory program last month, even though the
county already had suspended the program in January under threat of a
federal lawsuit.

Until then, the county ordinance permitted medical marijuana users to
grow up to 25 plants and collectives to seek waivers permitting up to
99 plants, as long as they complied with a host of regulations
designed to mitigate problems like odor, environmental degradation,
water theft, burglary, overloaded electrical circuitry and the like.

Applicants paid $1,500 for a permit, as well as monthly inspection
fees of about $500, and $50 each for individually numbered zip ties
designed to identify every authorized plant.

Over the past two years, the county collected $829,726 from growers.
The fees were intended to reimburse the short-staffed Sheriff's Office
for the cost of administering the program, Allman said.

In the first year, there were 18 permittees. In the 2011-2012 fiscal
year, there were 95 entities that applied for the permits, 91 of which
were approved, Allman said.

But the permit application included a waiver acknowledging it did not
confer immunity from prosecution by federal authorities, who maintain
that all marijuana use violates federal law despite inconsistent
enforcement.

Marijuana advocates say the Obama administration has taken
contradictory positions on enforcement. Court decisions have further
confused the issue by bolstering medical marijuana regulations in the
face of federal law.

County officials declined to say specifically what records the federal
government wants or whether they are redacting any information before
releasing the documents.

Most county officials declined even to confirm the existence of the
subpoenas, citing instructions from Mendocino County Counsel Tom
Parker, who also declined comment.

But privately, sources familiar with the subpoenas said they worry
federal authorities will seize revenue raised through the program.

Some suggested the county was a victim of its own success -- that the
U.S. attorney wanted to eliminate a working model for medical
marijuana regulation and make a poster child out of Mendocino County
so others would not follow its example.

"The program up there was the subject of national attention," said
Oakland attorney Bill Panzer, co-author of Proposition 215, the 1996
initiative that legalized medical marijuana in California. "
'Frontline' did a story about it. Other communities were watching what
they were doing. . . . I suspect that they (federal officials) are
interested in forfeiture and taking away the money."

Supervisor Dan Hamburg, who has been a medical marijuana user and was
not on the board when the code was approved, once said he feared the
county's program would draw federal attention, calling it tantamount
to "painting too big a target on our backs."

Now that he's on the Board of Supervisors, Hamburg said his job is to
"make this come out as well as it can for the county as a whole." The
greatest risk, he said, is the financial impact of the federal
government's investigation.

But like some other officials who suggested some information might be
redacted from any records turned over to the U.S. attorney, Hamburg
said he hoped the county might find some way to safeguard the privacy
of permit applicants.

Like law enforcement officials around California who have struggled to
find direction in the 16 years since California voters approved
medical marijuana use in defiance of federal law, Allman said he is
frustrated by having made repeated efforts to get federal guidance on
the matter.

Allman said he even laid out Mendocino County's permit program to
Northern District U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag at a conference last year
hoping to resolve any problems at that point.

"She was fully aware of what we were doing and how we were doing it,
and I thought that transparency was very, very important. Because if
we're going to do this -- and Attorney General Eric Holder had made
the statement that the Justice Department would not interfere with any
state medical marijuana process -- then we were going down a road that
had never been gone down before, and that's why I tried to tell her as
much about it as possible."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt