Then, on Oct. 5, 2011, the Obama administration really brought down the hammer. The IRS ruled that Harborside Health Center, a major weed dispensary in Oakland, owed $2.5 million in taxes because businesses engaged in crime can't declare a standard tax deduction.
Two days later, the four U.S. attorneys in California, including Andre Birotte Jr. in L.A., announced that landlords who lease stores or land to the pot industry had 45 days to close down or face seizure.
In some parts of the city, L.A. has taken just as hard a line. To hear officials talk, Angelenos live in some lawless dystopia, where cops are powerless to stop teeming hordes of potheads and dealers.
Capt. Bill Hart of LAPD's Gangs and Narcotics Division says, "The state of law in the city of Los Angeles is, quite frankly, in limbo, because of Pack. We are not enforcing our city ordinance right now."
This is technically true. But there are two ways to not enforce the ordinance — by letting all the dispensaries stay open, or by closing them all down.
Los Angeles is doing both.
On Monday, Jan. 30, LAPD narcotics officers from the Devonshire Division raided Herbal Medicine Care in Chatsworth, arresting three people and seizing $6,000 in cash and 50 pounds of marijuana. It was the last marijuana dispensary operating in Devonshire's jurisdiction, which covers the huge northwest corner of the San Fernando Valley, and the culmination of a three-year program (one dispensary owner called it a "pogrom") terminating, with extreme prejudice, one weed shop per month.
"There's a lot of people who do not understand a very simple concept: You cannot sell marijuana," says Detective Robert Holcomb. LAPD has shut down 37 locations, seizing $1.2 million and more than a ton of weed.
The seizures themselves are highly controversial. To get your money back from LAPD, you must file a claim in Los Angeles Superior Court and endure a civil jury trial. If the government wins, the arresting agency —LAPD — gets to keep more than half the cash it seizes.
The system gives cops like Holcomb and Hart a financial incentive. The potentially millions of dollars in seizure money goes to equipment but not to salaries or overtime pay, according to Holcomb.
Holcomb is helping to lead LAPD's approach, developing an "investigating protocol" to shut down dispensaries, which involves not only arrests and seizures but also interrogating the surprised, and almost certainly displeased, customers who stop by.
"Once we take over the store," Holcomb says, "we let several customers come in. It's pretty comical. They all know to say, 'I'm part of a co-op and a collective.' 'What do you do?' 'I come here and give them money for marijuana.' " He laughs.
Dozens of dispensaries in the Devonshire Division have closed of their own volition. "Word is spreading on the marijuana blogs that Devonshire is very proactive," Holcomb says. "They call us every name in the book, but the bottom line is, don't open a store north of Roscoe Boulevard."
According to Assistant City Attorney Asha Greenberg, medical marijuana dispensaries are not listed in the zoning code, and thus constitute a local land-use violation and a state law violation by exchanging weed for cash.
"Our interpretation is that state law does not immunize storefront dispensaries," Greenberg says. "There is obviously disagreement on the issue."
Why is Chatsworth the only part of L.A. where this interpretation applies? "We basically move against the ones we have complaints about. So we prioritize, and take action as resources allow," Greenberg says.
Greenberg is implying that Devonshire Division has resources the rest of LAPD doesn't.
That is clearly not the full story.
Surely, the political decision to institute a full prohibition on medical pot in and around Chatsworth, alone among the major communities in L.A., wasn't made by LAPD.
It strains credibility to imagine this scorched-earth move unfolded without the involvement of Trutanich, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Council District 12 Councilman Mitchell Englander, an LAPD reserve officer who represents the area.
Englander, not normally media-shy, declined to comment for this article. An aide to Villaraigosa said the Mayor's Office was not involved in the decision and declined to comment further.
The jarring swings in L.A.'s medical marijuana industry arise not just from the severe flip-flops by politicians in City Hall and Washington, D.C., but from California state law. In 1996, California voters passed the Compassionate Use Act, known as Proposition 215.
"[Proposition] 215 is exactly like the Bible," says Yamileth Bolanos, an excitable long-ago immigrant from Costa Rica, who operates the Pure Life Alternative Wellness Center dispensary on La Cienega Boulevard and serves as president of the Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance (GLACA). "Whoever the fuck is reading it — that's what the meaning is."
Proposition 215 was designed not to legalize medicinal pot but to exempt from punishment anyone "seriously ill" who smokes it and any physician who recommends it. It was approved by 55 percent of California voters, and it underlies the current chaos. How ill is seriously ill? Just who can grow all this pot? Can it be sold for profit? Can it be sold for profit in a store?
We should never have destroyed the aristocracy: we should rather have made everyone a member. An aristocrat wouldn't dream of interfering in another aristo's pleasure or medicine, so long as the horses remained unfrightened.
Let's all live hedonistic lives on the back of peasants---that is to say, machinery---and treat each other with the liberality of spirit such people can (at their best) obtain.
L.A is the home of crooked cops which runs all the way to the politician.Jose Huizar is getting paid by the cartel. The 701 riches man in the world just thanked the past 4 presidents for not ending prohibition and making him a billionaire. L.A is suppose to be the trend setters of America. It's always sunny in Southern California and so on and so on. Bull shyt it's all a fantasy and people like Jose Huizar should not be sitting on the city counsel,he is not listening to the people who elected him.So there for he is not for the people he is for the cartel bosses who will keep getting richer and taking lives.
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I don't know why people feel compelled to over-justify their use/choice of med marijuana. People list their illnesses and it sounds like an obituary... The stigma remains...A left over 1972 stereotyping - that any association with marijuana makes you lazy and unwashed.Any organic substance that provides excellent anti-inflammatory, vassal dilation, appetite stimulation, migraine relief, sleep aid, anxiety aid all in one....needs no further explanation or justification! Relax and leave the pills on the pharmacy shelf...Stop apologizing! So..There happens to be a little buzz that comes along with it…
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My late sister Somayah Kambui pointed out that SB 420 was unconstitutional on its face for one very important reason - "420" changed Prop 215 without going through the initiative process. Virtually every effort by LA and other municipalities have used to constrict the application of Prop 215 without submitting their proposals to a STATEWIDE INITIATIVE process is illegal on their face because they are changing 215 indirectly. That is unconstitutional. That which you cannot do directly you cannopt do indirectly. Its very simple. Also If you as a law enforcement official refuse to enforce a voted state law by interpreting the law on your own you can be impeached. Every elected and sworn employee of the state of California is obligated to uphold state law over federal law. If they invoke the Federal shield you can ask for their badge because they would have violated their OATH which they swore to at the time they became a public employee in this state. This applies to Judges, commissioners, Law Enforcement, Elected Officials and their Aides and other Civil Servants; including the DWP ant its employees as well.
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It will be as successful as the LA Weekly going pay to play-equivalent of paying for any content from Denis Romero--laughable but like a train wreck you can't help but watch...........
they are making a mockery of this law,this is not so hard.we need a new law.and you going to have con artist anyway you have it.but medical marijuana can work.
So since the self serving, self righteous, GLACA and ASA couldn't manipulate city council to put the other pot shops out of business, they figure they'd manipulate the voters instead. They didn't realize that when you lie down with politicians you get exactly what you ask for, screwed. Now it is time to ask for harsher penalties on everyone but themselves. This is sickening.
I don't see the sky falling in Los Angeles from all the pot shops. In fact, I see a lower violent crime rate in our city even though we are in a recession. So what is the problem?
I can tell you, a certain group of people have been trying to influence this from the inside for years and years. They have spent big money trying to draft a favorable policy(for themselves) over the last 5-7 years. Now they are just they same as the guy who opened up today. The city admits it, they screwed this one up, there is no ordinance which they can enforce. So they have to do something to get the new dispensaries shut down that they have been trying to shut down for the last couple of years.
They claim this bill as a good thing, yet it will impose penalties for anyone doing the same actions as they will be doing. Where is the equal protection in that? Where is the freedom of commerce with this? This is sad.
Yeah...I look healthy, but like that one dispensary worker, have had a litany of psychiatric problems nearly my entire life (unlike her, however, I don't go around talking about smoking anywhere. This is my medicine - I never bragged about having to pop an Ativan or said it was time to take my Prozac.). I've been on so many different pills that barely worked and made me completely complacent as my life repeatedly fell apart around me - no matter how hard I tried, I could never be stable more than a few years and would usually end up spiraling out of control - the last time, I wound up in a mental hospital for nearly a month.
I never smoked pot before 2008 - ever (really). It wasn't until I met my boyfriend who suggested I try it for my migraines. Not only did it help me manage my migraines - I found that, unlike the pills, if I went a few days without smoking, I didn't have a massive episode. On top of that - some of my other problems - nightmares and such went away. Marijuana literally saved my life and yet I'm not a slave to it like I was the pills. At the time I started smoking, I was taking somewhere around 7 pills a day and even more when I had migraines. Today, I'm completely off all the pills - except for Excederin. Nothing makes me angrier than seeing shady collectives and 'patients' exploit the system. But it also angers me that these elected officials have such a hardline stance. They need to look at other places for help and answers rather than just banning all collectives because they're too lazy to do any actual work.
Always vote for the underdog, the poorest candidate, the independent. breaf those damn parties.
How many times are you going to mention patients "don't look sick"? Are you a doctor? If not, you're hardly qualified to judge who's sick and who's healthy, certainly not on the basis of their appearance.
why r we told to vote to make a difference?? cause when we do, olf farts shut us down. The people voted for this. and the city people and government shut it down. what a joke. i hate our Mayor, and i hate the government!!!!!!
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Let's face it, they just can't figure out how to hide and distribute all the money among themselves yet. Give them some time. When they figure it all out they will legalize it in a matter of minutes. They just need someone to come up with the plan. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm?
Carmen Trutanich - a man who is clearly not a friend to the community which helped to elect him - summed it up by saying, "You have the retail model going on, and people are getting rich." God Forbid !
Every industry in this country is allowed Free Enterprise - isn't that the American way?! It's amazing how much effort is being put forth to prevent dispensary owners from entering a higher tax bracket - which of course is reserved for the CEOs of corporations which manufacture, distribute and sell pharmaceuticals, alcohol, tobacco - with Politicians being among the biggest profiteers.
So now, the dispensaries that provide safe access to patients in need of medicine, employment to those who may otherwise need financial assistance from the government and tax dollars to a City and State which have proven to be greedy, deceitful and opportunistic.
The California voter initiative Regulate Marijuana Like Wine solves this problem, legalizes marijuana and ends federal interference in state law.
So since the self serving, self righteous, GLACA and ASA couldn't manipulate city council to put the other pot shops out of business, they figure they'd manipulate the voters instead. They didn't realize that when you lie down with politicians you get exactly what you ask for, screwed. Now it is time to ask for harsher penalties on everyone but themselves. This is sickening.
I don't see the sky falling in Los Angeles from all the pot shops. In fact, I see a lower violent crime rate in our city even though we are in a recession. So what is the problem?
I can tell you, a certain group of people have been trying to influence this from the inside for years and years. They have spent big money trying to draft a favorable policy(for themselves) over the last 5-7 years. Now they are just they same as the guy who opened up today. The city admits it, they screwed this one up, there is no ordinance which they can enforce. So they have to do something to get the new dispensaries shut down that they have been trying to shut down for the last couple of years.
They claim this bill as a good thing, yet it will impose penalties for anyone doing the same actions as they will be doing. Where is the equal protection in that? Where is the freedom of commerce with this? This is sad.
PS, California need not forget how many millions are being paid to the State for those RETAIL sales! If it weren't for Marijuana, Cali would be totally screwed financially! It's ridiculous to think that everyone's going to trade pot for work and not be paid in cash. Then what are they going to do? sell it on the street so they can pay their rent, which can't be paid in pot?! That's just insane!
California has to get it together for the rest of the Country that continues to use California as a role model and inspiration. And, the feds have to back off. The State's that have considered mmj laws are hesitant now, seeing what's happening in California. The feds make the situation worse of course because of the pressure they're causing currently. Other State's are afraid to stir up such trouble with the Federal Government. The only way to fix the situation is to NOT differentiate Marijuana as Medicine vs. Recreation, both need to be ok and the federal government needs to DECRIMINALIZE or LEGALIZE Marijuana AND HEMP! It's insane that the fights continue over the pettiness of who needs it who doesn't. We have a right to medicate however we wish. Odd that the woman in the article felt better about taking Cymbalta over marijuana! The rest of us are watching, many of us suffering in great pain on daily pain medications that are literally killing us!! Get it together folks!
Regulate Marijuana Like Wine ends all of this and deals with the feds. We can fully protect medical while also making it legal for all and sold like wine.
OR
We can watch our dispensaries and collectives close systematically and lose medical marijuana forever. Anyone here remember what it was like in Los Angeles before prop 215? Anyone remember AIDS and cancer patients routinely getting poisoned by dope OUR GOVERNMENT sprayed with paraquat?
Why do you keep quoting Michael Larsen from Eagle Rock? This guy is a liar and doesn't represent anybody in Eagle Rock but himself and a few rabid prohibition crusaders. Mr. Larsen garnered only 50 votes to be president of the neighborhood council and now he thinks he speaks for all 35,000 Eagle Rockers. Like all prohibitionists he makes up stuff in order to scare the residents into being afraid of these harmless dispensaries. He keeps saying there are over 30 dispensaries in Eagle Rock when actually there are only 5 or 6. He says they bring in all sorts of crime but even our Lead police officer says there is no crime at all around the collectives. 99% of Eagle Rockers are unaffected by the collectives and have no problem with them at all . Why doesn't the Weekly at least get an honest opinion from another Eagle Rocker who is unbiased and doesn't lie through his teeth.
Good point "T", the Weekly should have quoted Eagle Rock's own Pot Shop Apologist, Tim "T" Ryder, to get a truly fair and balance account of the situation. Mr. Ryder is an expert in the goings-on of the pot shops and has set up an organization to lobby and advocate for them (donations accepted). His biggest problem is that he doesn't understand the basic fact of pot shops in LA, which is
DISPENSARIES = BLACK MARKET
The black market is a market which is UNREGULATED AND UNSANCTIONED, and that is exactly what the shops in LA are.
DISPENSARIES = BLACK MARKET
No one knows where this pot is coming from, what is on it, who is selling it.
DISPENSARIES = BLACK MARKET
There is not one license or permit to operate a dispensary in LA. They are all operating illegally. (check with the City if you doubt this)
DISPENSARIES = BLACK MARKET
Devonshire has succeeded in closing down all the shops in their area because
DISPENSARIES = BLACK MARKET
We could have had a workable ordinance with 100 sanctioned operators here in LA, but the shops themselves and groups like Mr. Ryder's blocked the ordinance, ensuring that
DISPENSARIES = BLACK MARKET
Now check your facts Mr. Ryder, and check your teeth - you've got a little something in there.
There you go, Mr. Larsen, spreading around false statements as usual. But you are wrong again. I started my little organization, Cannabis Clubs United With the Community, with the primary mission to expose your lies about the medical marijuana collectives in Eagle Rock. I advocate for the community and these collectives are a part of our community, whether you like it or not. Unless you have any evidence to prove otherwise, we see the collectives as a great benefit to the community. All the fear-mongering lies you and your lapdog Councilman ($179,000) Huizar spit out have not had any effect on the intelligent people of Eagle Rock. If the LA Weekly would have done a more thorough job of investigating this story they would have called Sergeant Orange (213-793-0759), our Senior Lead Officer in Eagle Rock, and found out there is absolutely no crime around the collectives. The LA Weekly can also call Jose Huizar's office (213-254-5295) and discover that Huizar is lying when he says in his shutdown motion that he gets complaints daily about the collectives. I also challenge the LA Weekly to call Mr. Larsen (323-254-0500) and ask him for any nuisance reports that prove that collectives are a threat to the community. Get over it, Mr. Larsen, your failed Prohibition on cannabis is over. This is a free country and we Americans have a right to put into our body what we wish and grow any plant on God's green earth. Go on over to communist China if you want the federal government in your private life but leave us alone.
Hey Michael Larsen, I got a better one for you.
NO DISPENSARIES = A MASSIVE BLACK MARKET
NO DISPENSARIES = SICK PATIENTS GETTING ROBBED = VIOLENT CRIME
NO DISPENSARIES = THE CARTELS DREAM
NO DISPENSARIES = NOTHING FOR YOU TO COMPLAIN ABOUT
Michael Larsen = Unregistered Lobbyist
Michael Larsen = Nose up Huizar's Butt
Michael Larsen = New sales of reefer madenss
Michael Larsen = Fear production not harm reduction
Michael Larsen = Pious pauper
Michael Larsen = Served Properly
Patrick Duff, what dispensary do you work for/own?
DISPENSARIES = MASSIVE BLACK MARKET
DISPENSARIES = SICK PATIENTS GETTING ROBBED + POISONED
DISPENSARIES = CARTEL'S DREAM
DISPENSARIES = PATRICK DUFF'S $$$$
DISPENSARIES = BLACK MARKET
(I've got plenty to complain about)
Trutanich is worse than being lazy. There is no law against making a profit from selling marijuana. It is one of those lies, which has been repeated a 1,000 times by Trutanich and MS-13 and White Fence, that people believe it to be true. The statute merely says that it takes no position on whether one may make a profit selling medical marijuana.
As everyone who has basic education (which disqualifies most graduates from LAUSD) knows, immoral, amoral and corrupt politicians who want to be District Attorney tend to promote some Morality Campaign. Trutanich is basing his run for DA on the false claims that law enforcement associations have endorsed him and the equally bogus claim that the medical marijuana law outlaws making a profit.
Why would any counciilmember force ill people, some who are dying of cancer, to go out onto the streets to buy their Pot from MS-13 or White Fence or someone other nacro-drug trafficker?
Who knows? With Citizens United, we will never know how much loot MS-13 and White Fence will be dumping into council races, and oh, let's speculate, into Garcetti's campaign to be mayor. Of course, if the council actually followed the law and ceased to attack medical marijuana, then we would know that they are not taking bribes from narco-drug gangs.
Trutanich made a mess of regulating medical marijuana in LA because he chickened out of taking a progressive and permissive approach that contemplated an independent commission to supervise dispensaries (like liquor stores), in favor of his typical scorched-earth restrictive ordinances that have been struck down. Oakland doesn't have the problems that LA has because their City Attorney worked with the medical marijuana community, instead of working against it - the Trutanich approach.
It is significant that some of the harshest criticism for Trutanich comes from his former chief lieutenant, David Berger, who resigned from Trutanich's regime as soon as it became clear that Trutanich had misled voters about regulating medical marijuana, as well as almost everything else that Trutanich promised. It is a pity that you did not include a link to the 'Town Hall' forum that Trutanich held in CIty Hall where he screamed at a woman who had cancer and used marijuana. Trutanich told her to 'feed her kids lead toys' when she dared to question his voodoo science about insecticide in marijuana. He told her to 'sit down and shut up.' That spoke volumes about what Trutanich is really all about; he is a bully and a thug, and his attitude towards cancer patients like Kathryn is deplorable. Just Google "Trutanich screams at cancer patient" to see for yourself how disrespectful and abusive Trutanich became when a woman dared to challenge him. Perhaps then you will see why the problem in LA isn't the medical marijuana community, it is our neanderthal City Attorney who should be recalled.
The bottom line is there is no way to be legitimate in the medical marijuana industry
BECAUSE the law is not enforced
Politicians create havoc and chaos and try to blame it on the Mj industry all the while leaving no means for genuine legitimacy
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