This will be a make-or-break year for medical marijuana dispensaries, if they can survive the tactics employed by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which recently added busting dispensaries' landlords to its repertoire of raids and fear. As urged by Senate Joint Resolution 20 by state Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, the federal government needs to back off and respect state compassionate use laws that authorize a network of responsible, law abiding and tax-paying medical marijuana providers.

In 1996, California voters passed Proposition 215 to exempt patients and caregivers from criminal penalties when they possess or cultivate marijuana for medical use as recommended by a physician. On the heels of voters approving the initiative, the Legislature enacted a regulatory framework that authorizes local governments to work with dispensaries so medical cannabis could be provided to seriously and terminally ill patients. Eleven other states have similar laws following California's model.

Since 2005, the DEA has raided dozens of medical marijuana dispensaries and collectives, with 28 of these raids occurring since June 2007 in 11 counties in California. Los Angeles County saw a record of four raids in a single day last year. Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the DEA's authority to conduct these raids in Gonzales vs. Raich, it left state medical marijuana laws intact. Angel Raich of Oakland had sued the federal government in 2002 to prevent it from interfering with her right to use medical cannabis for an inoperable brain tumor, seizures, life-threatening wasting syndrome and severe chronic pain.

The DEA believes these dispensaries are illegal drug dealers facilitating recreational drug use. However, most of the dispensary operators who have contacted the State Board of Equalization for information about how to obtain seller's permits for collecting and remitting sales taxes are not fugitives, but responsible persons willing to abide by the laws to conduct their businesses.

For example, the Compassion Center for Alameda County was licensed by Alameda County. It paid $3 million in sales taxes prior to being shut down by the DEA at the end of October. The center had employed about 50 workers who earned a living wage and were provided health benefits, unemployment insurance and workers' compensation coverage. Take another example. Nature's Medicinal in Bakersfield had been licensed by Kern County. It paid almost $1 million in taxes until its closure in 2007, including $203,000 in federal and state income taxes, $365,000 in payroll taxes and $427,000 in sales taxes. Nature's had 25 employees: eight were indicted, and the rest were left unemployed and without health insurance after the raid.

Multiply these examples by the 300 medical cannabis businesses of which the DEA has sent letters to landlords, and what do we get? Millions of dollars in lost tax revenue for the state and municipalities, thousands are well-paying jobs with benefits disappearing from our economy, and scores of dispensaries forced to close or move underground for unregulated operations. However, the most significant setback of the DEA's actions will be to the thousands of California patients who suffer from the effects, pain and discomfort of chemotherapy, HIV/AIDS, glaucoma and neurological disorders. Where is the compassion when these individuals can no longer access medical marijuana to relieve their chronic pain, debilitating symptoms and treatment side-effects?

We applaud the leadership of House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., in his oversight of the DEA's property forfeiture threats. Recognizing the conflict between federal and state law, we will continue to exercise our responsibilities as state policymakers to the fullest extent and uphold the will of California voters to regulate the provision and availability of medical marijuana for those in need. Meanwhile the Legislature should approve SJR20, urging the federal government to honor California law and respect state-sanctioned dispensaries so medical marijuana patients can treat their pain, pay their taxes, and live in peace.

Betty T. Yee is the chairwoman of the State Board of Equalization and represents the First Equalization District, comprising 21 counties along the Northern and Central California coast and including the entire Bay Area. Carole Migden represents the Third Senate District in the California State Senate, comprising San Francisco, Marin, and Sonoma counties.

Copyright: 2008, San Francisco Chronicle

Source: San Francisco Chronicle, Hell-bent on shutting medical marijuana dispensaries

Gerald Le Dain's respect for civil liberties went so far as to rouse John Lennon and Yoko Ono from their bed. It was 1969, the year of the couple's "bed-in for peace" at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, and the year Judge Le Dain began chairing the much-referenced but largely ignored Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs.

The Le Dain commission's final report was one of the most politically explosive documents ever put before the federal government. The commission held 46 days of public hearings, received 365 submissions and heard from 12,000 people in about 30 cities and at more than 20 university campuses across the country. In its final report, in 1973, the commission recommended decriminalizing marijuana possession because the law-enforcement costs of prohibition were too great, and suggested that Canada focus on frank education rather than harsh penalization. It also recommended treatment for heroin addiction and sharp warnings about nicotine and alcohol. This was delivered at a time when hysteria about the evils of pot was on everyone's lips and many parents wanted the law to save their drug-addled teenagers.

The report also made Judge Le Dain something of an unlikely counterculture icon and helped win him a place on the Supreme Court of Canada during the formative years of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Gerald Le Dain was born in Montreal to Eric Le Dain and Antoinette Whithard. His younger brother, Bruce, went on to become one of Canada's foremost impressionist landscape painters in the style of A. Y. Jackson and Tom Thomson. Gerry graduated from West Hill High School in 1942 and a year later, at 18, he joined the army and became a gunner with the 7th Medium Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery, a unit that was in the thick of the fighting from D-Day until the surrender of Germany in May of 1945.

Immediately after the war, he attended the military's ad hoc Khaki University in England. One day, the school arranged a debate with students of Westfield College, then a women-only college associated with the University of London. During the event (debate topic: a woman's place in the home), he met Cynthia Emily Roy and, two weeks later, they became engaged. After being demobilized from the army, she joined him in Montreal, where they married and he set about finishing his education.

In 1949, he obtained a law degree from McGill University and was called to the Quebec bar. He spent the following year at a university in Lyons, where he gained his doctorate. On his return from France, he joined the Montreal law firm of Walker, Martineau, Chauvin, Walker & Allison and stayed three years until he returned to McGill as a professor of constitutional and administrative law. He also worked as counsel to Quebec's attorney-general on constitutional cases.

In 1967, he left Montreal to become dean of Osgoode Hall Law School, where, said colleague Harry Arthurs, he presided over a revolution in Canadian legal education. "It was his responsibility to persuade York University, the Law Society of Upper Canada, and the world at large, that what we were doing was not only the legitimate - not only the sensible - but the inevitable way forward." It was during this time that Pierre Trudeau asked Judge Le Dain to chair the commission. He was, at 44, perfectly suited to the job in many ways. By then, many young Canadians were indulging in marijuana and other recreational drugs; as a university professor, he was surrounded by many students who had at least given it a try. And as the father of a large family, he was adept at bridging the generation gap and responding empathetically. During the time he chaired the commission, there were four full-fledged teenagers, and one on the cusp, living in the Le Dain home.

The commissioners were asked to study the non-medical use of sedative, stimulant, tranquillizing, hallucinogenic and other psychotropic drugs or substances, including the experience of users. At his first news conference in 1969, he announced that, in the interest of research, he might experiment with the stuff himself.

"We made it possible to talk about drugs openly," he later said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. "In some of our early hearings, especially in smaller communities, you could feel the guilt that had been stored up around drugs. We also made it possible for people to criticize their institutions, to challenge their doctors, their school boards, their churches."

The Le Dain commission broke new ground in terms of taking the show on the road, said Mel Green, who worked as a sociologist with Judge Le Dain at the time. Judge Le Dain redefined the nature of a public inquiry by asking the public to directly participate, he said. "The commission found little traction in terms of changes in the law itself. ... There was a cultural divide between conventional attitudes and youth culture and I think the Le Dain commission helped bridge that gap." Inspired by Judge Le Dain, Mr. Green decided to switch careers and went to law school. He is now an Ontario provincial court judge.

By early 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono had created a stir with their public "bed-in" at a hotel in Amsterdam. On May 26, the couple booked into Room 1742 at the Queen Elizabeth in Montreal. To Judge Le Dain, they seemed to be just the kind of advocates for youth the commission should hear from. A meeting was arranged aboard a CN train in Montreal and, for 90 minutes, the couple shared their views on the drug culture and the generation gap. "This is the opportunity for Canada to lead the world," said Mr. Lennon, referring to the Le Dain commission. "Canada's image is just about getting groovy, you know." When it was over, Mr. Lennon gave his phone number to members of the commission.

It was not always such clear sailing. Commissioners also had to contend with a kind of "live bait" issue, where police were arresting young people who braved the generational divide to attend these public gatherings and tell their stories. In 1969, the 16-year-old son of communications theorist Marshall McLuhan was arrested as he was leaving a coffee shop in Yorkville, Toronto's then-hippy neighbourhood, where the commission was meeting. Michael McLuhan was convicted of criminal possession of a small amount of hashish and sentenced to 60 days in jail; he ended up serving 30 days and was eventually pardoned.

Marie-Andree Bertrand, one of the Le Dain commissioners, remembers those days and the difficulties in protecting witnesses. "Some of us went to [then-solicitor-general Pierre] Goyer and we said, 'Call off your gendarmes, monsieur!' and went to Trudeau, and it was slightly more calm after that," she told the Ottawa Citizen in 2003. "Imagine if Monsieur Lennon had been arrested or harassed. ... What a humiliation that would have been for all of us."

Although the commission's recommendations were never followed, there were significant changes in the public attitude toward drugs and in lighter sentences being handed down to offenders.

At a time when the generation gap was described as a gulf, Judge Le Dain had gained the respect of both sides of the drug-use argument. In a 1988 Globe and Mail column, Michael Valpy described him as a quiet, intellectual, spiritually minded academic who earned the praise of young people, the social agencies and the scientific community. "His commission acquired the reputation of being the most hard-working, open-minded and widely respected ever to tackle a major national problem."

In 1975, Judge Le Dain was appointed to the Federal Court of Appeal and the Court Martial Appeal Court. He remained there until May of 1984, when Mr. Trudeau appointed him to the Supreme Court.

His tenure at the court during the early years of the Charter proved to be, in some ways, a trial by fire not only for him but for the other eight justices as well. A 1988 Globe and Mail article described a series of crises that nearly exhausted the court as a result of a backlog of Charter cases. At the time, it was referred to by political scientist Peter Russell as "aA terrible rash of injuries" similar to the kind experienced by beleaguered players on a hockey team.

Not surprisingly, Judge Le Dain was one of the members of the court who struggled most during this time. As a result, he stayed only five years before an emotional breakdown brought about his retirement in 1988. Even so, he left his mark on Charter decisions.

One example was the case of R. v. Therens (1985). The issue was whether a drunk driver could evade conviction on the grounds that police had violated his Charter rights by not informing him of his right to call a lawyer before compelling him to take a breathalyzer test. Judge Le Dain's former law clerk, Bruce Ryder, recalls that he struggled painfully over the case - partly because it recalled the death of his daughter Jacqueline a decade earlier from an automobile accident.

"As he spoke, he was pounding himself so hard in the chest I thought he might knock himself over. ... He took a deep breath, and we returned to our work." In the end, Judge Le Dain crafted an opinion that did right by the victims of highway accidents and by the Charter. In memorable language, he affirmed that the enactment of the Charter signalled a new era in the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms.

"Out of complexity and nuance, he produced masterfully succinct statements of the law," said Mr. Ryder.

In his retirement, Judge Le Dain worked on a range of projects, including preparing his papers for the national archives and meticulously crafting his memoirs. But his early retirement continued to be plagued by personal tragedy: first with his wife Cynthia's death in 1995 of cancer, then his daughter Catherine's death of pneumonia in 1998.

In 1990, the U.S. Drug Policy Alliance instituted an award in Gerald Le Dain's name, to be given to individuals involved in law who have worked within official institutions "when extremist pressures dominate government policies." The influential organization includes law-enforcement officials, academics, professionals, health-care workers, drug users and former users. "We sought to name the awards after our heroes," said founder Arnold Trebach. "Gerald Le Dain was certainly one of them. Few people realize the level of hate directed at drug users and drug policy reformers decades ago."

Judge Le Dain, the first Canadian to be so honoured, had earlier been made a companion of the Order of Canada.

GERALD LE DAIN

Gerald Eric Le Dain was born on Nov. 27, 1924, in Montreal. He died in his sleep at home on Dec. 18, 2007. He was 83. He is survived by his son Eric and daughters Barbara, Jennifer and Caroline. He was predeceased by his wife, Cynthia, and by daughters Jacqueline and Catherine.

Copyright: 2008, The Globe and Mail Source: TheGlobeAndMail.com

In an effort to overcome the obstacles raised in the raid tactics the Drug Enforcement Administration employed in earlier attempts to circumvent a compassionate community of medical cannabis connoisseurs, the feds have resorted to sending letters to landlords who rent commercial space to medical cannabis providers, first in Southern California back in July and more recently here in the Bay area.

Landlords who own space occupied by medical cannabis dispensaries in Marin, San Francisco, and Alameda counties received letters the second week in Dec.

So far, only one landlord has been tried and convicted In May of 2007, 62 year-old Thomas Grossi Sr. was ordered to forfeit nearly $400,000 and sentenced to 30 months in federal prison. When released from prison, Grossi will be required to complete a three-year period of supervised release. Such harsh punishment (in contrast there was a case in this country in which a pedophile was given probation because the judge deemed him too short to go to prison) can only be construed as a deterrent to any property owner who might think to advance the safe legal (under state law) distribution of medical cannabis. Surely productive law-abiding citizens will not risk their liberty or even their personal assets when threatened with such great risk of loss and trauma.

It would seem that inspiring landlords to evict tenants who cultivate, process, or distribute medical cannabis might be more cost effective and less labor intensive than the oft employed raids, but this new strategy has not only instigated potential legal defenses of the medical cannabis community, it has also drawn the attention of members of Congress, many of whom already opposed the use of brutal force against patients who were complying with local law.

Respectively, in a stroke of legal genius, the Union of Medical Marijuana Providers filed a lawsuit on Dec 6th that charges the Drug Enforcement Administration with violation of California Penal Code ¤ 518, "which provides that 'extortion is the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, or the obtaining of an official act of a public officer induced by wrongful use of force or fear or under color of official right."

The lawsuit attracted the attention of Michigan Congressman John Conyers who, on Dec 7, issued the following statement, "I am deeply concerned about recent reports that the DEA is threatening private landlords with asset forfeiture and possible imprisonment if they refuse to evict organizations legally dispensing medical marijuana to suffering patients."

The House Judiciary Committee Chairman followed the comment by stating that the Committee had already questioned the Drug Enforcement Administration in regards to the agency's departure from the limitations of federalism with respect to California' Compassionate Use Act.

Interestingly, the UMMP lawsuit was prefaced by a letter dated October 19th, 2007 to Timothy Landrum, Special Agent in Charge of the Los Angeles Field Division Office of the Drug Enforcement Administration. The correspondence claims that on October 11, 2007 the Drug Enforcement Administration retaliated against the Arts District Healing Center, a medical cannabis dispensary that legally operated in Los Angeles for about 18 months, because that particular collective was the solitary seeker of legal protection from the landlord letters that were sent in August.

Since its inception in 1973, the DEA has adamantly maintained that "marijuana" is a Schedule I drug with no approved medical value, only recently conceding (notably, in Showtime's independent film "In POT We Trust") that "smoked marijuana" has "no medical value" and is rightly confined to its Schedule I status.

If that is the case, however, then why are tins of machine rolled "marijuana cigarettes" sent to the five remaining patients who receive freeze-dried marijuana from the federal government under the investigational new drug protocol first implemented by Robert Randall in the mid-seventies? For nearly twenty-five years, the physicians of patients who had happened upon the evidence that cannabis alleviated symptoms of disorders or diseases which conventional pharmatherapies failed to adequately treat were invited to wade through years of paperwork so that they might one day receive, for said patient, shiny tin cans of ten-year-old marijuana.

Because the seeds and stems are left in the smokeable plant matter, aging patients, already in pain from rare diseases such as nail patella syndrome and multiple congenital cartilaginous exostoses, must unroll, clean, moisturize, and reroll their medicine into what only the American government refers to as "marijuana cigarettes" because that is the only method of ingestion that our government approved.

"The rights of one American belong to all," states George McMahon in his gravelly wizened voice but another George disagreed. McMahon was the last patient to be granted government shwag (which keeps him alive and kickin) before President George Bush Sr. shut the protocol down in response to an overwhelming flood of applications from AIDS victims dealing with the devastating effects of the disease, and the harsh side effects of the chemical cocktails meant to preserve the patients health.

For many of those patients marijuana meant the difference between life and death and Former President Bush closed the door on their only avenue of legal access to safe effective medicine at that time but when the MANN closes the Door, the rebels open a window and compassionate Californians built a movement that has inspired a nation (slowly) to follow.

In July, a custody hearing was held regarding my seven-year-old son; I didn't have the physical or financial capacity to get to the hearing, nor could I, at that point in time, care for my brave compassionate little boy. So custody was awarded to the petitioning party and as much as that hurts, it happens every day to thousands of medical cannabis patients all over the nation.

In this particular instance, the judge reprimanded me for using my children as "props" at a marijuana rally at which I spoke to garner support for the medical cannabis bill for which Missouri patients had secured a committee hearing.

My parents smoked marijuana recreationally for years when I was a child and I swore that I would never hide my use of the herb from my own children. On the contrary, I have made every effort to teach my children American values, which include making bad laws better, not that a judge in Iowa would ever understand that.

The "Conservative" camp in America's politic circus contends that legalizing medical cannabis would set a bad example for the children but as Patients Out of Time (which is what the POT in "In POT We Trust" really stands for) Director, Mary Lynn Mathre points out, we should be teaching our children that "medicine should only be used when needed and at the appropriate dosage. Medicine should not be used for fun." If the abuse of pharmaceutical drugs prevalent in youth culture today is any indication, I think that message may have gotten lost in the mail.

Meanwhile, medical cannabis providers will brace themselves against the raids, from which they now have a bit of a holiday reprieve, and continue the struggle to provide patients with cannabis and edibles because as Mickey Martin of former Tainted fame says, "providing safe effective reliable medicine to people who need it, gives us a purpose.'

Copyright: 2008 The Coastal Post

Source: Coastal Post