California Cannabis Clubs Organize to Fight Feds

In an effort to fight what they say is the targeting of the medical marijuana community by federal law enforcement, a California group called the Cannabis Action Network (CAN) has launched a campaign to revive the statewide movement that helped pass Prop. 215 -- the 1996 initiative that allows seriously ill Californians to use cannabis with a doctor's recommendation.

The campaign, called Americans for Safe Access (ASA), was sparked by a series of raids carried out in San Francisco by the Drug Enforcement Administration on Feb. 12. The operation led to the indictment of four men under federal narcotics laws and the closure of the city's Sixth Street Harm Reduction Center medical cannabis club. The men, who are legal medical marijuana patients under California law, face cannabis cultivation and conspiracy charges -- that carry potential life sentences.

"We are completely committed to protecting patients who are very close to losing their access to medical cannabis," said CAN director Steph Sherer, who notes that a number of California patients have been arrested on federal drug charges. "We are talking about death, we are talking about AIDS patients who will not have access to medication to let them live. That is a reality."

DEA director Asa Hutchinson was in San Francisco the day of the raid, but he denied that the DEA was targeting patients or cannabis clubs. Federal prosecutors said the operation was in response to an alleged marijuana trafficking operation at Sixth Street which had been under surveillance for months.

"The marijuana clubs are not our primary priority; we could, but we have not, targeted them for investigations," said Richard Meyer, a special agent for the DEA's San Francisco field division. Meyer asserts that his agency is focused on investigating drug trafficking operations, no matter where it leads them. "We have heard people in the community saying that many traffickers are using [the cannabis clubs] as a smoke screen to engage in this business for profit and are not concerned with the sick. Any cultivation, possession, and distribution of marijuana is illegal under federal law. It is our job is to enforce those laws and we will."

The DEA rejected an appeal made in 2000 by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer to reschedule marijuana from a Schedule One substance to Schedule Two of the Federal Controlled Substances Act. This would permit doctors to issue a cannabis prescription with medical oversight. Instead, the federal government wants to punish doctors who now recommend cannabis to their patients. The Justice Department is seeking to overturn a federal district court ruling, Conant v. McCaffrey, which found that stifling cannabis recommendations violated physicians' First Amendment rights. On April 8, judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals questioned Department of Justice attorneys who are appealing an injunction against sanctioning these doctors.

"Why on earth does an administration that's committed to the concept of federalism . . . want to go to this length to put doctors in jail for doing something that's perfectly legal under state law?" asked Judge Alex Kozinski at the hearing. U.S. Attorney Mark Stern argued that the government should be allowed to investigate doctors whose advice "will make it easier to obtain marijuana." But he had difficulty convincing judges that there was a distinction between discussing cannabis and recommending it.

It's unclear when the appeals court will issue a ruling in this case. But the cannabis clubs say they are bracing for more federal raids. The ASA campaign is trying to rally public opinion to support the clubs and understand "the futility of the war on drugs and the value of medical marijuana." ASA is encouraging supporters to sign a "letter of resistance" opposing Hutchinson and the Bush administration's medical cannabis policies.