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Government Shows No Compassion for Medical Pot Consumption (3 of 5)
By Hempology | June 17, 2007
AlterNet
16 Jun, 2007
Patrick McCartney and Martin A. Lee
Part 3 of 5
SB 420
A key development was the October 2003 enactment by California lawmakers — after 11th hour concessions to the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement — of Senate Bill 420. SB 420 was written to “clarify” Prop 215 and protect patients from law enforcement’s arrest-first policies. Sponsored by Sen. John Vasconcellos, the bill set a statewide minimum number of permissible plants and ordered counties to issue ID cards to qualified patients to shield them from arrest. The new statute also created more protection for caregivers, allowing them reasonable compensation for their time and services, and gave groups of patients the right to grow and distribute as collectives or cooperatives.
Although the California District Attorneys Association made sure SB 420 prohibited anyone from making a profit from pot, entrepreneurs opened more than 100 new storefront dispensaries within a year, many in previously unthinkable locations. Medical cannabis users in many rural communities came out of the closet. They started new patient groups or allied with statewide groups, and spoke out on behalf of public access to cannabis at storefront dispensaries before city councils and boards of supervisors.
SB 420 set the stage for the current battle over the proliferation of patient-run dispensaries. For the first time, local elected officials in scores of cities and counties were forced to take a stand on the issue, as increasing numbers of activists applied for permits to open dispensaries and local law enforcement objected — or lobbied for preemptive moratoria and prohibitions. More than 100 California jurisdictions have proceeded to ban dispensaries, but another three dozen have expressly allowed and regulated the storefront distribution of medical marijuana.
SB 420 was the ultimate product of a task force created by Vasconcellos and Attorney General Bill Lockyer, a Democrat elected in 1998 to succeed the unpopular Lungren (who got only 39 percent running for governor against Gray Davis). Although Lockyer said he had voted for Prop 215 — and would submit an amicus brief supporting Raich — he was unwilling to rein in hostile local officials. Responding to an August 2000 plea for uniform county standards by the North State Sheriffs Association (“…the law desperately needs clarification”), Lockyer declined to issue new plant and possession guidelines, washing his hands of how local jurisdictions should act.
California police and prosecutors opposed to medical marijuana turned away from the state’s top lawyer for advice about medical marijuana and instead looked to the state’s private law enforcement associations. If ordered by a court to return pot to a defendant, “I have the counsel for the California Sheriff’s Association telling me I’m committing a felony,” remarked El Dorado Sheriff Jeff Neves at a meeting with patient advocates. In 2002, Yuba Sheriff Virginia Black had the California State Sheriffs Association ask other sheriffs to write letters to Ashcroft and DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson asking them to “resolve” the conflict between state and federal law. (“I urge you to contact your local DEA office,” Hutchinson replied.) The same year, Martin Mayer, general counsel of the California State Sheriffs Association, issued an alert following a California Supreme Court ruling that overturned the conviction of Myron Mower, a 31-year-old blind diabetic arrested in his hospital room. “Does this mean that law enforcement should no longer arrest one in possession of marijuana if, for example, he or she has a note, letter, or prescription from a doctor?” Mayer asked, before declaring: “Absolutely not!”
At its 2005 Summer Conference, the California District Attorneys Association secretly issued a new opinion about SB 420 in a closed executive session. While the CDAA had inserted language in SB 420 prohibiting cooperatives from making a profit, now the CDAA went a step further and told the state’s district attorneys that no money could change hands when a cooperative distributed medicine to a patient.
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