Full-Court Press: Feds Go After Mendo Marijuana

 

Photo: Ganja Farmer’s Emerald Triangle News

​By Jack Rikess

Toke of the Town

Northern California Correspondent

I love my job.

Every time I leave San Francisco for Mendocino like I did the other day, whether it’s for an interview like I had arranged or for snooping and sleuthing for an upcoming story, I get giddy. It brings out the Tom Sawyer in me.

I’m like that kid the movie, The Black Stallion, when during the climax of the big horse race he throws off his racing goggles and grabs Big Black’s mane like they are one. He rides the galloping horse like they did back on the island when it was just the two of them.

Riding like the Old Spice guy au naturel to the finish line, we, the viewers, are given a chance to relive the best of our own childhood dreams as we watch unemcumbered youth experience the pure bliss of freedom as he wins the race the old-fashioned way, without all those city contraptions like gloves, shirts and protective eyewear.

Photo: Cannabis N.I.

​ That’s me going to Mendo. Being up there’s this sense of walking free and barefoot, even when I have to wear my tight-ass business Doc Martens.

Also, after Cloverdale going north on 101, I like to look up. When I see my first stage-diving hawk or eagle, I know I’m home.

But the other day, there were no hawks or eagles in the air. Only helicopters. Many, many helicopters. More helicopters than in L.A., on a fast news night.

Black helicopters patrolled like nosey crop-dusters or eager teenagers on Toro lawnmowers doing summer work. Going East-West in straight lines and then banking and returning to the next row over. Spotting. Observing. Looking. Inspecting.

With only one goal on the taxpayer-supported to-do list: Try to find marijuana.

I stopped for gas in Ukiah a little before 8 a.m. At the station, strapping young men like trim bodybuilders in green shorts, green khaki short-sleeved shirts with big ol’ guns, 357s or some other large-mouth pistols holstered to their sides, joked and cajoled with each other as they take hits off their Slurpees and Red Bells.

Photo: StoptheDrugWar.org

​ A few grab coffees, smiling, making their way back to their Forest Ranger jeeps. They remind me more of Everglade bush pilots than cops. They seem too wholesome to be police.

They’re more like jocks on a road trip, piling out of a car ready and cocked, waiting for something to happen, then after a pit stop and a look around, it’s back to the two-lane blacktop.

They seem innocent enough.

But then you see they’re everywhere. There are cops catching breakfast in the restaurants and coming out of 20-room motels along the frontage roads. Official cars with patrol lights are suddenly in front of you as the pickup you were behind makes a left. Chrome-plated Hummers close you in from behind.

Before I hit the panic button, I realize I’ve entered a convoy of five or six cars and trucks on their way to somewhere.

And still, there’s more helicopters buzzing overhead.

Welcome to Operation Full-Court Press.

Four hundred agents have invaded the Emerald Triangle for at least a month or so. At first they were doing a little surgical striking north and then south and then just to confuse us, somewhere in the middle.

Photo: Ganja Farmer’s Emerald Triangle News

​ As of this writing, it looks like they’re starting around Covelo and going north. Yesterday it was reported on radio station KMUD that there were roadblocks on 162 West with DEA and INS vehicles prominent. Seventy-seven people have been arrested. About 305,000 plants have been “confiscated.”

The official statement is they are going after the growers who illegally raise marijuana in our national forest. They will leave the permitted growers who are following Mendocino’s 9.31 alone. All of us agree this is a good thing.

The other major counties like Trinity and Humboldt are adopting the same policy of leaving the local growers who are quietly doing their own thing, while going after the more transient growers.

But everyone knows they’re going after the Mexicans in the mountainous country.

From what is being gossiped about, there’s some heavy profiling going on in Norte California. All press releases make it clear that this “concerted effort” between multiple governmental law enforcement agencies has the main objective of going after only organized growers with their massive outdoor industrial grows who have been shooting at and scaring the straights who have the bad luck to go too deep into the woods.

Again, the locals agree this is a good thing. Plus, the price of marijuana should go up.

Photo: Felipe Buitrago/Metroactive

​ Even so, some of the locals are getting very nervous and stressed with the helicopters strafing the compound, looking for illegal grows. The best the legitimate grower can do is pain a 4×8 sheet of plywood with his or her permit numbers, so when Sky King’s looking for the bad guys, they leave Ma and Pa Kush alone.

This still doesn’t satisfy some of the local fears.

One grower complained of paying the $85 per permit and still having to live under this scrutiny as the climate changes concerning the growing of marijuana.

“I went to the Sheriff’s Office and paid my money for permits, which is kinda like taxes and kinda like blood money,” my bandana-wearing source said. “But I did it because that’s what needs to happen on our side for change to occur.

“Now the Feds are here,” he said. “It feels like they’re taking over the town.”

Do you worry that the Feds will go to the Sheriff’s Office to get a list of growers who have come forward?

“No, Sheriff Allman told us that wouldn’t happen,” the grower assured me.

Photo: USA Today

​ “Right now, the Sheriff is stuck between us and that very hard rock called the Feds,” he said. “The Sheriff lives here. The Feds are like the growers they’re trying to catch. They’ll be here for a month or two, then leave. It is Sheriff Allman that is left to keep the peace. And because the Feds don’t understand the culture up here… Let’s just say things are going to be tense before they’re better.”

Another legitimate grower chalked up the whole operation — the Feds, the tension — to the cost of doing business in Mendo.

A gentleman in his 60s with a silver ponytail wrapped in leather laughed at the other locals who were getting upset with the flyovers and the heavy police presence.

“It’s the cost of doing business up here,” he said. “There’s nothing illegal about hating marijuana. Some cops and most of the Feds hate marijuana. But you’ll see the pendulum swings wildly one way and then slowly, it starts to swing to the other side. That is the way it is up here.”

You don’t seem too worried.

“Today it’s the Feds. Come the middle of September, beginning of October, the rip-offs come. When it starts getting close to harvest… time to start sleeping in my grow, locked and loaded.”

You’re pretty serious when it comes to guns and intruders?

“We don’t give warning shots up here. We don’t give the courtesy over-the-head warning.”

Really?

Photo: Cannabis Culture

​ “Naw, that’s the way it was maybe five years ago, maybe even three,” the old coot continued. “See, that’s what the Feds don’t understand. If I have someone trying to steal my crop, now, I call 9-1-1. I call the cops. It wasn’t that long ago that we shot to kill. See, stealing is stealing, to us and the cops.

“Last year in Laytonville, a couple of kids — that’s who most of your unsophisticated robbers are, kids through about 24, y’know, stupid kids trying to get rich quick. These kids try to rob a Mom and Pop. A small local garden with white picket fence at the end of someone’s road.

“Well they come into these folks’ living room with a pellet gun… I can’t really remember, maybe it was as big as a .22. One kid shoots the husband in the leg with his toy gun while the wife grabs the Dirty Harry and blows the kid away in her living room with a .357. Cops came and left just as quick, saying it was justified.”

It seems better for the community to not have the frontier justice kind of retribution that you’ve had up here for the past half century.

“That’s what the Feds don’t get,” the veteran grower said. “This isn’t Iowa. This isn’t Virginia. It’s Mendo. We’re changing. We’re trying to become more law-abiding citizens. I don’t know what they have against us.”

Sitting in hand-carved wooden chairs in the hot sun in front of his cabin, we listen to the clamoring birds in the trees and the rotor blades slicing the air as helicopters migrate above us.

“But it’s like Buddha says, this too shall pass.” The old man’s eyes traced the copters as they fly out of sight over the mountains as they go north to their next observational gig.

Photo: Jack Rikess

Toke of the Town correspondent Jack Rikess blogs from the Haight in San Francisco.

Canada: Medical Marijuana Shop Owner Slams Police After Raid

The owner of a medical marijuana dispensary in Langley, British Columbia is protesting a police raid during which officers confiscated about four kilograms of cannabis meant for sick people.

Randy Caine, 57, who once challenged Canada’s marijuana laws all the way to the Supreme Court, said helping people with chronic pain should not be a crime, reports Kent Spencer at The Province.

“If my greatest fault was being overly helpful to sick people, is that a criminal offense?” Caine, owner of Langley Medical Marijuana Dispensary, said on Friday.

“I have been transparent about medical assistance with the authorities from the start,” Caine said. “I had no idea they were this concerned. I was blindsided.”

Five RCMP officers wearing bulletproof jackets executed a search warrant on July 19, claiming they’d received “numerous” complaints about Caine’s operation.

Photo: Langley Advance

Randy Caine in front of the Langley Medical Marijuana Dispensary

​Constable Jillian Roberts said up to four kilograms of marijuana was seized, as well as cannabis-infused brownies and cookies.

She said the dispensary is not legally authorized “by any authority or legislation in Canada.”

But Caine said he has legitimacy — a license issued by Health Canada. The agency has issued 10,000 medical marijuana licenses.

However, Caine admits he was distributing to some 200 patients, even though his license permitted only two.

He justified the difference on the basis of a 2009 B.C. Supreme Court decision concerning a case about patients’ rights.

In that case, Madam Justice M. Marvyn Koenigsberg struck down a section of law which said, in effect, that designated growers can only grow for a single person.

Dispensary manager Carol Gwilt admitted the relevant laws are unclear.

“Medical marijuana is a gray market, but it’s a necessary market,” Gwilt said. “We’re a small business operated as a community-based model.”

Caine said he got his marijuana from small private growers who are not connected to the illegal gang-based cannabis trade in B.C.

He said clients come by appointment only and must have a doctor’s recommendation in writing.

Caine was not granted a business license by City Hall for the tidy-looking premises located on the second floor of a commercial building on Fraser Highway. The lower entrance is secured by a coded lock.

Gwilt said the dispensary would continue serving patients, whose diseases include cvancer, AIDS and epilepsy.

“We have clients who need service in a huge way,” Gwilt said. “They are suffering.”

Caine, who was reared in nearby Surrey, said he knows the community “has a heart.”

“I think this will be a defining moment about how this community takes care of its sick,” Caine said.

Marijuana Arrests in California By County

Feds Forced To Give Back $14K Seized From Pot Dispensary

Graphic: Hollywood Goodfella

​Federal authorities agreed last week to give back nearly half of the $29,350 in cash seized from a man who represents a man who operates a medical marijuana dispensary in San Marcos, California.

The decision to return $14,383 — about 49 percent of the money seized — was part of a settlement that stems from a December incident in which Ron Chang, the man behind the collective, was stopped by federal agents while hauling marijuana on Pala Road, reports Teri Figueroa of the North County Times.

Law enforcement claims that smugglers use the well-traveled back road to avoid the border checkpoint near Temecula on Interstate 15.

Chang’s attempt to set up a dispensary caused a stir in conservative San Marcos, which enacted rules preventing any such businesses from setting up shop in the city of about 84,000 residents.

His first dispensary, Medical Marijuana Supply Collective, was shut down by a Vista-based judge’s order back in October. A second shop, Club One Collective, was then set up in the same location, and in April was ordered to close by the same judge.

Both times, the city of San Marcos sued in state court to shut down the dispensaries.

The property has now been surrendered to the landlord, and there are no plans to reopen the dispensaries, according to Club One’s attorney, Nathan Shaman.

“For all intents and purposes, Club One has ceased to function,” said Shaman, who represented the shop in the cases brought by San Marcos.

He also represented the dispensary in the federal battle over the confiscated cash.

The government gave back more of the ash than it typically does in such seizure cases, admitted Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Smith, who represented the federal government in the case of the seized cash.

“I reviewed it and looked at the events and the quality of the evidence and decided that this was the best thing to do,” Smith said, admitting that the disparity between state and federal laws regarding medical marijuana can create “a real conundrum.”

Club One and some of the medical marijuana patients it served from Oceanside to Temecula found themselves the subjects of raids in April. Federal agents seized computers, corporate records and documents, according to Shaman.

The April raids came just four months after Chang’s run-in with federal agents after he got stopped and his cash was seized.

Details of that December encounter are revealed in a federal complaint seeking to permanently seize the cash found in the truck. That complaint — filed on April 15, two weeks before the raids — says that on December 21, 2010, a U.S. Border Patrol agent pulled Chang over as he drove a truck north on Pala Road.

About 9:40 a.m. on that day, a veteran Border Patrol agent in a marked car spotted a man in a red sweatshirt, driving a rented box-truck with Indiana license plates. The agent claimed he saw the truck driver shift to look into his rearview mirror at the marked Border Patrol car.

According to court documents, the agent claimed that prompted him to follow the truck as it headed north on Pala Road into Temecula.

Once that truck merged onto I-15, the agent flipped on his lights and siren and pulled it over. Chang was the driver, and authorities said he was headed to drop off items at his warehouse business in Murrieta.

Agents claim Chang consented to a search of his truck. Agents claim the search turned up $29,350 cash in a duffel bahg, 1.22 pounds of marijuana, and growing equipment.

Superfast Computers Triggering Botched Marijuana Grow Raids

Photo: Bitcoin Miner

Turns out, looking only at electric usage from a residence, the consumption for bitcoin mining won’t look much different from a marijuana grow-op. Cue clueless cops.

You don’t have to be growing marijuana to get raided for it. At least one Bitcoin miner has been raided by police because unusually high power usage led them to suspect he was growing marijuana, according to unconfirmed reports on Monday.

The tip comes from an IRC chat captured by blogger Mike Esspe, though there are no corroborating details, reports Jerry Brito of Techland.

Bitcoin is the anonymous virtual currency that uses distributed computing power to validate online coins. “It’s like gold mining, except that instead of digging, a miner uses cryptographic math,” reports Techland.

Screen capture: Mike Esspe

Does this mean, that with the growing number of bitcoin miners, courts will stop issuing warrants based on energy bills? Not bloody likely.

Like clandestine indoor marijuana growing operations, Bitcoin mining uses large amounts of electricity and runs up big power bills. It does this because it employs super-fast computers.

High power consumption has often alerted police to marijuana growing operations and has thus led to busts.

“The Canadian town of Mission, B.C. has a bylaw that allows the town’s Public Safety Inspection Team to search people’s homes for grow ops if they are using more than 93 kWh of electricity per day,” according to the blog Bitcoin Miner.

Though a typical mining rig will consume only a fraction of that amount, Bitcoin miners are adding capacity, and with multiple rigs, more and more miners are exceeding the level which triggers police interest, according to the blog.

Residents have been charged a $5,200 inspection fee – even if no marijuana or signs of a grow operation are found, reports Cam Tucker at the Delta Optimist.

Some Mission residents who feel their rights have been violated by the arbitrary searches, and have begun a class-action lawsuit against the District of Mission in B.C. Supreme Court.

There had already been speculation that mining Bitcoins will bring unwanted and misdirected attention from the police.

“I’m still waiting for the first bitcoin grow-op raid,” a Bitcoin mining pioneer had commented on an IRC channel back in January.

Increasingly ubiquitous supercomputing could lead to more and more false positives, not just for Bitcoin miners, but for hardcore gamers too, as well as anyone running video rendering farms or web servers from home, according to Techland.

“It will be interesting to see how courts will adapt to such uses when interpreting reasonable suspicion standards,” Brito writes.

Does this mean, that with the growing number of Bitcoin miners, courts will stop issuing warrants based on energy bills? Not bloody likely.

http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/05/superfast_computers_triggering_botched_marijuana_g.php#more

Obama Still Targeting Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

In 2009, the Obama Administration announced a new federal policy regarding marijuana in states in which medical marijuana has been legalized. The policy statement instructed federal prosecutors not to devote federal resources to prosecuting those who use or supply medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law. At the time, Ilya and I praised the new policy, though Ilya was quite skeptical it would make much difference.

Since the policy it was announced, it appears the policy has been difficult to maintain, and prosecutions of medical marijuana distributors has continued, largely because the federal government fears that some marijuana distributors are serving more than the medicinal marijuana market. As the NYT reports, federal prosecutors appear to be escalating efforts to go after marijuana distributors in medical marijuana states.

As some states seek to increase regulation but also further protect and institutionalize medical marijuana, federal prosecutors are suddenly asserting themselves, authorizing raids and sending strongly worded letters that have cast new uncertainty on an issue that has long brimmed with tension between federal and state law. . . .

Letters so far have gone out to governors in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, prompting some states — including Rhode Island and Montana, in addition to Washington — to revise or back away from plans to make the medical marijuana industry more mainstream.

In Washington, Ms. Gregoire asked for guidance from the state’s two United States attorneys, Mike Ormsby and Jenny Durkan. In a reply to the governor last month, they said the federal government would prosecute “vigorously against individuals and organizations that participate in unlawful manufacturing and distribution activity involving marijuana, even if such activities are permitted under state law.”

The changes have angered supporters of medical marijuana, who say the federal government is sending mixed signals, even as they argue that it has not technically changed its position.

The Justice Department claims there has been no change in policy. Marijuana has remained illegal under federal law, and prosecutors have continued to pursue larger and more conspicuous dispensaries without much regard for state law, prompting increasing conflict with state officials. In the meantime, state level efforts to decriminalize medical marijuana continue apace. There’s now talk of a ballot initiative here in Ohio. So the federal state tension will continue.

Is there a better way? Yes, but it would be difficult to implement without legislation. Here’s what I suggested in 2009:

The Justice Department has to set prosecutorial priorities, as there are more federal crimes on the books than federal prosecutors can ever hope to prosecute. The aim should be to focus federal resources in those areas where there is a distinct federal interest, or where the federal government has a comparative advantage of state and local law enforcement. Where federal law conflicts with state law, prohibiting activities state laws allowed, federal efforts should still focus on those instances of alleged lawbreaking where there is a distinct federal interest, including spillover effects on neighboring jurisdictions.

The federal government has a legitimate interest in controlling interstate drug trafficking, but no particular interest in prosecuting those who seek to provide medical marijuana to local residents pursuant to state law. So it only makes sense for the Justice Department to tell federal prosecutors to focus their efforts on those who are not in compliance with state law, such as those who use medical marijuana distribution as a cover for other illegal activities, interstate drug trafficking in particular. California should be free to set its own marijuana policy, but the federal government retains an interest in preventing California’s choice from adversely affecting neighboring states.

Ideally, the federal government would treat marijuana like alcohol, retaining a federal role in controlling illegal interstate trafficking but leaving each state entirely free to set its own marijuana policy, whether it be prohibition, decriminalization, or somewhere in between.

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/obama-still-targeting-medical-marijuana-dispensaries

50 Poodles Seized During Northwest Arkansas Raid

CENTERTON, Ark. (AP) — Authorities say more than four dozen poodles that were kept in a filthy single-wide mobile home have been seized after police found the animals during a drug raid in Centerton.

Two men were arrested on marijuana-related charges Thursday, but Benton County sheriff’s deputies told the Northwest Arkansas Times that they opted against an animal neglect charge and instead took away the poodles.

Investigators say the suspects ran a poodle-breeding operation out of the trailer.

Animal control officers said the dogs were sociable, but they had parasites, matted fur and unclipped nails.

One of the 51 dogs was left behind. Authorities say the gravely ill wife of one of the suspects wanted to keep the poodle and be buried with it after she dies.

Feds raid medical marijuana facility, 2 other Oakland County properties

Federal agents raided at least three properties in Oakland County this morning.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents were at Caregivers of America, a medicinal marijuana facility in Walled Lake, a home in Commerce Township and an office building in Novi.

DEA Group supervisor Andrew Eiseman said sealed federal search warrants were executed at all three locations, but few other details were released.

He would not say why the warrants were issued or provide more details about the investigation. He did not say if any arrests have been made and would not comment on whether the raids were connected.

The home raided is located in the 3300 block of Benstein Road and is owned by Romel and Ban Casab, according to the Oakland County Assessor’s Office. Romel Casab has said in a lawsuit that he is one of the owners of the former Packard plant in Detroit.

A neighbor who lives across the street from the home said she first saw agents at the home shortly after 7 a.m. today. A black convertible was taken out of the garage and driven out before it was towed away, neighbor Annette Winberg, 66, said. Another car was also taken, she said.

About 10 agents were at the home this morning with four or five cars when a Free Press reporter arrived.

The medicinal marijuana facility in Walled Lake is located at 1020 Decker Road. Walled Lake assessor records say it is owned by 1020 Decker LLC. The assessor’s office said it sends the company’s tax bills to a suite on West 12 Mile Road in Novi. The DEA confirmed that agents were also at the location on 12 Mile this morning executing a search warrant.

Calls to Caregivers of America and to the Commerce Township home were not returned. A woman at the home in Commerce Township declined to talk to a Free Press reporter.

The DEA is working with the Oakland County Sheriff’s office on the raid.

http://www.freep.com/article/20110412/NEWS03/110412028/Feds-raid-medical-marijuana-facility-2-other-Oakland-County-properties

Pot Growing Trailer Stolen From High Times Medical Cannabis Cup

A pot-growing trailer known as the “GrowBot” was stolen from a medical marijuana
trade show in Denver over the weekend, and the owner on Tuesday offered a $5,000
reward for its return.

Greg Childre, who builds custom trailers for a variety of crops at his Georgia manufacturing plan, said the trailer was stolen from the High Times Medical Cannabis Cup in Denver late Sunday night. The 28-foot long “GrowBot” trailer was driven out of the trade show parking lot in full view of security guards, Childre said.

Parking lot surveillance cameras captured the crime, but did not detect the license plates of the Dodge truck that hitched up the trailer and drove off, he said. Childre told Reuters the trailer is computerized, and is stocked with grow lights and  security devices. “Anything you need to grow in a controlled environment,” he said. “It has all the bells and whistles.” Childre said he builds the trailers for other crops, including mushrooms and blueberries, but most of his business is derived from the medical marijuana industry. The trailer is valued at $50,000, and there was no marijuana inside the vehicle, he said.

http://hempbeach.com/pot-growing-trailer-known-as-the-growbot-stolen-from-high-times-medical-cannabis-cup/

Dozens more L.A. medical marijuana dispensaries ordered immediately closed

Los Angeles city officials have widened their campaign against illegal medical marijuana dispensaries, warning an additional 60 stores that they must shut down immediately.

The new letters went out earlier this week about two weeks after the city attorney’s office notified the operators and landlords of another 141 pot shops that they must close. The letters warn that the city could sue violators, seek financial penalties and “padlock the property.”

SEARCH: Complete list of dispensaries in lottery or ordered to shut down

Asha Greenberg, the assistant city attorney who oversees the enforcement efforts, said that city employees checked every one of the newly notified locations to be certain the businesses were open.

“These were locations that we were unclear about,” she said. She added, however, that the office has not determined whether all those stores are selling marijuana.
The city’s letter asks for a response. So far, Greenberg said, the city attorney’s office has received information on two dozen locations. At 11, the dispensaries are closed. At six, owners said they were acting to close them. At another six, the dispensaries are still open. And at one site, the business has denied that it is a medical marijuana dispensary.

If the notified dispensaries do not close, the city attorney’s office will work with the police department to gather evidence that can be used in court proceedings to shut them down. Greenberg said she could not estimate how long that process would take.

The city has taken aim at any dispensary that did not register to participate in a lottery to choose 100 dispensaries that will be allowed to operate. The city clerk received 228 applications. The office is reviewing them to make sure they meet the qualifications for the drawing, which include having been in business since Sept. 14, 2007, and having at least one of the same operators.

Greenberg said it was not possible to know whether the city has now identified most of the illegal stores in Los Angeles. “I hear all the time that there are new ones opening and old ones reopening,” she said. “It will always be a moving a target.”

Original Article.