Feds Announce Crackdown On State Marijuana Operations
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) -- Federal prosecutors in California are cracking down on some of the state's medical marijuana dispensaries, signaling an escalation of the ongoing conflict between the U.S. government and the state's growing medical marijuana industry.
The four U.S. attorneys in California, the first state to pass a law legalizing marijuana use for patients with doctors' recommendations, held a joint news conference Friday in Sacramento where they outlined "actions targeting the sale, distribution and cultivation of marijuana."
At least 16 pot shops or their landlords received letters this week warning they would face criminal charges and confiscation of their property if the dispensaries do not shut down in 45 days.
"Large commercial operations cloak their moneymaking activities in the guise of helping sick people when in fact they are helping themselves," said Benjamin B. Wagner, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California. "Our interest is in enforcing federal criminal law, not prosecuting seriously sick people and those who are caring for them.
"We are making these announcements together today so that the message is absolutely clear that commercial marijuana operations are illegal under federal law, and that we will enforce federal law."
The statewide enforcement efforts fall into three main categories:
- Civil forfeiture lawsuits against properties involved in drug trafficking activity, which includes, in some cases, marijuana sales in violation of local ordinances;
- Letters of warning to the owners and lienholders of properties where illegal marijuana sales are taking place; and
- Criminal cases targeting commercial marijuana activities, including arrests over the past two weeks in cases filed in federal courts in Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and Fresno.
Among the cases the federal government cited in its enforcement efforts was a warehouse in Stockton where officers found about 2,000 plants on Tuesday. Three bank accounts of two Sacramento-area dispensaries were also seized last month and an indictment was returned on another Sacramento operation, R & R Wellness.
Drug agents found 139 pounts of marijuana at the R & R Wellness at 75 Quinta Court in Sacramento in June. Bryan Smith's house was searched about six months after R & R opened, and officers found $280,000 in cash.
Friday's announcement comes a little more than two months after the Obama administration toughened its stand on medical marijuana. For two years before that, federal officials had indicated they would not move aggressively against dispensaries in compliance with laws in the 16 states where pot is legal for people with doctors' recommendations.
The Department of Justice issued a policy memo to federal prosecutors in late June stating that marijuana dispensaries and licensed growers in states with medical marijuana laws could face prosecution for violating federal drug and money-laundering laws. The effort to shutter California dispensaries appeared to be the most far-reaching effort so far to put that guidance into action.
The San Diego medical marijuana outlets put on notice were the same dozen that city officials sued last month for operating illegally, after activists there threatened to force an election on a zoning plan adopted to regulate the city's fast-growing medical marijuana industry, City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said. A judge on Wednesday ordered nine of the targeted shops to close, while the other three shut down voluntarily, Goldsmith said.
Duffy, the U.S. attorney for far Southern California, planned to issue warning letters to property owners and all of the 180 or so dispensaries that have proliferated in San Diego in the absence of compromise regulations, according to Goldsmith.
"The real power is with the federal government," he said. "They have the asset forfeiture, and that means either the federal government will own a lot of property or these landlords will evict a lot of dispensaries."
(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)
