Law School Discusses Medical Marijuana in Wake of County Raids (tags)
One week after San Diego police officers, sheriff’s deputies and federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents raided 14 medical marijuana dispensaries in San Diego County, the National Lawyers’ Guild chapters of California Western and Thomas Jefferson Schools of Law held a forum on the medical marijuana issue at Cal Western. Among the speakers were Gerald Singleton, attorney representing many of the people arrested in these and previous raids against medical marijuana providers; Dion Markgraaf, local activist who's been prosecuted four times for helping medical users obtain marijuana; and Alex Kreit, attorney and law professor who's been involved in medical marijuana issues. They particularly discussed the hard line against medical marijuana taken by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors and attorney general Bonnie Dumanis.
Obama's Medical Marijuana Rhetoric Better Than His Actions (tags)
Despite the much-ballyhooed announcements from the Obama administration that they're going to stop prosecuting medical marijuana patients and providers as long as they abide by the laws of their states, little has changed, attorney Gerald Singleton and activist Dion Markgraaf told Activist San Diego at a meeting April 20. Patients and providers are still being raided, and the Justice Department disappointed medical marijuana advocates by recommending a five-year prison sentence for former Morro Bay dispensary operator Charles Lynch despite the request by the judge in the case for some legal ground to be more lenient.
S.D. Cracks Down on Medical Pot as Feds Loosen Up (tags)
Don Duncan, California statewide director of the national medical-marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA), came to San Diego February 10 to tell local members that the outlook for medical marijuana is good. He pointed to a policy statement from a spokesperson for President Obama that said the federal government will stop using its police power to interfere with state medical marijuana laws. But that was cold comfort to many of the people in the room, especially those targeted by a flurry of raids in San Diego in the first week of February.