Thread: Raids shut down marijuana dispensaries S.D.,CA.

Raids shut down marijuana dispensaries

District Attorney's Office leads multiagency effort

By Kristina Davis
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
2:00 a.m. September 10, 2009
Update

The San Diego County District Attorney's Office has scheduled a 10 a.m. press conference to discuss the results of Wednesday's raids. Law enforcement officers raided an unknown number of medical-marijuana dispensaries around the San Diego region yesterday, authorities said.

The District Attorney's Office, which is leading the multiagency operation, declined to give further details, saying more information would be released today.

Word of the raids began spreading about noon with reports of armed officers from the San Diego Police Department, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies bursting into dispensaries or collectives.

Raids were reported at a handful of dispensaries, including Pacific Beach Collective on Turquoise Street, Green Kross Collective on Mission Boulevard and Hillcrest Compassion Care on University Avenue. Late yesterday, a red sign in front of Pacific Beach Collective read: “This location has been involved in the trafficking of illegal narcotics. Criminal prosecution is pending.â€

A local TV News program had an interview with an employee of one of the stores and he said that they are a legal business. They keep books just like every other business in town. They pay their employees by the hour, deduct federal and state income taxes, pay social security etc. One of the stores had an income of more than $700,000 so far this year. He didn't say what their expenses were. They have to have a business license, insurance, pay rent etc.

DA says raid targeted illegal marijuana sales

By Angelica Martinez
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
12:44 p.m. September 10, 2009

The following is a list of marijuana dispensaries closed in Wednesday's countywide raid:

Answerdam Rx, 6645 Convoy Ct., San Diego
Beneficial Care Collective, 740 Broadway, San Diego
Green Kross Collective, 3415 Mission Blvd., San Diego
Green Tree Solutions, 8055 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., San Diego
The Healing Dragon, 2506 South Santa Fe Ave. # B-8, Vista
Hillcrest Compassion Care, 1295 University Ave., San Diego
Medicinal Solutions Patient Collective, 861 Hornblend St., San Diego
Movement in Action, 1050 South Santa Fe Ave., Vista
Nature's Rx, 3520 Ashford St., Ste. E, San Diego
Pacific Beach Collective, 929 Turquoise St., San Diego
San Diego Discount Caregivers, 3152 University Ave., San Diego
San Diego Dispensary Services, 1232 Los Vallecitos, San Marcos
Top Quality Collective, 7933 Balboa Ave., San Diego
Total Herbal Care, 4667 1/2 Cass St., San Diego
Source: San Diego District Attorney's Office

More than two dozen people operating marijuana dispensaries were arrested in countywide raids that also shut down 14 storefronts, authorities announced Thursday morning.

District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said the search warrants served at dispensaries and some homes Wednesday “has nothing to do with legitimate medical marijuana patients or their caregivers.â€

Raids shut down 14 sellers of medical pot

Posted 33m ago
By William M. Welch, USA TODAY

SAN DIEGO — Local and federal investigators shut down 14 medical marijuana dispensaries and arrested 30 people after an undercover operation allegedly found widespread violation of the state's medicinal pot law by storefront sellers.

The actions, announced Thursday, amount to one of the most aggressive law enforcement steps yet to thwart what has become rampant growth in California cities of storefront operations purporting to legally sell medical marijuana to qualifying patients.

California, which first passed its medical marijuana law in 1996, is one of 13 states that permits use to treat pain and illness if recommended by a physician. The state laws remain in conflict with federal law making possession, sale and cultivation of marijuana illegal.

San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said charges had yet to be filed against most of those arrested. Two of those arrested face federal drug charges, U.S. Attorney Karen Hewitt said. Others were arrested for violation of state law.

The district attorney asserted that medical pot sellers who advertised openly in local publications and on the Internet were flouting state requirements that they be set up as cooperatives or collectives and in fact were for-profit sellers of marijuana for recreational use. One of the businesses had recorded $700,000 in marijuana income in six months, she said, and six guns and $70,000 cash were seized in the raids.

"It appears these so-called 'marijuana dispensaries' are nothing more than for-profit storefront drug dealing operations run by drug dealers hiding behind the state's medical marijuana law," Dumanis said.

She and San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne said their undercover investigation found that none of the medical marijuana stores they examined were run legally.

The police chief said investigators estimate 40 to 50 such sellers were doing business in the city and more in the surrounding county. Their visibility in San Diego is far smaller than in some other areas of the state, such as Los Angeles, where ads in local publications and on the Internet suggest there are hundreds. Dumanis said she wanted San Diego to avoid the problems Los Angeles has with widespread public marijuana sales.

Americans for Safe Access, which advocates for medical marijuana use, blasted Dumanis as "a notorious opponent of medical marijuana" bent on thwarting California law.

Dumanis said none of the sellers were found to have sold to individuals lacking a proper physician's recommendation. She said the sellers had violated requirements for structuring and operating as collectives or cooperatives as laid out in law.
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