Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "ryan landers"

Feds crack down on medical marijuana dispensaries

2011-10-13T06:28:10Z

Local medical marijuana dispensaries recently came under fire as the federal government began cracking down on illegal marijuana growing and dispensing operations across the nation.

But wait – medical marijuana is legal in California, right? Yes and no.

In the wake of a June 2011 memo sent to state attorney generals from the Department of Justice warning of the federal government’s intention to shut down illegal marijuana operations, there have been numerous raids on dispensaries in California.

Some local operators have received warning letters that they may be next.

“Joanne,” a dispensary operator in Sacramento who wants to remain anonymous, said Wednesday that local operators have always known the federal government might intervene.

“There’s never been a promise that it wouldn’t happen,” Joanne said. “Everyone is on high alert now.”

Under federal law, the production, distribution and use of marijuana for any purpose is illegal.

Exceptions have been made, however.

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed the Compassionate Investigational New Drug Study program allowing a select handful of patients to use marijuana for medical purposes.

The program was closed to new applicants in 1992, largely due to a huge increase in applications from AIDS patients. After the program was closed, 13 patients already in the program were allowed to continue. Of those, four currently remain on the program.

In California, a statewide voter initiative – Proposition 215, known as the Compassionate Use Act – was passed in 1996 by 56 percent of the voters, allowing medical access to marijuana for seriously ill patients.

As of 2011, 16 states have medical marijuana laws on the books that recognize a medicinal value for marijuana. California is one of them.

Despite state laws popping up across the nation, the federal law has remained unchanged – marijuana use for any purpose is still illegal.

In 2007, as Barack Obama was campaigning for president of the United States, he stated his support of legalization of marijuana for medical purposes. However, until it was legalized, Obama said, he wouldn’t use federal resources to enforce the federal law.

A memo from the Department of Justice followed in October 2009, reiterating that the DOJ wouldn’t focus federal resources on prosecuting “individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws” for the medical marijuana use.

Although the memo did not “legalize” marijuana, it opened the floodgates for dispensary operators to open shop in states that had laws on the books allowing medical marijuana use.

Max Del Real, a lobbyist for the Sacramento Alliance of County Collectives (SACC), a medical cannabis trade association, said in a July interview that there were approximately 45 to 65 medical marijuana dispensaries operating in Sacramento county at that time – but that number was just an estimate since none of those operations were permitted through county administration.

According to a city staff report, when the city enacted its medical marijuana ordinance in November 2010, there were already 39 registered medical marijuana dispensaries operating in the city.

A new influx of dispensaries – including some large-scale, industrial marijuana cultivation centers with revenue projections in the millions of dollars – quickly caught the attention of the DOJ.

In an attempt to curtail this potential profiteering, U.S. Attorney General James M. Cole released the June memo stating that the DOJ would use federal resources to prosecute illegal marijuana cultivation, distribution and use – including marijuana for medicinal purpose.

“The Ogden (Memo) was never intended to shield such activities from federal enforcement action and prosecution, even where those activities purport to comply with state law,” Cole stated.

Hence, the DOJ was essentially saying that state laws regarding the legalization of medicinal marijuana are irrelevant when it comes to the prosecution of marijuana growers, sellers and distributors.

Ryan Landers, director for the American Alliance for Medical Cannabis, said he disagrees with the DOJ’s stance on medical marijuana, calling the recent enforcement actions of the Department of Justice “heavy-handed” and unnecessary.

“The genie’s out of the bottle, and the Feds are trying to shove it back in,” Landers said. “We could achieve the same thing through regulation instead of direct attack.”

Despite the recent focus on prosecuting dispensaries by the federal government, Sgt. Andrew Pettit, Sacramento Police Department spokesman, said that the department isn’t “cracking down” on dispensaries.

“We don’t have a narcotics team,” Pettit said. “Our concern with (dispensary operators) is only that they follow the regulations.”

Pettit said the department has specific protocols to follow when an operator is in violation of any local ordinance, and police officers will turn those cases over to the District Attorney.

Joanne said that it’s the “opportunists” that break the rules, doing harm to the industry and harm to the patients.

“There some bad apples out there, yes,” Joanne said. “But it isn’t the industry as a whole. The few that break the rules make the rest of us look bad.”

Still, Joanne said the DOJ raids are not necessarily a bad thing.

“It’s going to be a good thing when the dust clears,” Joanne said. “It will make the industry better, and the grey areas a little less grey.”

Calls for comment to the Department of Justice and the state Attorney General’s Office were not returned by press time.

MEDICAL MARIJUANA TIMELINE
1978 – Federal court rules in favor of a glaucoma patient’s use of medical marijuana in Randall v. U.S.

1978 – President Jimmy Carter signs the Compassionate Investigational New Drug Study program

1992 – President George H. W. Bush closes the CIND program to new applicants. Only four individuals remain in the program.

1996 – California voters pass the Compassionate Use Act (Proposition 215), legalizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

2001 – U.S. Supreme Court rules that state and federal laws do not need to conform with each other.

2007 – Presidential candidate Barack Obama states support of medical marijuana legalization, and assures voters he will not use any federal resources to enforce the current federal law.

2008 – The California legislature passes Senate Bill 420 (SB420), instituting a statewide medical marijuana ID card program.

2008 – Attorney General Jerry Brown clarifies state medical marijuana guidelines, requiring dispensaries to become collective nonprofit organizations.

May 2009 – The city of Sacramento enacts an ordinance to allow dispensary operators to apply for special operating permits within the city.

October 2009 – The Ogden Memo is released from the Department of Justice reiterating that federal resources will not be used to enforce current federal laws against medical marijuana users.

June 2011 – The Cole Memo is released from the Department of Justice stating that federal resources will be used to enforce current federal laws prohibiting marijuana production, distribution and use.

Melissa Corker is a Staff Reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @MelissaCorker.

Medical pot providers discuss city's rules

2010-10-26T04:44:58Z

Medical pot advocates hashed out their concerns about the city’s draft medical marijuana rules Monday night.

Sacramento City Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy, two city staffers and about 40 medical marijuana providers and advocates met at City Hall to discuss the details of the city’s newly released draft medical marijuana regulations.

City staff released draft medical pot rules – which technically consist of two ordinances – on Friday afternoon. The City Council will discuss the ordinances at its Nov. 9 meeting.

At the Monday night meeting, medical pot advocates passed around a microphone and expressed their views of the draft regulations, while a city staffer took notes.

Some medical pot advocates raised concerns about the fees that dispensaries would pay. If the ordinance passes, the city would include several fees in the permit process for medical marijuana clubs. City staff wrote in a report released Friday that the fees “would provide for full recovery of program costs.”

Ryan Landers, an advocate for medical marijuana patients, said the ordinance should not “price everybody out of business.”

The draft rules also say that dispensaries should have bars on their windows, which disturbed Lanette Davies, co-owner of the medical marijuana dispensary Canna Care.

“We want to have (an) open and inviting atmosphere for our patients,” she said.

Several of the people who attended the workshop Monday night said the city’s proposed rules regarding felonies are too strict. The draft rules require each dispensary’s entire staff, including owners and volunteers, to not have a felony conviction.

Sheedy told the group that the ordinance would not be perfect. “The main goal is to get you legitimate,” she said.

Only the 39 registered medical pot shops in the city would be able to apply for permits to legally manage their businesses, according to city staff.

Rules would also dictate the locations of the medical pot dispensaries. The draft ordinance orders hat dispensaries be 600 feet away from parks, schools, substance-abuse centers, theaters, tobacco shops, “youth-oriented facilities” and churches.

Dispensaries should also be 300 feet away from homes, according to the draft rules.

The draft ordinance would provide exemptions from the location restrictions to existing medical pot clubs that are registered and have stayed at the same site since July 27, 2010.

City staff do not expect all of the current medical pot shops to make it through the process in a year, according to the report. “Staff has made a conservative estimate that 25 dispensaries will complete the permit process within one year,” the report states.

Read the draft rules here.

Photo by Brandon Darnell. A state of California benefits card is necessary to legally purchase medicinal marijuana.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Support for the legalization of cannabis grows

2009-11-01T06:04:02Z

Standing outside of a Sacramento medical cannabis dispensary, you might detect something in the air. No, it's not secondhand THC vapor — public medicating is prohibited in the county. What you sense is a shift in perspective. Public pressure is building for the legalization and regulation of one of the oldest cash crops in America: the plants of genus Cannabis.

The US federal government has held since 1970 that cannabis is a danger to public health and safety and listed the annual flowering herb under US code as having "high potential for abuse" and "no accepted medical potential."

"A lot of people are thinking that federal drug laws are arbitrary and now we're starting to see the translation of public sentiment into political will,” Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D - San Francisco) told The Sacramento Press.

In 1996, California voters passed a ballot initiative, Proposition 215, which allowed the possession, cultivation and use of cannabis for patients with a doctor's recommendation. Since then, voter majorities in Alaska, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington have passed ballot initiatives to allow seriously ill Americans to use cannabis.

In 2003, after numerous rewrites, the California Legislature recognized and further protected medical marijuana uses with SB 420. State legislatures of Hawaii, Vermont, Rhode Island, and New Mexico have passed bills that do mostly the same. SB 420 is unlike other bills in that it also allows for the formation of patient collectives — not-for-profit businesses that provide medical cannabis to qualified patients.

American Association for Medical Cannabis state director Ryan Landers had a hand in the shaping of 420. "Originally, 420 started out as 187, a bill that was more conservative and, I felt, would help less people. It was sent to the suspense file and I had this feeling it would be coming back, so I helped to rewrite it for greater patient coverage."

Before 420, several bills entered debate that would contravene Proposition 215. In 2000, two of these bills emerged. Former state Senator Maurice Johannessen authored SB 2089, a bill that would have limited the recommendation of cannabis and restricted patients to two indoor plants. It failed in the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, its first committee.

SB 848, authored by former state Senator John Vasconcellos, would have placed harsher regulations on medicinal cannabis and was refused passage in the Assembly.

"I testified to kill those bills to ensure that there would be no misunderstanding," Landers said. "I want to provide freedom for the most patients possible."

According to a 2004 survey by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), over 75,000 Californians have become cannabis patients under the provisions of the Compassionate Use Act (215) and the Medical Marijuana Program (420).

Physicians and medical professionals have been a vital source of support for the medical cannabis movement. Dr. Frank Lucido, a 30-year private practice doctor and respected medical cannabis spokesman, estimates that 1,500 doctors in California recommend cannabis to chronically ill patients. He said that significant stigma still surrounds the drug, however.

"There are two reasons doctors are hesitant to prescribe cannabis," he said. “First, a lot of doctors don't know the value of the drug because they simply weren't taught that in medical school. Second, many are afraid of the California Medical Board and federal law enforcement, even though they're protected by Supreme Court rulings."

Lucido believes that medical cannabis, despite its enduring taboo in the medical sector, has wide applicability.

"Every doctor knows they have about 20 slam-dunk patients that could benefit greatly from medical cannabis."

Full legalization is a completely different animal and Ammiano knows it. The state representative introduced AB 390 in March to a blaze of attention. Since then, the bill has failed to move through the legislature. However, Ammiano planned for AB 390 to be a two-year bill.

"The debate we're having is sustainable, it has legs," Ammiano said. "And it's way bigger than just me."

AB 390 is a bill of a rare breed: It is both a full decriminalization of cannabis for adults over the age of 21, and a plan to enforce systems of taxation to tap into the drug's booming commercial value.

This would work twofold by would generating tax receipts and reducing state expenses. The bill planned to institute a tax of $50 per ounce of dried marijuana sold by official retailers, who would pay no more than $2,500 for an annual sales license and $1,000 for a renewal. Further, the bill would free up state resources in law enforcement, no longer regarding cannabis users as a criminal priority.

"It's California's biggest cash crop and right now we're hemorrhaging money to prosecute and imprison minor drug offenders,” Ammiano said. “With the current budget crisis, this is looking like the perfect storm."

Cannabis activists largely support AB 390, though the seasoned Landers objects to some points.

"The bill started out ahead of itself," he said. "The profits and tax numbers it projects are based on the illegal price of cannabis. Once legalization gets through, supply will increase and prices will have to settle. A $50 tax on an ounce that costs $25, which is the final pre-tax price most people hope for, would be ridiculous."

The age limit in the bill -- that Ammiano modeled after alcohol regulations -- is also contentious.

"The age limit of 21 is entirely a concession," Landers said. "Putting cannabis into the same category of regulation as alcohol opens up a host of problems. Eighteen-year-olds could take the state to court and force them to explain why cannabis is more dangerous than alcohol, even though marijuana alone has never killed a soul."

Ammiano's bill has the support of San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennessey, although law enforcement has historically been extremely critical of legalization. "I think marijuana should be decriminalized," Hennessey told SFWeekly in February. "I'd like to give more thought to heroin and methamphetamines and that kind of stuff."

The California Police Chiefs Association disagrees, having issued a 2009 White Paper that rebuked even the medicinal use of cannabis. The white paper characterizes medical cannabis dispensaries as "multi-million dollar enterprises" which are "often used as a front for organized crime" where "many violent crimes have been committed," fostering "generally unhealthy conditions."

But actual instances of crime in and around dispensaries is fairly rare, according to Sacramento Police Department spokesman Norm Leong. "Service calls are generally uncommon, he said. “And when we do get calls, it's the dispensary owners that call it in."

Ammiano sees a gradual change of mind regarding cannabis in law enforcement.

"There's certainly a mindset there, but there are cracks in that as well. It's not as monolithic as it used to be."

He also cited the late conservative economist Milton Friedman, who supported cannabis legalization and taxation toward the end of his life.

Outside of Ammiano’s efforts, activist groups are taking other routes. Two voter initiatives are circulating through California, both of which propose to legalize, regulate and tax cannabis.

The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010, introduced by Oaksterdam University, would enact largely the same legalization measures as Ammiano's bill. This would allow the pro-cannabis supporters to get legalization directly onto the ballot and circumvent any lack of political support.

"The cannabis regulating system we currently have in place has failed," said Salwa Ibrahim, spokesperson for the initiative. "We want to empower the state to benefit from something that's already existing."

Ibrahim cited other benefits that are frequently discussed in the cannabis debate. "We don't think consumption or crime would increase at all. Similar to prohibition in the '20s, the black markets [that] illegality has created would disappear."

Regardless of the outcome of any of these movements, it seems clear that the public dialogue on legal cannabis has taken a step forward.

"390 has done an amazing thing, and that's this: It ignited the conversation," Landers said.

With or without the blessing of the law, humans worldwide are planting the cannabis seed. The renewed question on everyone's mind is what to do with the harvest.

This story was written by former Sacramento Press intern Cheyenne Cary.

Medical marijuana activist Ryan Landers speaks

2009-11-01T06:01:56Z

Medical cannabis in California wouldn't be what it is today if it wasn't for Ryan Landers. The Sacramento activist helped to develop the laws, policies and realities of medical marijuana in a career of activism that spans more than a decade. He was there to help roll Proposition 215 into motion in 1996 and had a significant hand in crafting SB 420 in 2003.

"I live the cause," he said. "When I'm not out testifying or counseling or negotiating for the cause, I'm just home and sick."

He's a 15-year survivor of HIV/AIDS, a personal fact that he doesn't usually publicize partly due to prior experience.

Landers, now 37, became a member of Californians for Compassionate Use in 1995. CCU is the group behind the successful Prop. 215 ballot initiative that won state medical legalization.

"When we got started, the public perception was really different," Landers said. "As we were collecting signatures, people were shocked. 'What do you mean you want to change drug laws?'"

As a volunteer, Landers ran information tables and collected signatures at California colleges, the Capitol, bookstores and food co-ops. “The press was giving us coverage every night, and I started appearing on TV,” Landers said.

Prop. 215 landed on the 1996 ballot and swept through into law on a 55.6% margin.

Landers is no stranger to news cameras and microphones. His media skills made public figures of his friends Steve Connell and Jacqueline Mahone, who testified beside him for years. He has also worked extensively with activists like East Bay resident Dr. Frank Lucido and Sacramento attorney Joseph Farina, to whom Landers says he probably owes his life.

Getting a tattoo at 16 changed his life forever. He was diagnosed HIV positive in 1995.

He started medicating to help deal with the nausea and pain that the HIV virus and medication brought with it. Cannabis helps relieve his neuropathic pain and allows him to eat and keep food down once a day, even though he hasn't been hungry in 15 years.

Landers' activism reads like a history of medical pot. He testified in the California State Legislature against SB 535 (1997), SB 847 (1999), SB 848 (1999), and SB 187 (2001). He helped to author a revised version of SB 187, which went on to become the successful SB 420.

In appearance, Landers is not what you'd expect when you think of a cannabis activist. He keeps his hair cropped and short, reminiscent of his service with the Navy during the first Gulf War, and stays snappily dressed in three-piece suits on a normal day of business. He looks nothing like Tommy Chong.

The medical cannabis cause wound up making Landers a parent. As he was working with teens at risk of expulsion for cannabis use, he took two kids under his wing and eventually officially adopted them. David, 23, and Nate, 24, both graduated with their senior classes. More recently, they made him a grandfather at 37.

"In the end, that's why I could never walk away, when I thought about how many lives in the community could stand to benefit from this," Landers said. "If what I was doing was dangerous, or if it were wrong, I wouldn't be doing it."

(This story was written by former Sacramento Press intern Cheyenne Cary.)