CALIF. JUDGE DEALS BLOW TO MEDICAL POT MOVEMENT

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled Thursday that federal
law allows landlords to boot medical marijuana dispensaries that rent
from them.

The decision by Judge Margaret Oldendorf was a strike against
dispensaries in their legal battle against the Drug Enforcement
Administration. The agency, over the past year or so, has notified
landlords who rent to dispensaries that doing so is a violation of
federal law, even though medical marijuana is legal in California.

The case before Oldendorf stemmed from Northridge, Calif., landlord
Parthenia Center's attempt to evict dispensary Today's Health Care Inc.

Oldendorf ruled that federal law gave Parthenia the right to evict
THC, citing the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v.
Raich, 545 U.S. 1, that supported the federal government's ability to
prohibit medical marijuana despite the passage of California's
Compassionate Use Act in 1996.

The high court's majority opinion, Oldendorf said in a written
ruling, found that the Constitution's Supremacy Clause "unambiguously
provides that if there is any conflict between federal and state law,
federal law shall prevail."

Several attorneys involved with medical marijuana-related litigation
say the decision could hurt dispensaries' ability to find landlords
willing to rent to them. The DEA letters alone have already forced
several Bay Area dispensaries to close. Arcata, Calif.-based attorney
Steven Schectman, who represented THC and said he plans to appeal,
said the case will determine the future of medical marijuana.

"We see this as an opportunity ultimately to have the California
courts clear this up once and for all," he said.

Attorneys on both sides said state appellate courts will ultimately
have to decide the issue. Ruzicka, Snyder & Wallace of counsel
Richard Sontag, who represented Parthenia, said he expects it may
take five to 10 years for courts to resolve the matter.

Sontag, based in Irvine, Calif., said both Gonzales v. Raich and Ross
v. Ragingwire, 07 C.D.O.S. 1098 -- a California Supreme Court
decision that found an employee could be fired for using medical pot
- -- show the CUA doesn't act as an umbrella against federal action. He
said the state Supreme Court has interpreted the CUA as a narrow
exemption for patients and their providers, not an overall protection
that extends to employment law or landlord-tenant matters.

Sontag said he has always advised landlords who come to him for
advice that renting to a pot dispensary is "a can of worms."

Parthenia sent THC a notice to move out last November, less than a
month after receiving a letter from the DEA threatening penalties of
property forfeiture and up to 20 years in prison for renting to a
medical marijuana dispensary. The DEA sent similar letters last year
to landlords throughout California who were renting to dispensaries.

Oldendorf issued her tentative decision for Parthenia in January.
Schectman asked her to vacate her earlier ruling, and on Thursday,
she declined. But Schectman said he felt confident that a higher
court will follow California precedent and find that the CUA is not
pre-empted by federal law.

Schectman has taken on legal work for numerous dispensaries fighting
eviction in the wake of the DEA's letters. In a similar Los Angeles
County case, he successfully argued that it was beyond the superior
court's jurisdiction to rule on the reach of federal law and that an
eviction was solely a contract-law issue that centered on the terms
of the lease.