KEEP OFF THE GRASS

Medical marijuana is not illegal in California, but the DEA continues
to raid dispensaries in Long Beach. We ask the obvious question: Why?

It's just before noon on a sunny day in early October, and a young man
in a Dodgers T-shirt skateboards up one of the funky East Village
sidewalks of downtown Long Beach to 745 E. Fourth Street, picks up his
board and enters Unit E. Inside the small vestibule, he greets the
guys behind the counter and presents documents confirming that a
doctor has diagnosed him with a medical condition with symptoms
alleviated by the use of marijuana. He takes a seat to wait. He
doesn't know his arrival has been watched. But any second now, he will.

Outside, Special Agent Patrick L. Kelly of the United States Drug
Enforcement Administration has been observing Unit E-identified by its
small sign as Long Beach Holistic, one of the many dispensaries of
medical marijuana that have operated legally in California since
voters approved the Compassionate Use Act in 1996. Kelly has been here
at least once before: He surveilled Long Beach Holistic two weeks ago.
Today, however, he has lots of company.

As the young man with the skateboard waits for his paperwork to be
validated, a dozen DEA agents-sporting helmets, bulletproof vests and
guns-pour through the dispensary's unlocked door. Next, the barrel of
an assault rifle is pointed directly at the Dodgers insignia on his
T-shirt-which is to say, straight at his heart. Then, even after he is
handcuffed and reseated, a pistol is trained in his general direction.

Meanwhile, the rest of the invasion team makes its way into an
antechamber, demanding entry into the dispensary proper. Before the
staff can comply, one agent begins to pry open the door with a silver
crowbar, and another pounds with a handheld battering ram. They
operate deliberately, not hurrying, but quite determinedly.

Inside, agents point their firearms in all directions. With the area
secured-which takes little effort, considering the staff is three
unarmed and scared young men-a curious ritual ensues: A female agent
surveys the premises, and whenever she spots a security camera, she
points it out to her crowbar-wielding teammate, who smashes it. He
swings at one and kills it, then another, a third, a fourth.
Nonetheless, everything I've just described is caught on video.

Isn't it great to live in a state that cares enough about the sick
that it permits people with conditions like HIV, multiple sclerosis,
glaucoma and cancer to get and use the medicine they
need-specifically, when that the medicine is marijuana? This is what
the voters of California allowed for in 1996, when they approved the
Compassionate Use Act.

But doesn't it suck to live in a country so hardhearted it will spend
millions of dollars to prevent sick people from getting medical
marijuana, actively opposing the will of the voters in over a dozen
states? That's what the DEA has done in perhaps 150 raids throughout
California alone since 2000-the year George W. Bush became president
of the United States.

The Oct. 8 raid on Long Beach Holistic wasn't the first such DEA
strike in Long Beach. For example, in November 2007 federal agents
invaded Long Beach Compassionate Cooperative, seizing 33 kilograms of
marijuana and about $10,000 cash. The raid on Long Beach Holistic
wasn't even the only Long Beach operation by the DEA on Oct. 8; agents
also swept through a medpot dispensary called HHA, a block away at 834
E. Fourth Street.

One question: Why?

Twelve years after California voters' approval of the Compassionate
Use Act-a move supported by the New England Journal of Medicine,
Kaiser Permanente, the American Bar Association, the Lymphoma
Foundation of America, the American Academy of Family Physicians and
former DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young-the federal
government continues to categorize cannabis as a Schedule I drug-that
is, illegal for all purposes, in the same category as PCP.

More aggressively than ever, U.S. agents are enforcing federal law at
the expense of the state law approved by California voters.

Follow-up question: Why?

"The Compassionate Use Act is not a model of clarity," says Long Beach
Assistant City Attorney Mike Mais with a hint of a chuckle-not because
he doesn't take these questions seriously, but because, well, it's a
dozen years later, and his office still isn't sure how to advise city
officials.

Mais refers me to an 11-page interpretation of the Compassionate Use
Act recently issued by California Attorney General Jerry Brown, but
notes that these are guidelines and not directives. And they certainly
don't clear up everything.

For example, Brown writes: "'storefront' dispensaries, as such, are
not recognized under the law." A few lines later, however, Brown
suggests that "a properly organized and operated collective [which, he
notes, California law does not define] or cooperative that dispenses
medical marijuana through a storefront may be lawful."

Mais says the current general opinion of the Long Beach City
Attorney's office is that no storefront dispensaries operating in Long
Beach are in compliance with Brown's guidelines. But he's quick to
point out that his office has not investigated the matter at all and
has no firsthand information on the operations' legality. Meanwhile,
Mais says, the office is taking a "wait-and-see" approach, watching
how various pertinent lawsuits play out in cities around the state.

Off the record, one city official tells me that this "wait-and-see"
position is largely motivated by the city's financial problems: Long
Beach simply cannot afford to expose itself to liability for taking a
hard line on dispensaries. Another city official offers a different
hypothesis: "There's a lot of compassion in Long Beach."

Last summer, a few months before the DEA raids on Fourth Street, an article
in the East Village News reported on the "hot topic" of conversation at the
July meeting of the East Village Association: a medpot dispensary, unnamed
in the story, though it later turned out to be a little business called Long
Beach Holistic. I'd never been to such a place-never heard of this one-but
it was clear from the little newsletter's benign account of the discussion
that the intent was to run it out of town. The story included comments from
Nuisance Abatement Officer Rita Hooker of the Long Beach Police Department,
who supposedly told the group the DEA was already involved in the situation.
The information about the DEA was, as it happens, true, but the comments
from Hooker weren't: I learned later that she wasn't even at the meeting.

Meanwhile, I went looking for Long Beach Holistic, and the first thing
I discovered is that these places can be pretty inconspicuous. It was
supposed to be on the 400 block of Olive, but I just couldn't find it.
Finally, after going door to door, I came across one bearing a small
sign, which simply read: "Long Beach Holistic," with the hours of
operation. I didn't smell pot. I didn't see customers.

When I walked into a tiny lobby area, there were two empty chairs and
two men sitting in a little office behind a plate of glass, like
ticket-sellers at the cinema. They made a call inside, and a minute
later I was greeted by a soft-spoken young man in a muscle tee and
fedora: the manager. I'll call him "Bob," because of the next thing I
learned about medpot dispensaries-hardly anybody wants to talk on the
record about them.

It was members-only inside, so Bob suggested taking a walk to the
corner. He didn't want to talk directly in front of LBH because of
problems with the dispensary's next-door neighbor, who Bob said had
been harassing him and several patients.

I brought up the East Village News article, reciting its allegations
about a "rising occurrence of neighborhood nuisance," that "the
quality of life has been going down," that there are "parking
problems," about "'stoned people' showing up at [neighborhood] front
doors!"

Bob copped to the last claim, attributing it to the original lack of
signage at LBH, explaining that they had been trying to keep a low
profile. Consequently, the occasional patient had knocked on the wrong
door. So, up went a sign. There wasn't much to say about the parking
claim, because, well, it's the East Village. And Bob flatly denied the
quality-of-life stuff. He said half the reason the place opened was to
help the community-and not just patients. He noted that LBH donates to
the Long Beach Rescue Mission every Thursday.

Bob was surprised to learn of the Long Beach Holistic discussion
during the East Village Association meeting; he said no one had
approached him or his landlord about solving any perceived problems.
In fact, when I contacted the landlord-who didn't want his name used,
either-he told me Long Beach Holistic has been "an excellent tenant [
. . . ] very low-profile." He said there'd been no negative feedback
from city officials or the police, only from the next-door neighbor .
. . oh, and also from the DEA, which the landlord said has suggested
he is harboring an illegal business and liable to lose the entire
building. When Long Beach Holistic's lease expires in April, he likely
won't be renewing it, he says-too much of a hassle-in which case he
says the DEA has promised to leave Long Beach Holistic alone.

Larry Bott lived next door to Long Beach Holistic, and he's open about
his crusade to get the medpot business gone. He acknowledges he called
all over town trying to get city officials and police to do something.
He passed out fliers with instructions about how to contact the
DEA-including a notation that the agency bases its decision to take
down dispensaries on the number of complaints it receives.

Yet Bott speaks of having voted for the Compassionate Use
Act-"Whatever it is that makes you not hurt is fine," he says-and even
of his support for the out-and-out legalization of marijuana. He says
he doesn't think the dispensary operators are bad people. His anger is
directed toward Long Beach city officials. "The city is just plain
chicken," he said a few weeks prior to the Oct. 8 raid. Afterward, he
echoes the same sentiment. "We got no help from Bonnie Lowenthal,"
Bott says, referring to the former First District council member,
whose district was home to LBH. He adds: "Even though I consider her a
friend."

Bott's opposition to Long Beach Holistic, then, is motivated perhaps
by a not-in-my-backyard philosophy. Although Sgt. Paul LeBaron, an
LBPD drug investigator, says there were many complaints about the
dispensary, more than half of them were anonymous-and thus could have
been repeats-and few were verified.

Bott acknowledges he was a repeat complainer. East Village Association
President Phil Appleby, who confesses to contacting the DEA as early
as last July, estimates that the number of people who complained to
the EVA totals six.

But the 33-page search warrant/affidavit served on Long Beach Holistic
at the time of the Oct. 8 raid by the DEA records only three
complaints against the medpot dispensary-one on July 22 from "a
representative of the East Village Association," and two more on Sept.
18, one anonymously and the other from another EVA member.

Does this equal a problem? And, if so, does the problem demand a
solution like an armed raid?

I made a few phone calls, trying to find out. Then I made a few more.
And a few more still. For weeks, I left messages for a variety of
agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration. None of my calls were
returned.

Finally, after my third message to Special Agent Deanne Reuter went
unanswered, I tried an experiment. Instead of identifying myself as a
journalist seeking answers, I called from a different telephone number
and announced that a medpot dispensary had opened in my neighborhood,
and I wanted to find out what could be done.

In less than 24 hours, Reuter called me back. A few days later, she
phoned again.

Meanwhile, I pored over the affidavit and the long list of what U.S.
Magistrate Judge Patrick J. Walsh authorized DEA agents to do and
seize. There is no reference to cameras-never mind to the destruction
of them. I contacted Judge Walsh's court to ask whether he is
interested in the possible overreaches of the warrant captured on the
video. His clerk called me back basically to tell me he didn't want to
hear about it.

Eventually, I got Special Agent Kelly on the phone-the man who oversaw
the riot-geared DEA team's charge into Long Beach Holistic on that
sunny October morning. He sounded uncomfortable when I told him I've
seen video of the raid. "Where did you come across that?" he asked.
When I told him I'd rather not say, he referred me to Sarah Pullen, a
public-information officer for the DEA.

Pullen listened attentively as I began to review what can be seen on
the video. When I asked her if the part where the agent points an
assault rifle at the skateboarder is consistent with DEA policy, to my
surprise, she said, "Yes." A second later, however, she said my
questions sound "accusatory" and declined to answer more.

But Joe Elford, chief counsel for Americans for Safe Access, the
nation's largest medpot advocacy group, was more than happy to talk
with me about the video of the raid. "It sounds like a blatant
violation of the Fourth Amendment. . . . They're not allowed to point
assault rifles in people's faces just because they have a warrant." Or
hearts, I assume.

Long Beach's elected officials gave me the same kind of runaround when
I tried-and tried and tried-to get them to answer a simple two-part
question: How do you feel about medpot dispensaries in Long Beach, and
how do you feel about federal raids on them?

The rundown:

. Mayor Bob Foster: His office repeatedly promised me some sort of comment,
but I heard nothing. Finally, I tracked him down at Portfolio coffee house,
where he was trying to persuade voters to approve Measure I (the proposed
tax increase for infrastructure repair). The mayor was kind enough to step
outside with me as he was leaving. When he heard the topic, he said: "I'm
happy to talk to you about it-I just don't want to do this on the fly" and
asked me to call his office (again). When I did, I was told they'd heard I'd
been talking to the LBPD about this and deferred comment to them. I replied
that, since my question was about Foster's feelings, it couldn't be deferred
to the police. I never heard back. I followed up, and they deferred to the
LBPD-again-as if we hadn't already been through this.

. Assembly member Bonnie Lowenthal: She was still the First District council
member during the weeks and weeks I tried to get an answer from her.
Finally, I got a short written statement, the gist of which is in its
closing lines: "I care deeply about providing compassionate care to those
who need it. It is certainly frustrating to want to help those who get
relief from medical marijuana, while also protecting neighborhoods from
nuisance activities, but until the state develops clearer guidelines for
cities to use, we, as a city, cannot do it ourselves." There is no reference
to federal raids.

. Congressperson Laura Richardson (whose 37th District was home to
LBH): I spoke repeatedly with her offices in Long Beach and in
Washington, D.C., and was promised someone would get back to me.
Someone never did. Finally, I got her communications director in
Washington on the phone: He said he never got wind of my message, but
now he'd have something for me. Nope.

. Senator Alan Lowenthal (whose 27th District was home to LBH): After
several calls, Chief of Staff John Casey noted that the senator "is a
proponent of dispensaries, as long as they're [operating] within state
law," since "the people in California have spoken overwhelmingly in
favor of them" and "he wishes the federal government would respect the
views of the voters and not conduct raids."

The most outspoken official I came across was Second District council
member Suja Lowenthal, who was with the mayor that day at Portfolio.
During a public Q&A she wasn't even a little reticent:

On medpot dispensaries in Long Beach: "There are some in my district. [ . .
. ] I'm okay with that [ . . . ] as long as they're in compliance with the
law. [ . . . ] I think the majority of them are in compliance with the law."

On the conflict between federal and state medpot laws: "I don't know
how we're going to navigate that, but we have to navigate that."

On DEA raids on legal medpot facilities in Long Beach: "I would take umbrage
with that."

The predicament of Long Beach government-stuck between the state and
the feds-is delicate and difficult. But the problem is compounded when
the proposed solution is, as Bonnie Lowenthal said, that the city has
to wait until those other governmental bodies clear things up.

Being caught in the middle does, in fact, give each city some freedom
to chart its own course. For example, in September, the Garden Grove
City Council passed a ban on all medpot dispensaries. Almost
simultaneously, the Santa Cruz City Council passed a one-day repeal of
its ban on public smoking in general, so patients could medicate
during the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana's annual WAMMfest.

But what will we do?

Our police would almost certainly rather not be bothered. LeBaron
echoes what I hear repeatedly: "I think most officers would say they'd
rather be paying attention to the crack dealer with a gun in his belt
than medical marijuana."

Yet our city representatives tend to say little as they wait and
see.

But citizens have already spoken on the issue. And sick people are
being denied their medicine.