RAIDS SHUT DOWN MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES

District Attorney's Office Leads Multiagency Effort

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."

It was unclear how many people were arrested or what charges they
faced. Calls to numerous dispensaries were unanswered.

Thomas Carpentier, 50, of La Jolla, who struggles with arthritis,
tried to buy medicinal marijuana from two dispensaries yesterday but
found them closed.

"These guys were trying to run a straight shop all the time,"
Carpentier said while standing in front of Pacific Beach Collective.
"They did everything right."

The raids shook the medical-marijuana community and prompted angry responses.

Don Duncan, California director for Americans for Safe Access, said
in a statement: "Not only does the federal government have no place
helping to enforce state and local medical marijuana laws, local
officials must regulate medical marijuana and enforce those laws with
civil actions, not with the barrel of a gun."

Although marijuana is illegal under federal law, state law permits
its use, as long as a doctor recommends it.

The coordinated raids came a day after the San Diego City Council
voted to create a citizens task force to study how to better regulate
dispensaries.

As requests have popped up around the county to open such facilities,
several cities have responded by banning dispensaries or enacting a moratorium.

Nine dispensaries are licensed by the city of San Diego, but Pacific
Beach resident Scott Chipman of SavePB.org says 60 are operating.
Chipman has been working with the city to close the dispensaries,
saying they are for-profit, which is against state regulations.

"These are in every single person's neighborhood," Chipman said
yesterday. "They are all over the city."

Dr. Bob Blake, director of Medical Marijuana of San Diego, suspects
many of the dispensaries were lulled into a false sense of security
when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a San Diego County case
and put the issue back in the hands of the state.

"I think it's a tremendous step backward for medical-marijuana
patients of San Diego County," Blake said.