D.A. PREPARES TO CRACK DOWN ON POT OUTLETS

Cooley Says the Vast Majority of Medical Marijuana Dispensaries in
L.A. County Are Operating Illegally.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said Thursday he will
prosecute medical marijuana dispensaries for over-the-counter sales,
targeting a practice that has become commonplace under an initiative
approved by California voters more than a decade ago.

"The vast, vast, vast majority, about 100%, of dispensaries in Los
Angeles County and the city are operating illegally, they are dealing
marijuana illegally, according to our theory," he said. "The time is
right to deal with this problem."

Cooley and Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich recently concluded
that state law bars sales of medical marijuana, an opinion that could
spark a renewed effort by law enforcement across the state to rein in
the use of marijuana. It comes as polls show a majority of state
voters back legalization of marijuana, and supporters are working to
place the issue on the ballot next year.

The district attorney's office is investigating about a dozen
dispensaries, following police raids, and is considering filing
felony charges against one that straddles the Los Angeles-Culver City line.

"We have our strategy and we think we are on good legal ground," Cooley said.

Medical marijuana advocates say the prosecutors are misinterpreting the law.

"I'm confident that they are not right," said Joe Elford, chief
counsel for Americans for Safe Access. "If they are right, it would
mean that thousands of seriously ill Californians for whom the
Compassionate Use Act was intended to help would not be able to get
the medicine that they need."

Law enforcement officials have been frustrated by the explosion in
the number of dispensaries in Southern California, arguing that most
are for-profit enterprises that violate the 1996 voter initiative
legalizing medical marijuana and the 2003 state law permitting
collective cultivation. Cooley's announcement, coming at a news
conference that followed a training session he and Trutanich
conducted for narcotics officers, dramatically raises the stakes.

In the city of Los Angeles, some estimates put the number of
dispensaries as high as 800. The city allowed 186 to remain open
under its 2007 moratorium, but hundreds of others opened in violation
of the ban while the city did nothing to shut them down.

In August, Cooley and Sheriff Lee Baca sent a letter to all mayors
and police chiefs in the county, saying that they believed
over-the-counter sales were illegal and encouraging cities to adopt
permanent bans on dispensaries.

Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at UCLA and an expert on
drug policy, was not surprised that local prosecutors had decided to
attack the rapid proliferation of marijuana stores.

"I think it's a natural response to the rather flagrant marketing
practices of a bunch of the dispensaries. The medical veneer has been
wearing thinner and thinner," he said. "I've always wondered why
those things were legal when they didn't look legal to me."

Cooley said he believes that under state law, collectives must raise
their own marijuana and can only recoup their costs. "That's
absolutely legal," he said. "We're going to respect that."

But he said none of them currently do that.

The district attorney's warning could make the situation more chaotic
in Los Angeles, where the City Council has struggled for two years to
devise an ordinance to control the distribution of medical marijuana.

In addition to prosecuting dispensaries, Cooley said he would
consider going after doctors who write medical marijuana
recommendations for healthy people. Medical marijuana critics argue
that some doctors freely recommend the drug to people who are not ill.

Medical marijuana advocates celebrated a brief thaw in the
enforcement climate after the Obama administration signaled earlier
this year that it would not prosecute collectives that followed state
law. That spurred many entrepreneurs to open dispensaries in Los
Angeles. As stores popped up near schools and parks, neighborhood
activists reacted with outrage and police took notice.

Councilman Dennis Zine, a key player on the issue at L.A. City Hall,
welcomed Cooley's decision to prosecute dispensaries. "There are many
that are operating illegally and it's not a secret," he said, adding
that he believes "a few" collectives in the city are operating legally.

Anticipating that police departments will ramp up raids on
dispensaries, medical marijuana advocates reacted with dismay to
Cooley's announcement.

"What we'll see is a big disruption," said Don Duncan, the California
director for Americans for Safe Access. He called Cooley's decision
"incredible" and said, "It certainly sounds scary."

Duncan acknowledged that many dispensaries do not follow the law and
urged Cooley and Trutanich to focus exclusively on them. "You don't
have to cast a net over the entire community, you can target the
problem people and not take this extreme adversarial position," he
said. "Some good people are going to be caught in the crossfire."

About 100 medical marijuana patients, activists and dispensary owners
protested on a sidewalk outside the Montebello Country Club, where
about 150 prosecutors and narcotics officers met. Motorists
repeatedly honked and shook their fists in support as they rolled by,
triggering cheers from the crowd.

Barry Kramer, the operator of California Patients Alliance, a
collective on Melrose Avenue, said many dispensaries have responsibly
regulated themselves for years in the vacuum left by the City
Council's inaction.

"I feel like that gets lost," he said. "It's frustrating to get
painted with one brush by the city."

Kramer said he believed that dispensaries would continue to operate.
"People have found ways around marijuana laws for as long as there
have been marijuana laws," he said.

But he also said that stepped-up prosecutions could resuscitate the
criminal market: "Things will go underground. We'll see a lot more crime."

When Californians voted for Proposition 215 in 1996, they made it
legal for patients with a doctor's recommendation and their
caregivers to possess and raise pot for the patient's medical use.

In 2003, the Legislature allowed patients and caregivers
"collectively or cooperatively to cultivate marijuana for medical
purposes" but said they could not do it for profit.

Cooley and Trutanich, after reviewing a state Supreme Court decision
from last year, have concluded that the law protects collectives from
prosecution only in the cultivation of marijuana, not for sales or
distribution.

Medical marijuana advocates, however, note that the state currently
requires dispensaries to collect sales taxes on marijuana, and that
guidelines drawn up by the attorney general conclude that "a properly
organized and operated collective or cooperative that dispenses
medical marijuana through a storefront may be lawful."

The guidelines allow collectives to take costs into account but do
not deal directly with over-the-counter sales.

Jacob Appelsmith, special assistant attorney general, said Atty. Gen.
Jerry Brown talked to Cooley on Thursday. "Our staffs are continuing
to meet about these issues," he said.