RAIDS OF LOCAL POT DISPENSARIES SPUR CONCERN ABOUT LAW ENFORCEMENT
INTENT

Like most of the 80-odd marijuana dispensaries that have taken root in
San Jose in the past year, the New Age Healing Collective advertises a
lengthy menu of high-grade pot, pot concentrates and pot-infused
treats for its ill patients.

But narcotics agents say the cannabis club on South Bascom Avenue was
an illegal pot-slinging operation masquerading behind its medicinal
mission and strip-mall storefront. Earlier this week, the Mercury News
has learned, a regional drug task force with a search warrant raided
the operation, seized about 40 pounds of marijuana and effectively
shut the place down.

Drug enforcement officials acknowledged the raid was the first of its
kind in the area.

"He wasn't providing care or benefits to patients," said Bob Cooke,
who leads the Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement in the South Bay, of the
head of the pot collective. "We believe he is nothing more than a
glorified pot dealer."

Cooke did not identify the suspect, whose homes in Livermore also were
searched, but the Mercury News has learned his name is Jonathan Joel
Mitchell, 30. Mitchell, who has not been charged, could not be reached
for comment. The Santa Clara County District Attorney is reviewing the
case.

Geoff Rawlings, Mitchell's lawyer, said he was concerned that the
narcotics agents were targeting his client by misinterpreting the
murky web of state law, guidelines and case precedents that dictate
how medicinal marijuana should be distributed.

Rawlings said: "There is a fundamental disconnect between what they
understand the law to be and what the law is."

Similar raids have gone on in other parts of California, but this is
the second unprecedented law enforcement action within a week against
alleged illegality within the burgeoning, local medicinal marijuana
movement.

On Oct. 1, the same South Bay narcotics agents ran a sting operation
dubbed "Up in Smoke" against advertised medical marijuana delivery
services, arresting almost two dozen suspects they say were
"perverting the law." That sting was widely publicized.

But Thursday's low-key raid was the first time that South Bay law
enforcement has targeted a marijuana dispensary, despite a fair amount
of public safety skepticism that some of the dispensary operators'
supposedly altruistic missions are nothing more than selling marijuana
to any adult who wants it.

Worried about raids

Less than a month from a statewide vote on legalizing recreational pot
use for adults, the raid sent a shudder through medicinal marijuana
movement leaders here who insist they operate fully within the law.
They expressed concern that the sting and the raid herald an
aggressive and unfair new tactic by law enforcement.

"This is what lawyers warned me about when I opened the collective,"
said Dave Hodges, who founded the San Jose Cannabis Buyers Collective,
one of the city's first dispensaries. "What's happening is an
organized group of people trying to misinterpret Prop. 215, to say the
activities we are doing are illegal. It's simply not the case."

In-depth investigation

Cooke said the raid was preceded by compliance checks. Undercover
agents from the Santa Clara County Special Enforcement Team were sent
into the Bascom Avenue collective over the course of about a month,
where, authorities say, they purchased marijuana without having proper
documentation that they were medicinal marijuana patients. In some
cases, Cooke said, an agent who did have documentation was told by
dispensary employees that they should buy marijuana to give to someone
without documentation.

Under the law created through Proposition 215, residents are allowed
to buy marijuana if it has been "recommended" by a licensed physician.
Most clinics require patients to join their collectives or
cooperatives by providing documentation of such a recommendation.

"We urge everyone to closely comply with the law," Cooke said. "If you
are in the business to make money, you are a dope dealer."

Dispensary shuttered

On Saturday, the targeted dispensary -- which is located in a strip
mall next to the local headquarters of the FBI -- was closed, all dark
behind its front window decorated with a painting of turbaned figures
on flying carpets above a desert and a sticker from the California
Narcotics Agents Association.

Nearby, a young man in sunglasses and a Sharks cap sidled up to a
reporter to say that the dispensary was now closed.

"But," he suggested. "I can get you what you need."