SOUTH BAY POT BUSTS ON HOLD WHILE DA REVIEWS MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAWS

After arresting dozens of people at four marijuana dispensaries late
last year, a special Santa Clara County drug unit has at least
temporarily halted future raids against South Bay pot clubs.

"Unless something is blatant," there will no more raids in order to
give prosecutors a chance to review how they will enforce
controversial medical marijuana laws, according to Danielle Ayers,
commander of the County Special Enforcement Team.

While medicinal marijuana advocates blasted last year's raids as
attempts to intimidate legitimate businesses, San Jose's new police
chief and many neighborhood activists applauded, worried that the
recent boom in pot dispensaries is drawing crime and providing cover
for shady operators.

James Sibley, the county's new chief narcotics prosecutor, is on a
fact-finding mission that includes speaking with law enforcement and
marijuana advocates as well as looking for successful enforcement
models throughout the state. Sibley will soon make a recommendation
to his boss, District Attorney Jeff Rosen, who took office last month.

"The challenge we will meet is to develop a policy that recognizes a
sick person's right to obtain marijuana for medicinal purposes under
the law while protecting kids and neighborhoods from the unintended
consequences of this law," Rosen said.

Although it remains unclear how much Rosen's philosophy will diverge
from the decidedly hard-line approach previously taken by task force
members and many police chiefs, the DA's new guidelines could provide
some legal clarity on the issue of medicinal marijuana in the South
Bay. What Rosen decides may have to do until the state attorney
general or the courts further clarify the muddy issue.

State voters in 1993 passed Prop. 215, decriminalizing marijuana for
the treatment of medical conditions with a doctor's recommendation.
But pot advocates and foes alike say the law is the vaguest of any
medicinal marijuana statute in the country. The law's lack of clarity
has helped pot dispensaries to proliferate, but also made it
difficult to determine how to operate legally.

Last year, the local narcotics task force launched a series of raids
on the dispensaries, largely operating under the theory that they are
making a profit and are therefore illegal under California law. State
guidelines and some legal precedent suggest that medical marijuana
distribution must be nonprofit, but what exactly constitutes "profit"
remains highly debatable.

Meanwhile, the city of San Jose voted to levy a tax on the
dispensaries, as though they were legitimate businesses. That tax
will go into effect next month.

Sibley said he has not yet concluded exactly what he will suggest to
Rosen. But he vowed that his office would "narrow what seems to be
gray area" and is mulling posting the guidelines on the DA's website
and distributing the written policy to every known dispensary.

"We are in a flexible period where it will be tough dealing with
everybody's mind-set on this," Sibley said. "Our obligation is to
preserve the intent of the voters and the Legislature and still
provide direction for law enforcement to deal with public safety
concerns." He added: "And do it openly."

Sibley and Rosen are not the only new public safety decision-makers.

Since the last law enforcement raid on a medicinal marijuana clinic
in San Jose late last year, there is now also a new state attorney
general, Kamala Harris. and a newly appointed San Jose police chief,
Chris Moore.

With all the new faces, is there a new perspective on pot?

Harris has been mostly quiet on the issue so far. But pot advocates
like to point to her tenure as district attorney in San Francisco as
being mostly friendly to medicinal pot dispensaries. She is expected
to offer a revised set of state guidelines in coming months. She
declined an interview request this week.

Moore said he is looking forward to Rosen's guidelines. However, he
voiced great concern about the dispensaries, citing their
unrestricted proliferation and their penchant for attracting violent
criminals. He pointed to several takeover robberies and a man who was
shot in the head when the private marijuana stash at his home was
raided by robbers.

"My concern is that unless we take some type of action, then somebody
is going to get killed," Moore said. "It's the Wild West, and that
has to come to an end. We are clearly out of hand, and it has had
violent consequences. We need to get our arms around it in San Jose. "

Dispensary owners interviewed this week said despite the respite from
raids, they feared that law enforcement resistance would not stop.

Daniel Hovland, a local medical marijuana advocate who opened his own
popular dispensary, said he quit after being arrested by the task
force during a sting last year on marijuana delivery services. His
case is still pending.

"I'm not sure if I'm willing to spend my life behind bars to pursue
the better good of the people," said Hovland, who was once the
president of a local group espousing best practices among the
marijuana clubs. "So I went from being the leader to being just another pawn.

"(The narcotics task force) did their job by scaring a quite a number
of people, me included."

Hovland said he signed over the Med-Ex Collective + Deliveries to his
brother and was going back to college to get a degree in game design.

"Due to the fact that our laws are so gray, it leaves so much for
interpretation," he said. "I hope that Rosen will shed a better light."