FEDS WARN LOCAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES

Operators, Owners Could Face Prosecution

Medical marijuana dispensaries in Spokane face federal prosecution if
they do not end their operations immediately, the U.S. Attorney's
Office announced Wednesday.

Federal authorities hope for voluntary compliance but are prepared
"for quick and direct action against the operators of the stores,"
according to a statement by Mike Ormsby, U.S. attorney for the Eastern
District of Washington.

Federal authorities will target both the operators of the stores and
the owners of the properties where the stores are located, he said.

"We intend to use the full extent of our legal remedies to enforce the
law," Ormsby said. Depending on the amount of marijuana, some federal
crimes carry mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years or more.

More than 40 dispensaries are operating in the Spokane area, Ormsby
said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Rice, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's
office, said no timeline has been provided but that authorities are
prepared.

Similar dispensaries operate in Western Washington, but no enforcement
action has been announced there.

Charles Wright, who owns the THC Pharmacy on South Perry Street, said
he has no plans to shut down.

"This is the federal government attacking the people they're supposed
to represent," Wright said. "It makes no sense. This is an established
system that the state voters have voted for in 15 states, and the
federal government is going to attack us."

Melissa Lunsford, who owns CBR Medical, which issues medical marijuana
authorizations but does not sell marijuana, said her landlord received
letters referencing the clinic and a dispensary on property he owns in
Spokane Valley.

"We're not exactly sure how we fall in the category," Lunsford said.
"Dispensaries I can understand because they're such a gray area."

A Spokane County jury recently convicted former dispensary owner Scott
Q. Shupe of three drug felonies for his work at Change, the first
commercial dispensary to face criminal prosecution in the state.

Prosecutors in Spokane County believe the businesses are illegal
because they sell marijuana to more than one patient. State law,
passed by voters in 1998 and adjusted by the state Legislature in
2008, allows for patients to have up to 15 plants and a pound and a
half at a time; caretakers are to provide marijuana to one person "at
any one time." The law says nothing about commercial
dispensaries.

"The proliferation of marijuana stores, which are not authorized under
state law, suggests that drug traffickers are attempting to avoid
application of state law through the use of these stores," Ormsby
said. "Drug traffickers cannot hide behind the law by simply claiming
they are medical marijuana stores."

The federal government classifies marijuana in the same category as
heroin. The U.S. attorney's office said Wednesday that marijuana "has
a high potential for abuse, has no currently accepted medical use in
treatment in the United States, and has a lack of accepted safety for
use under medical supervision."

Spokane lawyer Pat Stiley, who defends medical marijuana patients and
dispensaries, noted that several people in the United States are
authorized by the federal government to consume marijuana for
medicinal purposes.

He called the belief that marijuana holds no medicinal value "a crock
of baloney."

"This proves to me that my federal government doesn't know what the
hell is going on," he said. "It's hard for me to imagine anybody who
doesn't think that medical marijuana helps glaucoma patients in a way
that no other medication has ever been able to do."

Stiley said federal authorities appear to be "jumping the gun" in the
wake of a new law regulating dispensaries that's expected to pass the
state House. Gov. Chris Gregoire has said she'll sign the law.

"What a waste of energy in the very week that we think Washington law
is going to change totally," Stiley said.

Guidelines sent to U.S. attorneys by the U.S. Department of Justice in
October 2009 said prosecuting seriously ill medical marijuana patients
"is unlikely to be an efficient use of limited federal resources" but
noted that marijuana distribution in the United States is the top
revenue source for violent Mexican drug cartels.

"Prosecution of commercial enterprises that unlawfully market and sell
marijuana for profit continues to be an enforcement priority of the
Department," the memo said.