MEDICAL MARIJUANA GROUP HOLDS FUNDRAISER FOR GALLEGOS IN SACRAMENTO;
RAISES LEGAL, ETHICAL QUESTIONS SURROUNDING CAMPAIGN FINANCE FOR HUMBOLDT DA

SACRAMENTO - Wearing a black cocktail dress with a low cut back and
maroon high heels, Jessica Ryan balanced a check-filled leather bound
guest book in one hand and a mojito in the other.

A secretary for one of the top medical marijuana lobbyists in
Sacramento, Ryan flashed a smile as she greeted each of the roughly
three dozen people who gathered in a private penthouse loft in
Midtown Sacramento on Wednesday evening. Some came dressed in suits,
while others wore jeans and short-sleeve checkered shirts, but all
were there for the same thing -- to donate money to Humboldt County
District Attorney Paul Gallegos and celebrate medical marijuana and
its exciting future in California."

But the event caused some to question the ethics of an elected law
enforcement official receiving money from an advocacy group for a
practice that, while legal in California, remains a crime in the eyes
of the federal government.

Organized by Max Del Real, president and CEO of the California
Cannabis Business League, the gathering served as both a fundraiser
for Gallegos and a "social and networking engagement," according to
the invitation. A nonprofit trade association representing members of
the state's medical cannabis industry, the group's focus is not just
legalization, Del Real said, but job creation, public safety and
community wellness.

The focus Wednesday was clear, with suggested donations for Gallegos
ranging from $250 to $2,500. The Advertisement money will go to pay
off the more than $40,000 in campaign debt Gallegos racked up last
year -- the bulk of which is owed to his wife. Guests included
representatives of the Humboldt Growers Association, members of the
California Board of Equalization, medical marijuana dispensary owners
and former Sacramento City Councilman Robbie Waters. The event was
closed to reporters.

Del Real, who spoke to the Times-Standard about the fundraiser last
week, said that he could not allow a Times-Standard journalist to
attend the party because he would then have to let other members of
the media, who also expressed interest in coming, to attend the event.

While Del Real later declined to provide the list of attendees and
the total amount raised for Gallegos at the fundraiser, he said he
would be happy to talk about the event afterward. Numerous phone
messages left on Del Real's cell phone through the end of the week
were not returned.

Gallegos said before the fundraiser that he had no problem with
members of the media attending, adding that he supported the notion
of openness for an industry that lives largely in the shadows.

"I'm an elected official, but at the same time, these people are
not," Gallegos said, adding that while he could not speak for Del
Real, he thought the league stood to benefit from more exposure.
"These are legitimate people that are trying to change the law -- why
would they not want it to be out there?"

On Friday, the Department of Justice released a memo to prosecutors
across the country that reaffirms its stance that state law or not,
the medical marijuana industry is not exempt from federal law.

William Vizzard, a former Fresno County sheriff and professor of
criminal justice at Sacramento State University, said that marijuana
is and isn't" legal in California, comparing it to the Prohibition
era of the early 20th century. He said the fundraiser "definitely
raised some questions."

"We've kind of reached a point in California in which we say it's
medical marijuana, but the reality is that we've thrown our hands up
and just accepted it," Vizzard said. "It's a very cloudy situation.
Especially when you have areas like (Humboldt County) where it's so
weakly enforced to begin with."

Others said the fundraiser did not cross any ethical or moral lines,
and was merely day-to-day interaction between special interest groups
and elected officials in Sacramento. Tom Angell, a spokesman for Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition, or LEAP, said that he did not think
the fundraiser was an exception.

"There's certainly a lot to be said about what flooding our political
system with so much money has done to democracy," Angell wrote in an
email to the Times-Standard. "But there doesn't appear to be anything
particularly egregious about medical cannabis industry players
participating in the political process and supporting candidates who
they agree with on the issues, just as other organizations and
businesses do every day."

Dan Schnur, former chairman of California's Fair Political Practices
Commission and director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics
at the University of Southern California, echoed that sentiment, and
said that as long as Gallegos is not condoning illegal behavior, he
is in the clear. Schnur likened Gallegos attending the event to an
elected official who advocates for gay marriage, which, like
marijuana, varies from state to state in its legality.

"There's a big difference between advocating for illegal behavior on
one hand and arguing that the law should be changed on the other,"
Schnur said. "As long as he isn't saying that people should light up
marijuana cigarettes in the street, I think he should be on pretty
safe ground."

Gallegos said he didn't see anything wrong with the relationship, and
he was adamant that he would not change the way he runs his office
because of who he receives money from. The problem, Gallegos said --
and one that he hoped could be addressed with ideas from the event -
is that the law leaves too much room for interpretation.

"We prosecute marijuana all the time. I want clarity because I don't
want to waste my resources and my time prosecuting people that I
cannot convict," Gallegos said, adding that he thought Humboldt
County deserved to see some of the money from an industry that, in
many cases, is trying to cooperate with the law.

"These are people who are trying to operate lawfully, and they want
protection from the law like any other business," he said. "The
problem is that you have some people who philosophically oppose the
business. Here you have an industry that is thriving, and yet we're
too afraid to give it legitimacy. It's a battle that we're fighting,
and we're not winning."

The key to a relationship between an elected official like Gallegos
and special interest groups like the cannabis league, Vizzard said,
is whether Gallegos alters his behavior in any way because of the
money he received. For a district attorney, Vizzard said, this could
take any number of shapes, including not prosecuting cases that he
otherwise would have.

"It's really a gray area that's raised for every elected politician
who gets money from interest groups," Vizzard said, adding that the
influence lobbyists carry can be even more pronounced with
legislators. "If they (district attorneys) are also going to be
elected, how can we expect them not to be influenced by politics?"

While Vizzard stressed that you cannot apply a double standard to
elected members of law enforcement like sheriffs and district
attorneys, he conceded that other factors come into play with
marijuana in California -- not the least of which a weakened economy.
With a lack of available resources for law enforcement across the
state, Vizzard said, he would not be surprised if Gallegos focused
his enforcement efforts on things other than marijuana.

"There are a lot of arguments you could make that pursuing marijuana
cases is not cost effective," Vizzard said. "It's really an open
debate right now as to how much resources should be devoted to
prosecuting those cases, especially when there just aren't the
resources for that."

While some see the line as gray, others see the issue of marijuana
legalization as a black and white one. Rusty Payne, a spokesman for
the U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration, said
that at the end of the day, federal law supersedes any and all state
laws, adding that while the focus of the DEA remains drug
trafficking, it does not go after people for political or campaign reasons.

"We only enforce drug law," Payne said. "If Congress comes in and
changes the law, then the law changes. But right now there's no such
thing as legal marijuana in the eyes of the federal government."

Matt Drange produced this story for the Times-Standard and California
Watch, part of the Center for Investigative Reporting.