DON'T BUST US!

Pot Dispensaries Scramble to Avoid Federal Raids by Changing Their Practices

This is what some fear: Any day now, the federal government will raid
several of the medical marijuana dispensaries that have been
proliferating lately throughout Western Washington. The crackdown
would serve as an edict to our state, which legalized medical
marijuana 13 years ago, that we can go only so far in flouting the
Controlled Substances Act.

"We believe the possibility exists of an ongoing, large-scale federal
investigation coordinated by US Attorney for Western Washington Jenny
Durkan," says the blog of Seattle-based Cannabis Defense Coalition
(CDC), which held raid preparedness trainings in the spring.

One dispensary operator in Seattle, who serves roughly 800 patients
and asked to remain anonymous, says, "We feel a bit like sitting,
smoking ducks."

To avoid federal attention, dispensaries in Seattle are shrinking
their client bases, changing their business models, and toning down
their advertising. Meanwhile, city officials have attempted to
provide legal clarity while county prosecutors reassess where they
stand in a battle between local and federal authority.

Why the big changes now, after the bazaar of new medical marijuana
shops opened over the past year?

A new state law takes effect on July 22, the result of a bill passed
by the state legislature in April and then partly vetoed by the
governor, creating a tangle of rules. The upshot, lawyers say, is
that the new policy eliminates a legal gray area in which
dispensaries have thrived. Until this month, the state medical
marijuana act passed by voters in 1998 allowed a care provider to
provide marijuana to one patient at any given time; a liberal
interpretation suggested dispensaries could serve thousands of
patients, but only one at a time. The new law explicitly limits a
care provider to one patient every 15 days.

This local policy shift matters to federal law enforcement, which has
repeated under the Obama administration that it will turn a blind eye
to medical marijuana cases that appear to comply with state laws. Now
that Washington State is removing legal shelter for pot providers who
care for multiple patients, some believe the dispensaries are exposed
to greater federal criminal liability. Moreover, US deputy attorney
general James Cole announced in a June 29 memo that anyone growing,
selling, or distributing medical marijuana is violating federal
rules, "regardless of state law."

"In a worst-case scenario, everyone associated with a dispensary
could be subject to federal indictment--from the person watering
plants to the person working the front desk," says Alison Holcomb,
drug policy director of the ACLU of Washington. The severity of the
punishment under federal law, which provides no medical defense,
"depends on how much marijuana is involved. If you have 100 plants,
you're looking at five years minimum out the door."

What are operators of the 50-plus dispensaries in Seattle, which the
city estimates serve 25,000 patients, doing to prepare?

"Quietly freaking the fuck out," says the anonymous dispensary
proprietor, who is also working with lawyers to establish a
collective garden grow model that will be allowed. For all its
drawbacks, the new law authorizes 10 patients to collectively grow up
to 45 medical marijuana plants. In larger grow facilities, some
attorneys posit, each collective garden could be separated by a strip
of tape on the floor. The patients associated with each garden could
change by the day, week, or year--as long as the dispensary's
paperwork reflects that.

"Basically, it's an exercise in mental knot-tying," says Ben
Livingston, a spokesman for the CDC. "The bigger the dispensary, the
bigger the pain in the ass."

Conversely, smaller dispensaries may have an easier time complying.
"With the aid of law enforcement, we've found a way to exist that
complies with the new laws," says John Davis, co-owner of the
Northwest Patient Resource Center, a dispensary in West Seattle.

But some dispensaries aren't being given the chance. The cities of
Edmonds, Federal Way, Issaquah, Poulsbo, Yelm, Port Orchard, Hoquiam,
Snohomish, North Bend, and Kent have all passed moratoriums. If
dispensaries resist, city authorities may summon the Feds to begin
raids, as happened in Spokane this year, says Kurt Boehl, a criminal
defense attorney.

Seattle may be the most striking exception. On July 18, the Seattle
City Council passed legislation to license dispensaries like other
businesses and regulate where they can operate. Next, the council
will set zones where the dispensaries can stay open.

That is, they can stay open provided federal authorities believe the
interpretation of state and city rules provides a legal shelter.
Boehl warns, however, that it's not patients who are at risk, but
"the people operating as cooperatives, collectives, and access points
who have to be very careful."