FEDS ANNOUNCE MEDICAL-POT CRACKDOWN; LETTERS SENT TO DOZENS OF COLLECTIVES

Federal prosecutors came down hard on commercial medical marijuana
dispensaries on Friday, calling California's massive pot industry a
"pervasive, for-profit" enterprise that's making millions in cash
selling a federally illegal drug under the guise of medicine.

Dozens of medical marijuana dispensaries in the state were sent
letters ordering them to shut down in 45 days, while others were
warned their owners and landlords face criminal charges or seizure of
their assets if they do not comply. It's not yet clear whether any of
Redding's 16 collectives were targeted. Federal officials refused to
release information about which pot dispensaries were sent letters.

"The California marijuana industry is not about providing medicine to
the sick," Laura E. Duffy, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District
of California, said in a statement. "It's a pervasive for-profit
industry that violates federal law. In addition to damaging our
environment, this industry is creating significant negative
consequences, in California and throughout the nation."

At a news conference in Sacramento, Duffy and her three fellow U.S.
attorneys in California outlined their plans, which will initially
target pot shops located close to schools, parks, sports fields and
other places where there are a lot of children. Farmland where
marijuana is being grown also is under the prosecutors' scrutiny.

"Large commercial operations cloak their moneymaking activities in the
guise of helping sick people when in fact they are helping
themselves," said Benjamin Wagner, the U.S. attorney who represents
the Redding area in California's Eastern District. "Our interest is in
enforcing federal criminal law, not prosecuting seriously sick people
and those who are caring for them. We are making these announcements
together today so that the message is absolutely clear that commercial
marijuana operations are illegal under federal law, and that we will
enforce federal law."

There are 16 dispensaries in Redding. But it's not immediately clear
this afternoon whether they've been sent the letters or that they'll
be the target of criminal sanctions. Wagner's spokeswoman Lauren
Horwood said officials weren't saying who received the letters.

But, in a statement, Horwood said a "large number" of notice letters
are being sent to the owners of properties in seven counties in the
Eastern District where marijuana is being cultivated or sold.

"The letters are addressed to the property owners of record and any
lien holders of record for the sites of marijuana stores and
agricultural outdoor marijuana grows," she said.

Horwood said prosecutors this week also filed seven civil forfeiture
complaints in the Central and Eastern districts against properties
where landlords are knowingly allowing marijuana stores to operate.

One complaint filed against a south Orange County strip mall alleges
eight of the 11 second-floor suites in the buildings are occupied by
marijuana stores and that one small city has spent nearly $600,000 in
legal fees in its attempt to eradicate the illegal operations, Horwood
said.

Horwood sent out a list of cases in the Eastern District where the
U.S. attorney's office filed criminal charges or seized assets, but
only one had a north state connection.

Horwood said that on Monday, federal prosecutors unsealed a case
against Keith Andrew Baia, a Florida resident arrested in New
Hampshire on charges he'd set up an indoor marijuana grow in a
warehouse in Redding.

When agents raided the warehouse in March, they found 974 marijuana
plants and recommendations for 46 patients, none of whom said they
even knew Baia was growing for them, Horwood said.

Under federal law, marijuana is classified as a Schedule 1 drug
similar to heroin.

But early in Barack Obama's term as president, the U.S. Attorney
General's Office sent out a memo to federal prosecutors telling them
not to go after those dispensing marijuana if they weren't violating
the laws set by the 16 states that had made marijuana legal for
medicinal use. Two months ago, the attorney general clarified the
federal government's position in another memo that directed
authorities to prosecute large, commercial growers but to avoid
charging legitimate "caregivers."

Marijuana has been legal in California since 1996 when the state's
voters passed Prop. 215, which made it legal for patients to use
marijuana so long as they had the recommendation of a physician.