SMOKE-EASY

Federal raids, plus a county crackdown and city standstill-will
Sacramento's medical-cannabis community go underground, a la
Prohibition?

It took only 10 days for the federal government, after California's
four U.S. attorneys announced a ramped-up crackdown against the
state's medical-marijuana industry, to raid a local dispensary.

The operation went down a few minutes after 7 a.m. on Monday, October
17, when Drug Enforcement Agency officers showed up at north
Sacramento's Medizen. DEA spokesperson Casey McHenry couldn't say what
the feds seized-the court documents were already sealed, she told
SN&R-but Americans for Safe Access' Kris Hermes explained that when
the feds typically raid a club, "they basically seize it all."

This includes any record of a dispensary's thousands of patients:
driver's license info, signed dispensary membership agreements and
copies of physician referrals for medical pot.

California's U.S. attorneys insist that they will not be targeting
cannabis patients in this latest effort. But Hermes, whose ASA
organization advocates on behalf of medical-cannabis use and research,
said he's "heard rumors" of connections between info seized in raids
and federal action against patients.

Here in California, it's just that: a rumor. But in Michigan, Hermes
reports that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and
Explosives is being "especially proactive" by using information from
the state's medical-marijuana program to serve warrants and forfeiture
notices on patients who possess firearms. He noted, too, that, in
September, the ATF issued a warning to gun retailers that
medical-marijuana patients were prohibited from possessing a firearms
or even ammunition.

So, will the feds go after pot-smoking gun owners in California? Or,
for that matter, will they target patients who drive buses, run day
cares, work state jobs-or teach in public schools?

Activists argue that it's unlikely Democrats Gov. Jerry Brown and
Attorney General Kamala Harris would allow this. But sometime down the
road, who knows?

This has patients concerned. Much like medical-marijuana dispensary
owners and cultivators, who've been frantic and-understandably-paranoid
since the U.S. attorneys made known its new crackdown on October 7.
Dozens of clubs shut down on their own accord upon hearing this
announcement, and two so far (Medizen and The Green Temple) have been
raided by the federal government.

Meanwhile, Sacramento County's media director Chris Andis reports that
a whopping 63 medical-pot dispensaries have shut down in the
unincorporated county this year, some due to economic hardship but
most due to the county's new enforcement policy.

This past week, Sacramento County announced that it, instead of
crafting a dispensary ordinance as had been discussed, would be
banning all collectives. A new law inked by Gov. Brown this past
month, Assembly Bill 1300, gives local governments the right to ban
marijuana clubs and cultivation.

Obviously, the so-called medical-marijuana "green rush" since
President Barack Obama's 2008 election is done, over. Even the city of
Sacramento has suspended its dispensary permitting process
indefinitely, opting to wait out this storm of federal intervention
before certifying its dozens of clubs with official business licenses.

Some say the cannabis community will prevail-"Talk is cheap, and it's
a lot of hot air," ASA's Hermes insists of this latest fed effort-but
others argue that the entire industry will go back to the proverbial
underground, a la "speak-easy" clubs during U.S. Prohibition of the
1920s.

Courtney Sheats, with the Sacramento branch of ASA, said that she's
already witnessed "a shift in the way our collectives are conducting
themselves in the community," which includes what she refers to as a
moving "out of the limelight."

"Are we going to go all the way back to pre-Obama?" she said. "I'm not
sure. But we've reversed at least two years of the movement."

Sheats also says that, during this time of uncertainty, collectives
should be organized and prepared for raids. ASA recommends storing a
backup copy of patient data off-site or with an attorney.

For the dispensaries who have not closed shop, almost all have stopped
advertising on the websites WeedTracker, WeedMaps.com, and even in
this publication, The 420. This is the old way of running a cannabis
collective. In 2007, for instance, there were less than 10 medical-pot
dispensaries in the city and, as one collective operator told SN&R on
background, "you didn't want to make the bear angry" by advertising or
lobbying the city for an ordinance back then.

"You just served patients," the club operator said.

The problem is, the industry has skyrocketed since Obama's election,
growing from a handful of clubs in the region to a statewide industry
that pays hundreds of millions to the state Board of Equalization
taxes and boasts an economic impact upward of $3 billion annually.

In the meantime, more and more clubs nervously await this federal
attack to pass. An operator with The Green Temple, who was raided on
Friday, October 21, said that during its raid, DEA officials politely
told them, "It's over" for marijuana in California. Many others hope,
like ASA's Hermes, that this is an empty threat.

But still, another dispensary owner, who preferred to remain
anonymous, said they've been going to bed by 8 p.m. and showing up at
their club at 5 a.m. every day, "just in case I get raided."