FEDERAL ENTRAPMENT

If the federal government, for whatever reasons, wants to eliminate
cannabis from our diets, they should have filed suit in a court of
law when Proposition 215 first passed. For them to wait 15 years for
the industry to thrive to the point where there were more than 2,000
legal dispensaries operating, and then to pull the rug out from under
them, is unconscionable.

When you take into consideration President Obama's campaign promise
to not devote the Justice Department's resources to bothering states
that have medical-cannabis programs, and the Odgen memo saying
basically the same thing, what you have is pure entrapment. This
whole situation is totally unfair to all of the thousands of
collectives that have poured their hearts and souls and finances into
these establishments.

Medical-cannabis patients, who are no different from you or me, are
tired of being treated like second-class citizens simply because they
have discovered, and are taking advantage of, this plant's wonderful
therapeutic power. By destroying dispensaries in California, law
enforcement is in effect forcing them to become criminals as they hit
the streets trying to supply themselves.

In the meantime, these federal agents have done absolutely nothing to
curb the supply or demand. They've only succeeded in strengthening
the cartels, eliminating jobs and costing the state millions of
dollars in lost tax revenue.

Our government has failed us by not taking the time to think this through.

Robert Galia

Chico

Editor's note: Mr. Galia ran North Valley Holistic Health, Chico's
sole surviving medical-cannabis dispensary until it announced it was
closing last week.