NEW CHALLENGES FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA

The Drug Enforcement Administration Goes After Landlords Who Rent to
Dispensaries.

THE DRUG ENFORCEMENT Administration has notified more than 150 Los
Angeles property owners that their fortunes and their sacred honor
are forfeit to the state. What crime must a landlady commit to
deserve this punishment? Renting to a tenant who operates a medical
marijuana dispensary. The DEA sent out letters last week notifying
owners that they stand to lose their properties and face 20 years in
prison for allowing their buildings to be used for "unlawfully ...
distributing or using a controlled substance."

The only good news in this deplorable new bullying tactic by the
federal drug cops is that if you're a property owner, your least-bad
option is fairly clear. You can honor the will of California voters,
allow the dispensary to stay and lose your property, or you can evict
the tenant and risk a costly lawsuit. You're better off taking your
chances with the lawsuit, although the DEA will not admit this. A
representative of the agency's L.A. office uses the Orwellian phrase
"these letters were merely to educate property owners," but concedes
that in fact the letters serve to weaken the legal position of landlords.

That's because the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000
specifies that landlords must have provable knowledge of drug
activities to be subject to asset forfeiture. The DEA's
letter-writing campaign establishes that paper trail, while coyly
avoiding giving property owners any advice about what to do. The
agency confirms, however, that the "long-term goal" is to get
landlords to evict dispensaries. Nor is this strictly a private
property matter; public property is at risk, as the city of West
Hollywood found out a few years ago when the DEA seized $300,000 the
city had provided to help purchase a building for a dispensary.

As they have for the last several years, Reps. Dana Rohrabacher
(R-Huntington Beach) and Maurice D. Hinchey (D-N.Y.) are sponsoring
an amendment that would kill funding for federal efforts to preempt
state medical marijuana initiatives, and although Congress should in
general avoid this kind of procedural finagling, it would at least
halt the DEA's efforts to thwart the will of voters and legislatures
in 12 states. And if the DEA refuses to listen, Congress should
consider doing away with civil asset forfeiture altogether.