FEDS TARGET OWNERS RENTING TO POT DISPENSARIES

LOS ANGELES - Raising the stakes in the federal government's war
against medical marijuana, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
has warned more than 150 Los Angeles landlords that they risk arrest
and the loss of their property if they continue renting to cannabis
dispensaries. The two-page letter dispatched last week by Timothy J.
Landrum, DEA special agent in charge of the Los Angeles office, has
whipped up worries among landlords and dispensary operators in a
region that has seen a proliferation of the businesses in the past two years.

"I'm devastated," said Lisa Sawoya, who left her job selling
high-tech hospital equipment to open a dispensary 18 months ago in
Hollywood. "My landlord believes in cannabis as medicine.

But they're taking the letter very seriously.

So I'll be closing my doors at the end of this month." Sarah Pullen,
a DEA spokeswoman in Los Angeles, said the purpose of the letters is
to "educate" property owners at risk because they're housing
marijuana dispensaries. "The move by the DEA has focused entirely on
Los Angeles. Activists suspect the logistics and timing - more than a
decade after state voters legalized medical marijuana - is intended
to thin the ranks of Los Angeles dispensaries on the eve of new city
regulations. A proposed city ordinance would cap and regulate the
number of outlets, which now number more than 400.

Medical marijuana activists say most landlords are taking the threat
seriously and have asked the dispensaries to move out. "Raiding
dispensaries and arresting patients hasn't worked to end medical
marijuana so the DEA is trying a new tactic and claiming a new victim
in this war," said Steph Sherer of Americans for Safe Access, a group
that supports medical marijuana. Dale Gieringer of the National
Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws said the DEA crackdown
won't stop patients' marijuana use. Instead, he said, the ill could
be driven to find drugs on the illegal market, potentially putting
themselves at risk.

In recent years, courts have upheld the federal government's ability
to seize assets.

After the DEA raided the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center in
2001, the federal government seized more than $300,000 that West
Hollywood had loaned the center to buy its building. Gieringer said
the most likely outcome of Landrum's letter would be numerous
evictions and shutdowns followed by a few select forfeiture
prosecutions "to scare remaining landlords."

Hap Kent, who runs Therapeutic Medicinal Health Resources in the
Sherman Oaks district of the city, said he hopes the DEA would
consider letting dispensaries continue to operate for another six
months. While the possibility of eviction looms for many
dispensaries, Kent sees a possible silver lining - a political outcry
that could get the state to respond to voters' wishes and take on the
role of directly supplying medical marijuana. "That's the way it
should have been from the beginning," he said.