The air inside the Los Angeles Patients and Caregivers Group was pungent with the aroma of premium hydroponic marijuana, but the proprietor, Don Duncan, said on Thursday that he was breathing a bit easier.

A day before, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. had said that the [...]]]> From the March 19 edition of the New York Times:

The air inside the Los Angeles Patients and Caregivers Group was pungent with the aroma of premium hydroponic marijuana, but the proprietor, Don Duncan, said on Thursday that he was breathing a bit easier.

A day before, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. had said that the federal authorities would no longer take action against medical marijuana dispensaries if they were in compliance with state and local laws.

While 13 states, including California, have laws allowing medical use of marijuana, they had not been recognized by the federal government. One of Mr. Duncan’s two marijuana dispensaries was a target, in 2007, of one of the scores of raids involving medical marijuana that the Drug Enforcement Administration conducted in Los Angeles during the Bush administration.

Mr. Duncan, a founder of Americans for Safe Access, a medical marijuana advocacy group, said he was meeting with officials at City Hall at the time of the raid, trying to work out a local ordinance under Proposition 215, which allows the medical use of marijuana.

“I got a call and found out they smashed through our window and pried open the back door,” Mr. Duncan said. Since then, he has operated only one dispensary, fearing he could again be a target of the federal authorities.

Mr. Holder’s statement that he would not authorize raids on medical marijuana dispensaries appeared to shift Justice Department policy, at least rhetorically, away from the Bush administration’s stated policy of zero tolerance for marijuana, regardless of state laws. Advocates of medical marijuana welcomed the change.

But conversations with government officials on Thursday revealed disagreement within the administration about how great a shift Mr. Holder’s statements represent.

A spokesman for the drug enforcement agency, Garrison Courtney, pointed out that the attorney general’s statement indicated that the federal authorities would continue to go after marijuana dispensaries that broke state and federal laws by selling to minors, selling excessive amounts or selling marijuana from unsanctioned growers.

Mr. Courtney said that the agency had raided only a fraction of the thousands of marijuana dispensaries now operating and that agents had used discretion to go after only the worst offenders.

The LAPCG is a not-for-profit medical cannabis(marijuana) dispensing collective serving legally-qualified patients since 2004. We provide a community-based solution for the need to safe access to medicine for patients [...]]]> The LAPCG is committed to protecting and providing safe and affordable access to medical cannabis for those qualified under California Health and Safety Code §11362.5 (Proposition 215).

The LAPCG is a not-for-profit medical cannabis(marijuana) dispensing collective serving legally-qualified patients since 2004. We provide a community-based solution for the need to safe access to medicine for patients suffering from HIV/AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, chronic pain, and other serious illness.

LAPCG is organized to serve patients in the Greater Los Angeles area.

Click here for the LAPCG website

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Despite a Sausalito city ban on marijuana dispensaries, Gate Five Caregivers opened in September without informing local officials. It joins the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax [...]]]> The newest marijuana collective in Marin County is Gate Five Caregivers in Sausalito, CA. The Marin Independent Journal posted an in-depth story on the collective this afternoon.

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Despite a Sausalito city ban on marijuana dispensaries, Gate Five Caregivers opened in September without informing local officials. It joins the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax as the second local medical marijuana collective, but more may be on the way: Two other groups are seeking to establish medical marijuana collectives in Novato and Corte Madera.

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The Gate Five collective occupies the same space where last December the Marin County Major Crimes Task Force and Sausalito police confiscated $1 million worth of marijuana plants and processed pot. Four men, three of them Marin residents, were booked into Marin County Jail on suspicion of cultivation of marijuana and possession for sale.

Scott called that a “coincidence.” But Sausalito Councilman Mike Kelly said he doesn’t buy that; he said the Gate Five collective is illegal because it violates a city ordinance prohibiting dispensaries passed by the council in 2007.

Sausalito adopted its ban after a group calling itself Capitol Compassionate Care Co-op of Fort Bragg sought to open a medical marijuana cooperative there in 2005.

“The question is, how do we enforce that ordinance?” Kelly said.

Proposition 215, approved in 1996 by 55.6 percent of California voters – and 76 percent in Marin – made it legal for patients and caregivers to possess and cultivate marijuana for medical treatment as recommended by a doctor. The federal government, however, has never recognized the legitimacy of the state law.

David Nix, a San Francisco lawyer who is working with the Gate Five Caregivers, said Sausalito’s ordinance prohibiting medical marijuana dispensaries is illegal.

“You don’t have to be an attorney to understand that if the city of Sausalito passed an ordinance tomorrow that said there shall be no abortion clinics in this town that is not going to hold up in court,” Nix said.

Mary Wagner, Sausalito’s city attorney, said, “The city is exploring its legal options.”

In Marin, San Rafael, Mill Valley, and Larkspur have also adopted ordinances banning medical marijuana clubs.

Attorney General Jerry Brown in August ordered a crackdown on medical marijuana clubs that are generating big profits. Brown also issued an 11-page directive outlining the rules such clubs must observe to be legal: they must operate as nonprofit collectives or cooperatives and pay sales tax, and they are prohibited from buying marijuana from illegal commercial growers. They must obtain their “medicine” from patients or caregivers, who may grow no more than 12 immature or six mature plants.

On Dec. 2, Scot Candell, a San Rafael lawyer, told the Corte Madera Town Council that he represented a group of 20 medical marijuana users who wanted to open a collective there. Since then, Candell said the council has warned him that it would close down the club on the basis that it would violate federal law. Candell is scouting alternative sites in Marin. He declined to say where.

Soon after Candell sounded out Corte Madera, William Ringgold, 33, of San Francisco informed the Novato City Council that he plans to establish a medical marijuana collective in Bel Marin Keys. Ringgold said he has identified two possible sites, but declined to identify them.

Ringgold, who works as a manager at an online dry cleaning delivery service and part-time for a marijuana dispensary in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights, said he has received no response from the city.

“I’m really interested in doing this with the city’s permission,” Ringgold said. “Everything that Jerry Brown set forth as what we need to do to make this legitimate we’re going to do.”

Novato Mayor Jim Leland said, “I didn’t have a reaction one way or the other when he spoke, and I have no opinion.”