Crackdown Targets Marijuana Dispensaries

By Don Thompson, Associated Press Writer
Source: Associated Press

Sacramento -- Federal drug agents launched a wide-ranging crackdown on medical marijuana providers Wednesday, charging a husband and wife in Sacramento and raiding more than 20 San Francisco dispensaries. In San Francisco, drug agents conducted searches of three pot clubs and more than 20 homes and businesses, capping a more than two-year investigation into an alleged marijuana trafficking ring.

Officials with the Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. attorney's office would not say how many people were arrested or give other details, pending a news conference Thursday.

In Sacramento, Dr. Marion Fry, 48, and her husband, attorney Dale C. Schafer, 50, were arrested on a sealed indictment handed down a week ago. It charged them with conspiracy to grow and distribute marijuana between August 1999 and September 2001 from their storefront California Medical Research Center in Cool, a Sierra foothill community northeast of Sacramento.

"Marijuana was legal in this part of the United States until this month, so any attempt to hold them as serious criminals would have been, I think, inappropriate," said their attorney, Laurence Lichter. "They are charged with violating the old marijuana laws, which are now back in effect, and I'm hoping that the jury will see ... that Dr. Fry was acting as a physician."

Law enforcement officials in Sacramento and San Francisco said the actions were unrelated and were part of independent, long-running investigations.

Lichter, however, said he believed Wednesday's arrests and sweep may have been prompted by the U.S. Supreme Court's medical marijuana ruling two weeks ago. The high court said federal law prohibiting the sale and distribution of narcotics supersedes state medical marijuana laws.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Lawrence Brown in Sacramento said the Supreme Court ruling "lays to rest any question whether federal authorities have jurisdiction."

California is one of 10 states that allow the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

State Attorney General Bill Lockyer supports the state's medical marijuana law, but his Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement was involved in the San Francisco investigation, spokeswoman Teresa Schilling said.

"It's more than medical marijuana. This was an illegal marijuana operation," she said.

Gordon Taylor, the assistant special agent in charge of the Sacramento DEA office, alleged that Fry and Schafer also crossed that line. The indictment states the couple was growing more than 100 plants during the period in question.

"They were taking their (medical) clients and turning them into their customer base" for illegal marijuana sales, Taylor said.

Both were freed without posting bond after an initial court hearing Wednesday.

That investigation has been pending since December 2000, when drug agents said they seized several United Parcel Service packages containing marijuana.

In September 2001, the DEA seized 28 filing cabinets full of patient records from the Medical Research Center, which doubled as Fry's doctor's office. That raid triggered a legal battle over patient privacy.

The DEA ended Fry's registration to dispense controlled substances in December 2002 based on the investigation, but no charges were filed until the indictments last week.

Complete Title: Crackdown Targets Marijuana Dispensaries in Northern California

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Don Thompson, Associated Press Writer
Published: Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Copyright: 2005 The Associated Press
Link to article: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread20891.shtml

 

By Dean E. Murphy
Source: New York Times

San Francisco -- Federal agents executed search warrants at three medical marijuana dispensaries on Wednesday as part of a broad investigation into marijuana trafficking in San Francisco, setting off fears among medical marijuana advocates that a federal crackdown on the drug's use by sick people was beginning. About 20 residences, businesses and growing sites were also searched, leading to multiple arrests, a law enforcement official said. Agents outside a club in the Ingleside neighborhood spent much of the afternoon dragging scores of leafy marijuana plants into an alley and stuffing them into plastic bags.

"The investigation led the authorities to these sites," the law enforcement official said. "It involves large-scale marijuana trafficking and includes other illicit drugs and money laundering."

In a separate investigation, a federal grand jury in Sacramento indicted a doctor and her husband on charges of distributing marijuana at the doctor's office in Cool, a small town in El Dorado County.

The doctor, Marion P. Fry, and her husband, Dale C. Schafer, were arrested at their home in nearby Greenwood and pleaded not guilty in federal court in Sacramento to charges of distributing and manufacturing at least 100 marijuana plants. The authorities said in a court document that Dr. Fry wrote a recommendation for medical marijuana to an undercover agent from the Drug Enforcement Administration even though there was a "lack of a medical record," and that her husband provided the agent with marijuana.

The raids and arrests were the first large-scale actions against marijuana clubs and providers since the Supreme Court upheld federal authority over marijuana on June 6, even in states like California, where its use for medicinal purposes has been legal since 1996. The raids involved agents from federal agencies including the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and the Secret Service.

"We will not turn a blind eye to serious and flagrant disregard of federal law," Gordon Taylor, an assistant special agent in charge of Drug Enforcement Administration office in Sacramento, said in a statement. "There may be those who think we can disregard the court and Congress. D.E.A. will not be among them."

The raids angered and alarmed advocates of medical marijuana, some of whom stood on the sidewalk outside the clubs in San Francisco as federal agents worked inside.

"This is an affront to patients and should not be happening," Kris Hermes, legal director of Americans for Safe Access, a marijuana advocacy group, said outside a storefront club that nearby residents said was used to grow marijuana not distribute it.

Mr. Hermes said he could not say if the raids were a result of the Supreme Court ruling, but called it "unacceptable" that federal agents were accompanied by the San Francisco police because the city several years ago declared itself "a safe haven" for medical marijuana users.

Several blocks away, agents seized computer records, medical files and marijuana plants at the Herbal Relief Center on Ocean Avenue. A security gate across the entrance had been pulled open, and a lock lay cut open on the sidewalk.

"They came here before we even opened," said Van Nguyen, 27, who said the dispensary had been in operation about five years and had the records of several thousand patients.

A spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department, Sgt. Neville Gittens, said in a statement that its officers "did not take part in any investigation of these clubs or take any enforcement action against these clubs."

Even before the Supreme Court ruling, many cities, including San Francisco, had begun to crack down on the clubs, which have proliferated in recent years and generally operate without regulation.

Though the authorities would not say how the three clubs raided in San Francisco were tied to the accusations of drug trafficking, the police in San Francisco have complained that some of the 40 or so clubs in the city are little more than fronts for drug dealers.

Ross Mirkarimi, a San Francisco County supervisor who favors the use of marijuana for medical purposes but wants the city to regulate the clubs strictly, said the raids reinforced the need for oversight.

"We do not want bad apples to ruin something that Californians and San Franciscans overwhelmingly voted for and support," Mr. Mirkarimi said.

Peter Ragone, a spokesman for Mayor Gavin Newsom, said the federal investigation reinforced the importance of "trying to protect the legitimate uses of medicinal marijuana in the state."

Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Dean E. Murphy
Published: June 23, 2005
Copyright: 2005 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Link to article: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread20892.shtml