Feds Ordering California Medical Marijuana To Close Down

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Feds Ordering California Medical Marijuana To Close Down

Postby eyeno » Sat Oct 08, 2011 5:58 pm

Feds cracking down on California medical marijuana dispensaries
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2 ... aries.html


Federal prosecutors in California are threatening to shut down medical marijuana dispensaries throughout the state, sending letters to warn landlords to stop sales of the drug within 45 days or face the possibility that their property will be seized and they will be sent to prison.

The stepped-up enforcement appears to be a major escalation in the Obama administration’s bid to rein in the explosive spread of medical marijuana outlets that was accelerated by the announcement that federal prosecutors would not target people using medical marijuana in states that allow it.

“It’s basically the federal bureaucracy doing what it has done for the last 15 years and just continuing to put its head in the sand and saying no on this,” said Dale Gieringer, the director of California NORML.

The four U.S. attorneys have scheduled a news conference for Friday morning in Sacramento to outline their plans to target marijuana cultivation and sales in California. Earlier this year, the prosecutors circulated an internal memo that indicated they would focus enforcement efforts on dispensaries and growers that dealt with more than 200 kilograms or a 1,000 plants a year.

Landlords for some dispensaries have already received letters, including the owner of the building that houses the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax, Calif., the oldest dispensary in the state. That letter notes that the dispensary is within a prohibited distance of a park, raising the possibility that prosecutors are taking aim at stores that fall within 1,000 feet of schools and parks. But letters received by dispensaries in San Diego make no mention of such distance prohibitions.
“There’s always been a different policy depending on where you are,” said Gieringer. “They’re going to try to clean up San Diego and just cause some random damage up here.”

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama said the federal government should not raid medical marijuana users and caregivers. Three months after Obama was inaugurated, his attorney general announced that it would be the administration's official policy. Although California was the first state to decriminalize marijuana for medical use in 1996, it remains a federal crime to possess or sell it.

Recently, the administration and some of its federal prosecutors have drawn strict limits on what they would tolerate. When Oakland and Berkeley began to make plans to allow industrial-scale cultivation, the U.S. attorney for the Bay Area made it that clear she would not allow it, leading those cities to shelve ambitious plans motivated by the desire for tighter regulatory control and increased tax revenues.

The latest letters have baffled the state’s medical marijuana activists, who believe the president has broken his word. “Obama says, ‘Yes.’ The conservatives say, ‘No.’ So they get together and huddle and they settle on no,” said William G. Panzer, an Oakland lawyer who helped draft the state’s medical marijuana initiative. “The Obama administration has been incredibly disappointing on this issue.”
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Re: Feds Ordering California Medical Marijuana To Close Down

Postby Elvis » Sat Oct 08, 2011 7:18 pm

This is partly my fault. I voted for that sack of shit. :wallhead:
“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” ― Joan Robinson
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Re: Feds Ordering California Medical Marijuana To Close Down

Postby Laodicean » Sat Oct 08, 2011 7:34 pm

Occupy the Medical Cannabis Dispensaries

Image

Image

End the lie that cannabis has no medical value. Eli Lilly sold it. Time to grow our own - again!

http://antiquecannabisbook.com/
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Re: Feds Ordering California Medical Marijuana To Close Down

Postby Nordic » Sat Oct 08, 2011 10:55 pm

As someone who has several medical pot dispensaries within walking distance of my house, I have to say I don't understand this at all.

It is true that the "medical" aspect of it is a joke here. Anybody can get a card, it's just a formality.

It probably didn't help that the pot "doctors" and some of the dispensaries teamed up in some places so that getting started legally smoking was about as hard as going through the drive thru at in-n-out burger. Down on the Venicw boardwalk one of the places had hawkers out in the crowds, with signs and yelling a cutwe little rhyming ditty that promised tyou could be getting legally high in less thgan 20 minutes. They didn't even try to keep up appearances in other words.

That being said, the dispensaries are quiet discreet little businesses that bother no one. I have a restaurant behind my house that serves wine and beer, another that serves hard liquor, and I WISH they were pot dispensaries.

I'd rather close the bars than the dispensaries.

And for anyone who advocates "free market" principles, I don't think I've ever seen a more pure example of free market forces at work than I have with the rise of the pot dispensaries in Los Angeles. Seriously, someone could write a dissertation on this.
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
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Re: Feds Ordering California Medical Marijuana To Close Down

Postby wordspeak2 » Sun Oct 09, 2011 7:27 am

Hopefully someone is. But the powers-that-be aren't libertarians; they're raw fascists who recognize very well that cannabis is a threat to their system of patriarchy and mind control. I think the medical marijuana movement is the biggest threat to the system in modern history. This latest military offensive going on is very disturbing, and I'm certainly not calling their bluff, but it's only one battle in a much greater war.
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Re: Feds Ordering California Medical Marijuana To Close Down

Postby chump » Sun Oct 09, 2011 9:23 am

Hide your dope! This weeks pot news takes the cake for which SLAD has posted the icing in the other thread. For instance:

http://www.9news.com/news/article/22284 ... marijuana-

After smoking a bowl, Smith ordered a pizza from Papa John's. Their meal was interrupted minutes later by what he describes as "a very loud banging" at the door. It was Aurora police.

"A pizza guy had actually called in the complaint," Smith said.

The delivery man said there was a strong smell of marijuana and a young child in the house.

"I was definitely not smoking marijuana in front of my children, which is what he said he saw," Smith said.

Smith says Aurora Police searched the house and left. He called Papa John's to complain and also filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Smith says Papa John's never even apologized.

**STORY UPDATE** After this story aired on Oct. 3, Sexy Pizza decided to award Frederick Smith (mentioned in the story below) a free pizza per month "until Colorado voters decide a 2012 ballot initiative that would regulate the recreational simple possession of marijuana across Colorado," says a release sent out by Sexy Pizza on Oct. 6. **STORY UPDATE**


Of course, there are now more MM dispensaries in Denver than liquor stores. Obviously, the state and the city said medical marijuana is legal. Obama had declared that the federal government would stay out of it. But, of course...

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011 ... andowners/

Feds seek closure of medical marijuana dispensaries

In a move that escalated pressure on medical marijuana collectives, federal prosecutors in California sent letters Thursday warning landlords who provide space to the storefront dispensaries that their property could be seized.
The letters, which were sent to property owners in San Diego and others across the state, tell landowners they have 45 days to stop the sale or distribution of marijuana at the properties.


The Feds changed their mind. Surprised!?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/sto ... 50685362/1

Feds to announce Calif. pot dispensary crackdown

... The Associated Press obtained copies of the letters that a prosecutor sent to at least 12 San Diego dispensaries. They state that federal law "takes precedence over state law and applies regardless of the particular uses for which a dispensary is selling and distributing marijuana."
"Under United States law, a dispensary's operations involving sales and distribution of marijuana are illegal and subject to criminal prosecution and civil enforcement actions," according to the letters signed by U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy in San Diego. "Real and personal property involved in such operations are subject to seizure by and forfeiture to the United States … regardless of the purported purpose of the dispensary." ...


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/08/us/ca ... juana.html
By JENNIFER MEDINA
Published: October 7, 2011
U.S. Attorneys in California Set Crackdown on Marijuana

LOS ANGELES — Federal officials on Friday warned dozens of marijuana dispensaries throughout California to shut down or face civil and criminal action as part of a major crackdown on the state’s growing medical marijuana industry.

The four United States attorneys in California said that they would move against landlords who rent space to the storefront operators of medical marijuana dispensaries, whom prosecutors suspect of using the law to cover large-scale for-profit drug sales. The announcement, at a news conference in Sacramento, highlights the tension between the federal government and the state, which began making medical marijuana legal in 1996, the first to do so. Now, 15 other states have similar laws allowing medical marijuana...

... “This is not what the California voters intended or authorized,” said André Birotte Jr., the United States attorney in Los Angeles. “It is illegal under California law.”

The Obama administration said in October 2009 that federal prosecutors would not prosecute individual patients who used marijuana or the operators that distributed it for medical reasons in a state where it had been legalized. “It’s a tremendous shift for them to say they are going to do this,” said Morgan Fox, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, which advocates the legalization of the drug for medical and nonmedical use. “But for now it is still threats. Until we start seeing the shutdowns themselves, it’s hard to know what it means more than rhetoric.”

Mr. Birotte said that the storefronts in many cities were more like Wal-Mart or Costco than medical dispensaries. To illustrate the problem, he pointed to an Orange County building with eight stores selling marijuana.

“Some will allow you to consume the marijuana right there and then presumably leave and drive,” said Melinda Haag, the United States attorney in San Francisco. She said that several dispensaries accepted only cash and placed A.T.M.’s in the stores. “There’s no wonder that there are guards here — where there is marijuana, there is a lot of money.” ...


Wellmart!

http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_19016660
Last Bank Shuts Door On Colorado Pot Dispensaries

On Friday, the last bank in Colorado to openly work with the medical-marijuana industry — Colorado Springs State Bank — officially closed down the accounts of dispensaries and others in the state's legal marijuana business over concerns about working with companies that are, by definition, breaking federal law. Robert Frichtel, an industry consultant who runs the Medical Marijuana Business Exchange, estimated the number of accounts the bank held to be around 300.

That development — the latest in a series of problems medical-marijuana businesses have had in finding banks to work with — has sent the industry into a now-familiar scramble to find a place for its money. What's different this time is that no obvious solution has presented itself, leading Frichtel and others to conclude the industry is in for a prolonged period of operating cash-only.


So where are they supposed to put all that loot!? Furthermore:

http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_19026921

ATF say medical-marijuana patients are prohibited from owning guns

... Everybody who buys a gun must fill out ATF Form 4473, which asks: "Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?"
Answer yes, and you don't get the gun. Falsely answer no, and you've just committed a crime...
... "Any person," bureau Assistant Director Arthur Herbert writes in the open letter to all gun sellers, "who uses or is addicted to marijuana, regardless of whether his or her State has passed legislation authorizing marijuana use for medicinal purposes, is ... prohibited by Federal law from possessing firearms or ammunition."...


Uhhh? It has been suggested (for instance in the documentary, Grass, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYEcgsFT3oE ) that the reason marijuana became illegal in the first place was so the Feds could clamp down on the minorities who were already smoking it.

Is there any reason to suspect that the local legalization craze was originally instituted to (in addition to making certain people rich or richer) transform a greater number of potential stoners into addicts; and then into easily identified criminals, so they could be even more thoroughly taken advantage of and controlled?

Seeing as how (at least some of) the highminded people here have nary a concern over this issue; could someone with a clear head possibly dispel this paranoid notion that, rather than a prescription for good health, MM is, and always has been, a money makin', name takin' prescription for trouble with the law! (That is, if and when the federal government should decide to prosecute.)
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Re: Feds Ordering California Medical Marijuana To Close Down

Postby StarmanSkye » Sun Oct 09, 2011 11:11 am

"Fuck Freedom" -- whatta farce.

And villianizing MJ users for 'breaking' Federal Law, while the war-mad, greedy sociopathic powers-that-be routinely violate the most basic laws and principles of representative democracy, competant leadership, viable economic policies, respect for principles of civil and human rights, the prohibition against unjustified foreign wars and commision of warcrimes & serial abuses from kidnapping to trafficing and abuses of power ...

Incremental totalitarian under a techno-dictatorship of Ruling Elite oligarchy serving special & corporate interests.

ie, the Global Overlords.

Fuck 'em.
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Re: Feds Ordering California Medical Marijuana To Close Down

Postby Skunkboy » Sun Oct 09, 2011 8:38 pm

wordspeak2 said:
But the powers-that-be aren't libertarians; they're raw fascists who recognize very well that cannabis is a threat to their system of patriarchy and mind control. I think the medical marijuana movement is the biggest threat to the system in modern history. This latest military offensive going on is very disturbing, and I'm certainly not calling their bluff, but it's only one battle in a much greater war.


http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/ ... Q620111008
Dutch coffee shops face new curbs on cannabis sale

(Reuters) - Coffee shops in the Netherlands were left wondering on Saturday how to comply with restrictions announced by the Dutch government on the sale of "strong" cannabis, saying enforcement would be difficult given the laws on production.
The Netherlands is famous for its liberal soft drugs policies. A Dutch citizen can grow a maximum of five cannabis plants at home for personal use but large-scale production and transport is a crime.
On Friday, the coalition government said it would seek to ban what it considered to be highly potent forms of cannabis -- known as "skunk" -- placing them in the same category as hard drugs such as heroin or cocaine.
But the industry said the guidelines were not clear enough.
"Commercial cannabis growers are already breaking the law so how can testing be legal? It's not clear what coffee shops need to do," said Maurice Veldman, a lawyer from the Dutch cannabis retailers association who represents coffee shops in court.
A pioneer of liberal drug policies, the Netherlands has backtracked on its tolerance in the last few years, announcing plans in May to ban tourists from coffee shops, which are popular attractions in cities such as Amsterdam.
The government said it would now outlaw the sale of cannabis whose concentration of THC, seen as the main psychoactive substance, exceeds 15 percent.
The average THC concentration in cannabis sold by Dutch coffee shops is between 16 and 18 percent, according to the Trimbos Institute.
"All this will do is lead to people smoking more joints and me selling more grams. But as it's used with tobacco it will damage their health more," said Marc Josemans, who owns a coffee shop in the city of Maastricht.
The Dutch government says high THC content is detrimental to mental health, particularly when used at a young age, and that it wants to send a clear signal that strong cannabis poses an unacceptable risk to users.


When you look at this, and then look at SLAD's post, viewtopic.php?f=8&t=33298 , you think that maybe the PTB are getting nervous. "The serfs are getting restless... this freedom thing has gone far enough!"
If every man helped his neighbor, no man would be without help.

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Re: Feds Ordering California Medical Marijuana To Close Down

Postby elfismiles » Mon Oct 10, 2011 9:59 am

U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House Bill
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/0 ... 98993.html

Federal officials begin major crackdown on marijuana operations
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2 ... tions.html

With latest ruling, IRS threatens to crush the whole medical marijuana industry
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/05/w ... -industry/



U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House Bill
First Posted: 10/7/11 01:01 PM ET Updated: 10/9/11 09:38 AM ET

The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill yesterday that would make it a federal crime for U.S. residents to discuss or plan activities on foreign soil that, if carried out in the U.S., would violate the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) -- even if the planned activities are legal in the countries where they're carried out. H.R. 313, the "Drug Trafficking Safe Harbor Elimination Act of 2011," is sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), and allows prosecutors to bring conspiracy charges against anyone who discusses, plans or advises someone else to engage in any activity that violates the CSA, the massive federal law that prohibits drugs like marijuana and strictly regulates prescription medication.

"Under this bill, if a young couple plans a wedding in Amsterdam, and as part of the wedding, they plan to buy the bridal party some marijuana, they would be subject to prosecution," said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for reforming the country's drug laws. "The strange thing is that the purchase of and smoking the marijuana while you're there wouldn't be illegal. But this law would make planning the wedding from the U.S. a federal crime."

The law could also potentially affect academics and medical professionals. For example, a U.S. doctor who works with overseas doctors or government officials on needle exchange programs could be subject to criminal prosecution. A U.S. resident who advises someone in another country on how to grow marijuana or how to run a medical marijuana dispensary would also be in violation of the new law, even if medical marijuana is legal in the country where the recipient of the advice resides. If interpreted broadly enough, a prosecutor could possibly even charge doctors, academics and policymakers from contributing their expertise to additional experiments like the drug decriminalization project Portugal, which has successfully reduced drug crime, addiction and overdose deaths.

The Controlled Substances Act also regulates the distribution of prescription drugs, so something as simple as emailing a friend vacationing in Tijuana some suggestions on where to buy prescription medication over the counter could subject a U.S. resident to criminal prosecution. "It could even be something like advising them where to buy cold medicine overseas that they'd have to show I.D. to get here in the U.S.," Piper says.

Civil libertarian attorney and author Harvey Silverglate says the bill raises several concerns. "Just when you think you can't get any more cynical, a bill like this comes along. I mean, it just sounds like an abomination. First, there's no intuitive reason for an American to think that planning an activity that's perfectly legal in another country would have any effect on America," Silverglate says. "So we're getting further away from the common law tradition that laws should be intuitive, and should include a mens rea component. Second, this is just an act of shameless cultural and legal imperialism. It's just outrageous."

Conspiracy laws in general are problematic when applied to the drug war. They give prosecutors extraordinary discretion to charge minor players, such as girlfriends or young siblings, with the crimes committed by major drug distributors. They're also easier convictions to win, and can allow prosecutors to navigate around restrictions like statutes of limitations, so long as the old offense can be loosely linked to a newer one. The Smith bill would expand those powers. Under the Amsterdam wedding scenario, anyone who participated in the planning of the wedding with knowledge of the planned pot purchase would be guilty of conspiracy, even if their particular role was limited to buying flowers or booking the hotel.

The law is a reaction to a 2007 case in which the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals threw out the convictions of two men who planned the transfer of cocaine from a Colombian drug cartel to a Saudi prince for distribution in Europe. Though the men planned the transaction from Miami, the court found that because the cocaine never reached the U.S. and was never intended to reach the U.S., the men hadn't committed any crime against the United States.


But the Smith bill goes farther than necessary to address that outcome in that case. "They could have limited this law to prohibiting the planning of activities that are illegal in the countries where they take place," Piper says. "That would have allowed them to convict the guys in the Miami case. There was an amendment proposed to do that and it was voted down on party lines. They intentionally made sure the bill includes activities that are legal in other countries. Which means this is an attempt to apply U.S. law all over the globe."

It wouldn't be the first time. Over the last several years, a number of executives from online gambling companies have been arrested in U.S. airports and charged with felony violations of U.S. gambling, racketeering and money laundering laws, even though the executives were citizens of and the companies were incorporated in countries where online gambling is legal.

Last May, one U.S. citizen saw how the policy can apply in reverse. Joe Gordon, a native of Thailand who has lived in America for 30 years, was arrested while visiting his native country for violating Thailand's lèse-majesté law, which bans criticism of the Thai royal family. Gordon had posted a link on his blog to a biography of Thailand's king that has been banned in Thailand.

In recent years, officials have also attempted to impose U.S. white collar crime policies on other countries as well, such as pressuring Switzerland to soften its privacy laws to help American officials to catch tax cheats and money launderers.

But Silverglate says the Smith bill breaks new ground. "I'm horrified by the pressure on Switzerland, and that's probably the libertarian in me, but at least there you have an argument that there's an American interest at stake. Here, I don't see any interest other than to a desire to impose our moral and cultural preferences on the rest of the world."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/0 ... 98993.html

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Re: Feds Ordering California Medical Marijuana To Close Down

Postby wordspeak2 » Mon Oct 10, 2011 4:04 pm

It does seem that the IRS decision that cannabis dispensaries can't write off basic things that other businesses can could ravage the medical pot industry more than the new DEA frontal assault. I'm not sure how that's going to go down, the IRS thing.Harborlights, the big Oakland cooperative that's being attacked, says that if the decision sticks they're not going to be able to keep their doors open. But somehow I don't think it'll be this easy to kill medical marijuana. They knock a few down here, a few more pop up here (such as in my home state right now).

What I think is interesting about the current raid is that the DEA is still very PR-sensitive. Legally, they could be raiding dispensaries non-stop, as fast as their resources allow, all across California, Colorado, and the handful of other states, but instead they really choose their battles and try to win the PR game around it. They're saying now that they're going after backyard grow-ops of seriously ill people; they're attacking profiteers "who are making a butchery of state law.* They want people to support this, and I suspect a fair number will (what do you think, Nordic?), because a lot of people think the medical marijuana industry has gone too far. So the DEA raids the biggest dispensaries, tries to keep this thing from becoming a bona fide industry that people want to invest in- which it's on the verge of becoming- keep it from getting any bigger. But it's a constant PR battle. The more people support the dispensaries the harder it is for the feds to attack.
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Re: Feds Ordering California Medical Marijuana To Close Down

Postby alwyn » Wed Oct 12, 2011 3:48 am

The really paranoid part of me thinks that the price (from what I've heard :roll: ) has dropped too low, and the feds are having a hard time funding their black ops...
question authority?
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Re: Feds Ordering California Medical Marijuana To Close Down

Postby wordspeak2 » Wed Oct 12, 2011 8:43 am

Wait, the price of what, weed? You think the CIA is funding black-ops with weed money?? Try heroin and coke. Though, for the record, weed prices have done down significantly- maybe 20% nationally- just in the past year, due to medical marijuana. The feds like to say that if pot is legalized in one state that'll dramatically change the national scene by lowering costs, as it'll get exported en masse from that state. And it's actually true- that's what's happening right now, with California and also Colorado. There are fill-fledged legalization referendums that might have some chance this year in Oregon, Washington, and Colorado.
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Re: Feds Ordering California Medical Marijuana To Close Down

Postby Skunkboy » Wed Oct 12, 2011 1:09 pm

Rand removes report on crime and pot dispensaries



http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... ?track=rss


Promising further review, the think tank removes a study from its website linking pot clinics to a drop in crime rates, after sharp criticism from the city attorney's office.
Share158Comments 22
By John Hoeffel, Los Angeles Times

October 12, 2011
Rand Corp.'s website has removed a controversial study that suggested medical marijuana dispensaries may help reduce crime in their neighborhoods, a decision that came almost three weeks after enraged Los Angeles city attorneys slammed the report and demanded an immediate retraction.

Warren Robak, a spokesman for the Santa Monica-based think tank, said Tuesday, "As we've begun to take a look at the report, we decided it's best to remove it from circulation until that review is complete."


Study finds less crime near pot dispensaries

The study came under intense assault by the Los Angeles city attorney's office, which has argued in court that crime associated with dispensaries is a key reason the city needs to limit the number. The office called the report's conclusions "highly suspect and unreliable," saying that they were based on "faulty assumptions, conjecture, irrelevant data, untested measurements and incomplete results."

Jane Usher, a special assistant city attorney, said she was gratified by Rand's decision. "We spoke up to Rand, and Rand heard us out over a handful of communications," she said.

In a Sept. 21 letter to Mireille Jacobson, a health economist who was the lead researcher, Usher and Assistant City Atty. Asha Greenberg demanded that the study be repudiated. "Until you publicly retract your work, we expect the Rand publication to be referenced nationwide, at incalculable avoidable harm to public health and safety," they wrote.

Jacobson and the other researchers compared crime reports from the 10 days before the city's medical marijuana ordinance took effect on June 7, 2010, with the 10 days after, when some of the more than 400 illegal dispensaries shut down. They found a 59% increase in crime within 0.3 of a mile of a closed dispensary compared to an open one. But they acknowledged that those results were subject to a large margin of error and said that increase could range from as low as 5.4% to as high as 114%.

The researchers hypothesized that dispensaries may increase security because they employ cameras and guards, generate late-night foot traffic, displace street sales and draw more police patrols.

Usher and Greenberg challenged the assumption that most dispensaries closed on that date and remained closed for at least 10 days, noting: "To our knowledge, no comprehensive effort was ever made by anyone, including Rand, to track and record the precise openings and closings."

They also questioned the study's time frame, writing, "We were also terribly troubled by your suggestion that a 10-day period of statistical review constitutes a relevant crime trend."

Usher and Greenberg also said the researchers failed to use "available crime statistics, which cover considerably more offenses than you charted." They noted that the researchers did not acquire data from the Los Angeles Police Department that they said could be charted by city block.

Robak said Jacobson was not available for comment. He said he was not sure when Rand would complete its internal review. "People are working on this expeditiously," he said.

He acknowledged that the city attorney's office was the most outspoken critic. "I'm unaware of anyone else who's been so pointed in their criticism," he said.

Rand has previously removed studies from its website while they were under review, Robak said, explaining: "It does not happen often, but there is precedent."

He informed the media of the decision and noted, "That is a part of the Rand ethic, if I may boast a bit."

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Re: Feds Ordering California Medical Marijuana To Close Down

Postby wordspeak2 » Wed Oct 12, 2011 2:36 pm

Yeah, I saw that. It was too good to be true- a RAND report showing pot dispensaries reduce crime in their vicinity. Now they're scrambling to find some way to reach a different conclusion. What a joke.
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Re: Feds Ordering California Medical Marijuana To Close Down

Postby Nordic » Wed Oct 12, 2011 5:16 pm

Those city attorneys need to smoke a little weed.

In my own anecdotal experience, I would have to agree with the RAND report (never thought I'd say that). There is something unexplainably mellowing about having pot dispensaries nearby. I live surrounded by them right now.

I think the plant itself gives off a powerful vibe. And I'm not even a pothead. Most of these dispensaries have live plants growing in them, lots of them. The one time I walked into a dispensary lately, the smell of the growing plants was very strong (and lovely, it's a fantastic smell).

The plant has strong powers.
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
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