California Pot Club Crackdown
In the latest tussle between local and federal officials over medical marijuana, the head of the Drug Enforcement Agency was jeered by city leaders hours after his agents raided a club that provides pot to sick people.
DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson was denounced Tuesday while delivering a speech at the Commonwealth Club of California. Audience members shouted "Liar!" when he said "science has told us so far there is no medical benefit for smoking marijuana."
"The DEA must simply follow the law," Hutchinson said to jeers from the audience packed with medical marijuana advocates. "We don't make a judgment of use and abuse. We make a judgment of legal and illegal."
Demonstrators outside blew kazoos and chanted "Go away D-E-A" while the smell of marijuana wafted through the air.
Officials and club members said the raid on San Francisco's "Harm Reduction Center" cannabis club began early Tuesday morning, and that agents ordered the building closed while removing hundreds of marijuana plants as well as computers and other equipment.
The club's director, Richard Watts, was charged along with two associates, one of whom was arrested in Canada. Another man, James Halloran of Oakland, was arrested in a separate case and charged with cultivating hundreds of marijuana plants.
The raid coincided with President Bush's announcement of a stepped-up war on drugs, with a goal of cutting drug abuse by 25 percent in five years, in part through improved law enforcement.
California, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Maine, Oregon and Washington state allow the infirm to receive, possess, grow or smoke marijuana for medical purposes without fear of state prosecution.
However, the U.S. Supreme Court said last year it is illegal to distribute marijuana for medical reasons.
"They all are connected with marijuana smuggling," DEA spokesman Richard Meyer said. "We've said all along the cultivation and distribution of marijuana is illegal regardless of state or local law."
The center serves about 200 patients a day, all with doctors' recommendations to get the drug. Many suffer chronic pain from AIDS and cancer, said David Witty, the marijuana club's chief of security.
San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan has been outspoken in his support of such clubs, and Police Chief Fred Lau has said his officers wouldn't take part in any raids. City leaders declared San Francisco a sanctuary for medical cannabis use last year.
"This is a decision to be made by the voters of California and the people of the city and county of San Francisco," Hallinan said through a bullhorn outside the building where Hutchinson spoke. "The voters should be outraged."
Board of Supervisors President Tom Ammiano went one step further, calling the DEA an "obnoxious, grandstanding" agency. "I don't want somebody in my house that's not invited!" Ammiano shouted.
In his speech, Hutchinson said "science has told us so far there is no medical beneit for smoking marijuana." He also defended the arrests, saying "We have to enforce the law."
Tuesday's raid is just one in a series of recent federal crackdowns in California. Agents shut down a West Hollywood cannabis club in October. Other federal actions include raiding a Ventura County garden operated by patients, and seizure of medical records from a Northern California doctor who is a prominent medical marijuana proponent.
Hutchinson said Tuesday's raid was not aimed at targeting individual medical marijuana users but rather "major traffickers" who supply the drug.
He also vowed that federal drug officials would continue to accumulate information from the scientific community on the potential medical uses of smoked marijuana, noting that the DEA itself had approved one such study now underway at the University of California San Diego.
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