News
Feds Target Financial Institutions Associated with Medical Marijuana Clinics
Feds Target Financial Institutions Associated with Medical Marijuana Clinics
NYTimes.com
By SUSANNA KIM
Oct. 26, 2011
In its effort to shut down California’s booming medical marijuana dispensaries, the Justice Department is seeking to seize the property where the clinics are based, even going after at least one bank that holds the mortgage on a clinic.
Chase bank received a letter to evict the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, according to Greg Anton, attorney for the clinic. The bank owns the note on the building in Fairfax, Calif.
According to Anton, the bank received a similar letter from U.S. attorney Melinda Haag for the northern district of California that was sent to the Alliance’s landlord on Sept. 28 and other medical marijuana dispensaries. The letters threatened that unless the owners evicted the cannabis clinics within 45 days, they could face criminal action.
Anton said he obtained a copy of the letter to JPMorgan Chase through the clinic’s landlord, as reported by the Bay Citizen.
A spokesman for JP Morgan Chase said he had no comment and would not confirm whether the bank received a letter from the U.S. attorney.
The Justice Department announced on Oct. 7 it is cracking down on the illegal distribution of marijuana in four federal districts in California, which has had a growing cannabis industry since legalizing medicinal marijuana in 1996 through Proposition 215.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney in the state’s Northern district said he could not comment on who received letters.
The U.S. attorneys for Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego revealed enforcement actions against at least 16 cannabis distributors in those federal districts. Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the department will not focus the investigation on individual patients with serious illnesses like cancer or their immediate caregivers.
Lynnette Shaw, owner of the Marian Alliance for Medical Marijuana, which calls itself the oldest medical marijuana dispensary in the state, said her landlord is planning to evict the business from the premises, though Shaw is hoping to obtain a court order or even an executive order that would bring a temporary stay on the U.S. Attorneys’ actions.
Shaw said she has obeyed all state laws for 15 years and never diverted medicine for non-medical purposes or sold out of state.
But she and her landlord, who she has been supportive since the time the clinic launched, are fearful of the Justice Department’s threats.
“My landlord is terrified, I would never do anything to endanger him,” Shaw said. “Now he’s asked us to remove marijuana from premises.”
On Tuesday, state and local legislators gathered with clinic owners in San Francisco prior to President Obama’s fundraiser event, calling on the president to intervene.
“This destructive attack on medical marijuana patients is a waste of limited law enforcement resources and will cost the state millions in tax revenue and harm countless lives,” California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano said. “President Obama needs to reverse this bad policy decision and respect California’s right to provide medicine to its residents.”
Aaron Smith, executive director for the National Cannabis Industry Association, said, “President Obama needs to immediately reign in the Justice Department for defying his administration’s stated policy to respect state medical marijuana laws.”
The Justice Department’s action places into question marijuana-related activities in 15 other states and the District of Columbia, which have legalized medicinal marijuana in some form.
Kevin Sabet, former Senior Policy Advisor to President Obama’s Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowske, and currently a consultant to drug prevention and policy organizations, said financial institutions that deal with medical marijuana organizations should be on alert.
“Smoked marijuana remains illegal in all states, and federal law — while recognizing certain components of marijuana as having medicinal value — does not allow the whole marijuana plant to be smoked for any purpose, including purported medical purposes,” he said.
Sabet also warned that all states with legalized medical marijuana should pay attention to the enforcement actions in California.
“Remember, all actions have to be approved by Attorney General Holder, so it’s hard to imagine that California would be the only place the Department of Justice is focusing on,” Sabet said.
While dispensaries outside California have not received similar letters from the Justice Department, some have been audited by the IRS for taking business deductions that were related to “trafficking in controlled substances.” The IRS can penalize cannabis dispensaries based on section 280E of the tax code, passed during the Reagan administration in 1982, which prohibited drug dealers to take any deductions based on trafficking activities.
Jill Lamoureux, chairwoman of the National Cannabis Industry Association, said she knew of one audit in Colorado, the details of which are confidential. She said the deductions were accepted an no additional taxes or fines were assessed.
“If the IRS determines across the board that this industry cannot take standard business deductions it will severely limit the ability of these businesses to thrive serving patients and contributing to our state’s economies desperately in need of new growth industries,” Lamoureux wrote in an email to ABC News.
Sabet said the federal government is sending a message that the “rush” in the medical marijuana industry is “over.”
“People – including drug dealing organizations – flocked to the promise land of California thinking they could get rich off of this grey market, but the federal government is now reminding folks that there’s nothing grey about marijuana markets,” Sabet said. “‘Marijuana is an illegal drug and we take it seriously,’ is the message they seem to be sending.”
Tunnels are Tijuana
Raids Don’t Keep Tunnel City From Humming Underground
Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
The authorities on Thursday presented the results of a raid in Tijuana: bricks of marijuana and a smuggling tunnel into California.
By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: December 1, 2011
TIJUANA, Mexico — Squatting and sweating inside the latest drug tunnel found here in this Pacific border city, it was easy to understand the amazement expressed by Mexican and American officials. This one was a stunner.
A motorized cart on metal rails ensured quick passage.
The tunnel ran for almost half a mile, with wooden planks holding off the earth on all sides. Energy-saving light bulbs illuminated the route. A motorized cart on metal rails ensured quick passage, while a steel elevator hidden beneath the floor tiles in a warehouse made the 40-foot descent to the tunnel’s entrance feel like the slow drop into an unregulated mine shaft.
And yet, here is the simple fact obscured by superlatives like “the most elaborate” and “the most sophisticated,” which officials seem to lather on each new find.
Tunnels are Tijuana. They have become an inevitable, always-under-construction or always-operating part of city life, as entrenched as cheap pharmacies and strip clubs.
Residents now shrug them off. “If you have a lot of money, you can do anything,” said Blanca Samaniego, 36, as she walked by the warehouse where Mexican officials unveiled the tunnel on Wednesday. “It will never change. It will never stop.”
The ground beneath her neighborhood in the hills — near the airport and the upgraded, shimmering border fence patrolled 24/7 by American agents — has been punched full of holes for years. Almost every kind of building has been used to hide a logistical operation that is as much about the American taste for a high as it is about the low-down removal of dirt.
Just a few weeks ago, below a more rudimentary warehouse nearby, the authorities found a different tunnel with an elaborate ventilation system. A few blocks from that, there sits an empty flophouse, where thick concrete now caps a passageway discovered by the authorities last year. Farther east, residents note a tunnel found in 2008, and just past the next major intersection, there are two more: one under a small home and the other below a bodega across from a factory.
Other tunnels have been found downtown, near the main border crossing. Wherever there is a border fence climbing high, there seems to have been an attempt to burrow below, usually to a parking lot in California where drugs can be hauled through a manhole cover, or to a business that almost looks legitimate.
In the latest case, the tunnel ran to Hernandez Produce Warehouse, a fruit and vegetable company in California whose only product seemed to be green and best when smoked.
Luis Ituarte, 69, an artist who runs a gallery here called La Casa del Túnel — where a tunnel was found about decade ago — said that Tijuana officials would be smart to move beyond publicizing their subterranean finds and then shutting them down. He argued that Tijuana should capitalize on its historic identity as a city that has been serving up vice since 1907, when President Porfirio Díaz legalized gambling, or 1920, when the United States made alcohol illegal.
“Las Vegas, Tijuana and Havana were all built by the same kind of people,” Mr. Ituarte said. “Only Vegas has taken on its bad reputation.”
Not that this is the direction things are heading. The mayor here recently rejected demands from cultural groups asking to take over La Ocho, a notorious prison that had been decommissioned.
Mexican Army officials, during a tour of this week’s elaborate tunnel, mostly focused on the triumph of the discovery.
“These are achievements that increase public security,” said Gen. Gilberto Landeros, standing at the tunnel entrance as local reporters took snapshots of one another in front of the long, dim hole. “We’re pounding at the economy of narcotrafficking.”
At the very least, he had a lot of marijuana to point to. Hefty bricks of the stuff, wrapped tightly in orange and green plastic, surrounded him when he announced the discovery of the tunnel inside the empty warehouse here in Tijuana. The total haul, from both sides and a truck driven from the site in San Diego, was 32.4 tons, with a street value of about $65 million — a new record for a tunnel-related seizure, according to American officials.
Harder to see, unmentioned, but easy to imagine: how many tons moved across before that load was found.
The evidence around the tunnel — worn-out soccer cleats, dusty oscillating fans, empty water bottles — suggested that the operation had been going for months, a supposition Mexican officials did not deny. At that rate, hundreds of tons of marijuana worth hundreds of millions of dollars would have moved through this one tunnel during its life span.
Most likely somewhere nearby, in another tunnel, the flow continues. The next announcement and news tour may be only weeks away.
Medical Marijuana Convention Ads on Denver Buses Prompt Public Outrage
DENVER – Drivers are about to start seeing ads for what is being billed as the largest-ever cannabis convention on RTD buses.
“This is merely an ad about an event being held at the Colorado Convention Center. There is nothing specific in that which is illegal per se,” RTD spokesman Scott Reed said.
After some discussion, RTD decided to allow the ads on some of the vehicles in its fleet.
The event is called KushCon.
“[It will be] 300,000 square feet of marijuana lifestyle events,” Wanda James, the KushCon II organizer, said.
James says it is the country’s largest cannabis convention ever, and it will be at the Colorado Convention Center on Dec. 17 through Dec. 19. More than 400 vendors have signed up.
James says Kush is a strain of marijuana.
“This is a legitimate industry. This is a legitimate business. This is a legitimate ad,” she said.
To James, RTD’s decision to allow the ads on 33 of its buses represents a big deal.
“The fact that RTD now has ads on the sides of its buses goes to the legitimacy of that piece and to the social acceptance here in Colorado of the marijuana industry,” she said.
Reed says hold on, downplaying the ads.
“This does not violate our advertising policy. It merely advertises an event being held at the Colorado Convention Center,” he said.
RTD still does not allow ads for medical marijuana centers on its buses.
“We have a policy in place that allows us to control things that would be extremely controversial or wouldn’t be in the best interest for RTD to advertise,” Reed said.
While some newspapers, including The Denver Post, accept ads for medical marijuana centers, many TV stations, including 9NEWS, do not.
(KUSA-TV © 2010 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)
Tod H. Mikuriya, Grandfather of Medical Marijuana Movement, Dies May 29, 2007
Tod H. Mikuriya, 73, Dies; Backed Medical Marijuana
By MARGALIT FOX
Published: May 29, 2007
Dr. Tod H. Mikuriya, a California psychiatrist who was widely regarded as the grandfather of the medical marijuana movement in the United States, died on May 20 at his home in Berkeley. He was 73.
Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press
Dr. Tod H. Mikuriya
The cause was complications of cancer, his family told California news organizations.
Dr. Mikuriya, who helped make the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes legal in California, spent the last four decades publicly advocating its use, researching its effects and publishing articles on the subject.
He was an architect of Proposition 215, the state ballot measure that in 1996 made it legal for California doctors to recommend marijuana for seriously ill patients. He was also a founder of the California Cannabis Research Medical Group and its offshoot, the Society of Cannabis Clinicians.
As a result of his work, Dr. Mikuriya was considered a savior by some, a public menace by others. To his supporters, he was a physician of last resort: for years, a stream of patients with illnesses like cancer and AIDS made their way to his private practice in Berkeley. Dr. Mikuriya sometimes wrote a dozen or more recommendations for marijuana each day; at his death, he was reported to have approved the drug for nearly 9,000 patients.
Elsewhere, however, Dr. Mikuriya’s work found little favor. In 1996, for instance, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Bill Clinton, publicly derided the doctor’s medical philosophy as “the Cheech and Chong show.”
In 2000, the Medical Board of California accused Dr. Mikuriya of gross negligence, unprofessional conduct and incompetence for failing to conduct proper physical examinations on 16 patients for whom he had recommended marijuana. In 2004, the board gave him five years’ probation and a $75,000 fine. Dr. Mikuriya, who appealed the ruling, was allowed to continue practicing under the supervision of the state-appointed monitor.
A longtime registered Republican (he became a Libertarian in later years), Dr. Mikuriya began researching marijuana’s therapeutic possibilities in the 1960s. He maintained a list of more than 200 ailments whose symptoms it was said to relieve, including stuttering, insomnia, premenstrual syndrome, writer’s cramp, poor appetite and some side effects of cancer treatment, among them nausea and vomiting.
Dr. Mikuriya saw his work, he often said, as a means of righting a historical wrong, namely the backlash against medical marijuana that began in the “Reefer Madness” era of the late 1930s.
“It had been available to clinicians for one hundred years until it was taken off the market in 1938,” he told The East Bay Express, a Northern California newspaper, in 2004. “I’m fighting to restore cannabis.”
Tod Hiro Mikuriya was born in Bucks County, Pa., on Sept. 20, 1933. His mother, the former Anna Schwenk, an immigrant from Germany, was a special-education teacher. His father, Tadafumi Mikuriya, the descendant of a Japanese samurai family, was a civil engineer. Tod Mikuriya received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Reed College in Oregon in 1956. From 1956 to 1958, he was a medic in the United States Army.
Dr. Mikuriya earned his M.D. from Temple University in 1962. While studying there, he became intrigued by a reference in a pharmacology textbook to the medical use of marijuana, the first stirrings of his future career.
From 1966 to 1967, Dr. Mikuriya directed the drug addiction treatment center of the New Jersey Neuropsychiatric Institute, in Princeton. In 1967, he became a consulting research psychiatrist at the Center for Narcotics and Drug Abuse Studies of the National Institute of Mental Health, where he was in charge of marijuana research. He left the post after several months, he later said in interviews, because he felt that the agency was interested primarily in research that highlighted the negative effects of the drug.
Dr. Mikuriya is survived by two sisters, Mary Jane Mikuriya and Beverly Mikuriya; a son, Tadafumi, known as Sean; and a daughter, Hero. Information on other survivors could not immediately be confirmed.
Among doctors who support the therapeutic use of marijuana, many are publicly circumspect when asked if they ever take a taste of their own medicine. Not so Dr. Mikuriya. As The Los Angeles Times reported in 2004, “He willingly acknowledges, unlike most of his peers in cannabis consulting, that he does indeed smoke pot, mostly in the morning with his coffee.”