Arrests Follow Searches in Medical Marijuana Raids

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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/23/national/23marijuana.html?th & emc=th

 

Arrests Follow Searches in Medical Marijuana Raids

 

June 23, 2005

Arrests Follow Searches in Medical Marijuana Raids

By DEAN E. MURPHY

 

SAN FRANCISCO, June 22 - 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. "

 

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company