L.A D.A. says ALL Dispensaries Illegal & ALL Will be Prosecuted

[nomaad]

National referendum, direct democracy FTW.

is there even such a thing available to us in this country? a full-on national referendum on a given issue? the answer is no. seems highly undemocratic. wow... a highly undemocratic aspect of the "leading light of democracy in the world..." LOL. Comedy on the grandest scale.

 

[BiG H3rB Tr3E]

I have a different take on this.

State guidelines say that a caregiver, and, presumably, a grower or other person who runs a co-op, is entitled to "reasonable compensation" for their services. What needs to be done then is to define "reasonable compensation". I can think of no better place to turn for this definition than to our public employees. I think it is fair to assume that their compensation is "reasonable"; and I doubt you can find any of them that would swear under oath that their compensation is excessive.

The director of Water and Power for the City of Los Angeles makes roughly $350,000/year. That is in addition to his health insurance, pension and whatever other perks he receives.

An upper level management position anywhere in the state pays at least $150,000 per year, in addition to health insurance, pension plan and any other perks they receive.

Keep in mind that public employee pension plans are extravagant beyond belief. These people can retire at an fairly young age and begin receiving 90% of their salary for their highest paid year - and that's the starting point. Every year they receive a cost of living increase. While public employee pensions are funded by continuing taxpayer contributions to their pension funds, a private individual would have to sock away millions of dollars in a retirement account to accomplish the same thing.

Anyone running a co-op deserves compensation at least as reasonable as that paid to public employees. Considering the huge amounts of money it will take to pay a pension of $150,000 to $350,000 per year for a period of 40-50 years (retire at 50; die at 90-100), it is not unreasonable for a co-op to dedicate $3million to $4million per year as compensation and benefits just for the CEO of that co-op. When these costs are deducted from the gross income received by the co-op, a profitable dispensary is suddenly transformed into a not-for-profit organization.

Using the salary and benefits schedule of public employees as a model for compensation within the mmj industry is a powerful weapon that Mr. Cooley and his ilk have seemed to overlook. Wouldn't it be sweet to conform to this model and then be able to throw it in the face of the drug warriors? ...and there isn't a fucking thing they could do about it without declaring their own salaries and benefits "unreasonable".

PC

I COMPLETLY AGREE. ONLY PROBLEM IS THAT THESE ASSHOLES WILL NEVER DEBATE THIS SUBJECT, AND WHEN THEY RAID DISPENSARIES THEY BRING THE NEWS PEOPLE OUT, AND THOSE PRICKS DONT INVESTIGATE, THEY JUST REPORT TWAT THEY ARE TOLD. SO WHEN ASSHOLE DA COME OUT AND SAYS THESE PLACES ARE OPERATING ILLEGAL OR ARE MAKING TOO MUCH MONEY, ALL THE NAYSAYERS WILL NOD IN AGREEMENT AND NOT EVEN THINK TWICE ABOUT HOW MUCH HE MAKES AND WHAT LITTLE AMOUNT OF WORK HE COMPLETES FOR THAT OUTRAGEOUSLY LARGE SALARY. OH, WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY THE SHERIFF OF LOS ANGELES MAKES OVER $4,000 PER WEEK????

 

[nomaad]

$200K/year? Minus taxes? LOL. Come on... a marijuana grower can make twice (or way more) that, for half a year's hard real work of love. You can make that in a weekend cooking meth.

I wouldn't do the Sheriff's Job for twice what they pay him. The shit you have to deal with to be a part of the Babylonian power structure???!! fuck that noise.

Do I want to wash the Sheriff's feet? No. He's probably a douchebag, but I am not going to begrudge him a $200K salary... that's just hating.

 

[fatigues]

I have a different take on this.

State guidelines say that a caregiver, and, presumably, a grower or other person who runs a co-op, is entitled to "reasonable compensation" for their services.

There is a real problem here. The AG's "guidelines" are exactly that. They are guidelines. They do not carry the force of law. They don't mean anything really, other than act as a legal memo to provide a policy guideline for prosecutors and police, state-wide.

Moreover, the Guidelines are, legally speaking, very out of date. The Guidelines, published here, were last revised in August of 2008. At that time they were released, the California Court of Appeals had held in People v. Mentch that a person who provided marijuana to a patient and had been designated as their primary caregiver could be a primary caregiver under the CUA or SB420.

Four months after these guidelines were released, People v. Mentch was released by the California Supreme Court, which reversed the Court of Appeals and pretty much upset the whole damn apple cart.

The ruling in People v. Mentch means that the underlying assumption about who a "primary caregiver" can be which pervades a good portion of the AG's Guidelines is wrong and out of date.

So "The Man" does not have to jump through the hoops of profit/not-for-profit and how much is too much compensation analysis. They don't have to bother with any of that stuff at all.

If you aren't a "primary caregiver", then the CUA and SB420 provide you with no legal protection from prosecution whatsoever; for any time or for any reason. At all. Ever. End of discussion. No further analysis needed.

A dispensary owner or employee of a dispensary in the State of California now stands utterly exposed under both State and Federal law. If their local DA wants to arrest them, they can do so. And unless the jury chooses to ignore the law and nullify, they'll get convictions, too, because of Mentch.

Please appreciate that I don't disagree with selling MMJ (or even MJ) for profit. I'm not disagreeing with much of what you say on that basis at all.

I'm simply saying that on a legal basis, events in the California Supreme Court have now overtaken the existing guidelines last revised prior to the release of the final decision in Mentch.

 

[PharmaCan]

There is a real problem here. The AG's "guidelines" are exactly that. They are guidelines. They do not carry the force of law. They don't mean anything really, other than act as a legal memo to provide a policy guideline for prosecutors and police, state-wide.

Moreover, the Guidelines are, legally speaking, very out of date. The Guidelines, published here, were last revised in August of 2008. At that time they were released, the California Court of Appeals had held in People v. Mentch that a person who provided marijuana to a patient and had been designated as their primary caregiver could be a primary caregiver under the CUA or SB420.

Four months after these guidelines were released, People v. Mentch was released by the California Supreme Court, which reversed the Court of Appeals and pretty much upset the whole damn apple cart.

The ruling in People v. Mentch means that the underlying assumption about who a "primary caregiver" can be which pervades a good portion of the AG's Guidelines is wrong and out of date.

So "The Man" does not have to jump through the hoops of profit/not-for-profit and how much is too much compensation analysis. They don't have to bother with any of that stuff at all.

If you aren't a "primary caregiver", then the CUA and SB420 provide you with no legal protection from prosecution whatsoever; for any time or for any reason. At all. Ever. End of discussion. No further analysis needed.

A dispensary owner or employee of a dispensary in the State of California now stands utterly exposed under both State and Federal law. If their local DA wants to arrest them, they can do so. And unless the jury chooses to ignore the law and nullify, they'll get convictions, too, because of Mentch.

Please appreciate that I don't disagree with selling MMJ (or even MJ) for profit. I'm not disagreeing with much of what you say on that basis at all.

I'm simply saying that on a legal basis, events in the California Supreme Court have now overtaken the existing guidelines last revised prior to the release of the final decision in Mentch.

I'm not talking about only caregivers. The compensation model also applies to not-for-profit co-operatives, which the California Supreme Court did not address in Mentch.

PC

 

[Vespatian]

Mentch merely invalidated the caregiver model for operating a dispensary, which is also consistent with the AG '08 Guidelines. Nothing new there. Anyone still operating under that model is a sitting duck and has been for over a year.

The question of collectives and co-ops operating in a "closed-circuit" manner and "not for profit" will be much harder to prosecute.

 

[PharmaCan]

Mentch merely invalidated the caregiver model for operating a dispensary, which is also consistent with the AG '08 Guidelines. Nothing new there. Anyone still operating under that model is a sitting duck and has been for over a year.

The question of collectives and co-ops operating in a "closed-circuit" manner and "not for profit" will be much harder to prosecute.

My point exactly! And those people who have many members in their collective are entitled to pay themselves a whole lot of money in salaries and benefits using what public employees are paid as a model.

This silly game can be played by the mmj community just as well as by the drug warrior community. However, we have one big factor in our favor and those are the laws protecting the confidentiality of medical records. As long as the not-for-profit co-op has tax returns showing that they didn't make a profit (because what would ordinarily be profit has been paid in salaries and benefits), it seems like the DA would have one hell of a time trying to get what are medical records. Even if a drug warrior judge signed a subpoena for the records, that subpoena could be appealed, and appealed and appealed all the way up to SCOTUS. Sooner or later it would become cost prohibitive for the drug warriors to pursue their cases.

PC

 

[Hydro-Soil]

I wouldn't do the Sheriff's Job for twice what they pay him. The shit you have to deal with to be a part of the Babylonian power structure???!! fuck that noise.

Years ago I would have been a good "Peace Officer". With all the screwed up laws on the books these days there's no way I could handle being a "Law Enforcement" officer. I'd have to pick and choose all day as to which laws to enforce and when. There's no way you can do that without bias, sorry.

 

[fatigues]

The question of collectives and co-ops operating in a "closed-circuit" manner and "not for profit" will be much harder to prosecute.

Provided the participants are all patients? Yes. I agree. This is for the very good reason that that law was created to specifically permit them to do exactly that.

Like all models for collective enterprise, it does not take long for the form and substance to be expanded quickly to fill the box to the maximum permitted - and then to push away at the sides and corners to expand that box. Then it becomes part of the "dialog" between the courts, law enforcement, politicians, and the public.

Please note, the term "dialog" is one of those clever political devices of the English language that conveniently masks the underlying pain and horror of having to directly refer to "battering rams, raids, seizures, arrests, forfeiture of property, trials, legal expense, divorce, losing custody of children, bankruptcies, suicides, incarcerations, crushing imprisonment and appeals therefrom".

Notice how few people just group all of that under the term, say, "misery"? Not nearly as positive a term as "dialog", is it?

None of this has much to do directly with the dispensary issue in LA right now though.

Well, except for the imminent misery part.

 

[Vespatian]

The DA is either going to round up all of the low hanging fruit operating under the caregiver model, declare victory and call it a day, or he will take the next step and challenge the legitimacy of the collective / coop model currently being utilized by hundreds of dispensaries. If the man is serious in his belief that “100%” of the clubs are operating illegally, I assume he intends to go after collectives and coop’s.

The legal precedents that result from the prosecutions of collectives and coop’s will form a clear blueprint on how to operate within the boundaries of current law.

Of course, in the mean time all of this could become moot if full legalization occurs.

Either way, the direction of travel is still forward for our cause. Painfully forward, but forward nonetheless.

 

[Blue Dot]

This silly game can be played by the mmj community just as well as by the drug warrior community.

Should it?

Politicians have bastardized the political system in this country by the laws they created to keep them in power.

You do realize it was the original intent of this country that politicans would merely be local citizens who would basicaly volunteer for a little while with very little pay and then return to their position as citizens.

"Carreer Politicans" wasn't even a thought considered by any of our forefathers.

So to consider what politicans make today as "reasonable" is laughable.

It's so far from reasonable compared to what they actually produce it's not even funny.

I get your angle though that if they (the politicans) can lie then why can't the dispensary owners but that logic never works because it's just the thinking that two wrongs make a right and if we base our strategy on this then it's like the three little pigs building on sand with straw. It just won't hold up.

We need to rise above and show that pot can be different then all the other bastardized pharmecuticals in the US.

What better way to expose the hypocrisy of America then with a healing herb?

This way we can change the future of America and not just make a few dispensary owners rich in the meantime.

 

[nomaad]

its funny when people say talk about "original intent" of this country or the founding fathers. these were the richest land/slave owners in the colonies who simply wanted an end to taxation of their profits. Sure some (Jefferson) were more libertarian or populist or humanist and others were more authoritarian (Madison), working from the stance that the masses were too stupid to rule themselves and only the "minority of the opulent" were fit to make decisions.

the "original intent" that people like to speculate about is not really the intent of the founding fathers, but the marketing campaign used to sell the revolution to the heavily armed farmers whose sons did the bleeding.

The document known as the Constitution is a huge accomplishment for the human race,but from the moment it was framed there have been quite powerful interests that have sought to restrict the freedoms it outlines. These are the same fucktards that get to be DA's in Los Angeles.

 

[PharmaCan]

Should it?

Politicians have bastardized the political system in this country by the laws they created to keep them in power.

You do realize it was the original intent of this country that politicans would merely be local citizens who would basicaly volunteer for a little while with very little pay and then return to their position as citizens.

"Carreer Politicans" wasn't even a thought considered by any of our forefathers.

So to consider what politicans make today as "reasonable" is laughable.

It's so far from reasonable compared to what they actually produce it's not even funny.

I get your angle though that if they (the politicans) can lie then why can't the dispensary owners but that logic never works because it's just the thinking that two wrongs make a right and if we base our strategy on this then it's like the three little pigs building on sand with straw. It just won't hold up.

We need to rise above and show that pot can be different then all the other bastardized pharmecuticals in the US.

What better way to expose the hypocrisy of America then with a healing herb?

This way we can change the future of America and not just make a few dispensary owners rich in the meantime.

While you do make some valid points, you always seem to ignore the fact that there are intermediate steps that have to be taken to get from where we are to where we should be. You really need to be more of a pragmatist. Listen, I grow a small number of plants for a very small group of people who are all med legal and they get top quality meds for $10/gram, so I'm basically doing what you're talking about. Whatever is left over after expenses is paid to me as salary, but this really is a small group so I'm not making big bucks by any stretch of the imagination.

As far as the "reasonable salary" issue goes, I didn't say anything was good bad, indifferent or justifiable. All I said was that citing public salaries would be a good defense in court. What happens in a court is a whole different reality than what most people are accustomed to. Regardless, my observations were based on the way things are, not the way we might wish them to be.

I don't get into L.A. very often, there's just not much there that interests me. But out in the suburbs of LA county there are quite a few co-ops that are operating with licenses from the various cities. The DA can't go into those cities and try to close down legal businesses, so this crap is limited to the City of Los Angeles and unincorporated areas of L.A. County.

I dunno; as hard up as municipalities are for tax money, it just seems like it would be more beneficial for all involved to sit down, work out some guidelines that weed the bad apples out but that people who want to have legit co-ops know what the rules are.

PC

 

[pugnacious]

I say LA needs to retain someone like pharmacan. All dispensaries and patients should organize a little. Set a protest or something.

 

[PharmaCan]

I say LA needs to retain someone like pharmacan. All dispensaries and patients should organize a little. Set a protest or something.

ROFL - Now you're talking, man! I could see it. PharmaCan, Director of Marijuana Department. I'd be pulling down $300K a year with six weeks vacation, a county car and driver and part of my job would be quality control and testing. ...and I'd staff my department from within the mmj industry, meaning I'd recruit all the perky-titted babes that currently work in the D's.

Seriously though, Los Angeles is so damn big, with so many people, demonstrations always look small. Not only that, but demonstrators are almost always viewed in a negative light, regardless of their cause. A much better strategy is to try to get an item on the agenda of a council meeting and then get pro-mmj people to pack the council meeting. You have people ready to accurately state your joint contribution to the tax base, a few really sick mmj patients etc.. But you put together a really good presentation and let the best presenters do the talking and you give the council a gracious way out, so to speak. It really wouldn't be that hard to get them to form a commission to study the issue - they love commissions. But you'd have to be sure that the mmj industry was well represented on the commission and no leo because that would just lead to the old familiar drug war propaganda. If you know how the system works, and you are charming rather than confrontational, it's really easy to work the system.

There's something else going on here that's a little more subtle. The City of Los Angeles is a separate entity from the County of Los Angeles. The city of LA created what they consider a mess with their dispensary licensing, and now they want county taxpayers to pay to clean up their shit. - LA county is a whole lot bigger than LA city, it contains hundreds of smaller cities and municipalities. The LACO Sheriff is a whole different budget from the LAPD. - The L.A. County Board of Supervisors could find that LA City should clean up its own messes with its own police department and deny any funds to the Sheriff for enforcement inside LA City limits. The County Sheriffs aren't supposed to operate inside city limits under normal circumstances, so prohibiting them from going against mmj inside the city would just be maintaining the status quo. They could limit any mmj/leo activity to the unincorporated areas of LA County, but, at the same time, appoint a commission to study cleaning up and licensing the mmj industry. They can encourage Steve Cooley to be a crusader and at the same time seriously derail his campaign - and they'll do it all in the same breath. If you give the BOS a gracious way to do it, they'd love to have the tax dollars associated with the mmj trade.

This process is so easy. Supervisors love commissions because it shifts responsibility from them to someone else, so it's fairly simple to get them to appoint a commission. You make sure that you are on the commission, be really charming and non-confrontational with all the other commissioners but also find a kiss-ass mid-level staff member who thinks he wants to hang on to your rising star and in a real short time you're running the show. All these local politicians, council members and supervisors, rely on staff and committee and commission recommendations, and everything, regardless of the source, is prepared by staff. So you don't have to influence a big old county board of supervisors. In the long run what you have to do is only influence a couple of staff members. It's really that simple. Manipulating a group of people like a commission is really easy too. You come up with good ideas, but you let other members propose them and take credit for them and of course you are their main cheerleader and garner support for them. You get your way, members start liking and respecting you because you let them get the credit for your ideas. You can even do this with your opposition and win their respect.

You'd think the mmj folks would get some politically savvy people working for them. Heaven knows they can ill afford not to.

PC

 

[Sir_Nugget]

Has any1 seen or heard of any dispensaries going down?

 

[Amstel Light]

well you would have thought they would have created a governing body to oversee dispensaries? they deserve to go down if they did not create some way to cover their ass's...

 

[Hydro-Soil]

well you would have thought they would have created a governing body to oversee dispensaries? they deserve to go down if they did not create some way to cover their ass's...

Spoken from the depths where sun never shines.


Thank you for that, really made the thread there.

 

[toohighmf]

sir nugget, you asked on page 4 and I answered. YES. with my own eyes. If I had pulled into the parking lot mini mall of a dispensary with fresh goods 20 seconds earlier, I would probably be out on bond...

 

[Sir_Nugget]

i heard u too high, but there r alot more to be sut down, and if this is really happening, then i think we would see and hear alot more about these places being closed..

Read what happened to Kush Korner here:

We were raided
Sorry about not being able to post. This past 2 weeks has been very traumatic. Anyway, here is a recap of what happened to us two weeks ago.

The day began without incident. Kush Korner, our California Medical Marijuana Dispensary, had been open for 6 months to the day and we were not yet making our overhead. Much has been said about fast, plentiful paydays from these coops. So far, we had not seen that happen. If you run these places compassionately, your overhead will often times eat up any small profit there may be. Our gross profit margin was often times non-existent, and that in itself made us truly non-profit.

That day, our first few patients were very ill, one with cancer and another with Parkinson’s disease. Serving these patients was most rewarding. Each had a humility and continence that you only see in the severely ill. When these patients left with their meds, we felt satisfied that we were fulfilling our mission.

The next two patients were check-in nightmares. Each had the same doctor who required a fax to his office for verification. The doctor would verify and fax back to us a response. The process took much longer than expected, but in the end we were successful.

The day moved on. It was a quiet mid-afternoon, when the telephone call came into the coop. A loud excited voice on the other end announced himself from the LAPD, and ordered us to open the front door immediately. At first I thought it was a joke, but the voice sounded too excited and threatening.

I walked quickly to the front door and was greeted upon opening the door by many LAPD officers in helmets, flack-jackets, and Bermuda shorts. I was told to sit on the couch in the waiting room. Fear and despair were the only feelings I was in touch with.

As the jars in the cannabis room were emptied and the edibles taken from the counters the dispensary rolled over in submission and all of the natural pain relief and healing it provided was temporarily gone. All of our patients would be displaced. Countless lives would be affected, and none for the good. It will not be easy for our many severally ill patients who will be without a familiar place to purchase their meds. We were that familiar friendly face of compassion for hundreds of cannabis patients.

The police had prepared an interrogation room in a small back room. The bottom line was after cleaning out our dispensary, they were going to arrest me for get this, “intent to sell Marijuana”, a felony.

The only thing that filled my mind during the interrogation was WHY. Why us, a group of oldsters, the staff’s average age is 56 years old, servicing a base of more than 20% women with an average patient age of 35 years old? We saw 30 patients on a good day and all together averaged about 20 per day. We were, as we amusingly called ourselves, “below non-profit.” We had been open just 6 months and each month had been a net-loss. Our prices were low and we were not out to make money. We were truly a compassionate dispensary. We did want to break even and we strived to accomplish that end. Our dispensary, a model for the framework of proposition 215 and SB 420, was a comforting relaxed place, full of effective pain relieving cannabis and a friendly compassionate staff. We were definitely doing a great deal of good for all of our deserving patients who will now have to find another friendly dispensary to fulfill their medication needs.

The interrogation lasted for close to one hour. Right out of a movie script; all that was needed was saltine crackers and hot glaring spotlights. The main detective kept saying “We are going to close all of these cannabis stores down.” That was his answer for “why”; that was his answer for everything.

I spent eleven hours in jail before I was bailed out. The experience was demeaning and threatening. This was my first experience in jail. The experience was frightening and demeaning.

Oh, did I tell you my home was raided too. My seventeen and nineteen year old daughters were terrorized by a group of gun-wielding LAPD undercover officers.

Our dispensary is closed while we fight this battle to clear my good name of all charges. We are financially ruined. We do not know how we will be able to afford the legal costs to defend Kush Korner and the criminal prosecution properly. We have put every penny of our savings into this dispensary and have extended our credit to the limit . This was a dream that has turned into a nightmare.

Our dispensary was organized before the LA moritorium was created and is number 203 on the list. We moved our original location and a hardship was created. We have filed all of the legal papers and are registered with the State Board of Equalization and we have an active LA City business tax certificate in Kush Korner's name at our current address.

We are as always,
Your Friends,
Kaptain Kush

Kaptain Kush says..I work for Kush Korner

Kush korner was an awsome collective, i went in there once to get a free j and checkout the menu... They had amazing meds and allsorts of exotic clones, this is one true place i never wished went down, seems like theyre taking down the ones with the best clones first.. Every1 that worked here was in their 50's....