OK, this is bad…
SAN FRANCISCO — Three medical marijuana dispensaries and 23 other sites raided by federal agents Wednesday were part of a big trafficking operation that used sick people as a front for street sales — illegal under both federal and state law, federal officials said Thursday.
A Drug Enforcement Administration agent’s search-warrant affidavit says an undercover agent in May bought 1,000 tablets of Ecstasy — an illegal stimulant — from one of the men arrested Wednesday.
The affidavit also says the man, Enrique Chan, 26, of San Francisco, described to the undercover agent how he and his cohorts used medical marijuana dispensaries as a front for illegal marijuana sales.
“Chan told the agent that he uses cannabis clubs as ‘a backbone,'” the affidavit says. “So if it comes down to a battle in court, what are you going to do? You’re going to bring in patients in court, like really sick patients with cancer, have them sit on the stand for you.
And no jury is gonna try — is gonna convict you.”
Federal agents Wednesday raided [3 dispensaries and 23 other businesses and homes]. They carted away more than 9,000 marijuana plants, which Ryan said could be worth more than $5 million. Officials at Thursday’s news conference said 50 Ecstasy tablets were seized at one of the dispensaries…
…but not for the reasons the Drug Warriors are bound to seize on. They’ll tell you, “see, medical marijuana is a sham to cover for the illegal drug market!”
Here’s where the problem lies: most of the medical marijuana states have no legitimate dispensary for medicine. That’s our problem here in Oregon. Patients who have no caregiver and can’t grow their own marijuana are forced to buy it on the black market. The black market would much rather have you buying drugs that are easier to conceal and have a higher profit margin, like Ecstasy, meth, and crack.
Even in California, where they do have some semblance of a regulated dispensary system, suffers from the federal illegality of pot. The dispensaries cannot engage in any reliable record-keeping of legitimate patients or dispensaries, because that information could be supeonaed by the feds for prosecution of patients and caregivers.
In other words, legalize and regulate it federally and you wouldn’t have unscrupulous black market criminals taking advantage of inadequate state laws and sick people to launder money and push hard drugs. I mean, you don’t often see stings on liquor stores or pharmacies being used as fronts for illegal trafficking or money laundering, do you?
Meanwhile 9,000 marijuana plants will not be distributed to sick and dying people, all so we could get 50 Ecstasy tablets off the street. Ecstasy is another drug whose dangers have been hyped and whose medical efficacy has been ignored. Ecstacy started off as a clinical drug used in psychotherapy to delve deep into the psyche of people unable to break past psychological and emotional trauma. It was showing a lot of promise in that regard when the DEA criminalized it in 1986 (because some people were taking it as a mood-altering drug in the club scene in Dallas.)
Yes, Ecstasy can kill, you as can any stimulant used recklessly. Heavy users do become addicted and suffer withdrawals. But it’s not heroin and it’s not meth, that’s for sure. Your biggest dangers to soceity from Ecstacy are bad electronic music and sweaty kids that want to hug you.
Anyway, patients in the Bay Area are now without 26 points of distribution for their medicine. What was that the DEA was saying?
Karen P. Tandy, the head of the Drug Enforcement Agency, stated, “the vast amount of their cases are against those persons that are involved in trafficking, major cultivation and distribution. I don’t see any significant changes in the DEA enforcement strategies after Monday’s decision. We do not target sick and dying people.“
You may not be targeting them but like a hunter targeting a deer with a cruise missile, you tend to hit more than your target.
