On the Record

Cathy Smith says she supports the city's efforts to regulate the medical cannabis dispensaries, but fears that it might have created backlash from federal officials.

A HopeNet patient, who wanted to be identified only as Robert, said he was also concerned that the DEA retaliated against San Francisco's efforts to regulate dispensaries.

"When the city has meetings on the regulation issue and everyone looks to San Francisco as a model, the DEA may have felt that they had to rise up again to discourage the fact that we almost look mainstream," said Robert. "As the legislation gets enacted, it makes it look like it's OK with them if they don't do anything."

Smith also worries that the regulations, which require clubs to obtain permits from the city, will make it easier for federal agents to prosecute dispensary operators.

"It gives them another piece of paper in the paper trail and at this juncture, it's just not appropriate." says Smith. "I would love to go public and pay taxes and be just a regular citizen, but the federal government won't let me do that."

Mirkarimi said it would be a "complete stain on democracy" if the federal government sought undermine state and local lawmakers who regulate medical cannabis dispensaries.

"They are not just doing this to San Francisco, they are doing this to California," said Mirkarimi. "If they want to snub and persecute they have always had that option. I highly doubt that the legislation was a catalyst for their renewed incursions."

"The first thing to do is get information to ascertain if this is done simply to persecute San Francisco for its medical cannabis dispensaries - or for some other reason," continued Mirkarimi. "Then this city will be better equipped to pursue this incursion by the DEA. Until then we don't know what we are dealing with or to what extent. The elected family of San Francisco needs to be more vocal about our insistence that this is a Prop. 215 state, and this is a law we passed, and to respect that law.

Cathy Smith noted that the San Francisco Police Department stayed away from the DEA raid against her dispensary. "I'm really proud of the San Francisco Police Department and I'd like to thank them for not assisting the DEA, they were very professional," said Smith.

Smith said that when the DEA raided her house, she told them that her cooperative had deep community support, similar to the WAMM cooperative in Santa Cruz, California that was raided by DEA agents several years ago. Smith said one of the agents told her: "I was there at the WAMM raid, I arrested them and you are nothing like them. I don't know who you are."

"This means that they didn't do their homework," said Smith who noted that agents had no idea she ran a dispensary until they found a business card. Steve Smith said that HopeNet had been operating for five years as a patient collective and had been at their present location at 223 9th Street in San Francisco for over a year.

Cathy Smith said she had no knowledge of any alleged cannabis grow location in the Sonoma County town of Penngrove that the DEA says led them to the San Francisco locations. "I don't even know anyone who lives in Penngrove, this is the first I've heard of it," she said.

Meanwhile, back at the ransacked HopeNet dispensary, Steve Smith was paying the locksmith in a stack of $1 bills. Smith said the $20,000 taken from the couple in the DEA's raid of their house, represented both their life's savings and their operating expenses.

"It was sad of them to take all the medications and blessings from the terminal and the sick that we try to assist," said Smith.

Smith said the plants seized from the cooperative's Clara street warehouse consisted of only 140 rooted plants including 70 mother plants. The rest were unrooted cuttings that cannot legally be counted as plants. Agents raiding the crop ripped apart the rock wool grow medium looking for roots and left a knee-deep pile of debris, said Smith.

Conducting a tour of the upended dispensary for a television news crew, Steve Smith showed how DEA agents disconnected his Christmas lights and carefully bent over the prongs of the extension cord. "There was nothing here, no patient records, they just kicked the door down and unplugged Christmas," said Smith.

Cathy Smith said a disgruntled employee, who was let go a few days before the raid, threatened to turn the dispensary into the District Attorney's office or the DEA. But Deborah Mesloh, a spokesperson for District Attorney Kamala Harris, said the office never received any complaints about HopeNet. The DEA said their investigation into the cooperative was launched by an anonymous tip received two years ago.

"Kamala Harris remains unequaled in her support for medical marijuana and has said numerous times that she will not prosecute people who provide medical marijuana and that all the clubs have the right to operate without fear," said Mesloh.

Mesloh said neither Harris' office nor the SFPD were involved in any way with the DEA raid. According to Mesloh, Harris fears that if raids continue, "medical marijuana patients will be forced into illegal activities to get the medicine they need…sick people will be forced to go to Dolores park in the middle of the night."

But Mirkarimi says that the DA, the mayor and his fellow supervisors need to do more than just voice their support for medical cannabis. "One's support of medical cannabis does not mean that we take a back seat and let the federal government come in and not ask pertinent questions about the cause of all this," said Mirkarimi. "The elected family of San Francisco needs to be consistent and unified in asking the federal government to respond to the value system of San Francisco."

Throughout this afternoon, medical cannabis patients arrived at HopeNet to drop off cards, gifts or offer words of encouragement.

The Smiths says that they hope to have their dispensary back in operation by New Years Day and said they will ask the city if they can give away free medical cannabis to patients on the steps of San Francisco City Hall at Christmas.

Steve Smith says he planned to hand out joints from a container of cannabis sent to one of the handful of medical cannabis patients which receive 300 grams of cannabis from a federal government farm in Mississippi each month.

Smith says that if they don't get permission to dispense at City Hall, they'll give it away themselves in front of their beleaguered dispensary.

"The amount of community support we have will determine whether we will open," said Smith. "And it certainly looks like we have the support of the community."

In the meantime, Steve and Cathy Smith will be waiting to hear if federal prosecutors will slap them with federal narcotics charges.

"If there are charges filed, we'll be under hundreds of thousands of dollars of bail that we can't possibly come up with. If that happens, bail me out, or at least feed my dog," said Steve Smith.

"And if there are any brave souls out there who would like to help a couple hundred people with compassion (free medical cannabis), please take my place."

***

Dear Citizen Journalists,

The affidavit for the search warrant in this case - which lists the information that the judge considered when granting permission for the raids - can be found at the clerks office on the 16 floor of the San Francisco Federal Building. An inquiry made there today for case number 3:05-71003EDL with the judge's initials EL, did not produce the documents. The clerk said the judge was still reviewing the case file and that it would likely be available next week. Since I will be out of town next week, I would appreciate it if someone would locate the document, scan it in, and e-mail me the file so I can post it to this blog.

Many thanks,

Ann Harrison
ah@well.com