Wenatchee-area marijuana shops close due to letter

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Wenatchee-area marijuana shops close due to letter

By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Associated Press

SPOKANE — Three medical marijuana shops in the Wenatchee area have closed after federal prosecutors threatened to seize the properties and to fine or prosecute the landlords.

Medical marijuana store operator Eric Cooper says the letters last week from Eastern Washington U.S. Attorney Michael Ormsby prompted three existing dispensaries to close immediately.

He says the fourth shop in the area is staying open a little longer but also intends to close.

“We all probably got spooked a little easier than we should have,” said Cooper, who has operated a medical marijuana dispensary called Apple Capital Holistic Care, 118 N. Chelan Ave., since May. But the operators did not want to face criminal records, Cooper said.

Joe Harrington, First Assistant U.S. Attorney in Spokane, said the letters were sent to four dispensaries in Wenatchee. He declined to say why dispensaries in Wenatchee were chosen, or whether growing operations in other cities would be targeted in the future.

Despite state laws allowing limited distribution of medical marijuana, the dispensaries violate federal law.

“The trafficking in controlled substances is in violation of federal law, as is knowingly maintaining a premises where drugs are being distributed,” Harrington said.

He said the letter was not technically a “cease and desist” order. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office suggested that within the next 30 days, the landlords take appropriate steps” to make sure their properties were not being used for illegal purposes, he said.

Harrington said the U.S. Attorney’s Office sent similar letters to some dispensaries in the Spokane area over a year ago. He said some search warrants were executed after those letters were sent. “I don’t think anybody was arrested, but I think people were prosecuted” he said. He said he did not think any landlords in the Spokane area were prosecuted, nor was their land seized.

Cooper said he decided to close his shop immediately after his landlord received the letter.

“I would not put my landlord in that type of position,” Cooper said. The letter gave landlords 30 days to evict the dispensaries.

“We ran a really nice, clean professional operation in a nice location here in Wenatchee,” Cooper said. “We were doing everything by the book.

“I don’t feel good,” he said, adding the closing of his shop put seven people out of work.

Washington is among 16 states and the District of Columbia that have laws allowing the medical use of marijuana, and that has led to the opening of dispensaries in cities across the state. But federal law holds that marijuana use is illegal, and federal law enforcement officials have moved to shut down many of the dispensaries.

An initiative to legalize and tax marijuana in Washington state is on the November ballot.

Initiative 502 would legalize possession and sale of up to 1 ounce of marijuana. It also would impose a steep excise tax on marijuana and cannabis-infused products at new state-licensed marijuana stores, and would allow state-regulated grow farms.

World staff writer K.C. Mehaffey contributed to this report.

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» 16 comments on this story

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52redfox 9 months, 3 weeks ago

Doesn't the Fed have bigger fish to fry. You would think that a few clinics in the area would be a good thing. I don't use the stuff myself but have seen people who do for medicinal reasons and it sems to help them. It is not going to stop or even slow down the use of cannibus as a medicine, just drive it underground.

trebor462 9 months, 3 weeks ago

52redfox has hit the nail right on the head. I had a friend who used cannabis to help control his MS symptoms before he passed away. And you are definitely right about "this will just drive it underground."

Dannyboy 9 months, 3 weeks ago

One might wonder if some body may have written a letter to the Federal Prosecutor (or know him personally) from the Valley. Can't really think of any other reason for him to single out Wenatchee.

H 9 months, 3 weeks ago

I think the Feds put city names in a hat and draw which town they will pick on next when it comes to this. It sure seems random anyway.

Dannyboy 9 months, 3 weeks ago

Agreed. :-)

dottier23 9 months, 3 weeks ago

Only one thing to say, Good!

Dannyboy 9 months, 3 weeks ago

What's good?

Meowzzz 9 months, 3 weeks ago

I agree, they will just be forced to buy it from dealers, which is a major shame. I would rather see a safe, legal place that was convenient for them to buy it, as these places were.
Dottier---these are licensed facilities, which means they are legal to operate. Your judgement is harsh since you don't know what some people are dealing with medically in which they need this. Marijuana is safer and more effective in treating some things than the pills produced by the pharmaceuticals. I'm not in favor of smoking it for recreation, and I don't do it myself, but I am all for its use when its needed.

davidm 9 months, 3 weeks ago

What a waste of time and money. Shame on the system that wants to prosecute cancer patients and the people providing them with relief from horrible symptoms. I was under the impression that the real drug problem in the valley (and nation) is opiates. Focus the hard earned tax money on the real problem-causing drugs, please. I wonder where the electable locals stand on this issue.

d19jordan57 9 months, 3 weeks ago

Dottier23, Do you differentiate the Fed's marijuana prohibition from the alcohol prohibition of the 1920s?

Actually, it occurs to me your comment could be in support or opposition of the good doctor's comments.

Norm 9 months, 3 weeks ago

"A Judge’s Plea for Pot

By GUSTIN L. REICHBACH

May 16, 2012, NYT

THREE and a half years ago, on my 62nd birthday, doctors discovered a mass on my pancreas. It turned out to be Stage 3 pancreatic cancer. I was told I would be dead in four to six months. Today I am in that rare coterie of people who have survived this long with the disease. But I did not foresee that after having dedicated myself for 40 years to a life of the law, including more than two decades as a New York State judge, my quest for ameliorative and palliative care would lead me to marijuana.

...

Nausea and pain are constant companions. One struggles to eat enough to stave off the dramatic weight loss that is part of this disease. Eating, one of the great pleasures of life, has now become a daily battle, with each forkful a small victory. Every drug prescribed to treat one problem leads to one or two more drugs to offset its side effects. Pain medication leads to loss of appetite and constipation. Anti-nausea medication raises glucose levels, a serious problem for me with my pancreas so compromised. Sleep, which might bring respite from the miseries of the day, becomes increasingly elusive.

Inhaled marijuana is the only medicine that gives me some relief from nausea, stimulates my appetite, and makes it easier to fall asleep. The oral synthetic substitute, Marinol, prescribed by my doctors, was useless. Rather than watch the agony of my suffering, friends have chosen, at some personal risk, to provide the substance. I find a few puffs of marijuana before dinner gives me ammunition in the battle to eat. A few more puffs at bedtime permits desperately needed sleep.

This is not a law-and-order issue; it is a medical and a human rights issue. Being treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, I am receiving the absolute gold standard of medical care. But doctors cannot be expected to do what the law prohibits, even when they know it is in the best interests of their patients. When palliative care is understood as a fundamental human and medical right, marijuana for medical use should be beyond controversy. ... Given my position as a sitting judge still hearing cases, well-meaning friends question the wisdom of my coming out on this issue. But I recognize that fellow cancer sufferers may be unable, for a host of reasons, to give voice to our plight. It is another heartbreaking aporia in the world of cancer that the one drug that gives relief without deleterious side effects remains classified as a narcotic with no medicinal value.

Because criminalizing an effective medical technique affects the fair administration of justice, I feel obliged to speak out as both a judge and a cancer patient suffering with a fatal disease... Medical science has not yet found a cure, but it is barbaric to deny us access to one substance that has proved to ameliorate our suffering."

Norm 9 months, 3 weeks ago

I remember well the first time that somebody asked me to find some cannabis for them. I was 13 years old. I was delivering newspapers in a retirement home, and one of my customers suffered terribly from glaucoma.

Because of prohibition, he was unable to access this very safe and effective medicine through legal channels, like the taxpaying storefront operations that were just coerced into closing by the federal prosecutor. The one slim hope he had of obtaining the medicine he needed was by asking a teenager to help him out by breaking the law.

He was right, of course: I knew where to get it. But I didn't hang out with those kids and I was afraid to meet them and ask for their help. I could have helped relieve this man's suffering, but I didn't because I was afraid of bullies like Mr. Ormsby.

There's no way that any legal, taxpaying, regulated business that sold alcohol would have sold me, a 13 year old, alcohol if that old man had asked me to go out and get him some whisky. But almost any black market, unregulated, untaxed cannabis dealer probably would have sold me some cannabis.

All Mr. Ormsby's bullying accomplishes is to keep cannabis out of the hands of elderly and sick patients who need it AND to keep it easily accessible to teenagers through black market distributors.

H 9 months, 3 weeks ago

I wonder how much the pharmaceutical companies are fighting the legalization of medical marijuana? Since they seem to have quite a few politicians in their pockets now days I foresee a long battle to get it medically legalized at the Federal level.

Dannyboy 9 months, 3 weeks ago

The Cannabis plant, by it self, cannot be patented. Therefore, the Pharmaceuticals cannot profit from the plant. So you are spot on in assuming that they are fighting it's legalization (recreational and medicinal). If people were truly educated to the benefits of medicinal cannabis, it would blow their minds.

Norm 9 months, 3 weeks ago

"I foresee a long battle to get it medically legalized at the Federal level."

Federal prohibition of cannabis is based on the lie that there is no accepted medical use for cannabis. It is falsely classified as a Schedule 1 drug: "Substances in this schedule have a high potential for abuse, have no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and there is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision."

Cannabis has a number of currently accepted medical uses in treatment in the United States.

The law regarding Schedule 1 drugs could be accurately applied to tobacco and alcohol(What is the currently accepted medical use for tobacco, Prosecutor Orsmby? What is the currently accepted medical use for Tequila?), but it is objectively inaccurate to classify cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug.

The executive branch of the government (DEA) has violated the Controlled Substances Act by classifying cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug when it unequivocally fails to meet the criteria for such classification.

The regulatory power of the executive branch is limited to the authority granted to it by Congress through statutes; the executive (here, DEA) has clearly overstepped the authority granted to them by the Controlled Substances Act. Because the language of the statute is clear and unambiguous regarding the criteria for Schedule 1 classification, it fails the two-step Chevron test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_....) that would otherwise call for judicial deference to the regulatory agency's interpretation of the law.

If Prosecutor Ormsby was really interested in upholding the law, he would file suit against the DEA for overstepping its authority in choosing how to schedule cannabis, a clear violation of the Controlled Substances Act; he would not threaten people who are supplying medicine that licensed medical professionals have advised their patients to use.

anniebear 9 months, 3 weeks ago

Last I heard you can get marijuana pills through a doctors prescription and I have talked to people who have or are taking them. I do not know the answer but would think that the pills work just as well as smoking? If that is the case then why not just have people get the pill precscription from their doctor?