Drug Agents Raid SF Medical Marijuana Clinic (Haha, DEA thumbs Zero in the eye)

One week after President Barack Obama's top law enforcement official seemed to indicate the feds would no longer raid pot clubs, DEA agents busted a medical marijuana facility in San Francisco Wednesday night.

As agents carried large plastic containers of marijuana plants out of Emmalyn's California Cannabis Clinic at 1597 Howard Street, a small crowd of protesters formed a gauntlet outside the door, booing the agents and chanting, "our medicine is marijuana … listen to Obama!"

DEA spokeswoman Casey McEnry told CBS 5 the documents regarding the raid are sealed, so the DEA was not able to give any details.

"Based on our investigation we believe there are not only violations of federal law, but state law as well," said DEA Special Agent in Charge Anthony D. Williams in a written statement.

Emmalyn's has a provisional permit from the city, according to Eileen Shields, spokesperson for the San Francisco Department of Public Health, which she said is an indication the club is in good standing with city laws.

Brendan Hallanin, the pot club's attorney, said Emmalyn's is in compliance with state and local laws.

"They are well-respected and have a good reputation in the medical marijuana community," said Hallanin, who added the business has never been raided in its five year existence.

"They're going to have a huge fight on their hands if they're arbitrarily busting clubs that are in compliance with state and local laws," said Hallanin.

Kris Hermes, spokesperson for Americans for Safe Access, a national advocacy group for medical marijuana issues, wants the attorney general to explain the DEA's actions.

"We're shocked that after the Attorney General has made repeated statements that raids on California medical cannibis dispensaries would be suspended that we are seeing a continuation of that policy," said Hermes.

Actually, a lot of the pot I've smoked over the last 20 years has been grown by an American: Me.

As for Mexicans growing pot in the U.S., I think that is, indeed, a problem, and I oppose the domestic production of pot by foreigners. I think this problem is just a subset of a larger problem: Illegal aliens roming free across the land. However, if my platform was adopted, the problem would melt away very quickly. I propose shooting noncitizen drug dealers/producers after a speedy trial. All of them. In public.

As for your comment "Oh, Mexican dope is horrible! Nobody would want to smoke that!", I think the answer is simple supply and demand. If another product was available, consumers would buy it. I live in a border state, and my city is awash in Mexican pot. It is what is commonly available. If there was better/other, folks would buy it.

Believe me when I say the thought of supporting drug lords sickens me.

Regarding my lengthy treatise on pot, it was simply an attempt to educate and inform about the different strains available, and their associated traits, traits that hint at their origin. I did not reference "problems on the border" or "Mexican drug gangs trying to smuggle their dope north!", but rather the dynamic of Mexican pot and the reason it is a totally different animal than domestic pot.

With the increase in domestically-grown-by-Mexicans pot, these rules become less of an absolute, but are still a good guide.

Actually, I have a solutuion to the problems on the border, but it involves drastic measures which are too severe for most Americans; it involves guns and minefields, and maybe even sharks with frickien lasers on their heads.

You might agree with this comment: I think the problem is not pot per se, but rather the fact that it supports foreign criminals and narcoterrorists. If we could eliminate them from the loop, most of your (and my) moral qualms may subside a tad.

You call me a pothead, and perhaps that is an accurate descriptor, but I am absolute in my belief that pot should be kept away from children, and not glamourized in the media. It is, indeed, a vice. But then again, all of that also applies to Guinness beer, another vice of mine.

Also, I grew up in San Francisco and have seen firsthand how pot eases the suffering of people who are gonna die soon anyway. I am not a big fan of the gays, but I think it is abhorrent to deny an AIDS sufferer a method of increasing appetite and reducing nausea. (a method that cost pennies compared to the pharmacueticals pushed by Big Pharma). The same goes for the (more numerous) cancer victims. My mother's suffering could have been greatly mitigated by pot, but she would not use it because she was a big Law and Order person. I watched her whither away; she was destined to die anyway, as the cancer had spread to her brain and was inoperable, but who is to say that her final weeks could have been just little less painful?

Answer: you, and the government.

I propose shooting noncitizen drug dealers/producers after a speedy trial. All of them. In public.

LOL. Yeah, that's gonna happen. So, let it be noted that the WOD continues under your proposal.

I am absolute in my belief that pot should be kept away from children, and not glamourized in the media.

Again, yeah, that's gonna happen. NOT. And again, the WOD continues.

I am no more opposed to medicinal marijuana FOR THOSE THAT TRULY NEED IT than I am opposed to morphine under the same circumstances; however, doctors don't advise those in pain to smoke opium, do they? And we both know that "medical marijuana" is a fraud used by potheads to get their stinky nose into the tent. It's actually quite sad and pathetic how dopers feign such concern for others when in reality they are concerned about nothing more than getting high. I, too, have seen things first hand. I lived for more than 12 years in Mendocino County, CA, until moving last year. Good riddance. Since you are so educated on the subject of pot, I'm sure you know what an unmitigated disaster liberal pot laws have been there. CNBC even did a program on it. Pothead doctors hand out MM cards like candy making a complete mockery of the system. If they want to treat it like a controlled substance like morphine and only give it when absolutely necessary, I don't have a problem with that. And then, it should be given in the most effective and safe manner, whether that's a pill, patch, or whatever.

“Both U.S. and Mexican officials at all levels know that medical marijuana is an utter fraud used to undermine drug enforcement in the United States. Mexican officials also know (as does the Justice Department) that much of the marijuana sold in the “dispensaries” of California funds the mafias of Mexico.”

This is absolute horse manure. They don't sell crappy Mexican brickweed at those clubs. They sell expensive pot, the fancy indoor grown stuff with strain names like “White Widow,” “Bubblegum,” etc. They sell mostly indica, not dirt cheap seedy Mexican sativa. If they sold “shwag” they'd go out of business. People can get cheap Mexican anywhere. They go to those clubs to get their fancy organic sticky buds that cost and arm and a leg. John Walters is full of crap. He's either ignorant or lying. It is absolutely true that lots of Mexican pot is sold in this country, thousands of tons of it, but not at medical marijuana dispensaries. Those places sell expensive high grade marijuana, and pot smokers can darned sure tell the difference between fluffy seedless sticky buds with pungent aromas and seedy compressed Mexican dirt weed that smells like moldy socks. John Walters lies because he's a liar. The Mexicans are probably lying because medical marijuana is cutting into their business. It probably is cutting into their business, all these people with medical marijuana cards growing their own and sometimes selling some of what they grow and going to dispensaries to buy it. This is definitely preferable to funding Mexican organized crime.

Your arguments are lame. The DEA has busted several of these medical marijuana growers. They've always been Americans. Maybe some of the pot the Mexicans are growing here makes it into a couple of these dispensaries. The stuff they grow here is still crap though. Look at the pictures of the Mexican pot grows that get busted. They're huge grows out in the national forests. This is seedy crap they hang in trees to dry. It's not the fancy stuff in those shops. Most of that stuff is indoor grown.

You've got nothing but insults and recycled propaganda from that liar John Walters. There is no evidence whatsoever that much if any Mexican grown pot is being sold at these establishments. The facts point to a different conclusion. Most of it is grown here by Americans. Your argument is about as lame as the argument that Mexican cartels are buying all their fully automatic weapons, hand grenades and grenade launchers and so on here. It's just more b.s.

Marinol is Schedule III or IV. It's not Schedule I like marijuana, which of course makes no sense. If they'd reschedule marijuana and license a company or two to produce it and sell it from pharmacies the whole medical marijuana system would fall apart. The pot clubs would disappear, as would laws allowing people to grow their own. People would be stuck with overpriced mediocre pot from pharmacies and they'd have to get prescriptions instead of just “recommendations” and the DEA would harass doctors that prescribe it too much just like they harass pain management doctors when they think they are over-prescribing narcotics. By not allowing for marijuana to be sold from pharmacies the feds are encouraging more and more states to enact medical marijuana laws that allow for growing, pot shops and all that. They're bringing this crap on with their stubbornness.

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