Posted on 04/25/2005 8:15:33 AM PDT by SmithL
Federal drug agents who want to crack down on marijuana use in San Francisco, medical or otherwise, say the city’s plan to regulate the drug may give law enforcement what it needs to do its job: a paper trail.
Documents such as business permits, licenses and financial records do not exist at many of the 43 known pot clubs in San Francisco. But new city regulations — including some proposed last week by Mayor Gavin Newsom — could force clubs to begin keeping such records.
“Yes, we can subpoena documents,” said Lawrence Mendosa, assistant special agent in charge for the San Francisco Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Those documents would assist federal agents in mapping the infrastructure of the marijuana distribution system in the city, he said.
While many pot club operators and medical marijuana users in San Francisco agree the city needs regulations, the record-keeping issue most certainly will be raised today when a Board of Supervisors committee meets for the first time to explore marijuana regulations.
Newsom, who describes himself as a strong proponent of medical marijuana, says the threat of DEA action because of city regulation is “a legitimate question that should be explored.”
The DEA’s mission is to stop the sale, use, possession and cultivation of illegal substances Northern California — and marijuana is second on its priority list, after methamphetamine.
“Our responsibility is to enforce federal law and to bring justice those who violate the law,’’ Mendosa said. “Whether it’s legal in the state really doesn’t affect what we do.”
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I feel much safer.
What's funny about this is the liberal instinct to regulate is going to kill their marijuana legalization plan.
... like Nazis rounding-up Jews.
Medicinal marijuana is legitimate. I know a few people who use it. Thank God the government didn't try to outlaw the use of medicinal morphine.
Any drug can be misused, so what do we do? Take them all off the market and deny them to people who need them just because healthy people might use them to get high?
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