San Diego Mayor Stops Pot Shop Crackdowns

San Diego Mayor Filner stops medical marijuana prosecutions

• Mayor stands up to Obama's drug war insanity.

Even insane Democrats can see the light at times.  Democrat San Diego Mayor Bob Filner ordered a halt Thursday to the prosecution of marijuana dispensaries in the city by directing the end of targeted code enforcements against the shops.

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The move comes two days after he promised medical marijuana advocates that he would take on City Attorney Jan Goldsmith over the issue to which Goldsmith responded that Filner need only assert his authority over the police and neighborhood code compliance departments to end the prosecutions.

Filner sent a Thursday letter titled “Stop the Crackdown on Marijuana Dispensaries” to Kelly Broughton, director of the Development Services Department, which oversees code compliance. He told him to stop code enforcement against marijuana dispensaries and to stop forwarding such cases to the City Attorney’s Office for prosecution reports the San Diego Union Tribune.

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Filner inferred in the letter that other violations unrelated to marijuana could still be pursued at the dispensaries.

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“To be clear, if there are general code enforcement or health and safety issues arising from these businesses, you are expected to enforce those laws against these businesses in the same manner you would any other business,” Filner wrote.

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More than 200 medical marijuana collectives have been closed down in San Diego and Imperial counties since U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy and her colleagues announced in 2011 sweeping enforcement actions aimed at distributors in California.
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Some closures were attributed to settlements with the City Attorney’s Office — before and after medical marijuana activists in the city failed to qualify a regulate-and-tax initiative for the November ballot.

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Feds Sentence Aaron Sandusky to 10 Years for Medical Marijuana

• A victim of the insane Obama Justice Department

A Southern California man was sentenced Monday to 10 years in federal prison for operating medical marijuana dispensaries, even though they are legal in the state.

Rancho Cucamonga resident Aaron Sandusky, 42, ran three Inland Empire dispensaries known as G3 Holistics. “I want to apologize to those with me and their families who have been victimized by the federal government who has not recognized the voters of this state," Sandusky said in court Monday. His G3 dispensaries served 17,000 medical marijuana patients, according to marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access.

If Obama knew how to read he would know that
states have the right to run their own affairs.

"It's really sad that Justice Department is able to find the resources to repeatedly undermine President Obama's campaign pledges not to interfere with state medical marijuana laws," Tom Angell, chairman of marijuana advocacy group Marijuana Majority, told The Huffington Post.

The U.S. Attorney's office had sent Sandusky letters in October 2011 warning that the stores violated federal law, and, in response, Sandusky closed two of them. The next month, federal agents raided the remaining store, in Upland, twice. They seized marijuana plants and $11,500 in cash, effectively wiping out Sandusky's business.

With medical marijuana legal in California since 1996, but illegal under federal law, Sandusky's case came down to the ruling of U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson. Because of the amount of marijuana involved, Sandusky received the mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison.

California's four U.S. attorneys launched a crackdown on the state's marijuana dispensaries in 2011, and hundreds of retail stores have shut down. In September 2012, the feds began to focus on shutting down pot shops in LA, where more than 700 dispensaries operate.

"We have had more than 90 percent compliance with owners shutting down when warned, and we'll continue to shut down more," Mrozek told HuffPost.